From jfgannon@cloud9.net Sun Mar 17 07:17:22 2002
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From: "J.F. Gannon" <jfgannon@cloud9.net>
To: <classics@u.washington.edu>
References: <3C698C50@webmail.fairfield.edu>
Subject: Re: grammatical persons
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 10:22:05 -0500
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I believe that the Sanskrit grammarians list the persons so that our first
is their third, their third our first.  Certain it is a convention either
way.  Nature offers no guidance.  But then is it not obvious that all the
devices by which language is organized to express thought are artificial?  I
don't see how one can say that one language is more artificial than another.
Latin uses inflexions that make it possible to minimize the number of
prepositional locutions needed and it tends to pack its prepositions with
meaning.  Is this elegance or parsimony?  Personally I cringewhen ever I
hear "with respect to the matter of", even when I say it myself.

J.F. Gannon

----- Original Message -----
From: "rosivach" <rosivach@FAIR1.FAIRFIELD.EDU>
To: <classics@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2002 10:43 PM
Subject: grammatical persons


> >
> >Which, of course, makes one realize how artificial declining nouns is.
> >That is, I find conjugating a verb a bit more logical. After all, a
> >Latin verb can just stand on its own, for the most part. One can
> >conjugate "video" and even add in a little hand movement (making it TPR)
> >as Gareth Morgan once demonstrated for the I, You, He, We, Y'all (it's a
> >legitimate you plural down here), They.
> >
> >
>
> Perhaps it's perverse to ask, but why should 'I' and 'we' be the first
person
> rather than the third?  after all, 'he', 'she', 'it' and 'they' are far
more
> common than 'I' or 'we' or 'you' and 'y'all'.
>
>
> Vince (who has lately been harping on nomos and phusis in his Greek Civ
class)
>
>
>
> Vincent J. Rosivach
> Classical Studies
> Fairfield University
>
>

.