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<DIV>Hi Mike:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In Jamaican Creole, an English-based Creole in the Caribbean we would say.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Yu pen jrap 'Your pen dropped'</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Mi pen laas 'My pen [is] lost.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Joseph<BR><BR><B><I>Mike_Cahill@sil.org</I></B> wrote:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"><TT>Hi all,<BR>This is only marginally related to lexicography, but then we've had some<BR>marginal discussions before...<BR><BR>Someone wrote to me:<BR><BR> He (the teacher had one activity for us (the class) in which he dropped<BR> a pen, and then he<BR> asked us what we would say to him. ("You dropped your pen") Then he<BR> asked<BR> anyone who spoke another language how they would say it in another<BR> language,<BR> and what the direct translation was. (Usually "the pen dropped"). He<BR> said<BR> that only in English and in German you would say "You dropped the pen",<BR> and<BR> that ALL OTHER LANGUAGES would say "the pen dropped". He then went on<BR> to<BR> say that we can learn things about the
culture from the way we say<BR> things,<BR> and had us come up with words to describe the two types of cultures<BR> represented by these two phrases. The majority of responses had English<BR><BR> speakers being accusatory, or some other unsavory adjective, and the<BR> other<BR> speakers being much more polite and sensitive.<BR><BR>Anytime someone claims a universal, my tendency is to say "Oh I bet I can<BR>find a counterexample." So my question to those of you who are native<BR>speakers of something other than English or German, what is the most<BR>NATURAL way to make an observation of someone dropping something, to call<BR>that person's attention to it? Not what is possible, but the most common<BR>way of saying it. Facts first, then interpretation...<BR><BR>Mike Cahill<BR><BR></TT><BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR><DIV>
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<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face="comic sans ms">Joseph T. Farquharson, BA Hon. (UWI), M.Phil. (Cantab.) <BR></FONT>Graduate Student </STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>Dept. of Language, Linguistics & Philosophy<BR>University of the West Indies <BR>Mona campus, Kingston 7</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>Jamaica, West Indies. <BR></STRONG>URL: http://www.geocities.com/jtfarquharson/index.html</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV><p>Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
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