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<DIV>Eitan,</DIV>
<DIV>I don’t remember whether you got answers concerning Italian, my native
language. Impersonal and generic uses of the 2nd pers. are quite normal: Here is
the translation of your first text:</DIV>
<DIV><EM>Ho visto le facce di quei bambini. Ho pensato: se solo potessi dire
qualcosa. Come ora, mentre stavo passeggiando a Hebron e ho visto i
bambini, ho detto:’Non puoi (2SG) nemmeno dirgli niente. Ti (PRO 2SG) odiano,
non vogliono vederTI (Clit.2SG), pensano che TU (PRO 2SG) sei il nemico, e resti
(PRES.INDIC.2SG). Non hai (PRES.INDIC.2SG) niente da dirgli’</EM></DIV>
<DIV><EM></EM> </DIV>
<DIV><EM>Best</EM></DIV>
<DIV><EM></EM> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Prof.Paolo
Ramat<BR>Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS )<BR>Direttore del
Centro "Lingue d'Europa: tipologia, storia e sociolinguistica" (LETiSS)<BR>Viale
Lungo Ticino Sforza 56<BR>27100 Pavia<BR>tel. ++390382375811<BR>fax
++390382375899</DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=eitan.grossman@MAIL.HUJI.AC.IL
href="mailto:eitan.grossman@MAIL.HUJI.AC.IL">Eitan Grossman</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, December 21, 2011 12:10 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
href="mailto:LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG">LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: 'impersonal' second person</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
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<DIV dir=ltr>Dear all,<BR><BR>Some time ago, I asked about 'impersonal' or
'generic' uses of the second person. Many people were kind enough to respond, so
thanks! I hope to send a proper summary soon.<BR><BR>One thing that doesn't seem
to be prominent in the literature, but which turns up abundantly in a corpus
study of Modern Hebrew, is the use of the second person for non-generic
intrapersonal dialogue (I'll cite the English translation rather than the Hebrew
- if someone is interested I can give the Hebrew original). <BR><BR><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><I>‘I saw the
faces of those kids. I thought to myself: If I could just say something. Like
now, when I walked around in Hebron and saw the kids I said, you can’t even say
anything to them. They hate you, they don’t want to see you, they think you’re
the enemy, and you are wordless. You have nothing to tell
them.’</I><BR><BR>Furthermore, it can be used to index the speaker in the course
of narrating events in which the speaker has taken part:<BR></SPAN><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT','serif'; COLOR: rgb(20,20,19); FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><BR>The
kids would get us these pistols. You’d give the kid 15 shekels and he’d be happy
and get you such a gun. Bags of 100 pellets would cost us 3 shekels. We had
plenty of these pistols in the company, lots. And it was pretty idiotic of the
kids to buy them for us, because many of the soldiers would then use them on the
kids. You’d sit on guard duty and – pop – shoot a kid, pop – shoot a kid
<BR><BR></SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Finally, it can
be used to index a non-speaker, non-addressee, evidently to express
empathy:<BR> <BR></SPAN><B><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'TimesNewRomanPS-BoldItalicMT','serif'; COLOR: rgb(20,20,19)">You
saw situations where people went to the bathroom in their
pants?</SPAN></I></B><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT','serif'; COLOR: rgb(20,20,19)">
</SPAN></I>
<P style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 19pt" class=MsoNormal><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT','serif'; COLOR: rgb(20,20,19)">Yes.</SPAN></I></P>
<P style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 19pt" class=MsoNormal><B><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'TimesNewRomanPS-BoldItalicMT','serif'; COLOR: rgb(20,20,19)">Why?</SPAN></I></B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT','serif'; COLOR: rgb(20,20,19)"></SPAN></P><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT','serif'; COLOR: rgb(20,20,19)">From
being beaten, for the most part. Being beaten to death, and threatened, and
screamed at, you are just terrified. Especially if it’s in front of your kids,
they yell and threaten and scare them, so you also fear for the
kids</SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'TimesNewRomanPSMT','serif'; COLOR: rgb(20,20,19)">
</SPAN><BR><BR>Obviously, there is a lot more to say about this. Minimally, it
seems that these functions have to be taken into account in, e.g., semantic
maps, such as the ones that Johan van der Auwera and Volker Gast have been
working on. The first two of these functions were already noted (for English) by
Patricia O'Connor in: <BR><BR>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: justify" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-VARIANT: small-caps; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">O’Connor</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">, Patricia E.,
1994. ‘You could feel it through the skin’: Agency and positioning in prisoners’
stabbing stories, </SPAN><I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Text</SPAN></I><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt"> 14 (1):
45-75.</SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"></SPAN></P><BR>I am just finishing up
an article on this, which will be published in a really obscure collection of
non-linguistic papers. The gist of the paper is to discuss how the second person
is used as a linguistic strategy to navigate issues of speaker agency,
responsibility, and accountability (together with, e.g., passives, impersonals,
and nominalizations). In a sense, most of this was already noted by Bolinger,
who said <SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">‘The deeper we
go into impersonal you, the more personal it seems.’</SPAN> <BR><BR>Best wishes,
and apologies for the long
delay,<BR>Eitan<BR><BR><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>