<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">=========================================================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 12 July 2008 - Volume 04<br style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
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<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe"><span class="EP8xU" style="color: rgb(121, 6, 25);">jonny</span> <span class="lDACoc"><<a href="mailto:jonny.meibohm@arcor.de">jonny.meibohm@arcor.de</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="HcCDpe">LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.09 (03) [E]</span><br><br><div id="1ew4" class="ArwC7c ckChnd">
<div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New">Beste Mark (D.),
Lowlanners,</font></span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New">thanks,
Mark, for your suggestion:</font></span></div><div class="Ih2E3d">
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span>> "I saw
<strong>someone</strong> tall with a black hat & a grey coat run down the
street to the left side."</span></font></span></div>
</div><div><span><font face="Courier New"><span>But in this
sentence it doesn't matter whether you use 'someone' or 'a person', does
it?</span></font></span></div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span></span></font></span> </div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span>Inspired by
your example about how it would be used in
Afrikaans,</span></font></span></div><div class="Ih2E3d">
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span>>
<span>"Toe sien ek <strong>iemand</strong> lank met 'n swarte hoed en gryse jas
straat-af aan die linker kant </span></span></font></span></div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span><span>>
weghardloop."</span></span></font></span></div>
</div><div><span><font face="Courier New"><span>I
came to the comparable German version, which<span> should
be:</span></span></font></span></div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span><span></span></span></font></span> </div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span><span>"Ich
sah <strong>jemanden</strong>, groß, mit schwarzem Hut und grauem Mantel,
<strong>der</strong> nach links die Straße hinab
rannte."</span></span></font></span></div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span>You see?
'jemand' in Standard German is of male gender, though it could denote a
woman as well. Native German speakers don't feel comfortable when using this
construction, so they would prefer to add "der <strong>oder die
</strong>rannte...", as well as in English instead of "They ran..." to use
"<strong>He or she</strong> ran...".</span></font></span></div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span></span></font></span> </div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span>I'm wondering
how other languages with clearly definite genders deal with this problem. As far
as I remember Old Latin determines it by the pronoun itself : 'aliquus; aliqua;
aliquum' for 'someone' resp. 'something'. But how does it work
with the opposite 'nemo' for 'nobody'? According
to</span></font></span></div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span>wikibooks <a href="http://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Latein/_Grammatik/_Substantiv/_Konsonantische_Deklination" target="_blank">http://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Latein/_Grammatik/_Substantiv/_Konsonantische_Deklination</a> </span></font></span></div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span></span></font></span> </div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><span><u>quote:</u></span></font></span></div>
<div><font face="Courier New"><em>von nemo („niemand, keiner") gibt es nur den
Dat. nemini und den Akk. neminem, die anderen Formen werden mit nullus, -a, -um
(„keiner, keine, keines") gebildet (durch die Logik des Wortes („keiner") gibt
es auch keinen Plural!)</em></font></div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New"><u>unquote</u></font></span></div>
<div> </div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New">it should be of
male gender.</font></span></div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New">(BTW: My
son just tells me, he has learned 'nemo, neminis, nemini, neminem',
and this still I mean to remind!)</font></span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New">Once more back
again to the unloved English construction:</font></span></div>
<div><span></span> </div>
<div><span><span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><font color="#000000" face="Courier New" size="3">> "I saw a tall <b>person</b> with a black hat and a
grey coat. They ran down the street to the left
</font></span></span></span></div>
<div><span><span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><font color="#000000" face="Courier New" size="3">> side."</font></span></span></span></div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New">How would you get
out of this tight spot if switching to the present
tense:</font></span></div>
<div><font face="Courier New">" <span>Look- just
over there t</span>hey <span>is (are?)
running</span> down the street to the left <span><span><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"><font color="#000000" size="3">side!
And now they enter(s?) their car!"</font></span></span></span></font></div>
<div> </div>
<div><span><font face="Courier New">I'm pretty sure
that my son's English teacher wouldn't allow him to speak or write this
way, because she probably never has heard about it ;-)!</font></span></div>
<div> </div>
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New"><span>Die Uwe;
have a nice weekend, all together!</span></font></div>
<div align="left"> </div><font color="#888888">
<div align="left"><font face="Courier New">Jonny
Meibohm</font></div></font></div>
</div><br><br>