Information

[David Kaufman]

John,

That's true if you're referring to Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, for instance:

(noi) andiamo = we go (Italian)
(él) va = he goes (Spanish)
(ele) vai = he goes (Portuguese)

where the subject pronominal can be left off and just the verb form is stated.  But remember that these languages also change the verb conjugation form for each person or number (ex. voy, vas, va, vamos, van in Spanish) so that it's really not necessary to use the pronoun except for emphasis.  Still, they MUST choose the correct verb form to reflect person and number, meaning they are still thinking of a subject (actor/s) doing the verb action and must choose the verb conjugation form accordingly.  In the Hopi example Whorf gave, there appears to be no subject at all--just the verb form--which, when one thinks about it, when speaking of natural phenomena like a lightning flash, why do we need a subject?  Who or what is doing the flashing??  There really is no subject (no actor per se unless one wants to say God or Nature is doing it).  This is what I find interesting about the Native American and Indo-European thought process in using or not using subjects or nouns.

Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: Koontz John E
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2002 12:18 AM
To: Siouan List
Subject: Re: Information

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, David Kaufman wrote:
> ...
> I hark back to Whorf's example from Hopi in
> which he says that the English version of rehpi, "flashed," must be
> translated into English as "It flashed" or "a light flashed" as if
> there is a separate entity doing the flashing, even though the English
> "it," "light," and "flash" are one and the same.  And this is only
> because we MUST have a noun and a verb for a "complete" English
> sentence, forced by English grammar, which is obviously not true in
> many of these Native languages. ...

For that matter an independent subject pronominal is not required in some
European languages.  I'm not sure that says anything much about the
conceptualization of the activity.

JEK
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