Baby's an It (call of the obstetrician?)

[Mark Mandel]

"Mommy" and "Daddy" can also be 3rd person -- "Look, Daddy's bringing you
your panda!" -- like other kin terms.

m a m

On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 10:29 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> At 10:12 PM -0400 9/9/08, Mark Mandel wrote:
> >Whatever you call it, "mommy", "daddy", etc., fall into the same category,
> >except that they can also refer to the speaker.
> >
> >m a m
>
> Yes, sort of indexical names.  I'm not sure "Mommy" and "Daddy" [as
> indexical names] are that different in function from "yours truly",
> "{this/your faithful} correspondent", "the present writer", etc.,
> except that they're used more with children.   As far as the illeism
> component, children at the toddler stage often use their own name in
> place of the first person pronoun too.  (But I guess not "Baby",
> except for Baby Houseman in "Dirty Dancing".)
>
> LH
>

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