Comparison With Other Languages
If, following Pinker's proposal, they is considered as a pair of homonyms, this would be analogous to a language like Basque, which uses the word nork both as an indeterminate pronoun meaning "who" and also as a marker in distributive constructions.
Basque has two ways of expressing universal distributive quantifications: (i) lexically, through the quantifier bakoitz 'each'; (ii) configurationally, through the construction exemplified in (1).
| (1) | Nork/zeinek | bere | ama | ikusi | du |
| who-erg/which-erg | his/her | mother | seen | has | |
| 'Everyone saw his/her mother' | |||||
In (1), an indeterminate pronoun takes on a universal distributive value. Such a value is not a lexical property of the relevant indeterminate pronouns.
Basque is far from the only example of this. S.-Y. Kuroda considers it typical of East Asian languages, Japanese and Korean in particular. Yet other languages have even more particular ways of expressing distribution and quantification. Sumerian, structurally similar to Basque, uses a nominal suffix, dedli, to indicate "each individual". Some suggest that such a linguistic dispute is typical of Indo-European languages, especially Slavic languages such as Russian, Belarusian or Bulgarian where the system of singular and plural nouns is quite complex.
Read more about this topic: Singular they
Famous quotes containing the words comparison with, comparison and/or languages:
“In everyone’s youthful dreams, philosophy is still vaguely but inseparably, and with singular truth, associated with the East, nor do after years discover its local habitation in the Western world. In comparison with the philosophers of the East, we may say that modern Europe has yet given birth to none.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Envy and jealousy are the private parts of the human soul. Perhaps the comparison can be extended.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“People in places many of us never heard of, whose names we can’t pronounce or even spell, are speaking up for themselves. They speak in languages we once classified as “exotic” but whose mastery is now essential for our diplomats and businessmen. But what they say is very much the same the world over. They want a decent standard of living. They want human dignity and a voice in their own futures. They want their children to grow up strong and healthy and free.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)