Re: He, she and it against hem

John Atkinson wrote:
>
> Ar an dara lá de mí Lúnasa, scríobh António Marques:
>
> > Even a now genderless language* ** as English kept 3 pronouns for the
> > singular, while it manages with 1 for the plural. Does anyone know of any
> > language which at one time had a similar pronominal distinction, gender
> > associated to sex, lost it, and lost the pronominal distinction too? (for
> > instance, some IE language?)
>
> > Aidan Kehoe wrote:
> >
> >> Tok Pisin doesn't--cf.
>
> But of course it didn't "lose" it -- its grammar is derived largely from
> that of Kanua (Tolai), which, like most Austronesian languages, doesn't
> distinguish gender in pronouns.
>
> >> http://www.une.edu.au/langnet/tokpisin.htm#grammar-hce .
> >
> > Interesting. I couldn't help but notice
> >
> > Ben bai i wok tumora. 'Ben will work tomorrow.'
> >
> > where bai looks suspiciously like portuguese vai 'is-going-to'.
> > While i, by its behaviour, might be from portuguese ai´ (french y),
> > which is a simple deictic in portuguese but widely abused in brazilian.
>
> In fact though, it's from English "bye and bye"
>
> John.

That accounts for bai. Whereas i is a convergence of English "he" with a
widespread Oceanic i or e marking 3s present tense subject.
But it's good to be reminded of the alternative etymologies lurking over
the horizon. Unquestionable Portuguese influence in Tok Pisin seems to
be limited to a handful of lexical items -- save (know) and pikinini
(child) which come in from the earliest period of global nautical
pidgin, and maski (never mind), via Malay.

Ross Clark

Ross Clark
.

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