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[Question] „She knows her semantics“: Excessive use of posessive pronouns in English (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by ChaoticNeutralCzech@lemmy.ml to c/linguistics@lemmy.ml

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Phrases like know one's [general subject of interest] are very annoying to me because they seem rather self-centered. I am obviously fine with knows his way around or Know Your Customer because the use of possesive pronouns is appropriate.
On the other hand, now I know my ABCs is atrocious because the modern Latin alphabet obviously does not and never did belong to a single person, and has been used by billions of people in the last few centuries.

Do you know other English phrases with unnecessary posessive or personal pronouns? Do they exist in other languages? Is there a name for this linguistic phenomenon? Where do I complain? ~/s~

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[–] agrammatic@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I see your sarcasm tag so I will take this rant as lightly as possible.

In any case, not only it's a normal turn of phrase in English, it's also relatively common in Greek. Maybe a bit less than English, but all the examples could work.

It also reminds me of a similar but not identical construction in German, where the dative personal pronoun is used to relate an event to the person's feelings and point of view, instead of objectively describing a situation.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I can understand German and my native language is Czech. Could you provide some German examples? What you described (which I imagine could be im Nebel so dick dass du deine Füße nicht sehen könntest/in fog so thick that you could not see your feet) seems like an entirely normal use of personal pronouns to me (though the generic pronoun man/one would be better to use in formal writing in the previous example, as the perspective is objective). And yes, I did not use dative but I don't think this would be bound to a specific declension form.

[–] agrammatic@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Could you provide some German examples?

Mir ist kalt. Sie ist mir bekannt. Mir ist dieser Preis viel zu teuer.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's absolutely valid use of personal pronouns.

Mir ist kalt.

We say exactly this for “I am cold” in Czech. I have no problems with that nor your other examples, as they actually refer to the first person’s perspective. It is them who is cold and the general pronoun man would not make sense.

However, imagine a YouTuber showing off a vintage computer, saying “above the keyboard, you’ll find your cursor keys” to the audience. As a viewer who most likely does not own such a computer, in no sense of the word are the keys mine.

[–] agrammatic@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Oh, you are serious that you don't get this pragmatic construction. You need not to interpret this as a literally-meant possessive, because it isn't a literal possession. If you cannot do that, we aren't getting anywhere.