Richard:
>1) Close to us.
>2) First place considered? (I believe there's a Spanish analogy.)
>3) Last place considered? (Latin hic = 'latter')
>
>I'm not sure if I've understood the semantic development.
All I know is that I'm not sure how we get from "here" to "I" and
I see no real-world examples of this happening. The two are linked
in terms of [+proximal] but there is a definite difference between
speaking of a place versus oneself.
As for "I'm here", as I said, /uvanga/ mirrors the exact same
development so we know that despite anything, this is far more
plausible.
From what I understand *ego: would have been largely redundant in
a sentence with verb. More of an emphatic than anything. It would
be more along the lines of:
"I am here/My being here/Me over here..."
> "As for me..." (emphatic)
> "I" (non-emphatic)
So in other words, using *ego: in a sentence like "I go to the
library" would be like saying "As for me here, I go to the
library". It kind of reminds me of the redundant use of /moi/ in
French, as in "Moi, je vais a la bibliotheque."
>In fact, in English 'here' is used to attract attention for peremptory
>commands or questions, e.g. 'Here, you pick up that
>rubbish!'.
That still is a long way away from saying that "here" actually
is used as "I".
- gLeN
_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail