Right, in English you have to rephrase the sentence because the pronoun you need doesn’t exist. There’s just a pronoun for “male person” not one for “subject” or “object” of the sentence.
That’s why I replied with it to a “what word would you make up?” Question, because that’s what I would bring into English
In the example, I was implying a scenario in which Larry sold Larry’s stuff, which would have included Larry’s phone.
Tom then gives Larry’s phone to Steve.
I used ‘stuff’ in the first sentence to prevent revealing ‘phone’ beforehand, in which case it could have become, “Tom gave Steve the phone.”.
In Danish we have two different words for the pronoun “his” (or equivalent). In English you say:
Tom gave Steve his phone.
Which person’s phone is it? In Danish that would be clear depending if you used sit or hans
Im not sure if the example sentence is legitimate or not but its uncomfortable for my brain.
I probably would have said “Tom gave Steve his phone back” (steve ownership) or “Tom gave his phone to Steve” (tom ownership)
Right, in English you have to rephrase the sentence because the pronoun you need doesn’t exist. There’s just a pronoun for “male person” not one for “subject” or “object” of the sentence.
That’s why I replied with it to a “what word would you make up?” Question, because that’s what I would bring into English
Nice. Now what do you do in case of:
Is there another “his” for that?
Um in Danglish:
Larry sold a lot of his(hans) stuff. Tom gave Steve his (sin if it’s Tom’s and hans if it’s Steve’s) stuff.
Just just for the current sentence(s). Like a new subject would “reset” it
In the example, I was implying a scenario in which Larry sold Larry’s stuff, which would have included Larry’s phone.
Tom then gives Larry’s phone to Steve.
I used ‘stuff’ in the first sentence to prevent revealing ‘phone’ beforehand, in which case it could have become, “Tom gave Steve the phone.”.
Sounds like you could invent a language with fancy rules :p
Also, for what it’s worth, it feels a lot more natural with mixed genders here to me:
Steve gave Christina his phone
Meen pronoons err sit/hans
This, and the lack of inclusive and exclusive 1st person plural, are the biggest oversights in English.
Oh! Like “we with you” and “we not you” ?
Yes.
Speaker + listener + maybe others
Speaker + not listener others
But that now seems small fry compared to the differentiating subject and object’s possessive adjectives.