Re: "Each Other"
| From: | Rob Haden <magwich78@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, January 22, 2004, 14:49 |
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On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 22:35:16 -0500, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
>Spanish (and presumably the other Romance languages) use the reflexive
>pronoun for this, so "they see each other" is literally rendered as
>"they see themselves"; the combination reflexive + plural is understood
>to mean "each sees the other" rather than "each sees him/herself".
I should've known that! :P I also saw your later post where "they see
themselves (individually)" would use "cada." It seems that English reaches
something of a semantic wall in the case of "they see each other" vs. "they
see themselves." Take the first sentence. I take it to mean that each
person in a group sees every other person in the group. The second
sentence is more difficult to interpret. Does it mean the same as the
first sentence, or does it mean that each individual in the group sees
(only) himself? I guess, to make a semantic differentiation, you can give
the latter meaning to the second sentence as the default. What do y'all
think?
- Rob