Hi, Bill I beg to differ in two non zen questions -Hungry? has the subject implicit. You do not place it, but it is implied. The werb in spanish or catalan would be also implicit, so, I suppose same in english.
-finnish is a westerner language. And they have a lot of words to design the relationship within family. With best wishes Lluís ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 8:09 AM Subject: RE: [Zen] Re: FW: Quote from St. Thomas Aquinas Anthony, I know Thai's drop subject and sometimes even object all the time, but I thought it was just because they, like Westerners, are lazy. For example, I could ask you: 'Are you hungry?', or I could just ask by saying: 'Hungry?' (with a rising tone). That's just laziness, or being casual in your speech. I do think language does reveal the different values of culture. For example in Thai there are only 3 tenses: past, present and future; whereas there are many, many adjectives and pronouns that are used to specifically identify the speaker's relationship with the one addressed. In English there are many (27?) verb tenses and very few special pronouns. This I think shows that Westerner's value time more than Asians; whereas Asians put more importance on personal relationships than time. ...Bill! From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
