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23 points
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You can have an alternate third person pronoun I suppose in order to distinguish two third person individuals, but that doesn’t mean there’s a fourth person pronoun. The general definition is:

  • first person - the speaker
  • second person - the audience, whether present or not present
  • third person - someone or something other than the audience

So things like “chat” and “breaking the fourth wall” are second person pronouns. There is no fourth person pronoun, because anything other than first and second is covered under third person.

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6 points

I’ve looked it up and the official name is “obviative” and it is sometimes referred to as the “fourth person”.

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6 points

That still sounds like a special type of third person, though I guess that’s just disagreeing about terminology.

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1 point

I see why you would analyze it that way but I also see that it deserves a term in its own rights. As you said, it’s all terminology. There are no objective definitions, at least not in linguistics

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3 points

Isn’t ‘chat’ essentially treated as a name, except that it refers to a group of people instead of an individual?

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4 points

I think you’re right, and the pronoun for it would be the second person plural (you in English).

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1 point

Yes that makes sense

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