Any explanation / meaning / backstory is more than welcome, or you can just drop it for everyone to try and resolve.

  • frank@sopuli.xyz
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    1 day ago

    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

    • JackFrostNCola@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      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)

      • frank@sopuli.xyz
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        11 hours ago

        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

      • frank@sopuli.xyz
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        11 hours ago

        Also, for what it’s worth, it feels a lot more natural with mixed genders here to me:

        Steve gave Christina his phone