There are languages with a 4th person pronoun. The 3rd person is kind of the main character and the 4th someone else. That helps to disambiguate sentences like “The criminal shot the cop and drove away on his (own or the cop’s) bike”.
Or the “gay fanfiction problem”: “He looked at him and lay his hands on his lap”. Is it a happy ending or a sad one? That’s one theory why gender in pronouns is so resilient: more often than not, the gendered pronoun can disambiguate which person is talked about. It doesn’t always work, a 3rd/4rd person distinction is superior.
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.
I’ve looked it up and the official name is “obviative” and it is sometimes referred to as the “fourth person”.
That still sounds like a special type of third person, though I guess that’s just disagreeing about terminology.
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
Isn’t ‘chat’ essentially treated as a name, except that it refers to a group of people instead of an individual?
I think you’re right, and the pronoun for it would be the second person plural (you in English).
Yes that makes sense
Fourth pronoun was doing well, until the fifth person enters the scene.
missed opportunity to say enters the chat
Also solved by a reflexive pronoun, as in Russian
Northern Germanic languages like swedish do the same trick btw
Now that is clever. I forgot my Slavic language had this feature
First person: Talking about oneself. I, me. Second person: talking about the listener. you, your. Third person: talking about someone who is not the speaker or listener. He/she/it/they Fourth person: Talking about total bullshit.
In this context, “Chat” is second-person plural, used by streamers to address the portion of their audience able to respond in the text chat that always accompanies these things. It does contrast with how a radio personality might address “listeners” because radio listeners don’t usually have a method to respond in real time, so it’s usually a rhetorical question; a streamer addressing the chat is asking for a response.
Crystal clear, thanks chat.
i saw someone argue for chat being a 4th person pronoun because it breaks the 4th wall usually seen in mass broadcast media, there’s still a degree of interaction that isn’t there on live TV, so “chat is this real” prompts a direct response from a unified mass of people, there’s a conversation happening through the 4th wall basically
the other person explained it better lol
Eh, I don’t think that holds up.
I might buy the 4th person as “someone outside your continuum or reality,” but I’ve yet to see a language construct specifically for that. Fictional characters invariably use second or third person to refer to the audience outside their world.
Streamers talking with their chat audience aren’t fictional or otherworldly though. I don’t see a linguistic difference between a streamer asking the chat what game he should play next, to Bob Saget saying “Home viewers, if you have a funny home video, send the tape to the address on your screen for a chance at appearing on our show!” It’s a communique addressing a large scattered audience through audio/video telephony soliciting a reply. The only real difference is round-trip latency.
While I think the phenomenon of live streaming and their audiences is interesting and presents a fairly new experience, I don’t know if it’s “we’re inventing new pronoun tenses over here.”
it’s not my personal opinion and i can’t give it justice in trying to defend it, but i did think it was an interesting addition to the original so i (poorly) regurgitated it here
Ty! So… you all
Why isn’t that just 2nd person plural, like “y’all”?
It speaks to a person that isn’t physically present and just an observer. “You” typically addresses someone directly, but can be used to break the 4th wall and talk to observers. “Chat” is exclusively for breaking the 4th wall.
Nah, “chat” is talking to a specific, present group of people, and is used in lieu of writing a text chat. It’s not like a film actor speaking to the audience, who has no way of responding. Even so, any terms used in breaking the fourth wall would still be second person, ability to respond and presence aren’t a requirement here (e.g. you’d use “you” in letters, and the reader is absolutely not present).
Chat, I’ve found more youthspeak that I can use incorrectly and be cringe.
Skibidi!
How do you do, fellow kids?
Ski-bi-dibby-dib yo-da-dub-dub, yo-da- dub-dub
I’m down, I’ve got the 411, and you are not going out and getting jiggy with some boy, I don’t care how dope his ride is.
You are wrong on both counts.
I just addressed “you”, even though you’re not physically present, so clearly that’s not a requirement of second person usage, not to mention that presumably this child saying “chat” is being heard by people physically nearby in this example.
In order to break the fourth wall, the speaker must be part of the media. In the instance of streamers talking to their fans, it’s clearly meant to be an interactive experience between streamer and host, consuming the same media (albeit in different ways). They’re asking a question and getting a response which informs their actions.
Fundamentally, it’s no different than when my wife asks “did that wizard just cast fireball?” while she sits on the couch watching me playing Skyrim.
You are wrong
I don’t think it’s accurate to call the barrier between a streamer and their audience “the fourth wall”. The fourth wall is a concept that exists in theater, and then more largely in fiction, where characters exist in a world where they do not know that they’re characters in a story. And the fourth wall breaks when they realize that they are.
If “chat” breaks the fourth wall, then self-help books that use “you” are too, or news anchors addressing their viewers, or politicians saying “my fellow countrymen” in a broadcast address.
Now that is an interesting distinction to make. I suppose that the 4th wall didn’t exist throughout most of history (with the exception of theatre) and so there wasn’t much reason for this feature of language to develop
There used to also be “dear reader” in books, when the reader was being addressed.
In this regard that would rather be 2.5 plural, kind of present, but kind of not
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It just sounds like shorter version of “hey guys” hah
Is it really that different than saying “Audience”? Or radio shows referring to “listeners”? Etc.
Or “y’all”
Saying “chat” to address a group or room full of people isn’t different at all from addressing them as “y’all”
All y’all more specifically
Except y’all is a second person plural, and I think ‘chat’ here is still functioning as a noun.
Seems like the same thing to me. I think the person saying it’s the first of its kind is wrong, but it would still be equally bizarre if people were addressing their “listeners” in normal conversation.
Lemmings, do you agree? ;)
Be sure to smash that blue arrow, and follow on Kbin.
F in chat
Yeah, it would be weird to say ‘listeners’ when talking to a group. But social conventions and language shifts. “chat” has established itself for pretty obvious reasons, so I’m not surprised to see it catch on in the physical world. It’s a bit like people saying ‘lol’ in person was super weird at first, but isn’t that weird any more.
Also, I don’t think it is anywhere near as weird as how politicians address what they are saying to “Mr. Speaker” when they are clearly actually not talking to that person at all.
Are you and Stamets related? I keep mixing you two up.
Haha, no - we’re two different people who are both Star Trek fans and post on Lemmy a lot.
So you’re related (by Star Trek)
Like brothers-in-trek
my-brother-in-trek you need to stop
Or on a serial killer podcast, run by 35yo ladies, “murder muffins”
Ladies and Gentlemen
Friends
Guys
[To the] Saints in Ephesus
Gentlemen of the jury
Kids!
Class
Respected Members of the Lemeritus Comment Section Elle
[the] House
it’s definitely 2nd person collective in its original usage and outside of its original usage it’s not a pronoun because it doesn’t replace a noun.
I don’t think it’s a pronoun at all. It’s a collective noun, and a term of address.
“Ladies and Gentlemen” is also not a pronoun.
First person = someone describing their own point of view (ex: I, me)
Second person = someone being addressed (ex: you, y’all)
Third person = someone talking about someone else (ex: they, them)
Fourth person = the point of view of a collective group (ex: we, us)
I can’t tell if you’re making a joke or not, but when I learned it “we” was first person plural. Likewise “y’all” was second person plural, etc.
Y’all’s takes are both valid.
The difference is that we as a first person plural is generally used for a more discrete group of people, but still from the perspective of a single narrator. Fourth person we is generally used for a collective of people with a shared perspective; there is no single narrator that is separate from the collective group, the entire group is there narrator. Fourth person is a concept that has only recently begun to be recognized as a distinct point of view.
If you believe in string perspective there are infinite narrators narrating each other’s narrations and we have only just started to make words for the infinities.
Way too sober for this conversation lol
Bird Person = friend of Rick Sanchez and generally good guy who doesn’t appreciate dick moves
It fascinates me that an entire family can be this critical and suck this much.
Wubba lubba dub dub.
Fourth person
Doesn’t exist. We/us is first person plural. Some languages have a little complexity here (e.g. Tagalog has “kami” which means “we without you” and “tayo” which means “we with you,” but they’re both still first person plurals).
- first person - speaker
- second person - audience excluding speaker
- third person - everything else
Some linguists disagree and have recently begun accepting the existence of a fourth person point of view. Languages evolve, and I guess we’ll just have to see if it catches on and becomes more widely accepted in the future.
I’ll have to look into that, and I’d appreciate why sources you have handy.
One does not simply just make a fourth person point of view.
I usually say “smash that like button” but ill throw in “chat” in the future to stay relevant with these kids.
Smash that like button if you agree with me chat
“This pop quiz is brought to you by Raid Shadow Legends”
Its ant league now right
Not sure I agree, but I like smashing stuff, so I still upvoted.
Petition to rename ‘chat’ to ‘hulk’
It’s just a pronoun to address the Collective
Chat are idiots and can’t be trusted
But the collective that excludes yourself. It’s like a “we without me”, which is also not the plural you.
Y’all
Exclusive we is actually found in many languages, but usually it’s the listener who is excluded. Malay kita “we” includes the listener, kami excludes the listener.
Doesn’t spanish have this? I think it is nosotros and vosotros?
Yes we have vosotros (in Spain) or ustedes (in the rest of the Spanish-speaking world -can’t speak for Equatorial Guinea though). But we don’t call it a 4th person pronoun. It’s just the plural form of the 2nd person pronoun:
1st singular: I / yo
1st plural: we / nosotros
2nd singular: you / tú, vos, usted if you wanna be formal
2nd plural: plural you, y’all / ustedes, vosotros
3rd singular: she, he, singular they / ella, él, elle (that last one mostly used among the young queer/progressive community in some countries)
3rd plural: they / ellos, ellas, elles (same above)
Don’t know what a 4th person pronoun would be. And I’m a Spanish teacher in South America lol
Yes! Just don’t say vosotros in Mexico or they’ll think you’re a dork
Otoh, in Spain if you say Usted or Ustedes they’ll think you’re a dork
Chat will be assimilated. Resischat is futile.
We must seize the means of production, chat!
It’s not even a pronoun in this context, it’s just a noun.
Is this the uncanny valley of dril tweets? I have no idea what this means
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I also remember reading a tweet where someone said their young kid would whisper “like and subscribe” at bedtime like it was part of saying “goodbye”.
It’s bizarre.
My daughter, 8, wanted to send a birthday message to her grandma. We made the video, she sang happy birthday, and said “like and subscribe” at the end.
We did a second take without it.
My son is autistic and used to say “Like and Subscribe” to things he liked, and “Dislike and Unsubscribe” to things he didn’t. He watched a lot of YouTube when he was little because his late father couldn’t be arsed to actually parent while his mother was working.
Cutest thing though when he’d get a video he liked and the creator would tell you to give the video a thumbs up if you liked it he’d physically give the screen a thumbs up and say “I liked it. Good job.” He later figured out how to leave comments and his first comment was a string of poop emoji. Never expected to have to give a 5 year old a talk about internet safety.
dumb kid not even telling them to comment as well
And not even a mention of the Patreon or the merch store.
I’ll see YOU… in the morning! Buh-bye!
And super sus, NGL.
yeah that’s what happens when you let the internet raise kids.
A little bit of everything, all of the time.
I guess we’ll see how much worse that is than being raised by good ol’ fashion network television.
It was kinda wholesome tho since the conversation went like
“I like and subscribe you too” as a meaning of affection
Kids are cute with their lingo
I’m inclined to believe it, because lots of videos have that as an ending.
Oof. And how about kids when some of their first words are “OK Googie” b/c the parents are always playing music on their smart speaker?
Thought it was clever marketing to disallow changing trigger phrases, but it’s actually child abuse! (OK not quite but it’s uncomfortable. I don’t even want a brand on my t-shirt, much less out of a relative’s mouth before they understand it.)
Oh I’m just old
Doesn’t mean it makes sense. Isn’t that still just second person plural? “Chat” being using as a collective noun.
A collective noun is a word or phrase that refers to a group of people or things as one entity.
This isn’t some new-fangled youth speak breaking all the laws of language!!! It’s literally just…english. Leave it to the media to blow something way the fuck out of proportion to create unnecessary conversation around their stupid ass article.
the media
Two random tweeters
In this sense, “chat” is just a second person plural pronoun
Yeah it’s substitutable for “y’all” in the sample usage.
Or if you use proper english, “you,” which is both singular and plural. Many languages have a specific second person plural, such as the Spanish ustedes (or vosotros in Spain and speaking informally), so those could be directly substituted for “chat.”
A fourth person, if it exists, would have to somehow refer to a “nothing” without giving it an entity, because that’s the only gap between first, second, and third person pronouns.
Proper English would use thee/thou as singular and you as plural. Royal we, excepting. Or maybe royal we is the 4th person since you are speaking as yourself but more as a representing some other entity? I dunno this 4th person thing is confusing me …
There’s no such thing as a “proper” form of a language
Hargrove hydrogen Greco.
That’s just not true. There’s a reason we all study grammar, and that’s so we can all learn the rules that have been built up along the way. Without that, we’d get more severe language drift, which gets in the way of the primary reason we have language to begin with: to communicate. So the proper form is the form we’ve all essentially agreed to.
You are definitely not a linguist
It’s not even a pronoun, it’s still a noun.
Not really, because it’s the indeterminate group watching you. If you say “you” or “you all”, it’s referring to the people interacting with you, not the audience. You have to break the fourth wall to initiate that interaction and make it second person
But streamers sometimes will sometimes, mid conversation with someone else, say “chat, can you get me the link to that?” And continue talking to the other person while waiting for it. They’ll also say “chat is saying I should ask you about XYZ”.
It’s a specific relationship that straddles the line between a second person and third person. They’re also usually not included in first person plural
So ‘guys’ or ‘people’ or ‘audience’?
Thanks, my near 60yo brain was having a moment till your comment came along
Ah geez this is sad
I see it on TikTok a lot, in the comments on a video that seems implausible. It’s sometimes someone genuinely asking the other commenters if the (whatever it was) is true. Other times people just use it to express astonishment.
Think of it as a replacement for “For real??”
me when i’ve taken half a class of english: bro chat is 4th person 🤓
Is sis chat 5th person? Or is that misandrynistic to make sisters a higher number than brothers?
My pronouns are Chat/Commentor
Nice to meet you. Mine are lurker/asleep
“Everyone”?
Dude
I’m a dude. He’s a dude. She’s a dude. We’re all dudes, hey!
It’s been a minute since I heard a line from Goodburger
Did you know they recently released a sequel, I believe on Paramount+?
The sequel is now available on Hulu. It’s worth a watch.
I’ll need to see some solid evidence and proof of this being done unironically before believing this.
Pull up that evidence, chat.
My GF works at a school, yes, this is a thing. This is the first time I’ve seen it mention outside of the time she told me tho
You know YouTube links get thumbnail previews, right?
Yes, which is sort of my point, small children don’t understand irony, sarcasm, etc.
Not to sound 105 but parasocial relationships as meaningful interaction bad.
It’s just adapting to a world that is less connected by building bonds in a way that can be maintained in a disconnected world.
Maybe it’s not all bad but I can’t help but think our brains are definitely wired for in-person communication and it’ll never totally fill that void.
Being an analog being in a digital world sucks.
There’s still plenty of real life happening, go look for it
I’m not saying there isn’t I’m just saying especially within the US it’s prevailing problem you can look it up in any psych journal that people are feeling more lonely. This is a systemic issue due to the way our cities are structured.
I think that parasocial relationships are definitely one of the ways we have coped with that.
Parasocial relationships have always made me really uncomfortable. Since longer than I knew the word for it. I avoid most social media because of this.
The other day I wanted to know if a band I like is touring. Searching took me to their Facebook, where there were a lot of personal posts by the singer. Her being like “I got a new haircut check it out” or “got dressed up for the party” or whatever. I’m just like oof I can’t be here. I don’t want to feel like I know this person when I absolutely do not. But if I stuck around and read their feed regularly, it would quickly feel like I was getting updates from a real friend. I just want to know if they’re going on tour or putting out new music.
