Or rather, where are they when one needs them? In a message dated 1/31/2005 3:47:11 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, nantongo@xxxxxxxxx writes: It will come as no surprise to our readers to learn [...segue into interesting pour ne pas dire maddening precision and profusion of Arabic vocative particles]..." ----- Perhaps profussive as they are, they are not _necessarily_ needed (if you allow me the redundancy) in Arabic either. It's obvious that, in English, the vocative function is _emphatic_: O John, you are incredible. -- more or less equivalent to: John, you are incredible. and sometimes mispelt as: Oh, John, you are incredible. --- But perhaps in Arabic the 'vocative particles' become something _syntactically_ necessary? Or can one always drop them from the utterance, and still be _adressing_ someone grammatically? Cheers, JL ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html