2 ms·
"This sentence has five words and this sentence has five words." In English "this" need not always be self referential, so I'll retort with "This sentence is i
by gerdesj 8y ago
"This sentence has five words and this sentence has five words." In English "this" need not always be self referential, so I'll retort with "This sentence is imprecise".
The two "this"s could refer to two different things. However, the second this would normally become that to indicate comparison but grammatically the original is still sound [with notes]:
This sentence [indicates a sentence with five words in it] has five words and this sentence [indicates another sentence, also with five words in it] has five words.
- jjnoakes 8y agoEven if you try to separate what each 'this' refers to, there is still only one sentence, so the sentence becomes meaningless if you do that.
- white-flame 8y agoNo, there are 3 sentences implied in the context, but only 1 sentence is visible in this specific example. Natural language normally isn't a fully self-contained representation.