The THEM Conundrum

[tajmone]

@thoni56, for me the THEM player-word has always been a conundrum, since I started translating the Italian Library (in fact, I still haven't dealt with its translation up to this day).

The ALAN Manual states in [§5.2. Player Input]:

• The use of a THEM–word to refer to the multiple objects referenced in the previous command, e.g.:

> remove the hat and the scarf then drop THEM

So far so good: THEM refers to multiple parameters of the last command.

The problem is with the word "them" itself, and how its actually used in English, and the difficulties in translating it to other languages.

But there's also another side to the problem which directly affects ALAN: it use as a PRONOUN.

Although plural actors are not all that frequent in IF games, they are possible nonetheless, and indeed we find many examples in mythology (e.g. the three Parcae or Moirai of the Roman and Greek religions) and novels tropes (e.g. the evil twins).

So, how are we to define the pronoun for such plural actors, without conflicting with the THEM player-word?

The twins IsA actor
  Pronoun "them"

The point is that we want the player to be able to refer to the twins also via "them":

> examine twins

The evil twins are walking toward you with a fierce grimace, each wielding a butcher knife.

> attack THEM

What happens in this case? will our pronoun conflict with the player word? or will the parse be able to understand which one to use?

Translating THEM to Italian

Things get even worst when we try to translate the THEM player-word to other locales, where its different usage contexts might need to be translated differently.

E.g. in Italian the English THEM has various translations:

• "It's THEM or us." → "O ESSI o noi."
• "It's THEM or us." → "O LORO o noi."
• "Give THEM their money." → "Dai a ESSI i loro soldi."

Although ESSI and LORO might seem to be synonyms, they're not! It's mostly a difference between correct Italian grammar and the way people speak and write in everyday life, and the fact that some classic pronouns are considered archaic today, and people prefer to use simpler speech forms (although not quite as correct). "LORO" should be used when it means "their", and "ESSI" (and ESSE for feminine) when meaning THEM, but today most speakers prefer to use LORO for both, unless there's ambiguity or you need to use both in the same sentence (see third example). The pronouns EGLI, ELLA, ESSO, ESSA, ESSE and ESSI are considered archaic, for some reason, and people prefer to replace them with other terms at the cost of grammar integrity.

This has always been in a problem in its own right in IF libraries, where you'll often find comments indicating that the "classical grammar rules" are implemented, but providing commented code for the alternative informal rules, so en users can switch between the two. The point is that you can't use both in IF, for they would conflict (unlike real life, where speech is always interpreted according to context, where listeners are more flexible than parsers).

but most often "them" becomes contracted in the verb itself:

• "Ask THEM what ..." → "ChiediGLI cosa ..."

which in ALAN can't be handled, since the parser is not exposed to the author. In Inform 6, these contractions at intercepted at the raw user input level, and converted to an extended form (e.g. "chiediGLI" → "chiedi A ESSI", etc.).