[Lingtyp] Definition of “personal pronoun"

Wed Jul 7 16:12:21 UTC 2021

Do we need to formulate a single definition for personal pronouns for any one language? And, similarly, should we decide on the single definition of the comparative concept of personal pronouns for comparing languages?

The sole raison d’ẽtre of a category is its usefulness in facilitating generalizations. If it turns out that a particular definition of personal pronouns in, say, Korean is useful for that language since it represents a cluster of properties, we may use the label “personal pronoun” for that cluster – or we may of course choose any other label. Personal pronouns defined in this way may also have properties in common with other things such as nouns – e.g. in Korean, the noun  ‘brother’ can also be used as a pronoun; and in many languages the plural of the third person pronoun follows the nominal pattern. This does not mean that we have to discard the original definition used for that language: we simply state the properties shared by other things.

The same way, a comparative concept – i.e. a tool for crosslinguistic comparison – will earn its status by leading to correlations: that is, whether the particular definitional property chosen implies or implied by other properties. Just as in describing a single language we can start out with any definitions, the same way we can try comparing languages in terms of any concepts. We do not know ahead of inquiry what will work - this is an empirical question. There may be alternative comparative concepts within the same semantic domain each allowing for some correlates but not others.

All in all, whether for analyzing individual languages or for comparing languages, the definition of a category or concept can be quite randomly chosen to begin with. Whether the definition stands or falls will be an empirical issue determined by the existence or non-existence of property clusters emerging from that definition.

Is this correct? Or am I missing something?

Edith Moravcsik

From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> On Behalf Of Martin Haspelmath
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2021 6:13 AM
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Definition of “personal pronoun"

Here's a new version of the definition that addresses Ian's point about Korean:

"A personal pronoun is a form that (i) denotes a speech role (speaker/producer and/or hearer/comprehender) OR that is an anaphoric form which does not contain a noun AND (ii) that can be used in a complement clause coreferentially with a matrix clause argument."

By saying "anaphoric form that does not contain a noun", we exclude the Korean case where 'brother' can be used coreferentially. Maybe one should add "ordinary noun" or "a noun that can be used indefinitely", because someone might claim, for example, that Spanish "usted" is still a noun (e.g. because it has the noun-like plural "usted-es").

Guillaume Segerer remarked that "pronoun" implies that it is not a noun, but my proposed definition of "personal pronoun" does not say that a personal pronoun is "a kind of pronoun", because I don't know how to define "pronoun" (with such traditional terms, an extensional definition is often all we can give, e.g. "pronoun is a cover term for personal pronoun, interrogative pronoun, ...")

Re Mira's point about deictic uses of 3rd-person personal pronouns: I would say that this is not definitional – if a 3rd-person form cannot be used anaphorically, it will not be called "personal pronoun". But of course, personal pronouns often have other uses as well in particular languages. Comparative concepts rarely map perfectly onto language-particular categories.

Guillaume also mentions person indexes (which are often included in personal pronoun charts), and this led me to look again at what I said in my 2013 paper about person indexes: I distinguish between cross-indexes, gramm-indexes, and pro-indexes, and the latter are actually included in "pronoun" (contrasting with "free pronouns"). So I now say that "a personal pronoun is a form that..." (not "a personal pronoun is a free form that...").

Best,
Martin

Am 06.07.21 um 20:48 schrieb Mira Ariel:
But what about (not so common, but attested) deictic references (first-mention) to 3rd person using "personal pronouns"?

Mira

From: Lingtyp [mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] On Behalf Of Martin Haspelmath
Sent: Tuesday, July 6, 2021 1:48 AM
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Definition of “personal pronoun"

Maybe the following will work:

"A personal pronoun is a free form that (i) denotes a speech role (speaker/producer and/or hearer/comprehender) OR that is used as an anaphoric form AND (ii) that can be used in a complement clause coreferentially with a matrix clause argument."

This is a disjunctive definition that brings together locuphoric forms ('I', 'we', 'you') and 3rd-person anaphoric (or "endophoric") forms, following the Western tradition (but not following any kind of compelling logic).

It seems that personal pronouns need to be delimited from three types of somewhat doubtful forms:

– person indexes (I do not include bound forms under "personal pronoun" here, following my 2013 paper on person indexes: https://zenodo.org/record/1294059<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fzenodo.org%2Frecord%2F1294059&data=04%7C01%7Cedith%40uwm.edu%7Cfcf0475684e1463b39ba08d941382d63%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637612532579177572%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=RbFRPnwDeMNZBZ6rSsbcgAFVtnzCtCLFLvJhSRf2Meg%3D&reserved=0>)
– demonstratives
– titles like "Your Majesty"

I think that if a language has a form like "that-one" or "your-majesty" that can be used coreferentially in a complement clause, one will regard it as a personal pronoun:

(a) "My sister(i) thinks that that-one(i) has an answer."
(b) "Does your-majesty(i) think that your-majesty(i) has an answer?"

In German, the polite second-person pronoun "Sie" (which has Third-Person syntax) can be used in (b), but the demonstrative "die" can hardly be used in (a), so it would not count as a personal pronoun (yet). However, in Hindi-Urdu and Mongolian, as mentioned by Ian, the demonstrative can be used in this way (I think), so it would count as a personal pronoun.

I don't think we need the general notion of "person" to define "personal pronoun". Wikipedia's current definition is therefore quite confusing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_pronoun<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPersonal_pronoun&data=04%7C01%7Cedith%40uwm.edu%7Cfcf0475684e1463b39ba08d941382d63%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637612532579187566%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=dD%2BshVMYknV2PzXdBgWrIIAYTUuUtpRdjQcgGctDfco%3D&reserved=0>).

Thanks for this interesting challenge, Ian! It seems to me that quite a few of our traditional terms CAN be defined, but their definitions are not obvious at all (and the textbooks don't usually give the definitions).

Best,
Martin
Am 06.07.21 um 06:53 schrieb JOO, Ian [Student]:
Dear typologists,

I’m having a hard time trying to find a definition of a “personal pronoun”.
One definition is that a personal pronoun refers to a literal person, a human being. But then again, non-human pronouns like English it are also frequently included as a personal pronoun.
Another definition seems to be that “personal” refers to a grammatical person and not a literal person. Thus, it refers to the (non-human) 3rd person, therefore it is a personal pronoun.
But then again, demonstratives, interrogative, and indefinite pronouns also refer to the 3rd person. (This is a book, who is that man, anything is possible) Then are they also personal pronouns?
What’s the clearest definition of a personal pronoun, if any?

From Hong Kong,
Ian
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Martin Haspelmath

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

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