In Jamaican Creole we use Focus constructions, one with a pronoun (1) and the other with a demonstrative (2):<br><br><br>1. A mi Jan<br> FOC 1SG John<br><br>2. A Jan dis<br> FOC John DEM<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
2009/8/7 Siva Kalyan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sivakalyan.princeton@gmail.com">sivakalyan.princeton@gmail.com</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div dir="ltr">In Tamil (on the telephone) one would use the name followed by the verb for 'speak' in the first person singular. See Asher and Annamalai's (2002) textbook (<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=iMZpM40xFfsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=asher+tamil&ei=xlR8SrKtG4HUlAS4irSmDQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false" target="_blank">http://books.google.com/books?id=iMZpM40xFfsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=asher+tamil&ei=xlR8SrKtG4HUlAS4irSmDQ#v=onepage&q=&f=false</a>) for an example.<div>
<br></div><div>In languages such as Japanese, which are pro-drop and where verbs don't inflect for person and number, I imagine it would be hard to tell the two possibilities apart (in this case, both would be simply <i>Jon desu</i>).</div>
<div><br></div><div>Hope this helps.</div><div>Siva<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 5:52 AM, Olesya Khanina <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:khanina@eva.mpg.de" target="_blank">khanina@eva.mpg.de</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Dear David,<br>
<br>
the same in Russian<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Olesya<div><div></div><div><br>
<br>
Siewierska, Anna wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Dear David,<br>
<br>
In Polish you would use the demonstrative, To Jan.<br>
<br>
Best<br>
<br>
Anna<br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Discussion List for ALT [mailto:<a href="mailto:LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG" target="_blank">LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG</a>]<br>
On Behalf Of David Gil<br>
Sent: 07 August 2009 15:09<br>
To: <a href="mailto:LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG" target="_blank">LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG</a><br>
Subject: demonstrative or pronoun?<br>
<br>
Dear all,<br>
<br>
Consider the following very similar contexts;<br>
<br>
Context A:<br>
John and Bill are friends. John calls Bill on a landphone; it's a bad line, Bill doesn't know who is speaking; John tries to identify himself (using a predicate nominal construction)...<br>
<br>
Context B:<br>
John and Bill are friends. John sends Bill a text message from a new number that Bill is unfamiliar with; John identifies himself (using a predicate nominal construction)...<br>
<br>
My question:<br>
<br>
In languages that you are familiar with, in the above contexts, is the subject of the predicate nominal construction a demonstrative or a 1st pronoun pronoun?<br>
<br>
In English, the subject is a demonstrative; the pronoun is infelicitous in the given context:<br>
<br>
This is John<br>
#I am John<br>
<br>
But in Indonesian, the subject is most commonly a pronoun, though a demonstrative is also possible:<br>
<br>
Ini John [less common]<br>
Aku John<br>
<br>
I am curious to know what happens in other languages. (I have a hunch that the availability of the "pronominal subject" option in Indonesian is correlated with the questionable status of pronouns as a discrete grammatical category in Indonesian, but this hunch is easily testable with a bit of cross-linguistic data.)<br>
<br>
Note: I don't expect to find differences between the two contexts; I provided both just in order to make the situation more natural to as many respondents as possible.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
<br>
David<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
-- <br></div></div>
****************************************************************<br>
Olesya Khanina (PhD)<div><br>
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology<br></div>
Department of Linguistics<br>
Deutscher Platz 6 phone: +49 (0) 341 35 50 339<br>
D-04103 Leipzig fax: +49 (0) 341 35 50 333<br>
Germany e-mail: <a href="mailto:khanina@eva.mpg.de" target="_blank">khanina@eva.mpg.de</a><br>
<a href="http://email.eva.mpg.de/%7Ekhanina/" target="_blank">http://email.eva.mpg.de/~khanina/</a><br>
****************************************************************<br>
</blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></div>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Joseph T. Farquharson<br>Lecturer<br>Faculty of Education and Liberal Studies<br>University of Technology, Jamaica<br>237 Old Hope Road<br>Kingston 6 Jamaica<br>Website: <a href="http://www.jotifa.com">www.jotifa.com</a> Alternative Email 1: <a href="mailto:jfarquharson@utech.edu.jm">jfarquharson@utech.edu.jm</a><br>
Alternative Email 2: <a href="mailto:joseph.farquharson@uwimona.edu.jm">joseph.farquharson@uwimona.edu.jm</a> Blog:<br><a href="http://jtfarquharson.wordpress.com/">http://jtfarquharson.wordpress.com/</a><br>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>