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<div dir="auto">Dear all,<br>
<br>
This is a question I asked but I’ll ask again - how are distance-sensitive pronouns/demonstratives inherently different from gender-sensitive pronouns?<br>
So Hindi <em>yah </em>and <em>vah</em> distinguish proximal and distal 3rd person, whereas English <em>she </em>and <em>he</em> distinguish female and male 3rd person.<br>
Then how are <em>she</em> and <em>he</em> lexically void when <em>yah</em> and<em> vah</em> aren't? Why is gender an exception whereas distance isn't?</div>
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Regards,
<div dir="auto">Ian</div>
</div>
<div name="messageReplySection">On 11 Jul 2021, 11:22 PM +0800, Martin Haspelmath <martin_haspelmath@eva.mpg.de>, wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite" style="border-left-color: grey; border-left-width: thin; border-left-style: solid; margin: 5px 5px;padding-left: 10px;">
Yes, Bhat (2004) and Kibrik (2011) are excellent typological books from which I have learned a lot (thanks to Don Killian and Daniel Hieber for mentioning them).<br>
<br>
But they do not seem to say clearly how personal pronouns are delimited from demonstratives. Bhat (2004), as in
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://wals.info/chapter/43">his WALS chapter</a>, discusses the formal relationships between demonstratives and 3rd person pronouns, but how do we tell them apart? For example, Basque is sometimes said to lack 3rd-person pronouns
and to use demonstratives instead (<i>hau, hori, hura</i>), and sometimes it is said
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_grammar#Personal_pronouns">
to use demonstratives "as 3rd-person pronouns"</a> – which of these is true depends on the definition of "personal pronoun". Kibrik (2011: 125) considers two criteria (""adnominal use", "a single structural-distributional system with locuphoric pronouns") but
falls short of providing a clear definition.<br>
<br>
This is why I proposed the definition in terms of coreferential use in a complement clause, as in<br>
<br>
<i>Jon-ek dio hura azkarra d-ela.</i><br>
Jon-ERG says DEM smart be-COMP<br>
'Jon(i) says that he(i) is smart.' (Iraola & Ezeizabarrena 2011)<br>
<br>
Here the Basque distal demonstrative <i>hura</i> 'that (one)' is used coreferentially with the matrix subject, so according to this definition,
<i>hura</i> is (also) a personal pronoun. It contrasts crucially with Spanish, where the distal demonstrative
<i>aquél</i> 'that (one)' cannot be used in this way (<i>Juan(i) dice que (*aquél(i)) es inteligente</i>).<br>
<br>
A language that is similar to Basque in that it seems to "use its demonstratives as personal pronouns" is Lezgian, but it appears that they cannot be used in a complement clause, because reflexive pronouns are required in this context (Haspelmath 1993: §22.4.2).
Thus, even though Lezgian <i>am/abur</i> often correspond to English <i>he/she/they</i>, they do not count as personal pronouns.<br>
<br>
[This delimitation may strike one as arbitrary, and it is – but I am assuming that we want *some* delimitation, because "personal pronoun" and "demonstrative" are technical terms that we want to have clear definitions for.]<br>
<br>
Thanks also to Riccardo Giomi for mentioning the term "pro(-)form" used in FDG (along with "pro-adverb", "pro-verb", etc.). These kinds of terms have been used for quite some time (e.g. in Quirk et al. 1985, the well-known grammar of English), but they have
not become standard. In a recent Twitter poll, when asked about what term to use for "where", a majority favoured "adverbial interrogative pronoun" or "interrogative pronominal adverb" over "interrogative pro-adverb" (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://twitter.com/haspelmath/status/1413525671163400192">https://twitter.com/haspelmath/status/1413525671163400192</a>).<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 11.07.21 um 06:01 schrieb Daniel W. Hieber:<br>
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Dear Ian,</div>
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I think it would be worthwhile to also consider the definition of pronouns advanced in Andrej Kibrik's excellent
<i>Reference in discourse</i>. Some relevant quotes are below. Note that Kibrik is here using
<i>pronoun</i> to mean primarily <i>personal pronoun</i> (p. 121).</div>
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"[...] the term 'pronoun' implies only three things. First, a pronoun is a referential device, directly coding referents. Second, it is a reduced referential device, that is, it does not have lexical content. Third, pronouns are
<b>overt</b> devices, and so are opposed to zero reference." (p. 121; empahsis in the original)</div>
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Kibrik also notes that there are other types of items which sometimes share the function of personal pronouns, but should not themselves be considered personal pronouns:</div>
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Linguistic elements that can be characterized as overt reduced referential devices most typically coincide with what are traditionally known as personal pronouns. In the context of referential choice between full and reduced referential devices, most often
these are third person pronouns. English is a typical example of a language that uses third person pronouns when a reduced referential device is needed. However, in this kind of language other reduced devices may be used, such as demonstratives. Furthermore,
not all languages have dedicated third person pronouns: some languages employ overt reduced referential devices that fall out of the scope of what traditionally counts as third person pronouns. Several kinds of linguistic elements that belong to other pronoun
types or even different lexico-grammatical classes may effectively function in discourse as
<b>analogues</b> of third person pronouns. Such analogues can be thought of as marginal overt reduced referential devices.</div>
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Among these, the most salient ones are: demonstratives, classifiers, and social status nouns. All of these devices are distinct from personal pronouns, in particular because they do not contain the category of person. [...] However, in certain languages that
lack genuine third person pronouns these devices play the pronominal role. (p. 124; emphasis in the original)</div>
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Kibrik also helpfully distinguishes between <i>strong</i> vs. <i>weak</i> pronouns, where strong pronouns are prosodically and pragmatically marked, and weak pronouns are prosodically reduced and/or dependent. Weak pronouns are functionally analogous to bound
pronouns (p. 92).</div>
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Hope that's helpful!</div>
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<br>
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Danny</div>
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<b>References</b></div>
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<ul>
<li>Kibrik, Andrej A. 2011. <i>Reference in discourse</i>. Oxford University Press. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199215805.001.0001" title="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199215805.001.0001" moz-do-not-send="true">10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199215805.001.0001</a>.</li></ul>
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<span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",Times,serif">Daniel W. Hieber, Ph.D.</span><br>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Lingtyp
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org">
<lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org></a> on behalf of JOO, Ian [Student] <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ian.joo@connect.polyu.hk">
<ian.joo@connect.polyu.hk></a><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, July 5, 2021 11:53 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> LINGTYP <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">
<lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org></a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Lingtyp] Definition of “personal pronoun"</font>
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<div dir="auto"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman">Dear typologists,</span><br>
<br>
<span style="font-family:Times New Roman">I’m having a hard time trying to find a definition of a “personal pronoun”.</span><br>
<span style="font-family:Times New Roman">One definition is that a personal pronoun refers to a literal person, a human being. But then again, non-human pronouns like English </span><em style="font-family:Times New Roman">it</em><span style="font-family:Times New Roman"> are
also frequently included as a personal pronoun.</span><br>
<span style="font-family:Times New Roman">Another definition seems to be that “personal” refers to a grammatical person and not a literal person. Thus, </span><em style="font-family:Times New Roman">it</em><span style="font-family:Times New Roman"> refers to
the (non-human) 3rd person, therefore it is a personal pronoun.</span><br>
<span style="font-family:Times New Roman">But then again, demonstratives, interrogative, and indefinite pronouns also refer to the 3rd person. (This </span><em style="font-family:Times New Roman">is</em><span style="font-family:Times New Roman"> a book, who </span><em style="font-family:Times New Roman">is </em><span style="font-family:Times New Roman">that
man, anything </span><em style="font-family:Times New Roman">is </em><span style="font-family:Times New Roman">possible) Then are they also personal pronouns?</span><br>
<span style="font-family:Times New Roman">What’s the clearest definition of a personal pronoun, if any?</span></div>
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From Hong Kong,
<div dir="auto">Ian</div>
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