[Corpora-List] Frequency of the pronoun I

[Alon Lischinsky]

Richard,

> It is striking how clearly your figures indicate how well that single
measure works as an indication of corpus character.  Thanks for a useful
metric.  It might even be used to identify a significant measure of
subjectivity in the corpus.

Whatever it is that the FIRST_PERSON_PRONOUN/DEFINITE_ARTICLE ratio
measures, it is certainly not 'subjectivity' in any of its usual senses.

I assume you mean what the OED glosses as '[t]he quality or condition of
resting upon subjective facts or mental representation; the character of
existing in the mind only'. However, it is unclear why this should correlate
with the frequency of explicit self-mention. First-person pronouns (FPPs)
can feature prominently in starkly objective accounts of past or present
material processes involving the self:

'Only time I have brown rice is before training and I was having white rice
after training, but now I am cutting out most carbs' (
http://anabolicminds.com/forum/mma/172158-cutting-weight-carbs.html)

At the same time, they can be entirely absent from intensely subjective
appraisals:

'As the work developed (and it seemed as if it never would) the music grew
almost imperceptibly into a spiteful, clattering machine, only to end back
in the rapturous gossamer of impossibly high and blissful shards of sound.
There was an encore of some solo Bach – always welcome, but there’s often
the feeling that offering an old favourite after some difficult contemporary
music is something of an apology to the intolerant few who can’t help
coughing their guts up out of ignorance and boredom.' (
http://www.musicomh.com/classical/proms/2011-69_0911.htm)

There is no systematic catalogue of the uses and functions of the first
person plural pronoun that I know of, but there's been quite extensive
discussion of the topic at Language Log (see
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3155 for a list of relevant posts),
and the data suggest nothing like the simple correlation you posit.

Cheers,

A.
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