[Lexicog] indeclinable def.

[Heather Souter]

Since you were asking for a basic grammatical definition for an indeclinable
personal pronoun, I decided to give it a shot....

A pronoun that does not change form regardless of whether it functions as a
subject, possessive, direct or indirect object, etc. in an oral or written
text.

Eekoshi.
Heather Souter



On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 4:53 PM, David Frank <david_frank at sil.org> wrote:

>   I will throw in my two cents worth, which is another way of saying what
> David Tuggy has already said.
>
> Some languages like English have different forms of the pronouns, based on
> whether it is a subject (I) or object (me), or used as a possessive pronoun
> (my). There are sometimes other forms, too, like the reflexive (myself).
> These are the different declensions of the pronoun. Other languages don't
> have different forms of the pronouns for these different purposes. Then you
> would say that the pronouns are not declined.
>
> For example, in St. Lucian Creole, there is only one form of the first
> person pronoun, regardless of whether it is used as a subject, an object or
> a possessive. Here are some examples:
>
> Mwen vini. "I came."
> David bat mwen. "David hit me."
> Manman mwen malad. "My mother is sick."
>
> So you could call the St. Lucian Creole word 'mwen' an indeclinable
> personal pronoun. However, we wouldn't have bothered calling it that,
> because in St. Lucian Creole, basically nothing is declined, so there is no
> expectation that the pronouns should be declined. However, if you are
> comparing St. Lucian (French) Creole with English or with standard French,
> then you might point out that in St. Lucian Creole the pronouns are not
> declined (for the most part).
>
> I understand that Old English had different declensions for all nouns,
> depending on how they were used in a sentence, but over time that case
> system for nouns was lost, and it only survives on the pronouns in modern
> English.
>
> -- David Frank
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "phil cash cash" <pasxapu at DAKOTACOM.NET <pasxapu%40DAKOTACOM.NET>>
> To: <lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com <lexicographylist%40yahoogroups.com>
> >
> Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 4:44 PM
> Subject: Re: [Lexicog] indeclinable def.
>
> David, yes, I think it is beginning to makes sense. So I imagine
> (from a strictly Eng perspective) that one can make use of an
> indeclinable form when someone says things like "Me, myself, and I
> left town" where "Me, myself and I" taken together is an indeclinable-
> like expression. If so, then I am thinking something like "I myself"
> is an independent indeclinable ponoun in the languages I'm familiar
> with (though Eng uses the two words here).
> Phil
>
> On Jul 16, 2008, at 12:56 PM, David Tuggy wrote:
>
> > Presumably one would use the term only in a language where nouns
> > and other nominal entities (like pronouns) are usually declined
> > (i.e. have different "case" forms according to their grammatical
> > function.) Personal pronouns would be either pronouns referring to
> > human beings (persons) or to "grammatical person", i.e. 1st, 2nd,
> > and 3rd person pronouns. In English the 1st person singular pronoun
> > can be described as a declinable form (though in English we don't
> > do declensions as a rule) since it can be I, me, or my according to
> > its grammatical function. If the 2nd person singular pronoun didn't
> > have a special possessive form (your), it would be an indeclinable
> > personal pronoun, since it appears as you in all (other) syntactic
> > contexts.
> >
> > Does that make sense?
> >
> > --David T
> >
> > phil cash cash wrote:
> >>
> >> Greetings, I need to find a basic but informative definition for a
> >> grammatical category: indeclinable personal pronoun. Any
> >> suggestions appreciated, Phil
>  
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lexicography/attachments/20080716/5ab68172/attachment.htm>