Summary: number in personal pronouns

[Jeroen Wiedenhof]

Dear typologists, I am forwarding
Henning Kloeter's summary of the LINGTYP
discussion on number in personal
pronouns.

----------------------------------------
Jeroen Wiedenhof         +31-71-527.2525
Sinological Institute  Leiden University
P.O. Box 9515 / 2300 RA Leiden / Holland
jeroen at wiedenhof.nl     www.wiedenhof.nl
----------------------------------------

From: Henning Kloeter <h.kloeter at let.leidenuniv.nl>
Subject: Re: summary

On 25 March Jeroen Wiedenhof posted my query "number in personal pronouns"
which you find at the bottom of this message. Several respondents have
commented on my observations and mentioned similar instances of plural
pronouns indicating one or more possessing persons in other languages.

The use of plural pronouns with singular references is reported for:

- Brabant Dutch (K. Chirkova)
- Peking Mandarin (K. Chirkova)
- the Northeast Caucasian Tsez language (B. Comrie)
- varieties of English from northern England and Scotland (B. Comrie)
- Russian (M. Daniel)
- colloquial English (P. Trudgill)

In languages which share this phenomenon, the modified element is often
perceived as something not individually possessed. Comrie, for instance,
writes that "in English a single speaker tends to say 'my country', 'my
home town', 'my village', whereas in [Tsez] literal translations of these
are actually judged unacceptable: you have to say 'our village', etc.,
since (the outsider is told) the village belongs to the community, not to
any individual." Similarly, "non-standard varieties of English from
northern England and Scotland have a strong tendency to use the possessive
pronoun _our_ (in Scotland and at least as far south as Tyneside often in
the form _wor_), as in _Wor Wullie_ 'our Willie'."

M. Daniel notes parallels in Russian, mentioning that "when you speak to
your wife, saying 'my son' or 'your.sg sun' sounds either funny or
offending. When talking to another possessor of the same item you
obligatorily have to mention the same possessive relation connects the
addressee to the possessed item, so that possession becomes obligatorily
first person plural."

Comrie suggests that a way to find out whether this is a factor in
Taiwanese Min would be to see if plural pronouns for singular referents are
also used when the interpretation can only be singular. This is actually
the case, as in:

_Guan2 | ang1 | senn3 | Tan5._
1.PL.EX | husband | surname | PN.Tan5
'My husband is surnamed Tan5.'

_Lin2 | thai3-thai3 | bueh2 | khi3 | bo5._
2.PL | wife | wish | go.to | not.exist.
'Is your wife going?'

Postings on number in personal pronouns triggered a debate on case in
personal pronouns, with contributions on pronoun substitution in West
Flemish (Willy Vandeweghe), the American English use of _I_ for conjoined
pronouns, with _I_ as the second in the conjunction (_she gave it to him
and I_) (D. Slobin), and the use of nominative _we_ for accusative _us_ in
Tyneside English (_with we_ 'with us') (B. Comrie).

I would like to thank the respondents.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original message:

The plural personal pronouns in Taiwanese Min are *guan2* 'we (exclusive)',
*lan2* 'we (inclusive)', *lin2* 'you (plural)', and *in1* 'they'. In some
cases, these forms also function as possessive pronouns, not specifying
whether the possessor is singular or plural.

Plural pronouns indicating one or more possessing persons are typically
used with family members and titles of occupations in these examples:

Guan2 | ping5-iu2 | senn3 | Ong5.
1.POS | friend | surname | PN.Ong5
(a) 'My friend is surnamed Ong5.'
(b) 'Our friend is surnamed Ong5.'

Lin2 | ca1-boo2 kiann2 |bueh4 | khi3 | bo5.
2.POS | daughter | wish | go.to | not.exist
(a) 'Is your (plural) daughter going?'
(b) 'Is your (sing.) daughter going?'

in1 | sin5-hu7
3.POS | priest
(a) 'her/his priest'
(b) 'their priest'

Similarly, *chu3* 'house' frequently occurs with unspecified number reference
for the possessor:

guan2 | chu3
1.EX | house
(a) 'my house'
(b) 'our house'

Does anyone know of comparable usages of personal pronouns in other
languages, i.e. where inclusive, exclusive or plural pronouns can have
singular reference when they are used as modifiers? Are there similar
semantic restrictions with regard to the modified element?

Please reply directly to: h.kloeter at let.leidenuniv.nl
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------