Summary: number in personal pronouns

[Frans Plank]

>Relating to the recent message by:
>
>>From: Henning Kloeter <h.kloeter at let.leidenuniv.nl>
>>Subject: Re: summary
>
>specifically where it says:
>
>>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."
>
>Isn't it a general feature? This is certainly true in Italian.
>If I said "my" (referring to something that is common property) while
>talking to another owner of the same object, I would definitely sound
>arrogant. This obviously extends to human beings, such as children. One
>could say "my son" speaking to her/his mother (although this is not the
>usual way to refer to him within the family), but certainly not while
>speaking to her husband or his wife.
>I always took it for granted that the same happens in any language. Was I
>wrong?
>Best
>
>Pier Marco Bertinetto
>Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa


Not "wrong", Pier Marco, by no means, no -- you erred in one small,
tangential particular, were mistaken, misled, kept in the dark, a
misunderstanding occurred, wishful thinking got the better of you, poetic
licence.  Happens to everybody.  Me too, sometimes.  Never take anything
for granted, though, if you want my advice, least of all possessive
pronouns.

The point is this.  Suppose you conducted your conversations with Elina not
in Finnish but in Menomini, then you'd have to use the ADDRESSEE pronoun
when making mention of Clara, or also shared possessions other than your
joint daughter, and want to deictically anchor her.  Addressed to Elina,
her being your wife, "Where on earth is MY daughter?" would not be
arrogant:  it would not be grammatical.  (See Bloomfield, The Menomini
Language, p38, with special reference to daughters.)  Algonquian etiquette
generally gives the addressee precedence over the speaker, to confuse our
numbering of "persons";  but in its own terms it has always seemed to me
straightforward (whatever Arnold Zwicky or Steve Anderson may be saying).
Obviously, when talking about Clara to me rather than to Elina, it would be
"SPEAKER's daughter", or also "SPEAKER and OTHER's daughter" (OTHER not
including ADDRESSEE of course), because SPEAKER ranks above OTHER.

But perhaps that's really a different question from the one currently
debated so intensely, with nothing else to do over Easter.  I assume you'd
be well advised also to use an inclusive form ('ADDRESSEE and OTHER,
SPEAKER included'), rather than a singular ADDRESSEE form or a
SPEAKER-exclusive form when talking to Elina about Clara in Menomini.
Though I wonder whether doing the latter would be considered arrogant.
Let's send Misha to find out how rural and urban Menominis talk about their
respective places when in town and when in the country, and vice versa.
Bloomfield doesn't have anything on this one.

How's "your" Torino doing?  Catching up?
Frans


PS:  And now for something completely different.  It's also about
possessive pronouns, though (and even their number), but I'm afraid that's
not really what they seem to behave like at all.

If you address somebody as "Your Excellency" or "Your Royal Highness", what
you really ought to be saying is "My", aren't you?  Cf. "Mi-lord, Mi-lady".
But then, if you talk about one, the possessive becomes 3rd person, as if
it were a personal pronoun:  "His/Her Royal Highness was guillotined
yesterday", not only in respect of person and gender, but also of number
(which is the possession's, not the possessor's):  "Where on earth are
Their Excellencies?/*... is Their Royal Highness?".  Of course, if you have
an informal/formal contrast, you'll use the formal pronouns for this
purpose (plural forms of 2nd person or, more recently, 3rd person in a
language like German, neutralizing all kinds of contrasts).

The Questions, in case anybody has already been doing the research that I
was about to embark on this evening:
(i)  Which languages have such a system, or something similar, in the
appropriate aristocratic register?
(ii)  Did it spread by imitation from one centre?
(iii)  Which titles can take such a possessive?  (Highness, Lordship,
Ladyship, Majesty, Excellency, Grace, Honour, Reverence, others?  German
further has, rather had, (Hoch)Wohlgeboren.)  They seem not really the
inherently most personal and nouniest of nouns (cf. *Your Lord/Lady/King),
which suggests address by means of a quality as the origin of the system,
secondarily extended to 3rd person use, with the possessives themselves
also changing in person -- a rather remarkable thing for them to be doing.
As if wanting to be personal pronouns.
(iv)  Is self-reference practised in any such system?  A tough fieldwork
assignment, this one.  It's about pragmatics:  the right *forms* are
obvious.
(v)  No less tough is the question of the grammar of such titular
possessives.  Any suggestions?  (Any framework accepted, within reason.)
(vi)  Assuming titular do have a grammar, Is this grammaticalization -- an
incipient system of (honorific) personal pronouns?