Summary: number in personal pronouns

[Dan Everett]

I am probably now beginning to re-cycle old information, but did anyone
mention Brazilian Portuguese ' a gente' (the people') used for first
person sg/pl in many informal contexts, e.g. 'Bom, voce pode fazer
aquilo, mas a gente nao faz.'? (Well, you can do that, but the people
(=I or we, depending on context) don't).

Some other weird pronominal substitutions are found in Piraha, which
has no number and all of whose pronouns are borrowed (see the paper by
Sally Thomason and me on both of our websites and in BLS 27). To
express 'we' or 'you pl' it adds the word 'big', e.g. 'Ti ?ogiaagao
kahapii (tones omitted)' lit: I big/all go = we are going. Or in Piraha
3 person can be used for special effects, e.g. to decrease
illocutionary force (as in indirect speech acts): to order someone to
do something one can use an imperative particle or the third person,
e.g. 'Hi kahapi' lit: 'he goes' = Go! or it can be used to brag, as in
the following phrase, recorded in a literacy class when one young man
was calling the old men stupid (see, you don't have to be an academic
to do that) and showed them how to write a phrase, saying 'Hi ?obaa?ai,
ti' lit: 'He sees well, I' = 'I see well' = I am really smart.

-- Dan


********************
Daniel L. Everett
Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Manchester, UK
M13 9PL 	
Phone: 44-161-275-3158
Department Fax: 44-161-275-3187
http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de/
'Speech is the best show man puts on' - Whorf

			
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