R: WHAT vs. WHO

[Paolo Ramat]

Dear Bjorn,
your question: "Do you know of languages, either contemporary ones or in
earlier
times, which do not distinguish between person and thing (animate vs.
> inanimate) in their pronouns?"
Maybe your question should be rephrased, since a yes-answer sounds rather
trivial. Romance languages, for instance, do not distinguish between animate
and inanimate pronominal reference: Ital. _questo_, _quello_ may refer both
to a person or a thing. Is your question referring not to a morphemic
difference (e.g. Lat. _i-s_ (masc.) vs. _i-d_ (ntr.) but to a lexemic (root)
opposition (e.g. Anc.Gk _ho_ (masc.) and _he:_ (fem.) vs. _to_ (ntr.))?
Best,
Paolo

----- Original Message -----
From: Björn Wiemer <Bjoern.Wiemer at UNI-KONSTANZ.DE>
To: <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 5:40 PM
Subject: WHAT vs. WHO


> Hello to everybody,
> can anybody help me with the following issue?
>          Do you know of languages, either contemporary ones or in earlier
> times, which do not distinguish between person and thing (animate vs.
> inanimate) in their pronouns? E.g., English has WHO vs. WHAT (+ all
> pronouns derived from these stems: WHATSOEVER, WHOEVER etc.), German
JEMAND
> vs. ETWAS (+ IRGENDJEMAND, IRGENDETWAS etc.), Polish KTO vs. CO (+ all
> indefinite pronouns derived from these) and so on. Baltic, however, has
> only KAS (+ KAZ^KAS, KAI KAS etc.). As far as I know, this is a
> common-Baltic innovation with regard to earlier I.E. dialects. I wonder
> whether this feature is unique and what are its motives (since the
> distinction between person and thing seems to be very basic; Wierzbicka,
> for instance, considers it to belong to her Semantic Primitives).
>          I have searched for cross-linguistic information in books like
> Majtinskaja's work on pronoun systems and the Universals Archive at
> Constance University -- in vain. Does anybody know of overviews on pronoun
> systems paying attention to this semantic distinction?
>          Any hints are very welcome.
>
> With best regards,
> Bjoern Wiemer.
>
>
>
> PD Dr. Bjoern Wiemer
> Universitaet Konstanz
> FB Sprachwissenschaft / Slavistik
> Postfach 55 60, D 179
> D- 78457 Konstanz
>
> tel.: ++49 / 7531 / 88 -2582
> fax: ++49 / 7531 / 88 -4007
> e-mail: Bjoern.Wiemer at uni-konstanz.de
> http://www.uni-konstanz.de/FuF/Philo/Sprachwiss/slavistik/wiemer/index.htm
>