WHAT vs. WHO

[W. Schulze]

I would like to take up a point made by Bernard in his posting from
March 07, 2003. Here, he said:

> in a language with
> inflectional morphology, one has to distinguish instances of complete identity
> between WHO and WHAT (i.e. all inflectional forms are the same), complete
> non-identity (no inflectional forms are the same), and partial identity (some
> but not all inflectional forms are the same). In particular, this makes it
> dangerous just to cite one form and expect this to cover everything. In Latin,
> nominative quis 'who' and quid 'what' are distinct, but all oblique forms other
> than the accusative are identical.
>

Basically, one cannot but emphasize Bernard's claim. Nevertheless, one
has to add [and this has been already said by others] that 'partial'
identity is not only relevant for the distribution of inflectional
forms, but also for stem formation. For instance, although Latin quis
and quid are formally distinct, they are etymologically based on the
'same' stem (IE Nominative *kwi-s 'who' vs. 'kwi-d' 'what'). The stem
*kwi- shows up in all inflected forms (in parts coupled with a somewhat
complicated change *i > *e). Now, the following aspects become
important:

a) [already referred to by Bernard]: In IE, only the Nominative and
Accusative of the 'human' [or: animate?] interrogative differs from that
of the non-human [or inanimate?] interrogative [this is true for the IE
plural forms, *kweyes (human, Nom.) / *kwins (human, Acc) vs. *kwi:
(non-human, Nom, Acc). From a functional point of view, the oblique case
forms had been disambiguated [if necessary] in terms of 'blending':
E.g., the Genitive forms (SG *kwesyo < *kweis-yo (?), PL *kwiso:m) were
likely to refer to human referents in case the construction in which
they occurred had 'possession' properties. Or: Locatives are usually
inanimate [or: 'metaphorically' de-humanized human referents]. The
Dative was 'human' when used in IO function, but 'non-human', wenn used
as a locative or in peripheric constructions etc.

Naturally, this observation is at first true for reconstructed IE only.
Nevertheless, it illustrates the possibility that the distinction
[human] vs. [non-human] does not reflect a conceptually 'basic'
opposition in the paradigm of third person interrogatives (or:
referential interrogatives), but cognitively emerges from the structural
coupling of a substantial and a functional domain [the assumption that
the human/non-human opposition is not always conceptually 'basic' but
secondary (or: an emergent property) is supported by a number of other
typolocial observations].

b) This hypothesis leads me to the second question: If - incidentally -
the semantic properties of third person interogatives emerges from
'blends' (or: from structural coupling), we are invited to ask what the
underlying interrogative stem (in the case of IE: *kwi-) originally
'meant': In other words: What is the grammaticalization background of
such interrogative stems? I have to admit that I am not aware of any
work that would comprehensively deal with this question [my fault?].
Nevertheless, it is - at least in my eyes - crucial to understand to
which extend the conceptual opposition [human/non-human] or parts of it
are semantically present in a given interrogative stem. It would be
rather attractive to claim that interrogative stems lacking this
opposition originally were indefinite or deictic pronouns (recall the
paradigmatic affinity of the IE *kwi-interrogative with the anaphoric
pronoun *i-; also note that the *kwi-interrogative once also functioned
as an indefinite pronoun - a well-known issue in IE linguistics). The
'interrogative' function would than had once been expressed by other
means that was lateron 'usurped' by the pronoun. Such a hypothesis would
be in accordance with the well-known observation that 'referential
pronouns' (third person pronouns) often lack a human/non-human
distinction.

On the other hand, we might think of a model that combines a general
interrogative marker with a referential 'dummy' (in other words: the
interrogative pronoun would have resulted from the combination of an
'attributive' interrogative marker ('which') with a generic noun (see
Bernard's Haruai example). As for the IE pronoun discussed above, there
is no evidence that would motivate the internal reconstruction of such a
complex form, but it may well be present in a number of other languages.
However, if we think of a sematically and structurally complex form, we
have yet to add a third notion, namely that of 'knowledge': In some
languages, there is a distinction between an interrogative pronoun
asking for a contextually 'known' referent and an interrogative pronoun
that signals 'ignorance'. Andi (another East Caucasian (Andian)
language) gives an example: Here, Q:hum:known is emi-g^il (absolutive),
l:'e-di-g^il (ergative) etc, whereas Q:hum:unknown simply is emi-di
(abs.) vs. l'e-di-di (erg.) etc. The non-human variants are ebi-g^il
(abs) / l'un-di-g^il (erg.) [known] vs. ebi-di (abs.) / l'un-d(:)i-di
(erg.) etc. [unknown]. In Andi, the formation is transparent.
Nevertheless, we have to think of the possibility that this opposition
is present in (or: engraved on) lexical stems, too.

What ever the grammaticalization background of interrogative stems may
have been: one has to bear in mind that the homogenous representation of
human/non-human interrogatives may have resulted from secondary
processes (as illustrated by the Lithuanian example). A someone
analogeous example is given by German 'wo' which can be used in relative
clauses to take up both a human and a non-human referent. There is no
reason to assume that such processes would not have occurred in earlier
times, too. Hence, we may likewise hypothesize that the original IE
interrogative stem *kwi- had once been restricted to say non-human
referents. The segment *-s [typicall for human referents in S or A]
resp. *-m [here: typical for human referents in O-function] would then
have produced the human variant, whereas *-d had later been added to
reinforce the non-human semantics of *kwi- (by analogy).

In sum, it seems important to me that we learn more about the underlying
'semantics' of interrogative 'stems'. This task can be approached from
at least five perspectives (which should be coupled in the
argumentation): 1) Formal history of the stems at issue; 2)
Grammaticalization background of the individual forms; 3) Description of
general grammaticalization paths of such pronouns in accordance with
hypotheses about the conceptual 'construction' (or: structure) of
questioned referents, 4) Description of conceptual blends (blending of
substantial (formal) and functional (syntagmatic) properties etc.), 5)
Analysis of metaphorized (or: further grammaticalized) forms (e.g.
relative pronouns) in order to unvail possible invariant components of
the source domain (in accordance with the Invariance Hypothesis).

Wolfgang








German 'Wo'



--
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut für Allgemeine und
Typologische Sprachwissenschaft
- General Linguistics and Language Typology -
Dept. II - Kommunikation und Sprachen
F 13/14 - Universitaet München
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
D-80539 Muenchen
Tel.: ++49-(0)89-2180-2486 / -5343
Fax: ++49-(0)89-2180-5345
Email: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Web: http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/

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