Pronouns: temporal paradigms

[David Gil]

Daniel Everett wrote:

> In the Wari' language of Rondonia Brazil, there are two paradigms of demonstrative pronouns, distinguished by spatial vs. temporal orientation.
>
> So, one series is, roughly, 'proximate to speaker', 'proximate to hearer', and 'distal'. The other is, roughly' currently present', 'recently absent', 'long absent'. (These are discussed in Everett & Kern 1996, 306ff.)
>
> Does anyone on this list know of similar paradigms, specifically the temporal paradigm, in other languages?

Not exactly the same thing, but ...

(a) in colloquial Tagalog, the distal demonstrative _iyon_, when used attributively, is often understood as having past reference, eg. _iyong lalaki_ 'man who was around in the past' / 'man who was referred to in previous
discourse'.

(b) in colloquial Indonesian, the proximal past marker _tadi_ is very commonly used in attributive constructions headed by the translational equivalents of English nouns, eg. _orang tadi_ 'person who was around in the
past' / 'person who was referred to in previous discourse".

What the Tagalog and Indonesian examples both show, in their respective ways, is how grammars do not always keep space and time apart from each other.  (A point that is obvious from the usages of English prepositions such
as _before_ and _after_.)

As for Wari', I guess that, depending on how you look at it, spatial and temporal orientation are on the one hand kept apart, by mans of distinct paradigms, but on the other hand still treated in analogous fashion in a
way that is cross-linguistically perhaps not so common.


--
David Gil

Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
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