Personal Pronouns and Indices

[W. Schulze]

Dear Claude, dear colleagues,

let me briefly come back to Claude's intereresting remarks. Although it
seems rather useful to distinguish between 'free' pronouns and markers
of 'personhood' on verbs, nouns etc., I dare to ask whether the term
'indices' really is appropriate. We should recall that the problem of
how to account for the 'semantics' of a 'personal pronoun' is often
related to the Peircean triade 'symbol-icon-sympton/index'. It was
Apollonios Dyskolos who stated in Perí antOnomías: pâsa antOnumía (=
pronoun) È deiktikÈ 'stiv È anaphorikÈ ('Every pronoun either is deictic
or anaphoric'). It is this alleged deictic nature of pronouns that is
referred to for instance by Peirce when labeling personal pronouns as an
'indexal subclass' of the set of linguistic signs (also compare Russel's
'indexals', Bühler's 'Zeigewörter', Lyons' 'person deixis' etc.). It not
always comes clear whether an author refers to an 'indexal' in terms of
is use as a terminus technicus in mathematics (stressing the functional
aspect of associating a figure etc. with another to indicate an
operation to be performed  etc.) or in terms of a more general meaning
(pointer, indicator, item listed to fasciliate reference).
Etymologically, 'index' means to 'pointing into s.th.' etc., hence has
relational properties.

The problem is that both pronouns and 'personal affixes' can be
described in terms of this function. The pronoun would direct the
attention of a hearer to the speaker (EGO), the hearer himself (TU) or
something erlse (IS/EA/ID), to put it into simple and admittedly trivial
terms. This is basically what Peirce, Bühler and others refer to when
talking of 'personal indices' etc. 'Affixes' (which, by the way, should
be termed 'clitics' is case they are not word class-specific) can be
said to endophrically point towards an overt or covert pronominal
constituent or again exophorically to the conceptualization of a
(non-)Speech Act Participant.

There are many arguments that speak against the indexal nature of either
pronouns or 'personal affixes/clitics' (see the well-known discussion of
the 'nouniness' of pronouns). Still, in case we stick to the indexal
function, we should make clear whether we use 'indexal' in terms of
grammatical (better: endophoric) 'cross-reference' or in terms of
exophoric deixis. The term 'personal index' makes sense only if we build
our analysis upon the first assumption.

Whatever the nature of personal pronouns might be: The term 'personal
index' used for bound elements that are 'sensitive' for personhood
brings us to additional problems: First, what to do with 'consistent'
(or even persistent) pro-drop strategies? Here, bound elements usually
play the role of 'pronouns' without neceassily being derived from former
pronouns. Are they indices or 'disguised' pronouns? Second: we have to
decide whether the function of the so-called indices to 'indicate'
properties of personhood is the primary or 'basic' function of a given
element. For instance, in Udi, an East Caucasian language, there is a
clitic -a that cross-references a third person singular in WH-questions.
Else, the 3sg clitic is -ne ~ -e. Note that such a Q-clitic occurs with
the 3sg only. Now, how to describe this element? Is it a 'person index'
(because it cross-references a non-personne) or is it a pragmatic marker
(questions) that has specialized for WH and later for the 3sg? As for
Udi, arguments clearly go in favor of the second assumption, although
the clitic -a is usually glossed '3sg:Q' (as if it where a 'person
index'). In quite a number of other so-called 'personal paradigms', the
'person indices' turn out to have 'usurped' the function of person
marking, too. In fact, the hypothesis that person markers (to use
Cysouw's terminology (Cysouw 2003)) primarily encode 'person' is far
from being evident. It is a well-known fact that such markers may have a
rather different background (e.g. deixis, focus, reflexes of specific
constructional patterns etc.) and not necessarily stem from 'personal
pronouns'.

Third: The term 'personal index' suggests that an affix/clitic
subcategorizes a given paradigm according to features of 'personhood'.
However, does this mean that the paradigm necessarily reflects the
subcategorization of person as represented in a corresponding pronominal
system? Sure, from a historical point of view, we can relate many
so-called homophonous systems (such as German geh-t '(s)he/it goes ~ you
(pl go' (present tense) to paradigms ordered for 'person'. However, does
this necessarily mean that categorially 'unmotivated' homophonous
elements reflect 'person' from a synchronic / cognitive point of view?
Perhaps, they do quite other things....

In sum, I have to admit that I have serious difficulties to use the term
'personal index' is Claude's sense. Maybe that there are paradigms for
which such a term is useful (e.g. some Turkic languages). However, from
a more 'semantic' perspective, it seems doubtful whether the exclusion
of personal 'pronouns' (itself a rather problematic term) from the
indexal domain (if given) really helps to fix the functional conditions
of either paradigms.

Best wishes,

Wolfgang



claude-hagege schrieb:

> Matthew's interesting remark on Hausa ya makes me think that it all
> depends on how we define "pronoun". If we admit, as Matthew does, that
> ya is a separate word, then I would consider it as a pronoun, because
> being a separate word seems to be one of the main defining features of
> elements that we call personal pronouns, knowing that their other
> defining features are that they inflect for person (and, in various
> languages, mentioned by several members of LINGTYP in this discussion,
> also T or A or M) and may function as subjects or complements. To that
> extent, they should be distinguished from indices, which are personal
> (and often tensed) affixes on the nominal (cf. Akkadian or Bugis) or
> verbal predicate (for the distinction I propose between personal
> pronoun (free or separate word) and personal index (affix), let me
> take the liberty of referring to La structure des langues (Paris,
> PUF), 2001 (6th ed.): 98). Here is, among many others, an example,
> taken from Aymara, in which we have both a personal pronoun and a
> personal affix in the same sentence:xuma-Xa tluqatla-a-ta-wa (2SG-TOP
> boy-PRED-2SG.IND-FOC) "you are a boy".We see here that "2SG" is
> expressed both by xuma (a separate word which is a person marker and
> to which the topic marker is attached) and -ta- (an inflectional
> (person) affix that also encodes the mood; by the way, and to come
> back to Roland Hemmauer's query, this example shows that in some
> languages, like Aymara, nominals, in order to function as predicate,
> need a special predicative marker (-a-  in the example above) ).
> Although Hausa ya in Matthew's example encodes COMPL, in my opinion it
> behaves as an index rather than a pronoun.All best,Claude.

--
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut für Allgemeine und Typologische Sprachwissenschaft
Department 'Kommunikation und Sprachen' (Dep. II) - F 13/14
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
D-80539 München
Tel.: ++49(0)89-2180-2486 (Sekr.) / -5343 (Büro)
Fax: ++49(0)89-2180-5345
Email: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Web: http://www.ats.uni-muenchen.de/wschulze

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