personal indices and personal pronouns

Wed Jan 28 11:11:44 UTC 2004

The distinction between pronouns and indices seems anyway to be very
attractive. Perhaps it could be useful to consider other properties of nouns
in order to distinguish pronouns and indices. We could say that pronouns
share with nouns the possibility to be (turned into) predicates (that is to
say to be used as non-verbal predicates, either with or without explicit
markers of the syntactic function), while indexes cannot.
In this sense for example English 'I' seems to be on its way to become an
index, being displaced in its pronominal uses by 'me'.
This could presumably also help in drawing distinctions between different
types of combinations of pronouns (vs. indices) and tense markers.
Does this sound totally speculative?
Best,
Elisa Roma
----- Original Message -----
From: W. Schulze <W.Schulze at LRZ.UNI-MUENCHEN.DE>
To: <LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: personal indices and personal pronouns


> Matthew's comments on Claude's message are indeed very helpful and draw
our
> attention to some core issues of typology (I especially enjoyed the third
> paragraph of Matthew's message). Nevertheless, I have to add that some of
his
> statements etc. raise additional problems which I want to briefly address
> (although I'm not sure whether the audience still is interested in this
> exchange - if not, please excuse!).
>
> Matthew wrote:
>
> > There is an important distinction between pronouns, which occur in
> > paradigmatic opposition to full noun phrases, and pronominal indices,
which
> > are not noun phrases, and which freely co-occur with full noun phrases,
and
> > which are restricted to coding pronominal features of a particular
clausal
> > argument, like subjects. In this sense, Hausa /ya/ is is a pronominal
index,
> > not a pronoun.
>
> My concern is that pronouns are said to "occur in paradigmatic opposition
to
> full noun phrases". Perhaps, this statement too strongly relies on the
notion
> of 'pro-noun'. If I understand Matthew's term 'paradigmatic oppositon'
> correctly, it means that pronouns (which type so ever) stand in say a
> 'co-hyponymic' relation to 'full noun phrases' sharing with them a
peculiar
> functional aspect, but differing from them in another. However, we should
first
> make clear whether we are talking about 'personal' pronouns in the strict
sense
> (SAP), of 'personal' pronouns in a broader sense (SAP + Anaphorics), or of
> paradigms that involve 'personal' pronouns (SAP) *and* demonstratives. It
is a
> well-known fact that demonstratives behave more noun-like that 'true'
> SAP-pronouns, especially when functioning as anaphorics (which makes
sense).
> If we define 'nouns' as a cluster of referential and qualitative
properties of
> a concept, we may say that 'non-personne' pronouns deictically refer to
the
> referential domain, leaving the 'qualifying' segment open to inference. In
this
> sense, they are deixes of '(referential) existence' and share with nouns
just
> this notion of 'existence'.
>
> Personal pronouns, however, are completely different: There are several
ways to
> analyze the conceptual layer of EGO, TU etc., and it immediately comes
clear
> that cultural and communicative models heavily influence the
conceptualization
> of these entities. For instance, one model may favor the 'referential'
reading
> of these pronouns, construing EGO as a more or less 'time-stable' part of
the
> 'Self' of a person, whereas TU is used to deictically refer to another
'Self'
> present in a Speech Act. Here, EGO would have (auto)referential properties
> coming close to those of nouns, whereas TU would be deictic in nature.
Another
> model may stress the 'origo' of a Speech Act disregarding any notions of
> 'Self'. Again, another model may conceptualize TU as being just a part of
the
> non-EGO world, associating TU with a sociocentric perspective, etc. etc.
(there
> are many more options).
>
> In other words: The so-called 'paradigm' of personal pronouns may
considerably
> differ *in itself* as for those properties that are thought to be typical
for
> nouns. Hence, we cannot use 'reference' as the common denominator of
'personal'
> pronouns and nouns. This observation brings us to another problem:
'Reference'
> is generally thought to represent one of the universal features of
linguistic
> conceptualization, whatever the means to express the different
types/degrees of
> reference may be. Now, if we observe commonalities between 'nouns' and
> 'pronouns', we have to postulate an even more universal (and more
'abstract')
> layer of language that overrides aspects of referentiality and that
involves
> both nouns and pronouns.
>
> Matthew continues:
>
> > To my mind, one of the most fundamental ideas of typology is that
languages
> > differ as to whether morphemes of the same functional or semantic
category
> > are affixes or separate words.
>
> I do not want split hairs. Nevertheless, I think it is important to make a
> difference between 'same' and 'similar'. If we take a fundamentally
functional
> perspective, we have to assume that everything in language is functional
and
> that every process influences the semantic, categorial, or functional
layer of
> the process input. In other words: An 'affix' can be similar to a given
'word'
> in another language, but it cannot be the 'same', just *because* the one
is an
> affix, the other a 'word'.
>
> > For any kind of affix, we ought to be able to find or at least imagine a
> > language in which the same function is performed by a separate word,
>
> Again, we should speak of 'similar' instead of 'same'. In addition, I do
not
> fully understand whether Matthew aims at unctions/categories in a
'natural'
> language or to a metalanguage. If we 'imagine' such a 'word', it means
nothing
> but to construe a metalinguistic descriptor of the functional scope of a
given
> morpheme. Whether this would be a 'word' is a matter of definition.
Personally,
> I doubt whether we can speak of 'words' (a 'natural' language phenomenon)
when
> referring to a metalinguistic or conceptual layer.
>
> Best,
>
> Wolfgang
> --
> 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