Pronouns: follow up

[Jeanette Sakel]

Hi,

I've argued that the 1st person plural inclusive pronoun (bound form)  
- and indeed the entire concept of clusivity - is a loan in the  
Bolivian language Mosetén (Mosetenan) :

Sakel, Jeanette (2005) 'Development of an inclusive-exclusive  
distinction - a possible loan scenario in Mosetenan' p. 359-379 in E.  
Filimonova (ed.) Clusivity. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Greetings,
Jeanette



On 8 Aug 2007, at 18:58, Eduardo Ribeiro wrote:

> Hi,
>
> In (Brazilian) Portuguese, French moi is commonly used informally,  
> mainly in a sort of tongue-in-cheek "style."  I suspect this usage  
> can be considered as typical of female speech, an impression that  
> seems to be corroborated by a quick internet search (look up "pra  
> cima de moi", "para moi", etc.).  Notice that diminutive moizinha  
> 'little me (fem.)' is also common, unlike moizinho "little me  
> (masc.)'.
>
> By the way, is anyone aware of clear cases of pronoun borrowing in  
> Native American languages (particularly, South American ones)?  The  
> only case in the literature I'm aware of is Pirahã, where pronouns  
> would have been borrowed from Tupi-Guarani, according to Dan  
> Everett and Sally Thomason--although, in my opinion, this is so far  
> an unproven (maybe even unprovable) hypothesis.  Any additional  
> examples?
>
> Best,
>
> Eduardo
>
>
> On 8/8/07, Florian Siegl <florian.siegl at gmx.net> wrote:
> During the last 24h I received a total of 17 e-mails on-list and
> off-list regarding my query. Thank you very much for answering and
> providing both references and further examples!
> Concerning my second question: I received a fair amount of comments  
> and
> examples regarding the origin of reflexive pronouns though this is not
> what I'm looking for. Paraphrasing my intended question:
>
> - I'm interested in languages whose personal pronouns (!) are derived
> from body parts. If such personal pronouns are somehow derived from
> earlier reflexive pronouns this is fine, but I'm not looking for
> reflexive pronouns.
>
> - If a language has body part based personal pronouns, are they
> considered to be etymologically old (reconstructable into a
> proto-language) or are they more recent innovations? What about the
> history of the other personal pronouns?
>
> - As demonstrative pronouns tend to be grammaticalized as 3rd person
> pronouns, are there any languages known which have a body part based
> pronoun for 3rd person pronouns? One possible example seems to be  
> Tundra
> Nenets, Uralic: body + POSS.3SG his body --> (s)he. Nick Enfield  
> pointed
> out off-list, that Thai and Lao use such pronouns for 1st and 2nd  
> person
> (but also for reflexives).
>
> - Is there any attested language which has a full set of personal
> pronouns consisting of body parts?
>
> Florian Siegl
>
>
> P.S. As a slip of the keyboard, I forgot to include English THEY from
> Old Norse in my yesterday's query on Eurasia which was mentioned  
> several
> times. Guess one forgets the usual when looking for the unusual.
> Concerning pronoun borrowing in Eurasia, the list of good candidates
> seems to limited. English (from Old Norse), Forest Enets (from Ket),
> several Romani varieties (see posting by Matras), Siewierska 2004
> (274-277) has some additional examples from Dravidian and
> inclusive/exclusive categories in Indo-Aryan languages in the
> neighborhood of Dravidian languages.
>

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