Pronouns in Ethiosemitic and Cushitic

[Hans-Juergen Sasse]

Dear Florian,

 

I am surprised that so far nobody has mentioned the case of Ethiopian 
Semitic and Cushitic languages.

In Tigrinya, only the old personal pronouns of the first persons 
(singular and plural) have been retained. 2nd and 3rd person pronouns 
were replaced by an element ness(e)- in the singular and nessat- in the 
plural, to which the possessive suffixes are attached, thus
2sm nesse-xa, 2sf nesse-xi 'thou', 3sm ness-u 'he', 3sf ness-a 'she', 
2pm nessat-ku 'you', etc. Etymologically, ness(e)- is *nafs- 'soul', 
nessat- its plural *nafsaat- 'souls'. The original meaning of the new 
pronouns is thus 'your soul', 'his soul', 'your souls', etc.

The Northern Cushitic language Beja follows a similar pattern: old 
Afroasiatic pronouns of the 1st person singular and plural are retained 
('ane 'I', hinin 'we'), while the rest is replaced by a noun-like 
element with possessive suffixes, here bar- for masculine, bart- for 
feminine, and baraa- for plural. Strangely enough, plural forms take 
singular suffixes, e.g. barúu(-s) 'his "bar"' = 'he', baráa(-s) 'his 
"bars"' = 'they'. I have not been able to figure out what the original 
meaning of *bar- was. The relevant body part terms are all different. 
But in view of grammaticalized politeness forms such as Spanish Usted or 
Egyptian Arabic HaDritak ("your presence") it is perhaps worth while 
looking at other semantic areas as well. There is also a demonstrative 
element ba-, but I don't know if this is related.

Incidentally, it occurs to me that the Ancient Egyptian paradigm 
displays a very similar pattern: there is 'nk 'I', 'nn 'we', both 
looking like old Afroasiatic forms. However, the remainder of the 
independent pronouns are all based on an element nt- to which the 
possessive suffixes are attached: nt-k 'thou masculine', nt-f 'he, nt-s 
'she', exactly as in Beja ("your nt", "his nt", etc.) Again, I have no 
idea what nt- might have meant. 

In Amharic, the old Semitic pronoun of the 3rd person was replaced with 
an expression using the noun 'head', again with the possessive suffixes 
attached: originally *re'es-u 'his head', *re'es-wa 'her head', in 
Modern Amharic phonologically eroded to ersu ~ essu 'he', erswa ~ esswa 
'she'. 

Finally, let me mention the case of the South Ethiopic Soddo language, a 
member of the Gurage group, which has replaced the independent pronouns 
of the 1st and 2nd persons singular and 2nd person plural by an element 
(ä)d- + possessive suffixes. It is possible that (ä)d- comes from the 
word for 'hand' (Proto-Semitic *yad-), though this remains a matter of 
dispute (cf. Hetzron 1977, The Gunnän-Gurage Languages, p.58). 

The existence of a "pronoun replacement area" in this region is all the 
more remarkable as otherwise Afroasiatic languages are comparably 
conservative with regard to personal pronouns; changes usually come from 
analogical processes triggered by patterns from "inside" the system 
(such as, for example, adjustment to pronominal suffixes on the verb or 
the addition of a possessive suffix to an already existing independent 
pronoun to increase distinctiveness). I am not aware of any case of 
borrowing of pronominal forms from a non-Afroasiatic contact language.

Best wishes,

Hans-Jürgen Sasse

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