Pronouns in Ethiosemitic and Cushitic

Sun Aug 12 16:58:03 UTC 2007

Dear Hans-Juergen,
as for Old (here: Middle) Egyptian: Gardiner (§64) hypothesizes that nt= 
stems from the focus particle 'n 'indeed' etc. that also serves to mark 
the agent with passives and with masdars. The reason is that /n (I use / 
to render the transliteration <'i + spiritus'>) is usually followed by a 
noun in some kind of possessive relation (in the broadest sense). 
Moreover, /n + noun + sdm=f form encodes a future just as independent 
pronoun (nt=f 'he' etc.) + sdm=f (§450). Hence, the first singular /nk 
stems from /n=k, wheres the other pronouns have lost the initial hamza 
(or y-). Hence /nk would mean 'indeed me', nt=f would mean 'indeed him' 
etc. The problem naturally is why 'I' has the expected form, whereas the 
other pronouns are derived from a modified version of /n (nt=). Gardiner 
thinks of the feminine marker, but that seems to be ad hoc.

As for the problem of nouny pronouns in general:  I think we should 
distinguish at least (!) the following cases:

1. Pure nouns are used to mark personhood in terms of metaphorization 
(or however you want to term this process). Here, the semantics of 
personhood is marked covertly.
1a. Agreement (if agreement takes place) remains 'nouny', that is it 
happens via a third person.
1b. Agreement is aligned according to the semantics of the person' 
(hence the 'noun' loses much of it referential quality).

2. Nouns are combined with possessive person markers (the most frequent 
case I guess). Here, the semantics of personhood is marked overtly.
2a. Again, agreement is kept in terms of third person (the trigger is 
the noun).
2b. Agreement is aligned according to the semantics of the person (the 
trigger has moved to the person, most likely in terms of semantic 
blending).

Best wishes,
Wolfgang

Hans-Juergen Sasse wrote:
>
> 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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*Prof. Dr. Wolfgang 
Schulze                                                                   
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