[Lingtyp] Definition of “personal pronoun"
Martin Haspelmath
martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de
Thu Jul 8 16:09:32 UTC 2021
Dear all,
It is true that each language has its own categories (so we'll have
different definitions for different languages), and that categories are
generally set up in order to facilitate generalizations.
But I don't think that that is their "sole raison d'être" – some
comparative concepts exist because there are well-known terms that
everyone uses. For example, everyone talks about "planets", so it's
useful to have a precise astronomical definition (which was recently
changed, so that it no longer includes Pluto). And everyone talks about
"mountains", so some organizations have official definitions of what a
mountain is (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain#Definition).
I would say that "personal pronoun" is similar – we use this term (as a
general/comparative concept) all the time and hope that others
understand us, and since linguistics is a technical context, it's not
unreasonable to expect a precise definition of a term. There's no strong
reason to think that "personal pronoun" corresponds to anything natural
in the world, but it's still useful to have a clear definition (if only
to make us aware that it's not a very natural concept).
So I no longer think that a comparative concept *must* earn its status
by leading to correlations. Some comparative concepts exist because we
have well-known terms, and for these terms, the task is to provide
*retro-definitions* that fit with as many of previous usages as possible
(I talked about this in more detail in this paper:
https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/005489).
Best,
Martin
Am 08.07.21 um 17:43 schrieb Edith A Moravcsik:
>
> Dear Paolo,
>
> Many thanks for your comments! It is reassuring for me to know that
> you agree with me.
>
> All the best,
>
> edith
>
>
> *From:* Paolo Ramat <paoram at unipv.it>
> *Sent:* Thursday, July 08, 2021 10:18 AM
> *To:* Edith A Moravcsik <edith at uwm.edu>
> *Cc:* Martin Haspelmath <martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de>; list, typology
> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Definition of “personal pronoun"
>
> you don't miss anything , dear Edith. I have written on many occasions
> that a definition is neither true nor false : it is on the contrary
> useful or useless to understand the manifold varietes we are faced
> with when dealing with languages.Pronominal personal foms may have
> very different origins , such as Port. voce ( e with circumflex)
> which can be used with the 3rd and ( particularly in Bresil) also
> with the 2nd verbal form. In spite of its etymology, it fits the
> randomly properties conventionally chosen for the category 'personal
> pronoun'. This fitting confirms that the random choice has proved as
> useful. Of course, the same can apply to the Kor. word for
> "brother", unless it shows peculiarities that do not fit with the
> 'random definition' we have adopted starting from an onomasiological
> point of view.
>
> Best , Paolo
>
> Il Mer 7 Lug 2021, 19:18 Edith A Moravcsik <edith at uwm.edu
> <mailto:edith at uwm.edu>> ha scritto:
>
> Do we need to formulate a single definition for personal pronouns
> for any one language? And, similarly, should we decide on the
> single definition of the comparative concept of personal pronouns
> for comparing languages?
>
> The sole raison d’ẽtre of a category is its usefulness in
> facilitating generalizations. If it turns out that a particular
> definition of personal pronouns in, say, Korean is useful for that
> language since it represents a cluster of properties, we may use
> the label “personal pronoun” for that cluster – or we may of
> course choose any other label. Personal pronouns defined in this
> way may also have properties in common with other things such as
> nouns – e.g. in Korean, the noun ‘brother’ can also be used as a
> pronoun; and in many languages the plural of the third person
> pronoun follows the nominal pattern. This does not mean that we
> have to discard the original definition used for that language: we
> simply state the properties shared by other things.
>
> The same way, a comparative concept – i.e. a tool for
> crosslinguistic comparison – will earn its status by leading to
> correlations: that is, whether the particular definitional
> property chosen implies or implied by other properties. Just as in
> describing a single language we can start out with any
> definitions, the same way we can try comparing languages in terms
> of any concepts. We do not know ahead of inquiry what will work -
> this is an empirical question. There may be alternative
> comparative concepts within the same semantic domain each allowing
> for some correlates but not others.
>
> All in all, whether for analyzing individual languages or for
> comparing languages, the definition of a category or concept can
> be quite randomly chosen to begin with. Whether the definition
> stands or falls will be an empirical issue determined by the
> existence or non-existence of property clusters emerging from that
> definition.
>
> Is this correct? Or am I missing something?
>
> Edith Moravcsik
>
> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> *On Behalf Of
> *Martin Haspelmath
> *Sent:* Wednesday, July 07, 2021 6:13 AM
> *To:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Definition of “personal pronoun"
>
> Here's a new version of the definition that addresses Ian's point
> about Korean:
>
> "A personal pronoun is a form that (i) denotes a speech role
> (speaker/producer and/or hearer/comprehender) OR that is an
> anaphoric form which does not contain a noun AND (ii) that can be
> used in a complement clause coreferentially with a matrix clause
> argument."
>
> By saying "anaphoric form *that does not contain a noun*", we
> exclude the Korean case where 'brother' can be used
> coreferentially. Maybe one should add "ordinary noun" or "a noun
> that can be used indefinitely", because someone might claim, for
> example, that Spanish "usted" is still a noun (e.g. because it has
> the noun-like plural "usted-es").
>
> Guillaume Segerer remarked that "pronoun" implies that it is not a
> noun, but my proposed definition of "personal pronoun" does not
> say that a personal pronoun is "a kind of pronoun", because I
> don't know how to define "pronoun" (with such traditional terms,
> an extensional definition is often all we can give, e.g.
> "/pronoun/ is a cover term for /personal pronoun/, /interrogative
> pronoun/, ...")
>
> Re Mira's point about deictic uses of 3rd-person personal
> pronouns: I would say that this is not definitional – if a
> 3rd-person form cannot be used anaphorically, it will not be
> called "personal pronoun". But of course, personal pronouns often
> have other uses as well in particular languages. Comparative
> concepts rarely map perfectly onto language-particular categories.
>
> Guillaume also mentions person indexes (which are often included
> in personal pronoun charts), and this led me to look again at what
> I said in my 2013 paper about person indexes: I distinguish
> between cross-indexes, gramm-indexes, and pro-indexes, and the
> latter are actually included in "pronoun" (contrasting with "free
> pronouns"). So I now say that "a personal pronoun is a form
> that..." (not "a personal pronoun is a free form that...").
>
> Best,
> Martin
>
> Am 06.07.21 um 20:48 schrieb Mira Ariel:
>
> But what about (not so common, but attested) deictic
> references (first-mention) to 3^rd person using "personal
> pronouns"?
>
> Mira
>
> *From:* Lingtyp
> [mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>] *On Behalf
> Of *Martin Haspelmath
> *Sent:* Tuesday, July 6, 2021 1:48 AM
> *To:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Definition of “personal pronoun"
>
> Maybe the following will work:
>
> "A personal pronoun is a free form that (i) denotes a speech
> role (speaker/producer and/or hearer/comprehender) OR that is
> used as an anaphoric form AND (ii) that can be used in a
> complement clause coreferentially with a matrix clause argument."
>
> This is a disjunctive definition that brings together
> locuphoric forms ('I', 'we', 'you') and 3rd-person anaphoric
> (or "endophoric") forms, following the Western tradition (but
> not following any kind of compelling logic).
>
> It seems that personal pronouns need to be delimited from
> three types of somewhat doubtful forms:
>
> – person indexes (I do not include bound forms under "personal
> pronoun" here, following my 2013 paper on person indexes:
> https://zenodo.org/record/1294059
> <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fzenodo.org%2Frecord%2F1294059&data=04%7C01%7Cedith%40uwm.edu%7Cc7ca53d9bdc74028925508d942239270%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637613542830617432%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=ZtEIpJozHjX0eahAvlrusANf%2BvyMuoMSVz%2Ff1Kz98E8%3D&reserved=0>)
> – demonstratives
> – titles like "Your Majesty"
>
> I think that if a language has a form like "that-one" or
> "your-majesty" that can be used coreferentially in a
> complement clause, one will regard it as a personal pronoun:
>
> (a) "My sister(i) thinks that that-one(i) has an answer."
> (b) "Does your-majesty(i) think that your-majesty(i) has an
> answer?"
>
> In German, the polite second-person pronoun "Sie" (which has
> Third-Person syntax) can be used in (b), but the demonstrative
> "die" can hardly be used in (a), so it would not count as a
> personal pronoun (yet). However, in Hindi-Urdu and Mongolian,
> as mentioned by Ian, the demonstrative can be used in this way
> (I think), so it would count as a personal pronoun.
>
> I don't think we need the general notion of "person" to define
> "personal pronoun". Wikipedia's current definition is
> therefore quite confusing
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_pronoun
> <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPersonal_pronoun&data=04%7C01%7Cedith%40uwm.edu%7Cc7ca53d9bdc74028925508d942239270%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637613542830627425%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=2jxkLpfMNSxhaCGHsTbo%2F3s1x0npD%2FhYf7GP4DyFpUs%3D&reserved=0>).
>
> Thanks for this interesting challenge, Ian! It seems to me
> that quite a few of our traditional terms CAN be defined, but
> their definitions are not obvious at all (and the textbooks
> don't usually give the definitions).
>
> Best,
> Martin
>
> Am 06.07.21 um 06:53 schrieb JOO, Ian [Student]:
>
> Dear typologists,
>
> I’m having a hard time trying to find a definition of a
> “personal pronoun”.
> One definition is that a personal pronoun refers to a
> literal person, a human being. But then again, non-human
> pronouns like English /it/ are also frequently included as
> a personal pronoun.
> Another definition seems to be that “personal” refers to a
> grammatical person and not a literal person. Thus,
> /it/ refers to the (non-human) 3rd person, therefore it is
> a personal pronoun.
> But then again, demonstratives, interrogative, and
> indefinite pronouns also refer to the 3rd person. (This
> /is/ a book, who /is /that man, anything /is /possible)
> Then are they also personal pronouns?
> What’s the clearest definition of a personal pronoun, if any?
>
>
> From Hong Kong,
>
> Ian
>
>
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> --
>
> Martin Haspelmath
>
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6
>
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
> https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522 <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.shh.mpg.de%2Femployees%2F42385%2F25522&data=04%7C01%7Cedith%40uwm.edu%7Cc7ca53d9bdc74028925508d942239270%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637613542830637422%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=gFx8ZWGDEG7D5HQhsFHEo1aQRX88d7XSD4t%2Bb2p5bBE%3D&reserved=0>
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> --
>
> Martin Haspelmath
>
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6
>
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
> https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522 <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.shh.mpg.de%2Femployees%2F42385%2F25522&data=04%7C01%7Cedith%40uwm.edu%7Cc7ca53d9bdc74028925508d942239270%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637613542830647413%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=Hu28qBYmr6dNrL57FWXE%2F3kmHnU%2FWRGWxwM3I%2FtsrIQ%3D&reserved=0>
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--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
https://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/42385/25522
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