[Lingtyp] Definition of “personal pronoun"
Sebastian Nordhoff
sebastian.nordhoff at glottotopia.de
Fri Jul 9 09:29:47 UTC 2021
Dear all,
I think it is useful to have a look at the context in which "personal
pronoun" is used. There is an opposition to "possessive pronoun",
"reflexive pronoun" etc. So "personal pronoun" is the kind of pronoun
which is not possessive, which is not reflexive and so on.
If only "pronoun" is used, without further qualification, normally
"personal pronoun" is intended. If someone says "The pronouns of
language X and language Y are similar", the standard interpretation
would be that this refers to personal pronouns, rather than to reflexive
pronouns or the like.
Sometimes it is important to clearly state that you are not interested
in possessive/reflexive/interrogative pronouns. In those cases "personal
pronoun" is used. I see this as a shorthand for "subject/object pronoun".
Obviously, there are languages with very neat 2x3 paradigms, and there
are languages where the paradigms are fuzzy at the edges and you get kin
terms for reference and various politeness effects.
If one sees "personal pronoun" as "subject/object pronoun", the question
of whether a given form (eg in Korean) is actually third person becomes
moot.
So, the fact that we call a certain set of items "personal pronouns" is
probably due to a) opposition to other categories and b) tradition. It
should not be taken to imply that the category of "person" plays any
role in there. (After all, possessive pronouns also encode person, but
AFAICS they are normally not considered personal pronouns).
Best wishes
Sebastian
On 7/8/21 5:17 PM, Paolo Ramat wrote:
> 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%7Cfcf0475684e1463b39ba08d941382d63%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637612532579177572%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=RbFRPnwDeMNZBZ6rSsbcgAFVtnzCtCLFLvJhSRf2Meg%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%7Cfcf0475684e1463b39ba08d941382d63%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637612532579187566%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=dD%2BshVMYknV2PzXdBgWrIIAYTUuUtpRdjQcgGctDfco%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____
>
> ____
>
>
> /Disclaimer:/____
>
> /This message (including any attachments) contains
> confidential information intended for a specific individual
> and purpose. If you are not the intended recipient, you
> should delete this message and notify the sender and The
> Hong Kong Polytechnic University (the University)
> immediately. Any disclosure, copying, or distribution of
> this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is
> strictly prohibited and may be unlawful./____
>
> /The University specifically denies any responsibility for
> the accuracy or quality of information obtained through
> University E-mail Facilities. Any views and opinions
> expressed are only those of the author(s) and do not
> necessarily represent those of the University and the
> University accepts no liability whatsoever for any losses or
> damages incurred or caused to any party as a result of the
> use of such information./____
>
>
>
>
> ____
>
> ___________________________________________________
>
> Lingtyp mailing list____
>
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>____
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flistserv.linguistlist.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Flingtyp&data=04%7C01%7Cedith%40uwm.edu%7Cfcf0475684e1463b39ba08d941382d63%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637612532579187566%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=H8oB0zqDHmOTOetiBLJTbR0QZV3i%2F6R5KvhC5MI8BYk%3D&reserved=0>____
>
>
>
>
> ____
>
> -- ____
>
> 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%7Cfcf0475684e1463b39ba08d941382d63%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637612532579197560%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=TK90tJ3oOqHQGUVMtDY7ylGIOPpqeFAjpPEkwfyb%2FKM%3D&reserved=0>____
>
>
>
> ____
>
> -- ____
>
> 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%7Cfcf0475684e1463b39ba08d941382d63%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637612532579207553%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=XzWfv5vruYrbbr0%2FsD%2BDZE3dDmU3SQ4SLHkCg3FgyJA%3D&reserved=0>____
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
> <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
More information about the Lingtyp
mailing list