[Lingtyp] Grammaticalization of 1SG verb forms

[David Gil]

Dear all,

In Papuan Malay, there is a curious use of 1SG pronouns to denote the 
protagonist of a narrative which is actually (as I understand it, at 
least) about a fictitious 3rd person protagonist.  So for example, a 
story about the monkey-men who live in the mountains might go something 
like "So one day, I started climbing the mountain ... and then, 
suddenly, I saw a group of men with tails ... and then they shouted at 
me and chased me away ..." etc.  My interpretation of this usage of the 
1SG pronoun (though I could be wrong) is that it's "merely" some kind of 
stylistic convention to denote a prototypical unknown protagonist.

Unlike the other examples discussed so far in this thread, there is 
nothing grammatically unusual about this kind of "dummy discourse 1SG 
pronoun usage"; what's odd about the construction is purely semantic — 
presumably, nobody is meant to believe that the narrator literally did 
all of the things reported on themselves. Still, the construction shares 
with the other examples discussed the property of making use of a 1SG 
pronoun to denote a referent other than the speaker.

A comparative comment:  Has anybody observed a similar "dummy discourse" 
usage of the 1SG pronoun in other languages of New Guinea?  Papuan Malay 
differs from other Malay/Indonesian dialects in that it does not exhibit 
pronoun avoidance; in other Malay/Indonesian dialects, the same story 
would be more likely to be told making use of a conventionalized 
character name, such as, for example, "Yong Dolah" in parts of Riau 
province in Sumatra.

David


On 12/11/2021 03:19, Aigul Zakirova wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
> I am wondering whether you know of any languages in which a finite 1SG 
> verb form (e.g. non-past) is also used in modal contexts (e.g. 
> optative or deontic) with subjects which are not 1SG. I am asking 
> because I came across such a use in languages I work on, Meadow Mari 
> and Hill Mari (Uralic).
>
> In the examples below a non-past 1SG form is combined with /əl’e/, a 
> form of the verb 'to be', to yield an optative reading. In other types 
> of optative utterances əl’e is also used, so əl’e is not very 
> interesting; what interests me is the use of the non-past 1SG form.
>
> Meadow Mari
> erla jür lij-am əl’-e!
> tomorrow rain become-NPST.1SG be-AOR.3SG
> ‘If only it rained tomorrow!’
>
> Meadow Mari
> maksim erla tol-am əl’-e
> Maksim tomorrow arrive-NPST.1SG be-AOR.3SG
> ‘If only Maksim (person's name) arrived tomorrow!’
>
> To put it more broadly, if you have encountered cases where a certain 
> "petrified" person-number verb form is used in atypical contexts which 
> are distant from the original form's meaning, I am also interested in 
> such cases. What comes to my mind is
> -formal coincidence or resemblance between indicative and imperative 
> 2PL forms
> -use of imperatives in Russian to convey abruptness (А он как побеги!) 
> or in conditional / concessive clauses (Сделай он это, все было бы 
> по-другому)
> But maybe there is something else on the matter?
>
> Best,
> Aigul Zakirova
>
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-- 
David Gil

Senior Scientist (Associate)
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany

Email:gil at shh.mpg.de
Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091
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