[Lingtyp] Questions on 'expanded' functions of person marking and pronouns

Wed Sep 25 21:32:25 UTC 2024

Dear Luis,

Regarding your second question, something that comes to mind is "inclusory
coordination" or "inclusory pronouns" found in Austronesian languages (
https://doi.org/10.1353/ol.2000.0006), Australian languages (
http://hdl.handle.net/11343/39215), contact languages (
https://apics-online.info/parameters/20.chapter.html), among others. (In my
own worldwide survey work on coordination strategies [
https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.5546425] I made some extra
[unpublished] notes about a few African languages with similar
constructions, for example. I haven't specifically included this feature in
my coding of the sample at this time, so I don't have representative
statistics, although it seems relatively rare but not exceptionally so.
Maybe 5-10% of the worldwide sample languages worldwide, and especially
common in Australia and Austronesian?)

That is similar to but not the same as what you described, because these
inclusory pronouns are used usually in combination with one other noun
phrase, schematically something like "John {Ø/and/with} we went" meaning
'John and I went'. Sometimes group agreement on the verb is used instead of
a separate pronoun.

Trask (1992:56 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203393369) defines "conjunct
doubling" as something similar, as in Basque *Lisa ta biok joan gara* 'Lisa
and I went' (lit. 'Lisa and both-of-us we-went') where Lisa is included
within the plural group, and similarly (p.57) "conjunct union" as in
Turkish *Hasanla gittik* (Hasan-with we-went) 'Hasan and I went'. (I'm not
aware of more extensive work on "conjunct doubling" or "conjunct union" per
se, so I'm not sure if it's strictly equivalent to the "inclusory"
constructions.)

What you're describing seems like *summary* rather than *inclusion* so I
would suggest the label "summary pronoun" although I don't know if this has
been used previously. From my own survey of coordination strategies, this
seems rare, although at least one language in my sample has something
similar. Kugu Nganhcara (Pama-Nyungan, Australia; Smith & Johnson 2000:434)
expresses coordination without any conjunction but with a summarizing
pronoun as in:

ngaya nga'a-=wu pama kunhji nhingurum ngana uwa
1sgNOM fish-DAT man brother 3sgABL 1duexcNOM go
'His brother and I are going for fish.'

(Ablative case appears to be used here in a possessive function, hence
'his', although I wonder if the two nominals are syntactically equivalent.
I don't think this construction has been studied more generally in this
language than in this grammar sketch.)

Smith, Ian & Steve Johnson. 2000. Kugu Nganhcara. In Robert M. W. Dixon &
Barry J. Blake (eds.), Handbook of Australian Languages, vol. 5, 357–489.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.

But some of the usage of this construction appears to be the inclusory type
"when one of the constituents of the conjunction is predictable" so it can
be expressed only via the combined/summary pronoun. This suggests, although
I'm not sure, that "inclusory" constructions in other languages might also
sometimes allow both nouns to be overtly expressed as in your examples. In
fact, maybe "summary" would be an appropriate, more general term that can
include "inclusory" as a subtype, as well.

I'd suggest checking (1) whether inclusory constructions in other languages
are reported to allow both nouns to be overtly expressed (when
non-pronominal), and for your own data (2) whether pronouns and full nouns
behave similarly in this construction (are pronouns overtly expressed as
well?).

Daniel Ross
ALT webmaster
University of California, Riverside

On Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 1:31 PM Luis Ulloa via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I have two terminological questions, in relation to Shawi (Kawapanan,
> Peru), regarding (1) non-standard? functions of person marking, and (2) a
> construction used in lieu of NP coordination. Please feel free to recommend
> papers that deal with these issues. Thanks in advance.
>
> Question 1: How to differentiate two types of impersonal, and what terms
> should be used for them?
>
> The first impersonal is used for something people, or 'one' generally
> does, cf. Spanish reflexive/middle, and 'uno'.
>
> ENG: To get to campus, one takes the highway.
> SPA: Para ir a la uni, se/uno va por la carretera.
>
> Shawi uses first inclusive (1+2) person marking. This is not a plural. It
> is its own person category.
>
> Context: An instructional text on making masato (aka manioc beer)
> Wenu ya-ni'-patera, pa'-ne ta'shirechin ki'sha wa'te-re.
> masato DES-make-SEQ.1+2 go-IND.1+2 morning cassava uproot-IND.1+2
> `When one (lit. you and I) wants to make masato, one goes in the morning
> and pulls cassava (from the ground).'
>
> The second impersonal is used when someone, we don't know or even care
> who, did something. It seems comparable with passives in this regard.
>
> ENG: Did you hear? They shot Kennedy. / Kennedy was shot.
> SPA: Me contaron que asesinaron al presidente / que el presidente fue
> asesinado.
>
> Shawi uses third person plural marking.
>
> Context: End of a text
> Napuatun tuwayu pi'pamutuun-in tu-pi.
> therefore sp.bird have.crushed.head-IND.3SG say-IND.3PL
> `This is why the tuwayu has a crushed head, they say.'
>
> There is no passive in Shawi. Curiously though, the third person plural
> Indicative suffix (last suffix in the example above) is formally identical
> to a resultative nominalizer, whose cognate is used in the passive of a
> related language. Additionally, third plural Indicative -pi is formally
> unrelated to other Indicative suffixes (all of which start with -rV). So
> while there is no passive, there is a connection.
>
> I've seen both types being called 'impersonal passives', but this doesn't
> apply to Shawi (since it has no passive or middle) and it doesn't
> differentiate them.
>
> Question 2: There is no NP coordination in Shawi. To refer to multiple
> participants, one lists them out, and then uses the third person plural
> pronoun to refer back to them.
>
> Context: A boat is caught in a whirlpool and the young men do nothing
> Irui, Kanitu, Santu, inapita=wachi naranka iru-ria-rin.
> Eloy Calixto Santos 3PL=ASP? orange suck-ASP-IND.3SG
> Eloy, Calixto, Santos--they went on sucking oranges.
>
> The list of participants seems to be extra-clausal, and usually precedes
> all clausal elements. At the same time, it appears to be in apposition to
> the pronoun, since the list always directly precedes it (not too dissimilar
> from the apposition between non-restrictive relative clauses and their
> heads). The following example has OSV order, even though
> pragmatically-unmarked order is SOV. (OSV clauses do occur elsewhere when O
> is pragmatically-marked.)
>
> No context given:
> Ite katu-pi, ichi a'na-sa' inapita papa inan-in.
> agouti two-CLS.animal sp.monkey one-? 3PL father shoot-IND.3SG
> Father shot them--two agoutis, one monkey.
>
> The list of participants is not linked to a specific semantic nor
> grammatical role. In the previous examples, it was linked S and O
> respectively, so one might wonder if it is absolutive. In the following
> example, however, it is linked to A.
>
> Context: On why peach palms now bear fruits high up
> [I]pi', ite, shu'mi' inapita=ri ka'-pi.
> paca agouti rat 3PL=ERG eat-IND.3PL
> [P]acas, agoutis, rats--they would eat them (so the peach palm was made to
> be taller).
>
> Adverbials can occur before the list of participants.
>
> Context: Kunpanama (a hero/deity) is ordering birds to help him fight a
> giant snake
> Inakeran=wachi peni-sha, ku'pirashi' inapita sha'wite-rin.
> then=ASP? sp.bird-DIM sp.bird 3PL tell.ditr-IND.3SG
> Then, he told them--the little peni, ku'pirashi (birds)--the same thing.
>
> However, adverbials can also precede constituents that host
> second-position clitics. Constituents that host second-position clitics are
> pragmatically-marked and usually clause-initial. This to say that while the
> list is left-displaced, it is not in the most left-displaced... slot (let's
> say), exactly like other pragmatically-marked constituents in the language.
> I would present examples with second-position clitics, but at this point I
> might be burying the lede.
>
> In any case, the list of participants is likely extra-clausal and in
> apposition to the pronoun, which is treated as a pragmatically-marked
> constituent. Has anyone else come across this kind of construction? What
> would one call it? What would one call this use of the third plural pronoun?
>
> Thanks for reading.
>
> Best,
> Luis
> --
> Luis Ulloa (he/him)
> PhD Candidate
> Department of Linguistics
> University at Buffalo
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