Personal pronouns - form, function, and grammaticalization

497 Pages·2004·2.728 MB·English

by  Helmbrecht, Johannes

Personal Pronouns - Form, Function, and
Grammaticalization

Johannes Helmbrecht (University of Erfurt)

Habilitationschrift

Erfurt 2004
Contents

FIGURES.........................................................................................................................................................6
TABLES...........................................................................................................................................................8
ABBREVIATIONS.........................................................................................................................................9
1. INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................11
1.1 SUBJECT OF THE STUDY AND SOME BASIC CONCEPTS....................................................................11
1.2 SOME PROBLEMS IN PREVIOUS RESEARCH.....................................................................................15
1.3 OUTLINE OF THE STUDY................................................................................................................18
PART I...........................................................................................................................................................23
2. A FUNCTIONAL VIEW ON LANGUAGE......................................................................................24
2.1 THE NOTION OF FUNCTION IN LANGUAGE......................................................................................24
2.2 A FUNCTIONAL VIEW ON PERSONAL PRONOUNS............................................................................25
2.2.1 Person reference......................................................................................................................25
2.2.2 The Iconicity of personal pronouns.........................................................................................26
2.2.3 Pronouns and the syntactic and pragmatic context.................................................................27
2.2.4 On the interaction of semantics and pragmatics in pronoun usage.........................................30
2.3 A FRAMEWORK FOR THE STUDY OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS............................................................33
2.4 DATA AND METHOD OF LANGUAGE SAMPLING..............................................................................38
3. PERSONAL PRONOUNS – THE THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.........................................49
3.1 THE DOUBLE-SIDED NATURE OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS.................................................................49
3.2 FOUNDATIONS OF PRONOUN USAGE..............................................................................................56
3.2.1 Communication........................................................................................................................57
3.2.2 Speech act participants............................................................................................................63
3.2.3 The identification of pronominal referents..............................................................................67
3.2.4 A critical examination of the theory of double indexicality.....................................................75
3.3 A SEMIOTIC VIEW ON PERSONAL PRONOUNS.................................................................................83
3.3.1 Referring expressions..............................................................................................................83
3.3.2 Are personal pronouns indexical symbols?.............................................................................84
3.3.3 The relational structure of person indexing............................................................................94
4. A TYPOLOGY OF PRONOMINAL CATEGORIES: SEMANTICS..........................................100
4.1 THE DEFINITION OF THE OBJECT: PERSONAL PRONOUNS AND PRONOMINAL AFFIXES..................100
4.2 THE DETERMINATION OF PRONOMINAL PARADIGMS....................................................................101
Contents 3
4.2.1 Summary................................................................................................................................109
4.3 ESSENTIAL CATEGORIES: PERSON AND NUMBER..........................................................................109
4.3.1 Personal pronouns without number marking........................................................................116
4.3.2 Personal pronouns with number marking.............................................................................124
4.3.3 Inclusive and exclusive..........................................................................................................136
4.3.4 Minimal, unit augmented, augmented....................................................................................143
4.4 SOME TYPOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS............................................................................................150
4.5 CATEGORIES FOR ANAPHORIC REFERENCE..................................................................................151
4.5.1 Absolute and relative semantic distinctions in third person pronouns..................................154
4.5.2 Discourse properties of participants and anaphoric third person pronouns.........................161
4.5.3 Definite and indefinite third person pronouns.......................................................................163
4.6 THE CLASSIFICATION OF SOCIAL RELATIONS...............................................................................169
4.6.1 Addressee honorification with personal pronouns................................................................173
4.6.2 Referent honorification with personal pronouns...................................................................178
4.6.3 Sex, age, generation, and kinship relations in pronouns.......................................................181
4.6.4 Properties of the speaker: male versus female speaking.......................................................184
5. MORPHOSYNTACTIC PROPERTIES OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS.....................................186
5.1 MODIFICATION............................................................................................................................188
5.2 APPOSITION.................................................................................................................................193
5.2.1 Appositive relative clauses....................................................................................................193
5.2.2 Pronouns with numerals........................................................................................................195
5.2.3 Inclusory pronominals...........................................................................................................198
5.2.4 Summary................................................................................................................................203
5.3 COORDINATION...........................................................................................................................204
5.4 PRONOUNS AS COMPLEMENTS.....................................................................................................207
5.4.1 Summary................................................................................................................................215
5.5 EMPHATIC PRONOUNS.................................................................................................................216
6. THE GRAMMATICALIZATION OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS...............................................222
6.1 FROM EMPHATIC PRONOUN TO PERSONAL AGREEMENT AFFIX.....................................................223
6.2 FROM COMPLEMENT PRONOUN TO PERSONAL AGREEMENT AFFIX...............................................227
6.3 LANGUAGES WITHOUT PERSON MARKING?..................................................................................230
6.4 PRONOUNS FROM LEXICAL ITEMS................................................................................................233
6.4.1 Summary................................................................................................................................241
6.5 COMPOSITION OF PRONOMINAL MEANINGS.................................................................................241
6.6 CATEGORY EXTENSION...............................................................................................................248
7. PERSON HIERARCHIES................................................................................................................267
7.1 MARKEDNESS THEORY................................................................................................................267
7.2 MARKEDNESS IN PRONOUNS AND PRONOMINAL MARKERS..........................................................270
7.2.1 Summary................................................................................................................................284
4 Personal Pronouns
PART II........................................................................................................................................................286
8. FIRST PERSON PRONOUNS.........................................................................................................287
8.1 DEFINITION.................................................................................................................................287
8.2 THE EMPATHY HIERARCHY.........................................................................................................287
8.3 FIRST PERSON AND POLITENESS...................................................................................................291
8.3.1 Theoretical aspects of politeness...........................................................................................291
8.3.2 Politeness distinctions in first person pronouns....................................................................293
8.4 FIRST PERSON AND THE SEMANTICS OF VERBS............................................................................297
8.5 TENSE AND MOOD CATEGORIES AND FIRST PERSON MARKING.....................................................302
8.5.1 The distribution of first persons with regard to tense/ mood: a text count............................303
8.5.2 Irrealis/ subjunctive...............................................................................................................305
8.5.3 Optative and volitional..........................................................................................................307
8.5.4 Future tense...........................................................................................................................309
8.5.5 Evidential...............................................................................................................................310
8.6 GRAMMATICALIZATION OF FIRST PERSON FORMS.......................................................................313
8.6.1 First person pronouns from nouns.........................................................................................315
8.6.2 First person pronouns from reflexive pronouns....................................................................317
8.6.3 First person pronouns from other deictic forms....................................................................318
8.6.4 First person pronouns from conjunct markers......................................................................319
8.6.5 Borrowing of first person pronouns.......................................................................................322
8.6.6 First person pronouns from indefinite pronouns...................................................................323
9. SECOND PERSON PRONOUNS....................................................................................................327
9.1 CATEGORICAL DISTINCTIONS OF THE SECOND PERSON................................................................327
9.1.1 Number distinctions...............................................................................................................327
9.1.2 Inclusive/ exclusive distinction?............................................................................................328
9.1.3 Generic usage of the 2SG pronoun........................................................................................331
9.1.4 Sex of speaker in second person pronouns............................................................................333
9.2 COMMANDS................................................................................................................................334
9.2.1 Functional background..........................................................................................................334
9.2.2 Imperative marking and person values..................................................................................335
9.3 QUESTIONS..................................................................................................................................342
9.3.1 Functional background and typology....................................................................................342
9.3.2 Interrogative clauses and person marking............................................................................343
9.4 SECOND PERSON PRONOUNS AND POLITENESS.............................................................................347
9.4.1 Polite pronouns in German...................................................................................................347
9.4.2 Power and solidarity.............................................................................................................349
9.4.3 Linguistic politeness..............................................................................................................351
9.4.4 Cross-linguistic distribution of politeness distinctions in pronouns......................................353
9.5 GRAMMATICALIZATION OF SECOND PERSON PRONOUNS.............................................................356
9.5.1 A diachronic politeness hierarchy?.......................................................................................358
Contents 5
9.5.2 Nominal and pronominal sources for polite second person pronouns..................................359
9.5.3 Various grammaticalization processes..................................................................................361
PART III......................................................................................................................................................367
10. THIRD PERSON PRONOUNS...................................................................................................368
10.1 FUNCTIONAL BACKGROUND........................................................................................................368
10.2 THIRD PERSON PRONOUNS AND OTHER CO-REFERENCE ESTABLISHING DEVICES.........................369
10.3 CO-REFERENCE MARKING AND THE PERSON HIERARCHY............................................................372
10.4 LANGUAGES WITHOUT THIRD PERSON PRONOUNS.......................................................................373
10.5 THIRD VERSUS FIRST/ SECOND PERSON PRONOUNS: PARADIGMATIC DIFFERENCES......................376
10.6 CATEGORICAL DISTINCTIONS OF THIRD PERSON PRONOUNS: GENDER.........................................378
10.7 GRAMMATICALIZATION OF THIRD PERSON PRONOUNS................................................................384
10.7.1 Third person pronouns from nouns...................................................................................384
10.7.2 Third person pronouns from verbs...................................................................................389
10.7.3 Third person pronouns from demonstrative pronouns......................................................390
10.7.4 Third person pronouns from other pronouns....................................................................392
10.7.5 From free to bound third person pronouns.......................................................................395
10.8 A TYPOLOGICAL RARE PATTERN.................................................................................................409
11. PRONOMINAL PARADIGMS AND SYNTACTIC FUNCTIONS.........................................413
11.1 REFERENTIAL EXPRESSION TYPES AND SYNTACTIC FUNCTIONS – A TEXT COUNT........................414
11.2 THE UNMARKED PRONOMINAL PARADIGM..................................................................................420
11.3 THE UNMARKED PERSON CATEGORY...........................................................................................426
12. DIRECT – INVERSE ALIGNMENT TYPES............................................................................430
12.1 THE NOTION OF DIRECT-INVERSE MARKING SYSTEMS.................................................................430
12.2 THE FUNCTIONAL BACKGROUND OF DIRECT/ INVERSE MARKING SYSTEMS.................................434
12.3 THE TYPOLOGY OF DIRECT/ INVERSE MARKING SYSTEMS............................................................438
12.3.1 Changes in the order of pronominal clitics and affixes....................................................444
12.3.2 Passive and antipassive clauses for inverse participant configurations...........................449
12.3.3 Special case marking for inverse configurations..............................................................452
12.3.4 Different pronominal paradigms for direct/ inverse configurations.................................455
12.3.5 Portmanteau pronouns for local participant configurations............................................459
12.4 ON THE GRAMMATICALIZATION OF THE DIRECT-INVERSE ALIGNMENT TYPE...............................463
INDEX OF LANGUAGES.........................................................................................................................467
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................473
Figures

FIGURE 1. EMPATHY HIERARCHY.............................................................................................................14
FIGURE 2. SYNTACTIC FUNCTIONS OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS....................................................................52
FIGURE 3. DOUBLE-SIDED NATURE OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS...................................................................54
FIGURE 4. DEGREES OF MORPHOLOGIZATION OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS...................................................54
FIGURE 5. TAXONOMY OF COMMUNICATIVE GOALS (KELLER 1994:166)..................................................58
FIGURE 6. BASIS FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF PRONOMINAL REFERENTS..................................................75
FIGURE 7. THE RELATIONAL STRUCTURE OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS..........................................................95
FIGURE 8. ORDER OF FRENCH DO AND IO PRONOMINAL CLITICS (JUDGE & HEALEY1995:60)..............102
FIGURE 9. REFERENCE SETS OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON/ NUMBER CATEGORIES..........................111
FIGURE 10. REFERENTIAL POSSIBILITIES OF THE 2SG/PL.........................................................................113
FIGURE 11. DIFFERENTIATION OF PERSON VALUES IN A SINGULAR PARADIGM.........................................125
FIGURE 12. TYPE I WITH PLURAL DISTINCTION.........................................................................................126
FIGURE 13. TYPE II WITH PLURAL DISTINCTION........................................................................................126
FIGURE 14. TYPE III WITH PLURAL DISTINCTION.......................................................................................127
FIGURE 15. TYPE IV WITH PLURAL DISTINCTION......................................................................................129
FIGURE 16. FIRST AND SECOND PERSON WITH SINGULAR AND PLURAL DISTINCTION................................130
FIGURE 17. NO SINGULAR/ PLURAL DISTINCTION IN THE THIRD PERSON...................................................131
FIGURE 18. FULL NUMBER SPECIFICATION................................................................................................132
FIGURE 19. DUAL/ PLURAL DISTINCTION IN THE FIRST PERSON ONLY.......................................................133
FIGURE 20. UNATTESTED PATTERN OF AN INCLUSIVE/ EXCLUSIVE DISTINCTION......................................138
FIGURE 21. INCLUSIVE/ EXCLUSIVE DISTINCTION AND A SECOND PERSON PLURAL...................................139
FIGURE 22. INCLUSIVE/ EXCLUSIVE DISTINCTION AND A SECOND AND THIRD PERSON PLURAL.................139
FIGURE 23. INCLUSIVE/ EXCLUSIVE AS THE ONLY DUAL VALUES..............................................................141
FIGURE 24. INCLUSIVE/ EXCLUSIVE IN DUAL ONLY...................................................................................142
FIGURE 25. INCLUSIVE/ EXCLUSIVE IN PLURAL ONLY................................................................................142
FIGURE 26. FULLY SPECIFIED PARADIGM WITH INCLUSIVE/ EXCLUSIVE....................................................143
FIGURE 27. PERSON VALUE SPLIT PROCESSES: 1PL TO 1INCL.DU AND 1PL VALUE................................146
FIGURE 28. DIRECTIONS OF INCREASING PARADIGMATIC COMPLEXITY....................................................150
FIGURE 29. PRINCIPAL SOCIAL RELATIONS AFFECTING PERSON REFERENCE.............................................171
FIGURE 30. TAXONOMY OF SYNTACTIC RELATIONS (LEHMANN 1983:341)..............................................188
FIGURE 31. SETS OF BOUND PRONOUNS IN ABKHAZ..................................................................................212
FIGURE 32. CORRELATION BETWEEN THE DEGREE OF MORPHOLOGIZATION AND CASE MARKING OF........214
FIGURE 33. CORRELATION BETWEEN THE DEGREES OF MORPHOLOGIZATION OF PRONOUNS AND
COMPLEMENT EXPRESSION TYPES.........................................................................................................215
FIGURE 34. FROM COMPLEMENT PRONOUN TO PERSONAL AGREEMENT MARKER......................................228
FIGURE 35. DIRECTIONS OF INCREASING PARADIGMATIC COMPLEXNESS..................................................249
FIGURE 36. CATEGORY EXTENSION AND CATEGORY SHIFT IN PRONOUNS.................................................252
Contents 7
FIGURE 37. CATEGORY EXTENSION/ SHIFT HIERARCHY I: NUMBER.........................................................253
FIGURE 38. CATEGORY EXTENSION/SHIFT HIERARCHY II: PERSON..........................................................258
FIGURE 39. EMPATHY HIERARCHY (KUNO & KABURAKI 1977)...............................................................289
FIGURE 40. REFERENCE SETS FOR THE SECOND PERSON CATEGORY VALUES...........................................327
FIGURE 41. FROM NOUN TO ANAPHORIC PRONOUN...................................................................................384
FIGURE 42. FROM VERB TO THIRD PERSON PRONOUN................................................................................390
FIGURE 43. FROM DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUN TO THIRD PERSON (ANAPHORIC) PRONOUN.......................391
FIGURE 44. PARADIGMATIZATION HIERARCHY: THIRD PERSON PRONOUNS (CF. MITHUN 1991:87)..........400
FIGURE 45. REVISED PARADIGMATIZATION HIERARCHY: THIRD PERSON PRONOUNS...............................406
FIGURE 46. A) THE PERSON HIERARCHY (DECLARATIVE CLAUSES):..........................................................431
FIGURE 47. THE STRUCTURE OF THE YUKULTA CLITIC COMPLEX (PAMA NYUNGAN; KEEN.....................444
FIGURE 48. YUKULTA INTRANSITIVE CLITIC COMPLEXES (PAMA NYUNGAN; KEEN 1983:216FF).............445
FIGURE 49. MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE VERB IN WEST GREENLANDIC (ESKIMO-ALEUT;
SCHULTZ-LORENTZEN 1945)................................................................................................................446
FIGURE 50. MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE TRANSITIVE VERB IN YIMAS (LOWER SEPIK)..............448
FIGURE 51. FROM ACCUSATIVE TO DIRECT/ INVERSE ALIGNMENT TYPE I..................................................454
FIGURE 52. FROM ACCUSATIVE TO DIRECT/ INVERSE ALIGNMENT TYPE II................................................455
FIGURE 53. DIRECT/ INVERSE MARKING PATTERNS IN TUPINAMBÁ (CF. JENSEN 1990:120-23).................456
Tables

TABLE 1. PERSONAL PRONOUNS AS REFERENTIAL TERMS........................................................................36
TABLE 2. PERSONAL PRONOUNS EMBEDDED IN NUCLEUS AND CORE/ EXTENDED PREDICATION..............37
TABLE 3. PERSONAL PRONOUNS EMBEDDED IN PROPOSITIONS AND CLAUSAL SPEECH ACTS....................38
TABLE 4. SAMPLE LANGUAGES................................................................................................................41
TABLE 5. SYNTAGMATIC STRATEGIES TO EXPRESS PLURALITY OF PRONOUNS.......................................122
TABLE 6. PRONOMINAL FORMS FOR POLITE ADDRESSEE REFERENCE.....................................................174
TABLE 7. THIRD PERSON HONORIFIC PRONOUNS....................................................................................179
TABLE 8. PATTERNS OF THE COMPOSITION OF PRONOMINAL MEANINGS................................................242
TABLE 9. POSSIBLE PROCESSES OF AN EXTENSION OF THE PERSON CATEGORY......................................260
TABLE 10. TEXTUAL FREQUENCY OF SINGULAR/ PLURAL/ DUAL CATEGORY IN NOUNS (GREENBERG
1966:32)...............................................................................................................................................270
TABLE 11. FREQUENCIES OF PERSONAL PRONOUNS FROM THE INDEX OF TERENCE'S PLAY (GREENBERG
1966:35)...............................................................................................................................................271
TABLE 12. FREQUENCY OF PERSONAL INFLECTION (SUBJECT) FROM WRITTEN SPANISH..........................277
TABLE 13. FREQUENCY OF PERSONAL INFLECTION (SUBJECT) FROM SPOKEN SPANISH............................278
TABLE 14. FREQUENCY OF PERSONAL PRONOUN IN GERMAN – TEXT GENRE: DRAMA.............................280
TABLE 15. SEMANTIC CATEGORIZATION OF VERBS..................................................................................299
TABLE 16. DISTRIBUTION OF REFERENTIAL EXPRESSION TYPES IN DIFFERENT PREDICATE TYPES............299
TABLE 17. DISTRIBUTION OF REFERENTIAL EXPRESSION TYPES WITH RESPECT TO TENSE AND MOOD
CATEGORIES OF THE VERB....................................................................................................................304
TABLE 18. LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL SOURCES FOR FIRST PERSON PRONOUNS..................................315
TABLE 19. DISTRIBUTION OF REFERENTIAL EXPRESSION TYPES WITH RESPECT TO IMPERATIVE AND......344
TABLE 20. DISTRIBUTION OF PRONOMINAL AND NOMINAL SOURCES FOR SECOND PERSON POLITE..........360
TABLE 21. PROTO-BANTU NOUN CLASSES (WALD 1990:1000F)..............................................................387
TABLE 22. NKORE-KIGA SUBJ. AND OBJ. THIRD PERSON PRONOUNS (BANTU; TAYLOR...........................388
TABLE 23. FROM PERSONAL INFLECTED AUXILIARY TO A NEW PERSONAL PARADIGM IN POLISH (ANDERSEN
1987:24)...............................................................................................................................................397
TABLE 24. ASYMMETRIES WITH REGARD TO CATEGORICAL DISTINCTIONS OF THE THIRD PERSON:.........401
TABLE 25. ASYMMETRIES WITH REGARD TO CATEGORICAL DISTINCTION OF THE THIRD PERSON:...........402
TABLE 26. SYNTACTIC FUNCTION AND REFERENTIAL EXPRESSION TYPES................................................416
TABLE 27. REFERENTIAL EXPRESSION TYPES AND SYNTACTIC FUNCTIONS..............................................418
TABLE 28. DIRECT VERSUS INVERSE PARTICIPANT CONFIGURATIONS IN TRANSITIVE CLAUSES.........435
TABLE 29. DIRECT PARTICIPANT CONFIGURATIONS AND THE PERSON VALUE OF THE ACTOR................437
Abbreviations

Grammatical glosses and abbreviation of linguistic terms used in this study follow in
general the recommendation of the EUROTYP Guidelines (cf. Lehmann et al. 1993)

1 first person HHON super honorific
1→2 first person acting on a HON honorific
second person HUM human
1HML speaker reference ILL illative
(humbling) IMP imperative
1HON speaker reference plus INCL inclusive
addressee honorific IND indicative
2 second person INDEF indefinite
2HON addressee reference, INDIR.EVID indirect evidence
addressee honorific INF infinitive
3 third person INST instrumental case
3HON referent honorific INSTR instrument
A transitive subject INT interrogative
ABS absolutive case INTR intransitive
ACC accusative case INTS intensive
ACR actor IO indirect object
AG agent IPFV imperfective
ASSOC associative ITER iterative
AUX auxiliary LK linker
BEN beneficiary LOC location
CAUS causative M masculine
CLF numeral/ noun classifier MAN manner
COM comitative MOE modal-essive case
COMP complementizer NT neuter
DAT dative case NEG negative
DEF definite NFUT non-future tense
DIR direction OBJ direct object
DIR.EVID direct evidence OBL oblique
DIST far (remote) OBV obviative
from deictic center OPT optative
(versus proximal) P transitive patient
DO direct object PAT patient
DU dual PATH path
EMPH emphatic PFV perfective
EP epenthesis PL plural
ERG ergative case POSS possessor/ possessive
EXCL exclusive pronoun
EXP experiencer POSTPOS postposition
FAM familiar PROX proximal (versus distal)
FEM feminine PREP preposition
FUT future tense PRS present tense
GEN genitive case PRX proximate (versus
10 Personal Pronouns
obviative) SO source
PST past tense ST stem
REC recipient TOP topic
REL relativizer TR transitive
RFL reflexive UGR undergoer
S intransitive subject UNSPEC unspecified
SAP speech act participant VEN venitive
SBJ subject VOL volitional
SG singular