scholarly journals The Syntax of Dagbani personal pronouns: an analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-140
Author(s):  
Abukari Kwame
Keyword(s):  
Native Speaker ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Pronominal System ◽  
Germanic Languages ◽  
Semantic Referent

Cross-linguistically, personal pronouns are noted as being deficient in relation to some morphosyntactic and phonological properties. Some striking asymmetries have been identified between strong and weak personal pronouns in relation to modification, coordination/conjunction, whether they have a semantic referent, and can encode focus. This study explores the personal pronominal system of Dagbani along Cardinaletti and Starke’s (1994) typology and observed asymmetries. Using insights from published literature on Dagbani pronouns as well as my understanding as a native speaker, I argue that, unlike personal pronouns in Romance/Germanic languages, Dagbani personal pronouns can be modified by quantifiers, can be coordinated, and can occur in conjunction constructions, as well as encode topic and focus as salient semantic discourse properties. Furthermore, the pre/post verbal distinctions among nonemphatic pronominal forms in Dagbani still hold, even as these occur in coordinated and modified constructions, due to structural constraints imposed on them by coordinating conjuctions and quantifiers.

scholarly journals A native origin for Present-Day English they, their, them

Diachronica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelle Cole
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Person Plural ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
The North ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Pronominal System ◽  
Germanic Languages

Abstract It is commonly held that Present-Day English they, their, them are not descended from Old English but derive from the Old Norse third-person plural pronouns þeir, þeira, þeim. This paper argues that the early northern English orthographic and distributional textual evidence agrees with an internal trajectory for the ‘þ-’ type personal pronouns in the North and indicates an origin in the Old English demonstratives þā, þāra, þām. The Northern Middle English third-person plural pronominal system was the result of the reanalysis from demonstrative to personal pronoun that is common cross-linguistically in Germanic and non-Germanic languages alike.

scholarly journals Retentions of Indo-Aryan grammatical elements in Norwegian Para-Romani

1970 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 153-168
Author(s):  
Guro Fløgstad
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Pronominal System

The present article sets out to describe the system of personal pronouns in Norwegian Para-Romani.* As we shall see, thepronominal system constitutes one of the few remnants of original Indic elements in the grammatical lexicon of Norwegian Para-Romani. In Norwegian Para-Romani, the original Inda-Aryan grammar, morphology and syntax have, with few exceptions, beenreplaced with Norwegian ones. However, the personal pronouns originate in possessive pronouns in original Romani. This article has three parts. First, I give a brief introduction to the notion of Para-Romani itself and specifically to the Norwegian variety. Secondly, I give a description of the pronominal system. Thirdly, I place the data in a semantic-diachronic frame.

A comparative approach to the pronominal system in Transeurasian

2020 ◽  
pp. 554-584
Author(s):  
Michal Schwarz ◽  
Ondřej Srba ◽  
Václav Blažek
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
The Third ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Pronominal System

The present chapter focuses mostly on personal pronouns in Transeurasian languages. A brief introduction describes the main typological similarities and differences among the pronominal systems of all branches. The main part gives a summary of the declension of personal pronouns in the five branches. The overview is based on sets of tables with declensions of Turkic (separately for subgroups), Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese branches. Further tables reconstruct pronominal declensions for the daughter protolanguages and the final result is an attempt to reconstruct and comment on the Transeurasian protosystem. The third part gives an overview of other types of pronouns, mainly demonstratives, possessive and reflexive forms, interrogatives with related indefinite and negative forms. At the end of the chapter, internal loanwords and elements borrowed from other than Transeurasian languages are mentioned.

scholarly journals Morphosyntax Analysis of Acehnese Clitic

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 212
Author(s):  
Denni Iskandar ◽  
Mulyadi ◽  
Iskandar Abdul Samad
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pronominal System ◽  
Grammatical Theories

Clitic has challenged many grammatical theories because it is a combination between syntax and morphology. At most theory, clitization is considered as a phenomenon of phrase because the clan of its form is similar to affixes attached to whole phrase. Some experts claim that clitic is one form that is difficult to identify and classify. This qualitative research investigates the clitic of Acehnese in the perspective of morphosyntax. This research found that Acehnese consists of proclitic and enclitic. The function is to emphasize the topic being talked by the subject. In general, Acehnese clitic is a relatively complex personal pronoun because Acehnese’s pronominal system is identical with the content of morality (politeness and friendship). Each personal pronoun has its own proclitic and enclitic including the adjustment of clitic for variant personal pronouns which refers to the level of politeness. In addition to personal pronoun, the clitic in Acehnese is also used to refer to noun or nounphrase either to animals, plants, or other types of nouns.

Small-scale patterns in a larger picture

2021 ◽  
Vol 126 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-106
Author(s):  
Barbara Sonnenhauser ◽  
Anastasia Escher
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Favorable Environment ◽  
Pronominal System ◽  
Induced Changes ◽  
Object Indexing

Abstract Telling apart family-internal developments from contact-induced changes and socio-geographically conditioned areal trends is still one of the main challenges in tracing the development - and stability - of languages. Notably prima facie contact phenomena might turn out to have resulted from the interaction of a variety of sources upon closer inspection; assessing their interaction is a crucial requirement for comprehending the dynamics of change. Based on the example of simplification patterns in the system of short personal pronouns observed in the Balkan Slavic dialects located in the territory of North Macedonian and Greece, the present paper illustrates the necessity of identifying the multiplicity of triggers and their interaction, thereby making a case for the relevance of small-scale, transient patterns in understanding diachronic processes. In particular, it places the simplifications within the pronominal system into the larger context of differential object indexing by preverbal pronominal elements in the Balkan languages. With the loss of agreement distinctions on pronouns being characteristic for the last phase in the emergence of object indexing, both processes appear to be closely related. Obviously, in this case, the convergence of various different processes has created a favorable environment for the mutual reinforcement and stabilization of two otherwise highly volatile phenomena.

scholarly journals Prescriptive infinitives in the modern North Germanic languages: An ancient phenomenon in child-directed speech

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-276
Author(s):  
Janne Bondi Johannessen
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Child Language ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Very Old ◽  
The North ◽  
Very Young Children ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Syntactic Properties ◽  
Germanic Languages

The prescriptive infinitive can be found in the North Germanic languages, is very old, and yet is largely unnoticed and undescribed. It is used in a very limited pragmatic context of a pleasant atmosphere by adults towards very young children, or towards pets or (more rarely) adults. It has a set of syntactic properties that distinguishes it from the imperative: Negation is pre-verbal, subjects are pre-verbal, subjects are third person and are only expressed by lexical DPs, not personal pronouns. It can be found in modern child language corpora, but probably originated beforead500. The paper is largely descriptive, but some theoretical solutions to the puzzles of this construction are proposed.

scholarly journals The characteristics and the communicative function of pronouns (Western and Eastern European languages)

2020 ◽  
Vol 210 ◽  
pp. 21008
Author(s):  
Nataliia Epifantseva ◽  
Anastasiia Baluta ◽  
Svetlana Bukhtiiarova ◽  
Alina Tsepeleva
Keyword(s):  
Communication Process ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Communicative Function ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Latin Language ◽  
Syntactic Function ◽  
Pronominal System

Grammatical and syntactic characteristics of pronouns are mainly considered based on the material of French grammatical system, which implemented the analytical tendencies of the Latin language in the course of evolution. It has been established that the major opposition in the pronominal system, that is the opposition of the 1st and 2nd person forms to the 3rd person forms, is an important factor in the communicative function of pronouns. In the substitutive function, pronominal forms are distinguished by the presence of an antecedent: substitutes of the 3rd person as well as personal pronouns that are the substitutes of the 1st and 2nd person. It has been revealed that personal pronouns are independent and do not require the preliminary use of the substituted form. The syntactic function of pronouns as an indicator differentiating a simple/complex sentence has been noted. The communicative function of a pronoun has been particularly pointed out. Thus, the forms ‘read, reads’ in the context of indicating the grammatical person, could represent the sender/recipient/subject of communication, in this way implementing the function of the communicative role of the person in the speaking process. The results of the research allow to state that a pronoun, forming a complex system with oppositions of forms based on different principles, acts as a significant element of the communication process.

scholarly journals Embedded imperatives in Semitic, Germanic, and other languages

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-86
Author(s):  
Lutz Edzard
Keyword(s):  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Descriptive Analysis ◽  
Direct Speech ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Pronominal System ◽  
Germanic Languages

Several Semitic and Germanic languages, just as languages belonging to other language families (Slovenian, Korean), embed imperatives and thus use direct speech in syntactical context, where most other languages would use subordinate clauses. This kind of embedding can entail “shifting indexicals” and “imposters”, i.e. the reference to one and the same person with different persons in the verbal and pronominal system, even within one and the same phrase. In this paper, departing from the Germanic and other data presented so far in this context, I attempt a descriptive analysis of this phenomenon focusing on Semitic, with only hints to elements of a formal analysis.

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