The Pronominal Origin of an Evidential

Diachronica ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Botne
Keyword(s):  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Diachronic Analysis

SUMMARY Evidentials most commonly arise from reduced or reanalyzed verbs or tensed verb forms, particularly from performative verbs of saying or hearing. However, in a few seemingly rare examples, this is not the case. In this paper the author presents the case of two evidential particles —ambo and ampo — found in the Pangi variety of Lega, a Bantu language spoken in eastern Zaire. A diachronic analysis is proposed in which it is argued that ambo has derived from a third person personal pronoun. While the case of ampo is not as clear, it is proposed that it, too, ultimately derived from the same third person pronoun, but came into the Pangi variety of Lega via borrowing. RÉSUMÉ Les formes 'évidentiares' proviennent généralement des formes verbales réduites ou re-analysées, surtout des verbes performatifs de dire et de ouïr. Cependant, dans des exemples assez rares, ceci n'est pas le cas. Dans l'article actuel l'auteur présent le cas de deux particules 'évidentiares' — ambo et ampo — qui se trouvent dans le dialecte Pangi du Lega, langue bantoue de l'est du Zaire. Il propose une analyse diachronique dans laquelle ambo provient d'un pronom personnel de la troisième personne du pluriel. Bien que le cas de ampo n'est pas aussi clair, on propose que cette forme provient également du même pronom, mais à travers un emprunt. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Sog. 'Evidentiale' rühren von reduzierten oder reanalysierten Verbalfor-men oder Zeitverben her, insbesondere performativen, die sagen oder hören zum Inhalt haben. Bei einigen, scheinbar seltenen Beispielen ist dies jedoch nicht der Fall. Im vorliegenden Aufsatz werden zwei Evidentialpartikel vor-geführt —ambo und ampo — die in Pangi, einem Dialekt des Lega, einer Bantu-Sprache des östlichen Zaire zu finder ist. Der Autor schlägt eine diachronische Analyse vor, derzufolge ambo von einem Personalpronomen der 3. Person stammt. Obgleich der Fall von ampó nicht vollends klar ist, wird doch vorgeschlagen, daß auch diese Form denselben Ursprung hat, auch wenn sie durch Entlehung ins Pangi gelangt war.

scholarly journals On the aspectual system of Wushi (Babessi), a Ring Grassfields Bantu language of Cameroon

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-65
Author(s):  
Liliane Hodieb
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Time ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Grassfields Bantu ◽  
Past Tenses

One of the characteristics of Bantu languages, including Grassfields Bantu languages, is their multiple time distinctions. Within the Ring Grassfields group, multiple tenses are also well attested. For example, Aghem has three past and two future tenses (Anderson 1979), Babanki has four past tenses and three future tenses (Akumbu & Fogwe 2012), as well as Lamnso’ (Yuka 2012). Oku has three past tenses and two future tenses (Nforbi 1993) and Babungo has four past and two future tenses (Schaub 1985). These tenses represent different degrees of remoteness in time such as hordienal, immediate, distant, etc. However, in spite of the indisputable lexical unity of Ring Grassfields Bantu languages (Stallcup 1980; Piron 1997), Wushi strikingly stands apart: it does not mark tense morphologically. As a matter of fact, the aspectual system of Wushi is based on five aspects: perfective, imperfective, retrospective or anterior, potential, and the distal or dissociative marker kə̀ that is analyzed in the light of Botne & Kershner (2008). This paper sets out to analyze these verb forms.

scholarly journals An Analysis of Deixis on Comment Speech By Indonesian Diplomat in United Nation (PBB) 75th General Assembly Meeting 2020

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-53
Author(s):  
Minkhatunnakhriyah Minkhatunnakhriyah ◽  
◽  
Didin Nuruddin Hidayat ◽  
Alek Alek ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Spatial Deixis ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Social Deixis ◽  
The Individual ◽  
United Nation

Deixis is a human language phenomenon in which particular expression referential depends on context use (Williams, 2019). By knowing deixis, a speaker knows alternate reference words depending on the interlocutor, places and time conversation takes place. The study investigates deixis and its context used by diplomats and representatives from Indonesia, Silvany Pasaribu of human rights cases of Vanuatu and Papua. This study's data source was the comment speech of an Indonesian diplomat, consisting of three types of deixis based on Levinson's theory. The video was collected from YouTube. Further, to analyse the data through several processes, the researchers firstly collected all deictic expressions found in transcription, classified the deictic word into each category of deixis. The result of this study shows thirty five deixis from comment speech of Indonesian diplomat. There were twenty three personal deixis consisting of a first, second, and third person, seven spatial deixis, and five temporal deixis. Person deixis generally be delivered by person grammatical type, which replaces personal pronoun encode like community, appropriate names, and the individual pronoun compound. Spatial or place deixis based on result which expresses by the speaker on their speech were location. Temporal deixis is used to the pointing of time context speech. Further research is suggested to analyze all kinds of deixis, such as social deixis and its context.

Managing ideological differences in joint political press conferences

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulla Moberg ◽  
Göran Eriksson
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
First Person ◽  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Ideological Differences ◽  
Dialogue Theory

This study focuses on Swedish political press conferences and explores the discursive efforts of politicians to express unity despite diverging ideological views. It concerns the use of the first person pronoun ‘we’ (Swedish. we) and is influenced by both dialogue theory and linguistic theories, which highlight the meaning of pronouns in context. The data consist of transcribed web broadcasts of press conferences with the leaders of the four political parties that form the Swedish Government since 2006. Our analysis reveals that a clear-cut use of the personal pronoun ‘we’ can serve the same political purposes as a more ambiguous use, i.e. to show unity while there are differences. The four party leaders are involved in a communicative project of ‘doing unity’ to demonstrate that they are a very capable government.

The diachronic relationship between demonstratives and first/second person pronouns

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Osamu Ishiyama
Keyword(s):  
Historical Data ◽  
Functional Similarity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Source ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Third Person

It is well known that demonstratives are the cross-linguistically common source of third person pronouns due to the functional similarity between them. For this reason, they are morphologically related to or formally indistinguishable from one another in many languages. First and second person pronouns, on the other hand, typically have historical sources other than demonstratives. However, unlike the close relationship between demonstratives and third person pronouns, the fact that demonstratives and first/second person pronouns have a very tenuous diachronic relationship has not attracted much attention in previous studies. Based primarily on historical data from Japanese, the present study shows that there are at least three functional reasons why demonstratives do not usually give rise to first/second person pronouns. This study also discusses a limited context in which a demonstrative does develop into a second person pronoun.

scholarly journals Hypercorrection and grammar change

1976 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol W. Pfaff
Keyword(s):  
First Grade ◽  
Black Children ◽  
Black English ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
Answering Questions ◽  
Low And Middle Income

Pfaff (1973, 1975) reports on 81 low- and middle-income first-grade Black children who produced multiple instances of linguistic variables by answering questions about a set of pictures and telling the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. No models were given of the linguistic variables under investigation, which included a number of third person singular present-tense verb forms: -s inflection of regular verbs, auxiliary and main verb be, auxiliary and main verb have, auxiliary do and possessive marking on nouns. Standard marking of all of these linguistic variables has been shown by previous studies of free conversation to be variably lacking in Black English (Labov, Cohen, Robins & Lewis 1968; Fasold 1972).

THE TENSE-ASPECT SYSTEM IN PIDGINS AND NATURALISTICALLY LEARNED L2

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Clancy Clements
Keyword(s):  
First Language ◽  
Verbal System ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
System A ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Difference ◽  
L1 Acquisition ◽  
The Third Person

The advantages and disadvantages of wider or narrower definitions of pidginization and pidgin are reviewed to determine the differences between pidgins and naturalistically learned second languages (L2s). It is argued that a wider definition is preferred because it avoids problematic counterexamples and captures generalizations that allow us to view the difference between naturalistic L2 varieties and pidgins as one of degree, not of type. In first language (L1) acquisition, Bates and Goodman (1999) showed the link between the development of vocabulary and grammar and argued that this may be explained by, among other things, logical and perceptual bootstrapping. It is suggested that these types of bootstrapping are also relevant for explaining the pace of grammar development in pidgins and naturalistic L2 varieties. The tense-aspect system of a Spanish variety spoken by a Chinese immigrant in Spain is examined in detail. The data, taken from a 90-minute interview that yielded 602 tokens, reveal several clear traits of the informant's verbal system: (a) All nonfinite, imperfective verb forms (gerunds) correspond exclusively to Vendlerian activities; (b) all but three of the perfective nonfinite forms (past participles) correspond to telic verbs or predicates; and (c) 81% of the stative verbs appear in the third-person-singular present form. The sensitivity to aspectual distinctions in the informant's variety of Spanish is not addressed by logical and perceptual bootstrapping. Furthermore, although this sensitivity can be partially explained by language-specific considerations (i.e., transfer from Mandarin), such an explanation does not speak to precise form–function mappings found, which are best accounted for by appealing to the Primacy of Aspect and Distributional Bias hypotheses (Andersen, 1993; Andersen & Shirai, 1996).

Agreement and discourse: from cohesion to coherence

1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Cornish
Keyword(s):  
Personal Pronoun ◽  
Personal Pronouns ◽  
Advanced Learners ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Widespread View

AbstractThe article argues that, contrary to a widespread view (e.g. Haiman, 1985; Palmer, 1984), agreement in those languages which exhibit it is not a purely redundant, semantically empty and grammatically predictable phenomenon, but performs several important functions at the level of discourse.Taking French as the example language, I will argue (section 2.1) that agreement signals the function-argument interpretation to be assigned to pairs of expressions of various kinds; and second, that it may also code anaphorically the high-focus status of particular discourse referents (section 2.2). Section 3 compares certain written errors in agreement marking made by advanced learners of French, with certain other interpretative errors in their reading of French articles - errors based on agreement relations and leading to the mis-assignment of reference to an agreement target or personal pronoun. Finally, section 4 argues that third person personal pronouns should be treated differently from the (essentially predicative) agreement targets discussed in sections 2 and 3, claiming that they do not participate in agreement stricto sensu.

The Comparative Method, Internal Reconstruction, Areal Norms and the West Germanic Third Person Pronoun

2017 ◽  
Vol 77 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 410-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Stiles
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Method ◽  
The West ◽  
West Germanic ◽  
The Third ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Anaphoric Pronoun ◽  
Third Person ◽  
The Third Person

The paradigms of the third person anaphoric pronoun in West Germanic show a split between Ingvæonic and non-Ingvæonic languages. The Ingvæonic dialects have numerous forms with initialh-, in contrast to non-Ingvæonic, where—corresponding toh-—vocalic ors-onsets are found. This divergence makes it difficult to envisage what the Proto-West Germanic set of forms looked like. The aim is to explore whether it is possible to reconstruct a common West Germanic paradigm from which both types developed. The answer turns out to be ‘yes’, thanks to the crucial evidence of Frisian. The article also rejects the view that Germanic attests the alleged Indo-European pronominal stem *syo-/*tyo-.

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