Third-Person Reference and the Function of Pronouns in Central Pomo Natural Speech

1990 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Mithun
Keyword(s):  
Natural Speech ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
Third Person

Formulae and performativity in Middle English documents

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanja Rütten
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Quantitative Study ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Oral Communication ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
Distributional Patterns ◽  
Third Person

This paper investigates the performative nature of Late Middle English administrative documents. While certain documents indicate the instantaneous performance of a speech act by using the canonical construction “I (hereby) + speech act verb”, explicit performatives are frequently inscribed with third-person reference of different kinds. This suggests that performativity may be a gradable phenomenon and that certain pragmatic contexts generate performative constructions which serve to (re)activate the speech act at some other point in time. In a quantitative study based on the Middle English Grammar Corpus, this paper provides a survey of the distributional patterns of three conceptionally distinct types of explicit performative constructions in documents. While the canonical construction seems to be tied to oral communication, related forms with third-person reference give documents a more autonomous status. Detaching the written record from the oral ceremony, these constructions facilitate a later verbatim reactivation of the respective speech act.

scholarly journals Permission and obligation intertwined: The twofold modal meaning of the Finnish jussive from a discourse perspective

Linguistics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rea Peltola
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Binary Nature ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Intentional Agents

AbstractThis article examines the representation of semantic vagueness in discourse as well as the connection between deontic modal meaning and third person reference through the semantics and uses of the Finnish jussive mood. The data used in the analysis come from a collection of newspaper texts and a corpus of dialectal speech. Analyzing jussive forms that give rise to various modal readings, I argue that the two poles of the deontic axis, permission and obligation, are simultaneously present, albeit highlighted to different extents, in the interpretation of a jussive clause. This binary nature of the jussive semantics reveals itself to be a discursive resource: it allows the position of the speaker and other intentional agents to be taken into account in regard to the event that is potentially taking place, thus presenting more than one point of view in the situation. The jussive mood can therefore be regarded as contributing to the dialogical dimension of language.

scholarly journals NULL SUBJECTS IN OLD GERMANIC LANGUAGES

2019 ◽  
pp. 36-40
Author(s):  
H. H. Zinchenko
Keyword(s):  
Null Subjects ◽  
Old Icelandic ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Verbal Inflection ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Distinct Features ◽  
Germanic Languages

The article outlines the approaches to defining universal subjecthood properties from cognitive, generative, and functional perspectives. Three types of languages are distinguished according to the type of null subjects they allow – pro-drop, topic-drop, and discourse (radical)-drop. It is shown that phonologically unrealized subjects occur in Old Germanic languages and Modern Germanic vernaculars. Old Germanic null subjects are analyzed as for their syntactic distribution, relation to verb agreement, and person reference, which helps identify their similar and distinct features. The distribution of null subjects does not seem to depend on the richnessF of verbal inflection; third-person null subjects are registered more frequently than first- or second-person ones. Null subjects in main clauses are more numerous than those in subordinate clauses. Old Icelandic, demonstrates a higher frequency of unexpressed subjects in subordinate clauses.

scholarly journals Reference in the first, second, and third person

KÜLÖNBSÉG ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Éva Kocsis
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Unified Model ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
First Person ◽  
Personal Quality ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
Third Person

We have direct access to our thoughts, therefore we think we can attribute beliefs and actions to ourselves differently than to others. However, linguistic concepts enable us to think about ourselves the same way as we think of others. The research question of the paper is how it is possible to find a unified model of first, second, and third person reference in language use that can allow for the personal quality of first person reference. The paper shows why the ’I’ in first person statements should be seen as a ineliminable item that is not reducible to non-indexic expressions semantically. Also, the paper claims that first, second, and third person references formulated by the same speaker have similar qualities (spontaneity, lack of identification, directness). Finally, the paper discusses the role of perception in these references.

Free Indirect Discourse in the Translation into Finnish

Target ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarja Rouhiainen
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Source Text ◽  
Narrative Technique ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Indirect Discourse ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
Mental Language ◽  
Third Person

Abstract Free indirect discourse (FID) is a narrative technique which purports to convey a character’s mental language while maintaining third-person reference and past tense. This paper deals with the problems the use of FID may create for Finnish translators of English literary narratives. A comparative analysis of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love and its translation into Finnish shows that the translator’s treatment of the pronouns he/she may shift the viewpoint from the character’s consciousness to the narrator’s discourse. The article concludes with the question of what stylistic norms could explain the translator’s avoidance of the spoken-language simulation typical of the source text.

Direct and indirect speech in Mambila

1974 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Perrin
Keyword(s):  
Main Clause ◽  
Summer Institute ◽  
First Person ◽  
Direct Speech ◽  
Indirect Speech ◽  
Person Pronoun ◽  
Summer Institute Of Linguistics ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Embedded Clause

The categories of DIRECT SPEECH and INDIRECT SPEECH may be distinguished by differing policies of pronoun reference. Direct speech takes its pronoun orientation from the clause in which it is immediately embedded: for example, in the following sentence: (I) John Said to Peter, ‘I Can see you’, the first person pronoun I refers to the participant who is identified as speaker in the preceding clause (John said to peter) and the seconf person you refers to the participant identified as addressee. Of the two clauses involved, the second or embedded clause (‘I can see you’) May conveniently be referred to as the quotation content. The first or main clause may be referred to as the Reporting Clause; this correspondes ti the use of the term Margin in recent studies from the Summer Institute of Linguistics (Lowe, 1969; Pike, 1966; Pike & Lowe, 1969) from which the inspiration for this paper has been taken. Any third person reference in the quotation content in direct speech must refer to a participant who is neither speaker nor addressee in the reporting clause.

scholarly journals Initial person reference in Providence Island Sign Language

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rehana Omardeen ◽  
Kate Mesh ◽  
Markus Steinbach
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Information ◽  
Contextual Knowledge ◽  
Referring Expressions ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Community Membership ◽  
Person Reference ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Context Dependent ◽  
Shared Context ◽  
Deaf Signers

When referring to non-present entities, speakers and signers can select from a range of different strategies to create expressions that range from extremely concise to highly elaborate. This design of referring expressions is based partly on the availability of contextual information that can aid addressee understanding. In the small signing community of Providence Island, signers’ heavy reliance on extra-linguistic information has led to their language being labelled as context-dependent (Washabaugh, de Santis & Woodward 1978). This study investigates the semiotic strategies that deaf signers in Providence Island use to introduce non-present third person referents, and examines how signers optimise specificity and minimise ambiguity by drawing on shared context. We examined first introductions to non-present people in spontaneous dyadic conversations between deaf signers and analysed the semiotic strategies used. We found that signers built referring expressions using the same strategies found in other sign languages, yet designed expressions that made use of contextual knowledge shared through community membership, such as geography, local spoken languages and traits of fellow islanders. Our signers also used strategies described as unusual or unattested in other sign languages, such as unframed constructed action sequences and stand-alone mouthings. This study deepens our understanding of context dependence by providing examples of how context is drawn upon by communities with high degrees of shared knowledge. Our results call into question the classification of sign languages as context-dependent or context-independent and highlights the differences in data collection across communities and the resulting limitations of cross-linguistic comparisons.

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