Pronoun System Research Articles

Old Chinese as an Inflectional Language: With Evidence from the Personal Pronoun System

<p>This paper reviews the nature of Old Chinese (OC) by exploring the morpho-syntactic feature of the personal pronoun system. It carried out a statistic analysis of the frequency of 吾, 我，予，余，朕，印，台; 爾，汝；彼, 其, 之 being used as person pronouns. The findings reveal that 吾 never appears in an accusative position; 予 never appears in a genitive position; An order of preference as regards case function of 我 runs from nominaitve, to accusative, genitive, down to dative. 其 conveys an accusative or a genitive, but never denotes a nominative. 之 denotes a generic third person or non-person and often marries up with 吾. This might suffice to draw the conclusion that OC was probably an inflectional language in the pre-Qin period.</p>

Teaching L2 Spanish Sociopragmatics Through Concepts: A Classroom‐Based Study

This study explores the teaching of second language (L2) Spanish sociopragmatics through concept‐based pragmatics instruction (van Compernolle, ). The concepts of self‐presentation, social distance, and power were the focus of a pedagogical enrichment program in 2 sections of a beginning‐level Spanish class at a northeastern U.S. university. The concepts were illustrated by the Spanish second person pronoun system (i.e., tú vs. usted). The analysis centers on preenrichment and postenrichment performances on 3 tasks: (a) a language awareness survey, (b) an appropriateness judgment task, and (c) a written discourse completion task. Results show positive gains in conceptual sociopragmatic knowledge and the ability to apply this knowledge when making pragmalinguistic choices. However, morphosyntactic accuracy in performance appears to lag behind conceptual knowledge.

Võro demonstratives: changing or disappearing?

The paper deals with the changes occurring in the system of demonstratives and personal pronouns in the Võro language, the present-day variety of the South Estonian Võru dialect. In the Võro language the third person pronoun is timä/tä and there are three demonstrative pronouns (sjoo~seo, taa, and tuu) and three series of demonstrative adverbs (siin:siia:siit; taha:tan:tast; sinna:seal:sealt) are in use. The data for the study come from the newspaper Uma Leht (2012–2014) and mini-series produced by Estonian Public Broadcasting in 2011. The data show that the former addressee-centered system of South Estonian demonstratives has disappeared. At the same time, the language has retained all of the pronouns, although their frequency and context of use differs in the written and the spoken data.

Grammar of Binding in the languages of the world: Innate or learned?

Languages around the world often appear to manifest nearly identical grammatical properties, but, at the same time, the grammatical differences can also be great, sometimes even seeming to support Joos’s (1958) claim that “languages can differ from each other without limit and in unpredictable way” (p. 96). This state of affairs provides a puzzle for both nativist approaches to language like Generative Grammar that posit a fixed “Universal Grammar”, and for approaches that minimize the contribution of innate grammatical structure. We approach this puzzling state of affairs by looking at one area of grammar, “Binding”, the system of local and long distance anaphoric elements in a language. This is an area of grammar that has long been central to the Generative approach to language structure. We compare the anaphoric systems found in “familiar” (European-like) languages that contain dedicated classes of bound and free anaphors (pronouns and reflexives) with the anaphoric systems in endangered Austronesian languages of Indonesia, languages in which there is overlap or no distinction between pronouns and reflexives (Peranakan Javanese and Jambi Malay). What is of special interest about Jambi anaphora is not only that conservative dialects of Jambi Malay do not distinguish between pronouns and reflexives, but that Jambi anaphora appear to constitute a live snapshot of a unitary class of anaphora in the process of grammaticalization as a distinct system of pronouns and reflexives.We argue that the facts of Jambi anaphora cannot be explained by theories positing a Universal Grammar of Binding. Thus, these facts provide evidence that complex grammatical systems like Binding cannot be innate. Our results from Austronesian languages are confirmed by data from signed and creole languages. Our conclusion is that the human language learning capacity must include the ability to model the full complexity found in the syntax of the world’s languages. From the perspective of child language acquisition, these conclusions suggest that Universal Grammar does not provide a general solution to the problem of poverty of the stimulus, and the solution to that problem must reside at least in part in special properties of the grammar construction tools available to the language learner rather than simply in a fixed set of grammatical rules hard wired into the brains of speakers.

A COMPARISON OF THE INTERACTION OF PRONOMINALS AND WORD ORDER IN NARO AND GǁANA

ABSTRACTThis article compares PGN markers, the pronoun system and word order in declaratives in Naro ǁGana. These languages are similar in that (a) nouns are marked for person, gender and number; (b) both have complex pronoun systems; (c) the plural and dual categories distinguish inclusive from exclusive pronouns; (d) main lexical items in both languages can be focused through fronting. They differ in that ǁGana NPs are marked for nominative and oblique case through the PGN marker, while in Naro this is not so. In Naro if constituents are re- ordered, the PGN marker of the fronted constituent hosts the PGN marker of the subject NP, thus identifying the subject. The use of pronouns in a sentence impacts word order at sentential level in Naro but not in ǁGana. PGN markers are obligatory for subjects only in ǁGana.

Acquisition of Turkish demonstrative pronouns in children

Joint focus of attention is one of the most crucial elements in effective communication. Demonstrative pronouns (DPs) have an important role in providing this joint focus of attention. Although demonstratives are a prevalent topic, not many studies are conducted to find out the developmental stages of them. Therefore, the current study attempts to find out children’s comprehension of DPs in Turkish. Based on the results of the study, children’s developmental stages in different age groups are provided. Turkish has a three-way distinction in its demonstrative pronoun system: bu (this), su (this/that) and o (that). The subjects of the study were 12 children of ages 3,4 and 5. The results of the study were intriguing and they showed that learning the demonstrative system in Turkish might follow U-shaped learning pattern. Also, the results seem to support egocentrism hypothesis that children under the age of six had difficulty in shifting the deictic center when they and the experimenter have a different perspective. The use of su at the age of 4 also showed surprising results.

Poor pronoun systems and what they teach us

<div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span>The world’s smallest pronoun systems can eschew any of the following contrasts: (i) author–nonauthor, (ii) participant–nonparticipant, (iii) singular–nonsingular. This supports the view that features are mutually independent parameters (Harbour 2011a, 2014a, 2014b), but is problematic for Koeneman and Zeijlstra’s (2014) recent reworking of the Rich Agreement Hypothesis, which is predicated on the claim that (i)–(iii) are universally obligatory. </span></p></div></div></div>

The Bai Language: A Musical Language with Typological Ablative Cases

The Bai language (shortened as Bai henceforth) is of Sino-Tibetan language family, used in southwest China. Typological ablative cases are found in Bai that the word-building in some dialects follows a few archaic analytical rules, including the formation of its pronoun system, its antonymic verbs and adverbs, and the formation of its tetra-syllabic phrases, etc. The most particular feature is that the morphological change in the antonymic verbs realizes the grammatical function. The archaic formations may be remnants of Yi-Burman proto language, which needs historical studies in terms of language evolution. However, the pivotal motivation, we believe, is the need to be a musical language in satisfying the various needs to transmit the ethnic culture orally, and this need is the critical stimulus to make it keep the inflective changes.

T/V Pronouns in L2 Acquisition of Spanish

Many languages display a pronominal system in which there are both formal and informal forms to address others. In the L2 Spanish classroom, many English-speaking students unfamiliar with the T/V pronoun system (which is no longer present in English) often are only exposed to a generic set of rules (in the text and by the instructor) governing their usage. The system is a highly complex pragmatic phenomenon and can vary significantly based on factors such as dialect, familiarity, solidarity, emotion, and dispensation right. Lambert (1976) surveyed the phenomenon in Spanish and French and took into account familiarity, solidarity, and dispensation right. This study reports on a survey which tested the validity and reliability found in Lambert (1976) and furthered the study by examining the knowledge L2 Spanish students have about the use of the system of informal and formal pronouns and in addition to the parameters examined by Lambert, took dialect and emotion into account. The purpose of this study was to show that while a general rule governing T/V usage in L2 Spanish is sufficient to begin with, exposure to the natural language, explicit awareness of the phenomenon on the part of the instructor, and study abroad can all improve students’ mastery of this pragmatic phenomenon. This information can be useful to language educators of all levels.

Personalpronomen und die Trennung zwischen dem Südniederfränkischen und dem Kleverländischen auf deutscher und niederländischer Seite der Staatsgrenze

The Uerdingen line (i. e. ik, ook vs. ich, auch) is claimed to constitute the border between the Kleverlandish and South Low Franconian dialect areas, both in Germany and the Netherlands. We tested the importance of this isogloss using data from the Wenker survey. Our research area covers both sides of the state border. We used data on the personal pronouns. The pronominal forms found in the area of investigation (such as ik vs. ich) represent the pervasive distinction between the northern Kleverlandish and the South Low Franconian pronoun systems. Their varying geographical distributions confirm the competition between those systems in the dialect area investigated. Both in Germany and the Netherlands we found three dialect zones. The Uerdingen line was not a main dialect border in Germany, and only a weaker one on the Dutch side. We found breaks in the old dialect continuum crossing the state border. The pronoun subject form of the second person singular turned out to be a strong boundary. We argue that it became an isogloss bundle, incorporating other pronominal forms as well. We conclude that the Uerdingen line does not mark the distinction between both dialect areas, neither in the Netherlands nor in Germany.

Social and linguistic cues facilitate children’s register comprehension

Speakers must command different linguistic registers to index various social-discourse elements, including the identity of the addressee. Previous work found that English-learning children could link registers to appropriate addressees by 5 years. Two experiments found that better cues to the linguistic form or to the social meaning of register could improve 3-year-old children’s ability to access their knowledge of register. Experiment 1 contrasted children acquiring English and Spanish, as Spanish provides more consistent grammatical cues to register through its pronoun system than English does. The Spanish-learning children showed earlier success in a forced-choice comprehension task. Experiment 2 provided English-learning children with enhanced cues to register’s social meaning and also found improved performance. These results suggest that the underlying knowledge about register is available from an early age, but can be accessed only with sufficiently strong cues.

Instructed Concept Appropriation and L2 Pragmatic Development in the Classroom

In this article, we investigate the integration of concept‐based pragmatics instruction, grounded in Vygotskian sociocultural psychology, in an intact second‐semester French class (n = 13) over the course of an academic term. Our focus is on learners’ appropriation of the concepts of self‐presentation, social distance, and power with respect to the French second‐person pronoun system (i.e., tu versus vous) as revealed through language awareness questionnaires, appropriateness judgment tasks, and computer‐mediated strategic interaction scenario performances. Following this three‐tiered approach to analysis, our findings show that learners developed a deeper and more systematic understanding of tu and vous, that they were able to apply the concepts in planning language use, and that their use of tu and vous became more sensitive to maintaining symmetrical social relationships.

Native and non-native perceptions of appropriateness in the French second-person pronoun system

ABSTRACTThis article explores perceptions of appropriateness in the French second-person pronoun system in relation to various sociopragmatic factors among native and nonnative speakers of French between the ages of 18 and 29. Participants completed an online survey in which a series of five social-interactive situations were presented. Analysis focused on the similarities and differences among native, near-native, advanced and intermediate speakers in their perceptions of formality, social distance, power/equality and appropriatetu/voususe, as well as correlations between the sociopragmatic factors and selection oftuorvous. Results indicate a high degree of variation within and across participant groups, with nonnatives tending to be more conservative (e.g., more formality, higher frequencies ofvous) in their choices than their native-speaker counterparts. In concluding, the findings are discussed in relation to pedagogical implications.

Evolución del sistema de los pronombres demostrativos entre el ático clásico y el griego moderno. Consideraciones a la luz de un análisis cuantitativo

Unlike ancient Greek, which had a system of demonstrative pronouns with three terms, Modern Greek basically has a two-terms system. This paper offers a diachronic analysis of the linguistic development between both stages by applying the dynamics-theory of H.-J. Seiler in the light of quantitative data from Greek authors of several periods between the 5th century BCE and the end of the Byzantine Period.

Editors and Scribes in Two Clerk's Tale Cruxes

Editors and Scribes in Two <i>Clerk's Tale</i> Cruxes

A classification approach to coreference in discharge summaries: 2011 i2b2 challenge

To create a highly accurate coreference system in discharge summaries for the 2011 i2b2 challenge. The coreference categories include Person, Problem, Treatment, and Test. An integrated coreference resolution system was developed by exploiting Person attributes, contextual semantic clues, and world knowledge. It includes three subsystems: Person coreference system based on three Person attributes, Problem/Treatment/Test system based on numerous contextual semantic extractors and world knowledge, and Pronoun system based on a multi-class support vector machine classifier. The three Person attributes are patient, relative and hospital personnel. Contextual semantic extractors include anatomy, position, medication, indicator, temporal, spatial, section, modifier, equipment, operation, and assertion. The world knowledge is extracted from external resources such as Wikipedia. Micro-averaged precision, recall and F-measure in MUC, BCubed and CEAF were used to evaluate results. The system achieved an overall micro-averaged precision, recall and F-measure of 0.906, 0.925, and 0.915, respectively, on test data (from four hospitals) released by the challenge organizers. It achieved a precision, recall and F-measure of 0.905, 0.920 and 0.913, respectively, on test data without Pittsburgh data. We ranked the first out of 20 competing teams. Among the four sub-tasks on Person, Problem, Treatment, and Test, the highest F-measure was seen for Person coreference. This system achieved encouraging results. The Person system can determine whether personal pronouns and proper names are coreferent or not. The Problem/Treatment/Test system benefits from both world knowledge in evaluating the similarity of two mentions and contextual semantic extractors in identifying semantic clues. The Pronoun system can automatically detect whether a Pronoun mention is coreferent to that of the other four types. This study demonstrates that it is feasible to accomplish the coreference task in discharge summaries.

Remixing a mixed language: The emergence of a new pronominal system in Chabacano (Philippine Creole Spanish)

In bilingual contact environments, personal pronoun systems are relatively impervious to replacement or borrowing. Several Creole languages contain hybrid personal pronoun paradigms, but the language contact environments that resulted in creolization and mixed pronominal systems are no longer in effect, and the mechanisms of pronominal replacement remain unknown. The present analysis is based on data from Zamboangueño Chabacano, a variety of Philippine Creole Spanish that has already undergone at least one set of pronominal replacements in its history, substituting Spanish-derived plural pronouns with pronouns taken from Philippine languages. Due to recent migration, Zamboangueño Chabacano is now in contact with Tagalog, and younger speakers are incorporating the Tagalog second-person singular respect-neutral pronoun ikaw into the Chabacano system. The insertion of ikaw restores the respectful–respect-neutral pronominal distinction originally present in Spanish and found in Philippine languages but lacking in Chabacano. The ease with which a Tagalog pronoun is entering Chabacano is attributed to long-standing popular views that Zamboangueño Chabacano is already a mixed-up language—often regarded as “broken Spanish”—devoid of its own grammar and therefore readily susceptible to any and all intrusions. The use of ikaw as an in-group marker among Zamboangueño youth further aids the addition of the Tagalog pronoun to the Chabacano paradigm.

Morfología del pronombre personal en el Rromané de Chile

The present paper describes, within the framework of tagmemics, the internal structure and declension paradigms of personal pronouns in the Romani language as spoken in Chile. The speaker sample, speaker characteristics and procedures used in analyzing the data are detailed in the corresponding section. The analysis includes an example of each pronoun form in each grammatical case, a proposal for the morphemic segmentation, and a mapping of morphs to morphemes. The paper concludes with information on the tagmemic method, which is used to describe the personal pronoun system of Chilean Romani; a discussion about the issue of basic forms; and a discussion of whether it is appropriate to apply the Garvinian concept of residue to the second person allomorphs and instrumental case, chu- and -char, respectively.

Notes on the use of Lithuanian indefinite pronouns

A distributional schema of Lithuanian indefinite pronouns was provided in Haspelmath (1997). In this paper, a more detailed investigation of the functions of Lithuanian indefinite pronouns is conducted. It demonstrates and explains why some of the series can occasionally occur in contexts where they are not usually supposed to be used. Particular attention is paid to the contexts where several series of indefinites are possible. The paper analyses the differences between the series in such contexts of competition. As a result, a more fine-grained description of the highly complex system of Lithuanian indefinite pronouns is arrived at.

GRAMMATICAL EXPRESSION OF BUGIS POLITENESS

This paper discusses the use of grammar as a strategy to express politeness in Bugis society. This is based on the research I conducted in 2005 in two different Bugis communities: the first was in Awangpone, a rural area and the second was in Parepare. There are three main aspects of Bugis grammar used by Bugis people to encode their politeness. The first one is the pronoun system, in which Bugis speakers use idi’, ta-, or -ki, (the 1st plural inclusive pronoun) to address people politely rather than using iko, mu-, and –nu (the 2nd person pronoun). The second one is the use of participant avoiders such as passive voice di- or terms such as tauwé ‘people’ or anu ‘something or someone’ to avoid mentioning the subject or object directly. Another device is the phonological alternations between final –o and final –i/–é, in which final –o is less polite than final –i/–é such as the pairs iyé’/iyo ‘yes’ or –mi/-mo ‘just’.