Rethinking Nova's pronominals

I have finally gone back to work on Nova and am rewriting the
grammar to replace that horrible mess at my website.  One of
the ideas that struck me today was a reanalysis of Nova's pronoun
system.

Presently, Nova has a 4 person pronoun system;
1st  ne
2nd  ta
3rd  wo
4th  zu

One of the last things I discovered about Nova last year was that
it makes a fundamental difference in several classes of eventives (the
main kinds of content words, roughly equivalent to nouns, verbs,
adjectives, etc.).  On the one hand are Discursives, the 'ordinary'
words of conversation, on the other hand are Direct Address forms
that include Injunctives (somewhat like and including imperative verb
forms) and Vocatives, direct address nouns which take a special case
ending and unlike all other nouns, can appear without an article.

Thinking about that led me to sketch out a new pronoun system where
person is replaced by presence (in the conversation) and where
discursive is contrasted with direct address;

Present Discursive=I, we
Present Direct Address=thou, you
Absent=he, she, it, they (will probably have available a derivational
        morpheme indicating 'first reference' and '2nd reference'       similar to a
proximate::obviative contrast).

The result is a system that on the surface is similar to my old 1,2,3,4
person system but is in fact is profoundly different.
Syntax, already difficult to describe might become a real mess since
'present direct address' could only be an actor with imperative
type verbs.

I VERB you
O thou (probably usually with +focus)!  VERB-ing occurs I-active case

You VERB me
O thou!  VERB-ing occurs I-(as appropriate Passive, Receptive,
Benefactive, Experiential case)

There could in fact, be a single pronoun marked for presence vs.
absence, discourse role, and reference but I think at least two
forms is better.


Comments are appreciated,
--
Brad Coon
bcoon@imt.net

Somedays when you wake up, its just not worth chewing through
the leather straps.