Re: Question about anaphora

Harald:

Here's an idea which I took from Numic languages (Shoshoni, Paiute,
etc). Instead of gender, third person pronouns can be differentiated by
relative distance; referents which are closer (proximal) have different
pronouns than those which are further away (distal). This relative
distance can be metaphorical as well; referents which are mentioned
first or which are agents can be referred to with proximal pronoun
forms, while referents which are mentioned later or which are lower in
the agency hierarchy can be referred to with distal pronoun forms. I
did something like this in Tepa (look at
http://www.langmaker.com/featured/tepatext.htm at the texts "Two
Otters" and "Coyote Eats Rocks"), and it seemed to work well. You could
also distinguish animacy; animates and inanimates would be referred to
with different pronoun forms. Southern Numic languages use animacy as
well as deixis. Interestingly (but not surprisingly) more number and
deictic distinctions are available for animates than for inanimates.

Dirk

On Friday, May 30, 2003, at 04:12  PM, Harald Stoiber wrote:

> A summerly warm greeting from Austria! (according to local temperature
> ;-)
>
> Given that my conlang has no grammatical gender, what are the options
> for
> realizing a helpful system of anaphora? I bet that there is more than
> one way
> and I simply want to get to know a few before I make my ultimate
> decision
> for my own conlang-baby.
>
> I mention the lack of grammatical gender because I sense that it will
> be more
> difficult to design satisfying anaphora for such a language. In the
> sentence
> "There is a problem and a solution. It came to my mind yesterday." it
> is not
> clear whether the problem or the solution is addressed. In German I
> would
> simply use the grammatical gender of either the problem or the solution
> because luckily they would be different in my example sentence.
>
> Which approaches are known to you people? Many thanks in abundance
> and in advance for all replies that I will receive! :-))
>
> Cheers,
> Harald
>
> --
> A mind all logic is like a knife all blade.
> (Rabindranath Tagore)
>
>
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie

Reply