Re: Interesting Pronouns.

Björn Kristinsson wrote:

> So, what I was wondering is if you, my fellow conlangers,
> have any interesting/alternative ways of making pronouns
> (or perhaps not using pronouns at all) that you'd care to
> share?
You could have a system which is totally deixis-oriented.
Awa Pit (spoken in Ecuador and Colombia) distinguishes only
Locutor and non-Locutor, but there is no way -- morphologically
-- of knowing which is the agent and which is the patient. At
least not in the future tense.

In the declarative mood, only the speaker is Locutor:

pjan-ni -s
hit -FUT-LOCUT
'I will hit you/him OR you/he will hit me.'

pjan-ni -zi
hit -FUT-NONLOCUT
'You will hit him OR he will hit you.'

In interrogative sentences both speaker and listener are
interpreted as Locutors:

minta-ma  i -ni -s
where-INT go-FUT-LOCUT
'Where will I/you go?'

minta-ma  i -ni -zi
where-INT go-FUT-NONLOCUT
'Where will he go?'

In the past tense, Locutor is combined with active role
orientation for Locutors, while non-Locutors preserve
their neutral role status. Actor-Locutor is _-w_, Undergoer-
Locutor is _-s_ (cf. the use of _-s_ above) and non-Locutor
is _-zi_ as usual.

In the declarative mood only the speaker is Locutor:

pjan-ta  -w
hit -PAST-LOCUT:ACT
'I hit you/him.'

pjan-ti  -s
hit -PAST-LOCUT:UND
'You/he hit me.'

pjan-ti  -zi
hit -PAST-NONLOCUT
'You hit him OR He hit you.'

In the interrogative mood both speaker and addressee are
Locutors:

min-a  -ma   pjan-ta  -w
who-ACC-INT  hit -PAST-LOCUT:ACT
'Whom did I/you hit?'

min-a  -ma   pjan-ti  -zi
who-ACC-INT  hit -PAST-NONLOCUT
'Whom did he hit?'

min-ma       pjan-ti  -s
who-NOM:INT  hit -PAST-LOCUT:UND
'Who hit me/you?'

min-ma       pjan-ti  -zi
who-NOM:INT  hit -PAST-NONLOCUT
'Who hit him?'

Very cool system, eh? :)

Sim lilda,

||| daniel

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