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Re: About persons

From:dirk elzinga <dirk.elzinga@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 22, 2001, 15:58
On Tue, 22 May 2001, The Gray Wizard wrote:

> > From: John Cowan > > > > There is a natlang, the name of which I forget, which has a > > very neat scheme of pronouns: > > > > singular dual plural > > speaker and listener --- thou and I we (inclusive) > > speaker, not listener I he/she/it and I we (exclusive) > > listener, not speaker thou he/she/it and thou you > > neither one he/she/it they two they > > I love it. Does anyone know what natlang this is?
Shoshoni (1 is speaker, 2 is listener, and 3 is neither): sg du pl 1+2 ---- taweh tammen 1+3 ne neweh nemmen 2 en meweh memmen 3 suten suteweh suteen The third person pronouns are actually demonstratives (there's a boatload of demonstratives in Shoshoni marking proximity and visibility). The original Uto-Aztecan third person pronouns survive in Shoshoni as reflexives: pen, peweh, pemmen. It's pretty obvious from the pronoun chart that there's been some innovation going on in Shoshoni; the forms are just too regular. Proto-Uto-Aztecan had neither an inclusive/exclusive distinction, nor a dual number. However, all of the Numic languages have both, though none as fully fleshed out as Shoshoni. Chemehuevi (a variety of Southern Paiute) has the following system: sg du pl 1+2 ---- tami tawe 1+3 nee nemi 2 emi memi 3anim iNa ime here maNa mame visible uNa ume invisible 3inan ice/ika/i- here mare/maka/ma- visible ure/uka/u- invisible What I find interesting about the Chemehuevi/Southern Paiute system is that the number disinctions gradually disappear according to an animacy/empathy hierarchy; there's a dual/plural contrast only for inclusive first person, and inanimate third person makes no number contrasts at all. Dirk -- Dirk Elzinga dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu "The strong craving for a simple formula has been the undoing of linguists." - Edward Sapir

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jesse stephen bangs <jaspax@...>