Anaphora, relative pronouns and *jo- in Slavic

An anaphoric pronoun is one that has the same reference as another word previously used in the same discourse. For example, one and that are used anaphorically in the following examples:

I forgot to bring a pen; can you lend me one?

His position was more comfortable than that of his brother.

Anaphoric pronouns may assume relative functions, since a relative clause also refers to a person or thing already mentioned.

Schematically:

{HERE IS WOLF}; {THAT

(anaphoric = ‘this wolf’) I KILLED} > {HERE IS WOLF {THAT (relative) I KILLED}}

Dialectal IE *jo- (definitely not a Nostratic pronoun, pace Illich-Svitych and his poetry) is obviously a variant of anaphoric *i- with a thematic vowel added (*i-o-), apparently in order to increase its inflectional potential. In Proto-Slavic it came to be used as a relative pronoun (often, though not exclusively, accompanied by the reinforcing particle *-že < PIE *ge). As an example, let me quote some Old Polish forms (the Modern Polish relative pronoun is który, identical with interrogative ‘which’):

Nom. jen(że) ‘which, who (rel.)’

Acc. ji(ż) ‘which, who(m)’

Gen. jego(ż) ‘of which, whose’

Dat. jemu(ż) ‘to which, who(m)’, etc.

Additionally, the non-nominative forms without the reinforcing particle served (and most of them still serve) as 3rd person pronouns (e.g. jemu ‘[to] him’); the suppletive nominative on/ona/ono ‘he/she/it’ is an old demonstrative.

In Slavic (and Baltic) *jo- was also added to adjectives as a clitic; this gave rise to a special adjective declension with pronominal inflections (cf. ‘weak’ adjectives in Germanic):

*newos ‘new’ > novU (with noun-like inflections)

*newos+jos > OCS novU-jI (pronominal endings), Gen. nova-jego/nova:go

In modern Russian the two types contrast functionally: nov is predicative and novyj is attrributive (i.e., occurring in a noun phrase). Originally, however, the longer forms were probably definite and the shorter ones indefinite:

*dobra roda ‘of a good family’

*dobrajego roda ‘of that good family’

Piotr