Re: Proper methodology (was: RE: [tied] Re: Mother of all IE langua

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 28034
Date: 2003-12-06

On Sat, 06 Dec 2003 13:12:33 +0000, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>
wrote:

>And the Dutch calque /U/ < /Uwe Genade/

U.E. (Uwe Edelheid, or U Edele), actually. The abbreviation became Uwé
/ywé:/, /ýw&/ then U /y/. This was obviously helped bij the fact that the
oblique of <gij> always had been <u>, and the possessive <uw>, <uwe>
/yw(&)/ (Northern: <jij>, <jou>, <jouw(e)>).

>But no matter. A principal quesion: do you believe that 'pronoun' is
>a necessary category in language, such that every individual language
>necessarily must have a set of them?

Some East Asian languages get by without them, so no.

However, even in situations of pronoun avoidance, certain turns of phrase
tend to become standardized as referring to first, second (and third)
person. They can either become full-fledged personal pronouns again, or,
if the social pressures haven't changed, they can become taboo again and
replaced by a new set of standardized circumlocutions, and so on, and so
on. Not unlike what happens to nouns and verbs denoting sexual actions,
ethnic minorities, etc.

>If so, then this would answer the question of the missing Japanese
>pronouns, they must then have been lost in the course of time.
>Personally, I think the idea of a pronoun requires a certain amount
>of self-reflection on the part of a culture.

*Language* requires a certain amount of self-reflection. There is always a
speaker (1st person), a spoken-to (2nd. person) and a spoken-about (3rd.
person), whether overtly grammaticalized or not.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...