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Article published In: International Journal of Chinese Linguistics
Vol. 9:1 (2022) ► pp.108–142

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On the emergence of a nonhuman bound pronoun in Tsou and its implications

 | Academia Sinica
Published online: 7 June 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ijchl.20012.cha
Abstract
This paper investigates the extension of a third person human bound pronoun to cover a nonhuman function and its implications for the grammar of pronouns in the Formosan language Tsou. It is found that (i) the newly derived bound pronoun can encode not only a place or an animal but also a time; (ii) it can refer to either a singular or a plural; (iii) the semantic extension is restricted to the invisible singular set of bound pronouns; (v) it surfaces as a suffix rather than an enclitic; (vi) it triggers either ergative or possessive agreement. These findings have far-reaching implications. On the one hand, they enrich the already sophisticated system of pronouns of Tsou. On the other hand, they differentiate Tsou from other Formosan languages with bound pronouns and identify Tsou as a language like Archaic Chinese/French instead of English/Swedish.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A grammatical sketch
  • 3.Nonhuman use of the personal pronoun -si
    • 3.1Ergative function
    • 3.2Possessive function
    • 3.3Plural -si
    • 3.4Other extensions?
    • 3.5Summary
  • 4.The grammatical status of the nonhuman pronoun -si
    • 4.1Morphological status
    • 4.2Syntactic/Semantic properties
    • 4.3The nonhuman -si as an agreement suffix
  • 5.Grammatical/Semantic constraints
    • 5.1The person constraint
    • 5.2The case constraint
    • 5.3The visibility and plurality constraint
  • 6.Implications for the grammar of pronouns
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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