Universal #1120

Legacy number: 1120

 Number  1116
 Original  All personal pronouns are definite.
 Standardized  All personal pronouns are definite.
 Keywords  definite, personal pronoun
 Domain  inflection, syntax
 Type  unconditional
 Status  achronic
 Quality  almost absolute
 Basis  106 languages surveyed in Moravcsik 1969
 Source  Moravcsik 1969: 76

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Discussion
Counterexamples
1. Moravcsik (1969:76) based on grammar of Sadler (1951) claims that Lo(o)ma (Mande, Niger-Congo) for the 1st and 2nd person pronouns has contrasting pairs with respect of definiteness. This is, however, not true (thanks to Valentin Vydrine - p.c.). Actually Sadler does not mention any ‘indefinte personal pronouns’ and his ‘definite personal pronouns’ are in fact pronouns introducing the relativized topic „...me who...”. Possibly the term ‘definite personal pronouns’ misled Moravcsik in postulating Lo(o)ma to be a violative case. 2. In Hungarian (Ugric, Uralic), when the object pronoun is the 1st or 2nd person pronoun, the verb has “indefinite endings”. 3. This is probably a tautology: personal = definite by definition. Clearly there are forms which are pronouns and which refer to speech-act participants (esp. 3rd person) and which are indefinite, e.g. English someone.