Rara #61

Legacy number: 61

 Number  61
 Phenomenon  choice of 3rd person personal pronoun determined by gender (MASC/FEM/NEUT, contrasting in SG only and not corresponding to animacy distinctions in any consistent manner), except in adpositional phrases (with adpositions governing the dative or genitive), where the relevant contrast rather is one of animacy or related notions, with masculine and feminine pronouns now only referring to animate (or concrete, figure, salient) referents and with the neuter pronoun (both in singular and plural) replaced by local-adverbial forms (da, wo ), preceding rather than following their adpositions, for inanimate (abstract, ground, not-so-salient) referents
 Found in  German (Germanic, IE)
 Domain  morphology: inflection — categories and their domains: gender, respect
 Type  rarissimum
 Keywords  personal pronoun, adverb, animacy
 Source  any grammar
 Violates  none

← Back to Raritätenkabinett

Discussion
Notes
e.g.,Er kauft ihn/sie/es he buys him/her/it (MASC/FEM/NEUT.ACC); Er tr?umt von ihm/ihr he dreams of him/her (MASC/FEM.DAT); Er tr?umt da-von he dreams there-of (?of it?)
Comment
Frans Plank · 21 Sep 2006
e.g.,

<table class = 'textTable'>

<tr>

<td>Er kauft ihn/sie/es</td>

<td>he buys him/her/it (MASC/FEM/NEUT.ACC);</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Er träumt von ihm/ihr</td>

<td>he dreams of him/her (MASC/FEM.DAT);</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Er träumt da-von</td>

<td>he dreams there-of ('of it')</td>

</tr>

</table>