Universal 1320:
- Original
- Among the deictic elements of every human language is one that denotes the speaker and one that denotes the addressee.
- Standardized
- Among the deictic elements of every human language is one that denotes the speaker and one that denotes the addressee.
- Keywords
- deictic elements, personal pronoun, speaker, addressee
- Domain
- lexicon
- Type
- unconditional
- Status
- achronic
- Quality
- absolute
- Basis
- unspecified
- Source
- Hockett 1963: 21
- Counterexamples
In other words, first and second person singular pronouns are universal. A more interesting question is whether these forms are in fact necessarily dedicated to these functions, or also have other functions, deictic (here/there) or as social-role designations (servant/master).