In an overwhelming majority of languages, if some pronominal form denotes the metaperson ‘hearer’ in the singular, it cannot include among its meanings the following metapersons: (a) ‘speaker + hearer(s)’ and/or ‘speaker + non-participant(s)’, (b) ‘speaker + hearer(s) + non-participant(s)’, (c) ‘non-participant’
Standardized
IF a pronominal form denotes the metaperson ‘hearer’ in the singular, it cannot include among its meanings the following metapersons: (a) ‘speaker + hearer(s)’ and/or ‘speaker + non-participant(s)’, (b) ‘speaker + hearer(s) + non-participant(s)’, (c) ‘non-participant’
Keywords
personal pronoun, person, 2nd, hearer, number, singular, speaker, non-participant
Domain
inflection, syntax, lexicon
Type
implication
Status
achronic
Quality
statistical
Basis
400 world-wide distributed languages, see Sokolovskaja 1980: 98-99; Sokolovskaja surveyed systems of independent personal pronouns only.
To (a) and (b): Haitian (Creole, French-based), Marathi (Indic, Indo-European);To (c): Marathi (Indic, Indo-European), Aleut (Eskimo-Aleut) (Sokolovskaja 1980).
Sokolovskaja recognizes the following metapersons:’speaker’, ‘hearer’, ‘non-participant’, ‘speaker + hearer(s)’, ‘speaker + non-participant(s)’, ‘hearer(s) + non-participant(s)’, and ‘speaker + hearer(s) + non-participant(s).