In an overwhelming majority of languages, if the metaperson ‘non-participant’ in the singular is not the only meaning denoted by some pronominal form, then the only other metaperson expressed will be ‘non-participant’ in the non-singular.
Standardized
IF the metaperson ‘non-participant’ in the singular is not the only meaning denoted by a pronominal form, THEN the only other metaperson expressed will be ‘non-participant’ in the non-singular.
Keywords
personal pronoun, person, 3rd, non-participant, number, singular, non-singular
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.
1. 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). 2. Cf. #1462.