基本説明
New in paperback. Hardcover was published in 2004. This pioneering stdy of pronouns takes into account more than 250 languages. It contrasts personal pronouns with pronouns such as demonstratives, interrogatives, and relatives and shows that they belong to two distinct categories.
Full Description
On the basis of a cross-linguistic study of over 250 languages, this book brings to light several fascinating characteristics of pronouns. It argues that these words do not form a single category, but rather two different categories called 'personal pronouns' and 'proforms'. It points out several differences between the two, such as the occurrence of a dual structure among proforms but not among personal pronouns. These differences are shown to derive from the distinct functions that the two categories have to perform in language.
The book also shows that the so-called interrogative pronouns of familiar languages do not actually have interrogation as their meaning. One can only assign the meaning of indefiniteness to them. Further, the notion of indefiniteness that can be associated with these and other pronouns is quite different from the one that can be associated with noun phrases. Other interesting aspects of this book include the postulation of certain typological distinctions like 'two-person' and 'three-person' languages and 'free-pronoun' and 'bound-pronoun' languages.
Contents
1. Introduction ; 2. Relation with the referent ; 3. Coreference and non-coreference ; 4. Association with grammatical categories ; 5. Conflicting characteristics ; 6. The position of third person pronouns ; 7. Structure of proforms ; 8. Constituent elements of proforms ; 9. Characteristics of proforms ; 10. Interrogative-indefinite puzzle ; 11. Other related puzzles ; 12. Concluding remarks ; Appendix (list of languages) ; References ; Index
