The Pages of The Gray Wizard

Pronouns

6.0 pronouns

Pronouns are the simplest of NPs in that they take neither determiners nor adjective modifiers.  Pronouns in ámman îar are divided into personal, possessive, demonstrative, and impersonal pronouns.  These have a morphemic structure similar to that of the nouns defined or replaced by them and appear in complementary distribution with full noun phrases.

The absence of reflexive pronouns.  Reflexivity is indicated by a lexical verb inflection that does not require an anaphoric pronoun.

6.1 personal pronouns 

The ámman îar pronouns are inflected for person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), and number (singular and plural).  Pronouns also have derived gender forms (masculine, feminine, and epicene) as in the following table.  Note that as with nouns, gender markings are derivational rather then inflectional and are included here for completeness only.

Stressed forms of the personal pronouns are formed by prefixing the identifiable definite determiner.  

but to signal contrastiveness

6.2 demonstrative pronouns

When demonstratives are used alone without a noun head, they are considered demonstrative pronouns.  ámman îar demonstratives pronouns are formed on a paradigm identical to that used for demonstrative determiners, i.e. they represent both spatial and temporal deixis as well as anaphoric reference and they are divided into three degrees:

1. those of the 1^st degree (Proximal) which indicate proximity to the speaker;

2. those of the 2nd degree (Distal) which indicate distance from the speaker; and 

3. those of the 3^rd degree (Indefinite) which indicate an indefinite or unknown location. 

Demonstrative pronouns can be used only when their coefficients are not textually present.  Otherwise, the demonstrative determiners must be used.  Thus,

but

6.2.1 spatial deictic demonstrative pronouns

ámman îar spatial deictic demonstrative Pronouns locate entities in space and are divided into three degrees:

1. those of the 1^st degree (Proximal) which indicate proximity to the speaker;

2. those of the 2nd degree (Distal) which indicate distance from the speaker; and 

3. those of the 3^rd degree (Indefinite) which indicate an indefinite or unknown location. 
   

6.2.1.1 indefinite spatial deictic demonstrative pronoun

6.2.1.2 distal spatial deictic demonstrative pronoun

6.2.1.3 proximal spatial demonstrative pronoun

6.2.2 temporal deictic demonstrative pronouns

ámman îar temporal deictic Pronouns locate entities in time and are divided into those of the 1^st degree (Proximal) which indicate proximity to the present, those of the 2nd degree (Distal) which indicate distance from the present in either the past or the future and those of the 3^rd degree (Indefinite) which indicate an indefinite or unknown temporal location.

  6.2.2.1 indefinite temporal deictic demonstrative pronoun

6.2.2.2 distal temporal deictic demonstrative pronoun 

6.2.2.3 proximal temporal deictic demonstrative pronoun   

6.3 the impersonal pronoun

The impersonal pronoun mir can be translated 'one,' 'everyone', 'people', or even you and is used for non-specific or indefinite referents.

6.4 pronoun core cases

Pronouns are subject to a split-case morphology because of animacy considerations.  A NP is considered higher in animacy if it is to the left on the following continuum.

  1st person  2nd person      demonstratives        proper  common.
  pronouns    pronouns    3rd person pronouns   nouns     nouns  .

Since it is most natural to mark a participant when it is in an unaccustomed role, ámman îar uses case markings to indicate an A-function argument of low animacy or a P-function argument of high animacy. 

Unmarked pronouns are represented by the prototypically high animacy speech-act participants (1^st and 2^nd person pronouns) in A-function using the zero-morph nominative case.  Exceptions to these prototypes are marked forms.  Thus the accusative case (-in) is used to mark low animacy speech-act participants, 3rd person pronouns and demonstratives in P-function and the ergative case (-on) is used to mark high-animacy 3rd person pronouns and demonstratives in A-function.  The S-function argument of an intransitive predicate is always unmarked. 

6.4.1 speech-act participants

1^st and 2^nd person pronouns, the speech act participants, are inflected according to an accusative paradigm.

Note that speech act pronouns in accusative case do not geminate, Thus ner+in > nerin, not *nerrin

6.4.1.1 nominative

The Nominative case is used for 1^st person pronouns in S-function to an intransitive predicate.

and in A-function to a transitive  predicate.

6.4.1.2 accusative

The Accusative case is used for 1^st person pronouns in P-function to a transitive predicate.

  6.4.2 non-speech act pronoun cases

3^rd person and demonstrative pronouns, non-speech act participants, are inflected according to a tripartite system (see Animacy section of Preliminary Concepts chapter for an explanation of this seeming anomaly.

Note that unlike the speech act pronouns, the non-speech act pronouns do geminate in both the ergative and accusative cases.  Thus al+e > alle, not *ale

  6.4.2.1 ergative

The Ergative case is used for non-speech act pronouns in A-function to a transitive predicate.

6.4.2.2 accusative

The Accusative case is used for non-speech act pronouns in P-function to a transitive predicate.

6.4.2.3 nominative/absolutive

The Nominative/Absolutive case is used for non-speech act pronouns in S-function to an intransitive predicate.

It is a matter of some debate among scholars who have studied ámman îar as to whether non-speech act pronouns and demonstratives in S-function take a zero-morph nominative inflection or a zero-morph absolutive inflection or some zero-morph hybrid case.

6.5 oblique pronoun cases

All oblique case pronouns, regardless of person, like the nouns that they replace, take adverbial position and the same oblique inflections.

 6.6 locative pronoun cases

Similarly, all pronouns take the same locative case inflections as the nouns that they replace.