In Tona Texts, bound nominative pronouns and oblique pronouns may co-occur with coreferential free nominative pronouns or lexical noun phrases. First, consider bound nominative pronouns.
(65)a. la mo-paagl-a komo biciii nakay [then 2P.Nom-Dyn.NFin:prepare-already 2P.Nom Dyn.Subj:hear this baka-ili moan” la ya nian na pl
word-1S.Gen 2P.Obl then Dyn.NFin:so 3S.Obl Nom God]
‘“Prepare (yourself) as I tell you,” said the God.’ (Tona Texts, 11-015-j) b. “aokay-a wamc na bk nosia la
[Dyn.Subj:come-Imp Dyn.Subj:bring Obl pig tomorrow then paowa po-aii, ni-doo ki pat
Caus:Dyn.NFin:go Caus:to-inside 3S.Nom-Dyn.NFin:can Nom Pangetede aboal” la ya
Dyn.Subj:come out then Dyn.NFin:so]
‘“Bring (me) a pig tomorrow,” she was told, “and put it inside to let Pangetede come out .”’ (Tona Text, 01-002-c)
It is found that in one sentence with mo- ‘2P.Nom’ and all sentences with ni-
‘3S.Nom’ in the texts examined, the referents of the bound nominative pronouns also appear in the same sentences. For example, mo- ‘2P.Nom’ are cross-referenced with komo ‘2P.Nom’ in (65a)20 and ni- ‘3S.Nom’ with ki pat ‘Pangetede (a man’s name)’ in (65b). This shows that short nominative pronouns may co-refer with their clausemate full noun phrases or free nominative pronouns, that is, the other
nominative NP in the same clause. This feature reinforces the non-syntactic function of bound nominative pronouns as discussed in Section 3.5.
Similarly, oblique pronouns co-occur with their coreferential lexical noun
20 According to Zeitoun (p.c.), this sentence is very marked. However, the cooccurrence of long and short nominative is apparently acceptable as Li (1996b) reports.
phrases very often, especially the third person invisible pronouns.
(66)a. …no-kaay mi-koso namia maa-tina
[ will-Stat.NFin:tender will-2S.Nom 1PE.Obl Rec-middle-aged woman]
‘… you will take care of us, mother and daughter.’ (Tona Texts, 07-020-a) b. aokay maa na sa-ya-ya
[Dyn.Fin:come Dyn.Subj:take Obl InstNmz-Red-Dyn.NFin:dig iya ian koay alaliapi
Dyn.Subj:dig out 3S.Obl that Red:stone]
‘(He) came and took the digging instrument to dig that stone out.’
(Tona Texts, 12-010-e) As shown in the examples above, namia ‘1PE.Obl’ refers to maatina ‘mother and daughter’ in (66a) and ian ‘3S/P.Obl’ refers to koay alaliapi ‘that stone’ in (66b).
Although these oblique pronouns are not syntactically obligatory, such expressions appear in texts frequently. It is well-known that the referents of pronouns should be easily accessible in previous discourse. This co-occurrence is found most frequently in the third person invisible oblique pronoun, which is relatively difficult to identify among other pronouns. Therefore, the redundant appearance of the coreferential lexical NPs is very likely to be a strategy to assure the identifiability of these pronouns by the listeners or serve as an emphatic device.
3.14 Summary
This chapter reviews previous studies on personal pronouns and provides new findings in the present study. Section 3.1 reviews seven related previous studies, including Li (1977, 1996, 1997a, 1997b), Zeitoun (1995, 2003) and Huang et al.
(1999b). Section 3.2 presents sets of personal pronouns in the present study, which roughly agree with those presented in Huang et al. (1999b) but with some
modification regarding an additional label of topic and slight differences in the word
forms.
Next comes the demonstration of the usage regarding each set of pronouns.
Section 3.3 discusses the issues on free nominative pronouns including their syntactic functions and distribution as the subject in the matrix clauses and the complement clauses of utterance and cognition verbs. They appear directly in the post-predicate position. The use of free nominative pronouns in complement clauses shows the finite status of these clauses, which corresponds to Givon’s binding hierarchy.
Section 3.4 demonstrates topic pronouns in the pre-predicate position. Topic pronouns share the same forms with free nominative pronouns. In topic
constructions, they are often prefixed with a- and followed by ka as lexical noun phrases. They may denote the agent role or the patient role with a resumed oblique pronoun in the matrix clause.
Section 3.5 discusses several aspects on short nominative pronouns, including their designation of the speaker’s/agent’s volition, irrealis mode, their emphatic function in imperative sentences. These characteristics indicate that their functions exceed the mere grammatical level, reaching the pragmatic level.
Section 3.6 demonstrates the usage of oblique pronouns. They are free in distribution, designating non-subject roles. When denoting the experiencers of some stative verbs, oblique pronouns are used to indicate an affected subject. Such an analysis is generated from the semantic properties of these verbs, the restriction to the first person singular and plural exclusive pronouns and the asymmetry between affirmative and negative counterparts. In denoting the possessors in kinship, such usage is restricted to one’s own or older generations. A double oblique marking is observed, which has not been reported yet. However, the different oblique marking regarding the kinship term gili ‘younger sibling’ may show a development from dependent marking to head marking. Finally, oblique pronouns may refer to time
and location as well.
Section 3.7 discusses the usage of genitive pronouns including the canonical function to designate possessive relation, their appliance in interrogative sentences and subordinate clauses to serve as a nominalization device. In a negative/irrealis subordinate clauses and interrogatives discussed above, genitive pronouns are
suffixed to the negator i- or irrealis morpheme ni- and meanwhile undergo left-to right phonological assimilation.
The following sections discuss general features for all pronouns. Section 3.8 presents the word order regarding more than one pronoun or pronouns and noun phrases. Basically, they have a fixed word order: (i) pronouns precede lexical noun phrases; (ii) nominative pronouns precede oblique pronouns; (iii) recipients precede patients; (iv) third person free nominative pronouns resemble lexical noun phrases in their distribution.
Section 3.9 demonstrates the phonological, morphological and syntactic environment for their variants. First, the attachment of genitive pronouns usually yields the loss of the final vowel of the host. Yet, if the final vowel is the low vowel a, it is the first vowel i of the genitive pronouns that tends to be omitted. Second, the first person oblique pronoun koa is the reduced form of nakoa and is used much more frequently than nakoa now. Third, the last vowels of nominative and genitive pronouns can be replaced by i when followed directly by oblique pronouns.
Last comes the discussion of particular sets of pronouns which show
idiosyncratic features. Section 3.10 discusses two characteristics of third person pronouns: (i) demonstratives as their nominative forms and (ii) distinction in visibility.
First, the demonstratives are distinguished in terms of distance, visibility and probably case. Those with ki- tend to designate nominative nouns; those with na- tend to denote oblique nouns; the one with ko- is neutral. The third person nominative
pronouns are derived from two of the distal nominative demonstratives. However, their distribution differs from that of the other personal pronouns but resembles that of full lexical noun phrases. In addition, some of the demonstratives can be preceded by case markers to designate plural third person participants. Second, this study expands visibility in the physical world into the psychological sphere and unbinds the restriction of the short nominative pronoun ni- to denote only singular visible entities, which was reported in Huang et al. (1999b).
Section 3.11 presents the set of impersonal pronouns, which have not been reported in literature. This set of pronouns can refer to participants in any person or non-specific ones. In studying their contexts in Tona Texts, their usage appears to serve as a hedging device.
Section 3.12 presents the specification of one of the participants included in plural pronouns. This specified noun plays a comitative role but its case marking follows that of the plural pronoun.
Finally, Section 3.13 discusses the co-occurrence of bound nominative/oblique pronouns and their coreferential free pronouns and lexical noun phrases. This co-occurrence appears most frequently when the third person invisible pronouns are used. Therefore, this study treats the coreferential NPs as a device to assure the listener’s accessibility to the referent of the pronouns. When the other pronouns occur in this situation, the specified NPs are treated as an emphatic function.