Abstract
This study investigates the distribution of long and short independent pronouns in Maltese. By applying proposed positional and functional diagnostics to explain the variation between short and long pronouns (copular use, modification, coordination, peripheral positions) combined with a corpus study of pronominal form, person, and text type, this study sheds light on the factors that influence pronominal form and the status of reduced person forms in Maltese. While the copular use of pronouns does have a weak effect on pronominal form (long forms preferred), a stronger effect is observed with regard to grammatical person (1sg prefers short forms, 2sg & 3sg prefer long forms) and text type.
Acknowledgements
I thank the participants of the 4th International Conference on Maltese Linguistics in Lyon (2013) and the 47th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea in Poznań (2014) for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper. All remaining errors and inconsistencies are, of course, entirely my own responsibility.
Abbreviations
- def
definite
- dem
demonstrative
- dis
distal
- f
feminine
- fut
future
- ipfv
imperfective
- io
indirect object
- m
masculine
- neg
negation
- pfv
perfective
- pl
plural
- poss
possessive
- prox
proximate
- prs
present
- rel
relative
- sg
singular
- sub
subordinator
References
Biber, Douglas. 1995. Dimensions of register variation: A cross-linguistic comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511519871Search in Google Scholar
Borg, Albert & Marie Azzopardi-Alexander. 1997. Maltese. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Boucherit, Aziza. 2006. Algiers Arabic. In Kees Versteegh, Mushira Eid, Alaa Elgibali, Manfred Woidich & Andrzej Zaborski (eds.), Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics. Leiden: Brill.Search in Google Scholar
Bresnan, Joan. 2001. The emergence of the unmarked pronoun. In Geraldine Legendre, Jane Grimshaw & Sten Vikner (eds.), Optimality-theoretic syntax, 113–142. Cambridge: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, Anna & Michael Starke. 1999. The typology of structural deficiency: A case study of the three classes of pronouns. In Henk Van Riemsdij (ed.), Clitics in the languages of Europe, 145–234. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9783110804010.145Search in Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy. 1983. Topic continuity in discourse: A quantitative cross-language study. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.3Search in Google Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette K., Nancy Hedberg & Ron Zacharski. 1993. Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language 69(2). 274–307.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199687305.013.5Search in Google Scholar
Haiman, John. 1985. Natural syntax: Iconicity and erosion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1075/tsl.6Search in Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2015. Defining vs. diagnosing linguistic categories: A case study of clitic phenomena. In Joanna Blaszczak, Dorota Klimek-Jankowska & Krzysztof Migdalski (eds.), How categorical are categories?, 273–304. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9781614514510-009Search in Google Scholar
Helmbrecht, Johannes. 2006. Typologie und Diffusion von Höflichkeitspronomina in Europa. Folia linguistica 39(3/4). 417–452.10.1515/flin.2006.39.3-4.417Search in Google Scholar
Helmbrecht, Johannes. 2011. Politeness distinctions in pronouns. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library.Search in Google Scholar
Ide, Sachiko. 1989. Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness. Multilingua 8(2/3). 223–248.10.1515/mult.1989.8.2-3.223Search in Google Scholar
Kibrik, Andrej A. 2011. Reference in discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199215805.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Naim, Samia. 2006. Beirut Arabic. In Kees Versteegh, Mushira Eid, Alaa Elgibali, Manfred Woidich & Andrzej Zaborski (eds.), Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics, 274–286. Brill: Leiden.Search in Google Scholar
Paggio, Patrizia, Luke Galea & Alexandra Vella. 2013. MAMCO: A Maltese multimodal corpus. Paper presented at the 4th International Conference on Maltese Linguistics. Lyon.Search in Google Scholar
Ryding, Karin. 2005. A reference grammar of modern standard Arabic. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511486975Search in Google Scholar
Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de. 2000. Iċ-Ċkejken Prinċep. L-Imsida: Mireva.Search in Google Scholar
Siewierska, Anna. 2004. Person. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511812729Search in Google Scholar
Siewierska, Anna. 2011. Gender distinctions in independent personal pronouns. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library. http://wals.info/chapter/44.Search in Google Scholar
Stolz, Thomas. 1992. Höflichkeit im klassischen Aztekisch: Scheinaktanten. Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung 45(1/4). 252–278.10.1524/stuf.1992.45.14.252Search in Google Scholar
Stolz, Thomas & Benjamin Saade. 2016. On short and long forms of personal pronouns in Maltese. In Gilbert Puech & Benjamin Saade (eds.), Shifts and patterns in Maltese, 199–268. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9783110496376-009Search in Google Scholar
Versteegh, Kees, Mushira Eid, Alaa Elgibali, Manfred Woidich & Andrzej Zaborski (eds.). 2006. Encyclopedia of Arabic language and linguistics. Leiden: Brill.Search in Google Scholar
Used Corpora
MLRS (Maltese Language Resource Server) corpus (version 2.0): http://mlrs.research.um.edu.mt/CQPweb/malti02.
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
