The logic of Person markedness
Evidence from pronominal competition
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3000530 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ivy Sichel, Martina Wiltschko (0000-0003-4647-3033) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 97 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 42-71 |
| Publication date | 2021-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Language (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0097-8507 • E-ISSN: 1535-0665 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/lan.2021.0001 |
| OpenAlex | W3139891921 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 28 |
In some languages, such as Hebrew and German, a D-PRONOUN (a pronominal demonstrative form) may refer to a human. When it does, the use of the d-pronoun may be associated with a pejorative effect, implying a negative evaluation of the denoted individual (henceforth N(EGATIVE)-EFFECT). The N-effect is triggered, however, only under certain conditions. For example, when the d-pronoun is modified, no N-effect arises. This article examines the syntactic and pragmatic conditions under which this meaning emerges, and develops an account that integrates pronominal markedness and competition into the fold of conversational implicatures. The study addresses two questions: (i) What is the distribution of the N-effect? (ii) How is it linguistically encoded? Regarding (i), it is shown that the N-effect is triggered only when a personal pronoun could also have been used. This suggests that, everything else being equal, a personal pronoun is preferred over a d-pronoun; it also suggests that the N-effect is not intrinsically, or lexically, encoded. Regarding (ii), the N-effect must derive from the nonuse of a personal pronoun, and in this sense, it is related to markedness, and to systems that derive conversational implicatures. We argue that the use of a d-pronoun when a personal pronoun could also have been used gives rise to an implicature that the d-pronoun is associated with [–person], and we substantiate a theory of PERSON as a contentful category that marks discourse participation
Linguistics · Markedness · Object pronoun · Personal pronoun · Pronoun · Reflexive pronoun · Subject pronoun · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Philosophy · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
The genitive case with postpositions in Turkish
The Featural Life of Nominals
Gender allosemy in Greek
Explaining variance in writers’ use of demonstratives
A unified account of the multiple applications of German D-pronoun
The deictic content of demonstratives
N-effects are not-P-effects
Semantics of obviation in Atchan
The Syntax of Anaphora
Demonstratives as individual concepts
The typology of structural deficiency
The non-subject bias of German demonstrative pronouns
Some Aspects of Optimality in Natural Language Interpretation
Concept Types and Determination
A question of relevance
Nominal speech act structure
The Person Case Constraint
Problemes de linguistique generale
Presupposition Failure and Intended Pronominal Reference
Non-canonical agreement in copular clauses
The morphological basis of anaphora
Scalar Implicatures in Complex Sentences
On (in)definite articles
In defense of the grammatical approach to local implicatures
Logophoric pronouns and point of view
A theory of individual-level predicates based on blind mandatory scalar implicatures
Maximize Presupposition! and local contexts
On the characterization of alternatives
Architecture and Blocking
Resumptive Pronouns and Competition
That straight talk
Revisiting Pronominal Typology
On Markedness Asymmetries in Person and Number
Pragmatics and the social life of the English definite article
Structurally-defined alternatives
Person and Number in Pronouns
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2025 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |