Debunking the I above YOU illusion

Bibliographic Data

ID3144255
AuthorsMarie-Odile Junker
Year2011
Volume11
Issue1
Pages35-50
Publication date2011-04-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLIAMES Línguas Indígenas Americanas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1678-0531 • E-ISSN: 2177-7160
PublisherUniversidade Estadual de Campinas (PUBLISHER • BR)
DOI10.20396/liames.v0i11.1495
OpenAlexW2240520732
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited23

There is a long tradition in placing I above YOU in linguistics and grammar. In our Western grammatical terminology, I is the "first person". In the universal scale of agentivity, or "universal person hierarchy", I is placed before YOU. The goal of this paper is to examine the proof for ordering I and YOU in such a fashion. The universal character of local person marking in human languages, and existing proposals concerning the person hierarchy are reviewed. The kind of grammatical phenomena governed by the so-called "universal hierarchy": split ergativity, inverse systems, and pronominal marking, are discussed. First, we show that there are languages whose grammatical phenomena are governed by the other order, with YOU above I. Looking for the possibility that two person hierarchies share room within world languages, we then turn to the facts that support placing I above YOU, and demonstrate that this proof is non-existent. The egocentric perspective belongs to linguistics, and to certain habits of a Western school of thought, not to natural languages. The data examined here also shows that there are no languages where split ergativity or the inverse system would operate from a hierarchy placing 3rd persons above 2nd or 1st , thus confirming a 2, 1>3 hierarchy. As far as a hierarchy between singular persons or Speech Acts participants is concerned, the one for which there is clear evidence is the one where YOU outranks I: 2>I

Grammar · Hierarchy · Linguistic universal · Linguistics · Natural (archaeology · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Terminology · Universal Grammar · Computer Science · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Natural Language Processing Techniques · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation · Artificial Intelligence · History · Philosophy

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