Friday, October 4, 2024

Yes, All Languages Have Some Kind of Pronouns (Not Always Separate Words)


Question: How many languages are there where pronouns don’t exist?
https://www.quora.com/How-many-languages-are-there-where-pronouns-don-t-exist/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-2


Answer requested by
Jennifer Newkirk

Hans-Georg Lundahl
amateur linguist
4.X.2024
St. Francis of Assisi
Human languages?

Zero, unless you mean pronouns as separate words, there may be languages where they only exist as endings or prefixes. Including in the accusative or possessive cases.

In Gaelic pronouns certainly exist, but they are related to prepositions in a way reminiscent of verb conjugation. In fact, in Irish Gaelic, even though it has more synthetic conjugation for verbs than Scottish Gaelic, it has even more so for prepositions:

I see lice on me.[1]
Feicim míolta orm.

Thou seest lice on thee. / You see lice on you. (Google translate didn't distinguish)
Feiceann tú míolta ort.

He sees lice on him.
Feiceann sé míolta air.

He sees lice on himself.
Feiceann sé míolta air féin.

She sees lice on her.
Feiceann sí míolta uirthi.

She sees lice on herself.
Feiceann sí míolta uirthi féin.

We see lice on us.
Feicimid míolta orainn.

They see lice on them.
Feiceann siad míolta orthu.


This being so, one can imagine languages in which even fewer or no situations at all feature pronouns as separate words.

Footnotes
[1] https://translate.google.com/details?hl=fr&sl=en&tl=ga&text=I%2520see%2520lice%2520on%2520me.&op=translate

Hans-Georg Lundahl
I can add, I took pronouns as a metasemantic category.

If you take it as a morphological one, Japanese would lack personal pronouns, since those of Japanese function like normal nouns.

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