On the structure of (personal) pronouns in Inuktut

Abstract

This article examines the internal structure of personal pronouns in Inuktut. Building on previous work on syntactic variation and universals in personal pronoun systems (Harley and Ritter 2002, Ghomeshi and Massam 2020) and drawing on arguments that these and demonstrative pronouns are structurally complex (Déchaine and Wiltschko 2002, Leu 2015), it is argued that Inuktut pronouns are morphosyntactically complex, with exponents realizing multiple functional heads as well as an overt root. In particular, it is claimed that (local) person is represented twice, both as a root and in a higher functional projection. Previous arguments that Inuktut pronouns should instead be analyzed as D heads based on Adnominal Pronoun Constructions are also addressed (Yuan 2018, 2021).

Complex Possessive Pronouns in West Flemish and German

“…For discussion of the particular ordering  >  we refer the reader toPicallo (1991) andKramer (2015). For the sake of clarity, we present the structures in (15) and (16) with a unary branching foot, but the pronouns could be expected to be built from a root, as inCompton (2022).5 In their current forms, the structures of possessive pronouns are indistinguishable from those of personal pronouns. It is therefore possible that we might need a feature that is characteristic of possessives, like a dedicated  feature or a genitive case feature, as proposed byVan Baal and Don (2018).…”