I think it was Miekko who pointed this out to me a whole while ago. There’s a long-decommissioned page by Apollo Hogan on which he summarizes bits on the typology of indefinite pronouns from the book Indefinite Pronouns by Martin Haspelmath.1
Some Theoretical Underpinnings
According to Haspelmath’s classification, there are 9 groups of indefinite pronouns:2
Specific | Known to speaker | SK (1) | |
Unknown to speaker | SU (2) | ||
Non-specific | Irrealis context | I/NS (3) | |
Negative polarity | Conditional protasis | COND (5) | |
Polar question | QU (4) | ||
Standard of comparison | COMP (8) | ||
Indirect negation | IN (6) | ||
Direct negation | DN (7) | ||
Free choice | FC (9) |
What is interesting here is that languages form contiguous groups from these elements according to the item indices above. For example, English is indicated as 12345 (some-), 456789 (any-), 7 (no-); German is indicated as 123456 (etwas), 23456+89 (irgend-), 456+8 (je-), 6+89 (jemand-), 7 (n-):3
(7) DN | ||||
(1) SK | (2) SU | (3) I/NS | (4) QU | (6) IN |
(5) COND | (8) COMP | |||
(9) FC |
A Little Survey of Ayeri
Let us now see how this translates into Ayeri. In the following, I will more or less faithfully translate and adapt some of the example sentences given on the website linked above, which are probably quoted straight from Haspelmath:
- Specific, known to speaker (SK):
- Ang no naraya arilinya vaya – leku sinyāng!
- Ang
- AT
- no
- want
- nara-ya
- talk-3SG.M
- arilinya.Ø
- someone.TOP
- vaya
- you.LOC
- –
- –
- lek-u
- guess-IMP
- sinya-ang!
- who-A
‘Somebody wanted to talk to you – guess who!’ - Le rua ningyang arilinya vayam.
- Le
- PT.INAN
- rua
- must
- ning-yang
- tell-1SG.A
- arilinya.Ø
- something.TOP
- vayam.
- you.DAT
‘I must tell you something.’
- Ang no naraya arilinya vaya – leku sinyāng!
- Specific, unknown to speaker (SK):
- Le tangyang arilinya, nārya ming naroyyang, adareng sinyaley.
- Le
- PT.INAN
- tang-yang
- hear-1SG.A
- arilinya.Ø,
- something.TOP,
- nārya
- but
- ming
- can
- nara-oy-yang,
- say-NEG-1SG.A,
- ada-reng
- that-A.INAN
- sinya-ley.
- what-P.INAN
‘I heard something, but I can’t say what it was.’ - Ang pegaya arilinya pangisley nā!
- Ang
- AT
- pega-ya
- steal-3SG.M
- arilinya.Ø
- steal.TOP
- pangis-ley
- money-P.INAN
- nā
- my
‘Somebody stole my money!’
- Le tangyang arilinya, nārya ming naroyyang, adareng sinyaley.
- Irrealis, non-specific (I/NS):
- Pinyan, prantu yāril palung.
- Pinyan,
- Please,
- prant-u
- ask-IMP
- yāril
- somewhere
- palung.
- different
‘Please ask somewhere else.’ - Intu arilinyaley kondanyam yām!4
- Int-u
- Buy-IMP
- arilinya-ley
- something-P.INAN
- kond-an-yam
- eat-NMLZ-DAT
- yām!
- me.DAT
‘Buy me something to eat!’
- Pinyan, prantu yāril palung.
- Polar question (QU):
- Ang ningya arilinya vayam arilinyaley adanyana?
- Ang
- AT
- ning-ya
- tell-3SG.M
- arilinya.Ø
- anybody.TOP
- vayam
- you.DAT
- arilinya-ley
- anything-P.INAN
- adanya-na?
- that.one-GEN
‘Did anybody tell you anything about it?’ - Ang koronva arilinyaley edanyana?
- Ang
- AT
- koron-va.Ø
- know-you.TOP
- arilinya-ley
- something-P.INAN
- edanya-na
- this.one-GEN
‘Do you know something/anything about this?’
- Ang ningya arilinya vayam arilinyaley adanyana?
- Conditional protasis (COND):
Le silvvāng arilinya, ningu yām adanyana!
- Le
- PT.INAN
- silv-vāng
- see-2SG.A
- arilinya.Ø,
- something.TOP,
- ning-u
- tell-IMP
- yām
- me.DAT
- adanya-na
- that.one-GEN
‘If you see something/someone, tell me about it!’ - Indirect negation (IN):
Paronoyyang, ang koronya arilinya guratanley.
- Parona-oy-yang,
- Believe-NEG-1SG.A,
- ang
- AT
- koron-ya
- know-3SG.M
- arilinya.Ø
- anybody.TOP
- guratan-ley
- answer-P.INAN
‘I don’t think that anybody knows the answer.’ - Direct negation (DN):
- Ang koronya ranya guratanley.
- Ang
- AT
- koron-ya
- know-3SG.M
- ranya.Ø
- nobody.TOP
- guratan-ley
- answer-P.INAN
‘Nobody knows the answer.’ - Le koronyang ranya.
- Le
- PT.INAN
- koron-yang
- know-1SG.A
- ranya.Ø
- nothing.Ø
‘I know nothing/I don’t know anything.’
- Ang koronya ranya guratanley.
- Standard of comparison (COMP):
- Engara simingreng edaya ban yanen palung.
- Eng-ara
- be.more-3SG.INAN
- siming-reng
- weather
- edaya
- here
- ban
- good
- yanen
- anywhere
- palung
- else
‘The weather here is better than anywhere else.’ - Engyeng larau enyās palung.
- Eng-yeng
- be.more-she.A
- larau
- nice
- enya-as
- everyone-P
- palung
- else
‘She is nicer than anyone else.’
- Engara simingreng edaya ban yanen palung.
- Free choice (FC):
Ang ming guraca enya eda-prantanley.
- Ang
- AT
- ming
- can
- gurat-ya
- answer-3SG.M
- enya.Ø
- anyone.TOP
- eda=prantan-ley
- this=question-P.INAN
‘Anyone can answer this question.’
It turns out that Ayeri merges all of (1) through (6) as arilinya ‘somebody, something’, has a separate (7) ranya ‘nobody, nothing’, and then also merges (8) and (9) as enya ‘anyone, everyone’. Among the dozen or so of natural languages cited as example types, Ayeri is thus closest to Catalan, given as 123456 (algun), 45678 (cap), 89 (qualsevol). What Ayeri doesn’t have, however, is an indefinite negative pronoun in the fashion of French personne or Catalan cap, since ranya can only be used for direct negation and arilinya is inspecific as to affirmative or negative expectation or reference. Comparing the results to the first table above, it should be clear that Ayeri lacks a polarity distinction in that negative polarity is not a distinct category but pronouns overlap with both negative and positive (or non-negative?) categories.
- Haspelmath, Martin. Indefinite Pronouns. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004. Print.
- Hogan, Apollo. “Ye Merrye Conlangre: Indefinite Pronouns.” Apollo’s Constructed Languages. N.p., 2004. Web. The WayBackMachine. Archive.org, 31 Dec. 2014. Web. 5 Mar. 2016. ‹https://web.archive.org/web/20041118130534/http://math.berkeley.edu/~apollo/my-conlangs/mcindpro.html›.
- My university’s Linguistics department library has a copy of the book, however, I don’t have it at hand now, so I’ll maybe add proper page references later. For the time being, I’ll rely on the information on Hogan’s page. ↩
- This table copied from Hogan’s page, linked above. ↩
- This table, too, is lifted from Hogan’s page. ↩
- Not quite sure about the kondanyam part here, maybe better: Intu arilinyaley yām siley ming konjang ‘… which I can eat.’ (… REL-P.INAN can eat-1SG.A). ↩