This paper describes the typology of person deictics, and
exemplifies the new universal person deictic system discussed
previously [YOSHIDA 1982]. It also examines the co-relationship
between typology and language groups.
Using 1129 languages (and/or dialects), 9 Basic Types, 23
Derivative Types and 2 Duality Dominant Types are recognized.
The Basic Type is not formulated statistically, as was Ingram's
methodology (1978), but theoretically. When all possible terms
within a particular person deictic system exist, the type which has
the terms is identified as a Basic Type. For example, a system in
which Loquent person and Audient person have both 'singularity'
and 'plurality' forms, belongs to a Basic Type, but a system in
which Audient person has only one term in spite of Loquent person
having 'singularity' and 'plurality' forms, as in English, is identified
as a Derivative Type. Basic Types are divided into two;
Dialoquent Person Type (D-Type) and Non-Dialoquent Person
Type (ND-Type). ND-Type lacks a Dialoquent person category
whereas D-Type has one. D-Type is subdivided into two;
Singularity Dialoquent Person Type (Ds-Type) and Non-Singularity
Dialoquent Person Type (Dns-Type). Only infrequently
among the world's languages does a 'singularity' form of Dialoquent
person occur. However, this occurs more often among the
Minor Languages of the Philippines [REID 1971], as in Hanunoo
[CONKLIN 1962]. This is the Ds-Type. The other system has a
Dialoquent person and belongs to the Dns-Type.
The Derivative Type is that in which one or more terms are
absent from the terms of Basic Type or occur in addition to those
terms. Since these types appear to be genetically derived from
Basic Types, they are called here Derivative Type. Only 68
samples out of 1141 (6.0%) languages treated here are identified
as Derivative Type, indicating that in them human recognition
is rational.
Two samples do not distinguish between singularity and
plurality forms despite the clear existence of a duality form.
This is the Duality Dominant Type, and it is noteworthy that
this type has the Dialoquent person. Although the 'duality'
form regularly appears following distinction between singularity
and plurality forms, it shows that the duality form in deictic
system is closely related with the Dialoquent person category, and
that the 'duality' form might be independent of other number
systems, although not universally so.
Most language groups exhibit particular characteristics in the
typology of person deictic system. For example, the dominant
types of Austronesian are 5Dns (Dns type with 5 terms) and 6Ds
types. Papuan is 5ND type, Australian is 8Dns, Indo-European
is 4ND, Afro-Asiatic is 4ND, Nilo-Saharan is also 4ND, and so on.
It seems that the notion of person deictics is strongly retained from
the ancestral language among the most language groups.
Sometimes, sub-groups have different characteristics that set
them apart from the groups. For example, Koman is identified
as 5Dns dominant type although Nilo-Saharan as a group is
identified as 4ND dominant type. Hence, sub-group level
analysis might reflect more precisely the actual features of the
samples. D-Type and ND-Type are adopted for simplification
and to clarify the basic notion of the deictic person system. A
distribution map of the types on the analysed above is provided
Fig. 30. The map suggests three hypothesis regarding the origins
of the notion of Dialoquent person category. One may be a
Yinmanese (the southwestern part of China) origin, from where
the notion of the category diffused westwards (Munda and
Dravidian), southwards (Kam-Tai, Austro-Asiatic without Munda
and Austronesian) and northeastwards (Altaic and American
languages). The second is that the origin might have been the
ancestral language of Chado-Hamitic. This is the African center
of the Dialoquent person category, and the notion of the category
spread from an uncertain geographical locality of the ancestral
language to Koman, Kordofanian, Eastern Sudanic, Adamawa
Eastern, West Atlantic and Khoisan. The third hypothesis is
an Australian origin. Although these hypothesis remain speculative,
they are valuable for testing the substratum of general
human recognition from the macro-perspective. ［Key word :
Cognitive Anthropology, universality, world's languages, typology,
origin and deixis]
(Please observe that the title of the first paper in this series
should read "Typology of Person Category in Deixis (I)".)
会話場面における人の概念の類型論（II) : その類型と類型の世界的分布
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