Marking of intermediate grammatical number on personal pronouns (Synja Khanty)

SyntPP: PPs have a synthetic stem (i.e., the morphological expression of number and person occurs simultaneously), and the expression of different numbers within the same person does not display internal flexion.


Person

Singular

Dual

Plural

1

min

muŋ

2

naŋ

nin

nin

3

luw

lin

lij

(Onina 2009: 30)


The personal pronouns in the dual number are marked with -n, that, nevertheless, cannot be considered a separate morpheme in synchrony any more. Within singular and plural forms, there are no such uniform markers. The second person dual and plural forms of the personal pronoun are homonymous (cf. Onina 2009: 30, Nikolaeva 1999a: 15–16, Honti 1984: 70–73). From a synchronic point of view, personal pronouns do not display internal flexion in Synja Khanty, nor can they be considered as compounds of two separate morphemes.

Author: 

Nikolett F. Gulyás