Etymology of demonstrative and personal pronouns (Northern Mansi)

DemNotPP: Personal pronouns and demonstrative pronouns are separate classes, and they are not etymologically related.


In Northern Mansi, the third person singular pronoun (taw) is derived from the Uralic pronoun *sV ‘he/she/it’ (UEW: 453). The distal (ta) and proximal (ti) demonstrative pronouns also have Uralic origins: they come from the *ta and *tä forms. Thus the synchronic similarity between the personal pronouns and the demonstratives is just a coincidence.

Author: 

Szilvia Németh