Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Detail #305: Social-Status Demonstrative Quality Pronouns

In languages with great amounts of social stratification, where this stratification has been grammaticalized, consider pronouns and determiners with meanings along the lines of
such a/such __s
a similar thing
the same
Now, consider having pronouns meaning things like
a person of
  • the same social status 
  • similar social status  
  • different social status
  • any social status
 So, now we have pronouns signifying:
  • statuswise, such a ...
  • statuswise, another kind of
  • statuswise, a similar kind of
  • statuswise, any kind of
This could be an interesting dimension for a language to seep into.

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