A Grammatical Analysis on Biseni Personal Pronouns
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International Journals of Sciences and High Technologies
Abstract
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This paper analyzed the grammatical features of personal pronouns in Biseni within a formal linguistic framework. The paper found that only an independent set of personal pronouns is attested in Biseni. The paper claimed that gender as a nominal grammatical category is fully marked on Biseni personal pronouns as the third person singular pronoun distinguishes a masculine, feminine and even a neuter morphological form. The study noted that this is a peculiar feature of Biseni grammar as most languages with shared genetic relationship do not display this feature. The paper also found that Biseni morphologically distinguishes the nominative, accusative, and genitive case on personal pronouns. The study reported that Biseni has a parametric pro-drop typology that permits null subject pronouns to be recovered from the verbal morphology of the language. The study also found that Biseni personal pronouns perform modification functions and show anaphoric usage in their syntax. The paper reported a morpho-phonemic interplay in the response of Biseni personal pronouns to clausal case functions. And recommended a detailed investigation of pronominalization in Biseni in order to evaluate and document the grammatical features of clausal subjects and objects.
Keywords
Biseni, Personal Pronouns, Gender, Case, Pronominalization, Pro-drop