Effects of perspective-taking on pronominal reference to humans and animals: Logophoricity in Finnish

This paper investigates the logophoric pronoun system of Finnish, with a focus on reference to animals, to further our understanding of the linguistic representation of non-human animals, how perspective-taking is signaled linguistically, and how this relates to features such as [+/-HUMAN].In contexts where animals are grammatically [-HUMAN] Strap-ons but conceptualized as the perspectival center (whose thoughts, speech or mental state is being reported), can they be referred to with logophoric pronouns? Colloquial Finnish is claimed to have a logophoric pronoun which has the same form as the human-referring pronoun of standard Finnish, han (she/he).This allows us to test whether a pronoun that may at first blush seem featurally specified to seek [+HUMAN] referents can be used for [-HUMAN] referents when they are logophoric.

I used corpus data to compare the claim that han is logophoric in both standard and colloquial Finnish vs.the claim that the two registers have different logophoric systems.I argue for a unified system where han is logophoric in both registers, and moreover can be used for logophoric [-HUMAN] referents in both colloquial and standard Finnish.

Thus, DIY Embroidery Ornament Kit on its logophoric use, han does not require its referent to be [+HUMAN].

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *