The main aim of this essay has been to generate an understanding of the distinct difference of the Swedish indefinite pronoun man and the English counterpart. It is established that man provides an extraordinary feeling of generality in its context. The materials used to do this consist of two parts. Firstly, four different grammar books describing how the translation from Swedish to English should be done. Secondly, how a translator deals with the issue of not having a corresponding component in the English language. This essay also incorporates theory of translation to identify other problems a translator might get confronted with.

La thèse présentera nos recherches sur le pronom personnel du chinois sur les plans syntaxique, sémantique et pragmatique. Les approches synchronique diachronique et typologique seront conjuguées pour étudier le nombre, et sa fonction. Les conclusions qui en découlent sont les suivantes: (1) La fusion phonétique du pronom personnel et la marque du pluriel «men » [+humain] se divise en quatre types et son évolution pourrait s’expliquer par le phénomène « cline » dans le processus de grammaticalisation.(2) La subjectivité et l’objectivité ont causé la différence fonctionnelle des pronoms. (3) Les noms et les démonstratifs constituent les sources du système pronominal en chinois. Le contexte permet au démonstratif d’évoluer vers le pronom personnel ; (4) La distribution des pronoms inclusif et exclusifs est répartie en deux groupes, nord et sud. La ligne de démarcation traverse le dialecte Hui (situé à Anhui). Au groupe nord, la lexicalisation et la grammaticalisation du système de pronom s’avèrent plus développées que le groupe du sud. Le besoin de la restructuration interne en langue chinoise est responsable de l’apparition des pronoms inclusif et exclusif, cette opposition est d’une part héritée du chinois ancien et d’autre part influencée par les langues Altaïques au nord. Le système du pronom personnel en chinois ancien et moderne, manifeste une forte tendance de simplification, ceci est également attesté dans toutes les langue Sinitiques. / In this thesis, we set the personal pronouns as the studying object. Based on the three planes of syntax, semantic and pragmatic, we combine the diachronic and synchronic investigation methods and do the research respectively from the perspectives of number category, functional performance, diachronic evolution and typological language. The conclusions are: (1) we divide the phonetics fusion of plural marker “men” [+ human] and personal pronouns into four types, and its evolution could be explained by the phenomenon "cline" in the process of grammaticalization. (2) The subjectivity and objectivity are the cause of the different functions of pronouns. (3) The nouns and demonstratives constitute the sources of the pronoun system in Chinese. The context is the fundamental reason that affects the evolution of demonstrative pronouns to personal pronouns. (4) The distribution of inclusive and exclusive pronouns is divided into two group, north and south. The boundary line is the Hui dialect (located in Anhui). In North group, the lexicalization and grammaticalization of the pronoun system are more developed than the southern group. The need for internal restructuring in the Chinese language is responsible for the development of inclusive and exclusive pronouns. This opposition is firstly inherited from ancient Chinese and partly influenced by the Altaic north. The system of the personal pronoun in ancient and modern Chinese shows strong simplification trend, which is also attested in all Sinitic languages.

abstract: Subject Pronoun Expression (SPE) has been extensively studied in monolingual and bilingual varieties of Spanish using the variationist framework. The goal of these studies has been to examine the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors that condition the expression and the omission of personal subject pronouns. Nonetheless, to date, there is no study of SPE in the Spanish of Equatorial Guinea, the only African country where it is an official language, and the single country where Spanish is exclusively a second language (L2). This dissertation fills this gap in the literature by accounting for SPE in Equatoguinean Spanish. The research questions guiding this study concern the rates of Subject Pronoun Expression, its conditioning factors, and universal accounts of L2 acquisition, in particular, the Interface Hypothesis (IH). The study had 30 participants from Malabo, who took part in sociolinguistic interviews. These interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the mixed effects software Rbrul. Along the lines of the literature reviewed, the linguistic factor groups studied were grammatical person and number, reference, reflexivity, verb type, and ambiguity. By the same token, the extra linguistic factors analyzed were age, sex, education, native language (L1), and speaker as a random factor. The results indicate that the Equatoguinean variety of Spanish has one of the lowest pronoun rates (19.1%), a finding that goes against the predictions of the IH. With regard to the linguistic factor groups that condition Subject Pronoun Expression, Equatoguinean Spanish shows an unorthodox ranking: grammatical person and number, ambiguity, verb class, and reference. Interestingly, the low ranking of reference gives support to the IH, which argues that L2 speakers have problems with constraints like the switch of the reference in subjects because it integrates discourse and pragmatic interfaces. The only significant extra-linguistic factor was education, whereas speakers’ L1 exerted no effect on SPE. Individual speaker was a significant random factor group, indicating that variation is great even in speakers with comparable education. In sum, this study of a unique speech community provides new information on SPE of L2 Spanish. It also contributes to the fields of language contact, language variation, and second language acquisition. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Spanish 2020

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The first section of this thesis is a diachronic examination of second person pronouns in English with special focus on variations in usage such as pronominal shifting between thou (and related forms) and ye (and related forms), as well as an examination of the second person pronoun usage in the English Bible (especially the King James Version) with a similar focus. From the thirteenth century on variations in usage have been common.The second section is a synchronic examination of second person pronouns as used by Joseph Smith and some of his contemporaries, followed by an analysis of these pronouns in the Book of Mormon. Also included is a brief discussion of Book of Mormon textual variants and revisions, especially as they pertain to pronouns of address. The second person pronoun usage and pronominal shiftings in the Book of Mormon are similar to that of other works of Joseph Smith's day except for the use of thou (and related forms) when addressing a group as individuals. This pronoun usage seems more characteristic of biblical or Hebraic usage than that of English historically.

As people become aware that society treats women unfairly, they also perceive related shortcomings in the way that Modern English references women. For example, many have objected to the so-called generic he, the third-person masculine pronoun employed to refer to a person of unknown gender, and provided several alternatives, few of which have been widely adopted. Nonetheless, change is evident in the case of they becoming an increasingly common solution to refer to a person of unidentified gender. The intentional reform of the Modern English language, both in the past and present, has been a result of people's reactions to what is often perceived as a bias or a deficiency with what is possible to say given the words at their disposal. The rhetorical significance of reform is profound, and scholars continually broach the subject from the perspective of different disciplines. Explored here are the approaches of three of those fields, feminism, linguistics, and rhetoric; how each reacts to and even influences reform is an important part of the study. What is evident is that, regardless of the particular field, reform remains a force of change, even while it may not be broadly recognized. Further, traditional grammatical rules provide an insufficient means for tackling inequalities in Modern English, and are in part responsible for such imbalance. As such, writers must be aware of the present expectations of their audience and the situation of particular words.

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In English the personal pronouns are morphologically marked for grammatical number, whilst the third-person singular pronouns are also obligatorily marked for gender. As a result, the use of any singular animate antecedent coindexed with a third-person pronoun forces a choice between he and she, whether or not the biological sex of the intended referent is known. This forced choice of gender, and the corresponding lack of a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun where gender is not formally marked, is the primary focus of this thesis. I compare and contrast the use of the two main candidates for epicene status, singular they and generic he, which are found consistently opposed in the wider literature. Using corpus-based methods I analyse current epicene usage in written British English, and investigate which epicene pronouns are given to language-acquiring children in their L1 input. I also consider current prescriptions on epicene usage in grammar texts published post-2000 and investigate whether there is any evidence that language-external factors impact upon epicene choice. The synthesis of my findings with the wider literature on epicene pronouns leads me to the conclusion that, despite the restrictions imposed on the written pronoun paradigm evident in grammatical prescriptivism, singular they is the epicene pronoun of British English.

This PhD thesis examines a phenomenon known as Monosyllabic Circumflexion (MC, hereafter) from a historical linguistics / phonological point of view. MC denotes a Lithuanian or Balto-Slavic phenomenon according to which long vowels and diphthongs in monosyllabic words exhibit a circumflex tone instead of the expected acute tone.  It is observed in the following four categories: I. 3rd person future forms of monosyllabic stems (e.g., šõks ― šókti `to jump;' vy͂s ― výti `to drive') II. reflexes of PIE root nouns (e.g., Latv. gùovs `cow;' Lith. šuõ `dog') III. prepositions/adverbs (e.g., nuõ `from' ~  nùotaka `bride;' vė͂l `again' ~ Latv. vêl `still, yet,' tė͂ (permissive particle) < *teh1) IV. pronominal forms (e.g., tuõ ~ gerúoju `the good (m.~sg.~instr.),' tie͂ ~ tíeji `id. (pl.nom)'). The unexpected circumflex tone in these categories is problematic and important for the solution of a Balto-Slavic accentological question on the etymological background of acute and non-acute tones. The aim of this thesis is to partially contribute to the solution of this problem by establishing the existence of MC and its relative chronology. The first category, the 3rd person future forms, provides a substantial number of examples and counterexamples. The examination of them has revealed the fact that the counterexamples constitute a morpho-semantic group of verbs whose future stems underwent considerable morphological changes in the prehistory, hence not exhibiting MC. This shows that the regular tonal reflex of the 3rd person future forms of monosyllabic acute stem must be circumflex, allowing for the establishment of MC as a regular phonological process, although this category does not provide much information on the relative chronology of MC. The second category, the reflexes of Proto-Indo-European root nouns, gives an important clue as to where MC is located in the relative chronology of Balto-Slavic sound changes. Next, there is a discussion of whether the results of the examinations of the first two categories can be maintained for the data of the third and fourth categories, which show an irregular distribution of the acute and circumflex tones in monosyllabic forms. It is shown that various morphological factors, such as homonymic clashes within the paradigms for pronouns, can explain why some monosyllabic forms have acute tone. Also, the linguistic feature of West Aukštaitian dialects of Lithuanian that tend to preserve the results of MC is revealed. These dialects are known to have played an important role in the formation of standard Lithuanian. In this way, the monosyllabic forms with unexpected circumflex tone in Lithuanian are explained as a combination of MC in the Proto-Balto-Slavic time and the dialectal tendency of West Aukštaitian dialects of Lithuanian.