Disjunctive pronoun
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A disjunctive pronoun is a stressed form of a pronoun reserved for use in isolation or in certain syntactic contexts.
Disjunctive pronominal forms are typically found in the following environments. The examples are taken from French (and the English translations show similar properties):
- in syntactically unintegrated disjunct (or "dislocated") positions
- Les autres s'en vont, mais moi, je reste. "The others are leaving, but me, I'm staying."
- in elliptical constructions ("sentence fragments") with no verb (e.g. short answers)
- Qui veut du gâteau ? Moi. "Who wants cake? Me."
- Il est plus âgé que moi. "He is older than me."
- in a coordination with a noun phrase or another pronoun
- Mes parents et moi arrivons dans une heure. "Me and my parents are arriving in an hour."
- in the main clause of a cleft sentence
- C'est moi que vous cherchez. "It's me that you're looking for."
- after a preposition.
- Comptez sur moi. "Count on me."
Disjunctive pronouns are often semantically restricted. For example, in a language with grammatical gender, there may be a tendency to use masculine and feminine disjunctive pronouns primarily for referring to animate entities.
- Si l'on propose une bonne candidate, je voterai pour elle. "If someone proposes a good candidate, I'll vote for her."
- Si l'on propose une bonne loi, *je voterai pour elle. "If someone proposes a good law, I'll vote for her (it)."
[edit] References
- Cardinaletti, Anna, Michal Starke (1999). “The typology of structural deficiency: A case study of the three classes of pronouns”, Henk van Riemsdijk (ed.) Clitics in the Languages of Europe. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 145–233.
[edit] See also
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