Proto-Tai Personal Pronouns.

Abstract

In 1962 Osamu Matsuyama reconstructed Proto-Tai as having had first, second, and third person pronouns with distinctions among singular, dual, and plural in all three persons. Because I have been able to use material on Tai dialects which has become available since Matsuyama's article appeared, and because I apply the comparative method more rigorously than Matsuyama did, I have made several important changes in his reconstruction. I argue in particular for initial clusters in some cases where Matsuyama reconstructs single-consonant initials, for an inclusive-exclusive distinction in the first person dual in addition to the first person plural, and for an animate-inanimate (or human-nonhuman) distinction in the third person. Also, I discuss problems, which Matsuyama ignores, involving the vowels of the singular pronouns and cast doubt on part of Matsuyama's dual series. In Chapter One I introduce Matsuyama's reconstruction and present background information on the branches of the Tai family and on the dialects discussed. In Chapter Two I present systematic phonological evidence for the initial, rhyme, and tone for each of the ten pronouns which I reconstruct for Proto-Tai. In Chapter Three I argue, among other things, that Proto-Tai had an opposition among singular, dual, and plural pronouns, even though some of the best known modern Tai dialects have neither dual nor plural pronouns. In Chapter Four I discuss the implications of my reconstruction for the study of Tai language history and Southeast Asian language-culture interactions.