Verse:Mwail/Old Gloob: Difference between revisions

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===Coreferentiality===

There are several situations where the strictly head-marking language tracks coreferentiality, or which agreeing noun a verb or pronoun taking a given agreement refers to.

====Proximate/obviative ~~affixes~~====

====Proximate/obviative====

The 3rd person, or proximate, object marks foreground or central referents, usually the first one or the most animate/possessing one mentioned soon after it. while the 4th person, or obviative, object refers to background or peripheral referents. The third person and the fourth person combine as 3+4=3, and when parts of a proximate plural is taken out, the first noun phrase to be taken out is the new 3rd person.

The fourth person ({{sc|4}}) in the Themsaran language is a third person obviative pronoun that distinguishes a non-salient third person referent from a more salient, proximate or pertinent, third person referent in a given discourse context.

There are a few basic rules for the Themsaran fourth person:

*Where animacy is involved, animate [[w:noun phrase|noun phrase]]s tend to be proximate, while inanimate [[w:noun phrases|noun phrases]] tend to be obviative.

*Possessors are obligatorily proximate and possessees are thus obligatory obviative.

*Proximate/Obviative assignments are preserved throughout clauses and are also often constant over longer discourse segments.

*If there is no need for a proximate/obviate distinction in the clause, the pronouns get [[w:Demonstrative pronoun|proximal]] and [[w:Demonstrative pronoun|distal]] functions.

*A proximate subject is always animate.

====Comparison====

@@ Line 2,871: / Line 2,871: @@
 ===Coreferentiality===
 There are several situations where the strictly head-marking language tracks coreferentiality, or which agreeing noun a verb or pronoun taking a given agreement refers to.
-====Proximate/obviative affixes====
+====Proximate/obviative====
 The 3rd person, or proximate, object marks foreground or central referents, usually the first one or the most animate/possessing one mentioned soon after it. while the 4th person, or obviative, object refers to background or peripheral referents. The third person and the fourth person combine as 3+4=3, and when parts of a proximate plural is taken out, the first noun phrase to be taken out is the new 3rd person.
+The fourth person ({{sc|4}}) in the Themsaran language is a third person obviative pronoun that distinguishes a non-salient third person referent from a more salient, proximate or pertinent, third person referent in a given discourse context.
+There are a few basic rules for the Themsaran fourth person:
+*Where animacy is involved, animate [[w:noun phrase|noun phrase]]s tend to be proximate, while inanimate [[w:noun phrases|noun phrases]] tend to be obviative.
+*Possessors are obligatorily proximate and possessees are thus obligatory obviative.
+<!-- *Obviation is most common in [[head-marking language]]s since the obviative is useful in disambiguating otherwise unmarked nominals. -->
+*Proximate/Obviative assignments are preserved throughout clauses and are also often constant over longer discourse segments.
+*If there is no need for a proximate/obviate distinction in the clause, the pronouns get [[w:Demonstrative pronoun|proximal]] and [[w:Demonstrative pronoun|distal]] functions.
+*A proximate subject is always animate.
 ====Comparison====