Cameroon

What is the most insightful way to describe the personal pronoun paradigm in Chufie’? Many analyses of pronouns in Grassfields present a system for pronouns similar to the following, here showing data from Chufie’. Many Grassfields languages have an additional set of pronouns, described with varying terminology such as selective, additive and compound. These can include grammatical linking morphemes and non-subject pronoun forms. pʉgʉ-e [pɯ̀ɡî] 1P.EX-3S.OBJ I and he paiŋ-e [pa ̀a ̃̂] 2P-3S.OBJ you (sg) and he pou-e [pó↓é] 3P-2S.OBJ he and he pʉgʉ-a pou [pʉ̀gápóu] 1P.EX-LINK 3P I and they; we and he/they pǎiŋ póu 2P 3P you (sg) and they; you (pl) and he/they póu-à póu 3P-LINK 3P they and they pìéŋʼ póu 1P.IN 3S I/we and you (sg)/(pl) and he/they Grammatical descriptions of Grassfields Bantu languages which make reference to dual, inclusive and exclusive when presenting pronouns are less than insightful when dual, as a grammatical category, does not exist outside the pronoun system. Such a description leads to an imbalanced view of first person plural (1P): other subject pronouns typically have one form, but the 1P category has three. This paper will present an alternative view of person marking in Chufieʼ informed by Cysouw (2009). It will treat the basic subject pronoun system and present compound pronouns which are made up of combinations of basic pronouns in various configurations. It will be seen that the compound pronouns are best described by a more balanced presentation of basic pronouns, referring to minimal and augmented types as well as incorporation. Reference: Cysouw, Michael. 2009. The Paradigmatic Structure of Person Marking. Oxford: OUP.