Is There a Third-Person Personal Pronoun in Albanian?
Alexander Murzaku
College of Saint Elizabeth
The focus of the present paper is a classification of
Albanian pronouns that begin with an "a-" and "k-" (deictic particles for
distant and near, respectively). In conventional grammars, the "a-" pronouns
are classified as personal pronouns of the third person as well as demonstrative
pronouns. On the Web, which is an excellent source for statistical research,
significant results are achieved in the study of closed class of words
such as the deictic pronouns. Having analyzed data from the Web, the study
concludes that these pronouns have very similar distributions. From all
the cases under investigation, as well as a collocations analysis, the
study concludes that the "a-" particle always keeps its deictic marking,
thus remaining a true demonstrative pronoun. As a consequence, it can be
said that Albanian has a defective, almost non-existent third-person personal
pronoun paradigm.