Abstract

RAMIREZ FUENTES, Yesenia; VALDES SANTIAGO, Damian  and  DOMINGUEZ HERNANDEZ, Marlen Aurora. Analysis of first and second person singular subject pronouns in private letters. Leng. [online]. 2020, vol.48, n.2, pp.261-288. ISSN 0120-3479.  https://doi.org/10.25100/lenguaje.v48i2.8486.

This paper conducts a linguistic analysis of 32 original, manuscript letters, written in Cuba by the Dominican hero Máximo Gómez Báez and sent to the Puertorican poet Lola Rodríguez de Tió from 1900 to 1904. The goal of this research is to identify and characterize the linguistic features that conditioned the alternations between the null subject and the explicit subject of the first and second person singular pronouns. The linguistic variables considered were: time, mode, syntax and verb semantics, referent change, and emphasis. It was found that the presence of PPSs is related with the first person singular, indicative mode and past tense. According to the variables of verbal syntax and semantics, transitive, copulative and mental cognitive activity verbs foster the presence of PPSs. Likewise, the change of reference is significant in the appearance of these pronominal forms, since it shows the new grammatical person on whom the statement will be focused. The relevant variables for the absence of PPSs would be, instead, the constructions with non-personal forms of the verb and imperative statements, as the context allows.

Keywords : personal subject pronouns; first and second person singular; private correspondence; Máximo Gómez; linguistic analysis.

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