Personal pronouns
The paradigms of subject singular pronouns of the three test languages are summarized in (1).
(1)
The data presented in (1) are simplified in a number of ways. More detailed accounts are found in the references cited in (1); the following in particular should be noted:
The first and second person pronouns of Naro have both a “full form” and a “short form”. The former, consisting of two elements (separated by “-” in [1]), are the ones primarily used as subject pronouns. The object pronouns are also “short forms” but they differ from the subject “short forms” in tone and a few other phonological details (see Vossen 1997:216–7).
The third person pronouns of Kxoe and Naro are composed of the demon strative stem xà- plus the respective pgn. In a similar fashion, the Hiechware third person pronoun e-be appears to be composed of the proximal demon strative e ‘this’ and the third person masculine singular pgn-be, which is likely to be a reflex of the pgn *ba of Proto-Khoe
On the basis of these observations one may assume that in all three languages the demonstrative serves as a base for third person pronouns to which pgn’s were added. But Naro has gone one step further: It has extended the bi-morphemic structure of personal pronouns from third person pronouns to second and first person subject pronouns.
While the exact nature of the process leading to the rise of complex non third person pronouns is not entirely clear (cf. Honken 1977; Vossen 1997), the most plausible hypothesis would be that a paradigm of earlier pronominal elements was ‘reinforced’ by pgn’s, the result being that Naro now has complex personal pronouns consisting of pgn’s plus another element etymologically related to the respective pgn, while Hiechware and Kxoe have retained the simple pgn’s as first and second person pronouns.
