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“We are 9 degrees and sunny”: the use of personal pronouns with weather predicates
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 May 2024
Abstract
This squib discusses a construction heard during weather reports on CBC Radio One in Manitoba whereby personal pronouns appear as the subjects of weather predicates. We show that the use of we/you in statements like we are minus 15 degrees and Brandon, you are sunny is unlike other non-prototypical uses for personal pronouns that have been noted in the literature and argue they index place rather than person. We note that the deictic coordinates of the utterance that are spelled out by these pronouns are necessary for a felicitous interpretation of weather statements, even though they are typically implicit. This implicit deixis, in turn, sheds light on a long-standing claim that weather-it, in contrast to a true expletive, is ‘quasi-argumental’ (Chomsky 1981). That is, we suggest that the deictic coordinates of an utterance are ‘quasi-arguments’.
Résumé
Cette notule traite d'une construction entendue dans les bulletins météorologiques diffusés sur CBC Radio One au Manitoba, où les pronoms personnels apparaissent comme sujets des prédicats météorologiques. Nous montrons que l'utilisation de we/you dans des énoncés comme we are minus 15 degrees et Brandon, you are sunny est différente des autres utilisations non-typiques des pronoms personnels qui ont été notées dans la littérature, et nous soutenons qu'ils indexent le lieu plutôt que la personne. Nous notons que les coordonnées déictiques de l’énoncé qui sont précisées par ces pronoms sont nécessaires à une interprétation correcte des bulletins météorologiques, même si elles sont généralement implicites. Cette déixis implicite, à son tour, met en lumière une affirmation de longue date selon laquelle weather-it, contrairement à un véritable explétif, est « quasi-argumental » (Chomsky 1981). En d'autres termes, nous suggérons que les coordonnées déictiques d'un énoncé sont des « quasi-arguments. »
Keywords
- Type
- Short/En bref
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 69 , Issue 2 , June 2024 , pp. 267 - 275
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2024
Footnotes
We would like to thank the participants at YYC Pronouns Workshop that was held in 2019 at the University of Calgary where an earlier version of this work was presented by Jila Ghomeshi. We would also like to thank Betsy Ritter, Diane Massam, and the anonymous reviewers of this squib for very helpful comments and feedback. Jila would like to thank Marzieh Hadei for her research assistance in gathering data in the summer of 2019 and Mercedes gratefully acknowledges the University of Manitoba Undergraduate Research Award she held in the summer of 2022. All errors are our own.
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