Estonian too – Between a personal and demonstrative pronoun

Reile, Maria and Hint, Helen and Taremaa, Piia and Pajusalu, Renate (2025) Estonian too – Between a personal and demonstrative pronoun. ACTA LINGUISTICA ACADEMICA, 72 (3). pp. 386-407. ISSN 2559-8201

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Abstract

This study examines the use of the Estonian distal demonstrative too as a bare pronoun in contemporary written discourse. We analyse its typical referential functions, the kinds of referents it denotes, and its morphosyntactic behaviour based on corpus data. By comparing too with the more frequent proximal demonstrative see, we identify too’s unique role in being used predominantly in anaphoric function and for human referents. Furthermore, unlike see, too tends to appear in subject position, while its anaphoric coreferential form occupies lower syntactic positions, such as adverbials. In such cases, too is particularly useful for distinguishing competing human referents. The findings suggest that the choice of too reflects syntactic and pragmatic motivations, which are influenced by cognitive salience, typological tendencies, and potentially by contact with neighbouring languages. Overall, the results position too at the intersection of demonstratives and personal pronouns.

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