The structure of person paradigms

Discussion questions regarding the third chapter of the book Person by Siewierska (download; local copy):

@inbook {siewierska.a:2004:person-paradigms,
    chapter = {3},
    crossref = {siewierska.a:2004:person},
    pages = {75–119},
    title = {The structure of person paradigms},
}

@book {siewierska.a:2004:person,
    author = {Siewierska, Anna},
    date = {2004},
    location = {Cambridge},
    publisher = {Cambridge University Press},
    title = {Person},
}

• It is very impressive to see how many of the possible combinations of elements in person paradigms are actually attested in the world’s languages. There seem to be genetic and areal factors in play. What is the current state of scholarship with regards to the correlation between language families, language areas and person paradigms? Are there relevant maps and atlases? WALS seems to give a very incomplete picture.

• Something I was missing in the discussion is impersonal forms, such as the ones in Welsh. Although being non-personal by definition, I think they should be part of the discussion. What is the distribution of the impersonal forms in the world’s languages and what are the correlations and internal relations between them and the grammatical distinctions encoded together with person, such as number and gender? Passive forms are relevant for this discussions as well.

• This chapter is wholly synchronic. What are the common development paths for new elements or removal of elements? How does the system re-organize itself because of language change? For example, if a new 1.pl element emerges in what used to be a paradigm without an inclusive:exclusive distinction and the new system has this distinction, will the old 1.pl be used as an inclusive or as an exclusive pronoun? I see the seventh chapter is about diachrony, but I haven’t got the time to read it yet.