<p>In addition to the options mentioned by Adarain and Jan, various <strong>reflexives</strong> and reflexive-like operations can often be of use in dealing with such situations. English already has some reflexives, providing some amount of disambiguation, Danish goes a little further has a compulsory reflexive/non-reflexive distinction in 3rd person possessives, and while the specific example you mentioned doesn't work well in translation, a similarly problematic sentence "Adam sent James his essay" can be easily somewhat disambiguated with this system:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam<sub>i</sub> sendte James<sub>j</sub> <strong>sin</strong><sub>i</sub> stil</p>
  
  <p>Adam<sub>i</sub> sendte James<sub>j</sub> <strong>hans</strong><sub>j(/k)</sub> stil</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It is possible for reflexive systems to be significantly more broad than this, rather than just referring to antecedents in the same clause, even if it's omitted via some other rule, e.g. in <em>"Jonh saw Adam and shot <strong>himself</strong> in the foot"</em>, where there is no overt reference to John in the second clause, because it's been omitted due to subject coreference (such deletion rules, when constraints are put on them is actually another way of reducing ambiguity, I have relatively recently written <a href="http://aveneca.com/cbb/viewtopic.php?f=29&amp;p=272613#p272613" rel="noreferrer">a rather long forum post</a> on this which goes into much more detail about them), it's possible to have "<strong>long-distance reflexives</strong>" which take antecedents outside of the clause. </p>

<p>In Mandarin, the reflexive <em>ziji</em> can refer to both local and non-local antecedents in some cases:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Zhangsan renwei Lisi kan-bu-qi ziji<br>
  <code>Zhangsan think Lisi look-not-up REFL</code><br>
  <em>"Zhangsan<sub>i</sub> thinks Lisi<sub>j</sub> looks down on self<sub><strong>i/j</strong></sub>"</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Certain things block this though, for example shifts in perspective:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Zhangsan renwei wo zhidao Wangwu xihuan ziji<br>
  <code>Zhangsan think I know Wangwu like REFL</code><br>
  <em>"Zhangsan<sub>i</sub> thinks I<sub>j</sub> know Wangwu<sub>k</sub> likes self<sub><strong>*i/*j/k</strong></sub>"</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p>In Igbo, in complements of communication, entities that are coreferential with the source of information are marked by what is known as "<strong>logophoric pronouns</strong>":</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>ọ́  sị̀rị̀ nà   ọ́  byàrà<br>
  <code>he said that he came</code><br>
  <em>"he<sub>i</sub> said that he<sub>j</sub> came"</em></p>
  
  <p>ọ́  sị̀rị̀ nà   yá  byàrà<br>
  <code>he said that LOG came</code><br>
  <em>"he<sub>i</sub> said that he<sub>i</sub> came"</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Gokana also has such a system, though the marking is on the verb, though the constraints on what can be coreferential are quite free:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>aè kɔ aè dɔ<br>
  <code>he said he fell</code><br>
  <em>"he<sub>i</sub> said that he<sub>j</sub> fell"</em></p>
  
  <p>aè kɔ aè dɔ-ɛ<br>
  <code>he said he fell-LOG</code><br>
  <em>"he<sub>i</sub> said that he<sub>i</sub> fell"</em></p>
  
  <p>aè kɔ oò div-èè e<br>
  <code>he said you hit-LOG him</code><br>
  <em>"he<sub>i</sub> said that you hit him<sub>i</sub></em></p>
  
  <p>aè kɔ oò ziv-èè a gĩ́ã́<br>
  <code>he said you stole-LOG his yams</code><br>
  <em>"he<sub>i</sub> said that you stole his<sub>i</sub> yams"</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logophoricity" rel="noreferrer">The wikipedia article on logophoricity</a> goes into more depth.</p>

<p>It is also possible to have two different reflexives, requiring respectively local and non-local antecedents. Danish has a rather limited case of this in bare complements to perception verbs, where the two reflexives <em>sig</em> and <em>sig selv</em> which are usually either only different in level of emphasis or in complementary distribution, respectively require non-local and local antecedents:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Holger hørte Peter tale om sig.<br>
  <em>"Holger<sub>i</sub> heard Peter<sub>j</sub> talking about him<sub>i</sub>."</em></p>
  
  <p>Holger hørte Peter tale om sig selv.<br>
  <em>"Holger<sub>i</sub> heard Peter<sub>j</sub> talking about himself<sub>j</sub>."</em></p>
  
  <p>Holger hørte Peter tale om ham.<br>
  <em>"Holger<sub>i</sub> heard Peter<sub>j</sub> talking about him<sub>k</sub>."</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p><strong>"4th Person systems"</strong> such as seen Eskimo languages are rather similar, though more general as they are used in all subordinate clauses are also another type of reflexive-like construction (the "fourth" person is often labeled 3R) and they are also used intraclausally in possessive marking. In all of these cases they mark that a participant or possessor is coreferential with the subject of the main clause (which is defined in terms of S/A despite the case marking being ergative). An example from <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lB-Izi_GRc15obQHG3fUni-_T6ZHifqJ/view" rel="noreferrer">Siberian Yupik</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>esghaghyagu quyaaq<br>
  <code>see:CNSQ:3s&gt;3s happy:IND.3s</code><br>
  <em>"when he<sub>i</sub> saw him<sub>j</sub>, he<sub>k</sub> was happy"</em></p>
  
  <p>esghaghyamigu quyaaq<br>
  <code>see:CNSQ:3Rs&gt;3s happy:IND.3s</code><br>
  <em>"when he<sub>i</sub> saw him<sub>j</sub>, he<sub>i</sub> was happy"</em></p>
  
  <p>esghaghyatni quyaaq<br>
  <code>see:CNSQ:3s&gt;3Rs happy:IND.3s</code><br>
  <em>"when he<sub>i</sub> saw him<sub>j</sub>, he<sub>j</sub> was happy"</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p>In addition to all these various reflexive constructions, <strong>switch reference</strong>, the overt marking of whether the "subject" is either the same or different, either between two coordinate clauses, or a subordinate and main clause can also resolve some ambiguity. Take for example this pair of sentences from Hua:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>ebgi-Ø-na korihie<br>
  <code>hit-SAME-3sg.ANTICSU ran.away.3sg</code><br>
  <em>"he<sub>i</sub> hit him<sub>j</sub> and he<sub>i</sub> ran away"</em></p>
  
  <p>ebgi-ga-na korihie<br>
  <code>hit-3sg.DIFF-3sg.ANTICSU ran.away.3sg</code><br>
  <em>"he<sub>i</sub> hit him<sub>j</sub> and he<sub>j</sub> ran away"</em></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Switch reference can only deal with one set of coreference though what exactly is tracked varies. In some languages, it is specifically the actor that is tracked, while others may track the topic or some other pragmatically prominent NP, or may even differ in what is tracked in the controlling clause as opposed to the clause recieving the marking. Additionally the marking may occasionally also be sensitive to changes in things like time, place, discourse coherency and/or reality status, and as a result, switch reference may fulfill may other roles than simply dealing with ambiguity. <a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2hgQLVtMsqZMWt2YlZFTHpKR0E" rel="noreferrer">This paper</a>, particularly chapters 5 and 6, goes into quite a bit of detail about the highly varied and interesting usage of switch-ref in Papua New Guinean languages.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-07T13:09:51.770Z
2018-02-14T19:26:43.763Z
2018-02-14T19:26:43.763Z
Gufferdk
<p>In addition to Adarain’s answer, the ambiguity can also be resolved in an out-of-the-box way. For example, English can use <em>the former</em> or <em>the latter</em> in place of an inflected form of <em>he</em> to distinguish between the two cases. Languages like German go a step further and would just use <em>this</em> instead of <em>the latter</em> in most cases. These words do not replace pronouns, they just complement them. This gives the nice feature of preserving a possible ambiguity where it is intended for poetic or dramatic purposes while removing it entirely where clarity is desired.</p>

<p>Another out-of-the-box way is to restrict the way in which such constructions can be constructed. Trying to think of how German handles the situation I realised that the sentence translated directly is unambiguous in German:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam hat James seinen Aufsatz geschickt, um ihm beim Schreiben zu helfen.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The only way this can be interpreted is Adam helping James just by the way the grammar works. Adam is the sentence’s subject and the infinitive construction can only be tied to the subject. If you wanted James helping Adam, you need to work around by using a subordinate clause:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam hat James seinen Aufsatz geschickt, damit er ihm beim schreiben hilft.</p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-07T01:46:43.403Z
2018-02-07T01:46:43.403Z
Jan
<p>For a conlang, it seems like one other way to avoid ambiguity that I do not see noted in previous answers is to have <strong>the language enforce grammatical rules</strong> such that a pronoun must <em>always</em> refer to a specific type of referent. That is, consider these four possible types of grammar rules (they may be other rules a language may follow):</p>

<ol>
<li><strong>A pronoun always refers to the last referent</strong>, any mention of a prior referent must be renamed. So in your example, the grammar would remove the ambiguity as such a rule would refer to James in your original example:</li>
</ol>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam sent the essay to James to help him with his writing</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And if Adam was the intent, then it would need to be one of these:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam sent the essay to James to help Adam with his writing</p>
</blockquote>

<p>or</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>To James, Adam sent the essay to help him with his writing</p>
</blockquote>

<ol start="2">
<li><strong>A pronoun always refers to the far referent when two referents are in view</strong>, and is left off when the near referent is intended. So of James getting help, no pronoun is used, and the sentence would roughly translate simply as:</li>
</ol>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam sent the essay to James to help with writing</p>
</blockquote>

<p>But of Adam, the pronoun would be used:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam sent the essay to James to help him with his writing</p>
</blockquote>

<ol start="3">
<li><strong>A pronoun always refers back to a subject</strong>, never an object (which must be restated if intended). So of James:</li>
</ol>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam sent the essay to James to help James with James's writing</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Though I suspect something like #2 for James might be stated as well; or the language would form such a statement to place the main player in the subject position in a passive construction:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>James was sent an essay by Adam to help him with his writing</p>
</blockquote>

<p>For Adam, it would be as you originally stated:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam sent the essay to James to help him with his writing</p>
</blockquote>

<ol start="4">
<li><strong>A pronoun always refers back to an object</strong>, never the subject (which is restated if intended). So of James it is as you already had:</li>
</ol>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam sent the essay to James to help him with his writing</p>
</blockquote>

<p>But for Adam, it might be this:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam sent the essay to James to help Adam with his writing</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Notice in that previous example by restating "Adam" as the object of "to help," it then put Adam in the most recent object position and allows for the "his" to then refer to Adam (who was also the subject).</p>

<p>So for some of these grammatical ways of reducing ambiguity, the sentence structure in the language becomes more important (which may or may not be desirable in the language one is constructing).</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-16T17:15:29.167Z
2018-04-16T17:15:29.167Z
ScottS
<p>Here are some solutions, roughly in descending order of naturalness.</p>
<ol>
<li>distance-specific determiners or inflections</li>
<li>topic-prominence and a dedicated pronoun for referring back to the topic</li>
<li>switch-reference on nonfinite verbs</li>
<li>pro-forms incorporating some feature such as the first sound of a word.</li>
</ol>
<hr />
<h3>1 distance-specific determiners or inflections</h3>
<p>You can solve this problem in a reasonably natural way using demonstratives or distance-specific determiners. This is similar to proximate and obviative pronouns, but not identical.</p>
<p>For instance, suppose all non-vocative uses of names require some kind of definite determiner. And suppose there are proximal and distal determiners (&quot;this&quot; and &quot;that&quot;). I'm also assuming that these determiners can form NPs without an accompanying noun, like in English.</p>
<p>then you could say something to the effect of</p>
<pre><code>this Adam sent essay to that James to help that with that's writing.
</code></pre>
<p>There's a lot of variation in existing natural languages when it comes to contrasts in demonstratives. Some languages surface distinctions such as visibility (e.g. Malagasy) or audibility (e.g. Khaling, a Sino-Tibetan language from Nepal) or altitude/elevation.</p>
<hr />
<h3>2 topic-prominence and a dedicated pronoun for referring back to the topic</h3>
<p>The reflexive pronoun solution described above normally tracks co-reference with the syntactic subject of the matrix clause.</p>
<p>If that solution is not flexible enough, you can track co-reference with the topic instead and explicitly mark the topic in some way.</p>
<p>For example, suppose James is the topic and TOP is the pronoun that refers to the topic. Let the postposition/clitic は mark the topic of a clause.</p>
<pre><code>to James は Adam sent essay to help TOP with TOP's writing.
</code></pre>
<p>Or you could do something like the following if you want は to obscure the role of the topicalized noun.</p>
<pre><code>James は Adam sent essay to help TOP with TOP's writing.
</code></pre>
<p>As far as I know, no topic prominent natural languages actually do this.</p>
<hr />
<h3>3 switch reference on non-finite verbs</h3>
<p>Switch reference marks whether the subject of a clause is the same as the previous clause or not. Suppose each verb is marked SS for same subject or DS for different subject. I'll assume utterance-initial words are marked with <code>DS</code>.</p>
<p>This requires some care in defining what exactly &quot;previous clause&quot; means.</p>
<pre><code>Adam sent.DS essay to James to help.SS him with his writing.DS .
</code></pre>
<p>so in this sentence, <code>sent.DS</code> marks that <code>sent</code> is in an utterance-initial clause. <code>help</code> receives a same subject marker because <code>help</code> and <code>sent</code> have the same subject, sort of, and writing has a <code>DS</code> marker because James is writing, not Adam.</p>
<p>Getting the details right on how exactly you want pervasive switch-reference to work might be a bit tricky.</p>
<hr />
<h3>4 pro-forms incorporating some feature such as the first sound of a word.</h3>
<p>Suppose you have some forms consisting <code>some constant</code> + <code>ona</code>, which can refer back to a noun beginning with that particular consonant sound (or <code>ona</code> itself if the word begins with a vowel). Then you can do something like:</p>
<pre><code>Adam sent essay to James to help JONA with JONA's writing.
</code></pre>
<p>the choice of <code>JONA</code> over <code>ONA</code> means that James is the one whose writing we're attempting to improve.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-11-24T01:02:21.783Z
2019-11-24T16:44:28.517Z
2020-06-18T08:37:27.510Z
Greg Nisbet
<p>I was thinking about the ease of Blissymbols in this context ... although Charles K. Bliss never mentions the case, one could imagine that the person symbol can be followed by an index 4 (or even 5) ... allowing in all cases just one reading ... but with some problems for doing so out loud ...</p>
<p>There is a nice Facebook post from Blissymbols about pronouns at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/298159500318475/photos/a.298161243651634/1360473830753698/?type=3" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.facebook.com/298159500318475/photos/a.298161243651634/1360473830753698/?type=3</a></p>
<p>... I made an archive for acccessibility : <a href="https://archive.is/PI4PY" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://archive.is/PI4PY</a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-11-01T13:58:54.360Z
I think, if you're using numbers, it'd be better to just start with he1, he2, he3, etc...A) because then you1, you2, you3, are possible as well and B) because it generalizes more easily to other languages.
Cecilia
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-27T17:47:20.447Z
2020-10-27T17:47:20.447Z
janPite
<p>Here are three options you might want to consider:</p>

<p><strong>Noun classes</strong> assign each noun a class (well known examples include the gender systems of Indo-European languages, and also the more elaborate systems of Bantu languages). Having pronouns agree with the noun class of the nouns talked about greatly helps reduce ambiguity, though it would likely not help in your specific example with two male human participants.</p>

<p><strong>Obviation</strong> is the system of having two distinct third person pronouns, one (the <em>proximal</em>) referring to the most salient (important, topical) referent and one (the <em>obviative</em>) to less salient ones. In your example, likely Adam would be the proximal, and James the obviative. There are nice examples on the relevant <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obviative#Examples" rel="noreferrer">Wikipedia article</a>.</p>

<p>A third option, which is to my knowledge only attested in signed languages is <strong>Indexing</strong>. This is basically the human language equivalent of variables in programming languages: a new variable, usually a location in the sign space, is assigned to every important referent, and referred to by pointing at the location or otherwise involving the location during signing of relevant words. I believe Lojban does something similar to this as well.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-06T22:58:08.400Z
+1, the idea of proximate and obviative pronouns was what I had in mind (without knowing the proper terms at the time) and I'm glad someone answered with that as one of the ideas. However, how would one avoid ambiguity in a sentence such as `Adam gave James's father sleeping pills to help with his [obviative] stress?` (it's a bad example, I know)? Does "his" refer to James or James's father?
hyperneutrino
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-07T13:20:05.887Z
@HyperNeutrino in that case ambiguity could be resolved by having either James or James' father (and the possessor) be proximal. In an isolated example like that this would be perfectly reasonable, assuming you don't have a problem with shifting the focus away from Adam, in a stretch of natural discourse, whether this would be reasonable or not would depend on various factors, such as which of the participants is already the established topic, etc. Such shifts can resolve a lot of (but not all) ambiguous cases if really necessary.
Gufferdk
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-08T08:25:20.500Z
I like the recommendation of indexing. If you want to learn more about variables, mathematical logic or lambda calculus is a better place to start than programming languages. Popular programming languages have complexity irrelevant to the task. De Bruijn indexing in lambda calculus may be interesting.
beroal
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-06T22:54:18.053Z
2018-02-06T22:54:18.053Z
Sascha Baer
<p>Due to the way pronouns work in place of any particular noun (subject or object) in the sentence, this often leads to ambiguous grammatical constructions.</p>

<p>Take this phrase in English for example:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Adam sent the essay to James to help him with his writing</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Do <code>him</code> and <code>his</code> refer to Adam (where James will help edit Adam's essay or give him suggestions) or James (where Adam is sending James an exemplar to help James see examples of good writing)?</p>

<p>How would ambiguities like this be avoided in constructed languages? I know a simple solution is to just eliminate pronouns from the language but is there an alternative solution to allow pronouns to be used unambiguously?</p>

<grammar><ambiguity><conlang-creation>
How can syntactic ambiguity with pronouns be avoided?
# How can syntactic ambiguity with pronouns be avoided?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-02-06)

Due to the way pronouns work in place of any particular noun (subject or object) in the sentence, this often leads to ambiguous grammatical constructions.

Take this phrase in English for example:

> Adam sent the essay to James to help him with his writing

Do `him` and `his` refer to Adam (where James will help edit Adam's essay or give him suggestions) or James (where Adam is sending James an exemplar to help James see examples of good writing)?

How would ambiguities like this be avoided in constructed languages? I know a simple solution is to just eliminate pronouns from the language but is there an alternative solution to allow pronouns to be used unambiguously?

**Tags:** grammar, ambiguity, conlang-creation


---

## 6 answers

### Answer by username_7 on 2018-02-06. Score: 35 | Accepted answer

Here are three options you might want to consider:

**Noun classes** assign each noun a class (well known examples include the gender systems of Indo-European languages, and also the more elaborate systems of Bantu languages). Having pronouns agree with the noun class of the nouns talked about greatly helps reduce ambiguity, though it would likely not help in your specific example with two male human participants.

**Obviation** is the system of having two distinct third person pronouns, one (the *proximal*) referring to the most salient (important, topical) referent and one (the *obviative*) to less salient ones. In your example, likely Adam would be the proximal, and James the obviative. There are nice examples on the relevant [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obviative#Examples).

A third option, which is to my knowledge only attested in signed languages is **Indexing**. This is basically the human language equivalent of variables in programming languages: a new variable, usually a location in the sign space, is assigned to every important referent, and referred to by pointing at the location or otherwise involving the location during signing of relevant words. I believe Lojban does something similar to this as well.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: +1, the idea of proximate and obviative pronouns was what I had in mind (without knowing the proper terms at the time) and I'm glad someone answered with that as one of the ideas. However, how would one avoid ambiguity in a sentence such as `Adam gave James's father sleeping pills to help with his [obviative] stress?` (it's a bad example, I know)? Does "his" refer to James or James's father?  
> **username_1**: @HyperNeutrino in that case ambiguity could be resolved by having either James or James' father (and the possessor) be proximal. In an isolated example like that this would be perfectly reasonable, assuming you don't have a problem with shifting the focus away from Adam, in a stretch of natural discourse, whether this would be reasonable or not would depend on various factors, such as which of the participants is already the established topic, etc. Such shifts can resolve a lot of (but not all) ambiguous cases if really necessary.  
> **username_8**: I like the recommendation of indexing. If you want to learn more about variables, mathematical logic or lambda calculus is a better place to start than programming languages. Popular programming languages have complexity irrelevant to the task. De Bruijn indexing in lambda calculus may be interesting.  

---

### Answer by username_1 on 2018-02-07. Score: 29

In addition to the options mentioned by Adarain and username_2, various **reflexives** and reflexive-like operations can often be of use in dealing with such situations. English already has some reflexives, providing some amount of disambiguation, Danish goes a little further has a compulsory reflexive/non-reflexive distinction in 3rd person possessives, and while the specific example you mentioned doesn't work well in translation, a similarly problematic sentence "Adam sent James his essay" can be easily somewhat disambiguated with this system:

> Adami sendte Jamesj **sin**i stil
>
> Adami sendte Jamesj **hans**j(/k) stil

It is possible for reflexive systems to be significantly more broad than this, rather than just referring to antecedents in the same clause, even if it's omitted via some other rule, e.g. in *"Jonh saw Adam and shot **himself** in the foot"*, where there is no overt reference to John in the second clause, because it's been omitted due to subject coreference (such deletion rules, when constraints are put on them is actually another way of reducing ambiguity, I have relatively recently written [a rather long forum post](http://aveneca.com/cbb/viewtopic.php?f=29&p=272613#p272613) on this which goes into much more detail about them), it's possible to have "**long-distance reflexives**" which take antecedents outside of the clause.

In Mandarin, the reflexive *ziji* can refer to both local and non-local antecedents in some cases:

> Zhangsan renwei Lisi kan-bu-qi ziji  
> `Zhangsan think Lisi look-not-up REFL`  
> *"Zhangsani thinks Lisij looks down on self**i/j**"*

Certain things block this though, for example shifts in perspective:

> Zhangsan renwei wo zhidao Wangwu xihuan ziji  
> `Zhangsan think I know Wangwu like REFL`  
> *"Zhangsani thinks Ij know Wangwuk likes self**\*i/\*j/k**"*

In Igbo, in complements of communication, entities that are coreferential with the source of information are marked by what is known as "**logophoric pronouns**":

> ọ́ sị̀rị̀ nà ọ́ byàrà  
> `he said that he came`  
> *"hei said that hej came"*
>
> ọ́ sị̀rị̀ nà yá byàrà  
> `he said that LOG came`  
> *"hei said that hei came"*

Gokana also has such a system, though the marking is on the verb, though the constraints on what can be coreferential are quite free:

> aè kɔ aè dɔ  
> `he said he fell`  
> *"hei said that hej fell"*
>
> aè kɔ aè dɔ-ɛ  
> `he said he fell-LOG`  
> *"hei said that hei fell"*
>
> aè kɔ oò div-èè e  
> `he said you hit-LOG him`  
> *"hei said that you hit himi*
>
> aè kɔ oò ziv-èè a gĩ́ã́  
> `he said you stole-LOG his yams`  
> *"hei said that you stole hisi yams"*

[The wikipedia article on logophoricity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logophoricity) goes into more depth.

It is also possible to have two different reflexives, requiring respectively local and non-local antecedents. Danish has a rather limited case of this in bare complements to perception verbs, where the two reflexives *sig* and *sig selv* which are usually either only different in level of emphasis or in complementary distribution, respectively require non-local and local antecedents:

> Holger hørte Peter tale om sig.  
> *"Holgeri heard Peterj talking about himi."*
>
> Holger hørte Peter tale om sig selv.  
> *"Holgeri heard Peterj talking about himselfj."*
>
> Holger hørte Peter tale om ham.  
> *"Holgeri heard Peterj talking about himk."*

**"4th Person systems"** such as seen Eskimo languages are rather similar, though more general as they are used in all subordinate clauses are also another type of reflexive-like construction (the "fourth" person is often labeled 3R) and they are also used intraclausally in possessive marking. In all of these cases they mark that a participant or possessor is coreferential with the subject of the main clause (which is defined in terms of S/A despite the case marking being ergative). An example from [Siberian Yupik](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lB-Izi_GRc15obQHG3fUni-_T6ZHifqJ/view):

> esghaghyagu quyaaq  
> `see:CNSQ:3s>3s happy:IND.3s`  
> *"when hei saw himj, hek was happy"*
>
> esghaghyamigu quyaaq  
> `see:CNSQ:3Rs>3s happy:IND.3s`  
> *"when hei saw himj, hei was happy"*
>
> esghaghyatni quyaaq  
> `see:CNSQ:3s>3Rs happy:IND.3s`  
> *"when hei saw himj, hej was happy"*

In addition to all these various reflexive constructions, **switch reference**, the overt marking of whether the "subject" is either the same or different, either between two coordinate clauses, or a subordinate and main clause can also resolve some ambiguity. Take for example this pair of sentences from Hua:

> ebgi-Ø-na korihie  
> `hit-SAME-3sg.ANTICSU ran.away.3sg`  
> *"hei hit himj and hei ran away"*
>
> ebgi-ga-na korihie  
> `hit-3sg.DIFF-3sg.ANTICSU ran.away.3sg`  
> *"hei hit himj and hej ran away"*

Switch reference can only deal with one set of coreference though what exactly is tracked varies. In some languages, it is specifically the actor that is tracked, while others may track the topic or some other pragmatically prominent NP, or may even differ in what is tracked in the controlling clause as opposed to the clause recieving the marking. Additionally the marking may occasionally also be sensitive to changes in things like time, place, discourse coherency and/or reality status, and as a result, switch reference may fulfill may other roles than simply dealing with ambiguity. [This paper](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2hgQLVtMsqZMWt2YlZFTHpKR0E), particularly chapters 5 and 6, goes into quite a bit of detail about the highly varied and interesting usage of switch-ref in Papua New Guinean languages.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2018-02-07. Score: 11

In addition to Adarain’s answer, the ambiguity can also be resolved in an out-of-the-box way. For example, English can use *the former* or *the latter* in place of an inflected form of *he* to distinguish between the two cases. Languages like German go a step further and would just use *this* instead of *the latter* in most cases. These words do not replace pronouns, they just complement them. This gives the nice feature of preserving a possible ambiguity where it is intended for poetic or dramatic purposes while removing it entirely where clarity is desired.

Another out-of-the-box way is to restrict the way in which such constructions can be constructed. Trying to think of how German handles the situation I realised that the sentence translated directly is unambiguous in German:

> Adam hat James seinen Aufsatz geschickt, um ihm beim Schreiben zu helfen.

The only way this can be interpreted is Adam helping James just by the way the grammar works. Adam is the sentence’s subject and the infinitive construction can only be tied to the subject. If you wanted James helping Adam, you need to work around by using a subordinate clause:

> Adam hat James seinen Aufsatz geschickt, damit er ihm beim schreiben hilft.


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### Answer by username_3 on 2018-04-16. Score: 5

For a conlang, it seems like one other way to avoid ambiguity that I do not see noted in previous answers is to have **the language enforce grammatical rules** such that a pronoun must *always* refer to a specific type of referent. That is, consider these four possible types of grammar rules (they may be other rules a language may follow):

1. **A pronoun always refers to the last referent**, any mention of a prior referent must be renamed. So in your example, the grammar would remove the ambiguity as such a rule would refer to James in your original example:

> Adam sent the essay to James to help him with his writing

And if Adam was the intent, then it would need to be one of these:

> Adam sent the essay to James to help Adam with his writing

or

> To James, Adam sent the essay to help him with his writing

2. **A pronoun always refers to the far referent when two referents are in view**, and is left off when the near referent is intended. So of James getting help, no pronoun is used, and the sentence would roughly translate simply as:

> Adam sent the essay to James to help with writing

But of Adam, the pronoun would be used:

> Adam sent the essay to James to help him with his writing

3. **A pronoun always refers back to a subject**, never an object (which must be restated if intended). So of James:

> Adam sent the essay to James to help James with James's writing

Though I suspect something like #2 for James might be stated as well; or the language would form such a statement to place the main player in the subject position in a passive construction:

> James was sent an essay by Adam to help him with his writing

For Adam, it would be as you originally stated:

> Adam sent the essay to James to help him with his writing

4. **A pronoun always refers back to an object**, never the subject (which is restated if intended). So of James it is as you already had:

> Adam sent the essay to James to help him with his writing

But for Adam, it might be this:

> Adam sent the essay to James to help Adam with his writing

Notice in that previous example by restating "Adam" as the object of "to help," it then put Adam in the most recent object position and allows for the "his" to then refer to Adam (who was also the subject).

So for some of these grammatical ways of reducing ambiguity, the sentence structure in the language becomes more important (which may or may not be desirable in the language one is constructing).


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### Answer by username_4 on 2019-11-24. Score: 2

Here are some solutions, roughly in descending order of naturalness.

distance-specific determiners or inflections
topic-prominence and a dedicated pronoun for referring back to the topic
switch-reference on nonfinite verbs
pro-forms incorporating some feature such as the first sound of a word.


1 distance-specific determiners or inflections
You can solve this problem in a reasonably natural way using demonstratives or distance-specific determiners. This is similar to proximate and obviative pronouns, but not identical.
For instance, suppose all non-vocative uses of names require some kind of definite determiner. And suppose there are proximal and distal determiners ("this" and "that"). I'm also assuming that these determiners can form NPs without an accompanying noun, like in English.
then you could say something to the effect of
this Adam sent essay to that James to help that with that's writing.

There's a lot of variation in existing natural languages when it comes to contrasts in demonstratives. Some languages surface distinctions such as visibility (e.g. Malagasy) or audibility (e.g. Khaling, a Sino-Tibetan language from Nepal) or altitude/elevation.

2 topic-prominence and a dedicated pronoun for referring back to the topic
The reflexive pronoun solution described above normally tracks co-reference with the syntactic subject of the matrix clause.
If that solution is not flexible enough, you can track co-reference with the topic instead and explicitly mark the topic in some way.
For example, suppose James is the topic and TOP is the pronoun that refers to the topic. Let the postposition/clitic は mark the topic of a clause.
to James は Adam sent essay to help TOP with TOP's writing.

Or you could do something like the following if you want は to obscure the role of the topicalized noun.
James は Adam sent essay to help TOP with TOP's writing.

As far as I know, no topic prominent natural languages actually do this.

3 switch reference on non-finite verbs
Switch reference marks whether the subject of a clause is the same as the previous clause or not. Suppose each verb is marked SS for same subject or DS for different subject. I'll assume utterance-initial words are marked with DS.
This requires some care in defining what exactly "previous clause" means.
Adam sent.DS essay to James to help.SS him with his writing.DS .

so in this sentence, sent.DS marks that sent is in an utterance-initial clause. help receives a same subject marker because help and sent have the same subject, sort of, and writing has a DS marker because James is writing, not Adam.
Getting the details right on how exactly you want pervasive switch-reference to work might be a bit tricky.

4 pro-forms incorporating some feature such as the first sound of a word.
Suppose you have some forms consisting some constant + ona, which can refer back to a noun beginning with that particular consonant sound (or ona itself if the word begins with a vowel). Then you can do something like:
Adam sent essay to James to help JONA with JONA's writing.

the choice of JONA over ONA means that James is the one whose writing we're attempting to improve.


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### Answer by username_5 on 2020-10-27. Score: 0

I was thinking about the ease of Blissymbols in this context ... although Charles K. Bliss never mentions the case, one could imagine that the person symbol can be followed by an index 4 (or even 5) ... allowing in all cases just one reading ... but with some problems for doing so out loud ...

There is a nice Facebook post from Blissymbols about pronouns at <https://www.facebook.com/298159500318475/photos/a.298161243651634/1360473830753698/?type=3>

... I made an archive for acccessibility : <https://archive.is/PI4PY>

> **Comments:**
> **username_6**: I think, if you're using numbers, it'd be better to just start with he1, he2, he3, etc...A) because then you1, you2, you3, are possible as well and B) because it generalizes more easily to other languages.  

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