science

M–T and N–M pronoun patterns

M–T and N–M pronoun patterns is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand M–T and N–M pronoun patterns rather than just read about it. In short: Across the globe, two phonetic patterns of personal pronouns stand out statistically beyond accepted language families. These are the M–T pattern of northern Eurasia and the N–M pattern of western North America.

Key takeaways

M–T and N–M pronoun patterns belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect M–T and N–M pronoun patterns to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of M–T and N–M pronoun patterns from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Across the globe, two phonetic patterns of personal pronouns stand out statistically beyond accepted language families. These are the M–T pattern of northern Eurasia and the N–M pattern of western North America. Other phonetic patterns in pronouns are either statistically insignificant or are more localized. In many languages of northern Eurasia, and extending into India, the first person singular ('1sg') pronoun or a pronominal affix has an m or m-like consonant (abbreviated 'M'), and the second person singular ('2sg') pronoun or affix has a t or t-like consonant (abbreviated 'T'). The first is usually a nasal /m/, though some languages have a non-nasal /b/; the second is a non-nasal coronal consonant such as /t, d, t͡ʃ, s/, all of which may derive historically from *t. This was recently the case in English, for example, with me, my, mine in 1sg and thou, thee, thine in 2sg. The M–T pattern has been used as an argument for several proposed long-distance language families, such as the Nostratic hypothesis, that include Indo-European as a subordinate branch; Nostratic has even been called 'Mitian' after these pronouns. However, several of the ancestral protolanguages are reconstructed to have had a *B–S pattern, with the 'B' becoming /m/ in some of the daughter languages, apparently through regional diffusion from neighboring M–T languages. In many of the languages of western North America, but also sporadically elsewhere in America, the pronouns and pronominal affixes have a different pattern, of N in the 1sg and M in the 2sg. This has been used as evidence that all American languages are related (in the now debunked Amerind hypothesis), but corresponds more closely to the Penutian and Hokan proposals, which while controversial are broadly accepted as plausible hypotheses. Because there is a limited stock of consonants for languages to draw from, and pronouns generally use only a subset of that stock, any common pattern can be expected anywhere in the world just by chance. These two patterns stand out because their frequency is much higher than would be expected by chance.

Language families with an M–T pattern An M–T pattern is found in languages of the Indo-European, Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukchi–Kamchatkan, Kartvelian, Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families of Eurasia, these last three constituting the core of the Altaic hypothesis. More importantly, it is reconstructed for the ancestral proto-languages of these families, which is not the case for where the pattern has been noticed outside of Eurasia. Note that most Indo-European languages of Europe do not have an 'M' form in the nominative case, using instead a form related to English I and Latin ego, an irregularity tracing back to Proto-Indo-European. These forms are included for completeness in the table below but are set off in parentheses. Proto-Turkic, Proto-Mongolic and Proto-Tungusic have a 1sg pronoun in *b, while the occurrence of /m/ in many of their daughter languages are the result of later sound changes. Proponents of a long-range relation of Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic with other language families of northern Eurasia thus have to posit ad hoc an irregular sound change from *m to *b for these pronouns in order to claim that they are related to their counterparts in Proto-Uralic, Proto-Indo-European etc. A historical sound change of *ti → *či → *si is quite common, occurring independently in Greek, Proto-Finnic and likely also in Proto-Mongolic. For those who believe that the correspondences below are not simply coincidental, one must posit that the same change happened in Turkic, Tungusic and Kartvelian. Pronominal suffixes in the table (marked by a hyphen) may be object suffixes on a verb or possessive suffixes on a noun, depending on the language. Plural forms are ignored. Some are closer to the M–T pattern than the singular is, for example Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan *muri 'we' and *turi 'you'. However, doubling the number of pronouns to be considered in this way increases the possibility of coincidental resemblance, and decreases the likelihood that the resulting pattern is significant.

An M–T pattern occurs in non-Eurasian languages such as Fulani and Grebo in West Africa, Usan and Salt-Yui in New Guinea, and Miwok and Lakota in North America. However, the frequency is not statistically significant, while the incidence in northern Eurasia is much higher than would be expected by chance. Also, in these non-Eurasian families, the M–T pattern does not trace back to the protolanguage. For example, Lakota/Dakota 1sg mi- and ma- reconstruct as Proto-Siouan *wįꞏ and *wą, and while Dakota 2sg š- does trace back to Proto-Siouan 2sg *š-, this is an allomorph of the more general (and presumably ancestral) form *yi-. Even if some of the language families listed in the table above do prove to be related (such as Indo-European and Uralic or the Altaic families), that doesn't mean that all Eurasian families with an M–T pattern are similarly related: some chance occurrence in Eurasia would be no more statistically significant than it is elsewhere in the world.

Language families with an N–M pattern It has long been observed that a remarkable number of Native American languages have a pronominal pattern with first-person singular forms in n and second-person singular forms in m. This pattern was first noted by Alfredo Trombetti in 1905. It caused Sapir to suggest that ultimately all Native American languages would turn out to be related. In a personal letter to A. L. Kroeber he wrote (Sapir 1918):

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with M–T and N–M pronoun patterns

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what M–T and N–M pronoun patterns claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to M–T and N–M pronoun patterns before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about M–T and N–M pronoun patterns ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of M–T and N–M pronoun patterns

In research: M–T and N–M pronoun patterns appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses M–T and N–M pronoun patterns in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: M–T and N–M pronoun patterns is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Language geography, Languages of Asia, Languages of Europe, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for M–T and N–M pronoun patterns outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study M–T and N–M pronoun patterns in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what M–T and N–M pronoun patterns means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain M–T and N–M pronoun patterns out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is M–T and N–M pronoun patterns in simple terms?

Why does M–T and N–M pronoun patterns matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study M–T and N–M pronoun patterns?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on M–T and N–M pronoun patterns.