The Dual Pronoun in a Transcribed Oral History
You are preparing a reading-comprehension unit for an upper-secondary Mother Tongue Skolt Sámi course. The source is a 230-word transcript of a 1978 interview with an elder from Sevettijärvi. In one paragraph the elder recalls a reindeer separation: first she mentions herself and her sister, then her parents, and then says that 'we two went to the separation' and later that 'they two stayed at the house.' The transcript preserves a dual verb form, but the editor's footnote calls the referent 'unclear.' The draft exam item asks, 'Who stayed at the house?' In a pilot with eight students, three chose 'the parents' and five chose 'the elder and her sister.' The editor wants to keep the item because it tests inference; a teacher wants to delete it because the transcript is ambiguous. You have the transcript, the footnote, and the pilot data, but no audio.
1. Is the item fair as written? Identify the textual evidence that supports or fails to support each answer.
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The item is not fair as a single-key item. The dual marks exactly two participants, but both candidate referents are two-person sets: the elder plus her sister, and her parents. The decisive evidence is not the dual itself but the nearest compatible noun phrase and the discourse topic. If the parents are the last explicit two-person set before the verb, the grammar favours 'the parents'; if the sister is the subject of the preceding clause and remains the topic, the sister is favoured. The pilot split of 3 to 5 is consistent with genuine ambiguity, not with student error. A reading-comprehension item should have one answer supported by explicit textual cues, or it should ask about the ambiguity. Keeping it as written would penalize students who notice the competing cues.
2. Rewrite the item so it tests a defensible inference, and state what you would accept.
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Rewrite: 'The transcript says that two people stayed at the house. Which pair does the paragraph most strongly support? Cite the phrase that decides your choice.' Accept a reasoned answer that names the nearest compatible dual noun phrase and explains why the other pair is less likely. Alternatively: 'Why can the referent of they two be read in more than one way?' This tests inference and metalinguistic awareness. Do not require students to guess the editor's intention. If the course wants a single key, add a sentence to the transcript that removes one candidate, then ask the original question.
3. What gloss or editorial note would you add without giving away the answer?
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Add a short note: 'Skolt Sámi has a dual number, used for exactly two people or things. The transcript preserves spoken ambiguity; the dual form alone does not identify the referent.' Gloss reindeer separation as the autumn sorting of reindeer by owners. Do not add the parents stayed or the sisters stayed. A note should give the linguistic information needed to read the form, not resolve the inference the item is meant to test.