because N(P) -structure

[markus.hamunen at helsinki.fi]

Folks,

collectively: thank you for your responses (so far)!

To Esther: That was illustrative. Bob Ladd's posting in the Language  
Log tells that
in German because ADJ expression can be found as well:
"meine ganzen "normalen" duschgels sind nimmer wirklich verwendbar,  
weil unangenehm."

To Lise: You're right, I was hasty. It is, indeed, an adjective.  
Better example here
would be "I can’t go out with you today [because homework]" (from  
Masaru Kanetani's abstract in ICCG8).
Interesting is that there seem to be different possibilities to X in  
because X structure in different languages; e.g. we have not (yet)  
found any [because ADJ] examples in Finnish texts.

To Bracha: Many thanks! We will contact Kanetani. We, as well, are  
into Construction Grammar (and perhaps
Frame Semantics, too). This is an excellent coincidence.

To Carey: Many thanks to you too! These links are informative. We will  
definitely let you know
if some linguistic research will emerge.

To Meichun Liu: Thank you for your illustrative example from Mandarin.

Best,
Markus Hamunen




Lainaus carey benom <busylinguist at gmail.com>:

> Dear Markus,
>
> I have never seen any "proper" research, as you put it, on this, but I have
> seen some mentions of this phenomenon in popular media and blogs that are
> worth looking at.
>
> One of the first mentions I could find was Mark Lieberman's entry in the
> Language Log from 2012: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4068
>
> The Atlantic also ran a piece about a year ago:
> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/english-has-a-new-preposition-because-internet/281601/
>
> Stan Carey's blog has a relevant entry:
> http://stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/because-has-become-a-preposition-because-grammar/
>
> This blog considers the origin of the construction:
> http://allthingslinguistic.com/post/67507311833/where-because-noun-probably-came-from
>
> I would be interested if you could find something more academic written on
> this topic.
>
> Best,
> Carey
>
>
> Carey Benom
> Kyushu University
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 3:24 AM, <markus.hamunen at helsinki.fi> wrote:
>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>> many of you might have heard (or see) this relatively
>> new because N expression, e.g.
>> "A thousand vague fancies oppressed and disconcerted me-fancies the more
>> distressing [because vague]."
>> (see http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=9477)
>>
>> Now, I was wondering, if there is any (proper) research done on this
>> phenomenon in English or any other
>> language (more than what is behind above mentioned link). I am asking
>> because a student:
>> she has found several parallel examples from conversations in Finnish
>> social media, e.g.
>> A: oispa tosi kiva päästä jo nukkumaan, muttei pääse [koska taapero].
>>   'It would be really nice to go bed already, but I won't because baby'
>> B:  Ei pääse, [koska naapurissa ryyppybileet].
>>    'I won't go (neither) because party in the neighbours'
>>
>> She will do her MA-thesis on this topic, and all potential references
>> would be
>> helpful.
>>
>> With best,
>> Markus Hamunen
>> University Instructor
>> University of Tampere (Finland)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>