<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style></head><body><div style='font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000'>As the person reporting the stranded preposition to this list several years ago, let me clarify.<br><br>We were having dinner in a medium-sized provincial town in central France about fifteen or so years ago when Margaret (Winters--some of you know her..) asked the waiter:<br><br>Si je peux vous poser une question?<br><br>The waiter replied:<br><br>Je suis là pour.<br><br>I would judge it very unlikely that the waiter was fluent in English, and Margaret's French doesn't sound non-native (just vaguely 'not from around here...'). I suspect there are lots of these in colloquial contemporary French (français avancé as they like to say...)<br><br>Geoff<br><br><div><span name="x"></span>Geoffrey S. Nathan<br>Faculty Liaison, C&IT<br>and Professor, Linguistics Program<br>http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/<br>+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)<br><br>Nobody at Wayne State will EVER ask you for your password. Never send it to anyone in an email, no matter how authentic the email looks.<br><span name="x"></span><br></div><br><hr id="zwchr"><blockquote style="border-left:2px solid #1010FF;margin-left:5px;padding-left:5px;color:#000;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12pt;"><b>From: </b>"Marie-Lucie Tarpent" <mltarpent@hotmail.com><br><b>To: </b>hopper@cmu.edu, etnolinguistica@yahoogrupos.com.br, histling-l@mailman.rice.edu<br><b>Sent: </b>Sunday, December 15, 2013 10:59:37 AM<br><b>Subject: </b>Re: [Histling-l] Borrowed word order in phrases<br><br>
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<div dir="ltr">Paul Hopper:<br><br>About Bauche's examples:<br><br>(1) les femmes qu'il a couché avec 'the women he slept with' (= ... that he slept with)<br><br>This is a very common structure in uneducated speech, with "que" used as a single, ubiquitous relative pronoun for functions other than Subject. The formal equivalent "les femmes avec lesquelles il a couché" is not only much more difficult to use (because of the gender/number agreement) but similar in tone and register to English "the women with whom he slept" (itself a calque of French). An intermediate form would be "les femmes avec qui il a couché", common in casual educated speech but frowned upon by purists, especially in writing.<br><br>(2) je lui ai couru après 'I ran after him'<br><br>Although (1) here was not intended as a context for (2), the French sentence immediately called to my mind 'I (a man) chased after her' or 'I (a woman) chased after him' (= trying to start a relationship)("lui" as an oblique pronoun preceding the verb is the same for both genders). For 'I ran after him/her', "j'ai couru après lui/elle" would be less likely to be interpreted as above, although possibly so depending on the context. <br><br>(3) tu n'as pas travaillé pour 'you didn't work for it'<br><br>A person using the preposition-last structure would be unlikely to use "ne ... pas" (and this was certainly true in 1928 and much earlier). "T'as pas travaillé pour" is more likely, although I am not familiar with this usage of "pour". Possibly, it arises from the usage with relative clauses (as in (1)): so perhaps <br>a) T'as pas travaillé pour ÇA. ("ça" here is the topie). 'You didn't work for THAT'<br>b) C'est pas ça que t'as travaillé pour. 'THAT is not what you worked for.'<br>c) - ... ÇA... - T'as pas travaillé pour. (omitting the topic, which was mentioned in a previous sentence) 'You didn't work for IT'<br><br>The origin of the preposition-last construction in "popular" (= uneducated) speech rules out recent calques from English, and is more likely to be found in extensions of popular syntax.<br><br>As for the next and most recent example:<br><br>(4) j'y suis pour<br><br>it sounds very strange to me, Unlike the other examples, it is most likely to be a literal translation from English '(That's what) I am here for', but cross-influenced by the already existing popular structure. (Or the opposite could be true). <br> <br>marie-lucie<br><br>> Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2013 07:46:42 -0500<br>> From: hopper@cmu.edu<br>> To: peter.e.hook@gmail.com<br>> CC: histling-l@mailman.rice.edu; etnolinguistica@yahoogrupos.com.br<br>> Subject: Re: [Histling-l] Borrowed word order in phrases<br>> <br>> The following examples are from Henri Bauche's book Le langage populaire.<br>> Grammaire, syntaxe et dictionnaire du français tel qu’on le parle<br>> dans le peuple de Paris, avec tous les termes d’argot usuel. Paris: Payot,<br>> 1928.<br>> <br>> les femmes qu’il a couché avec “the women he’s slept with”<br>> je lui ai couru après “I ran after him”<br>> tu n’as pas travaillé pour "You didn't work for it"<br>> <br>> A few years ago Geoff Nathan (perhaps on HistLing) reported a waiter as<br>> saying "J'y suis pour", presumably "that's what I'm here for".<br>> <br>> Bauche comments that these forms are often attributed to a Germanic<br>> substratum, but says they are also found in Italian. True?<br>> <br>> Paul<br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> > Hi Eduardo,<br>> ><br>> > An example of a stranded preposition in French [but no idea of where the<br>> > writer is from]:<br>> ><br>> > www.leforum.bistrophilo.fr/.../viewtopic.php?f...t...<br>> > Mar 3, 2009 - 10 posts - 6 authors<br>> > Mmmm c'est délicieux ; on la mettait de côté et à la fin de la semaine il<br>> > y<br>> > en avait assez *pour faire une tarte avec* !<br>> ><br>> > Cheers,<br>> ><br>> > Peter Hook<br>> ><br>> ><br>> ><br>> > On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 5:59 AM, Koka <lachicadelgorro@hotmail.com> wrote:<br>> ><br>> >> Dear Eduardo,<br>> >><br>> >> A recent account of the word order "Nada sé" (as opposed to "No sé<br>> >> nada")<br>> >> in Spanish by Octavio de Toledo attributes this word order to Latin<br>> >> influence. You can check the paper (in Spanish) out here (<br>> >> https://www.academia.edu/2552836/Entre_gramaticalizacion_estructura_informativa_y_tradiciones_discursivas_algo_mas_sobre_nada_).<br>> >><br>> >><br>> >> Hope it helps!<br>> >><br>> >> Carlota<br>> >><br>> >> > Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 01:09:15 -0500<br>> >> > From: kariri@gmail.com<br>> >> > To: etnolinguistica@yahoogrupos.com.br; histling-l@mailman.rice.edu;<br>> >> LINGTYP@listserv.linguistlist.org<br>> >> > Subject: [Histling-l] Borrowed word order in phrases<br>> >><br>> >> ><br>> >> > [apologies for cross-posting]<br>> >> ><br>> >> > Dear colleagues,<br>> >> ><br>> >> > I'm looking for examples of languages where certain (types of) phrases<br>> >> > present a different, borrowed word order when compared to a more<br>> >> > common, inherited type. Well-known examples are, in English, legal<br>> >> > terms in which the adjective follows the noun, preserving the original<br>> >> > Norman French order: "attorney general", "court martial", etc.<br>> >> > (Jespersen 1912:87-88).<br>> >> ><br>> >> > Are you aware of similar examples from other languages? And of cases<br>> >> > in which the borrowed order, originally limited to borrowed lexemes,<br>> >> > ended up becoming the default usage?<br>> >> ><br>> >> > I would appreciate any insights and bibliographic references on this<br>> >> topic.<br>> >> ><br>> >> > Obrigado,<br>> >> ><br>> >> > Eduardo<br>> >> ><br>> >> ><br>> >> > --<br>> >> > Eduardo Rivail Ribeiro, lingüista<br>> >> > http://etnolinguistica.org/perfil:9<br>> >> > _______________________________________________<br>> >> > Histling-l mailing list<br>> >> > Histling-l@mailman.rice.edu<br>> >> > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l<br>> >><br>> >> _______________________________________________<br>> >> Histling-l mailing list<br>> >> Histling-l@mailman.rice.edu<br>> >> https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l<br>> >><br>> >><br>> > _______________________________________________<br>> > Histling-l mailing list<br>> > Histling-l@mailman.rice.edu<br>> > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l<br>> ><br>> <br>> <br>> -- <br>> Paul J. Hopper,<br>> Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities Emeritus,<br>> Department of English,<br>> Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences,<br>> Carnegie Mellon University,<br>> Pittsburgh, PA 15213,<br>> <br>> Adjunct Professor of Linguistics,<br>> University of Pittsburgh<br>> <br>> Senior External Fellow,<br>> School of Linguistics and Literature,<br>> Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS),<br>> Freiburg i.Br., Germany<br>> <br>> Publications: <http://carnegie-mellon.academia.edu/PaulHopper><br>> <http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=n2e7ANUAAAAJ<br>> <br>> <br>> _______________________________________________<br>> Histling-l mailing list<br>> Histling-l@mailman.rice.edu<br>> https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l<br> </div>
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