[Lingtyp] revisiting an ambiguity

[Hartmut Haberland]

There is a joke I have heard often In Denmark:

"I get my hair cut the same place as Prince Henrik." (Queen Margrethe’s Prince consort who died recently)

“Where would that be?”

“On the top of my head.”




Hartmut Haberland
Professor emeritus
[RUC]

Roskilde University
Department of Communication and Arts
Universitetsvej 1
DK-4000 Roskilde
Telephone: +45 46742841




-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> På vegne af Guillaume Segerer
Sendt: 6. april 2019 08:57
Til: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Emne: Re: [Lingtyp] revisiting an ambiguity



Dear Arnold



Since you're giving your search a second chance, my speaker's intuition whispers that French could fit in too :



"I broke my leg in three places" can be translated as "je me suis cassé la jambe en trois endroits" (1sgSUB 1sgOBJ Aux broke the leg in three places). But actually, this translation may only be understood as body-location. If I were to mean event-location, I would have to use the preposition "dans" (= in) instead of "en" (= in). Hence "je me suis cassé la jambe dans trois endroits". This last sentence doesn't sound very natural though, and it would be better to specify "dans trois endroits différents" (= in three different places). Finally, an alternate preposition with also a body-location reading would be "à" (=

at) : "Je me suis cassé la jambe à trois endroits (différents)" cannot have an event-location reading.



I don't know if the above can be generalized and I don't know about any published work on that matter, but as a linguist I am not a specialist of French.



Hope it helps



Guillaume





Le 06/04/2019 à 05:41, Arnold M. Zwicky a écrit :

> 4/5/19: Science, charity, and adverbial ambiguity

>

> https://arnoldzwicky.org/2019/04/05/science-charity-and-adverbial-ambi

> guity/

>

> "broke my leg in three places": body-location vs. event-location?

>

>   (discussed a while back on this mailing list)

>

> arnold

>

>

> _______________________________________________

> Lingtyp mailing list

> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>

> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp

_______________________________________________

Lingtyp mailing list

Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20190406/5d0fe615/attachment.htm>