<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif">Dear Christian,<br><br>Mwotlap, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu, has an adjective <a href="https://marama.huma-num.fr/Lex/Mwotlap/m.htm#%E2%93%94m%5Ba%5Dgays%C4%93n" target="_blank"><i>magaysēn</i></a><i> </i>[maɣajsɪn] “sad, miserable”.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"> <br>As a predicate head, it normally encodes the sadness of the subject:<br><br>(1) Ēntē-n ne-<b>mgaysēn</b>.<br> <font size="1">son-3sg Stative-sad</font><br> “Her son was miserable.”<br><br>As a (subjectless) interjection, /ne-mgaysēn/ expresses the sadness of the speaker:<br><br>(2) Ne-<b>mgaysēn</b>!<br><font size="1"> Stative-sad</font><br> “So sad!” / “Sorry !” (whether an expression of sympathy “sorry for you!” or an apology)<br><br>Crucially, the same adjective has been conventionalized as a <i>postverb</i>, i.e. a verb modifier, to encode sympathy of the speaker towards one of the participants, or towards the whole situation.<br><br>Sentence (3) could be interpreted literally as (3a) “he was crying sadly (because he was sad)”; but it is also a bridging context where you could have a Sympathy reading (3b):<br><br>(3) Kē me-ten̄ <b>magaysēn</b>.<br> <font size="1">3sg Pft-weep sad/SYMP</font><br> a. “She was crying in sadness.” [the subject is 'sad']<br> b. “She was crying, the poor thing.” [the speaker is 'sad' for the subject]<br> <br>In (4) the speaker expresses their sympathy for the main participant, which is not the grammatical subject, but the possessor:<br> <br>(4) Tateh no-n haphap <b>magaysēn</b>.<br> <font size="1">Neg:Exist Poss-3sg things SYMP</font><br> “He didn't have any possession, the poor thing.” <br><br>(5) was uttered in a situation of farewell, where both the traveller and his friends were sad to part. Syntactically, the structure is ambiguous between a reading where the sad one is the subject or the object:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br>(5) Yē ti-tiok <b>magaysēn</b> nēk?<br><font size="1"> who FUT-see.off sad 2SG<br></font> [Subject is sad] ‘Who will have the sad role to see you off?’ <br> [Object is sad] ‘Who will see you off, you poor fellow…’ <br><br>I briefly discussed the ambiguity of this example in my paper on Mwotlap complex predicates (<a href="http://alex.francois.online.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2004_Macroverbs-Mwotlap_preprint.pdf#page=15" target="_blank">see here p.123</a>).</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><br>Finally, a sentence like (6) has no identifiable participant that could be assigned the predicate {be.sad}: <br><i>magaysēn</i> here functions more like a Sympathy / Sadness modalizer over the whole situation:<br><br>(6) Na-lavēt mal bah <b>magaysēn</b>.<br><font size="1"> Art-party IAMIT finish SYMP</font><br> “The party is over, sadly!” <br> ~ “The party is over, poor us!”<br><br>best<br>Alex<br></div><div><div dir="ltr" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><hr style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:tahoma,sans-serif;font-size:13.33px;font-style:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px" width="70" size="1" noshade align="left"><p style="font-family:verdana,geneva,sans-serif"><font size="2"><span style="color:rgb(69,129,142)">Alex François</span><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></span></font></p><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><a style="text-decoration:none" href="http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">LaTTiCe</a> — <a title="ENS" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="http://www.cnrs.fr/index.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">CNRS–</a><a title="ENS" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094" rel="noopener" target="_blank">ENS</a>–<a title="ENS" style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Sorbonne nouvelle</a><br></span><a style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/francois-a" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Australian National University</a></font><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><br></span></font></span></font></span><div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"> </span><span style="text-decoration:none"></span></font></span><span style="text-decoration:none"><a style="color:rgb(51,102,204);text-decoration:none" href="http://alex.francois.online.fr/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Personal homepage</a><br></span></font></span></div><div><font size="1">___________________</font><font size="1">___________________</font><font size="1">___</font><br><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><font size="1"><span style="text-decoration:none"></span></font></span></div></div></div></div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">---------- Forwarded message ---------<br>From: <strong class="gmail_sendername" dir="auto">Christian Döhler</strong> <span dir="auto"><<a href="mailto:christian.doehler@posteo.de" target="_blank">christian.doehler@posteo.de</a>></span><br>Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2023 at 11:10<br>Subject: [Lingtyp] Affectionate or sympathy marking<br>To: <a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a> <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>><br></div><br><br>
<div>
Dear colleagues,<br>
<br>
I am looking for publications that address the difference between
(1) and (2). In (2), the English adjective <i>poor</i> is used to
signal the speaker's sympathy or affection towards the dog.<br>
<ol>
<li><i>The dog is waiting for its owner.</i></li>
<li><i>The poor dog is waiting for its owner.</i></li>
</ol>
While English (and my native German) does this by extending the
meaning of the adjective <i>poor </i>(and <i>arm</i> in German),
other languages have special words with only that meaning. For
example, Komnzo <i>bana </i>is a postposed adjective that only
conveys sympathy. <br>
<br>
<i> ni bananzo namnzr karen.</i><br>
<i> </i>ni bana=nzo na\m/nzr
kar=en<br>
1NSG SYMP=only 1PL:NPST:IPFV/stay village=LOC<br>
'Only we poor guys stay behind in the village' (subtext: 'while
the others are going to the celebration in the neighbouring
village')<br>
(NSG = non-singular, SYMP = sympathy marker, NPST = nonpast)<br>
<br>
Yet other languages seem to have special verb morphology for this.
Van Tongeren describes this for Suki (her PhD grammar will probably
be available later this year).<br>
<br>
Pointers to more examples and publications of this are most welcome.
I was googling this with keywords like "sympathy", "empathy",
"affection", but with not much luck. So there might be a whole
literature on this phenomenon under different terminology. If that's
the case, then please excuse my ignorance.<i><br>
</i><br>
Very Best,<br>
Christian<br>
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
Dr. Christian Döhler
Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS)
Schützenstraße 18
10117 Berlin
Raum: 445
Tel.: +49 30 20192 412
<a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9659-5920" target="_blank">https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9659-5920</a>
</pre>
</div>
_______________________________________________<br>
Lingtyp mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" target="_blank">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br>
<a href="https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp</a><br>
</div></div>