<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">I know of something like this in Tamil: a children’s story where a fly has forgotten its name, and so asks a calf, the calf’s mother, the calf’s mother’s cowherd, the cowherd’s stick, the tree where the stick came from, the crane that lives in the tree, the pond where the crane swims, the fish in the pond, the fisherman who catches the fish, the pot in the fisherman’s hand, the clay from which the pot was made, the grass growing in the clay, and the horse eating the grass. At the end, the horse says /iːːː/, which happens to be the Tamil word for “fly”.<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Crucially, each time the fly asks someone different, it recites the list of everyone it has asked so far. Thus:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">O plump calf, what is my name?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">O plump calf, O calf’s mother, what is my name?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">O plump calf, O calf’s mother, O cowherd who tends the mother, what is my name?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">O plump calf, O calf’s mother, O cowherd who tends the mother, O stick in the cowherd’s hand, what is my name?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Etc., etc.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The original text can be found <a href="https://kuvikam.com/2020/09/15/%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8A%E0%AE%B4%E0%AF%81-%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8A%E0%AE%B4%E0%AF%81-%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%A9%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%B1%E0%AF%87/" class="">here</a> (though it’s slightly different from the one I learned as a child); let me know if you need transliteration or glossing.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I’m aware that this doesn’t involve syntactic embedding, but it’s definitely cumulative.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Siva<br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 12 Feb 2023, at 5:13 pm, David Gil <<a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de" class="">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" class="">
<div class=""><p class="">Dear all,</p><p class="">A cumulative song is one in which each unit, or stanza,
introduces an additional layer of syntactic embedding, such as the
following ...</p>
<dl class="">
<dd class="">This is the house that Jack built.</dd>
</dl>
<dl class="">
<dd class="">This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.</dd>
</dl>
<dl class="">
<dd class="">This is the rat that ate the malt</dd>
<dd class="">That lay in the house that Jack built.</dd>
</dl>
<dl class="">
<dd class="">This is the cat</dd>
<dd class="">That killed the rat that ate the malt</dd>
<dd class="">That lay in the house that Jack built.</dd>
</dl>
<dl class="">
<dd class="">This is the dog that worried the cat</dd>
<dd class="">That killed the rat that ate the malt</dd>
<dd class="">That lay in the house that Jack built.</dd>
</dl><div class=""><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p class="">... and so forth. Perhaps the earliest example of a cumulative
song is the Jewish Aramaic hymn <i class="">Had Gadya</i>.</p><p class="">My query: Is anybody familiar with examples of cumulative songs
from other non-WEIRD cultures and languages. While my main
interest is in "indigenous" attestations, I would also be
interested in successful adaptations and translations of western
cumulative songs into other languages.</p><p class="">(Background to the query: I am interested in exploring variation
in the propensity of different languages to make use of syntactic
embedding. My focus is on languages such as Malay/Indonesian,
which have various tools to construct embedded clauses but
generally choose not to make use of them in natural discourse. I
would like to test the hypothesis that such cumulative songs are
absent or otherwise less successful in such languages.)</p><p class="">Thanks,</p><p class="">David<br class="">
</p><p class=""><br class="">
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Senior Scientist (Associate)
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
</pre>
</div>
_______________________________________________<br class="">Lingtyp mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" class="">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br class="">https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp<br class=""></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>