<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Raffaele,<div><br></div><div>Interesting issue. It seems that it might also be worthwhile to distinguish items that are explicitly vague <div>(English ‘whatchamacallit’, ‘whatsisname”, German ‘Dings-da, etc) from words that are used in a generic</div><div>way but have a (somewhat) more specific reference, perhaps as well as a generically vague one (compare</div><div>English ’thing’ and ’thingy’ — the latter must be vague bit the first not necessarily)</div><div><br></div><div>Ian <br><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>On Mar 8, 2023, at 11:08, Raffaele Simone <raffaele.simone@uniroma3.it> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div><meta charset="UTF-8"><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Dear friends and colleagues,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">I am preparing a paper on that group of general-generic words that are used to designate entities whose name you do not know or do not remember, or whose name you do not want to remember or that, simply, have no name in a language.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">I’m referring to “nouns” like French "truc" and "machin", Italian "coso", "arnese", "aggeggio", or, for people, Italian "tizio", "tipo", Spanish "tío", “fulano”, English "dude" etc. They form apparently a special word class and implement a particular way of designating.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">The situation in the European languages I am familiar with seems very fragmented and discontinuous: some languages do have sets of dedicated or semidedicated words for that function, but most don’t, as far as I see.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Does any of you have examples from other languages and, if any, bibliographic references?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Thanks,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;">Raffaele<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Courier New", serif;">==============<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Courier New", serif;">Emeritus Professor, Università Roma Tre<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Courier New", serif;">Hon C Lund University<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Courier New", serif;">Membre de l'Académie Royale de Belgique<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Courier New", serif;">Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Courier New", serif;">Accademico (corrispondente) della Crusca<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Courier New", serif;">Prix de l'Institut de France-Fondation Bonnefous 2022<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Courier New", serif;">===============<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Courier New", serif;">Attività e pubblicazioni // Activity and publications<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://uniroma3.academia.edu/RaffaeleSimone"><span style="color: blue;">http://uniroma3.academia.edu/RaffaeleSimone</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></div></div><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; float: none; display: inline !important;">_______________________________________________</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; float: none; display: inline !important;">Lingtyp mailing list</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><a href="mailto:Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" style="font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><a href="https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp" style="font-family: Times-Roman; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp</a></div></blockquote></div><br><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div><div>Ian Maddieson</div><div><br></div><div>Department of Linguistics</div><div>University of New Mexico</div><div>MSC03-2130</div><div>Albuquerque NM 87131-0001</div><div><br></div></div><div><br></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
</div>
<br></div></div></body></html>