<div dir="ltr"><div>Dear David,</div><div><br></div><div>Thank you for this very interesting example. I'm not aware of any exact parallels to that, but let me suggest some threads you might be able to tie together. I briefly remarked on this on p.9-10 of my dissertation (<a href="https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.5546425">https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.5546425</a>).</div><div><br></div><div>In a number of languages, there is homophony between a topic or focus marker and coordinator. (Typically this is a noun coordinator, if noun and verb/clause coordination differ.) One representative reference for this is Schwarz & Fiedler (2007: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110199093.5.267">https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110199093.5.267</a>), as well as some functions of conjunctions described by Bätscher (2014: <a href="http://summit.sfu.ca/item/14530">http://summit.sfu.ca/item/14530</a>). I've seen some other information elsewhere but haven't organized a full list of references on the topic yet (it's a topic of interest for a future project so if you are anyone else is interested in that, please feel free to contact me). <br></div><div><br></div><div>There is also a widespread tendency for a coordinator 'and' to be used in a conditional function (Haiman 1983: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(83)90014-0">https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(83)90014-0</a>), as in English conditional imperatives: "Do that again and I'm leaving!" etc. Furthermore, it has been suggested that conditionals could be a kind of topic (Haiman 1978: <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/412787">https://doi.org/10.2307/412787</a>).</div><div><br></div><div>And specifically for Georgian <i>da</i> there is an interesting case of borrowing where it is now used as a conditional conjunction 'if' in Mingrelian (mentioned on p.132 of my dissertation). This is summarized by Harris & Campbell (1995:290 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511620553">https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511620553</a>) [and also discussed by Abesadze (cited there) if you can read Georgian].</div><div><br></div><div>I believe all of those pieces are at least broadly related and represent some kind of grammaticalization network but I haven't yet worked out the details. The final thread to tie into the rest of this is regarding questions, but since wh-questions are often considered to be broadly similar to topic or focus (especially in the generative tradition, e.g. the "left periphery" at the top of a syntax tree), that seems promising as well. From what you described, I wonder if this usage might be similar to "echo" questions ("You bought WHAT?") in other languages-- is this some kind of "echo answer"? If so, this might actually be topic/focus rather than typical wh-question structure.</div><div><br></div><div>An open question is about diachrony, both regarding typical grammaticalization pathways (is this unidirectional, and if so in which direction?), and also etymological. Some apparent cases of pseudocoordination (i.e. unusual uses of coordinators) may actually not be due to grammaticalization of the conjunction 'and' into another function, but instead a relic of its usage prior to its grammaticalization as a conjunction.</div><div><br></div><div>As an alternative hypothesis, one other possibility is that this involves some kind of ellipsis, so you might ask an informant if they would say something like lit. 'What did I buy and I bought bread.' as some kind of coordination of the repeated question and the answer as a full sentence. If that is not the case, then I would suggest it's something related to the ideas above. If so, it might just be normal coordination with an interesting discourse strategy for answering questions. Also, is there a way to disambiguate between a question "What did I buy" and a indirect question or relative clause "What I bought"? I imagine this construction might involve the latter, so the literal translation would be more like '[What I bought] and bread'.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Daniel Ross</div><div>ALT webmaster</div><div>University of California, Riverside<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Sep 19, 2024 at 6:28 AM Christian Lehmann via Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
Thanks. Even 60 years ago, you would probably not have wanted to
convert one of these constructions into the other by a
transformational rule; but at least the information structure
appears to be the same.<br>
<div>-- <br>
<p style="font-size:90%">Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann<br>
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