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<p class="MsoNormal">Dear all,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Many thanks to everyone who responded to my query about markers of deceased referents (DRM). There were some really fascinating observations, both on and off list. Here is a general summary for those who are interested. Further observations
are of course very welcome.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I had previously observed that the DRM category (as per our working definition) seems to be quite robust in South America, with the phenomenon attested in approximately 90 out of 150 South American languages surveyed so far for which the
data seem adequate to make a call. Interestingly, the most robust region for DRM-type phenomena other than S. America seems to be Europe. The attested expressions seem to be quite stylistically marked in most contemporary cases, but not necessarily so in all
relevant varieties/languages/time periods; they also tend to be closer to the lexical and phrasal end of the spectrum than the grammatical end. Elsewhere in the Americas, there are some related phenomena in North America (with about a half-dozen examples mentioned
in response to my post, and a couple more we’ve turned up in grammars). In most of these cases, the DRM uses of these markers appear to overlap with (nominal) past tense marking more generally. There are also a few cases in Australia (Gurindji, Garrwa, Bininj
Kunwok), but it seems noteworthy to me that there appear to be so few (we’ve also surveyed a lot of grammars), given that Australia presents various other sorts of linguistic resources for referring to the deceased. Only a handful of examples (several of which
are quite marginal with respect to the S-America-based DRM definition) are evident in other world regions, both from responses to the LingTyp post and from our surveys of grammars to date.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The discussions on LingTyp brought up a number of interesting considerations:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With respect to synchronic patterns:<o:p></o:p></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">Other functions that may be exhibited by an etymon that is also used systematically for DRM (e.g. nominal/verbal past tense - which of course brings up challenges for defining DRM as a comparative category
more generally);<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">Degree of obligatoriness / frequency of use in relevant contexts;<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">The range of referents/nouns the marker can occur with (kin terms, non-humans, etc.);<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">The degree to which the usage is stylistically marked and/or restricted to particular registers/genres;<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">Pragmatic considerations; for example, as posts by Alex François and others brought up, whether the referent is recently deceased or not - whether too far in the past, or alternatively too recently and/or
where there is informational foregrounding (e.g. when reporting a death that has just occurred); also the possibility of highlighting a personal association with the deceased referent;<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">The role of individual, stylistic, and dialectal variation;<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">Questions of identifying a given DRM-like etymon as more lexical or grammatical, e.g. with respect to morphosyntactic behavior that is unusual for most members of a relevant lexical class (more on this below).<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">Languages exhibit various other related phenomena (that do not fit our working definition of DRM but are comparatively very interesting); e.g. suffix to indicate ‘last surviving kinsperson of a particular
category’ (Tübatulabal); special demonstrative forms for deceased referents (e.g. Car Nicobarese, Baniwa); use of present perfect in English restricted to living referents (as pointed out by Dan Slobin).<o:p></o:p></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With respect to diachronic trajectories:<o:p></o:p></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2">Many DRM-type etyma (especially perhaps in Europe) seem to show evidence of grammaticalization from or at least heavy routinization of lexical or even phrasal sources; this may involve unusual syntactic
behavior (e.g. Komnzo <i>kwark</i>, Bavarian German <i>selig</i>) or loss of other indications of adjectival status within the NP, such as person/number agreement (e.g. French
<i>feu</i>). Other resources may be best analyzed as fully lexical (often adjectival) or even phrasal, but are used systematically or even obligatorily in conventionalized DRM-type expressions; e.g. Occitan
<i>pawre</i> (lit. ‘poor/unfortunate’), Italian <i>buonanima</i> (lit. 'good soul’), Arabic ‘may Allah be merciful with him’, Yiddish ‘‘upon him/her peace’;<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2">Possibility of extension of DRM-like etyma from adnominal > predicative uses (Ugandan English, as pointed out by Jenneke van der Wal);<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2">Possibility of direct borrowing vs. internal development of etyma (cf. Italian
<i>fu</i> from French).<o:p></o:p></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks again for the very useful input, and all best,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Pattie Epps<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">From:
</span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">Epps, Patience L <pattieepps@austin.utexas.edu><br>
<b>Date: </b>Thursday, September 26, 2024 at 12:14</span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:black"> </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;color:black">PM<br>
<b>To: </b>lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org><br>
<b>Subject: </b>Query: 'Deceased referent' markers<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Dear all,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I'm writing regarding a phenomenon that appears to be widely attested in Amazonian languages, which my project collaborators and I have been calling a 'deceased referent marker'. We are wondering about the extent to which a comparable phenomenon
exists in other languages of the world - from a preliminary survey, it appears to have very few close correlates elsewhere. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Amazonian-type DRM construction involves using a particular linguistic marker (which can usually be identified as more grammatical than lexical, though it's not always an easy distinction to make) within the noun phrase when making
direct reference to a deceased referent. This is reminiscent of what occurs in some European languages (e.g. English
<i>the <b>late</b> John, </i>Portuguese <i>o <b>finado</b> João</i>), but tends to be less lexical and is ubiquitous in discourse, rather than being highly optional and/or limited to more formal registers. In some languages, the DRM is a distinct etymon with
no other functions; in others, it overlaps with other functions (most frequently that of a nominal past marker). It is always used with humans (primarily proper names and kin terms), while some languages also allow use with non-human referents. In spite of
these variations, there seem to be close parallels in how the construction is formulated and how it is used discursively across many Amazonian languages. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">An example from Nadëb (Naduhup family, NW Brazil):<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>ee <b>makũuh</b> ỹ haw'ëëh doo paah</i><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">father DRM 1sg raise NMLZ PST<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">'It was my late father who raised me (there).'<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In defining the Amazonian 'type' of DRM, we are focusing on resources that a) consist of a morphological element (affix or clitic hosted by the noun); or b) if arguably more lexical, have a ‘deceased referent’ function that is relatively
distinct from other meanings/morphosyntactic expressions and/or appears ubiquitously in DRM contexts. We are excluding other kinds of linguistic strategies for referring to the deceased, including naming prohibitions, necronyms (passing on the deceased's name
to a child), more pragmatically optional periphrastic strategies (e.g. 'my dead relative', 'my relative who died recently', etc.). We are also excluding (though we're interested, for comparative purposes) other types of nominal morphology relating to the deceased,
e.g. a marker that occurs with a kin term X to mean ‘one whose X has recently died’ in Kayardild (Australia):
<i>kangku-kurirr</i> (father’s.father-DEAD) ‘one whose father’s father has recently died’ (Evans 1995: 197).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We'd be very grateful for information about comparable phenomena in languages outside South America.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">All best,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Pattie Epps<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
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