Borrowed word order in phrases

Sun Dec 15 13:22:35 UTC 2013

Apologies: I just replied to this message to the wrong list. That time of
the year I suppose. Don't know how it happened. Here is the proper reply to
the right list:

One might note that preposition stranding isn't typical (though I have been
told by a distinguished native speaking syntactician that it can occur in
Dutch) of the Germanic languages with OV order in prepositional phrases
(i.e. Continental West Germanic), but of those with VO, which means
essentially English and North Germanic. Syntactic borrowing from any of the
Germanic languages where stranding is characteristic seems odd in Parisian
French, where there is no contact situation of the type that would conduce
to syntactic borrowing. Unless one would like to think of this as an early
mediaeval Anglo-French borrowing (the last time there was extensive contact
between English and French), imported into Continental French (and not
Norman, but Isle de la Cite, and transferred from less prestigious to more
prestigious dialect-areas). I'm not a Romanist but considering the
increasing isolation of Anglo-French from Continental French during the
Middle Ages, any transfer from English would seem very peculiar. North
Germanic is out of the question of course.
RL

-----Original Message-----
From: histling-l-bounces at mailman.rice.edu
[mailto:histling-l-bounces at mailman.rice.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Hopper
Sent: 15 December 2013 02:47 PM
To: Peter Hook
Cc: histling-l at mailman.rice.edu; lista
Subject: Re: [Histling-l] Borrowed word order in phrases

The following examples are from Henri Bauche's book Le langage populaire.
Grammaire, syntaxe et dictionnaire du français tel qu’on le parle dans
le peuple de Paris, avec tous les termes d’argot usuel. Paris: Payot, 1928.

les femmes qu’il a couché avec “the women he’s slept with”
je lui ai couru après “I ran after him”
tu n’as pas travaillé pour "You didn't work for it"

A few years ago Geoff Nathan (perhaps on HistLing) reported a waiter as
saying "J'y suis pour", presumably "that's what I'm here for".

Bauche comments that these forms are often attributed to a Germanic
substratum, but says they are also found in Italian. True?

Paul

> Hi Eduardo,
>
> An example of a stranded preposition in French [but no idea of where 
> the writer is from]:
>
> www.leforum.bistrophilo.fr/.../viewtopic.php?f...t...
> Mar 3, 2009 - 10 posts - 6 authors
> Mmmm c'est délicieux ; on la mettait de côté et à la fin de la semaine 
> il y en avait assez *pour faire une tarte avec* !
>
> Cheers,
>
> Peter Hook
>
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 5:59 AM, Koka <lachicadelgorro at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Eduardo,
>>
>> A recent account of the word order "Nada sé" (as opposed to "No sé
>> nada")
>> in Spanish by Octavio de Toledo attributes this word order to Latin 
>> influence. You can check the paper (in Spanish) out here ( 
>>
https://www.academia.edu/2552836/Entre_gramaticalizacion_estructura_informat
iva_y_tradiciones_discursivas_algo_mas_sobre_nada_).
>>
>>
>> Hope it helps!
>>
>> Carlota
>>
>> > Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 01:09:15 -0500
>> > From: kariri at gmail.com
>> > To: etnolinguistica at yahoogrupos.com.br; 
>> > histling-l at mailman.rice.edu;
>> LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> > Subject: [Histling-l] Borrowed word order in phrases
>>
>> >
>> > [apologies for cross-posting]
>> >
>> > Dear colleagues,
>> >
>> > I'm looking for examples of languages where certain (types of) 
>> > phrases present a different, borrowed word order when compared to a 
>> > more common, inherited type. Well-known examples are, in English, 
>> > legal terms in which the adjective follows the noun, preserving the 
>> > original Norman French order: "attorney general", "court martial", etc.
>> > (Jespersen 1912:87-88).
>> >
>> > Are you aware of similar examples from other languages? And of 
>> > cases in which the borrowed order, originally limited to borrowed 
>> > lexemes, ended up becoming the default usage?
>> >
>> > I would appreciate any insights and bibliographic references on 
>> > this
>> topic.
>> >
>> > Obrigado,
>> >
>> > Eduardo
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Eduardo Rivail Ribeiro, lingüista
>> > http://etnolinguistica.org/perfil:9
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Histling-l mailing list
>> > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
>> > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l
>>
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--
Paul J. Hopper,
Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of Humanities Emeritus, Department of
English, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213,

Adjunct Professor of Linguistics,
University of Pittsburgh

Senior External Fellow,
School of Linguistics and Literature,
Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), Freiburg i.Br., Germany

Publications: <http://carnegie-mellon.academia.edu/PaulHopper>
              <http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=n2e7ANUAAAAJ

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