Borrowed word order in phrases

Sun Dec 15 15:59:37 UTC 2013

Paul Hopper:

About Bauche's examples:

(1) les femmes qu'il a couché avec 'the women he slept with' (= ... that he slept with)

This is a very common structure in uneducated speech, with "que" used as a single, ubiquitous relative pronoun for functions other than Subject.  The formal equivalent "les femmes avec lesquelles il a couché" is not only much more difficult to use (because of the gender/number agreement) but similar in tone and register to English "the women with whom he slept" (itself a calque of French).  An intermediate form would be "les femmes avec qui il a couché", common in casual educated speech but frowned upon by purists, especially in writing.

(2) je lui ai couru après 'I ran after him'

Although (1) here was not intended as a context for (2), the French sentence immediately called to my mind 'I (a man) chased after her' or 'I (a woman) chased after him' (= trying to start a relationship)("lui" as an oblique pronoun preceding the verb is the same for both genders).  For 'I ran after him/her',  "j'ai couru après lui/elle" would be less likely to be interpreted as above, although possibly so depending on the context.  

(3) tu n'as pas travaillé pour 'you didn't work for it'

A person using the preposition-last structure would be unlikely to use "ne ... pas" (and this was certainly true in 1928 and much earlier).  "T'as pas travaillé pour" is more likely, although I am not familiar with this usage of "pour".  Possibly, it arises from the usage with relative clauses (as in (1)):  so perhaps 
a) T'as pas travaillé pour ÇA.  ("ça" here is the topie). 'You didn't work for THAT'
b) C'est pas ça que t'as travaillé pour.  'THAT is not what you worked for.'
c) - ... ÇA...  - T'as pas travaillé pour.  (omitting the topic, which was mentioned in a previous sentence) 'You didn't work for IT'

The origin of the preposition-last construction in "popular" (= uneducated) speech rules out recent calques from English, and is more likely to be found in extensions of popular syntax.

As for the next and most recent example:

(4) j'y suis pour

it sounds very strange to me,  Unlike the other examples, it is most likely to be a literal translation from English '(That's what) I am here for', but cross-influenced by the already existing popular structure.  (Or the opposite could be true).   

marie-lucie

> Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2013 07:46:42 -0500
> From: hopper at cmu.edu
> To: peter.e.hook at gmail.com
> CC: histling-l at mailman.rice.edu; etnolinguistica at yahoogrupos.com.br
> 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_informativa_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
> >> > _______________________________________________
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> >>
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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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