Borrowed word order in phrases

Sun Dec 15 16:17:26 UTC 2013

As the person reporting the stranded preposition to this list several years ago, let me clarify. 

We were having dinner in a medium-sized provincial town in central France about fifteen or so years ago when Margaret (Winters--some of you know her..) asked the waiter: 

Si je peux vous poser une question? 

The waiter replied: 

Je suis là pour. 

I would judge it very unlikely that the waiter was fluent in English, and Margaret's French doesn't sound non-native (just vaguely 'not from around here...'). I suspect there are lots of these in colloquial contemporary French (français avancé as they like to say...) 

Geoff 

Geoffrey S. Nathan 
Faculty Liaison, C&IT 
and Professor, Linguistics Program 
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/ 
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) 

Nobody at Wayne State will EVER ask you for your password. Never send it to anyone in an email, no matter how authentic the email looks. 

----- Original Message -----

> From: "Marie-Lucie Tarpent" <mltarpent at hotmail.com>
> To: hopper at cmu.edu, etnolinguistica at yahoogrupos.com.br,
> histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
> Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2013 10:59:37 AM
> Subject: Re: [Histling-l] Borrowed word order in phrases

> 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
> > >> > _______________________________________________
> > >> > Histling-l mailing list
> > >> > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
> > >> > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> Histling-l mailing list
> > >> Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
> > >> https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l
> > >>
> > >>
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Histling-l mailing list
> > > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
> > > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > 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
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Histling-l mailing list
> > Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
> > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l

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