Fwd: Borrowed word order in phrases

Wed Dec 18 16:01:32 UTC 2013

Hello all,
  I am posting this on behalf of Shana Poplack, who is not on this listserv.
  Apologies for cross-postings.
  Lauren Zentz

Just to set the record straight, it’s not true that the people who wrote
that article in *Bilingualism: language and cognition, *of which I am one,
“don’t believe that change in frequency is change”. Of course it can be!
(See Poplack & Malvar 2008 for a particularly striking example) But
sometimes it’s not. The point of the BLC paper was to lay out – and
implement! – a number of criteria, consisting mainly of comparisons with
relevant diachronic and synchronic benchmarks, for the establishment of
contact-induced change. Oddly enough, many of them were also enunciated,
though not always implemented, by Sally herself. Applying such criteria
systematically to a great deal of Quebec French data, we showed that the
phrase-final prepositions in question do not display the syntactic
properties of English stranded prepositions, do not represent a change
vis-à-vis an earlier stage (at least over the century-and-a-half time span
under study), and are not contact-induced, but rather the result of an
analogical extension to the relative clause context of the native French
“orphan” (e.g. Zribi-Herz) prepositions. That the latter are characteristic
of non-contact French was also pointed out by Paul in his citation of
Bauche 1928. Parenthetically, the *“J’y suis pour”* example heard by Geoff
Nathan in the center of France was one of these orphan prepositions.

-- Shana Poplack

On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Daniel Ezra Johnson <
danielezrajohnson at gmail.com> wrote:

> Poplack and Dion don't believe that change in frequency is change? J'ai
> pas connu ça.
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 16, 2013 at 3:49 PM, George Walkden <
> george.walkden at manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>>  Dear all,
>>
>>  For the benefit of those of you who aren't also on the Histling list,
>> where this was originally posted, here's some of the (fascinating)
>> discussion that's been going on there. Both Ruth's and Lauren's work has
>> already been mentioned there (by me, ahem).
>>
>>  Best,
>>
>>   - George
>>
>> :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
>> George Walkden
>> Lecturer in English Linguistics
>> University of Manchester
>> george.walkden at manchester.ac.uk
>> http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/george.walkden/
>> Office: N1.2 Samuel Alexander Building
>> Tel.: +44 (0)161 275 8905
>> :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>>  *From: *Sarah Thomason <thomason at umich.edu>
>>  *Subject: **Re: [Histling-l] Borrowed word order in phrases*
>>  *Date: *15 December 2013 17:18:21 GMT
>>  *To: *George Walkden <george.walkden at gmail.com>
>>  *Cc: *"Geoffrey S. Nathan" <geoffnathan at wayne.edu>,
>> histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
>>
>> But that paper in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition is written by
>> people who don't believe that change in frequency is change.  It's a very
>> odd belief, and it would rule out any change from a more restricted set of
>> environments to a "default" status -- for those authors such a change
>> wouldn't count as any kind of change, no matter how contact-induced it was.
>>
>>    -- Sally Thomason
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Dec 15, 2013 at 9:08 AM, George Walkden <george.walkden at gmail.com
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>>  In googling around on this interesting topic, I've come across a paper
>>> arguing that the prevalence of stranding in Canadian French is not due to
>>> contact - with several responses.
>>>
>>>  <
>>> https://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?jid=BIL&volumeId=15&seriesId=0&issueId=02
>>> >
>>>
>>>  Since it's in Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, which is perhaps
>>> not normally read by everyone on this list, I thought I'd bring it up. The
>>> issue covers many of the same questions that have been discussed here.
>>>
>>>   - George
>>>
>>>
>>>  On 15 Dec 2013, at 16:17, Geoffrey Steven Nathan wrote:
>>>
>>>   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.
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>>
>>> *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
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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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>>> > https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/histling-l
>>>
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>>
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