[Lingtyp] Numeral 'one' and 'as soon as'

Thu Apr 1 11:34:29 UTC 2021

Lieber Martin,
According to my intuition, zumal means ‘especially since’, i.e. ‘I would have left early anyway, but now I have another, additional reason for it.’
Wiktionary gives these translations: the more so as, especially. d’autant plus que, sans compter que. tanto più che, anche perché, senza contare che, specialmente per il fatto che. bovenal, temeer.
Hartmut

Fra: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> På vegne af Martin Haspelmath
Sendt: 1. april 2021 11:40
Til: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Emne: Re: [Lingtyp] Numeral 'one' and 'as soon as'

And it is only in this exchange that I realize that German Mal 'time (in the sense of the French fois)' can be used in a somewhat similar way, in the combination zumal (= zu Mal):

Ich werde gehen, zumal du so früh gekommen bist.
'I'll be leaving, as you came so early.'

Maybe German also borrowed this from French in one way or another. (But note that zumal only means '(in as much) as', i.e. it only has a causal sense.)

(There are so many similarities among European languages that seem to be due to borrowing in one way or another...)

Best,
Martin
Am 01.04.21 um 09:39 schrieb Michael Daniel:
Dear all,

only in this exchange I realized that the Russian раз 'time' (in the sense of the French 'fois'), is used in a syntactically similar construction but functionally different construction as introducing cause complement clauses:

Раз ты пришел так рано, я пойду.
As you came so early, I'll be leaving. (Lit. 'Time you.sg<http://you.sg> come.Pst so early, I leave.Prs)

Note that no numeral is used in these constructions, unlike what the original query was looking for.

But is the French "Une fois que" not somewhat similar to Russian in this respect, in that it is not (only) used in the sense "as soon as" but also to introduce subordinate clauses of cause? (And maybe English, too, once we're on this). In fact, it would be good to check whether the Russian construction is not a 19th century pattern copy from French.

Michael

чт, 1 апр. 2021 г. в 08:33, Jesus Francisco Olguin Martinez <olguinmartinez at ucsb.edu<mailto:olguinmartinez at ucsb.edu>>:
Dear all,

Sorry for not having been clearer in my previous email.

Yes, English 'once' is used in this way :)

I did not mention English and other European languages  because in Mandarin and the other Hmong-Mien languages I mentioned before, the second clause appears with another linker (lit. on(c)e........'(and) then').  Accordingly, these languages show some sort of correlative construction. Based on the languages of the sample, this usage of 'on(c)e' in a correlative construction is not common cross-linguistically. It seems that Hmong-Mien languages have copied this strategy with native material from Mandarin. This is some sort of 'pattern replication'. I was expecting to receive more answers concerned with languages spoken in this area in order to see if these languages have also copied this pattern from Mandarin.

Thank you in advance.

Best,

On Wed, Mar 31, 2021 at 8:37 PM Jesus Francisco Olguin Martinez <olguinmartinez at ucsb.edu<mailto:olguinmartinez at ucsb.edu>> wrote:
Dear all,

I hope this message finds you well.

As I was consulting various sources, it seems that the numeral 'one' in the expression of 'as soon as' is not common cross-linguistically.

In my sample, this is attested in Standard Mandarin (i.e. yī), Xong (Hmong-Mien), and Iu Mien (Hmong-Mien). Are you aware of any other languages that express 'as soon as' in a similar way?

Thank you very much in advance.

Best,

--
Jesús Olguín Martínez
Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Linguistics
University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/people/jesús-olguín-martínez<http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/people/jes%C3%BAs-olgu%C3%ADn-mart%C3%ADnez>

--
Jesús Olguín Martínez
Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Linguistics
University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/people/jesús-olguín-martínez<http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/people/jes%C3%BAs-olgu%C3%ADn-mart%C3%ADnez>
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Martin Haspelmath

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