[Lingtyp] Query: Elided Intensification

Sun Apr 11 22:35:43 UTC 2021

Thanks to those who have responded to my query so far, either to me 
personally or on the list.

I'd like to clarify what I had in mind by "elided" or "incomplete".  I 
am using these terms grammatically / semantically, to express the 
intuition that there's something missing after the intensifier, given 
that forms such as Papuan Malay /sampe/ and (Australian) English /as/ 
usually occur in construction with another, following expression (or 
"complement").

I was not implying that the construction in question should "sound 
incomplete" (to use Ilana's words below).  But it's interesting that she 
characterizes the Australian English /as/ construction as being 
associated with a "particular intonation", since the same is true also 
for the Papuan Malay construction with /sampe/.  Though the specifics of 
the intonation contour seem to differ (in Papuan Malay, the peak of the 
contour falls on the preceding word, while the intensifier /sampe/ is 
associated with low pitch, sounding like an afterthought).

David

On 12/04/2021 00:58, Ilana Mushin wrote:
> I can also confirm ‘sweet as’ in Australian English. I’ve seen it on 
> advertising billboards. I think the construction ‘X as’ can be 
> somewhat productive - eg I’ve certainly heard ‘dumb as’.  There is a 
> particular intonation that goes with the construction - the ‘as’ is 
> lengthened  and has a rise-fall contour so it doesn’t sound incomplete 
> (this is impressionistic - someone may have a better idea of the 
> prosody than me).
>
> Ilana
>
> Associate Professor Ilana Mushin
>
> Reader in Linguistics
>
> President, Australian Linguistic Society
>
> /var/folders/lv/m77kqy0n4x1_rcd3pk0j2n900000gq/T/com.microsoft.Outlook/WebArchiveCopyPasteTempFiles/il.pb.pngCo-Editor, 
> /Interactional Linguistics/ (https://benjamins.com/catalog/il 
> <https://benjamins.com/catalog/il>)
>
> School of Languages and Cultures
>
> University of Queensland
>
> St Lucia, QLD 4072.
>
> Ph: (07) 3365 6810 <tel:(07)%203365%206810>
>
> CRICOS Provider No: 00025B
>
> *I acknowledge the Jagera and Turrbal peoples on whose land I live and 
> work. Their sovereignty was never ceded.*
>
>
>> On 12 Apr 2021, at 5:27 am, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>>
>> I'm interested in exploring the properties and geographical 
>> distribution of a novel (well, to me at least) construction type 
>> which might be termed "Elided Intensification'.I'll explain with an 
>> example.In Papuan Malay, property-denoting and some other words may 
>> be intensified by the addition of /sampe/, a word whose other, more 
>> basic functions, include 'arrive' and 'until', e.g.
>>
>> (1) Enak sampe
>>
>> nice SAMPE
>>
>> 'Very nice.'
>>
>> My informal "interpretation" of this construction is that it 
>> involves, or at least originated in, some kind of understood 
>> expression such as "nice arriving (at complete fulfillment)", or 
>> "nice until (completion)".As Papuan Malay is largely head-initial, it 
>> kind of feels like something is missing after the word /sampe/.(In 
>> Malay/Indonesian, this construction seems to be restricted 
>> geographically to the north coast of New Guinea and possibly also 
>> Northern Maluku; elsewhere it is absent.)
>>
>> So far, I am familiar with two other potential cases of Elided 
>> Intensification.The first is from Ambel, an Austronesian language 
>> spoken in the Raja Ampat archipelago of the northwest coast of New 
>> Guinea, in a region where Papuan Malay is also spoken.As described by 
>> Arnold (2018:145, pers comm), /aya/ 'until' is used in a construction 
>> closely resembling that in (1):
>>
>> (2) Anlómo aya
>>
>> bleed.3SG.INAN AYA
>>
>> ‘It bled a lot.’
>>
>> Arnold, Laura. 2018./A Grammar of Ambel, An Austronesian Language of 
>> West New Guinea/. PhD Dissertation.Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.
>>
>> The second example, which I just came across, and which prompted this 
>> query, is Australian English.In the Wikipedia entry for Australian 
>> English, in a paragraph which deals with the infensification of 
>> adjectives, the following rather tantalizing passage occurs:
>>
>> "In informal speech, incomplete comparisons are sometimes used, such 
>> as "sweet as" (as in "That car is sweet as.")."
>>
>> So here it's comparative 'as' rather than 'arrive'/'until' that comes 
>> after the word being intensified, but still, all these cases seem to 
>> involve intensification with the elision of some kind of argument 
>> associated with the property word and denoting an extreme extent of 
>> the property in question.
>>
>> My questions:
>>
>> 1.Could speakers of Australian English please confirm the existence 
>> of this construction, and comment on it.Does it occur in other 
>> varieties of English?(It was certainly completely new to me!)
>>
>> 2.Is anybody familiar with possible cases of Elided Intensification 
>> in other languages, in Australia, New Guinea or elsewhere?On the 
>> flimsy basis of three examples, it looks like an Australian / New 
>> Guinea areal feature: is this the case?For the Australia / New Guinea 
>> region I'd also appreciate negative data, of the form "no, my 
>> language definitely doesn't do this".
>>
>> 3.Any further comments and suggestions ...
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> David
>>
>> -- 
>> David Gil
>>   
>> Senior Scientist (Associate)
>> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
>> Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
>>   
>> Email:gil at shh.mpg.de
>> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp

-- 
David Gil

Senior Scientist (Associate)
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany

Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20210412/fa5955a0/attachment.htm>