[Lingtyp] Query: Elided Intensification
David Gil
gil at shh.mpg.de
Sun Apr 11 23:44:02 UTC 2021
Jess,
The construction you cite is a different construction: it's an elision,
to be sure, but it's an elision of a comparative, and does not have an
intensification function: it means 'He's as good as my son', not 'He's
very good'.
And its distribution is different: in my own English, for example, what
Mrs. Wheasley says is fine, whereas /sweet as/ is word salad. (Though
having just spent an hour or so watching those delightful "Beached As"
videos that Naomi Peck provided the link to, I am tempted to start using
the construction!)
David
On 12/04/2021 02:17, Jess Tauber wrote:
> I remember an 'as good as' in one of the Harry Potter films (I think
> it was the Order of the Phoenix?). This is where Mrs. Wheasley says of
> Harry 'He's as good as' with reference to him not being her actual son.
>
> Jess Tauber
>
> On Sun, Apr 11, 2021 at 6:36 PM David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de
> <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>> wrote:
>
> 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>
>>> <mailto: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 <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
>>> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091
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>
> --
> 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 <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091
>
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>
--
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
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