[Lingtyp] Query: Elided Intensification

Mon Apr 12 07:57:32 UTC 2021

Dear all

In Joola (Niger-Congo, Atlantic, Keeraak variety), */nɔɔn/* means 'as' 
or 'like', as in the following examples :

/dɔmɔ fʊtɛm *nɔɔn* wah warɛɛmɛ/
COP.IMPERS smell.IMPERF 'as' thing has-burnt
'it smells as if something has burnt' (French: 'ça sent comme si quelque 
chose avait brûlé')

/hʊkɛn ɩnjɛ ɩ-cɔkɔm barɛ i-sim *nɔɔn* ɛbɔɔs
/yesterday I 1sg-wound.PERF but 1sg-bleed 'like' cow
'Yesterday I got wounded and I bleeded like a cow' (French 'hier je me 
suis blessé et j'ai saigné comme une vache')

It may also be used as an intensifier :

/sɩnaŋas si-suum-e *nɔɔn*/
cooked_rice AGR-be.good-PERF /*nɔɔn*/
'the rice is very good'

/na-cab-ɛ nɔɔn ɛɬakɛnay/
3sg-do.quickly-PERF /*nɔɔn*/ INF.cook
He did the cooking very quickly

/nʊ-ŋəmi-e *nɔɔn* jabajɔɔraj jala di baɲɩɩlab/
2sg-love-PERF /*nɔɔn*/ INF.scold of at children
'you really love to scold children'

In Joola, qualities are mostly expressed by verbs. As can be seen in the 
above examples, /*nɔɔn*/ always appears after verbs, and I have no 
counterexample (but the number of examples is not that high...). These 
constructions may be considered as 'elided', since they may often 
(always ?) be completed by the word /*bəjəəm*/, for which none of my 
consultants could provide a translation... (this reminds me of the 
French expression 'comme tout' in 'il est gentil comme tout') :
/suum-e *nɔɔn* ~ suum-e *nɔɔn bəjəəm*/
IMPERS.be.good-PERF /*nɔɔn*/ ~ IMPERS.be.good-PERF /as/ ????
'it is very good'

Unfortunately, my knowledge of the language does not allow me to be more 
precise. I still hope this may help.

Guillaume

Le 12/04/2021 à 00:35, David Gil a écrit :
>
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp

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