[Lingtyp] Query: Elided Intensification
David Gil
gil at shh.mpg.de
Mon Apr 12 11:35:01 UTC 2021
Thanks for this, Pier Marco. I would note, however, that in my own two
native languages, English and Hebrew, AS and HOW are expressed with
different forms (as opposed to a single polysemous form). And both
English and Hebrew have a construction similar to the Italian, but one
that makes use of the HOW word, not the AS word: English /... and
how!/ Hebrew /... veʕod ex!/ (and:more how). This seems to me to
diminish the similarity between the Italian /Sei felice? Eccome!/ and
the Australian English /sweet as/ construction. Though I admit that
there may still be some distant resemblance.
David
On 12/04/2021 14:19, Pier Marco Bertinetto wrote:
> Frans's comment made me realize that one has the same in Italian:
> "Come" is a comparative marker (an equalizer):
> Gino è alto come Piero
> 'G. is as tall as P.'
> But then one has "eccome" (< "e come" 'and as') which is an intensifier:
> Sei felice? Eccome!
> 'Are you happy? Very much!'
> It may also be turned into a question: "eccome no?" 'how could it be
> otherwise?', which retains much of the original comparative meaning.
> Best
> Pier Marco
>
>
> Il giorno lun 12 apr 2021 alle ore 11:10 Frans Plank
> <frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de <mailto:frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de>> ha
> scritto:
>
>
>
>
>
> Und wie, Guillaume! (Which is German.)
>
> Frans
>>
>>
>> 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>
>>>>> <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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>>
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> --
> =========================================================
> |||| Pier Marco Bertinetto
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> =========================================================
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> "Laboratorio di Linguistica" <http://linguistica.sns.it <http://linguistica.sns.it>>
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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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