[Lingtyp] Discourse connectives that do not occur at clause edges

Mon Aug 9 11:58:31 UTC 2021

Dear all,

there is in Nisvai, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu 
(https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/nisv1234), such a discourse 
connector.

The coordination can actually occurs with or without a pronoun clitic:
T10.T2011.28 (just for the context, occurrence is in the next annotation 
unit)
«O, naroh avyn a=plah nahe s'daru.»  A=roh-roh ur=tog-i, ara=qam mai 
drog-drog aim, ga=mah.
INTER something DEF 3SG=nuire child PA 1INCL.DU 3SG=stay-RED 
ASP.EC=listen-INTR 3PL=run come search-RED haus 3SG=to_be_nothing
"«Oh, something happend to our child.» He (I guess the father) is here 
and listen, they (father and mum) run back to their house but he (the 
child) is not here."

T10.T2011.29
Ara=dry van husuh hoi ili.
3PL=COO go follow river DET
"And then they go follow the river."

The coordination can occurs with various persons, not only third one.

An Occurrence of the coordination without the bound pronoun:
T27.T2011.73
Ili, nren ara=mcu=mai dry pylkuv-e...
ASP.R person 3PL=ASP.EC=come COO.VB remove-INTR
"Then the people come and remove it."

I'm not sure whether one usage is more common than the other in my 
narrative corpus, both are very common though.

Also, there is a "nominalized" version of this coordination, "druan", 
which coordinate names, (well, I'm not sure it's really a nominalization 
process but that would be another discussion), and there is a 
coordination "dru" which has some specific TAM values to it as well.

All the best,
Jocelyn

Le 09/08/2021 à 12:41, Alex Francois a écrit :
> dear Ponrawee, dear all,
> 
> A note about Greek particles:
> 
>      > /As far as I know Wackernagel position is determined phonologically./
> 
> 
> Classical Greek indeed has many discourse particles that occur in 
> Wackernagel's position, i.e. immediately after the first word  (or 
> sometimes, after the first constituent).
> 
> However, only a subset of them are *clitics* strictly speaking:
> 
>     τε 'and' (PIE *=kʷe),
>     γε 'at least',
>     νυ 'now',
>     τοι 'really',
>     που 'somehow',
>     πως 'in a way'...
> 
> 
> In Classical Greek, clitics are defined by the absence of any inherent 
> accent, and thus the lack of prosodic autonomy; so indeed, these forms 
> need to "lean on" (κλίνω) the previous word to exist phonologically.  
> For those words, it could even be argued (as Daniel pointed out) that 
> their syntactic position is really clause-initial, except they must 
> occur in 2P for purely phonological reasons.
> 
> However, many discourse particles appear in the same Wackernagel's 
> position, even though they bear their own accent:
> 
>     δέ 'and also';  μέν ... δέ 'on the one hand..., on the other hand'; 
>     δή 'truly';  γάρ 'indeed';  οὖν 'therefore'; γοῦν 'at least then'...
> 
> 
>     [ NB: It is not rare to have whole strings of those P2 particles:
>        e.g. Plato has :  Δοκεῖ *γε δή*. / Πάνυ *μὲν οὖν */ πολλάκις *μέν
>     γε δή* /... ]
> 
> 
> Those accent-bearing forms are not considered clitics, at least not in 
> the philological tradition, because their prosodic features do not 
> depend on the previous word.
> Their systematic position as the second word therefore cannot be 
> explained just by phonological constraints:  one has to posit a special 
> slot in the clause, which is precisely what Wackernagel's position is.  
> That slot, reserved to discourse particles and linkers, accommodates 
> clitics as well as non-clitics; rather than being purely determined by 
> phonology, that slot is thus of a syntactic nature.
> 
> Perhaps this makes Wackernagel's position relevant to Ponrawee's query?
> 
> best
> Alex
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Alex François
> 
> LaTTiCe <http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/> — CNRS– 
> <http://www.cnrs.fr/index.html>ENS 
> <https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>–Sorbonne 
> nouvelle 
> <http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
> Australian National University
> <https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/francois-a>Academia Europaea 
> <https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/François_Alexandre> – Academia.edu 
> <https://cnrs.academia.edu/AlexFran%C3%A7ois>
> Personal homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
> _________________________________________
> 
> 
> On Mon, 9 Aug 2021 at 11:05, Ponrawee Prasertsom <ponrawee.pra at gmail.com 
> <mailto:ponrawee.pra at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Dear all
> 
>     Thank you for all the help so far.
> 
>     I was more interested in syntactically fixed connectives. As far as
>     I know Wackernagel position is determined phonologically. In Thai I
>     am not aware of an analysis that shows this is the case. The
>     connective always occurs post-Subject even in case there is a
>     fronted phrase etc. (So not strictly second in the sequence).
>     However, I would love to learn more about the range of variation
>     beyond my interest as well.
> 
>     Best regards,
>     Ponrawee
> 
> 
>     On Mon, 9 Aug 2564 BE at 15:45 Wiemer, Bjoern <wiemerb at uni-mainz.de
>     <mailto:wiemerb at uni-mainz.de>> wrote:
> 
>         Dear Ponrawee,____
> 
>         does your request also concern clitics (e.g., 2P-enclitics, also
>         known as Wackernagel clitics)? Your Thai example suggests that
>         position is fixed regarding the syntactic function. But do you
>         have in mind also cases in which some position is fixed simply
>         in terms of linear sequence?____
> 
>         __ __
> 
>         Best,____
> 
>         Björn.____
> 
>         __ __
> 
>         *Von:*Lingtyp [mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org
>         <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>] *Im Auftrag
>         von *Ponrawee Prasertsom
>         *Gesendet:* Montag, 9. August 2021 08:00
>         *An:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>         <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>         *Betreff:* [Lingtyp] Discourse connectives that do not occur at
>         clause edges____
> 
>         __ __
> 
>         Dear all,____
> 
>         __ __
> 
>         Does anyone know of language(s) with a discourse connective
>         (roughly defined as any word that relates two event arguments
>         expressed as clauses) that____
> 
>         __ __
> 
>         1. Has a dedicated (fixed) position in the clause____
> 
>         2. Does NOT occur clause-initial or -finally____
> 
>         __ __
> 
>         The example I have in mind is Thai /kɔ̂ɔ/ and Lao /kaø/, which
>         always occur after the subject. I'm also wondering how much this
>         is specific to Southwestern Tai (or Kra-Dai more generally). ____
> 
>         __ __
> 
>         I appreciate every help. Thank you all in advance.____
> 
>         __ __
> 
>         Best regards,____
> 
> 
>         ____
> 
>         __ __
> 
>         -- ____
> 
>         Ponrawee Prasertsom____
> 
>         __ __
> 
>         Graduate student____
> 
>         Department of Linguistics____
> 
>         Chulalongkorn University
> 
>     -- 
>     Ponrawee Prasertsom
> 
>     Postgraduate student
>     MSc Evolution of Language and Cognition
>     Centre for Language Evolution
>     School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences
>     University of Edinburgh
>     _______________________________________________
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> 
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