[Lingtyp] Literature on 'already' > causal

[Jess Tauber]

In Yahgan (a critically endangered genetic isolate from Tierra del Fuego
I've studied for more than 20 years) there is a form wa:ta 'already, old,
ancient' that might be etymologically relatable to the causal clause
enclitic mvtta 'because', (v is schwa, colon marks tenseness of the vowel
preceding it in my keyboard-friendly orthography). ma- is a passive-voice
prefix, which might be part of mvtta, which is enclitic on the first full
NP in the clause. Until your OP I don't think I'd ever thought of this
possible connection. Very interesting!

Jess Tauber

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On Mon, Jul 26, 2021 at 11:11 AM Bastian Persohn <
persohn.linguistics at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear lingtyp list members,
>
> Do you know of any literature that discusses the development of causal
> clause markers from (constructions involving) expressions for ‚already‘,
> especially works that discuss the underlying semanto-pragmatic motivation?
>
> The type of construction I have in mind is found, for instance, in Spanish
> and Italian (1, 2) and has also been described for the Arabic variety of
> the Medina of Tunis (3). German (*Wo du schon da bist, bleib doch zum
> Abendesse*n ‚As you’re here (already), why don’t you stay for supper?)
> and Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian (*Kad si već ovdje, zašto ne ostaneš na
> večeri* ‚dto‘) could be counted as additional examples.
>
> (1) *Ya que tu desgracia no tiene remedio, llévala con paciencia*.
> Already SUBORD your misfortune NEG has remedy wear_it with patience
> ‘Given that there’s no remedy against your misfortune, wear it with
> patience
> (RAE 2009)
>
> (2) *Giacché / già che lo sai, perché me lo chiedi*?
> CAUSAL / already SUBORD it you_know why me it you_ask
> ‘Since you know it, why do you ask me?’ (M-H & Strudsholm 2008: 494)
>
> (3) Xān-n-əmši᷄-u ʕala sāq-î-na báʕda ma-hî-š baʕîda
> HORT-1-go.IPFV-PL on leg-PL-1PL already NEG-3SG.F-neg far:F
> ‘Wir wollen zu Fuß hingehen da es doch/ja nicht weit ist’ [Let’s go there
> by foot, as it’s really not far] (Singer 1984)
>
> I look forward to your replies!
>
> Best,
> Bastian
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