[Lingtyp] Someone whose father ...

[Raffaele Simone]

Dear friends and colleagues,

many thanks for the rich, valuable information you have given me by 
answering my question. What I was looking for are kinship terms 
incorporating complex relational semantic structures. Actually, I am not 
interested in the relatively well-known structure “a bereaved child” 
(“orphan”), but in its opposite “a bereaved parent”, apparently much 
more rarely implemented by an individual lexeme.

It is very interesting that Australia seems to be the area where that 
structure is so extensively lexicalized. It does not seem to me this is 
the case in Europe as well. Is this for some cultural reason? For 
example, for matters associated with inheritance law?

Thanks again and best,

Raffaele S.

Il 17/02/2022 04:26, Mira Ariel ha scritto:
>
> Hi,
>
> Hebrew has an adj. /shakul/ – one who lost a close relative. It must 
> collocate with a noun, and specifically with mother, father, parent 
> (less commonly, with brother and sister). Impossible with grandmother, 
> uncle, grandchild, etc.
>
> Note that a bereaved parent is most likely not symmetric with 
> 'orphan'. An orphan is young. You wouldn't say about an adult that she 
> *is* (currently) an orphan. But the /shakul / adj. can apply till old 
> age.
>
> Empathy, social consequences etc. determine the use, no doubt.
>
> By the way, Hebrew also has /ariri/ 'one who has no children' 
> (distinct from /akar/ 'can't have children'). This is also socially 
> consequential. I'm not even sure if a parent who lost their only child 
> would count as /ariri/ or not. It's certainly not the central meaning, 
> although the consequence is the same – "the family is discontinued". 
> Not surprisingly, this lexeme is disappearing these days.
>
> Best,
>
> Mira Ariel
>
> *From:*Lingtyp [mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] *On 
> Behalf Of *Jess Tauber
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 16, 2022 3:28 PM
> *To:* Pier Marco Bertinetto <piermarco.bertinetto at sns.it>
> *Cc:* list, typology <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Someone whose father ...
>
> Perhaps the loss of a child is far more common in everyday experience 
> (from failed pregnancy to accidents to disease than loss of an adult 
> caregiver. Is there some sort of avoidance issue here leading to the 
> relative rarity of such terminology? A child is the responsibility of 
> an adult, so losing one is a potentially a stain on their reputation, 
> whereas loss of an adult is generally not usually the fault of the child.
>
> Jess Tauber
>
> On Wed, Feb 16, 2022 at 4:47 PM Pier Marco Bertinetto 
> <piermarco.bertinetto at sns.it> wrote:
>
>     Dear Raffaele,
>
>     looking at the issue from the other side (i.e., a child who lost
>     her/his parents), you might consider this rather odd,
>     idiosyncratic lexicalization of Wayana [way, Cariban]:
>
>     /pikuku-tpë/ (lit. child-RETROSPECTIVE) = ‘orphan’ (Camargo 2008,
>     ex. 26).
>
>     Camargo, Eliane. 2008. Operadores aspectuais de estado marcando o
>     nome en wayana
>     (caribe). LIAMES 8. 85–104. [Aspectual operators of state marking
>     the noun in Wayana].
>
>     Ciao
>
>     Pier Marco
>
>     Il giorno mer 16 feb 2022 alle ore 11:28 Raffaele Simone
>     <rsimone at os.uniroma3.it> ha scritto:
>
>         Dear colleagues,
>
>         words like /widower /and /orphan /imply a complex web of
>         relationships. An orphan is someone whose father or mother has
>         died; a widower is someone whose wife or husband has died.
>
>         Do you know any language in which there are words that mean
>         "someone to whom a child has died", "someone to whom a brother
>         or sister has died" etc.?
>
>         Thanks,
>
>         R Simone
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20220217/2d26b852/attachment.htm>