[Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion

[Ian Maddieson]

I’m struck by the fact that most of the English examples cited are truncated questions, where intonation
may signal the sentence type, so the V/S inversion is redundant. I can think of quite a few examples,
such as “Going home?”, “Making a pie?”, “Raining again?”, even “Drink?”

Ian 

> On Nov 1, 2022, at 03:58, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
> 
> Nice examples, Cat.  Though if the gist of these examples is to suggest that deletion can apply to two syllables and not just to one, then I would offer an possible alternative analysis whereby your two sentences involve the deletion of a reduced monosyllable, applying to forms such as
> 
> [zðæt] feel good, baby?
> [jə] have any luck?
> 
> I look forward to reading the Gerken article mentioned by Adam, which seems to capture my intuitions that whatever is going on here is at least partly of a phonological nature.
> 
> David
> 
> On 01/11/2022 11:30, Cat Butz wrote:
>> To me, it feels more like a morphosyntactic thing rather than a phonological one. Consider e.g.
>> 
>> (Does that) Feel good, baby?
>> (Did you) Have any luck?
>> 
>> ---
>> Cat Butz (she/they)
>> HHU Düsseldorf, General Linguistics
>> Institute of Language and Information
>> 
>> Cat Butz (sie)
>> HHU Düsseldorf, Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft
>> Institut für Sprache und Information
>> 
>> 
>> Am 2022-10-28 14:11, schrieb David Gil:
>>> Dear all,
>>> 
>>> English seems to have  a rule which, under particular conditions,
>>> allows for the first syllable of an utterance to be deleted. The
>>> first example below is from a movie that I saw last night, the next
>>> two are made up:
>>> 
>>> (1) (What) The fuck happened to you?
>>> 
>>> (2) (Are) You going home yet?
>>> 
>>> (3) (I) Think it's gonna rain
>>> 
>>> And there's also the formulaic "Wish you were here".
>>> 
>>> My questions:
>>> 
>>> 1. Has anybody written about this? Seems like it could be interesting
>>> for a number of reasons.
>>> 
>>> 2. Are there similar phenomena in other languages? (Haven't seen
>>> anything like it in the other languages I happen to be familiar with.)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> 
>>> David
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> David Gil
>>> 
>>> Senior Scientist (Associate)
>>> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>>> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>>> Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
>>> 
>>> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
>>> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
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> 
> -- 
> David Gil
> 
> Senior Scientist (Associate)
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
> 
> Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
> 
> _______________________________________________
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Ian Maddieson

Department of Linguistics
University of New Mexico
MSC03-2130
Albuquerque NM 87131-0001




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