[Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion

[Randy J. LaPolla]

Hi David,
I don’t like the term “prodrop”, as it takes English, which is typologically actually the odd man out, as the norm, and all of the many languages that have not grammaticalised the grammatical mood constructions that require pronouns to be retained in English are seen as aberrant, but for languages that do not have such constructions, e.g. Chinese, the kind of pattern we have been talking about is the norm.

All the best,
Randy


> On 2 Nov 2022, at 7:29 PM, David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:
> 
> Randy,
> 
> Thanks for your comment.  The last couple of days I've received a flurry of very helpful references and pointers concerning the phenomenon in question, which seem to point to it not being "a simple pragmatic phenomenon" of the kind you suggest.  Also, with the possible exception of a reference to German, nobody so far has offered examples of similar processes in other languages, and indeed, I can't think of anything like it in the other languages I am familiar with.
> 
> Best,
> 
> David
> 
> 
> On 02/11/2022 12:33, Randy LaPolla wrote:
>> Good question, David!
>> Not a matter of phonetics or morphology, though.
>> Possibly a simple pragmatic phenomenon where predictable elements, especially topics, can be left unspoken.
>> Common in many languages.
>> Not considered “grammatical” in English, but maybe English is changing.
>> 
>> Randy
>> 
> -- 
> David Gil
> 
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