[Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion

[David Gil]

Hi Randy,

I share your dislike of the term "prodrop" and for probably the same 
reasons.

But I will dig my heels in and insist that the kind of phenomenon that 
I'm asking about bears little resemblance to the much more pervasive and 
across the board East and Southeast Asian practice of optional 
expression of various categories that might be obligatory in some 
Standard Average European languages.

Since writing (below) to the effect that I have not seen anything 
similar to this outside of English and possibly German, the discussion 
has produced some possibly similar constructions in Italian (from 
Riccardo) and Finnish (an offline response) - but nothing so far further 
afield.

David

On 02/11/2022 14:35, Randy J. LaPolla wrote:
> 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
>>
>> 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
>>
-- 
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