[Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion

[Marianne Mithun]

Bravo, Randy!

Marianne

On Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 5:35 AM Randy J. LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
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
> >
>
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