[Lingtyp] Lingtyp Digest, Vol 98, Issue 3
MARINE vuillermet
marinevui at yahoo.fr
Thu Nov 3 12:57:59 UTC 2022
French speakers very systematically use t'inquiète! (REC-worry) 'do worry' to actually mean ne t'inquiète pas (NEG REC-worry-NEG) 'don't worry'. Here the entire negation is ellipsed, and I see it as a confirmation of it being a very pragmatic phenomenon where very predictable elements can be left unspoken without leading to confusion.
Best,
Marine
Marine VuillermetPostdoctoral fellow
-----
University of Zürich
Department of Comparative LinguisticsOut Of Asia: Linguistic Diversity and Population History
"Humans and flies diverged from a common ancestor about 600 million years ago." (Baum & Smith 2013:5)
Le jeudi 3 novembre 2022 à 13:01:56 UTC+1, lingtyp-request at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp-request at listserv.linguistlist.org> a écrit :
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: query: 1st syllable deletion (Christian Lehmann)
2. Re: query: 1st syllable deletion (David Gil)
3. Re: query: 1st syllable deletion (Randy J. LaPolla)
4. Re: query: 1st syllable deletion (David Gil)
5. Re: query: 1st syllable deletion (Marianne Mithun)
6. Re: query: 1st syllable deletion (Riccardo Giomi)
7. Re: query: 1st syllable deletion (Daniel Ross)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2022 13:06:08 +0100
From: Christian Lehmann <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de>
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
Message-ID: <fb9ff7eb-68fc-b271-1c92-32e80e14e33f at Uni-Erfurt.De>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
Am 02.11.22 um 11:33 schrieb Randy LaPolla:
> 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
>
Judging from German, Randy seems to be on the right track here. See:
Lehmann, Christian 1991, ?Grammaticalization and related changes in
contemporary German?. Traugott, Elizabeth C. & Heine, Bernd (eds.),
/Approaches to grammaticalization/. Vol. II: Focus on types of
grammatical markers. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins (Typological
Studies in Language, 19:2); 2:493-535. [ download
<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/246338410_Grammaticalization_and_related_changes_in_contemporary_German>
]; section 5.2.
Best,
Christian
--
Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
Rudolfstr. 4
99092 Erfurt
Deutschland
Tel.: +49/361/2113417
E-Post: christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
Web: https://www.christianlehmann.eu
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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2022 13:29:50 +0200
From: David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>
To: Randy LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
Cc: <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
Message-ID: <dc6abfdc-5feb-7acd-e9d0-044ed0a45809 at shh.mpg.de>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"; format=flowed
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
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2022 20:35:36 +0800
From: "Randy J. LaPolla" <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
To: David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>
Cc: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
Message-ID: <CE016982-3138-4F01-8D72-BE23BD24D804 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
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
>
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2022 17:03:21 +0200
From: David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>
To: "Randy J. LaPolla" <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
Cc: <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
Message-ID: <3f157863-42bc-a66d-4dad-9ad7bd7081b0 at shh.mpg.de>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"; format=flowed
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
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2022 08:31:48 -0700
From: Marianne Mithun <mithun at linguistics.ucsb.edu>
To: "Randy J. LaPolla" <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
Cc: David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>, LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
Message-ID:
<CAKvd2fD=WtVBYEG1ufHf5-zM8X7sxv+SD8qfOO4EinYJSuCCmw at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
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
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
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Message: 6
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2022 14:35:46 +0100
From: Riccardo Giomi <rgiomi at campus.ul.pt>
To: "Randy J. LaPolla" <randy.lapolla at gmail.com>
Cc: David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de>, LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
Message-ID:
<CA+KJqQErJFfghBRf927r_FYHBcxGb6FnncOYHtSoHd8LGHLWpA at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Dear David and all,
For what it's worth, I tend to agree with Randy and Christian. One possible
argument against a rule-based deletion/ellipsis account comes from central
varieties of Italian (including my own), and concerns, once again, emphatic
*wh-*questions -- suggesting a cross-linguistic pattern that, I suspect,
may also be found in other languages.
The "full" version of the type of question I have in mind makes use of the
emphatic element *cazzo *(slang for 'penis', but functionally largely
equivalent to English *fuck*), postponed to the clause-initial *wh-*word,
e.g.
- *Che cazzo fai? *'What the fuck are you doing?'
I often hear (and probably produce myself) "reduced" versions of similar
questions, including the following:
- *Cazzo fai?*
-* Azzo fai?*
*- Zzo fai?*
In the first case, it is only the first word and syllable *che *that would
be deleted; in the second, it's this word/syllable plus the onset of the
second syllable (which belongs to the second syntactic word); in the third
the first word/syllable plus the whole second syllable (i.e. the first
syllable of the second syntactic word). And I also recognize the forms *Zzo
vai? *and *Azzo vai? *for *Dove cazzo vai? *('Where the fuck are you
going?'), where the (by hypothesis) elided part consists of two and a half
and three syllables, respectively, again cutting across syntactic domains.
What this all suggests to me is that, if the correct explanation was indeed
one in term of deletion or ellipsis, then either it is a composite rule
that cuts across phonology and syntax, or it would be a merely phonological
rule allowing deletion of phonological strings that do not necessarily
coincide with syllables (which sounds kind of weird, at least for Italian),
and may stretch over three entire syllables (and maybe more, but this is
what I could think of for the moment). Rather than postulating such a
complex rule, which for more I don't think is found in any other type of
utterance in Italian, I find it much more economical and
psycholinguistically plausible (but the latter is of course quite a shot in
the dark) to assume that the point is precisely the omission of the
predictable elements from this specific type of emphatic question. The
constraint appears to be that only the most distinctive (and perceptually
salient) element, i.e. the second syllable of *cazzo*, must be retained for
the utterance-type in question to be easily identified.
Sorry for my stream of consciousness!
Best,
Riccardo
Randy J. LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com> escreveu no dia quarta,
2/11/2022 ?(s) 13:35:
> 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
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
--
Riccardo Giomi, Ph.D.
University of Li?ge
D?partement de langues modernes : linguistique, litt?rature et traduction
Research group *Linguistique contrastive et typologie des langues*
F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral fellow (CR - FC 43095)
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Message: 7
Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2022 10:20:38 -0700
From: Daniel Ross <djross3 at gmail.com>
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
Message-ID:
<CAAm4d-5K7KnvBt3C-uX3Sx5Ny_TeHNZPktoy5GkvTN0KdF4BXg at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Interesting discussion, everyone!
David, I've been thinking about this for a couple days now (but did not
reply because I wasn't aware of specific references to suggest). My initial
intuition was that this is not phonological, and not about syllables. But
since English pronouns (at least the basic ones) are all monosyllabic, it's
hard to test that. The messages from others have mostly fit with my
intuition, with some additional points to think about too.
A common (perhaps at this point strawman) functional explanation for
"pro-drop" is that rich agreement allows recovery of the subject identity
so the pronoun itself is optional. But rich agreement does not always
license pro-drop, such as in German or Russian. (And even in English, we
might assume it should be allowed in third-person singular present-tense.)
More importantly, there are also languages such as Japanese which allow
pronoun ellipsis but do not have rich agreement (or any agreement at all).
But in this case (which as pointed out by others is not "pro-drop" in a
strict sense), that kind of functional explanation does seem to be the
right approach: this kind of ellipsis is only found with contextually
salient forms.
The explanation cannot be purely phonological. No English speaker would
ever say:
*Guistics is fun!
That's too hard to understand. Omission of ling- is not possible, because
Linguistics is such a rare grammatical subject. Of course I can imagine
this could be primed, perhaps at the next ALT conference!
Therefore, this phenomenon must be frequency-based. And in fact that's
exactly what all of the examples are, such as Riccardo's in the previous
message. Almost all of these are set phrases or common pronouns in
contextually-relevant usage, such as questions with "you", or statements
with "I". I haven't done a corpus search (searching for ellipsis is
tricky!), but I assume we would find a substantial bias toward frequent
collocations, as well as some pronouns rather than others, given the type
of usage that is typical.
At the same time, it isn't really syntactic either, and it's not full
constituents ("...the hell", "...the fuck", "...cazzo"). I'd guess that
pronouns and the other partial-constituent expressions are distinct types,
but in general they seem to have similar properties, most importantly that
they are high-frequency and predictable.
What we're looking at then seems to be more a kind of *abbreviation* than
*ellipsis*. Sound change is regular except for idioms and other frequent
expressions (i.e. allegro speech). "God be with you" becomes "goodbye", but
only for that expression. So this is more about lexicalization and
frequency than a strictly phonological *or *strictly syntactic rule. The
pronoun type may need a more syntax-based explanation, but I think this is
still part of it.
The omitted syllable is probably just reduced to the point of being
unpronounced, because it is (extremely) unstressed, because it is
(extremely) predictable. In fact, I would bet that at least some of the
time the speaker actually mouths the first syllable but doesn't utter it
audibly. David, that matches some of what you suggested, but I'm
interpreting it differently, or at least in a restricted way. There is a
prosodic explanation, but most importantly within a frequency explanation.
And in a sense it's more about *morphology* than syntax or phonology.
If we tie all of this together, and here's where it gets interesting, this
seems to suggest that multi-word expressions allowing omission of the first
syllable (or more) are actually single, frequent lexical items. And
regarding pronoun subjects, they not only have characteristic prosodies,
which could in itself be considered something resembling lexicalization,
but arguably if we assume that phonologically null syntactic structure can
also be lexicalized, we might get, for example, "Q+you" for second-person
questions, which occurs so often that it can be omitted and still
recovered. Or just a lexicalized prosody explanation if you prefer.
Of course this can spread by analogy (but not a regular rule!) to new
expressions, but only when those expressions are also relatively frequent
and predictable.
Daniel
On Wed, Nov 2, 2022 at 9:36 AM Riccardo Giomi <rgiomi at campus.ul.pt> wrote:
> Dear David and all,
>
> For what it's worth, I tend to agree with Randy and Christian. One
> possible argument against a rule-based deletion/ellipsis account comes from
> central varieties of Italian (including my own), and concerns, once again,
> emphatic *wh-*questions -- suggesting a cross-linguistic pattern that, I
> suspect, may also be found in other languages.
>
> The "full" version of the type of question I have in mind makes use of the
> emphatic element *cazzo *(slang for 'penis', but functionally largely
> equivalent to English *fuck*), postponed to the clause-initial *wh-*word,
> e.g.
>
> - *Che cazzo fai? *'What the fuck are you doing?'
>
> I often hear (and probably produce myself) "reduced" versions of similar
> questions, including the following:
>
> - *Cazzo fai?*
> -* Azzo fai?*
> *- Zzo fai?*
>
> In the first case, it is only the first word and syllable *che *that
> would be deleted; in the second, it's this word/syllable plus the onset of
> the second syllable (which belongs to the second syntactic word); in the
> third the first word/syllable plus the whole second syllable (i.e. the
> first syllable of the second syntactic word). And I also recognize the
> forms *Zzo vai? *and *Azzo vai? *for *Dove cazzo vai? *('Where the fuck
> are you going?'), where the (by hypothesis) elided part consists of two and
> a half and three syllables, respectively, again cutting across syntactic
> domains.
>
> What this all suggests to me is that, if the correct explanation was
> indeed one in term of deletion or ellipsis, then either it is a composite
> rule that cuts across phonology and syntax, or it would be a merely
> phonological rule allowing deletion of phonological strings that do not
> necessarily coincide with syllables (which sounds kind of weird, at least
> for Italian), and may stretch over three entire syllables (and maybe more,
> but this is what I could think of for the moment). Rather than postulating
> such a complex rule, which for more I don't think is found in any other
> type of utterance in Italian, I find it much more economical and
> psycholinguistically plausible (but the latter is of course quite a shot in
> the dark) to assume that the point is precisely the omission of the
> predictable elements from this specific type of emphatic question. The
> constraint appears to be that only the most distinctive (and perceptually
> salient) element, i.e. the second syllable of *cazzo*, must be retained
> for the utterance-type in question to be easily identified.
>
> Sorry for my stream of consciousness!
>
> Best,
> Riccardo
>
> Randy J. LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com> escreveu no dia quarta,
> 2/11/2022 ?(s) 13:35:
>
>> 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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>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>
>
>
> --
> Riccardo Giomi, Ph.D.
> University of Li?ge
> D?partement de langues modernes : linguistique, litt?rature et traduction
> Research group *Linguistique contrastive et typologie des langues*
> F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral fellow (CR - FC 43095)
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
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