[Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion

Jocelyn Aznar contact at jocelynaznar.eu
Thu Nov 3 13:55:27 UTC 2022


Thanks for this very interesting example. I really the fact that this 
sentence "t'inquiète", even though it contains only affirmative 
morphemes, can only be interpreted as negative.

I'm not so sure about the glossing though:
/t'inquiète!/ (REC-worry) 'do worry'

and explained it as to actually mean /*ne* t'inquiète *pas*/ (NEG 
REC-worry-NEG)

I guess here REC stands for "recent, recent past". I'm not sure why you 
glossed it like this instead of "2SG.ACC-worry" or "2SG.ACC=worry".

For a French speaker, event without the negation, this expression is not 
ambiguous, as the affirmative form would be:

"inquiète-toi". "worry=2SG.tonic¹

The "tonic" pronoun should be at the end for an affirmative imperative 
sentence. Thus when one starts by saying : "t'inquiète [...]", a French 
speaker already knows it's a negative form. But I would add that the 
shortening is not really happening on /*ne*/ in /*ne* t'inquiète *pas*/ 
but on /*pas*/, as in /t'inquiète *pas*/, as the "ne" is not really 
often used².

Thus here, I would say that we don't have to deal with the case of a 
first word removal, but (mostly) of the last one.

Best regards,

¹: I'm actually not sure how should be described "toi" using 
descriptive/typological terms, if someone has a suggestion. The French 
grammatical tradition calls it "pronom tonique", but I haven't look at 
how to render this in English.

²: Maybe somehow the deletion of "ne" is related to this whole deletion 
discussion, but has already been grammaticalized. I would be interested 
to know about when French-speaking children are actually learning to use 
the "ne", but that's another topic.

Le 03/11/2022 à 13:57, MARINE vuillermet a écrit :
> 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 Vuillermet 
> <https://www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/en/staff/vuillermet.html>
> Postdoctoral fellow//
> -----
> University of Zürich
> Department of Comparative Linguistics 
> <https://www.comparativelinguistics.uzh.ch/en/ma.html>
> /Out Of Asia <https://www.outofasia.uzh.ch/en.html>: 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 
> <mailto:christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de>>
> To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org 
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
> Message-ID: <fb9ff7eb-68fc-b271-1c92-32e80e14e33f at Uni-Erfurt.De 
> <mailto: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 <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 <mailto:christianw_lehmann at arcor.de>
> Web: https://www.christianlehmann.eu <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 <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>>
> To: Randy LaPolla <randy.lapolla at gmail.com <mailto:randy.lapolla at gmail.com>>
> Cc: <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org 
> <mailto:LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
> Message-ID: <dc6abfdc-5feb-7acd-e9d0-044ed0a45809 at shh.mpg.de 
> <mailto: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 <mailto: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 
> <mailto:randy.lapolla at gmail.com>>
> To: David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>>
> Cc: LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org 
> <mailto:LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
> Message-ID: <CE016982-3138-4F01-8D72-BE23BD24D804 at gmail.com 
> <mailto: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 
> <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>>
> To: "Randy J. LaPolla" <randy.lapolla at gmail.com 
> <mailto:randy.lapolla at gmail.com>>
> Cc: <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org 
> <mailto:LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
> Message-ID: <3f157863-42bc-a66d-4dad-9ad7bd7081b0 at shh.mpg.de 
> <mailto: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 
> <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 
> <mailto:mithun at linguistics.ucsb.edu>>
> To: "Randy J. LaPolla" <randy.lapolla at gmail.com 
> <mailto:randy.lapolla at gmail.com>>
> Cc: David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>>, 
> LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
> Message-ID:
>      <CAKvd2fD=WtVBYEG1ufHf5-zM8X7sxv+SD8qfOO4EinYJSuCCmw at mail.gmail.com 
> <mailto: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 
> <mailto: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 
> <mailto: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 <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
>  > > Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>  > > Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
>  > >
>  >
>  > _______________________________________________
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> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2022 14:35:46 +0100
> From: Riccardo Giomi <rgiomi at campus.ul.pt <mailto:rgiomi at campus.ul.pt>>
> To: "Randy J. LaPolla" <randy.lapolla at gmail.com 
> <mailto:randy.lapolla at gmail.com>>
> Cc: David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>>, 
> LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
> Message-ID:
>      <CA+KJqQErJFfghBRf927r_FYHBcxGb6FnncOYHtSoHd8LGHLWpA at mail.gmail.com 
> <mailto: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 
> <mailto: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 
> <mailto: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 <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
>  > > Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>  > > Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
>  > >
>  >
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> 
> -- 
> 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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> ------------------------------
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> Message: 7
> Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2022 10:20:38 -0700
> From: Daniel Ross <djross3 at gmail.com <mailto:djross3 at gmail.com>>
> To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org 
> <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: 1st syllable deletion
> Message-ID:
>      <CAAm4d-5K7KnvBt3C-uX3Sx5Ny_TeHNZPktoy5GkvTN0KdF4BXg at mail.gmail.com 
> <mailto: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 
> <mailto: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 
> <mailto: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 
> <mailto: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 <mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>
>  >> > Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>  >> > Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
>  >> >
>  >>
>  >> _______________________________________________
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>  >>
>  >
>  >
>  > --
>  > 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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