[Lingtyp] Insubordinate 'until' clauses

[Riccardo Giomi]

Dear Jesús,

My Spanish is very basic, but a parallel construction exists in
Portuguese (*até
(que)*), which I do speak quite well, so maybe I can share a thought about
the latter language which may also apply to Spanish.

In Portuguese, and I believe also in Spanish, *até/hasta *does not only
mean *until *but also *even*. My gut feeling is that it is this *adverbial*
meaning which is relevant to the (Portuguese) construction, so (the
Portuguese equivalents of) your examples would quite straightforwardly
translate as *You even bother to drop by / They even won a game *and would
therefore *not* be insubordinate clauses.

If this is so, the presence of *que* would *prima facie *appear unexpected,
but I do recognize this pattern from other adverbs like *quase*, which,
colloquially, also occur in main clauses with an *unexpected*
complementizer -- i.e. they seem to be reinterpreted by some speakers as
sort-of predicates -- e.g. Pt. *Este gato **quase (que) parece um cão*,
'This cat almost looks like a dog', parallel to *Este gato até (que)* *parece
um cão*, 'This cat even looks like a dog'.

Whether this hypothesis also makes sense for the Austronesian languages
mentioned by David (i.e. whether 'until'/'even' polysemy also exists in
those languages) I don't know, but it is somewhat intriguing in this sense
that David also speaks of *sampe *in the relevant construction as having an
"intensifying meaning" (which is how some people would refer to the
function of *even*) and of the rest of the utterance as "the complement" of
the latter.

Hope this helps, otherwise my apologies!

Best wishes,
Riccardo

Jesus Francisco Olguin Martinez <olguinmartinez at ucsb.edu> escreveu no dia
segunda, 26/09/2022 à(s) 21:02:

> Dear all,
>
> I hope this email finds you well.
>
> I was wondering if there are any works that have explored insubordinate
> 'until' clauses. I am interested in examples like the following Spanish
> constructions:
>
> 1. ¡*Hasta que* te dignas a pasar por aquí!
> 2. !Vaya, *hasta que* ganaron un juego, ya era hora!
>
> In the languages I have identified these constructions, 'until' clauses
> are used for expressing 'surprise' or for 'complaining'.
>
> Any readings will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Best,
>
>
> --
> Jesús Olguín Martínez
> Ph.D, Dept. of Linguistics
> *University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)*
> Home - Jesús Olguín (jesusolguinmartinez.com)
> <https://www.jesusolguinmartinez.com/?fbclid=IwAR2len8OjCPh6HfiREXrVK56ZMgLrXDUolQdO1G-cG9z2DDl4XM5ZvueVqs>
>
> Dissertation:
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2022. *Temporal adverbial clauses in the
> languages of the world: Clause-linking strategies*. Ph.D. dissertation,
> University of California, Santa Barbara.
>
> Recent publications:
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2022. Contact-induced language contact: The case
> of Mixtec adverbial clauses. *Journal of Language Contact. Evolution of
> Languages, Contact and Discourse* 15. 1-70.
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Nicholas Lester.  2021. A quantitative analysis
> of counterfactual conditionals in the world’s languages. *Italian Journal
> of Linguistics 33*. 147-182.
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2021. ‘As if’ constructions in world-wide
> perspective. *Journal Linguistic typology at the crossroads* 1. 2-33.
>
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-- 
Riccardo Giomi, Ph.D.
University of Liège
Département de langues modernes : linguistique, littérature et traduction
Research group *Linguistique contrastive et typologie des langues*
F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral fellow (CR - FC 43095)
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