[Lingtyp] query: cumulative songs

[Moshe Taube]

Another one in English is:
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly...
(https://allnurseryrhymes.com/there-was-an-old-lady-who-swallowed-a-fly/)
As for the Jewish Aramaic Had Gadya, I doubt whether it is very early,
since, as far as I remember, it is not attested before the 16th c. CE, and
according to Khone Shmeruk (I don't have the bibliographical details) was
adapted from the Middle High German nursery song *Zicklein klein* or
something like that.

Moshe


On Sun, Feb 12, 2023 at 9:14 AM David Gil <gil at shh.mpg.de> wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> A cumulative song is one in which each unit, or stanza, introduces an
> additional layer of syntactic embedding, such as the following ...
> This is the house that Jack built. This is the malt that lay in the house
> that Jack built. This is the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house
> that Jack built. This is the cat That killed the rat that ate the malt That
> lay in the house that Jack built. This is the dog that worried the cat That
> killed the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built.
>
> ... and so forth.  Perhaps the earliest example of a cumulative song is
> the Jewish Aramaic hymn *Had Gadya*.
>
> My query: Is anybody familiar with examples of cumulative songs from other
> non-WEIRD cultures and languages.  While my main interest is in
> "indigenous" attestations, I would also be interested in successful
> adaptations and translations of western cumulative songs into other
> languages.
>
> (Background to the query: I am interested in exploring variation in the
> propensity of different languages to make use of syntactic embedding.  My
> focus is on languages such as Malay/Indonesian, which have various tools to
> construct embedded clauses but generally choose not to make use of them in
> natural discourse.  I would like to test the hypothesis that such
> cumulative songs are absent or otherwise less successful in such languages.)
>
> Thanks,
>
> David
>
>
> --
> 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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-- 
Professor Moshe Taube (Emeritus)
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Mt. Scopus 91905 Israel
https://huji.academia.edu/MosheTaube
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