[Lingtyp] query: cumulative songs

[Johanna Mattissen]

Dear David,

multiple embedding makes me think not of a song, but of bonmots which 
are intended as mockeries of the German Satzklammer.

One is attributed to Wolf Schneider:

Denken Sie, wie schön der Krieger, der die Botschaft, die den Sieg, den 
die Athener bei Marathon, obwohl sie in der Minderheit waren, nach 
Athen, das in großer Sorge, ob es die Perser nicht zerstören würden, 
schwebte, erfochten hatten, verkündete, brachte, starb!

Roughly (without the Satzklammer)

Just imagine, in which great way the warrior died who brought the 
message that announced the victory that Athens achieved at Marathon 
although they were in the minority, to Athens that was in great worries 
that the Persians could destroy the city.


The other one (unknown source) is:

Der Grenzpfahl, der bei der Gemeinde, in der das Gefängnis, in dem seit 
gestern der gesuchte Einbrecher sitzt, liegt, steht, ist umgefallen.

The boundary marker has fallen over that is near the town where the 
prison is in which the wanted burglar sits (with the predicates 'sits, 
lies, stands, has fallen over' accumulated in final position).


Of course, you can easily invent further ones:
Er fuhr, nachdem er zum Abschied seine Frau, die ihn an das wichtige 
Manuskript, das noch auf dem Schreibtisch, auf dem große Unordnung, die 
er selbst zu verantworten hatte, herrschte, lag, erinnert hatte, geküsst 
hatte, ab.

(He hit the road after kissing his wife farewell who had reminded him to 
take the important manuscript with him that had still been lying on his 
desk amidst a great disorder for which he himself was responsible.)

All grammatical, but you get entangled in the end. Enjoy!

Best,
Johanna


******************

Dr. Johanna Mattissen

European Legal Linguistics

University of Cologne

www.erl.uni-koeln.de

Zeitschrift für Europäische Rechtslinguistik

(Journal for European Legal Linguistics)
https://journals.ub.uni-koeln.de/index.php/zerl





Am 12.02.2023 um 08:13 schrieb David Gil:
>
> 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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