[Lingtyp] query: cumulative songs

[Claire Bowern]

A point of clarification seems needed. "Weird" societies refers to the
notion that Joseph Henrich's popularized: *W*estern, *E*ducated,
*I*ndustrialized,
*R*ich, *D*emocratic humans are overrepresented in psychological (and
linguistic) studies but their cultures are not representative of the full
range of human traits.
Claire

On Sun, Feb 12, 2023 at 8:35 AM Johanna Mattissen <
Johanna.Mattissen at uni-koeln.de> wrote:

> 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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