[Lingtyp] query: cumulative songs

Sun Feb 12 17:21:53 UTC 2023

Thanks, Claire
Zygmunt

From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Claire Bowern <clairebowern at gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, February 12, 2023 at 8:59 AM
To: Johanna Mattissen <Johanna.Mattissen at uni-koeln.de>
Cc: "lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org" <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] query: cumulative songs

A point of clarification seems needed. "Weird" societies refers to the notion that Joseph Henrich's popularized: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic 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<mailto: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<http://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<mailto:gil at shh.mpg.de>

Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713

Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302

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