[Lingtyp] Affectionate or sympathy marking

[Christian Döhler]

Thank you all for contributing interesting data and for suggesting 
further reading. That gives me plenty of food for thought.
Best,
Christian

Am 12.01.23 um 11:10 schrieb Christian Döhler:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> I am looking for publications that address the difference between (1) 
> and (2). In (2), the English adjective /poor/ is used to signal the 
> speaker's sympathy or affection towards the dog.
>
>  1. /The dog is waiting for its owner./
>  2. /The poor dog is waiting for its owner./
>
> While English (and my native German) does this by extending the 
> meaning of the adjective /poor /(and /arm/ in German), other languages 
> have special words with only that meaning. For example, Komnzo /bana 
> /is a postposed adjective that only conveys sympathy.
>
> /    ni bananzo namnzr karen./
> //ni           bana=nzo        na\m/nzr        kar=en
>     1NSG    SYMP=only     1PL:NPST:IPFV/stay    village=LOC
>     'Only we poor guys stay behind in the village' (subtext: 'while 
> the others are going to the celebration in the neighbouring village')
>     (NSG = non-singular, SYMP = sympathy marker, NPST = nonpast)
>
> Yet other languages seem to have special verb morphology for this. Van 
> Tongeren describes this for Suki (her PhD grammar will probably be 
> available later this year).
>
> Pointers to more examples and publications of this are most welcome. I 
> was googling this with keywords like "sympathy", "empathy", 
> "affection", but with not much luck. So there might be a whole 
> literature on this phenomenon under different terminology. If that's 
> the case, then please excuse my ignorance./
> /
> Very Best,
> Christian
>
> -- 
> Dr. Christian Döhler
> Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS)
> Schützenstraße 18
> 10117 Berlin
> Raum: 445
> Tel.: +49 30 20192 412
> https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9659-5920
>
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