[Lingtyp] Truc, machin and friends

[Joseph Farquharson]

Dear Raffaele:

In Jamaican, an English-related Creole spoken mainly in the Caribbean
island-state of Jamaica,
we have several fillers which we can divide into those meant to fill in for
forgotten information and
those meant to avoid explicit mention of something/someone.
FOR ITEMS ONE CANNOT RECALL
*wa/we im niem agen* [what 3SG name again] - used for + ANIMATE and -
ANIMATE referents
*wa/we i niem agen* [what 3SG.NEUT name again] - used for - ANIMATE
referents
*wa dem kaal i* [what 3PL call 3SG.NEUT]  - used for - ANIMATE referents
I have heard the following used by someone searching for the name of a
descriptive word to apply to a person
while narrating something that happened: *wa yu uda kaal i agen* [what 2SG
MOD call 3SG.NEUT again]

FOR ITEMS ONE PREFERS/WANTS TO *NOT *MENTION

*di ting (de)*  [DET thing (DISTAL)]

*da ting de* [DEM thing DISTAL]

On Sat, 11 Mar 2023 at 07:34, Eline Visser <eelienu at pm.me> wrote:

> Hi Raffaele,
>
> Papuan Kalamang (kgv) uses neba 'what' and don 'thing' as placeholders:
> https://paperhive.org/documents/items/e7TDfjRZRHtB?a=p:455. There's more
> and newer information in the abstract in the attachment.
>
> Kalamang Austronesian neighbour Uruangnirin (urn) has suai 'what' and suai
> da ka 'what REL DIST'. I don't have a published source for you yet, but let
> me know if you want to know more.
>
> E_______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20230313/1723d5eb/attachment.htm>