[Lingtyp] Expletive NEG and scalar additive 'until' clauses
Paolo Ramat
paoram at unipv.it
Thu Sep 7 15:59:31 UTC 2023
Among the recent publications on Expletive NEG one may add from the new
(open access) journal
"Linguistic Typology at the Crossroads", 2-2 (2022): pp.1-38
ISSN 2785-0943 https://doi.org//10.6092/issn.2785-0943/15153 1
*Expletive Negation and related problems*, by
PAOLO RAMAT
ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DEI LINCEI - ROMA
Prof. Dr. Paolo Ramat
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
'Academia Europaea'
'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member
Università di Pavia (retired)
Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)
piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia
##39 0382 27027
347 044 98 44
Il giorno gio 7 set 2023 alle ore 14:29 Jesus Francisco Olguin Martinez <
olguinmartinez at ucsb.edu> ha scritto:
> Hi Bastian,
>
> Yes, you are right. The notion of (un)likelihood in regard to scalar
> additives has long been debunked.
>
> But, it seems, based on natural discourse data of Nahuatl and
> other Mesoamerican languages, that scalar additive *asta* ‘until’ clauses
> are always situated at the most unlikely point along a scale of
> (un)likelihood with respect to contextually relevant alternatives. This has
> been termed absolute non-endpoint-marking (Shwenter 1999, 2000).
>
> *References*
>
> Schwenter, Scott A. 1999. Two types of scalar particles: Evidence from
> Spanish. In J. Gutiérrez-Rexach & F. Martínez-Gil (eds.) *Advances in
> Hispanic linguistics*, 546-561. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
>
> Schwenter, Scott A. 2000. Lo relativo y lo absoluto de las partículas
> escalares "incluso" y "hasta". *Oralia análisis del discurso oral*
> 3:169-197
>
> On Thu, Sep 7, 2023 at 7:20 AM Bastian Persohn <
> persohn.linguistics at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi.
>>
>> As I mentioned earlier the notion of (un)likelihood in regard to scalar
>> additives has long been debunked (see e.g. Volker’s works).
>> So I am not sure whether the link you’re drawing there is necessarily
>> tenable, at least not in a simple mapping of unlikelihood->surprise.
>>
>> The example is very curious, though!
>>
>> Best,
>> Bastian
>>
>> Am 07.09.2023 um 12:18 schrieb Jesus Francisco Olguin Martinez <
>> olguinmartinez at ucsb.edu>:
>>
>> Hi Volker, Pier Marco, Juergen, and Bernhard,
>>
>> Many thanks for bringing this to my attention.
>>
>> Yes, I think that mirativity is involved here because of the discourse
>> contexts in which these examples are found. I have roughly 42 examples
>> found in different fairy tales.
>>
>> The fact that the *asta* ‘until’ clause is situated at the most unlikely
>> point along a pragmatic scale of (un)likelihood with respect to
>> contextually relevant alternatives may explain why expletive negation
>> occurs in discourse contexts involving surprise, as in (1). In this
>> example, it is surprising that the rooster ran away from the coyote
>> because he is not afraid of him. The presupposition triggered in (1) is
>> that out of the two animals running away from the coyote (i.e., roadrunner
>> and rooster), the rooster was the least likely to run away.
>>
>>
>> Huasteca Nahuatl
>> (1) *huankino peh-ki
>> hueli motlaloa ne pochakua*,
>> and.then start-pfv big
>> run det roadrunner
>> ‘And then the roadrunner started running (when he saw the
>> coyote)
>>
>>
>> *huan asta amo motlaloa-k ne
>> kuapelech*.
>> and until neg run-pfv det
>> rooster
>> and even the rooster ran away (when he saw the coyote).’
>>
>>
>> *achaka tla-huel
>> pensaro-ki*
>> nobody indef.obj-could think-pfv
>> 'Nobody could believe it.’
>>
>>
>> *mo-tlan-k-e ne kuapelech
>> hua nopa koyote*.
>> rec-fight-pfv-pl det rooster
>> and det coyote
>> ‘The rooster and the coyote always fight.’
>>
>> This is also attested in other types of 'until' constructions:
>>
>> Huasteca Nahuatl
>> (2) *mo-chich-k-e*.
>> refl-wait-pfv-pl
>> ‘They (the milpa workers) were waiting (for their neighbors).’
>>
>>
>> *huankino ach-ki-onkah fiesta*,
>> and.then neg-3sg.obj-be party
>> ‘So, the festival did not start,
>>
>>
>> *asta amo ki-asi-k-e*.
>> until neg 3sg.obj-arrive-pfv-pl
>> until they (the neighbors) arrived.’
>>
>>
>> *amo nelia*.
>> neg true
>>
>> ‘No one could believe it.’
>>
>> Husteca Nahuatl
>> (3) *ki-olini-ki nopa tlaka-tl
>> pehua-yaya i-cha*
>> 3sg.obj-move-pfv det man-abs start-ipfv
>> 3sg.poss-house
>> ‘The man walked from his house,
>>
>>
>> *asta amo** ki-olini-ki
>> pan el mar iteno*.
>> until neg 3sg.obj-move-pfv in
>> the sea shore
>> to the shore.’
>>
>>
>> *pero pil-huehuen-tsi
>> pil-huehuen-tsi pil-huehuen-tsi*.
>> but elder-old-dim elder-old-dim
>> elder-old-dim
>> ‘The man is very very old.’
>>
>>
>> *huankino achaka tla-huel
>> pensaro-ki*.
>> and.then nobody indef.obj-could
>> think-pfv
>>
>> ‘And nobody could believe it (because his house is far away
>> from the shore).’
>>
>> 'Before' is expressed in Nahuatl by means of *kemah* 'when' and *ayokana* 'not
>> yet'.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 7, 2023 at 4:51 AM Volker Gast <volker.gast at uni-jena.de>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Jesús,
>>> expletive negation in combination with scalar additive operators is not
>>> uncommon, but only in downward entailing / non-veridical contexts.
>>>
>>> The following example from Quebec French, quoted from Labelle (2023, ex.
>>> [26c]), illustrates expletive negation in a relative clause modifying a
>>> superlative NP.
>>>
>>> 'Sept générations de petits nés dans les pires conditions que tu peux
>>> même pas imaginer.'
>>> 'Seven generations of kids born in the worst conditions that you
>>> can(not) even imagine.'
>>>
>>> Expletive negation may certainly generalize from downward entailing to
>>> upward entailing contexts, specifically if mirativity or exclamation is
>>> involved (see Jürgen's comment).
>>>
>>> I agree with Pier Marco that your example looks strange. Was it taken
>>> from a (written) narrative? And do you have similar examples of that type?
>>> You'd have to rule out a temporal interpretation, as Pier Marco wrote, and
>>> ideally you should have intonational information, to understand any emotive
>>> meaning conveyed.
>>>
>>> It would also be good to have more information about the entire polarity
>>> system of Huasteca Nahuatl, and the distibution of expletive negation (for
>>> a typological approach, see for instance Jin & Koenig 2020).
>>>
>>> In any case, I do not consider it unlikely that expletive negation is
>>> found in combination with scalar additive operators in upward entailing
>>> contexts; but I would predict that in such cases, it will be found in
>>> downward entailing contexts, too.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Volker
>>>
>>> References
>>>
>>> Labelle, M., (2023) “Apparent expletive negation, silent comparatives,
>>> and domain widening in Quebec French superlative and universal
>>> constructions”, *Glossa: a journal of general linguistics* 8(1). doi:
>>> https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.9549.
>>>
>>> Jin, Yanwei and Koenig, Jean-Pierre. "A cross-linguistic study of
>>> expletive negation" *Linguistic Typology*, vol. 25, no. 1, 2020, pp.
>>> 39-78. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2020-2053
>>> Am 07.09.2023 um 00:00 schrieb Jesus Francisco Olguin Martinez:
>>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> I was wondering if you know any languages in which expletive negation
>>> appears in scalar additive constructions, as in (1).
>>>
>>> Huasteca Nahuatl
>>> (1) *huankino hualah-ki kuatochi*,
>>>
>>> and.then come-pfv bunny
>>> ‘The bunny came to the party,
>>>
>>>
>>> *hua asta amo **hualah-ki koxua-li*.
>>> and until neg come-pfv turtle-abs
>>> and even the turtle.’
>>>
>>> The expletive negative marker in (1) seems to have an interesting
>>> discourse function in scalar additive 'until' clauses, and it seems that
>>> other Mesoamerican languages have developed similar constructions due to
>>> language contact.
>>>
>>> The fact that temporal ‘until’ markers may develop into scalar additive
>>> operators has not gone unnoticed (König 1991; Jasionytė-Mikučionienė
>>> 2019: 293). However, to the best of my knowledge, scalar additive
>>> ‘until’ clauses with expletive negation seem to be rare
>>> cross-linguistically.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> *References*
>>> Jasionytė-Mikučionienė, Erika. 2019. Subordinating conjunctions as
>>> discourse markers in Lithuanian. *Corpus Pragmatics* 3. 285–301
>>>
>>> König, Ekkehard. 1991. *The meaning of focus particles: A comparative
>>> perspective*. London: Routledge.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jesús Olguín Martínez
>>> Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Theoretical Linguistics
>>> Illinois State University English Department
>>> Alexander von Humboldt alumnus
>>> Jesús Olguín Martínez | Illinois State University - Academia.edu
>>> <https://ilstu.academia.edu/Jes%C3%BAsOlgu%C3%ADnMart%C3%ADnez>
>>>
>>> Recent publications:
>>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2023. Semantically negative clause-linkage:
>>> ‘Let alone’ constructions, (expletive) negation, and theoretical
>>> implications. *Linguistic Typology* published online July 2023.
>>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2023. Areality of clause-linkage: The
>>> consecutive construction in Mesoamerican languages. *Voprosy
>>> Jazykoznanija* (‘Topics in the Study of Language’) 3. 122-142.
>>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2023. A typological study of tail-head linkage
>>> constructions. In *Discourse phenomena in typological perspective*, Alessandra
>>> Barotto and Simone Mattiola (eds.), 403-432. John Benjamins: Studies in
>>> Language Companian Series.
>>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Manuel Peregrina Llanes. 2022. ‘Without V-ing’
>>> clauses: Clausal negative concomitance in typological perspective. *Folia
>>> Linguistica*. *Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae* published online
>>> December 2022.
>>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Alonso Vásquez. 2022. The contribution of
>>> Amazonian languages to the typology of purpose clauses. *LIAMES:
>>> Línguas Indígenas Americanas* 22. 1-21
>>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2022. Contact-induced language change: The case
>>> of Mixtec adverbial clauses. *Journal of Language Contact. Evolution of
>>> Languages, Contact and Discourse* 15. 1-70.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lingtyp mailing listLingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.orghttps://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Jesús Olguín Martínez
>> Institute of Asian and African Studies at the Humboldt University of
>> Berlin
>> Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow
>> Home - Jesús Olguín (jesusolguinmartinez.com)
>> <https://www.jesusolguinmartinez.com/?fbclid=IwAR2len8OjCPh6HfiREXrVK56ZMgLrXDUolQdO1G-cG9z2DDl4XM5ZvueVqs>
>>
>> Dissertation:
>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2022. *Temporal adverbial clauses in the
>> languages of the world: Clause-linking strategies*. Ph.D. dissertation,
>> University of California, Santa Barbara.
>>
>> Recent publications:
>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2023. A typological study of tail-head linkage
>> constructions. In *Discourse phenomena in typological perspective*, Alessandra
>> Barotto and Simone Mattiola (eds.), 403-432. John Benjamins: Studies in
>> Language Companian Series.
>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Manuel Peregrina Llanes. 2022. ‘Without V-ing’
>> clauses: Clausal negative concomitance in typological perspective. *Folia
>> Linguistica*. *Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae* published online
>> December 2022.
>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Alonso Vásquez. 2022. The contribution of
>> Amazonian languages to the typology of purpose clauses. *LIAMES: Línguas
>> Indígenas Americanas* 22. 1-21
>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2022. Contact-induced language change: The case
>> of Mixtec adverbial clauses. *Journal of Language Contact. Evolution of
>> Languages, Contact and Discourse* 15. 1-70.
>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Nicholas Lester. 2021. A quantitative analysis
>> of counterfactual conditionals in the world’s languages. *Italian
>> Journal of Linguistics 33*. 147-182.
>> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2021. ‘As if’ constructions in world-wide
>> perspective. *Journal Linguistic typology at the crossroads* 1. 2-33.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Jesús Olguín Martínez
> Institute of Asian and African Studies at the Humboldt University of
> Berlin
> Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow
> Home - Jesús Olguín (jesusolguinmartinez.com)
> <https://www.jesusolguinmartinez.com/?fbclid=IwAR2len8OjCPh6HfiREXrVK56ZMgLrXDUolQdO1G-cG9z2DDl4XM5ZvueVqs>
>
> Dissertation:
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2022. *Temporal adverbial clauses in the
> languages of the world: Clause-linking strategies*. Ph.D. dissertation,
> University of California, Santa Barbara.
>
> Recent publications:
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2023. A typological study of tail-head linkage
> constructions. In *Discourse phenomena in typological perspective*, Alessandra
> Barotto and Simone Mattiola (eds.), 403-432. John Benjamins: Studies in
> Language Companian Series.
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Manuel Peregrina Llanes. 2022. ‘Without V-ing’
> clauses: Clausal negative concomitance in typological perspective. *Folia
> Linguistica*. *Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae* published online
> December 2022.
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Alonso Vásquez. 2022. The contribution of
> Amazonian languages to the typology of purpose clauses. *LIAMES: Línguas
> Indígenas Americanas* 22. 1-21
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2022. Contact-induced language change: The case
> of Mixtec adverbial clauses. *Journal of Language Contact. Evolution of
> Languages, Contact and Discourse* 15. 1-70.
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús & Nicholas Lester. 2021. A quantitative analysis
> of counterfactual conditionals in the world’s languages. *Italian Journal
> of Linguistics 33*. 147-182.
> Olguín Martínez, Jesús. 2021. ‘As if’ constructions in world-wide
> perspective. *Journal Linguistic typology at the crossroads* 1. 2-33.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
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