[Lingtyp] A query on comparative correlative clauses

Sat Dec 7 06:19:25 UTC 2024

Dear Theodor,

This topic has been somewhat extensively researched, especially in English
from a theoretical (often Generative) perspective, although that includes
some other languages too and examples you may find relevant. Two
particularly cross-linguistic papers include:

Den Dikken 2005: https://doi.org/10.1162/002438905774464377
(See also some cited and some following papers, including by searching on
Google Scholar for this article and clicking the "Cited by 185" link.)

Leung's 2005 ALT 6 presentation:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293334564

There are some other publications on individual languages, although they
can be hard to find among all of those about English and the general
terminology: "comparative correlative" is often used, but just
"correlative" appears sometimes too, so there's more to search through.

I also wanted to share a broader reference that I think is potentially
relevant to this topic:
Haiman 1983: https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(83)90014-0

The focus there is on sentences like "Do that again, (and) you'll get
arrested", which is also an unusual structure, although contextually and
logically similar to the conditional interpretation of comparative
correlatives: "Run a lot and you'll get tired" / "The more you run, the
more tired you get." There has also been a lot of work on this other
construction, also especially from a theoretical perspective for English,
but it seems to be extremely widespread cross-linguistically. Various terms
have been used for it (summarized briefly in my dissertation: Ross 2021,
p.89 available here https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5546426 with a selection
of references). Although most extensively studied in languages like English
with a coordinating conjunction linking the clauses, it can be asyndetic
even in English ("Do that again, you'll get arrested") and as Haiman showed
it seems to be widespread more generally as parataxis/juxtaposition and
clause-chaining.

Daniel

On Fri, Dec 6, 2024 at 3:57 AM Ellison Luk via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

> Dear Theodor and all,
>
> For what it's worth, the type of construction you describe does not seem
> to exist in Australian languages (not that the absence of evidence should
> be taken as evidence of absence). I suspect that the meaning of 'the
> Xer...the Xer...' *could *be expressed with certain conditional
> constructions (especially the 'whenever' type), but I have also struggled
> to find any examples or mentions from the languages I've looked at --
> though of course I'm more than happy to be proven wrong!
>
> Here are some of the conditional examples I was thinking of. In Mparntwe
> Arrernte, conditional relations can be expressed with a combination of
> sequential marking (*-tyenhenge*) and modal marking (*peke* 'maybe'), or
> with the conjunction (*nhenge* 'remember this referent from before >
> whenever'). Note that this link with comparative correlatives isn't made by
> the grammar writer - this is pure speculation on my part. In general,
> conditional sentences cannot be construed as having a comparative
> correlative meaning at all.
>
> Mparntwe Arrernte (Wilkins 1989: 245, 122)
> *the utyene are-tyenhenge, or perne-tyenhenge peke;
> tanthe-rl-anthe-rliwe-me *
> 1sgA sore see-SBSQNT or rub-SBSQNT maybe spear-SPORAD.rdp-npp
> ‘Whenever I look at, or rub against, my sore, it hurts.’
> EL: ??'the more I look or rub against my sore, the more it hurts'
>
> *nhenge tyerrtye mape lthekelth-ile-lhe-tyekenhe, kele itne ine-mer-ante
> kwete diabetes.*
> REMEMB people pl(grp)(S) stretch-CAUS-REFL-VbNEG O.K. 3plA get-HYPO-ONLY
> still diabetes
> ‘Whenever people don’t exercise, then they are very likely to get
> diabetes.’
> EL: ??'the more that people don't exercise, the more likely they are to
> get diabetes'
>
> If you were to look for comparative correlative constructions in
> Australian languages, you might start with comparative constructions like
> the following. However, it's likely that comparatives won't have the
> 'causal' dimension you're looking for. Here, the construal shouldn't be
> 'the less compassionate he is, the less I feel sorry for him', but that the
> two events of lacking compassion are similar in the mind of the speaker.
>
> Wardaman (Merlan 1994: 313, 498)
> *wonggo yi-nga-na-n gurlurrg gija narnaj gurlurrg-marla-wagbawun*
> neg IRR-1SG-AUX-PRES sorry *as *self-ABS sorry-INCH-lacking-ABS
> 'I can't be sorry for him* just as* he isn't compassionate.' / 'I'm
> unable to feel sorry for him *just as* he can't be/become sorry.'
>
> Best,
> Ellison Luk
>
> On Fri, 6 Dec 2024 at 05:51, David Gil via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
>
>> Dear Theodor, all,
>>
>>
>>
>> In dialects of Malay/Indonesian, as well as closely related Minangkabau,
>> comparative correlatives are formed with the construction "makin X makin
>> Y", where "makin" means something like 'increasingly'.  Numerous
>> examples can be found in the Gil et al (2015) corpus by searching for
>> "makin"; here is one such example from Minangkabau:
>>
>>
>>
>> makin jauah talampok nyo sesuatu, makin tinggi nilai nyo
>>
>> increasingly far INVOL:shut 3 one:thing increasingly high value 3
>>
>> 'The further something is covered, the higher its value'
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>>
>> Gil, David, Uri Tadmor, John Bowden and Bradley Taylor (2015) *Data from
>> the Jakarta Field Station, Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute
>> for Evolutionary Anthropology*, 1999-2015. [
>> https://archive.mpi.nl/islandora/object/lat%3A1839_00_0000_0000_0021_10DE_A
>> ]
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 6, 2024 at 5:29 AM Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm via Lingtyp <
>> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> I am posting a query from our student Theodor Brus, who is looking for
>>> data and information on comparative correlative clauses across languages.
>>>
>>> "Hello! My name is Theodor Brus and i am writing my bachelor thesis
>>> this spring at the Department of linguistics at Stockholm University. I
>>> want to do a typological study of comparative correlative clauses (CCs).
>>> Sag (2010, p. 526) defines comparative correlative clauses as ‘monotonic
>>> relations between two differentials’. However, there is often a causative
>>> function in one direction, the first element is the reason for the state of
>>> the second element. The following examples illustrate this point.
>>>
>>> ‘The worse I feel, the less inclined I am to get to work’
>>>
>>> ‘The more the sun shone, the happier people got’
>>>
>>> What I am looking for are glossed sentences from any language that have
>>> a free translation which corresponds to an English CC. I would also
>>> be grateful for pointers to descriptions and discussion of these phenomena
>>> in various languages.
>>>
>>> Please send your replies to me, brus at ling.su.se All responses will be
>>> grossly appreciated and acknowledged.
>>>
>>> Sag, I. A. (2010). ENGLISH FILLER-GAP CONSTRUCTIONS. *Language*, *86*(3),
>>> 486–545. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40961690”
>>>
>>> Kind regards,
>>> Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
>>>
>>>
>>> Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
>>> Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm university, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
>>> Editor-in-chief of “Linguistic Typology”
>>> President-Elect of Societas Linguistic Europaea
>>> www.ling.su.se/tamm
>>> tamm at ling.su.se
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lingtyp mailing list
>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> David Gil
>>
>> Senior Scientist (Associate)
>> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>> Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
>>
>> Email: dapiiiiit at gmail.com
>> Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
>> Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
>>
>>
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