[Lingtyp] 'If you say/ask why' > because

[Daniel Ross]

Dear Jeremy,

Related pragmatically are conventionalized functions of rhetorical
questions including WHY 'because' in American Sign Language:

BABY CRY *WHY*, MOTHER LEAVE.
‘The baby cried because its mother left.’
[i.e. lit. 'Why did the baby cry? It's mother left.']

>From p.332 of this article: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-011-9071-0

A non-technical overview:
https://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/rhetorical-questions.htm

There may also be typological research on this type of usage in sign
languages that others can suggest.

Word order is interesting here, because you mentioned SOV languages that
would tend to have clause-final conjunctions, and sign languages are
exceptional in often having clause-final wh-question words (i.e. apparently
rightward movement). A related theme that has caught my attention
(regarding the grammaticalization of different functions from multi-verb
constructions, as in my presentation at the last ALT conference) is that
grammaticalization proceeds from available word orders, so that languages
with different word orders may be biased to grammaticalize some functions
(at least from some forms) rather than others following from the inventory
of common clause sequences.

Daniel

On Sat, Nov 9, 2024 at 7:24 AM Timur Maisak via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

> Dear Jeremy,
> Gerasimov 2022 is a dedicated study of such causal expressions:
> https://iling.spb.ru/publications/2106 [in Russian]
>
> Best,
> Timur Maisak
>
> сб, 9 нояб. 2024 г. в 18:16, Jeremy Bradley via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I am looking at the conventionalization, eventually grammaticalization
>> of phrases meaning something along the lines of 'if you say/ask why' as
>> causal conjunctions 'because', in the languages of the world. I'm
>> currently aware of this happening (with some variation in the exact
>> structuring) in:
>>
>> Mari (Uralic)
>> Udmurt (Uralic)
>> Chuvash (Turkic)
>> Buryat (Mongolic)
>> Lezgian (Northeast Caucasian)
>> Tamil (Dravidian)
>> Middle Indo-Aryan (IE)
>> Japanese
>> Korean
>>
>> ... which all have in common that they're SOV languages; it strikes me
>> as plausible that this is a pattern that easily arises when an SOV
>> language "needs" a mechanism for a postposed causal clause. But two
>> things I'm curious about:
>>
>> 1) Does anybody know of other languages that do this, esp.
>> non-SOV-languages?
>>
>> 2) Does anybody know about any systematic research on this process?
>>
>> Best,
>> Jeremy
>>
>> --
>> Jeremy Bradley, Ph.D.
>> University of Vienna
>>
>> http://www.mari-language.com
>> jeremy.moss.bradley at univie.ac.at
>>
>> Office address:
>> Institut EVSL
>> Abteilung Finno-Ugristik
>> Universität Wien
>> Campus AAKH, Hof 7-2
>> Spitalgasse 2-4
>> 1090 Wien
>> AUSTRIA
>>
>> Mobile: +43-664-99-31-788
>> Skype: jeremy.moss.bradley
>>
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