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

[Mira Ariel]

Hi,

Colloquial Hebrew (SOV) has lama she... 'why + complementizer 'that' meaning 'because'.
But I think that's probably different from using a whole compositional clause. No?

Mira

________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Daniel Ross via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 9, 2024 8:23 AM
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] 'If you say/ask why' > because

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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:jeremy.moss.bradley at univie.ac.at>

Office address:
Institut EVSL
Abteilung Finno-Ugristik
Universität Wien
Campus AAKH, Hof 7-2
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Mobile: +43-664-99-31-788
Skype: jeremy.moss.bradley

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