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

[Cat Butz]

Dear Jeremy,

Not quite what you're asking, but for the record, Spanish (SVO) "porque" 
comes to mind:

¿Por qué la gallina cruzó la carretera? Porque quería llegar al otro 
lado.
for what the chicken crossed the road? because[forwhat] wanted get 
to:the other side

Warmest,
---
Cat Butz (she)
HHU Düsseldorf
General Linguistics


Am 09/11/2024 16:15, schrieb Jeremy Bradley via Lingtyp:
> 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
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp