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

[Alexander Coupe]

Dear Jeremy,

Anju Saxena's 1988 BLS paper discusses grammaticalizations involving 'say' in various TB languages of South Asia, some of which have causal meanings - see attached.

Best,
Alec
--
Assoc. Prof. Alexander R. Coupe, Ph.D. | Associate Chair (Research) | School of Humanities | Nanyang Technological University
48 Nanyang Avenue, SHHK-03-84D, Singapore 639818
Tel: +65 6904 2072 GMT+8h | Email: arcoupe at ntu.edu.sg <mailto:arcoupe at ntu.edu.sg>
Academia.edu: https://nanyang.academia.edu/AlexanderCoupe <https://nanyang.academia.edu/AlexanderCoupe>
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1979-2370 <https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1979-2370>
Webpage: https://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/arcoupe/ <https://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/arcoupe/>
Recent publications: https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.00014.cou <https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.00014.cou> https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.00008.cou <https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.00008.cou>







On 9/11/24, 11:17 PM, "Lingtyp on behalf of Jeremy Bradley via Lingtyp" <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>> wrote:


[Alert: Non-NTU Email] Be cautious before clicking any link or attachment.
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 <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
Spitalgasse 2-4
1090 Wien
AUSTRIA


Mobile: +43-664-99-31-788
Skype: jeremy.moss.bradley


_______________________________________________
Lingtyp mailing list
Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp <https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp>



________________________________

CONFIDENTIALITY: This email is intended solely for the person(s) named and may be confidential and/or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete it, notify us and do not copy, use, or disclose its contents.
Towards a sustainable earth: Print only when necessary. Thank you.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Saxena 1988 - OnSyntacticConvergence.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 334562 bytes
Desc: Saxena 1988 - OnSyntacticConvergence.pdf
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20241111/e0846675/attachment-0001.pdf>