[Lingtyp] Questionnaire on weather verbs

Thu Oct 10 10:06:02 UTC 2024

Dear Carla, I hope that this short information on my native language  may
be useful to you.
Best wishes.

Hotz      handia          egiten             du
cold  big.ABS.DET  make.IPFV  AUX (ERG3SG>ABS3SG)

'It is very cold' (lit. 'It makes big cold' = Standard *Ital*.* fa un gran
freddo (fa* 3sg.pres.indic. of f*are '*to make, to do',  *un
*indef.art.,  *gran
'*big'* freddo*)
2. “Sun is shining” =  *spunta il sole (spunta *3sg pres. ind. of *spuntare*
in the sense of* 'to *appear')*,*

3. “It rains”  = *piove *without pronoun !

4. “Some other precipitation expression like “it snows” = *nevica *or “it
hails”= *grandina  (*always without PRO)

5. “It is hot” / “it is cold” =* fa caldo / fa freddo*
6. “Temperature is one degree” / “temperature is 20 degrees” =* c'è un
grado* (*è* 3sg. pres. indic. of *essere *"to be") the expression
*c'è* (< *ci+è)
*denotes existential meaning / *sono (*3pl.pres. indic. of* essere) 20
gradi*

7. “It starts to rain”  *comincia a piovere (cominciare  *properlY 'to
begin'). Also *va a piovere, *lit. '[it] goes to rain'

You may find more info and literature in Google  under "verbi atmosferici /
alias verbi meteorologici (italiani) "

Prof. Dr. Paolo Ramat
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Socio corrispondente
'Academia Europaea'
'Societas Linguistica Europaea', Honorary Member
Università di Pavia (retired)
Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS Pavia) (retired)

piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia
##39 0382 27027
347 044 98 44

Il giorno gio 10 ott 2024 alle ore 10:48 Kittilä, Seppo via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> ha scritto:

> Dear all,
>
> (I tried to send this message to the list yesterday, but I think I failed,
> if I did not, I sincerely apologize for a multiple posting)
>
> I am sending the message/questionnaire below on behalf of a student. I
> hope that some of you will find the topic interesting enough for helping
> her 🙂 If you have any questions, you should send them directly to Carla.
>
> All the best,
> Seppo
>
> ---
> Hello ergative language speakers/researchers!
>
> I am making my Bachelor thesis about transitive weather expressions. I
> have studied Basque and noticed some transitive weather expressions using
> ergativity that raised my interest. No one, at least according to my
> knowledge, has ever done research on weather expressions in ergative
> languages so I decided to do it myself. I would be very thankful if you
> could find time to answer my short questionnaire about certain weather
> expressions. In order to keep the questionnaire short, the questions have
> been formulated from the basis of Basque weather expressions showing
> ergativity. There is probably no other language in which this would work
> exactly like in Basque and that is why it is important that you mention if
> there are any other weather expressions that would be transitive/show
> ergativity.
>
> In short, in Basque these expressions have the respective weather
> phenomenon (e.g. rain or temperature) as an absolutive object and no
> explicit subject (it is shown only in the ergative agreement of the
> auxiliary). I would be especially interested in similar expressions in
> other ergative languages if there are any. However, if your language has
> other types of ergative weather expressions (e.g. rain as subject) or even
> if there were no ergative weather expressions at all (or if they would be
> somehow marked or used in specific situations), that would be valuable
> information for me as well and I hope that you could still answer the
> questionnaire. I am not really looking for expressions of the type “rain
> ruined the crop” but of course you can mention those as well.
>
> Hotz      handia          egiten             du
> cold  big.ABS.DET  make.IPFV  AUX (ERG3SG>ABS3SG)
>
> 'It is very cold' (lit. 'It makes big cold')
>
> If your language shows split-ergativity that influences on the use of
> ergativity in weather expressions, please bring that up in the
> questionnaire.
>
> Questionnaire:
>
> 1. The name of the language, where is it spoken, what is its
> classification?
>
> Weather expressions:
>
> 2. “Sun is shining”
>
> 3. “It rains”
>
> 4. “Some other precipitation expression like “it snows” or “it hails”
>
> 5. “It is hot” / “it is cold”
>
> If the language has means to encode temperature degrees, answer the
> following question. If it does not, mention that as well.
> 6. “Temperature is one degree” / “temperature is 20 degrees”
>
> 7. “It starts to rain” / you can mention some other expression related to
> the change of weather if you find it interesting
>
> If there are interesting alternations e.g. in expressing tense, please
> mention those expressions in the respective question. For example, if the
> language uses ergativity to encode past but not present, mention the
> expression in the past tense in addition to the present tense.
>
> 8. If you come up with an expression that shows ergativity but is not
> included in this questionnaire, you can mention it here (e.g. expressions
> related to wind, storm...), especially if expressions above do not show
> ergativity but this does.
>
> 9. Shortly explain the nature of ergativity in your language, e.g. if it
> shows split-ergativity and how animate and non-animate subjects/objects are
> encoded.
>
> Thank you for your contribution! Be prepared that I may want to contact
> you and get additional information about the language if it shows behaviour
> that is interesting from the viewpoint of my thesis. And finally, if you
> happen to know an article that studies ergative weather expressions in a
> language other than Basque, I would be happy to receive it.
>
> Please send your response to my e-mail: carla.olander at helsinki.fi
>
> Thank you and have a great day!
>
> Carla Olander
> University of Helsinki
>
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