[Lingtyp] Borrowed indefinite pronouns and markers

[Alexandre Arkhipov]

Dear Johannes,

Examples similar to Mari, also in contact with Russian, can be found 
elsewhere in Uralic. E.g. the INEL Selkup corpus also has a couple of 
examples of "nʼikutɨ" 'nobody' (kutɨ 'who'), "nʼikunɨ / nʼikut" 
'nowhere' (kunɨ / kut 'where').
Exmaples of non-negative indefinites series built with native 
interrogative pronouns and borrowed Russian particles are perhaps more 
numerous, e.g. in the recordings of the last Kamas speaker: ĭmbi-nʼibudʼ 
'something' (ĭmbi 'what'), gibər-nʼibudʼ 'somewhere (lative)' (gibər 
'where (lative)'), šindi-nʼibudʼ 'somebody' (šindi 'who'). Besides the 
common Russian indefinite marker -nʼibudʼ, the more colloquial "popalo" 
(as in "čto popalo" 'anything, whatever'; originally a form of the verb 
"popast' " 'to get in, to fall in') is also attested in both Selkup and 
Kamas texts.
https://inel.corpora.uni-hamburg.de/KamasCorpus/search?n_words=1&random_seed=1745322490&BOR1=RUS%3Agram%5C(INDEF%5C)&n_ana1=any&lang1=kamas

Best,
Alexandre

https://inel.corpora.uni-hamburg.de/

22/04/2025 11:26, Johannes Hirvonen via Lingtyp пишет:
> Dear typologists,
>
> I am currently gathering data for a study on borrowed indefinite 
> pronouns and markers, with a focus on negative indefinite pronouns. 
> Leaving aside the various terminological differences, what I am 
> looking for are any parts of indefinite pronouns or whole indefinite 
> pronouns that have been borrowed.
>
> To give examples for the two types: 1) Ramaškonys Lithuanian has 
> borrowed nigdi/nigdy ‘never’ as a whole pronoun from Polish; 2) Meadow 
> Mari has borrowed the prefix ńi- for the formation of negative 
> indefinites with its own interrogative bases (e.g. ńigö ‘nobody’) from 
> Russian (compare nikto).
>
> I assume that I have already gone through all the ‘obvious’ sources, 
> and therefore I would be most grateful about specific examples from 
> languages you might know from your work.
>
> Thank you and best regards
>
> Johannes Hirvonen
> LMU Munich
> johannes.hirvonen at campus.lmu.de
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