[Lingtyp] Borrowed indefinite pronouns and markers

[Neil Myler]

Dear Johannes,
I've seen a very similar pattern with a certain negative indefinite marker
in Quechua languages, where the donor language is Spanish.  A case from
Coombs Lynch et al (2003:157) is the following (hyphenation and glossing
supplied by me; the translation is mine from the Spanish translation given
in the book); the borrowed element is bolded. In Spanish, *ni* as such
doesn't appear in most negative indefinites, but it does appear in the
construction that means *neither...nor* (*ni...ni...*), and in various
expressions corresponding to English *not even* *X*.

(1) Mana-m           *ni*   pi-pis            shamu-rqa-n-chu. (Cajamarca
Quechua)
     Not-dir.evid      ni   who-also       come-past-3sg-non.assert
    "No-one came."

Ref: Coombs Lynch, David, Heidi Carlson de Coombs, and Blanca Ortiz Chamán.
2003. *Rimashun Kichwapi. Una introducción al quechua cajamarquino*. Lima:
Atares artes y letras.

Best,
Neil

On Tue, Apr 22, 2025 at 5:26 AM Johannes Hirvonen via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

> 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
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20250422/5235328e/attachment.htm>