[Lingtyp] Remind-Me particles across languages

[Salminen, Jutta]

Dear Jeanne,

I think no one mentioned Finnish yet: 
In Finnish a typical way to express this Remind-Me function is a
combination of simple past tense and the negative polarity clitic
particle _-kAAn _‘(not) even, (n)either’ attached to the verb.,
e.g.


_Mikä sun nimi oli-kaan?_
what you.gen name be.3sg.pst-cl (_sun_, a colloquial form for
‘your,’ cf. Standard Finnish _sinu-n _you-gen)



‘What was your name, again?’








As a clitic particle, the NPI _-kAAn – _as well as its positive
polarity counterpart, the focus particle _-kin _‘also, even’ –
can be attached both to nouns (basically meaning ‘even, either’
e.g. _minä-kään en tiedä _1sg-cl neg.1sg know.cng_ _‘even I
don’t know / I don’t know, either) and to verbs with further
pragmatic meanings, such as counter-expectation:



_Se ei ollut-kaan Anna._
it neg.3sg be.ptcp-cl A.



’It wasn’t Anna (counter to what I thought/expected).’








For other combinations and meanings, see Vilkuna 2015.



Vilkuna, Maria 2015: Negation in Finnish. In M. Miestamo, A. Tamm & B.
Wagner-Nagy (eds.), Negation in Uralic Languages, 457–485.
Typological Studies in Language 108. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.



 



I hope this helps you further!








Best,



Jutta








_________________
Dr. Jutta Salminen
Postdoktorand / postdoc-tutkija, FT
Lektorin für Finnisch / suomen lehtori

Institut für Fennistik und Skandinavistik
Ernst-Lohmeyer-Platz 3
17489 Greifswald
jutta.salminen at uni-greifswald.de
Tel.: +49 (0)3834 420 3601

www.uni-greifswald.de/fennistik



Am Montag, den 31-03-2025 um 11:59 schrieb Jeanne Lecavelier des
Etangs-Levallois via Lingtyp:


Dear all,

  I am currently looking at Remind-Me particles (particles which
express 
that the speaker is asking for an information they used to know but
forgot, 
like English "again" in "What's your name again?") across languages. 
Specifically, I am interested in Remind-Me particles (i) which have
another 
(canonical) meaning when used in other contexts, and (ii) whose 
other/canonical meaning is not "again".

For instance, French Remind-Me particle is "déjà" ("already"):
"Comment tu 
t'appelles toi déjà ?" (literally "What's your name already?") is 
interpreted as "What's your name again? (I forgot)".

If you know of any such particle (which can have a Remind-Me use, and
which 
does not mean "again") in your native language or the language(s)
you're 
working on, please write to me :-)

Many thanks for your help!
Best,
Jeanne Lecavelier
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