[Lingtyp] Remind-Me particles across languages

[Jussi Ylikoski]

Dear Jeanette, Jutta and all,

To add to Jutta's information on Finnish: While the negative polarity clitic certainly conveys the Remind-Me function, Finnish also makes use of taas 'again', and not only that, but also nyt 'now', and surprisingly enough, all these seem to be able to co-occur with each other, although only one of the three is really needed:

Mikä sun nimi olikaan?
≈ Mikä sun nimi nyt oli?
≈ Mikä sun nimi taas oli?
≈ Mikä sun nimi nyt olikaan?
≈ Mikä sun nimi taas olikaan?
≈ Mikä sun nimi nyt taas oli?
≈ Mikä sun nimi nyt taas olikaan?
'What was your name again?'

(Cf. Mikä sun nimi oli? 'What was your name'? without an obvious Remind-Me function.)

There surely must be some differences in the use and acceptance of these seven alternatives, but to me they still mean about the same.

As regards nyt 'now' – a semantic source of Remind-Me particles apparently not mentioned yet – I can also add that its Estonian cognate nüüd 'now' can be used in a similar way, with or without the clitic -gi:

Mis su nimi nüüd oli(gi)?
'What was your name again?'

Estonian speakers know more about this, but similar use of 'now' and a multi-purpose clitic ge is also found in Saami languages north of Finnish, e.g. North Saami:

Mii du namma dal lei ge?
what your name now was ge
'What was your name again?'


Best regards,

Jussi


________________________________
Frá: Salminen, Jutta via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Sent: mánudagur, 31. mars 2025 19:41
Til: Jeanne Lecavelier des Etangs-Levallois; lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Efni: Re: [Lingtyp] Remind-Me particles across languages

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<mailto: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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