Postposed referents or just afterthoughts?

[Trechter, Sara]

Adding to Bob's "etc."  These afterthought NPs are also common in
Mandan, and they occur after the illocutionary force indicators; they
specify/emphasize the main referent in the sentence.  Intonation contour
makes it appear that they aren't "afterthoughts," but typically specify
the exact reference of a subject or object pronoun.  I was surprised by
them, but Catherine's paper made them seem less abnormal :) 
 
sara
 
 
 
 


________________________________

	From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu
[mailto:owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu] On Behalf Of Catherine Rudin
	Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 9:55 AM
	To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
	Subject: RE: Postposed referents or just afterthoughts?
	
	
	Yes, "too many for afterthought alone" was my conclusion too.
Beyond that it was pretty much a vague "some kind of topicality" idea.  
	 
	Incidentally, I just looked back at the paper I sent out earlier
to remind myself what I said (oy - I'm getting feeble minded) and saw
that the examples are practically illegible.  I used fonts back then
that my system no longer supports, and I suspect most of you guys also
see an amusing array of hieroglyphics if you try to read it... Please
accept my apologies.  If anyone would like a corrected version, with
examples in the current orthography, do let me know; I'm planning on
fixing it right away, before I forget, and it won't take long. 
	 
	Catherine
	
	>>> rankin at ku.edu 9/26/2007 9:30 AM >>>
	
	I remember that paper, although I can't remember if it was one
of the ones that was published. The Siouan Bibliography or Catherine can
tell you. As I recall, in her elicited data she was getting something
like 11% postposed subjects; far too many for afterthought alone. They
also occur in Kaw, etc.
	
	Bob
	
	 _____
	From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of Bryan Gordon
Sent: Tue 9/25/2007 4:38 PM To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu Subject:
Postposed referents or just afterthoughts?
	
	I'm sure we're all looking forward to MALC. I'm preparing a
handout to my presentation there, which concerns the problem of
postposed referents in Ponca and Omaha. Since the assumed canonical
order is SOV, of course, any postposed referent begs the question: "Is
this a part of the sentence, or an afterthought?" Erkin her 1983
dissertation on Turkish claimed that given/activated postposed referents
are intrasentential while non-activated referents are afterthoughts.
This can be tested empirically by looking at prosody, but unfortunately
my data has no prosodic information (you can all hazard a guess why). I
think Erkproposal makes sense for OP, and I remember reading some sort
of discussion of OVS and SVO word order in OP before in which the same
question was raised. Can anyone remind me of where I might have read
that? I think it would have been one of Rudin's papers. - Bryan James
Gordon PS: Who all is presenting Siouan stuff at MALC? PPS: If anyone
will be in Boulder the first weekend of October, feel free to give me a
call: I'm there for CLASP. 612 239 7094
	
	

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