LINGUIST List 3.41

Thu 16 Jan 1992

Disc: Clusters; X and a Half; Pronouns; Inflection

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Hartmut Haberland, Re: 3.26 Breaking up clusters
2. , breaking up consonant clusters
3. Martha Hsu, Re: 3.26 Diachronic Lengthening
4. "Don W.", "Youse"
5. "George Fowler h(, RE: 3.26 Diachronic Lengthening
6. Hr. Gehrke, Re: 3.13 X and a Half; S --> NP NP
7. Dan Everett, Re: 3.34 Diachronic lengthening, inflection development

Message 1: Re: 3.26 Breaking up clusters

Has anybody commented on the feature of Hiberno-English (Anlo-Irish) that
makes people (at least in Dublin) pronounce film like fillum etc.?
There is a Chinese takeaway in Dun Laoghaire called 'The Yellow Pearl' and I
always thought that this was a pun since it's homophonous or almost so with
'The yellow peril'. (Next door is another Chinese takeaway with a punning
name, The Rice Paddy.)

I am late to this discussion, but i'd like to
add the well known example of Latin, e.g.
greek HeraKLes -> lat. HerCULes
 AlKMene -> AlCUMena
For more info see
Pfister, Lateinische Lautlehre and Leumann,
Lateinische Laut- und Formenlehre.
Fritz Heberlein

Message 3: Re: 3.26 Diachronic Lengthening

One example of reinforcing the pluality of the 2nd person, you, that I
have not seen mentioned can be heard in the Ohio Valley, around Wheeling,
W.Va.: you'uns, as when a waitress asks, "Do you'uns want anything
else?" The last time I was there, I heard a more elaborate form:
You'all'uns.

I've also seen the 2nd-plural pronoun spelled "yous," that is, you + s
for the plural (region: northeastern Wisconsin).

Don W.
DonWebbCSUS.EDU

Message 5: RE: 3.26 Diachronic Lengthening

Dennis Baron asks about the possible development of a two-word pronoun.
I have "you all" quite regularly as the plural of "you", which is
strictly singular. What is more, I have a unique possessive form, again
quite naturally in my speech: "your all's". Think about that: I take
the possessive pronominal form "your" corresponding to the first half
of the compound pronoun, then cliticize 's to the second part. It has
its own twisted logic.
 I grew up in Chapel Hill, NC (till age 12), Lexington, KY (to age
21), by which time this system was firmly in place.
 George Fowler
 Dept. of Slavic Languages
 Indiana University

Message 6: Re: 3.13 X and a Half; S --> NP NP

in german, to my knowledge as a natuve speaker, there is one instance of the
'X and a half'-construction. It is the idiom "auf einen Narren anderthalbe
setzen" ( to put on one fool one and a half). it roughly means to answer to the
stupid actions or statements of some one else by an even more stupid behaviour.

 manfred gehrke

Message 7: Re: 3.34 Diachronic lengthening, inflection development

Regarding the development of inflectional systems, it seems that
pronouns in Piraha (Muran) were borrowed initially from Tupi-Guarani,
specifically, from the Lingua Geral or Nheengatu, and that these have
developed or are developing into an ergative agreement system. Piraha
has only three pronouns, *hi* `3P', *ni* `2P', and *ti* `1P'. (In
Nheengatu, the former lingua franca of the Amazon region, the same
forms are found with the same meanings.) There are no number or case
distinctions. Moreover, there is no evidence that Piraha had any other
pronouns prior to this borrowing. These pronominals are usually
realized as clitic-forms and allow clitic doubling of subject or
direct object. A few words of Piraha origin also can be used as
clitics, e.g. *?ao* `nonmeat food', and *?is* `meat/animal'.

Although there are examples of doubling both subjects and direct
objects of transitive clauses, it is far more common to double only
the subject of an intransitive or the object of a transitive:

(1) Taoa ?aohoi ?ao -ho -ai -p -hai.
 name manioc nonmeat-eat-atelic-imp.-relative certainty
 `Taoa will eat manioc.'

(2) Ko?oi hi ?aibogi-sai.
 name 3P fast -be
 `Ko?oi runs.'

The clitic forms of Piraha origin are transparently related to longer
words, so that *?ao* `nonmeat' is the shortened form of *?aohoi* `manioc'
and *?is* `meat' is the shortened form of *?isi* `meat'. These facts
seem to suggest, then, that Piraha has developed inflectional
agreement morphology fairly recently - based on borrowing.