Detail 425: Mixed groups vs. Gendered Plurals

In some languages, gender is distinguished in the plural. This naturally brings along the problem of what to do about mixed groups. It is fairly usual for mixed groups to default to a gender (all instances I know of default to masculine). What if a language behaved differently? What options are there? Here are a few with some hints at avenues of making the situation even more complex.

1) Free selection

The decision to use a feminine or masculine plural pronoun for mixed groups is left completely to the speaker.

2) Controlled semantic selection

Which pronoun is determined by some semantic fact about the utterance: maybe the gender indicates attitudes to the group, or maybe it correlates to TAM. Maybe actual, definite, pre-defined groups get feminine, whereas yet-undefined, hypothetical, future, potential groups get masculine.

3) Syntactic selection

E.g:

1. Subjects - feminine, other constituents: masculine.
2. Main clauses: feminine, subclauses: masculine.
3. Erg-abs part of grammar: feminine, nom-acc part of grammar: masculine.
4. Certain verbs' or adjectives have congruence that is, for morphophonological reasons, defective: singular masculine and singular plural is conflated in the verb. In such cases, the feminine is used. In some other verbs, the opposite problem applies, and so the masculine is used.
   

4) Registral selection

The strategy may vary by register, but it may also be as easy as in formal registers, mixed groups are masculine, in other registers, they're feminine (or maybe free or whatever).

5) Speaker- or listener-based selection

Maybe mixed gender groups always get the opposite gender to the speaker (or the same), or maybe it's the listener's gender that determines. In case of mixed listeners, ...

6) Lexically controlled selection

Maybe some verbs prefer feminine pronouns for mixed groups, some verbs prefer masculine pronouns. The deficiency in congruence in 3.4 could easily be lexicalized and stop being specific to forms of the verb where the congruence fails.

7) Referent-affected selection

The group or some individual of the group, and some property of said person(s) affects the choice: majority female gets feminine, majority masculine gets masculine, or most socially prominent member determines gender of the group.

8) Feminine- and masculine mixed groups as separate referents

I am not sure this even could evolve, but imagine a system whereby e.g. masculine plural for a mixed group essentially is proximative, and feminine essentially is an obviative pronoun.

9) No mixing

Instead of a single pronoun, two are used: "they(fem) and he", "they(fem) and they(masc)".

A Question Regarding Tone

Tone is normally suprasegmental. Is there any language where tone distinguishes only a few segments?

In other words, is there any language, where the vowel system has one or two vowel qualities where vowel phonemes are distinguished by tone? Something like this:

A few Terms of Time in Ćwarmin, Ŋʒädär and cognate languages

This is a bit preliminary.

Ćwarmin and Rasm^jin^j have borrowed the system of times of day, as well as higher-order calendarical structures from Bryatesle, whereas Ətimin and Astami conserve the Ćwarmin-Ŋʒädär system intact. However, the lexemes in Ćwarmin and Rasm^jin^j are often cognate to those of the other Ćwarminoid languages, and have simply been repurposed to Bryatesle cultural standards.

Historical Background
The Ćwarmin-Ŋʒädär ur-tribes divided the day into a system somewhat familiar to us: morning, day, evening and night. The 'cycle' is considered to begin at sunrise. Every ĆŊD language has cognates to at least some of these terms. The divisions correspond to watches in camps (which, however, normally overlap.)

Subdivisions of the day
An important pair of adverbs that have surviving cognates in every branch, and also 'functional' equivalents in many languages that lack cognates, are

*birn
*voru

which signify 'in the previous quarter of the day' or 'in the next quarter of the day'. The proto-language formed words meaning "a day and a quarter from now" or "three quarters of a day from now" by reduplicating these. Sound-changes have hit these particular words in some special ways - sometimes, the morphemes have been treated as separate words until at some point in each language's history, they've become full-fledged single morpheme words.

Cw: birmir, uarjur ( b > v / r_V or #_u,  v > j /r_V,  > u #_V)
Ast: birbir, uoruor (v > u /_o and also v > u /r_)
Rs: birnə, vorbʊ (v > b /_uC, _oC, _ʊC)
Ŋʒ: vırmız, varoz ( b > v /#_V, -z is a suffix)
Dg: (m)ʊmber, (m)ʊrbel (#b > #m, randomly. rv > rb, murber > murbel due to dissimilation)

In the Ćwarmin branch, a similar time yesterday can be specified by suffixing *-zi or *-zu. This -zi suffix is probably cognate to Ŋʒ -z. in Ćwarmin and Rasm^jin^j these terms exist, but now refer to the next span of Bryatesle day subdivisions.

In proto-Ćwarmin, a verb 'birdən' signifying 'to wait for one's turn, to be preparing for a task, to expect, to soon be busy' derives from *birn, whereas *vordan, deriving from *voru signifies participating in post-activities: tidying up, washing, etc.

In Ćwarmin and Rasm^jin^j these words rather signify the next/previous Bryatesle hour-like unit of time, of which there are sixteen per nychtemeron.
 

Morning, Day, Evening, Night

Ćw Ast Rs Ŋʒ Dg

arad arro arot äzä adʒı

jit int injtjin uk'u imii ımı/(f)ındı-)

The proto-ĆŊD word for morning was *azda, potentially either cognate to *asu (to wake up) or *anzor (sunrise), probably related through some earlier word, maybe pre-proto-CND *egnso- 'rise up, raise, open (of eyes, bottles, jars), burst'

Ćw:  arad (azda > azad, z > r /V_V)
Ast: orro (azda > aza > a'ra > awr:a)
Rs: arot (azad > azod > azot > arot)
Ŋʒ: äzä (azda > aza > random vowel harmony realigment)
Dg: adʒı (azda > adza,  a > ı / _#, dz > dʒ / _ı, _i) (change in meaning: 'early')

Proto-ĆŊD for 'day' was '*gnumn', giving

Ćw: now (um > om, m > w /V_n#, where V = back vowel)
Ast: navvol
Rs: naon
Ŋʒ: ŋumor ('tomorrow')
Dg: ŋö(-n-)

*gnumn may be cognate to pre-proto-CND *gunu- sky and thus be related to Dg ŋost ('cloud'), Ŋʒ ŋuzro ('arctic lights'), Ast narrob ('rain'), Cwarmin owno (sky), Ast owno

Some derived terms:

Astimin and Rasjminj also derive recent words for the sun from this:

ast: navvark, rs: naoroh

A similar word can be found in some poetic Ćwarmin: noworak

Proto-ĆŊD for evening was *tyrs, giving

Ćw: tic (y > i / _r, rs > c /_#, )Ast: ter (i > e /#(C)_r#)
Rs: tils (rs > ls, random, y > i, random (~0.3 prob) in monosyllables)
Ŋʒ: tydźy   (rs > rź, rź > dź, -y is a nominalizing suffix)
Dg: jyrem (t > j / #_Vr, V = front rounded vowel, probs by proxy of t_j_w > d_j_w > d_j > dʒ, -em = time affix)

The proto-ĆŊD word for night was *imid. In parts of the Ŋʒädär branch this has been replaced by reflexes of *uk'ot, 'dark'. Thus, cognates often mean 'night', but in some descendant languages 'this (incoming) night' or 'last night':

Ćw: jit (but jint- before suffixes that begin with vowels)
Ast: int ('inni' for 'this (incoming night', 'inits' for 'last night')
Rs: in^jt^jen
Ŋʒ: uk'u (no ending in absolutive, -s-/-t- in other cases).
"imi-" now signifies sunset instead.

Süw: imii
Dg: ımə, dat. fındın or ındın. (The case prefix has acquired some meaning differentiation in expressions of time and been generalized to all cases except the absolutive, and distinguishes "night (in general)" from any particular night.

Today, Yesterday, Tomorrow and Beyond
In all branches there are languages that preserve cognates of a variety of old words.

day before yesterday: *qaluwuna
yesterday: *qalur
today: *mest
tomorrow: *tetri
day after tomorrow: *tetrijinä

Astami: N/A, kalu-nu, mih-ni, ćeič-ni, ćeiči-ni
Dagurib: qaluwɞ, qal, mesit, tetir, tetirjin
Ŋʒädär: qoruŋa, qolur, mär* (mäsä*- for inflected forms), täryr, (täty- for inflicted forms) tärynjä
Süw: quurqur (renewed reduplication frrom qur), quur, met, teir, tädeir (through intermediate forms *terteer > *terdeer > *terdeir)

*mär, mäsä have been lost in modern Ŋʒädär, being replaced with ŋumrum, from ŋumor (to-day). Almost all speakers tend to dissimilate either the last -m to n, giving ŋumrun, or m to b, giving ŋubrum or even ŋ to g, giving gumrum. This serves to distinguish "to (a/the) day (indefinite)" from "today" - "to a day" being regularly formed and "today" having those sound changes. Which form serves which function varies strongly in dialects.

However, in early Ŋʒädär, *mär, mäsä still were present. Tärynjä no longer is specifically the day after tomorrow, but any day in the near future (including, possibly, tomorrow).

Süw's tädeir likewise does not signify 'the day after tomorrow', but is an adjective signifying 'the next [timespan]'.
 

 In Ćwarmin, 'today' is formed form the demonstrative arna- in the general ablative: arnaraś. Sometimes this is hit by some kind of dissimilation-transposition and comes out as aranaś, anaraś or even arnaś but there's also attestations of both araraś and ananaś. A period of a few days including today can be arnuroś / arunoś. Oftentimes, this signifies 'this week' (by Bryatesle standards of week). In Bryatesle-influenced areas, you also often get olbaraś (from olba, "that") for 'yesterday'. This is somewhat odd, though, as it can also signify 'that day' or even 'that time', and so is a bit sensitive to context.

Despite being marked for case, aranaś and arunoś have partially been reinterpreted as nominatives, and can take further case suffixes.

'In a few days' in Ćwarmin is generally formed by cularaś (sg) or culuroś (pl), depending on whether the thing that happens is expected to last at most a day, or longer. Similar constructions exist in the other Ćwarminoid languages.

Detail #424: Gratuitous Use of Reduplication

One morphological device that I keep wanting to use, but never find a sufficiently interesting use for, is reduplication. Let's try and find a really gratuitous use of it, and overviewing some of the strange things languages do with it.

Some of the trivial stuff reduplication does is:

• form plurals
• form habituals, form perfectives
• form intensives, diminutives, etc

The strangest use I have come across is Chukchi: the absolutive singular for some nouns is formed by reduplication. This violates two proposed universals, so that's a lot of bang for a buck!

So, what other weird thing could we use reduplication for? It feels like this is a question where the usual suspects don't quite cut it.

Let's assume, unless otherwise specified, that I am talking about full reduplication of a lexeme.

1) Things with numerals (numeral symbols express the actual value, letters express the way it's said in the language, base ten is assumed but this is a trivial thing to reapply to some other base.)

one = 1
oneone = 11
two = 2
twotwo = 12
three = 3
threethree = 13

...

oneoneone = 21
twotwotwo = 22
threethreethree = 23

With reasonably short numerals, this isn't even particularly clumsy. Heck, you can have some pretty big numbers before running into finnish-style numeral length (kaksikymmentäkaksi = twotwotwo).

With just a few extra tricks - say, having a dedicated short form for some particular milestones, this wouldn't be unworkable. 

2) Indefiniteness

Have reduplicated nouns signify "any old ...".

(Somehow, it seems this would be rather natural with some type of intonation pattern).

3) Reflexivity by reduplication of the verb

I see see in a mirror = I see myself in a mirror

4) Reflexivity of possession by reduplicating the object:

I met wife wife when I was twenty three
I met my wife when I was twenty three

he called brother brother
he called his brother

5) Comparatives

Double the comparand which is characterized by more of the quality that is compared, use some special conjunction or just apposition for the comparands or maybe object marking or something:

I I he are strong: I am stronger than he

I I am strong him: I am stronger than he

For "oblique comparisons", try this on for size:

I I am smart smart him strong: I am smarter than he is strong.

6) Extend the reference of the subject (or maybe some other constituent) by doubling the verb:

I eat eat: me and my associates are eating

I approach approach house: I and my associates are approaching a house / I am approaching a village

7) Ordinals

man man = the first man
man man man = the second man

I imagine this could actually exist for a few lexemes in some actual language!

8) Copula! E.g.

it red red: it is red

This also leads to an interesting thing w.r.t. verbs - maybe 

it eat eat = it is edible

9) Non-referentiality!

So, one example of a non-referential pronoun is "it" in "it is raining". Imagine a language where this has to be "it it is raining".

10) Adjectives denoting being in possession of something, e.g.

peg-leg peg-leg man: peg-legged man
or maybe just
peg-leg-leg man

In a language where it's done by just reduplicating a syllable, this does not seem particularly out of the ordinary.

11) Mandatory reduplication of initial and final elements of parenthetical statements as a form of bracketing.

12) Particles of phrase verbs (either the verb or the particle needs doubling)

13) Vocatives

This seems a case that reasonably could have developed a reduplicated form in some language in the world.

14) Wherever the syntax has a null element that is actually syntactically present (e.g. omitted subordinating conjunction), a floating reduplication emerges that needs to find a host:

I didn't know that she's famous -> I didn't know __ she's famous ->
"I didn't know know she's famous" or "I didn't know she's she's famous".

Under some circumstances, other syntactic phenomena could shuffle where this turns up in unexpected ways.

15) Congruence with a certain noun class by reduplicating verbs or adjectives or pronouns.

Undoubtedly, stranger ideas are possible.

Real Language Examples: Incongruent Expressions in Finnish

I recently read a PhD dissertation from the late 80s about the development of incongruent expressions in Finnish and other Baltic-Finnic languages, as well as Sami. This may well be an interesting topic for my readers, and since the dissertation is not available for sale anywhere, I figure I may as well present a summary of it.

Baltic-Finnic has adjective congruence, with the same morphemes on both adjectives and nouns. Here are some examples from Finnish:

uude-ssa talo-ssa
vanha-lla tori-lla
punaise-t auto-t
vanho-i-sta kirjo-i-sta

The other languages are similar, with some exceptions for really recent cases, e.g. in Estonian. In Estonian, recent cases derive rather naturally from postpositions, and the postposition has not (yet?) spread to the adjective. AFAICT, the adjective is in the case that the postposition previously ~governed, but I may be wrong on this.

In at least some Sami languages, demonstratives and interrogative pronouns also have some amount of case congruence, but the adjectives in Sami in general behave a bit differently, with attributive and non-attributive forms.

The incongruent expressions are a semi-productive set of expressions in Baltic-Finnic where the case congruence is mismatched. Not only that, sometimes the number congruence is off. For the number congruence, it is relevant to know that the instructive is often a case with some amount of defectiveness: most nouns lack a singular instructive, and arguably it's borderline an adverb derivation rather than a case. It is also historically probably the same case as the genitive, with some intriguing complications along that line.

Nearly all of these have either the instructive or partitive as the case of the head noun. The adjective or the determiner is usually in some local case, such as the abessive, allative, elative, ... 

Examples:

pitkä-ksi aika-a
mui-na aiko-i-n
näi-ssä ma-in
tuo-lla pä-i-n
näi-ssä määr-i-n
tuo-lla tapa-a
tuo-lla tavo-i-n

The question that the dissertation attempts to answer is how such a situation has come about. It does this by also investigating the situation and statistical situation of the expressions in several closely related languages.

It turns out that the expressions probably can be split up into several subtypes based on their semantics. Time, location, amount, manner, [[state or position] of [body-parts, clothing or mind]].

A closely related question that intertwines with this is how did congruence emerge?

Most authorities on the topic seem to agree that Indo-European has been an important influence in its emergence, but also that apposition has been a factor. Imagine that sometimes, for emphasis "catch a big fish" has been expressed "catch a big (one), a fish".

Adjectives being used as nouns by utilizing case suffixes is well established in congruence-less branches of Uralic, and in other families of agglutinating languages that utilize cases and have adjectives.

This apposition for emphasis - "in a small one, in a cave" may well, as time has passed on and indo-europeans in the vicinity have had a similar phenomenon going, have gained ground as the way to express in a small cave.

 This explains some similar expressions.

tuo-lla tapa-a
tuo-lla tavo-in

may both have appeared as a result of apposition, where there has been some level of synonymity between the two parts, but together, they have resolved some ambiguity:

tuolla signifies "with that, utilizing that, over there, on that"
tapaa, tavoin signifies "by a/the method"

This "utilizing that, by the method" > "utilizing that method".

These account for a fairly small number of expressions.

A separate type of construction that may be relevant also is called nominativus absolutus.

minä juoksin kädet ilmassa

I ran hands in-air

odotin sateessa, takki märässä
I waited in-rain, jacket in-wet
I waited in the rain, with my jacket in wet
I waited in the rain with my jacket wet

In English, this would come out as "I ran with (my) hands in the air". Apparently, earlier in Baltic Finnic, this was often more similar to English - with an oblique case instead of a pure nominative. Both instructive and partitive seems to have occurred, but unlike English and the Finnish nominativus absolutus the status or position was positioned before the noun:

ilmassa käsin/käsiä
märässä takkia/takkia
lumessa päin

Now, many of the nouns that stand on the left side in these constructions are indistinguishable from adjective forms. Märkä both means 'wetness' (noun) and 'wet' (adjective). Thus, these were sometimes reinterpreted as adjectives before nouns with a case discongruence, rather than a noun in a case acting as an attribute of another noun in another case.

This does not catch all the interesting stuff I came across in the book, and there will probably be a second post based off of it.

Source: Juha Leskinen, "Suomen kielen inkongruentit rakenteet ja niiden tausta (incongruent adjective constructions in Finnish)", 1990. Available in Finland from Varastokirjasto, and thus probably can be ordered from any library. Some university libraries undoubtedly have a copy. Availability elsewhere probably somewhat correlated with departments of Uralic linguistics. If you're really lucky maybe someone sells it on ebay or amazon or somewhere.

Detail #423: Reflexive Possession as an Auxiliary

Reflexive possession is expressed in a few different ways in languages. I am not aware of any language like this from before:

I throw ball => I throw a/the ball

I AUX throw ball => I throw my ball

For direct objects and indirect objects and other complements of the verb, the auxiliary is directly in control of some infinitive form, potentially a participle.

1. Etymology of the auxiliary

There are a few natural ways such an auxiliary could arise. Lexemes associated with the following meanings make sense to develop towards such a use:

• to have, to own    
• to control, to exert power over
• to hold, to carry
• to be related to, to pertain to

Here, one could also imagine that different types of objects get different auxiliaries.

2. Syntax

One syntactical issue that emerges is some level of ambiguity with regards to multiple NPs. For me, some level of ambiguity is entirely acceptable, i.e. direct and indirect objects. Here, different verbs for different types of NP can help resolve the ambiguity.

 

However, we could also imagine that the auxiliary only has a reflexive significance with regards to its complements, while adjuncts (or complements of the subordinate verb) are not reflexively owned. Thus

I hold book.acc swap for bag -> I swapped my book for a bag
I hold book.acc and bag.acc swap > I swapped my book for my bag
I swap book for bag > I swapped a book for a bag

If the system has multiple different verbs, there may be a hierarchy as to which noun gets to "decide" which verb is used, or maybe there's a need for using multiple verbs.

We could also imagine that for non-objects, participles are used:

I gave be.related.to-ING brother a gift: I gave my brother a gift

A little post scriptum

As you might have noticed, the pace with which I post here has been severely diminished. One particular cause looms large: all the low-hanging fruit has already been picked.

Thus, writing a post worth posting takes about ten times as long these days as it did at the heyday of productivity. I will, however, go on posting, and there are ideas that slowly mature in the drafts folder. There's a significant number of slowly growing ideas.

Real Language Examples: The that-trace effect in Swedish and Finland-Swedish

Time for even more real language examples. And as usual, I have dug deep in the grammar of my native language to find a belated hannukah-gift to you, my dear readers.

In syntax, a that-trace effect is a kind of blocking, where a complementizer cannot be followed by a trace. This effect is present in English, and causes this system of sentences with various transformations to hold:

I didn't think he could sing

He, I didn't know sings in that choir (arguably not grammatical)

Unlike English, Scandinavian languages permit topicalizing elements of subclauses rather freely. In English, this seems mainly to occur with interrogative pronouns. A __ will be inserted where the moved element originally stood in example sentences:

who did you think __ would finish this?

Compare this with Swedish clauses such as these:

Evert tror jag inte __ äter fisk.
Evert think I not __ eats fish.
Evert, I don't think eats fish.
I don't think Evert eats fish.

Other constituents can also be moved around:

Fisk tror jag inte Evert äter __.
Fish I don't think Evert eats.
I don't think Evert eats fish.

Here, it would be fun if we could do this to verbs as well, but alas, this is not permissible:

Äter tror jag inte Evert __ fisk.
Eats I don't think Evert fish
I don't think Evert eats fish (think this as contrasting to what he does do with fish: farm, cut fillets, cure, smoke, put in brine, make fish fingers, mong, etc, them)

Let's return to our English example "who did you think would finish this?" Let us consider two possible rewordings of this where it's "he" instead of "who", and it's just a statement.

You did think he would finish this?
You did think that he would finish this?

We find an interesting difference here, with regards to the permissibility of "that":

*who did you think that would finish this?

The hypothesis is that "that" cannot be followed by a trace of the element that has been moved left. (In essence, this means we can't have "that" and a move at the same time.) The subclause must be introduced by a null-element instead if there is a trace.

Anyways, Standard Swedish as spoken in Sweden has the same that-trace effect as English, whereas Standard Swedish as spoken in Finland lacks it. Norwegian seems also to have geographical splits on this, and Icelandic, I am happy to tell, solidly sides with my variety of Swedish. Since left-moved elements seem to be more common in Scandinavian in general, these phenomena are much more visible than in English.

Standard Swedish:
han tror jag kan simma
he thinks I can swim

As it happens, standard Swedish has V2, so this can actually correspond to _two_ different English orders. Notice that Swedish does not have person congruence on the verb:

jag tror han kan simma

I think (that) (he*) can swim (throw "he" to the left edge)
he think (that) I can swim (remove (that))

and is thus ambiguous. If Swedish did not have V2, it would be less ambiguous

he I think can swim

I he think can swim

but since Swedish does not permit this, it gets ambiguous. (There are some word order rules with regards to adverbs and auxiliaries that do, at least in part, resolve the question, but not always.)

Finland Swedish has resolved this issue in a different way, however. We don't have the that trace effect.

han tror jag att kan simma
he think I that can swim
he I think that can swim

 

This is as if English permitted

*who did you think that would finish this?

 

Since the 'att' is nearly mandatory if the subclause is not introduced by its subject, this actually fully removes the ambiguity from F-Swedish subclauses with leftwards shifted subjects.

The reason this particular difference between the two Swedish varieties has not been squashed by the education system is probably the fact that it's kind of difficult to explain something as abstract as this rule to kids.

I am kinda at awe at the level of hypocrisy "grammar nazis" reach on this thing. With one side of their face they say we should make sure the language is as unambiguous as possible and with the other side of their face they teach that this trait of F-Swedish should be eliminated - despite the fact that it objectively reduces the amount of ambiguity. Fuck them. Seriously.