Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[bradrn]

It’s interesting that you mention that, as both Eʋe and Vai use the same copula for adjectives and locations (and, as I said, a different copula for nouns).

Hm, I hope I haven't misremembered the generalisation!

Nope, I’m pretty sure the generalisation is still very much in force — the point is that those are exceptional cases.

[Kuchigakatai]

A (hopefully) quick question: Some languages (e.g. English) use a verbal copula. Others (e.g. Hausa) use a non-verbal copula. But what exactly is the difference between the two? To me there doesn’t seem like much of a difference between an English sentence He is a boy and the Hausa sentence shi yaro ne (lit. ‘he boy COP’).

Also on the subject of copulae, it seems like there are only a few strategies which are used to give a copulative meaning: verbal copula (e.g. English), non-verbal copula (e.g. Hausa), zero copula (e.g. Tiwi), nonverbal person agreement (e.g. Turkish), personal pronominal copula (e.g. Motu), demonstrative pronominal copula (e.g. Kâte). Is that an exhastive list, or did I miss a strategy?

Mandarin uses a degree adverb as a stand-in copula for gradable adjectives, well, adjectival verbs. The unmarked adverb is 很 hěn 'very' (also pronounced hen in the fifth/neutral tone in accents that allow this tone widely), and it can be replaced by 非常 fēicháng 'very (much)', 極了 jíle 'very (much)' (placed after the adjectival verb!), 一點 yìdiǎn 'a little', 也 yě 'also', 不 bù 'not (sentential negator)', 一點也不 yìdiǎnyě bù 'not at all', 更 gèng 'more', 足夠 zúgòu 'enough', and many others.

This is pretty interesting when you think of the copula as something that is not necessarily a full heavy verb that is arguably the head of the predicate phrase, as you might with the Arabic past/future-tense كان kaana 'he was' / يكون yakuunu 'he will be' or the negative ليس laysa 'he is not' (which are both inflected verbs with subject agreement), which are followed by an adjective or noun in the accusative case, but rather just a little functional word that is modifying the noun, adjective or PP that is the true head of the phrase, or in the case of Mandarin, a gradable stative verb.

[Ares Land]

A question about German...
I hear the first vowel in the first name Egon as an high vowel; not quite [i:], perhaps something like [ɪ:] or [ɪ:e]. I'm not sure. Definitely not, in any case, the same vowel as in French ego [ego].

Is it just me? Or is German /e/ higher?

[Linguoboy]

Is it just me? Or is German /e/ higher?

It's always sounded that way to me, but then the nucleus of my /ey/ is lower than cardinal [e].

I went looking for information on German vowel height some years ago and found two analyses which showed considerable variation for /eː/. I don't recall there being much in the way of allophonic conditioning.

[Richard W]

I'm wondering if I've missed something important in my slight studies of Sanskrit grammar. Can it make sense for something that is morphologically a perfect middle to be described as an 'active'form? The form in question is sene, which if I read Monier-Willaims correctly can mean 'He succeeded'. (The form is generally assumed to have developed from something like the more obvious *sasne, with visible reduplication and zero grade of the root.) The nearest I can think of is the case of Pali, where morphological passives can have active or middle forms, but these passives uses a derived stem, as in Sanskrit.

[zyxw59]

Is it just me? Or is German /e/ higher?

I can't speak to German, but I had a similar experience when I was briefly attempting to learn Swedish — pretty much every audio sample of Swedish /e/ I heard sounded more like to me.

[KathTheDragon]

If the interrogative is a mood, why can it combine (in English) with modal auxilliaries? E.g. "Would you like some tea?" Moreover, can you get this kind of combination in languages where moods are generally expressed through inflection?

[Kuchigakatai]

A question about German...
I hear the first vowel in the first name Egon as an high vowel; not quite [i:], perhaps something like [ɪ:] or [ɪ:e]. I'm not sure. Definitely not, in any case, the same vowel as in French ego [ego].

Is it just me? Or is German /e/ higher?

Yes, German /e/ is higher than French /e/. This was actually a meme here on the ZBB for a while years ago. We were discussing this one day when Nortaneous (who incidentally had been recently taking German classes at the time) posted saying he had a theory that German /e:/ was [​i:] with [+aaarrrrghhhhh], while /i:/ was [​i:] with [-aaarrrrghhhhh].

For what it's worth, French /i e ɛ/ have never given me any trouble, but like you I also can't distinguish German /i:/ vs. /e:/ as I hear them both as [​i:], even when a minimal pair of them is said in isolation (guitarplayer once made a recording with that).

If the interrogative is a mood, why can it combine (in English) with modal auxilliaries? E.g. "Would you like some tea?" Moreover, can you get this kind of combination in languages where moods are generally expressed through inflection?

Presumably there are multiple planes of moods, just like there are of aspect. You can have an inchoative + perfective aspect combination just like you can have a cessative perfective, an iterative perfective, or an iterative imperfective, etc.

In Spanish you can have imperative interrogatives (¿Guíame? 'Can't you guide me? Why do you not guide me?') and subjunctive interrogatives (¿Quizá lo haga? 'Maybe there's a chance she'll do it?'), so I don't see any problem with having an interrogative of possibility ("Can you yell at them?"), necessity ("Do I have to yell at them? Should I really?"), etc.

[zompist]

If the interrogative is a mood, why can it combine (in English) with modal auxilliaries? E.g. "Would you like some tea?" Moreover, can you get this kind of combination in languages where moods are generally expressed through inflection?

How is the interrogative a mood?

But even if it was, why would a mood exclude modals? I'm pretty sure you can say in French e.g. J'aimerais que vous puissiez venir ("I'd like you to be able to come", where puissiez is both subjunctive and itself a modal).

[bradrn]

If the interrogative is a mood, why can it combine (in English) with modal auxilliaries? E.g. "Would you like some tea?" Moreover, can you get this kind of combination in languages where moods are generally expressed through inflection?

The interrogative can only really be considered a mood when it is expressed through a modal system. In English, the interrogative is not expressed in that way, so it doesn’t make sense to analyse it as a mood.

[Richard W]

[But even if it was, why would a mood exclude modals? I'm pretty sure you can say in French e.g. J'aimerais que vous puissiez venir ("I'd like you to be able to come", where puissiez is both subjunctive and itself a modal).

Does French have modal verbs?

[KathTheDragon]

How is the interrogative a mood?

I was under the impression it was.

[Kuchigakatai]

The interrogative can only really be considered a mood when it is expressed through a modal system. In English, the interrogative is not expressed in that way, so it doesn’t make sense to analyse it as a mood.

And even in such languages, like Inuktitut and its interrogative mood inflections (which contrast with the indicative and another mood that expresses 'because...'), that is generally not a hindrance for verbs modified to express 'can [verb]', 'must [verb]', etc.

Does French have modal verbs?

It has auxiliary verbs that express modality at least, much like English... if that counts.

[Travis B.]

A question about German...
I hear the first vowel in the first name Egon as an high vowel; not quite [i:], perhaps something like [ɪ:] or [ɪ:e]. I'm not sure. Definitely not, in any case, the same vowel as in French ego [ego].

Is it just me? Or is German /e/ higher?

Yes, German /e/ is higher than French /e/. This was actually a meme here on the ZBB for a while years ago. We were discussing this one day when Nortaneous (who incidentally had been recently taking German classes at the time) posted saying he had a theory that German /e:/ was [​i:] with [+aaarrrrghhhhh], while /i:/ was [​i:] with [-aaarrrrghhhhh].

For what it's worth, French /i e ɛ/ have never given me any trouble, but like you I also can't distinguish German /i:/ vs. /e:/ as I hear them both as [​i:], even when a minimal pair of them is said in isolation (guitarplayer once made a recording with that).

To me it seems to vary based upon who is speaking German; e.g. I hear Till Lindemann's /e:/ as [e], but I hear many other Germans' /e:/ as .

[bradrn]

The interrogative can only really be considered a mood when it is expressed through a modal system. In English, the interrogative is not expressed in that way, so it doesn’t make sense to analyse it as a mood.

And even in such languages, like Inuktitut and its interrogative mood inflections (which contrast with the indicative and another mood that expresses 'because...'), that is generally not a hindrance for verbs modified to express 'can [verb]', 'must [verb]', etc.

I assume that, in such languages, it would then be the case that ‘can’, ‘must’ etc. are not expressed in the modal system but rather in a different way. (It has been noted (Palmer 2001) that languages generally have a modal system expressing mood, or a modal system expressing modality, but very rarely have both.)

[Kuchigakatai]

Yeah, but if Kath were right you'd think the modal affixes wouldn't co-occur with the interrogative markers.

[bradrn]

Yeah, but if Kath were right you'd think the modal affixes wouldn't co-occur with the interrogative markers.

Yes, that was my point: if interrogative were expressed in the modal system, and ‘can’ etc. can occur together with the interrogative, then ‘can’ etc. cannot be part of the modal system.

[zompist]

I assume that, in such languages, it would then be the case that ‘can’, ‘must’ etc. are not expressed in the modal system but rather in a different way. (It has been noted (Palmer 2001) that languages generally have a modal system expressing mood, or a modal system expressing modality, but very rarely have both.)

Palmer explicitly notes the Romance languages as having both mood and auxiliaries.

Really, we shouldn't be surprised at this point by any mixed system. Many languages, asked "Do you want to do <some feature> this way or that way?" say "Yes."

[bradrn]

I assume that, in such languages, it would then be the case that ‘can’, ‘must’ etc. are not expressed in the modal system but rather in a different way. (It has been noted (Palmer 2001) that languages generally have a modal system expressing mood, or a modal system expressing modality, but very rarely have both.)

Palmer explicitly notes the Romance languages as having both mood and auxiliaries.

Oh, I didn’t know that! Although I guess it isn’t too surprising that I missed this, given that I only read half of Palmer’s book. Do you have any idea whether there are any non-Romance (and preferably non-IE) languages which also do that?

[Kuchigakatai]

Yeah, but if Kath were right you'd think the modal affixes wouldn't co-occur with the interrogative markers.

Yes, that was my point: if interrogative were expressed in the modal system, and ‘can’ etc. can occur together with the interrogative, then ‘can’ etc. cannot be part of the modal system.

Maybe it'd be better to say the interrogative could be considered as not part of the modal system, since 'can/must' are more typical "modals" than interrogatives, but sure.

Do you have any idea whether there are any non-Romance (and preferably non-IE) languages which also do that?

Standard Arabic. You can use a modal auxiliary like أمكن ʔamkana 'can (with permission)' in the various moods (subjunctive yumkina, jussive yumkin). There's likely lots of other languages.

I'd be more interested in the opposite actually. What are some languages with marked mood that do not apply those moods to auxiliaries? Seeing the situation English ended up in with can/could/should/must/ought, I imagine there must be a Germanic language somewhere with a living subjunctive/Konjunktiv that does not appear in (modal) auxiliaries or otherwise behaves very weirdly in them.