Re: Korean/Japanese/Chinese (was: Re: FYI re: Greenberg's Universals)

On Tue, 3 Oct 2000, Marcus Smith wrote:

> Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> >wh-words...hmm.  Conversational:
> >
> >eodi kanunya?  Where are you going?  eodi = where
> >mo kajeosseo?  What do you have?  mo = what
> >wae anwasseo?  Why didn't you come?  wae = why
> >
> >Far's *I* can tell, wh- words go to the beginning..."anwasseo wae" just
> >sounds *wrong.*
>
> But your examples all have only two words.  As I understand it, Korean
> verbs must always come last.  So by default, the question word must
> first.  Try something like "Who did you see?"  In Chinese and Japanese,
> there is no requirement that "who" appear at the beginning of the sentence.
Hmm.  That's true.

Nugu basseo?  Who did you see?

No help there.  Oh, I see!  I was being a Bad Yoon Ha (though probably a
typical Korean speaker) and dropping the subject.  (So that could also be
"Who did she see?" etc.)

Nugu = who/whom/whose

Neo nugu basseo?  You who did-see? = Who did you see?

But OTOH you have:

Nugu na seonmul chosseo?  Who me present gave? = Who gave me a present?
Neo nugu hantae seonmul chosseo?  Who you to (postposition) present gave?
  = To whom did you give a present?
Neo nugu seonmul isseo?  You whose present exist/have? = Whose present do
  you have?

Now I'm just confused.  <wince>  I think you're right, but darned if I
can figure out what determines *where* the wh-word goes.  I'm guessing
that it just straight-out replaces the equivalent word in the
statement-sentence:

Jiyongi na seonmul chosseo.  Jiyong me present gave = Jiyong gave me a
  present.
Neo Jiyongi hantae seonmul chosseo.  You Jiyong to (postposition) present
  gave. = You gave a present to Jiyong.
Neo Jiyongi seonmul isseo.  You Jiyong's present exist/have. = You have
  Jiyong's present.

Grr.  I'm going to shut up now before I dig myself in deeper.

> >I'm not sure what's meant by a long-distance anaphor.  How is "I wish
> >John gave myself a present" different from "I wish John gave me a
> >present"?  <hoping for enlightenment>  Do you have a Japanese example I
> >could look at?
>
> Anaphors in English have to have an antecedent in the same clause.  "I wish
> John gave myself a present" is weird; "I wish John gave me a present" is
> okay, because a regular pronoun does not need an antecedent (in fact, may
> not have one in the same clause).  Another thing, is that anaphors in
> English may refer to any grammatical role, as in "Peter gave John a picture
> of himself" -- "himself" refers to either "Peter" or "John"; same clause
> different grammatical roles.
>
> On to Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.  Anaphors in these languages do not
> have to have  an antecedent in the same clause, but can if they want
> to.  On the other hand, their anaphors may only refer to a subject.
Weirdness.

> Japanese:
> Taroo-ga Michi-ni Hitomi-ga zibun-o suite-iro-to itta
> Taro-NOM Michi-DAT Hitomi-NOM self-ACC liking-is-that said
> 'Taro said to Michi that Hitomi likes self'  (self = Taro or self = Hitomi,
> NOT self = Michi)
>
> Note that if we treated all the people as males and said in English "Taro
> said to Michi that Hitomi likes himself", "himself" could only refer to
> "Hitomi" none of the other two.  Quite different from Japanese.
...which would sound really odd since Hitomi is (if I understand
correctly) a girl's name?  <G>

> Korean (my only example of anaphors in the language):
> Chelswu-nun nay-ka casin-ul sarangha-n-ta-ko sayngkakha-n-ta
> Chelswu-TOP I-NOM self-ACC love-PRES-DECL-COMP think-PRES-DECL
> 'Chelswu thinks I like self.' (self = I)
>
> I understand (but don't have an example of it) that if you replaced
> "nay-ka" with someone else's name, then "casin-ul" could refer to either
> person.
<parsing>  Hmm.  (The above looks like Yale transcription,
am I right?  I usually use McCune-Reischauer since that's what all the
darn subway sign transliterations use in Seoul.)

Chelswunun Sunika casinul saranghantako sayngakhanta.

<thinking>  Could it?  I read this sentence as saying "Chelswu thinks
Suni likes him."  Because -nun tells me that Chelswu is the one doing the
thinking.  You might have to change casin-ul to casin-un or switch the
particles on Chelswu and Suni, e.g.
Suni-nun Chelswu-ka casin-ul saranghantako sayngakhanta
means to me "Suni thinks Chelswu loves her."

<tearing out hair>  I just don't know enough Korean grammar.

> ObConlang:
> Telek anaphors are prefixes on the verb rather than free standing
> words.  They are like Chinese in that they may refer to any previous
> subject in the sentence, regardless of whether or not they appear in the
> same clause.  They may not refer to any non-subject.  Also, Telek has the
> "Blocking Effect" -- the anaphor can only refer to a subject if that
> subject is in the same grammatical person (and gender) as the closest
> subject.  Actually, an anaphor may occur as the subject of an embedded
> clause.  This would be the equivalent of saying "John thinks himself is
> goodlooking."
<blink>  Neat!  I'm still trying to figure out anaphors, period, let
alone devise them.  =^)

YHL