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

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.

>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?
I opened up a can of worms for myself, didn't I? :-)

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.

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.

Chinese:
Zhangsan renwei Lisi zhidao Wangwu xihuan ziji
Zhangsan think Lisi know Wangwu like self
'Zhangsan thinks Lisi knows Wangwu likes self' (self = Wangwu or self =
Zhangsan or self = Lisi)

I wish I had an example showing the Chinese anaphors must refer to a
subject.  I need to take better notes sometimes. :-)  Still, you can see
that the antecedent can be in any clause.

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.

I have this Korean sentence as an example of a "Blocking Effect" -- if the
two subjects are different persons (here third and first), then "self" can
only refer to the closer subject not the further.  If they are the same
person (both third, for example) "self" can refer to either one.  Chinese
works the same.

The standard caveat that the exact picture is far more complicated applies.

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."

===============================
Marcus Smith
AIM:  Anaakoot
"When you lose a language, it's like
dropping a bomb on a museum."
   -- Kenneth Hale
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