Rome

Unless I crumble from all the work dropped on me this morning, I'll be flying to Rome later this afternoon to attend the 2009 SBL International Meeting. I'll be presenting a paper which has very little to do with linguistics, so, um, you know, here it is (UPDATED) and here's the handout (UPDATED), just in case anybody is interested. It's all very beta, so comments are welcome.

shm-

Damned if I know how, but earlier today, I ended up at the Wikipedia entry dedicated to the shm-reduplication and I was glad to see that it had been expanded considerably since the last time I checked it out. Among other things, the section on origin now cites a paper by Ghil'ad Zuckermann who points out a similar phenomenon in Turkish, the prefix m-, which conveys the meaning of "x and similar things". And that's when it hit me: "ketáb-metáb"! Jiří Osvald's Teheránská hovorová perština (Colloquial Persian of Tehran), one of the thin yet excellent language textbooks published in the 1960s through 1980s by Nový Orient, also briefly mentions this very phenomenon. I'm reproducing the chapter in question in full (note the typically tehruni "nīss" instead of "nīst"):

§ 106 - Ketáb metáb
Opakováním slova se změnou počáteční souhlásky na m se vyjadřuje "něco takového, podobného."
Ketáb metáb nadárín? - Nemáte něco na čtení? (knížku nebo něco takového)
Púl múl mohem níss. - Nejedná se o peníze.


§ 106 - Ketāb metāb
Repeating a word while changing the initial consonant to m expresses the notion of "something like that, something similar."
Ketāb metāb nadārīn? - Wouldn't you happen to have something to read? (a book or something like that)
Pūl mūl mohem nīss. - It's not about money.

So there. Any guess as to which was first, Persian or Turkish?

UPDATE: In the comments below, Etienne provides some more examples from Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages (thx m8!). I'll just add two Google books hits, the first of which addresses the Dravidian part and the second one provides an extensive treatment of the shm- reduplication in Yiddish and English and similar echo phenomena in languages from Slavic through Turkic all the way to South Asia. Looks like someone has already written that thesis and it's a pretty cool one.

reduplication

I don't know how well your average US movie trailer represents spoken North American English, but I found it rather striking that this particular trailer contained not one, but two examples of contrastive focus reduplication in the space of 40 seconds. The first one is a classic:

00:43-00:46
- You like her?
- Yes.
- You LIKE-HER-like-her?

It's the second one, spoken by the lovely and talented Zooey Deschanel, that stands out:

01:20-01:22
- I got the baby.
- THE-BABY-the-baby?

According to Ghomeshi et al. referenced in the LanguageLog post above (preprint, section 3.4, p. 27), one of the constraints on contrastive reduplication (CR) is

(57) a. The scope of CR is either X⁰ or XP^min.

So if I got this right, in case of noun phrases, only minimal noun phrases (i.e. bare noun/pronoun) can be reduplicated and thus reduplication of a NP -> D N such as the one above should be impossible. And indeed, as Ghomeshi et al. elaborate:

Condition (57a) is violated in *A-LINGUIST-a linguist (cf. (47)): although the determiner is a grammatical morpheme, it is outside of NP^min, so it cannot be within the scope of CR.

The examples they refer to are

(47) a. Do you want [tu:] or WANT [tu:]-want [tu:]?
b. ? Do you wanna or WANNA-wanna?

(48) a. I wouldn’t DATE–date a linguist.
b. * I wouldn’t DATE-A–date-a linguist

and

(49) * I wouldn't date [CG A-LINGUIST]-[a linguist]

all from section 3.3 which deals with the optionality of some types of complements with some types of heads (e.g. pronouns or prepositions for verbs, PPs for adjectives). In comments to (47), they wonder if this optionality can be explained phonologically, i.e. those complements are considered clitics and they can, but don't have to be, included in CR. Long story short, citing Hayes' "clitic group" (CG in (49) - "a prosodic word plus the clitics to its right or left"), Ghomeshi et al. dismiss the idea of clitics being involved in CR, noting that (emphasis mine)

So in (48), date and a do not form a copyable clitic group, since a must belong to the same clitic group as linguist. However, Hayes’ definition of clitic group includes clitics on the left as well as the right, and these never reduplicate¹¹.

Hence the asterisk preceding (49) - whatever the phonological considerations in CR, clitics to the left of the prosodic word (such as determiners in NPs) are never a part of the duplicated phrase. Footnote 11 explains that the only exception to that rule are lexicalized proper names (The Hague) and gives the following example:

The casino isn't in THE-PAS-The-Pas, but in Opaskwayak.
(The reserve of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation includes land that is in the northern Manitoba town of The Pas, but not legally part of it.)

This example, however, does not appear in Kevin Russell's corpus and, more importantly, it doesn't explain Ms. Deschanel's reduplication.

Now I'm way in over my head here, so my first stupid question is whether the fact that "THE-BABY-the-baby" doesn't appear in a complete sentence is to any extent relevant. Judging by the examples of same type given by Ghomeshi et al. (e.g. 7, 8, 10, 11, 17), I don't think so, but what do I know. The bottom line seems to be that we have a real-life example of reduplication of a NP -> D N, something Ghomeshi et al. claim is not possible. Would you agree or did I miss something?

€

Now that the first working week of the new year is over, I think it is safe to say that Slovakia's transition to the new currency is going very well. I was a little late on board, making my first official euro purchase on Thursday (shoelaces, € 0.83) and making the first ATM withdrawal on Friday (€ 40), but even though I am arithmetically challenged, so far so good.

Unlike other nations - such as Malta - we were fortunate enough to avoid major linguistic issues associated with the adoption of the euro, but there are still some minor changes to consider. I, for one, rejoice at the thought of never having to decide again whether I should translate "slovenská koruna" as "Slovak crown" (which seems to have been the preferred form) or "Slovak koruna" (which sounds better to me). But that's just a minor point. As some, including this report in Pravda and this one in SME (originally by the Czech press agency ČTK), have pointed out, the real story is the changes which euro will mean for the slang terms for amounts, coins and banknotes:

desiatka/desík/desina = 10 (note the typical Bratislava suffix -ina normally used in standard Slovak to form fractions)
dvacka = 20 (but not dvacina)
pajdík = 50 (another typical Bratislava / Western Slovak formation)
kilo = 100
pětikilo = 500
liter = 1000
melón = 1 000 000 (melón also meaning, of course, "melon", especially "water melon")

But just what kind of changes should we expect? According to the Pravda editorial,

Slangové označenia peňazí ako desík, kilo, liter či melón odídu s korunou do zabudnutia. ... Liter stratí s eurom zmysel úplne. Tisíceurová bankovka totiž neexistuje, najvyššie papierové euro má hodnotu 500.

Slang terms designating money like desík, kilo, liter or melón will become obsolete. With the adoption of the euro, liter will vanish completely. There is no € 1000 note, the highest demonination is € 500.

Really? Does that mean that we will no longer count money in tens, hundreds, thousands or millions? I guess it would be absolutely futile to try to explain to a journalist that one single word can be used for an object, like a banknote, as well as a concept, like an amount. Martin Považaj, a linguist with the Slovak Academy of Sciences, did try to do so when talking to ČTK with questionable results:

"Je však možné, že niektoré z týchto slov zostanú, ale nadobudnú novú významovú náplň, to znamená, že číselná hodnota skrývajúca sa za týmito slovami zostane, ale bude sa už vzťahovať na eurá[.]"

"It is possible that some of these words will stay with us, but will acquire a new meaning, that is the numerical value behind the words will remain, but will refer to amounts in euro."

So according to Dr. Považaj, it is merely possible that with a change in extralinguistic reality, the language will follow suit. Whereas according to anybody else with a bit of understanding of language, it is, how should I put it, pretty fucking certain.
And then the author of the report helpfully adds:

Znamenalo by to, že tieto výrazy by vyjadrovali 30-krát väčšiu hodnotu, kilo by tak už napríklad nebolo 100 Sk (3,32 eura), ale sto eur (3013 Sk).

This would mean that these terms would be used for amounts 30 times higher that before, thus kilo would not mean 100 Sk (3.32 euro), but hundred euro (3013 Sk).

The fact that this needs to be spelled out astonishes me. I'm quite certain that this - together with Dr. Považaj's explanation above - is a statement to the view of Slovak as something rigid and immutable so prevalent in our society. If you want another example, just try the very next paragraph:

Slová ako päťeurovka alebo stoeurovka sa doteraz do slovníkov slovenského jazyka nedostali, podľa jazykovedcov sú však spisovné a využívajú sa v hovorovej neoficiálnej komunikácii.

Words like päťeurovka (5 € note) or stoeurovka (100 € note) have not yet been included in dictionaries of Slovak, but according to the linguists, these are standard terms which are used in spoken unofficial communication.

Two perfectly legit compounds made from two perfectly normal (and standard) words based on a long-used and perfectly standard terms (päťkorunáčka and stokorunáčka) and yet people still feel the need to ask the official body to please please pretty please validate their own words. This makes me glad we haven't had to deal with any serious linguistic issues. Although the following clusterfuck could have been pretty funny to watch...

And finally, there is the issue of the new slang term for euro. According to Mira Nábělková, a Czech linguist quoted by the SME/ČTK piece, terms like jurko, jurášky, juráše and juroše have been recorded on the internet, obviously combining the English pronunciation with Slovak suffixes. I can see why jurko (note the diminutive suffix -ko) would work, but since it happens to be the diminutive form of the name Juraj, I don't think it's very likely. As for jurášky, I only found one single occurrence, and that one insists it's a pronunciation used by speakers of English. There were a few ghits on juráše, but all of those were from websites in Czech and as for juroše, that one only appears in variations of this ČTK report. And to add one final insult, Dr. Nábělková immediately connects these imaginary slang terms for euro with Juraj Jánošík, i.e. the most stereotypical stereotype in the history of Slovak stereotypes. Even her other examples, the diminutives eurko (neuter), eurík (masculine) and eurka (feminine) seem fishy. A brief Google search quickly revealed that the feminine form is nothing of the kind, but rather Nominative plural of the neuter form (UPDATE: but only when written without diacritics, the proper plural form is eurká). Examples (the first three ghits):

1. ... na ktore mimochodom sa eurka uz vyfasovali ... (which, by the way, they already got euros for)
2. ... a nosi eurka za kazdy mliecny zubok ... (who brings euros for every milk tooth)
3. ... a ked majitelom Slovanu dojdu eurka ... (and when the proprietors of Slovan run out of euros)

From the final list of terms collected on the internet, eurčeky is another nonce formation, but euráče, euráky, euráčiky (another diminutive) and - much less common - euroše are in actual use with euráče being the most common, at least according to raw ghits (2460 vs. 116, 224 and 109). I guess only time will tell which one(s) will be left standing. But if you want to come back in a few months and find out, be sure not to rely on Pravda, SME or ČTK.

door

In what is just another episode of a long-running series, today I was once again forced to deal with medical professionals. That's usually bad enough - doctors routinely make the top of my shit list with nurses right behind. What made it worse is that instead of going to my usual place, a rather friendly clinic in a convenient location situated next to a lovely park especially beautiful this time of year, I had to drag myself over to this butt-ugly God-forsaken communist-era hospital complex on the outskirts of town. Long story short, I wasted about three hours, didn't even get to see the doctor and most likely caught something along the way. Not a good day, if you catch my drift. All would have been lost, had I not stumbled across this while I wandered the halls:


Bilingual (Slovak-English) and trilingual (Slovak-English-German) signs are not unusual in Bratislava - in fact, the aforementioned rather friendly clinic employs them routinely, considering the large number of foreign residents and Austrians who either live here or come here to get high-quality medical care (especially dental) at a very low cost. But this is the first time I've seen the ubiquitous (in hospitals and clinics, that is) "Don't knock" sign translated into Chinese. Why did this particular immunology clinic put up this sign, I don't know. Bratislava does have a relatively large Chinese community, yet somehow I doubt its members are particularly susceptible to alergies and autoimmune diseases, considering that this was the only door with a sign in Chinese.

Be that as it may, I naturally had to check if the Chinese was legit. Of the five characters 请不要敲门, I only recognized the negative particle 不 bù. The rest was supplied by various dictionaries:

• 请 [qǐng] = to ask, to invite, please
• 不 [bù] = (negative prefix), not, no
• 要 [yào] = important, to want, FUT AUX, may, must, OR
  
• 要 [yāo] = demand, ask, request, coerce
• 敲 [qiāo] = knock, to strike, to knock (at a door), to hit
• 门 [mén] = gate, door

Seeing as I get about 4000 hits when googling the phrase in quotes and Google Translate provides this very phrase as the translation of "Please don't knock", I suspect it's indeed proper Chinese. Please don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong. That would certainly be interesting, just consider Engrish. With China playing an ever increasing economic and political role on the global stage, Chinese is bound to increase in importance and stature and will inevitably be used by people as clueless about it as the authors of the many Engrish texts are about English. Is it possible that I have just witnessed the birth of Hanyish or perhaps Zhongwenish?