Hakan:
>Could anyone explain the terms "backgrounding" and "markedness"?
Maybe I can help. Markedness involves the degree of complexity of a phoneme.
[k] is just a plain ol' velar we see in almost any language but [k^] is a
velar plus palatalisation. The latter phoneme is more complex. Replace
"markedness" with "complexity". The sound [k^] in this case is more marked
than [k] and would therefore be less likely to be part of an affix than [k]
would.
Hmm. I presume that "backgrounding" is a phonological constraint on "little"
words, words that are less vital to a sentence than nouns or verbs (like
pre/post-positions, all affixes, articles, pronouns, demonstrative, etc).
Y'know, teensy words and affixes used over and over again, which don't carry
much or any meaning just on their own. These words are "prototypically
backgrounded" since these reusable morphemes need to be simple enough in
order to make speech as effortless as possible while still maintaining
understandability. Imagine having to pronounce a prefix like *kp?- over and
over again. Tiring isn't it? Not as tiring as a sleak prefix like *k-.
>"Less marked segments [are] playing a disproportionate role in >pronominal
>affix formation" - what does this mean?
In other words, it's less likely to see complex phonemes like an ejective
*k? or labiovelar *kW as part of an affix. We more usually see simpler
phonemes like *m, *n, *t or *k. Thus, since affixes have a relatively
smaller number of phonemes to choose from in comparison to full words, the
idea is that similarities in pronominal affixation between two seperate
languages or language groups may be more likely the product of chance and
coincidence rather than relatedness. Indeed, many geographically divergeant
and mutually unrelated languages appear to share common phonemes in
pronominal affixes and enclitics as though there is an underlying
relationship.
Try a fun little comparison between Nahuatl and Basque pronouns. Of course
we know that Nahuatl and Basque are very unrelated (or at least unrelated
within the last Ice Age and beyond).
My personal comment: Of course, this valid point about general language
tendencies can be taken to the extreme to simply dismiss external
relationships and long-range comparison altogether, labeling any connections
as coincidence no matter how strong and voluminous the evidence.
>"One important consequence of the facts presented in this paper >should be
>to raise a caveat regarding the use of pronouns and >pronominal affixes in
>long-range comparison. This paper calls into >question the assumption that
>parallels in personal pronouns must be >due to genetic inheritance if
>borrowing and chance resemblance are >ruled out. We must also consider the
>pragmatic effect of >backgrounding as suggested here."
So in other words, beware of people connecting two languages on the basis of
a couple of pronominal affixes or pronouns alone.
- gLeN
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