Contrastive topics in Paraguayan Guaraní discourse

Tonhauser, Judith

doi:10.3765/salt.v22i0.2631

Cited by 48 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In (17b), the Guaraní word memby 'son' appears, but in 17c In (b), additionally, the Guaraní past morpheme akue doubles the Spanish preterit inflection -é. 29 Tonhauser (2013) analyzes katu as a contrastive topic marker.…”

Section: 4mentioning

confidence: 99%

Guaraní-Spanish Jopara Mixing in a Paraguayan Novel

Estigarribia

2015

J Lang Contact

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We study the highly idiosyncratic case of Paraguay, the only American nation where an indigenous language has survived as a majority language spoken by the non-indigenous population. Jopara is the name of the commonly used code that mixes Guaraní and Spanish. Characterizations of Jopara in the literature are inconclusive. Some authors call it a variety of Spanish, some a variety of Guaraní, others a new mixed language. The choice of one characterization over the other has important implications for the status of Guaraní vis-à-vis Spanish, especially for Paraguay’s educational and language planning. Here we analyze Jopara as it is represented in the novel Ramona Quebranto (rq-Jopara). We show that this written code is not a variety of either Spanish or Guaraní, nor a mixed language. Rather, it reflects properties of true code-switching. It displays both insertional and alternational characteristics (Muysken, 2000), as well as evidence of a composite matrix language (Myers-Scotton, 2002). We conclude by suggesting rq-Jopara fits best a “mixed lect” scenario (Backus, 2003) and discussing generalization to spoken Jopara.

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Section: 4mentioning

confidence: 99%

Guaraní-Spanish Jopara Mixing in a Paraguayan Novel

Estigarribia

2015

J Lang Contact

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“…A related challenge in cross‐linguistic comparison is illustrated with data on contrastive topics. Tonhauser () shows that Paraguayan Guaraní utterances with the clitic = katu are contrastive topic utterances but also they differ from their English counterparts (e.g. Roberts , Büring ) in the CG requirements.…”

Section: What Are Presuppositions?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“… China‐to= contrast A1sg‐go‐ prosp April‐in (Intended: I'm going to China in April.) (Tonhauser :275)…”

Section: What Are Presuppositions?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tonhauser () attributes this difference in the acceptability of the two utterances to a CG requirement: whereas the English utterances are not associated with such a requirement, Paraguayan Guaraní ones are associated with a non‐accommodatable one. This characterization predicts that the Guaraní utterance in (25‐BG) is acceptable only if the common ground contains information about a trip by B to a place other than China in a month other than April.…”

Section: What Are Presuppositions?mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Are ‘informative presuppositions’ presuppositions?

Tonhauser

2015

Language and Linguist. Compass

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Presuppositions are contents of utterances that must be mutually known by the interlocutors, i.e. the speaker and the addressees, in order for an utterance of a sentence with the presupposition trigger to be judged to be acceptable. However, a substantial subset of contents traditionally taken to be presuppositions does not exhibit this property and can instead be used to inform the addressee about the supposedly presuppositional content. Classical analyses of these so-called 'informative presuppositions' nevertheless assume that they are associated with a common ground requirement but one that can be accommodated. According to an alternative characterization, 'informative presuppositions' are not associated with a common ground requirement but are informative like Potts' conventional implicatures; such a characterization does not need to make reference to accommodation. The debate about the characterization of 'informative presuppositions' has been based almost exclusively on judgments about English provided by native speaker researchers. This paper explores how results from research with theoretically untrained speakers (including one-on-one elicitation and experiments) as well as corpus studies can bear on this debate. I argue that such results, though tenuous, support the alternative characterization at least for some 'informative presuppositions' and emphasize the merit of bringing data collected through a wide range of methodologies to bear on theoretical research on meaning.

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“…The examples are glossed according to the Leipzig glossing conventions. The following additional glosses are used: A/B = set A/B cross-reference marker, CONTRAST = contrastive topic(Tonhauser 2012), DES = desiderative modal, MUST = necessity modal, -PE = marker of theme, spatial, or temporal arguments/adjuncts(Shain and Tonhauser 2011), pron.AG/NAG = agent argument / non-agent argument pronoun, PROSP = prospective aspect/modal(Tonhauser 2011), -REHE = object marker, 'at'. ) are unacceptable because Paraguayan Guaraní implicit arguments cannot be informationstructurally prominent, as mentioned in Section 2.2 (see alsoTonhauser 2017).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Interpretation of Implicit Arguments in Paraguayan Guaraní

Tonhauser

2022

Languages

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Paraguayan Guaraní allows for implicit arguments, that is, arguments that are neither cross-referenced on the verb nor realized by an independent noun phrase. Building on prior description of the distribution of implicit arguments in the language, this paper describes the interpretations such arguments can receive. Specifically, the paper shows that implicit arguments in Paraguayan Guaraní can receive elided and existential interpretations, in addition to the anaphoric interpretation described in prior work.

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Contrastive topics in Paraguayan Guaraní discourse

Cited by 48 publications

References 13 publications

Guaraní-Spanish Jopara Mixing in a Paraguayan Novel

Guaraní-Spanish Jopara Mixing in a Paraguayan Novel

Are ‘informative presuppositions’ presuppositions?

The Interpretation of Implicit Arguments in Paraguayan Guaraní

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