Subject: summary of names of days

dear linguists , in the december 15 issue of linguist i posted a request for examples of deictic expressions for the names of days either side of " today " . here is the summary of what i obtained . the response was overwhelming - a total of 70 linguist subscribers sent replies . many , many thanks to all of you who contributed . quite a number of respondents supplied information on two or more languages . there was some duplication of languages , namely japanese , mandarin chinese , danish , french , german , russian and hindi . i now have examples of 48 languages , they are : anejom ( vanuatu ) , a = fee a = fee ( solomon is ) , azerbaijani turkish , basque , bauan ( standard fijian ) , brazilian portuguese , bulgarian , czech , danish , dutch , english , erromagan ( vanuatu ) , estonian , finnish , french , german , hausa , hawai ` ian , hindustani , ipili ( png ) , italian , japanese , kamhmu ? ( vietnam ) , ki - swahili , kope ( png ) , korean , lao / phasa iisaan , lenakel ( vanuatu ) , madarin chinese , malay , mauritian / seychelles creole , modern greek , modern hebrew , norwegian , polish , quechua , rumanian , russian , samoan , serbo - croatian , slovene , sulka ( png ) , swedish , taiwanese , thai , welsh . my original interest in collecting such deictic expressions stems from a general interest in symmetry in language and language systems . most languages exhibit a symmetry in the number of deictic expressions for diurnal units either side of " today " , however , some exhibit an asymmetry . c . s . levinson ( pragmatics , 1983 : 75 ) reports , " the amerindian language chinantec has four named days either side of today ; japanese has three days back from today , and two ahead ; hindi has the same word for yesterday and tomorrow . " ( levinson gleaned this information from : fillmore , c . j . ( 1975 ) . santa cruz lectures on deixis , 1971 . mimeo , indiana university linguistics club . ) i have not personally been able to get a hold of this the fillmore reference - living in the academically isolated south seas does have some drawbacks ! if any of you have a copy of this publication , i would be very interested in obtaining photocopies of the section on ` time deixis ' . of course , i will reimburse you for the cost of postage and photocopying . anyway , a symmetrical deictic system of diurnal units / spans seems to me logical , though i ' m not sure i can verbalise the reasons . the reported asymmetry in the japanese system seemed to me a bit odd . especially that the asymmetry was lop-sided towards the past ( see below for reasons ) . upon further examination , i discovered that the japanese deictic system for diurnal units does seem to be symmetrical ; it has + 3 and - 3 either side of the present diurnal span . the expression ` siasatte / yanoasatte ' meaning + 3 days from " today " is not known to quite an number of native speakers of japanese . they appear to be used infrequently and ` yanoasatte and yaneasatte ' are considered to be dialectal ( at least in relation to the tokyo dialect ) . indeed , the lecturer in japanese in my department ( herself a native speaker of japanese ) was not aware of these expressions until she looked them up in her dictionary . another interesting consideration in all of this is the question as to the number of diurnal units before and after today that languages recognise . what is the maximum / minimum number of units ? also , what is the average number of units ( or most popular system ) ? answers to these questions ( based on my small sample ) below . one respondent asked the following very interesting question : " if you reach the level of , let 's say , 5 ( days after present diurnal span ) , does this also have the non-specific reading ` at some point in the not-to - far-away future ' in those languages ? " the only language in my small corpus that has + 5 and - 5 diurnal units in its system is erromangan ( vanuatu ) . i will have to ask my source for erromangan to answer this question . there is an inherent problem in determining the number expressions for diurnal units . this is determining whether the expressions are lexemes or phrases . many languages seem to have " lexicalised " ( for want of a better term ) prepositional / nominal phrases . other languages , like for example the english expression ` the day before yesterday ' , have retained the phrase structure . one respondent supplied me with a lengthy discussion on the lexeme / phrase issue . she cites the case of bulgarian ( i hope she won't mind my including her discussion here ) : [ begin quote ] bulgarian presents an [ interesting ] situation with regard to the phrase / lexeme issue because it does n't have a real nominal case paradigm : onzi den - 2 ( lit . " that / yonder day " ) vchera - 1 dnes 0 present diurnal span utre + 1 vdrugi den + 2 ( lit . " other day " ) so the same form ' pozavchera ' in bulgarian ( with stress on the penultimate syllable ; russian ' pozavchera ' has stress on the final syllable ) perhaps does n't look as strange because one would n't expect ' po ' to require any particular case ending . however , again we have what looks like a preposition with an adverb , which should not exist as a phrase . bulgarian " tomorrow " is ' utre ' . but " the day after tomorrow " is ' vdrugiden ' - - i . e . , the phrase ' v drugi den ' ( lit . " on ( the ) other day " , written without spaces in between the individual words . should this be considered a word simply on orthographic grounds , though ? is it a prepositional phrase or an adverb ? of course the boundary between prepositional phrases and adverbs is very fuzzy to begin with . bulgarian " the day before yesterday " , in contrast , is what looks like a noun phrase : ' onja den ' - - " that day " . no preposition ' v ' ( " on " ) here . so should this be considered just an np or a prepositional phrase ? ' onja den ' is used the same way as ' vdrugiden ' - - ' vidjax go onja den ' - - " i saw him [ on ] the day before yesterday " . it seems to me that what 's written as a noun phrase here is really an adverb , like ' vdrugiden ' or like russian ' pozavchera ' and ' poslezavtra ' , the only difference being that the other three adverbs are formed from prepositional phrases while ' onja den ' has no preposition . it would sound strange to call it a prepositional phrase , because , unlike ' vdrugiden ' , it contains no preposition . so i would call it an adverbial phrase . ( time expressions in slavic languages are commonly in the accusative , and that may be the origin of ' onja den ' , but since modern bulgarian has lost its nominal case paradigm for the most part this makes it harder to determine the status of phrases like this one . ( cf . russian ' kazhduju nedelju ' ( " each - acc week - acc " ) , which means " every week " in an adverbial sense . ) bulgarian does n't have specific words for " the day before the day before yesterday " - - that would be , i think , ' v denja predi onja den ' ( " on the day before the day before yesterday " ) , but of course speakers would avoid that and just would say ' predi dva dena ' ( " two days ago " , lit . " before two days " ) . the same would be true for ' vdrugiden ' - - ' v denja sled vdrugiden ' is conceivably possible ( " on the day after the-day - after-tomorrow " ) , but speakers would say 's led dva dena ' ( " in / after two days " ) . so i think it may be very difficult here to draw a demarcation line here between the grammatical categories of words vs . phrases . [ end of quote ] quite a number of languages ( especially slavonic and germanic languages ) allow recursion of prepositions / prefixes to " add on " to the already existing deictic expressions . the extent to which this recursion can be practiced is limited only by pragmatic constraints . here are some nice examples : rumanian : ras-ras - ras-alaltaieri ( ? ) - 5 ras-ras - alaltaieri ( ? ) - 4 ras-alaltaieri - 3 alaltaieri - 2 ieri - 1 azi / astazi 0 present diurnal span miine + 1 poimiine + 2 ras-poimiine + 3 ras-ras - poimiine ( ? ) + 4 ras-ras - ras-poimiine ( ? ) + 5 etc . dutch : ( eer-eergisteren ) + 3 eergisteren + 2 gisteren - 1 vandaag 0 present diurnal span morgen + 1 overmorgen + 2 ( over-overmorgen ) + 3 danish : ( i for-forgars - 3 ) i forgars - 2 i gar - 1 i dag 0 present diurnal span i morgen + 1 i overmorgen + 2 ( i over-overmorgen + 3 the - 3 and + 3 forms are rather colloquial , but nevertheless perfectly idiomatic . further recursions of prefixes / prepositions are only used in jocular ways , and predominantly by children . finally , if you have read this far , you are about to be rewarded with a summary of the data i have at this point . number of diurnal units either side of " today " : symmetrical deictic systems - 1 0 + 1 no examples - 2 - 1 0 + 1 + 2 23 examples - 3 - 2 - 1 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 14 examples - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 3 examples - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 1 example - erromangan ( vanuatu ) asymmetrical deictic systems - 2 - 1 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 3 examples - 2 - 1 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 1 example - malay - 2 - 1 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 1 example - hausa - 3 - 2 - 1 0 + 1 + 2 1 example - colloquial spanish ( southern spain ) it 's interesting to note that no language in the sample employs the - 1 0 + 1 system . and the majority of asymmetrical systems are lop-sided towards the + side of the present diurnal span . why this should be so , i do n't know . however , this sample is very small and perhaps a larger sample would show no such lop-sidedness towards the + " today " side . are the languages that show a lop-sidedness in a state of change ? most languages have a symmetrical vowel system e . g . the same number of front vowels as back vowels . however , there are quite a number of languages with asymmetrical vowel systems . what lies behind this asymmetry ? the answer to this question may lie in the following scenario [ from : crowley , t . ( 1992 ) an introduction to historical linguistics , oup , pp . 200-201 ] suppose that in a language with a nice symmetrical five vowel system : i u e o a the vowel / e / beocomes raised towards / i / and ultimately merges merges with / i / . the resulting asymmetrical system : i u o a will put structural pressure on the system , and , in time , it would not be surprising to see / o / merging with / u / . if a system becomes asymmetrical ( or uneven ) so as to create some sort of ` gap ' , then a change is likely to take place as a way of plugging that ` gap ' , thereby re-establishing an even ( or symmetrical ) system . if this is indeed a natural process in phonological systems , perhaps analogous processes occur in other systems , like temporal deictic systems . a language with an asymmetrical temporal deictic system may be in the process of historical change and the ` gap ' plugged in due time . japanese may be a language that is in the process of losing its + 3 deictic term . if this is indeed the case , it would be interesting to see whether , in due course , this " imbalance " is " balanced " again by the loss of its - 3 deictic term . i do n't know how valid any of this is , i ' m just speculating . anyway , back to symmetry . the most symmetrical system of all is that found in hindi : tarso - 4 narso - 3 parso - 2 kal - 1 aaj 0 present diurnal span kal ( bihaan ) + 1 parso + 2 narso + 3 tarso + 4 where there are not only an equal number expressions for diurnal units either side of " today " , but the expressions on either side are the same . distinction between " before today " and " after today " is made through use of past or future tense of the verb . in looking at a language 's temporal deictic system i guess we must not fail to take account of a number of important linguistic / cultural aspects . among these would be : * the culture 's view of time . is it a linear view or a cyclical view ? * the language 's tense / aspect systems . * the historical development of its deictic expressions in short , we can't study deictics in isolation . we must look at how it meshes grammatically with the language . i would be very interested in any of your views on the reasons for symmetry and asymmetry we find in this area of deixis . also , if you are interested in adding to my list of languages , i 'd be very grateful to receive your contribution . thanks again to all those generous people who sent me so much interesting data and opinions . yours today , tomorrow and . . . jan tent department of literature and language school of humanities the university of the south pacific p . o . box 1168 suva fiji tel : ( 679 ) 313900 ext . 2263 fax : ( 679 ) 305053 e - mail : tent _ j @ usp . ac . fj = 09
