Directional Verbs in Vaeakau-Taumako

This chapter describes salient characteristics of Balinese, Sasak, and Sumbawa, the languages that form a distinct subgroup within Malayo-Polynesian, called “Bali-Sasak-Sumbawa” (BSS) (Esser 1938, Dyen 1965, 1982, Mbete 1990). In terms of their voice systems characterising Austronesian (AN) languages (cf. Himmelmann 2005), BSS languages show a continuum: from clear symmetrical voice morphosyntax and sporadic person marking in Balinese to Sumbawa with its lack of voice system, but pervasive person indexing on verbs. Sasak dialects show properties in between the two, with certain dialects exhibiting various degrees of attrition in Austronesian voice morphology and the emergence of argument/person indexing. For example, NN-Sasak is more like Balinese in showing verbal morphological marking for its AV-UV opposition whereas MM-Sasak is more like Sumbawa in lacking such verbal voice opposition. In terms of other morphosyntactic properties characterizing AN languages, the BSS languages share the following same typological features: post-posed possessors, no alienable/inalienable distinction, negators in pre-predicate position, and V-initial or SVX, rather than V-second of V-final, constituent order. On a broader note, the varying degrees of attrition and disappearance of AV voice morphology in certain dialects of Sasak and a total loss of it in Sumbawa clearly indicates that Lombok and Sumbawa are transitional zones towards a full-fledged subject (S/A) person marking/indexing system as typically found in the Austronesian languages of Sumba in eastern Indonesia. In terms of their clausal and phrasal syntax, the BSS languages are head-initial; e.g. preposition instead of postposition, VO instead of OV, the noun head preceding modifiers, the auxiliary (expressing TAM information) occurring before the main verb. They exhibit grammatical relations with robust morphosyntactic evidence for syntactic PIVOT/SUBJ, particularly in Balinese and NN-Sasak. All BSS languages are not case-marking languages. Yet, the distinction between core and non-core or Oblique arguments is typically clear: core arguments, which include intransitive subject, the agent-like argument, and the patient-like argument, occur in unmarked form (i.e. bare NP). On the other hand, non-cores or obliques, which typically express peripheral semantic roles, such as locations or instruments, appear with prepositional flagging. Alternations of argument status can therefore be assessed through this flagging, which also often correlate with verbal marking, such as the presence of applicative (transitivising) morphology. While this discussion has provided a succinct overview of BSS languages at various linguistic interfaces, there are many areas that would benefit from additional research. For instance, it remains unclear whether similar bare stems like lalo ‘go’ in Sasak and Sumbawa, and teri? ‘come’ in Sasak / teri’ in Sumbawa are indeed verbs; or whether the bound roots such as -rari ‘run’ in Sasak and Sumbawa are also verbs, or precategories. Thus, similar research to Clynes (2010) and Mistica et al (2010) is needed in Sasak and Sumbawa to settle the issue on roots and word classes in these two languages. Further, while Sumbawa has types of serial verb constructions as seen in Balinese, more research is needed to uncover their properties and distinguish them from ordinary bi-clausal coordination/subordination structures. Finally, the distinction of finite clauses is well studied in Balinese (Natarina 2018), but could benefit from additional investigation and comparative analysis in Sasak and Sumbawa.

Oceanic Linguistics, 1988

2007

This paper describes verb root serialization as a highly productive component of the verbal semantics and morphology of Kotiria (Wanano) and Waikhana (Piratapuyo), * two closely related languages in the Eastern Tukanoan (ET) family spoken in the Vaupes river basin. It begins with a brief overview of the previous analyses of serial verb constructions (SVCs) in ET languages and their defining syntactic and phonological features. It then describes the semantics of the most common serialization patterns occurring in these two languages and proposes a general typology that includes 'causeeffect' serializations ( §2); serializations that function to express adverbial ( §3), aspectual ( §4), and modal ( §5) information in SVCs with activity verbs as heads; and serializations coding intensification and change of state in SVCs with stative verbs as heads ( §6). §7 demonstrates how SVCs contrast with other types of multiple-verb constructions, such as verb sequences and constructions involving subordination.

Language and Linguistics

Although morphological innovations are usually regarded as important in reconstructing the histories of language families, relatively little attention has been paid to the reconstruction of Proto Austronesian (PAn) verbal morphology, and this paper aims to take a step in this direction. Morphological classes of verbs have been reconstructed for several Formosan languages, and this paper offers a preliminary reconstruction of PAn verb classes, examines the challenges inherent in that reconstruction and offers tentative responses to them. The final section takes a brief look at how the reconstruction of PAn verb classes permits the establishment of morphological innovations and casts light on the subgrouping of Austronesian languages.

2020

In Polynesian languages, as in many other Oceanic languages, the linguistic expression of Source and Goal is mainly express by (i) demonstratives and directional modifiers, which combine deictic and spatial information (toward speaker, addressee or third person, upwards, downwards, transverse axe), (ii) locative static and dynamic prepositions (which may combine with body-part terms to introduce local and landmark nouns, or place names, and (iii) posture and motion verbs. We examine the occurrences of the Source and Goal prepositions on the one hand, and the directional modifiers on the other, taking into account their compatibilities, the spatial coding they convey, the position of the participants, and the verb meaning. In Polynesian languages, Goal and Source are of similar complexity, though in different ways, and a variety of resources can express fine-grained distinctions for Source vs. Goal depending on the position of the figure.

Oceanic Linguistics, 2015

This paper argues that the Äiwoo language of the Reef Islands shows what could be characterized as a symmetrical voice system with three voices: an actor voice, an undergoer voice, and a circumstantial voice. Although it differs from better-described symmetrical voice systems in lacking a syntactic pivot, the overall pattern of morphosyntactic alternations, as well as the discourse-pragmatic function, is essentially that of a symmetrical voice system. Moreover, the Äiwoo system combines the syntactic characteristics of a "Philippine-type" symmetrical voice system with the morphological characteristics of an "Indonesian-type" system in a way that appears to be unusual. This analysis, while confirming the status of the Reefs-Santa Cruz language group to which Äiwoo belongs as Austronesian, raises doubts about their current classification as Oceanic, since the symmetrical voice system of Proto-Austronesian is usually assumed to have been lost by the time of Proto-Oceanic. Alternatively, the analysis may be taken to imply that current reconstructions of Proto-Oceanic morphosyntax must be revised. Overall, it adds to the complex picture of voice and transitivity-related systems in Austronesian languages, and to the challenges involved in understanding their historical relationships. AV-take.out SPEC woman NPIV rice LOC sack for LOC child 'The woman will take some rice out of a/the sack for a/the child.' b. A-alis-in ng babae ang bigas sa sako para sa bata. DUR-take.out-PV GEN woman SPEC rice LOC sack for LOC child 'A/the woman will take the rice out of a/the sack for a/the child.' c. A-alis-an ng babae ng bigas ang sako para sa bata. DUR-take.out-LV GEN woman NPIV rice SPEC sack for LOC child 'A/the woman will take some rice out of the sack for a/the child.' d. Ipag-alis ng babae ng bigas sa sako ang bata. CV-take.out GEN woman NPIV rice LOC sack SPEC child 'A/the woman will take some rice out of a/the sack for the child.' (Schachter 1976:494-95; glosses from Ross 2002a:26) cally distinct; that is, they do not promote arguments with different semantic roles in the manner seen with Philippine-type undergoer voices. A symmetrical voice system has been reconstructed to Proto-Austronesian, on the basis that such systems occur synchronically both in several of the Formosan first-order subgroups and in the Malayo-Polynesian subgroup. However, it is generally accepted that the symmetrical voice system had been lost by the time Proto-Malayo-Polynesian developed into Proto-Oceanic, having developed into a system marking transitivity on verbs (Lynch, Ross, and Crowley 2002:61-62; Ross 2012). 3. CLAUSE ALTERNATIONS IN ÄIWOO 3.1 THE ÄIWOO LANGUAGE. The Äiwoo language is spoken in the Main Reef Islands, and in a number of settlements on nearby Santa Cruz Island, in Solomon Islands' Temotu Province. It belongs to the so-called Reefs-Santa Cruz language group, which was a source of considerable controversy in Oceanic linguistics for several decades. The languages were long thought to be of mixed genealogical origin-Austronesian with a Papuan substrate (see, for example, Wurm 1978, 1981, 1991)-but recent research has shown the arguments for the Papuan substrate to be flawed (Naess 2006; Naess and Boerger 2008), and Ross and Naess (2007) propose that the Reefs-Santa Cruz languages, together with the languages of the other major islands of Temotu, Utupua and Vanikoro, make up a first-order subgroup of Oceanic that they label "Temotu." This classification is based on a shared phonological innovation, the merger of POC *l and *r as *l, as well as a set of idiosyncratic innovations in individual lexical items. Moreover, Ross and Naess propose that Reefs-Santa Cruz forms a further subgroup within Temotu, and Utupua-Vanikoro languages form another subgroup; within the latter, they take Utupua to form a further subgroup, but find no evidence for a Vanikoro subgroup. However, François (2009) does present such evidence, and thus assumes Utupua-Vanikoro to split further into the Utupua and Vanikoro subgroups. It is clear that there are substantial differences, both lexically and structurally, between the Reefs-Santa Cruz languages, on the one hand, and the Vanikoro languages on the other. Very little information is available on the Utupua languages, but from what is known (Ray 1926; Tryon and Hackman 1983; Tryon 1994), they show far greater parallelisms with the Vanikoro languages than with Reefs-Santa Cruz. Indeed, the Utupua and Vanikoro languages have been recognized as Oceanic languages for as long as they have been known to linguists; by contrast, the striking structural properties of the Reefs-Santa Cruz languages were a major factor in their being classified as mixed Austronesian-Papuan. 3.2 A-VERBS vs. O-VERBS. Äiwoo has two basic clause types. The first shows basic SV/AVO word order and marks the S/A argument by prefixes on the verb (cf. table 1): (2) a. Toponu mo lâpu lâ ki-li-mo-le=to=wâ. turtle and rat DEIC:DIST IPFV-3AUG-stay-UA=CS=DEIC:DIST 'The turtle and the rat were staying together.' 'A man came and sat down on a chair.' Clearly, then, the addition of =Cä promotes a circumstantial participant to core status. Note also that the position of the promoted argument 'chair' in (23a) is preverbal, like the A of A-verbs and the O of O-verbs. The motivation behind the use of =Cä appears linked to the notion of prominence, like that of the A-verb/O-verb distinction discussed in 3.3. In (23a), the chair is clearly the most prominent participant; the A of the initial clause has generic reference, as indicated by the prefix li-, 10 and the focus of attention is on chairs and their function. Consider further the following pair of examples with the verb mei 'sleep'. In (24a), the topic of discussion is where the protagonists will sleep, and the verb is unmarked; the location is represented in the clause by the oblique proform ngämi (cf. example [22]). In (24b), on 10. The generic-agent prefix li-is homophonous with, and clearly diachronically related to, the 3AUG S/A prefix li-. However, it shows a different distribution: it occurs on O-verbs as well as A-verbs, and is retained when the verb takes =Cä.

Many Austronesian languages exhibit a type of verbal inflection known as ‘voice’ or ‘focus,’ which, in a descriptive sense, tracks the grammatical role of the topic or relativized phrase of a given clause. New comparative data reveals that such affixal alternations are best analyzed as the morphological reflex of separate Agree operations targeting one and the same goal (topic/relativized phrase), demonstrating a feature of discourse configurationality (Li & Thompson 1976; Miyagawa 2010) and a case of parallel chain relations (Chomsky 2005) spelled out as verbal morphology. A similar type of portmanteau verbal inflections is found in western Nilotic and Caucasian, with four loci of variation attested:(a) the type of A-bar operation that triggers the verbal inflection,(b) number of voice distinctions (i.e. how many and which parallel chain relations are realized as verbal morphology), (c) presence or absence of φ-feature agreement with the goal, and (d) whether or not the goal undergoes overt A-bar movement. This observation from Austronesian and beyond suggests that φ-feature agreement with the goal is not the only available morphological means for indexing abstract Agree relations in narrow syntax, and that what is known as Austronesian-style voice or wh-agreement constitutes an understudied type of agreement morphology that serves a similar purpose.

2023

The Austronesian voice system (AVS) is among the most typologically intriguing and well-studied phenomena in syntax. Previous diachronic accounts have used the comparative method to argue that either the voice function or the nominalization function of the voice affixes should be reconstructed to Proto-Austronesian (PAn). We propose an alternative path of development using internal reconstruction as a primary methodological tool. First, we reconstruct both the voice and nominalization functions to PAn. We then argue that the non-active voice affixes originated in Pre-PAn as prepositions, which were incorporated into the verb complex as postverbs; the nominalizing function, on the other hand, arose through an inter-stage with compounds. This proposal accounts for a number of properties of AVS, including the prominence of arguments promoted to subject position and the subject-only restriction, and is supported by a typological parallel in Dinka. Finally, we discuss methodological issues in reconstructing typologically unusual morphosyntactic phenomena.