Positional Verbs in Nen

Proceeding • International Conference of Indonesian linguistic society, 2018

This paper explores the functions of the directionals in the Dela language of Eastern Indonesia: neu ‘3SG.go, motion away from speaker’, nema ‘3SG.come, motion towards the speaker’ and n-eti ‘3SG.go, motion away from the speaker and motion towards addressee’. First, this paper gives an overview of the semantics and typology of the directionals. It then describes the directionals as main verbs and as verbs in serial verb constructions (SVCs). Each of the directionals can head a predicate, and thus can function as main verb. The directionals are also found in SVCs as the V1 or V2 of the serialisation. Typically, they indicate the direction of the action referred to by the main verb. The paper also discusses the function of the directionals as deictic particles and a verbal preposition. Each of the directionals can function as a deictic particle indicating both the distance from or motion away from the speaker (neu), closeness to or motion towards the speaker (nema), and closeness to or motion towards the addressee (n-eti). However, only the directional neu can function as a verbal preposition expressing dative-benefactive and locative functions. Hence, there is a semantic extension of the use of neu. In addition, neu in this function is semantically bleached of its verbal meaning ‘movement away from speaker’ as it is also used even when the speaker is presented as the recipient. Semantic extension and bleaching are two mechanisms involved in grammaticalization. Therefore, this paper argues that the deictic particles and the verbal preposition are undergoing a grammaticalization process.

1999

2. 1.2 Nouns derived with derivational affixes 2.1 .3 Compound nouns 2.1.4 Reduplicated nouns 2.2 Pronouns 2.2.1 Personal pronouns 2.2.2 Isolative pronouns 2.2.3 Emphatic pronouns 19 2.2.4 Possessive pronouns and suffixes 10 2.2.5 Dual and trial forms 2.3 Verbs v vi Ta ble of contents 2.3.1 Verb nucleus 2.3.2 Subject-mode-tense particle 2.3.3 Other verbal clitics, prefixes and suffixes 2.3.4 Compound verbs 2.3.5 The irregular verb 'to say' to, ta, si 2.4 Adjectives 2.4. 1 Qualitative adjectives 2.4.2 Quantitative adjectives 2.5 Adverbs 2.5.1 Adverbs related to the definiteness/indefiniteness of action 2.5.2 Adverbs of manner 2.5.3 Adverbs of time 2.5.4 Adverbs of location 2.6 Intensifiers 2.7 Topicalisers 2.8 Deictics 2.8.1 Demonstrative pronouns 2.8.2 Demonstrative adverbs 2.9 Interrogatives 2.9. 1 The morpheme ai 'LIT ' 2.9.2 Interrogatives consisting of one morpheme 50 2.9.3 The interrogative kara 2.9.4 kara 'what' as second element 2.10 Conjunctions 2. 10.1 Coordinative conjunctions 52 2.10.2 Subordinative conjunctions 2.1 1 Postpositions 2.1 1.1 Postpositions consisting of one morpheme 2. 11.2 Postpositions composed of two morphemes 55 2.1 1.3 Postpositions formed with the possessive pronoun 55 2.1 1.4 Complex locative postpositions 56 2.12 Interjections 56 2. 13 Negation 57 2.13.1 The negation words asi 'not/no' and asigi(na) 'no/not' 57 2.13.2 The negation word dia 'not/no' 57 3 Phrases 59 3.1 Noun phrases 59 3.1.1 Possessives 59 3.1.2 Uses of demonstratives and adjectives 3.1.3 Coordinating the noun phrases 63 3.2 Adverb phrases 64 3.3 Adjective phrases 66 3.4 Verb phrases 67 4 Clauses 69 4.1 Nuclear structure

Special issue on lexical flexibility in Oceanic languages (E. van Lier ed.), 2017

In constrast with Nêlêmwa (Oceanic, New Caledonia) whose lexemes are most generally subcategorised as nouns or verbs and undergo category-changing derivations, in Amis (Formosan), roots are pervasively categorially neutral, yet they contain semantic features and instructions that allow or disallow combination with primary derivational affixes which specify their class and category. Lexical categories are expressed once roots are derived into morphosyntactic words and projected in a syntactic frame; they are then quite rigidly subcategorised as verbal, nominal or adjectival-modifying heads. Still, word forms display some functional flexibility; for instance, nouns and derived nouns, pronouns, numerals may be predicative in equative, ascriptive and focus constructions, simply by being in the syntactic position of the verb. Such functional flexibility is asymmetrical and does not apply to derived verb stems which must be nominalised to achieve argument function.

2013

Traditional Tiwi is a language isolate within the Australian language group, traditionally spoken on the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin. This language exhibits the most complex verb structure of any Australian language. Altogether there are 18 distinct verb slots; 14 prefixes and 4 suffixes. They encode subject, object and oblique arguments, they inflect for tense, aspect and mood, the location and direction of events with respect to the speaker, and the time of day that an event takes place. They also take prefixes and suffixes denoting associated motion, can be argument-raised by a causative or detransitivised by derivational morphology, and can take incorporated nominals, incorporated verbs, and incorporated comitative or privative arguments. Traditional Tiwi has not been adequately described. Previous descriptions are limited and do not cover verb morphology with enough detail. This thesis brings together previous descriptions, early recorded data, and adds newly collected data and findings to produce an updated description of the language, with special reference to the verb morphology. I focus in particular on two aspects of the verb morphology: agreement and incorporation. The Traditional Tiwi agreement system of inflecting verbs shows a high degree of complexity due to the interactions between subject, object and tense marking. I argue for the occurrence of an otherwise unreported phenomenon by which agreement affixes can shift between various controllers depending on the morphosyntactic context. Incorporation is also highly complex, as with other northern Australian languages that exhibit this feature. There are four distinct types of incorporation including verb incorporation, comitative and privative constructions, body part incorporation and regular nominal incorporation. I describe these with reference to incorporation phenomena in other Australian languages. Traditional Tiwi however, is no longer spoken; the last two speakers died in 2012. The majority of the data on which this thesis is based was collected with one of these two last speakers, and therefore represents possibly the last documentary linguistic record of this important language.

Bantu languages are generally regarded to be verb framing languages. Taking the example of Yeyi (R.41) it will be argued in this article that such a designation falls short of covering the many ways that are at disposal of a language to express motion and that it is premature to impose such concepts as verb-or satellite-framed into the study of motion events in Bantu languages. This article rests its case predominantly on the morphosemantic interaction of the verb and the distal marker -ka-. For the discussion of this issue the topics of semantic conflation in the verb, contextual framing of motion, and the syntactical integration of locative arguments are also touched upon.

1994

This thesis is a descriptive grammar of Motuna, a Non-Austronesian language spoken by several thousand people in the south-western part of Bougainville (called Siwai), Papua New Guinea. It belongs to the Buin Family of the Eastern Bougainville stock, in the Bougainville Phylum. This grammar is based on the analysis of narrative texts provided by four speakers of the standard Motuna. Motuna is a both head and dependent marking agglutinative language with complex morphology. Like most Non-Austronesian languages in Papua NewGuinea, it is verb final, and has medial and non-medial verbal categories. In addition, verbs have basic voice distinction between active and middle voices, and have extensive tense/aspect/mood categories. Nouns have six genders and are also classified by fifty-one classifiers. Chapter 1 discusses the typological characteristics, as well as the genetic relations and dialectal variations of Motuna. It also briefly summarises previous work done on this language, and provides the scope and data base of this thesis. Chapter 2 deals with phonetics, phonology and orthography. It includes an introduction to morphophonemics which will be discussed fully in later chapters, particularly in Chapter 4 (nouns), Chapter 8 (classifiers, numerals and the 'all' quantifier), and Chapter 13 (verbal morphology). Chapter 3 outlines the word-classes and the clausal syntax of this language. Chapters 4 -9 deal with the mopho-syntax of all the word classes except for verbs, participles and verbal nouns. Chapter 10 discusses the internal structure of the NP, and Chapter 11 possessive, kinship and other constructions. Chapter 12 outlines the morpho-syntax of verbs. I give a gist of verbal morphology in this chapter, so that readers may skip Chapter 13 which is a lengthy discussion of complicated verbal morphology. Chapter 14 discusses valency of verbs including valency-changing derivations (stimulative, causative, applicative and reciprocal). Chapter 15 deals with tense/aspect/mood. Chapter 16 deals with two word classes derived from verbs .,.--verbal nouns and participles. Chapter 17 discusses the interclausal relations in Motuna, mainly chaining of medial verbs and relative clauses. Finally, three narative texts of this language are provided in Appendix.

Journal of Language Contact, 2012

Gurindji Kriol and Light Warlpiri are two mixed languages spoken in northern Australia by Gurindji and Warlpiri people, respectively. Both languages are the outcome of the fusion of a contact variety of English (Kriol/Aboriginal English) with a traditional Australian Aboriginal language (Gurindji or Warlpiri). Th e end result is two languages which show remarkable structural similarity. In both mixed languages, pronouns, TMA auxiliaries and word order are derived from Kriol/Aboriginal English, and case-marking and other nominal morphology come from Gurindji or Warlpiri. Th ese structural similarities are not surprising given that the mixed languages are derived from typologically similar languages, Gurindji and Warlpiri (Ngumpin-Yapa, Pama-Nyungan), and share the Kriol/Aboriginal English component. Nonetheless, one of the more striking diff erences between the languages is the source of verbs. One third of the verbs in Gurindji Kriol is derived from Gurindji, whereas only seven verbs in Light Warlpiri are of Warlpiri origin. Additionally verbs of Gurindji origin in Gurindji Kriol are derived from coverbs, whereas the Warlpiri verbs in Light Warlpiri come from infl ecting verbs. In this paper we claim that this diff erence is due to diff erences in the complex verb structure of Gurindji and Warlpiri, and the manner in which these complex verbs have interacted with the verb structure of Kriol/English in the formation of the mixed languages.