1/12/2012
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ICAL Bali 2012 <bali.ical2012@gmail.com>
ABSTRACT-Kaufman-D
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Daniel Kaufman <bahasawan@gmail.com>
To: bali.ical2012@gmail.com
Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 2:33 PM
Root classes and transitivity from PMP to South Sulawesi
It is currently believed that "Philippine type" morphosyntax is a
rather close reflection of what we would reconstruct as
Proto-Malayo-Polynesian morphosyntax. Although the last two decades
has seen groundbreaking progress in the reconstruction of the voice
and aspect system, little attention has been paid to the nature and
classification of roots in PMP. For instance, we still do not have a
clear picture of whether there were significant differences between
nominal, verbal and adjectival roots, and if so, whether verbal roots
could be divided into various valency classes. In this talk, I will
propose a general picture of what PMP root classes might have looked
like and trace their development into the general system we find today
in the South Sulawesi languages.
I focus here on the development of rigid classes for event denoting
roots in South Sulawesi languages where none appear to have existed
previously. For instance, in Tagalog, nearly all roots can take
"transitive" voices (e.g. patient voice *-en, locative voice *-an) as
well as the less transitive actor voice, e.g. t<um>akbo <AV>run 'to
run', takbu-hin run-PV 'to run (something, e.g. a race, a track). In
other words, event denoting roots are largely underspecified for
valency (Foley 2008). Contrastively, in Mamuju, a South Sulawesi
language, only ambitransitive roots, such as kande 'eat' can take
morphology associated with monovalent roots (e.g. k<um>ande) as well
as that associated with polyvalent roots (maŋ-kande ANTIPASS-eat,
na-kande 3S.ERG-eat). In most cases, the morphological potential of
roots is strictly delimited by their lexically determined valency.
This has profound consequences for the alignment system. In
particular, the South Sulawesi languages now have three defining
features of ergative alignment type which Philippine languages
categorically lack:
i. Transitive verbs do not bear a dedicated voice marker
(e.g. ku-kita=ko 1S.ERG-see=2S.ABS 'I see you')
i. Antipassive morphology is restricted to polyvalent stems
(e.g. mang-kita ANTIPASS-see, but *mang-dende ANTIPASS-run)
ii. Applicative morphology increases valency
We can conclude from this that it was changes on the root level which
led to the development of classical ergative languages from Philippine
type languages. Probing a bit deeper, I argue that it was the loss of
PMP case-marking and aspect morphology in a wide variety of Indonesian
languages that resulted in a new division of labor. Specifically,
roots now carry a large portion of the functional load previously
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1/12/2012
Gmail - ABSTRACT-Kaufman-D
borne by functional morphology.
ICAL Bali 2012 <bali.ical2012@gmail.com>
To: Daniel Kaufman <bahasawan@gmail.com>
Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 12:27 AM
Dear Daniel,
Thank you for your abstract submission for 12-ICAL.
Notification of acceptance for abstract will be in early February 2012.
If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to contact us.
On behalf of the 12-ICAL organisers,
Best regards,
-Wayan
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