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Putting Oral Narratives Into Writing – Experiences from a Language

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Putting Oral Narratives Into Writing – Experiences from a Language 1 Putting oral narratives into writing – experiences from a language documentation project in Bouganville, Papua New Guinea Ulrike Mosel, University of Kiel [email protected] August 2008 1. The setting: spoken in North-West Bougainville, Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guina, ca. 6000 speakers Genetic classification: Austronesian, Oceanic, Northwest Solomonic Nehan/North Bougainville (Ross 1988) Typology: nom./acc- language, verb-second language head-marking (Mosel with Thiesen 2007) Contact languages: Tok Pisin English Teop Literature Hymn book (printed in the 50’s, not available) primers (printed in the 80’s not available) Magum, E.H. et al. 2007 Amaa Vaahutate vaa Teapu (Teop Legends) 1 The Teop Language Corpus 1.1 The problem The main goal of language documentation is to record natural everyday discourse. Producing edited versions of indigenous oral narratives means: imposing the Western normative literate tradition on indigenous oral cultures, creating a new European style written genre (Foley 2003, Woodbury 2003). But if speakers of endangered languages want their legends be recorded and edited for the production of reading materials, who would deny such a request and argue that unwritten languages must be kept unwritten? 2 1.2 Previous research on written and spoken varieties of European languages Table 1: Spontaneous speech vs. written language Spontaneous speech Writing and editing limited planning ahead planning of constructions linear construction under real-time pressure reshaping of constructions without traces the 'add-on' strategy small quantity of information per phrase/clause (low lexical denisity) parataxis, more coordination, less subordination smaller range of vocabulary (Miller & Fernandez-Vest 2006) 1.3 Recommendations for the editors Do not imitate the style of the English stories. Keep as closely as possible to the original text as the author of the story is the story teller. Only remove hesitation phenomena and speech errors. Only make additions where absolutely necessary for the reader. 1.4 Workflow 1. recordings by linguists and native speakers 2. transcriptions by native speakers (by hand)1 checking of transcription by linguist discussion of transcriptions: linguist & native speakers writing up corrected transcription (by hand) 3. editing of the original transcriptions by native speakers (by hand) checking of the edition by linguist discussion of edition with editor 4. typing up transcriptions and editions in Germany by linguists 5. proof reading and minor revisions, independently done by two teachers discussion of changes with linguist 6. typing up the final versions in Germany by linguists 1.4 Size of the Teop Language Corpus The Teop Language Corpus: transcriptions of audio recordings (R) 119 667 words edited versions of transcriptions (E): 45 907 words Legends: 40 legends, 24 narrators, 2 editors, 2 teachers as proof readers and final editors Transcriptions of legends: 31,909 words, edited versions: 31,294 words 2. Lexical changes Replacement of loanwords: taem → vuri 'time', stori → vahutate 'story' Replacement of semantically empty words: nao 'go' > pita 'walk', hua 'paddle', naovo 'fly' 1 For security reasons we did not use computers in the field. 3 3 Four types of syntactic changes Table 2: Syntactic changes Strategy Syntactic change Elaboration addition of linguisitc units (words, phrases, clauses) Linkage of paratactic clauses 1.linkage by cross-clausal dependency without embedding (chained Tail-Head-Linkage, adjoined adverbial clauses) 2. integration by embedding (relative clause construction) 3. interlacing by raising in complement constructions Compression of paratactic clauses 1. serial verb constructions 2. nominalisations 3. ditransitive constructions Decompression resolution of complex constructions into paratactic constructions (compare Lehmann 1988) Oral narrative, [Mat. 1. 7-22R] Edited version [Mat. 1. 12-33E] 1. One day the woman asked, This pregnant woman asked (them) elaboration for a mango, 2. "Give me, please, a mango!" "Give me, please, a mango." 3. And the little children said, And the little children said, 4. "There is no mango, you must go "There is no mango, you must go elaboration yourself, you must go to the foot of the yourself to collect (mangoes) at the mango tree." foot of the mango tree." 5. And so the woman set off at dawn one It dawned, the woman went to the elaboration day and went. place where the mango tree stood to get a mango. 6. And walked very (hard) and walked A long walk she did, compression and walked and walked, 7. saw the foot of this mango tree, and eventually arrived at the foot of elaboration the mango tree. 8. the mango tree actually – the mango Having arrived at the mango tree, linkage tree – was bearing fruit. said, TAIL-HEAD "This is the mango tree at last (and) it is bearing fruit." 9. And started to throw, threw, no mango, Got a stick and threw at a mango, did elaboration not fall, 10. a second time, no mango, threw a second time, still no mango elaboration fell 11. a third time, and a mango fell down. threw a third time now, and a mango fell down. 12. Fell down now and rolled and rolled ... The mango fell, and rolled and rolled linkage ... TAIL-HEAD 4 Tail-Head Linkage: linkage by repetition of the predicate of the preceding clause with certain constraints on TAM marking and argument realisation; widely attested in Oceanic and Papuan languages (Dixon 1988:307, Mosel 1984: 124, Tieberger 2006:327f, Vries 2005) 4 Linkage of paratactic clauses 4.1 Cross-clausal dependency without embedding: Tail-head constructions (1) And (she) started to throw (a stick to make a mango fall down), (she) threw a stick, but there was not a mango, a second time, but there was not a mango, na vaakukan bata-na, a bai he kuu TAM third along-IMPF ART mango CONJ fall Kuu vai me paa mirin. fell now and TAM roll a third time, and a mango fell down. Fell down now and rolled. [Mat. 1.17-20R] Compare [Mat. 1. 31-33E] Addition of HEAD in E-version: (2a) Me paa vahuhu bona taonim a si iana. and TAM give.birth.to ART five ART DIM fish Me- a taonim a si iana bona vue and ART five ART DIM fish these particular na vaatii roho e te- a boon ... TAM put first 3SG PRÄP-ART mangroves ... 'And gave birth to five little fish. These five little fish she put in the mangroves.' [Ata. 1.1R] (2b) Me paa vahuhu bona taonim a si iana. and TAM give.birth ART five ART DIM fish Vaahuhu vakavara vai ri bari give.birth finish then OBJ:3PL them me paa varavihi ri bari komana boon ... and TAM hide OBJ:3PL them inside.the mangroves 'And gave birth to five little fish. Having given birth to them, hid them inside the mangroves.' [Ata. 1.1E] Addition of TAIL in E-version: (3a) Merau me Moogee paa hee bona bona kariapa. then and Monkey TAM give 4SG ART kariapa Me- paa an vakavara me- paa nao. and- TAM eat finished and- TAM go And Monkey gave him a kariapa fruit And finished eating and went. [Ter. 22.23R] (3b) Me Moogee paa hee habana koa bona bono peho vua karipa and Monkey TAM give again just 4SG ART one fruit kariapa me- paa an, an vakavara me paa nao vaha bana vaan teve . and TAM eat eat finished and- TAM go back again village his 'and Monkey again gave him a kariapa fruit and ate, finished eating and went back again to his village. [Ter. 1.18-21] 5 4.2 Cross-clausal dependency without embedding: adverbial clause construction (4a) Tabae enaa na tara tamuana nom ameam because 1SG TAM watch always IMPF 2PL.OBJ eam na hae nom a panasu. 2PL TAM board IMPF ART raft. 'Because I always watch you, you board the raft.' [San. 2.28E] (4b) Enaa na tara tamuana nom ameam 1SG TAM watch always IMPF 2PL.OBJ be- am hae nom a- maa panasu when 2PL board IMPF ART PL raft 'I always watch you when you board the raft.' [San. 2.14E] 4.3 Integration by embedding: relative clause construction (5a) Na potee nana bono rupi toa TAM be.like IMPF ART egg chicken kahi takopaa nana. TAM split.open IMPF '(It) looked like a chicken egg. (It) was going to split open.' [Iar. 2.53-54R] (5b) Paa pote-u bono rupi toa TAM be.like-TAM ART egg chicken to vahuusu vabooboha nana REL close hatch IMPF '(It) looked like a chicken egg that was close to hatching.' [Iar. 2.17E] 4.4 Interlacing by raising in complement constructions (6a) ... o re goe tea tara vahaa anaa. ... 3SG CONJ will.not COMPL see again 1 SG.OBJ 'then she will not see me again.' [Sha. 1.84R] (6b) ... eve re goe vahaa anaa tea tara. 3SG CONJ will.not again 1SG.OBJ COMPL see 'then she will not see me again' (lit. 'she will not me again to see') [Sha. 1.53R] 5 Compression of paratactic constructions 5.1 Fusion 1: paratactic consecutive construction > serial verb construction (7a) Enaa re nao namana, enaa re no rake e keara tenaa 1SG CONJ go ocean 1SG CONJ go search ART brother my 'I'll go to the ocean, so that I'll search for my brother.' [Sha. 1.111E] (7b) Enaa re naovo rakerake e keara tenaa. 1SG CONJ fly search ART brother my 'I'll fly (and) search for my brother.' [Sha. 1.111E] 6 5.2 Fusion 2: Paratactic construction > clausal nominalisation (8a) Mataa rakaha, ean paa veve usu vagorogoroho av- anaa. good very 2SG TAM search lice make.fall.asleep OBJ-TAM- 1SG.OBJ 'Thank you very much, you have searched lice (on my head and) made me fall asleep.' [Vae.
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