chapter ten

Indefinite proforms

10.1 Definition and Introduction

Indefinite proforms are words that are used to refer to non-identifiable referents. There are thirteen indefinite proforms in Atong. They have different syntactic and morphological properties. All proforms are listed in Table 47 and will be treated separately below.

10.2 The Indefinite Proform je ‘any, whichever, whatever’

The indefinite proform je ‘any, whichever, whatever’ modifies postposed nouns with any semantic role, e.g. (251). It has a genitive-marked form je=mi ~ je=məŋ (any=gen) with a more restricted use. This genitive form only appears before locative-marked nouns indicating a unit of time and the word somay ‘time’, e.g. (252). As we can see in (253) the other attested form modifying locative time nouns is the identity-marked form.

Table 47 List of indefinite proforms Section Proform Label of parts Gloss 10.2 je1 opaque ‘any, whichever, whatever’ je=mi ~ je=məŋ any=gen ‘any’ followed by a time noun in the locative 10.3 je=saŋ=ba any=mob=indf ‘to wherever’ je=ci=ba any=loc=indf ‘anywhere, wherever’ je-səkən any-quantity ‘however much/many’ 10.4 caŋ=ba who=indf ‘someone’ atoŋ=ba what=indf ‘something’ bi=ci=ba qf=loc=indf ‘somewhere, sometimes’ bi=saŋ=ba qf=mob=indf ‘to somewhere’ bi=mi=ba ~ bi=məŋ=ba qf=gen=indf ‘from somewhere’ 10.5 caŋ=gaba who=attr ‘whoever’ 10.6 daraŋ=ba people=indf ‘anybody, nobody, whoever’ 10.7 gumuk=saŋ all=mob ‘everywhere’

1 This word may have an Indic origin: cf the Hindi relative and indefinite pronoun जे/je/ ‘the one who, which; whichever, whatever, whoever’. indefinite proforms 173

(251) haʔcək soŋgumukdo məkha badri noaria je raŋawba. haʔcək soŋ =gumuk =do məkha Badri no =ari =a Garo village =all =top long.havy.rain say =simp =cust je raŋ =aw =ba any rain =acc =indf ‘Really all the Garo villages just say məkha Badri to any rain.’

(252) jemi sanci dibaŋkoŋdaŋaw matsa kakok. je =mi san =ci dibaŋkoŋdaŋ =aw matsa kak =ok any =gen day =loc dibangkongdang =acc tiger bite =asp ‘On a certain day, Dibangkongdang was bitten by a tiger.’

The only other operator enclitic that je has been recorded with is the focus enclitic <=an> (foc), which frequently assimilates its vowel to the indefinite article, or occurs as its post-vocalic allomorph <=n>. The resultant forms are jeen [jeεn] ~ jen [jεn], but the form jean also occurs, e.g. (253).

(253) jean sanci jada məŋʔsa nukokno. je =an san =ci jada məŋʔ sa nuk =ok =no any =foc day =loc idiot clf:humans one see =asp =quot ‘On a certain day he saw an idiot, it is said.’

There are both other proforms and adverbs derived opaquely and transparently from the morpheme je ‘any, whichever, whatever’. The derived adverbs are listed in Table 58. The derived proforms are mobilitative, locational and quantifica- tional, and will be discussed separately below.

10.3 Derivations from je ‘any, whichever, whatever’

The indefinite proform je=saŋ=ba (any=mob=indf) ‘to wherever’ replaces a Direction adjunct, e.g. example (254), which comes from Text 3, line 26.

(254) kamalnado jesaŋba walduk sandukba rəkarini, khurutna. kamal =na =do je =saŋ =ba wal -duk san duk =ba priest =goal =top any =mob =indf night -? day -? =add rək =ari =ni khurut =na chase =simp =unc perform.an.incantation =goal ‘People will search anywhere for a priest, whether it is day or night, to perform an incantation.’

The indefinite locational proforms replaces a Location adjunct, e.g. (255).