Biak Description of an Austronesian language of Papua Published by LOT phone: +31 30 253 6006 Janskerkhof 13 fax: +31 30 253 6000 3512 BL Utrecht e-mail: [email protected] The Netherlands http://wwwlot.let.uu.nl/ Cover illustration: kavasá canoe in the river of Wardo ISBN-10: 90-78328-10-X ISBN-13: 978-90-78328-10-0 NUR 632 Copyright © 2006: Wilco van den Heuvel. All rights reserved. VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT Biak Description of an Austronesian language of Papua ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad Doctor aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, op gezag van de rector magnificus prof.dr. L.M. Bouter, in het openbaar te verdedigen ten overstaan van de promotiecommissie van de faculteit der Letteren op maandag 9 oktober 2006 om 15.45 uur in het auditorium van de universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105 door Wilco van den Heuvel geboren te Sliedrecht promotor: prof.dr. L.J. de Vries copromotoren: prof.dr. H. Steinhauer dr. G.P. Reesink Faro karyer veve asusr aya fa veve rarwas wósnana, mankun vena wós inensya To all those who have shared with me the riches of their language Kepada semua yang telah berbagi dengan saya kekayaan bahasa mereka ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am grateful to the people and institutions that have supported me at the various stages of the research that has lead to this publication. The research of this book has been financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), whose grant (GW-350-70-003) is hereby gratefully acknowledged. I want to express my gratitude towards my promotor Lourens de Vries and my copromotors Ger Reesink and Hein Steinhauer. I would like to thank Lourens for always having time to talk over the things that needed to be discussed, be it questions with regard to content or questions with regard to the PhD-trajectory as a whole. I thank both Lourens and Robinia for their personal involvement throughout the years. I want to thank Ger for his careful reading of different versions of the book, and for his precise and detailed comments, which greatly improved the quality of this book. I thank Hein for his reading of the dissertation, and for his repeated insistence on consistency and accuracy. During my first visit to Biak, my wife and I first stayed with Chris Padwa and Martha Mansawan in town for a few months, and their house was always open for us whenever we came back from the village. I am very grateful for their hospitality and for their help at an initial stage of the research, when they helped us to learn local Malay and taught us the basic principles of Biak cultural practices. I thank Chris for his willingness to come over to the Netherlands and work with me for days on end, even though this must have been quite tiring for him. Chris ma Martha, kasumasa nabore! I thank Thomas Padwa for his transcription of the video recording. On my way to and from Biak, I usually stayed in Jakarta for a while to do some paperwork. I am very grateful to Uri Tadmor for his great help at this point, and for his great hospitality. Mbak Dani deserves a big thank you for her excellent meals. I also thank the other persons of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Jakarta for their help and encouragement. I am grateful to the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen for the materials that they provided, which were of great value to the research on space and deixis. It is sad that Timothius Yembise did not live to see the manuscript finished. Timo was my main informant in 2001 and 2002, and I remember with great respect his patience and his accurate help in the transcription of endless stories. He passed away in spring 2004. I would like to thank my other language helpers: Jafeth Ap, Pontinatus Womsiwor, Yoel Awak, and all others. I thank those who kindly provided me with narratives, jokes, explanations on different activities, with the richness of their language. I would like to say a big thank you to the inhabitants of the village Wardo for letting us be part of their community. We thank them for the house that was provided, for the pick nicks and the feasts organized for us. A special word of thanks to bapak dan mama desa di Wardo for their warm welcome, and to pendeta Hana Sahulata for sharing her house with us for almost half a year. In 2002, I stayed with Jakob Rumbewas and his wife Ruth Mandowen. I want to thank my 'Biak parents' for their good care. I am grateful for the food they prepared, the big room that they provided, the children that were around, for the good atmosphere in the house. It was special to be part of a Biak family. A word of thank also to mansar Mansnembra and insar Kaisiepo (mama Dolly), for introducing us into the village of Wardo and for regularly taking us from Biak town to the viii village or back. I would also like to thank them for the meals that they prepared and that we used at their pleasant lodging at the side of the river Wardo. I would like to thank the members of the reading comittee: Marian Klamer, Geert Booij, Pieter Muysken, Bernard Comrie and Piet van Reenen for reading through the manuscript. I especially want to thank Bernard Comrie for his comments on both form and content of the thesis, and for his valuable suggestions for the commercial edition. I thank Piet for his detailed comments on consistency in spelling. I have good memories of the time that Geert and I shared a room, which was a kind of novelty both for him and for me. I thank him for always being ready to discuss questions, and I am grateful for his valuable comments. I thank Marian and Reinout for the preparatory meeting we had at their house, where different colleagues shared their field work experiences and warned me of the horrors of 'the field'. Thanks also for the maps. I want to thank Pieter Muysken for the great opportunity that he offered me to take part in his project. There are many others that in some way or another contributed to this manuscript. In an initial stage of the research, I very much benefited from the advice given by sir Marei. Many thanks to my friend and colleague Nelleke Goudswaard for her interest in my work throughout the trajectory and for her careful reading of several chapters. I thank Frantichek, and Louise, and must say that it is a pity we could not meet more regularly. I thank Larry Hyman, Cecilia Odé, John Hajek and Miriam van Staden for their help. Many thanks too to Zacharias Sawor, who earlier was the main language helper for Hein Steinhauer, and was always willing to answer questions. Finally I would like to thank my wife Talitha; for accompanying me in 2001 – it was great to enjoy our stay in Wardo together; for letting me go alone in 2002, while we expected our first child, and for her warm support throughout the years. I am grateful to my parents for teaching me to enjoy the beauty of creation. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.................................................................................................vii ABBREVIATIONS.........................................................................................................xvii 1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................... 1 1.1 The setting and the speakers of the language............................................................. 2 1.2 Sociolinguistic overview............................................................................................ 5 1.2.1 The use of the language...................................................................................... 5 1.2.2 Dialect variation ................................................................................................. 6 1.3 Typological sketch, genetic classification, and relation to languages in the area..... 7 1.3.1 Typological sketch; summary of the book ......................................................... 7 1.3.2 Genetic classification ......................................................................................... 9 1.3.3 Relations to languages in the same area........................................................... 11 1.4 Fieldwork, corpus, aims and methodology .............................................................. 12 1.4.1 Fieldwork trips ................................................................................................. 12 1.4.2 Collection of the data and corpus ..................................................................... 13 1.4.3 Framework, aims and methodology................................................................. 16 1.5 Earlier literature in and on the Biak language.......................................................... 18 2 PHONOLOGY............................................................................................................... 21 2.1 Phonemic inventory.................................................................................................. 21 2.1.1 Consonants ....................................................................................................... 21 2.1.2 Vowels.............................................................................................................. 26 2.2 Intonational phrase: long vowels, final clusters and epenthesis............................... 27 2.2.1 Epenthesized e in words ending in a consonantal cluster ................................ 28 2.2.2 Epenthesized e in words ending in long vowel plus consonant ....................... 30 2.2.3 No trimoraic syllable at the end of intonational phrase ................................... 31 2.3 Approximants ..........................................................................................................