THE KEMALOH LUN BAWANG LANGUAGE OF BORNEO ADISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MANOA¯ IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LINGUISTICS ON 25 MARCH,ANNO DOMINI 2021 IN ANNUNTIATIONE B.M.V. By Christian John Mortensen Dissertation Committee: Robert Blust, Chairman William O’Grady Bradley McDonnell Gary Holton Ulrich Kozok J.M.J. Dedicatur opus hoc ad honorem Glorisissimæ et Beatæ semper Virginis Mariæ, Genetricis Domini et Dei nostri Jesu Christi, et per illam ad dilectissimum Filium illius, ad cujus gloriam dirigantur omnia verba mea atque opera manuum mearum. Quodcumque autem erratum inventum erit meæ culpæ solum imputetur. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Within Hawai‘i This dissertation was made possible by generous financial support from the Bilinski Foundation: three small grants funded a combined total of six months of fieldwork over three summers from 2017–9, with the writing funded by a much larger fellowship from fall 2020 to spring 2021. Thanks are due, too, to a large number of individuals within the University of Hawai‘i for their contributions, whether proximate or remote, to the dissertation. Enumerating every single contri- bution would be tedious, perhaps impossible, so I limit myself here to a few persons of especial significance. In the first place are the members of my dissertation committee, foremost Robert Blust, the chairman. From even before our very first face-to-face meeting, Bob tried hard to con- vince me to come to Hawai‘i, and once I did, he helped with my work in every way possible, from sharing decades-old field notes to exchanging Borneo stories and spending hours combing through earlier drafts of this and other writings. Also deserving of mention are the other members: William O’Grady, for numerous productive conversations on morphosyntax, especially symmetrical voice, and academia in general; Gary Holton, for a semester-long lesson on how not to write a grammar, as well as suggesting a method for converting my raw, MS Word-based Lun Bawang dictionary files into a much more usable homemade database; Bradley McDonnell, who joined the committee about 24 hours before (and therefore saved) my proposal defense when another member had to withdraw unexpectedly; and Ulrich Kozok, who taught me to speak Indonesian. In that last regard, thanks are also due to Ruri Ariati and Emma Ronsumbre. Although not affiliated with UH, Jay Crain, retired from California State University, Sacra- mento’s Department of Anthropology and Asian Studies, deserves a mention and thanks here for sharing with me the aforementioned raw MS Word files for an edited version of the Lun Bawang dictionary, copiously cited herein as Ganang et al. (2008). i Thanks are further due to Alexander Smith, formerly also of UH linguistics, for suggesting fieldwork on Borneo, providing valuable advice before my first trip, setting me up with Gerawat (for whom see below), and exchanging notes from time to time. I must also mention Peter Schuelke, who introduced me to Austronesian voice, and Victoria Chen, for many a discussion thereon. Thanks in particular to Daniel Lin for many reasons, foremost among them providing refuge during the writing of this dissertation when I was forced to temporarily flee my home. Among the many people I have known in my non-academic life who have notably improved the quality of my time in Honolulu, some of the most deserving of thanks include, in no particular order, Albien and Faye, Jammy, Kiele, Suzanne, Makena, Dominic and Isabella, Marilu, Brian, Sean and Robin, the Benson and Cortes families, Fr. Rhone Lillard, Fr. Richard McNally, Fr. Christopher Keahi, Fr. Steve Nguyen, and the anonymous co-founder and only other member of the Tuesday Confraternity of Concerned Gentlemen, the most refined and sophisticated amateur bowling league the island of O‘ahu has ever seen. On Borneo Far too many people on Borneo were involved in or had contact with this work in some fashion to name each one. Lest the acknowledgements become a chapter in its own right, I limit myself to a few of the most important figures, in approximate order of acquaintance. Gerawat Nulun Tuan, the only non-Lun Bawang on this list, is a Kelabit from Bario, a UH alumnus, and Bob Blust’s first language consultant. Alex connected me with him in advance of my first trip to Borneo in summer 2017 and advised me to begin by flying to Bario to meet him. After a weekend in Miri, I boarded a DHC-6 Twin Otter and took off into the mountains. (“Why am I flying into the middle of nowhere with only a promise that a stranger will be waiting for me there? What if he doesn’t come?” I briefly wondered to myself in midair, as I looked out the window and saw only dense jungle without a single sign of human habitation.) Gerawat, who did indeed keep his promise, took me into his home for three days and introduced me to life in Borneo’s ii highlands, including the local cuisine, before sending me onward to Ba’ Kelalan and arranging for a rendezvous at the airport there. Donna Labo and Kim Hoskin: When I first arrived in Ba’ Kelalan, the first Lun Bawang settlement I visited en route to Long Semadoh, I was sent to Donna Labo’s homestay. That same morning, I was suddenly taken ill in a dramatic fashion, best left to the reader’s imagination, that rendered me utterly useless for about three days. Despite the regrettable circumstances of our first meeting, we got on splendidly, and Donna’s place has been my residence of choice whenever I pass through Ba’ Kelalan since then. I also had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Kim Hoskin, a British expatriate and Donna’s husband, who had served in the Border Scouts during the Malaysia- Indonesia confrontation. Kim was largely responsible for bringing me up to speed on relevant local and regional history and providing much interesting insight into the local communities. Patrick Tonny Lakai was one of my first acquaintances in Long Semadoh. He introduced me to the chief, Dennis Yahya Ating, who gave his approval to live and work in the area, and he also provided the first wordlists I collected during my first two weeks in Long Semadoh Rayeh. Balan Berauk: Meeting Balan was both an accident and perhaps the most important event of my first trip to Borneo. On the advice of Ukab Palong, of Long Semadoh Rayeh, I had walked downriver to the local primary school to attempt to meet the teachers. My timing was poor, and I found no success, but the guard out front, not confident in his English, flagged down Balan, who happened to be passing by on a motorcycle at that exact moment, and asked him to find out what I wanted. Once I explained, Balan immediately invited me to see his home village of Long Tanid, a short distance further downriver, and meet his family. After I met both his brother Pengiran and his parents, he offered to let me stay with him and to help however he could. I soon accepted, and the overwhelming majority of my notes from that summer, as well as many taken in the next two years, came from our evening chats on the veranda of his house, where we would sit and talk language either until I had exhausted my list of questions or until one of us became too tired to continue. Without those many hours we spent together, this dissertation would probably have never happened at all. iii Berauk Taie and Gerit Sinawat: When I first met Berauk and Gerit, Balan’s parents, we could not easily communicate, having no language in common. Nonetheless, for some inexplicable reason, we took a liking to each other and quickly came to regard one another as extended family. Minutes before I set out on the first leg of my return trip home in summer 2017, Gerit told me, by way of Balan, who translated, that she wanted me to return, marry into the tribe, and stay permanently, later going so far as to offer an undeveloped plot of land on which to build a house. In the summer of 2018, while residing in Long Semadoh Rayeh, I would make the trek to Long Tanid (about 45 minutes or so, taking all applicable jungle shortcuts) once or twice a week to visit them while Balan was away in Kuala Lumpur. Since they spoke no English and I had not yet begun to learn Malay, these many visits helped my fluency in Lun Bawang immensely, and through them we each came to understand the other’s world slightly better. Berauk, though physically ailing due to age, had a sharp memory before he tragically lost it to a stroke, and I learned from him many fascinating facets of Lun Bawang history, some integrated into Chapter 2. Perhaps most impressive was that, more than seventy years later, he could still recall perfectly and sing, though understanding not a word of it, a patriotic song that he had been forced to learn during the Japanese occupation of his birthplace of Long Beluyu’, one village further downriver, during World War II. To my sorrow, Berauk passed away in February of 2020; further regrettably, even if I had been able to board a plane the moment I received the news, the amount of time needed to travel to Long Tanid from Honolulu would have made my presence for the burial impossible. I continue to hold out hope that, even in this new world order brought on by the corona scamdemic, I may some day be able to return to see the site of his grave.