A Documentation and Description of Yelmek and Maklew

A Documentation and Description of Yelmek

Tina Gregor

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The Australian National University

July 2020

This thesis represents an original piece of work, and does not contain, in part or in full, the published work of any other individual, except where acknowledged.

Tina Gregor July 2020

Abstract

Yelmek is a small endangered language spoken in the south-west of New Guinea. It is a member of the Yelmek-Maklew family, a maximal clade family, comprising 4 languages. The whole language family has less than a thousand fluent speakers by my estimation. The present work is the first in-depth description of any language of this family. It is based on a total oftwelve months of original fieldwork. In some ways, Yelmek is typical for a language of Southern New Guinea. Its verbal morphology is exceedingly complex, while having a relatively flat syntactic structure. In other ways, it is very different, not just compared to languages of the region, but also toothers anywhere in the world. Its most striking grammatical feature, typologically speaking, is the suppletion for gender in the verbal paradigm. Yelmek distinguishes two genders, masculine and feminine, which align with biological sex but are also assigned to inanimate objects. The only agreement target for gender is the verb. This in itself is typologically rare. On the verb, the gender of both the subject and the direct object is indexed. The subject indexing (both for intransitive and transitive clauses) uses affixes and pre-verbal particles for gender marking, but the object indexing expresses gender by stem change. The morphological nature of the stem change depends on the verb and ranges from vowel change to full suppletion. This thesis is structured in a traditional way for a grammar. The first chapter introduces the speaker and the language situation. The second chapter talks in more detail about the linguistic classification and the internal relations of the Yelmek and Maklew varieties towards eachother. The actual language description starts in Chapter 3 with a discussion of phonemes and other phonological issues. The next chapter, Chapter 4, introduces and discusses the different parts of speech in Yelmek. Chapter 5 and 6 are dedicated to nominal morphology, whereas Chapters 7, 8 and 9 discuss different aspects of the verbal morphology. The last three chapters are dedicated to clausal structure.

i ii ABSTRACT Acknowledgments

You know that you live in a truly interconnected world when you meet your first speaker of a tiny Papuan language in a city in Germany. And you meet them because Papuans have their own Facebook group (of people from Papua in Leipzig). I am forever grateful to Delfina Tebay for putting my search for speakers of Yelmek-Maklew into this group, despite me having serious doubts about the likelihood of success. But there he was: Marselino Gebze who introduced me to his family in Merauke and everything else went from there. I owe a special debt of gratitude to the Yelmek people who welcomed me into their midst, sheltered, protected and fed me, as well as indulged my hundreds and hundreds of questions. Thanks to the authority if Johannes Gluba Gebze (Marselino’s uncle), we started off on a good foot. He gave the project his blessing and encouraged his people to work with me. Special thanks go to Yunita Gebze and Eko Wibowo who hosted me in Merauke during three trips and the Wibowo family for hosting me during the last trip. I am not sure I would have been able to navigate the local Indonesian bureaucracy without you. My hosts in Wanam, who were also stellar language consultants, Ambrosia Kahol and Kasimirus Gebze as well as Antoneta Kahol and Cely Moiwen also deserve special mention. Not only did they provide food and shelter, they were also very generous with their time and in advocate my work to their people. I would have recorded a lot less without their support. I am also immensely grateful to Liberata Gebze, Serafinus Gebze and Weren Kahol who acted as my primary consultants during different trips. Not only did they spend considerable time working with me, they also went to great length to facilitate for me to work with others. I was also truly blessed with transcribers who I could hand a computer with prepared ELAN files. Not only would they bring back the laptop intact, but also had transcribed the files. Most noticeable in this group are Liberata Gebze and Serafinus Gebze who did the bulk of the transcribing, but also enlisted their friends to help them. A big thank you to all the people who contributed recordings, helped transcribing or simply spread goodwill. On the academic side, I want to thank first and foremost my two supervisors I Wayan Arka and Nicholas Evans for giving me this opportunity and for all their support throughout this

iii iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS journey. You are an inspiration to work with, and I learned so much. My heartfelt thanks also goes to all other advisors on my panel, who helped me at different stages of the project and read different version chapters: Matthew Carroll, Hannah Sarvasy, Don Daniels and Volker Gast. Further, I want to thank Siva Kalyan for help with Latex problems, to Simón Gonzalez Ochoa for preparing the forced-alignment data, to Karina Pelling form CartoGis for the wonderful maps, to Mark Ellison for help with R scripts and plots and Zurab Baratashvili for hunting up books I couldn’t get from the library. Thanks also to the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language and the Wurm fund for generously funding my project. Being part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Languages was an amaz- ing experience. It provided a truly stimulating environment to work in and facilitated meeting countless interesting and inspiring people who influenced my work in so many ways. I always felt supported, not only by the researchers around me, but also by the admin team, in particularly Joanne Allen and Romina Paskotic within CoEDL, as well as Jo Bushby and Etsuko Mason in CHL. Thank you all, for helping to overcome the practical hurdles that are involved in doing a PhD. I also want to acknowledge the support of the Center for Endangered Languages Doc- umentation at the Universitas Papua in Manokwari. In particular Yusuf Sawaki and Jeanete Lekeneny who provided supporting letters for visas to Indonesia among other things. Thanks also to Albert Fiharsono for providing supporting letters. Doing a PhD can be a lonely journey, but for me it never was thanks to the many people who were colleagues as well as friends, friends as well as colleagues or just friends of course. A big shout out to all of you for long walks, long talks, plenty of board game nights and lots of coffees. To name just a few in no particular order: Eri Kashima, Julia Miller, Alex Marley, James Bednell, Claudia Cialone, Uta Reinöl, Marie-France Duhamel, Hedvig Skirgård, Dineke Schokkin, Mark Ellison, Siva Kalyan, Naijing Liu. Finally, to my family who always supported me and held on to their belief that there was a point to me going to the other side of the world and spending years on something this obscure. And to Louie Lester Yao, who has been my home and my heart. Without you my love this last stretch would have been unbearable, and I am not sure how long I would have survived on just coffee and chocolate. Oh and to my dog Phryne, who encouraged me to sit quietly onmydesk so she could sleep on my lap. Contents

Abstract i

Acknowledgments iii

List of figures xiii

List of tables xvii

List of abbreviations xix

1 Preliminaries 1 1.1 The Yelmek and Maklew People ...... 1 1.1.1 Geographic situation ...... 1 1.1.2 Historical and political situation ...... 4 1.1.3 Clans and kinship ...... 8 1.1.4 Language situation ...... 11 1.2 Existing data ...... 12 1.3 Methods and language corpus ...... 12 1.4 Typological profile of Wanam Yelmek ...... 18 1.5 Thesis outline ...... 19

2 The Yelmek and Maklew languages 21 2.1 Linguistic classification ...... 21 2.2 Lexical comparison within Yelmek-Maklew ...... 23 2.2.1 Comparison overall ...... 24 2.2.2 Pronoun sets ...... 26 2.2.3 Numerals ...... 27 2.2.4 Sound correspondences ...... 28

v vi CONTENTS

2.2.5 Conclusion for the lexical comparison ...... 32

3 Phonology 35 3.1 Overview ...... 35 3.2 Yelmek’s phoneme inventory in context ...... 36 3.3 Vowels ...... 38 3.3.1 Monophthongs ...... 38 3.3.2 Vowel sequences ...... 48 3.3.3 Vowel lengthening ...... 49 3.4 Consonants ...... 50 3.4.1 Plosives ...... 51 3.4.2 Nasals ...... 55 3.4.3 Fricatives ...... 55 3.4.4 Laterals ...... 56 3.4.5 Approximants ...... 56 3.4.6 Consonant clusters and epenthetic schwa ...... 57 3.5 Morphophonemics ...... 61 3.6 Prosody ...... 62 3.6.1 Stress ...... 62 3.6.2 Intonation ...... 67 3.7 Orthography conventions ...... 71

4 Parts of speech 73 4.1 The unit ‘word’ ...... 74 4.2 Nouns ...... 77 4.3 Verbs ...... 78 4.4 Adjectival Modifiers ...... 79 4.4.1 Modifier stems ...... 79 4.4.2 Attributive marking ...... 82 4.4.3 Intensification ...... 86 4.4.4 Comparative constructions ...... 88 4.5 Numerals and quantifiers ...... 91 4.5.1 Cardinal numbers ...... 91 4.5.2 Ordinal numbers ...... 93 4.5.3 Quantifiers ...... 94 4.6 Demonstratives ...... 102 CONTENTS vii

4.6.1 Pronominal demonstratives ...... 104 4.6.2 Adnominal demonstratives ...... 107 4.6.3 Adverbial demonstratives ...... 109 4.7 Adverbs ...... 112 4.7.1 Temporal adverbs ...... 113 4.7.2 Linking adverbs ...... 114 4.7.3 Focus adverb ...... 116

5 Nominals 119 5.1 Nominal categories ...... 119 5.1.1 Person ...... 120 5.1.2 Number ...... 120 5.1.3 Gender ...... 122 5.2 Personal pronouns ...... 129 5.3 Ignorative pronouns ...... 131 5.4 Kinship terms ...... 142 5.5 The noun phrase ...... 150

6 Nominal morphology 153 6.1 Core cases ...... 155 6.1.1 Nominative case ...... 155 6.1.2 Accusative case ...... 157 6.2 Peripheral cases: concrete nonspatial ...... 163 6.2.1 Instrumental case ...... 163 6.2.2 Comitative case ...... 164 6.2.3 Purposive ...... 171 6.2.4 Restrictive ...... 172 6.2.5 Similative ...... 173 6.3 Peripheral cases: spatial ...... 174 6.3.1 Locative ...... 174 6.3.2 Allative ...... 176 6.3.3 Ablative ...... 177 6.3.4 Perlative ...... 179 6.4 Possession ...... 181 6.4.1 Possessor marking with the genitive ...... 184 6.4.2 Possessive pronouns ...... 186 viii CONTENTS

6.4.3 Possessor marking on kinship terms ...... 188 6.4.4 External possession ...... 192 6.4.5 Compounds ...... 194 6.5 Associative plural ...... 196 6.6 Address term markings ...... 199 6.6.1 Honorific ...... 200 6.6.2 Vocative ...... 201

7 Verbal inflection 203 7.1 Subject indexing ...... 206 7.1.1 Overview ...... 206 7.1.2 Distant Past Tense marking ...... 207 7.1.3 Recent Past Tense marking ...... 207 7.1.4 Present Tense marking ...... 208 7.1.5 Future Tense marking ...... 209 7.1.6 Stem classes ...... 210 7.1.7 Subject indexing: Summary ...... 213 7.2 Object indexing ...... 216 7.2.1 Object indexing for person ...... 216 7.2.2 Object indexing for gender ...... 222 7.2.3 Object indexing for number ...... 229 7.3 Tense ...... 233 7.3.1 Overview ...... 233 7.3.2 Distant Past Tense ...... 234 7.3.3 Recent Past Tense ...... 236 7.3.4 Present Tense ...... 237 7.3.5 Future Tense ...... 239 7.4 Aspect ...... 241 7.4.1 Perfective and Imperfective ...... 242 7.4.2 Aspectual adverbials ...... 247 7.5 Mood ...... 250 7.6 Directional markers ...... 253 7.6.1 /mo/ and /me/ ...... 254 7.6.2 /ni/ ...... 256 CONTENTS ix

8 Valency and alignment 261 8.1 Overview ...... 261 8.2 Grammatical relations ...... 261 8.3 Alignment ...... 263 8.4 Valency classes ...... 267 8.4.1 Monovalent constructions ...... 268 8.4.2 Bivalent constructions ...... 273 8.4.3 Trivalent constructions ...... 280 8.5 Valency changing operations ...... 283 8.5.1 The Anticausative use ...... 284 8.5.2 The Reflexive use ...... 289 8.5.3 The Reciprocal use ...... 291

9 Multi-word predicates and non-verbal predicates 293 9.1 Cognate object construction ...... 293 9.2 Auxiliary construction ...... 297 9.2.1 Constructions with wedepu ...... 298 9.2.2 Constructions with yo ‘do’ ...... 300 9.3 Light verb constructions ...... 302 9.3.1 Light verb constructions with lexical stems ...... 302 9.3.2 Light verb constructions with copula ...... 304 9.4 Non-verbal predicates ...... 304 9.4.1 Copula 1: mʉ ...... 305 9.4.2 Copula 2: ŋaCe ...... 310

10 Simple clauses 319 10.1 Constituent Order ...... 319 10.1.1 Clauses without argument NPs ...... 320 10.1.2 Clauses with arguments ...... 322 10.1.3 The pre-verbal position ...... 325 10.2 Declarative clauses ...... 326 10.3 Imperative clauses ...... 328 10.4 Interrogative clauses ...... 329 10.4.1 Polar questions ...... 329 10.4.2 Content Question ...... 330 10.5 Negative clauses ...... 334 x CONTENTS

10.5.1 Constituent negation ...... 334 10.5.2 Clausal negation ...... 338

11 Complex clauses 343 11.1 Complement clauses ...... 344 11.1.1 Simple complement taking predicates ...... 345 11.1.2 Complex complement taking predicates ...... 349 11.1.3 Propositional attitude predicates ...... 351 11.2 Relative clauses ...... 352 11.2.1 Internally-headed relative clauses ...... 354 11.2.2 Externally-headed relative clauses ...... 360 11.3 Adverbial clauses ...... 364 11.3.1 Temporal adverbial clauses ...... 364 11.3.2 Locational adverbial clauses ...... 367 11.3.3 Purposive adverbial clauses ...... 368

12 Coordination 371 12.1 Conjunctive coordination ...... 371 12.1.1 Phrasal conjunction ...... 371 12.1.2 Clause conjunction ...... 376 12.2 Disjunction ...... 377 12.3 Adversative coordination ...... 378

Appendices 381

A Stories 383 A.1 The North Wind and the Sun ...... 383 A.2 Dog story ...... 399

B Conversational vocabulary 425

C Word list 427 List of Figures

1.1 Map of New Guinea...... 2 1.2 Map with Yelmek and Maklew speaking villages...... 3 1.3 A road in Wanam...... 4 1.4 Abandoned ships of the fishing company in Wanam...... 6 1.5 Marince Kaize and Agus Yolmen in traditional costumes of the Cassuary and Garuda clan...... 9 1.6 Kelementina Mahuze in the traditional dress up of the Dog clan...... 9 1.7 Petronella and Jesi Ana Aubalik in the traditional outfit of the Bugodi bird clan. 9 1.8 Maisala and Eta Gebze in the costume of the Kakap fish clan...... 9 1.9 Kasimirus Gebze in traditional outfit with face mask...... 10 1.10 Ambrosia Kahol in her traditional outfit...... 10 1.11 Essek Mahuze in traditional outfit and face mask, with bamboo bow and arrows. 10 1.12 Researcher and Yelmek speakers in Tika ...... 17 1.13 Native speakers transcribing language material ...... 17

2.1 Map of the languages spoken in the area...... 22 2.2 Internal relationship of the Yelmek-Maklew language family...... 33

3.1 The Yelmek vowel inventory...... 35 3.2 Yelmek’s consonant inventory...... 36 3.3 Vowel realisation by a male speaker telling the ”The Northwind and the Sun” story...... 40 3.4 Vowel /a/ realisation by a female speaker (forced alignment data) ...... 42 3.5 Vowel /e/ realisation by a female speaker (forced alignment data) ...... 43 3.6 Vowel /i/ realisation by a female speaker (forced alignment data) ...... 44 3.7 Vowel /o/ realisation by a female speaker (forced alignment data) ...... 45

xi xii LIST OF FIGURES

3.8 Vowel /u/ and /ʉ/ realisation by a female speaker in final position (forced alignment data) ...... 46 3.9 Vowel /u/ and /ʉ/ realisation by a female speaker in initial position (forced alignment data) ...... 46 3.10 Vowel /u/ and /ʉ/ realisation by a female speaker in medial position (forced alignment data) ...... 47 3.11 Spectrogram and pitch track to example 13...... 50 3.12 The two particles ba and pa ...... 52 3.13 Spectrogram for /ka/ ...... 52 3.14 Spectrogram and waveform for /jəp ban/ ‘from the middle’ ...... 53 3.15 Spectrogram and waveform for [kageber kəm] ‘It is his grandkin’ ...... 54 3.16 Spectrogram and intensity contour of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in isolation .... 63 3.17 Spectrogram and intensity contour of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in the phrase omoto milom ba kəm ‘It is pigs’s jaw.’ in example 39 ...... 63 3.18 Spectrogram and pitch contour of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in isolation...... 64 3.19 Spectrogram and pitch contour of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in the phrase omoto milom ba kəm ‘It is pigs’s jaw.’ in example 39 ...... 64 3.20 Spectrogram with formants of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in isolation...... 64 3.21 Spectrogram with formants of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in the phrase omoto milom ba kəm ‘It is pigs’s jaw.’ in example (39) ...... 65 3.22 Stressed (intense) and unstressed (low intensity) vowel /a/ in different positions in the word, based on forced alignment data...... 67 3.23 Spectrogram to example (40). Intonation of declarative clause by LG ...... 68 3.24 Intonation contour of an utterance with an element in focus imanekii by KG . 69 3.25 Spectrogram to example (42 ). Intonation contour with question word ima .. 70 3.26 Spectrogram of example (43) ...... 70 3.27 Spectrogram and wave form for the imperative utterance ...... 71

5.1 Wanam-Yelmek kinship terms across generation...... 144 5.2 Wanam-Yelmek kinship terms for cousins and in-laws...... 144 5.3 Wanam-Yelmek kinship terms for nieces and nephews from a female perspective. 145 5.4 Wanam-Yelmek kinship terms for nieces and nephews from a male perspective. 145 5.5 Sibling terms...... 146 5.6 Terms for parents, Aunts and Uncles...... 146 5.7 Terms for grandparents and grandchildren...... 146 5.8 Terms for Cousins...... 146 LIST OF FIGURES xiii

5.9 Terms for Sons, daughters, nephews and nieces...... 147 5.10 The structure of the noun phrase...... 150

7.1 Verbal template ...... 204

10.1 Constituent order in a simple clause ...... 320 xiv LIST OF FIGURES List of Tables

1.1 Corpus summary ...... 16

2.1 Identical forms for all village in a pairwise comparison...... 24 2.2 Possible cognates in a pairwise comparison...... 24 2.3 Possible cognates in a pairwise comparison without verbs...... 25 2.4 Distances between villages in kilometres...... 25 2.5 Pronoun sets of all five varieties ...... 26 2.6 Pronoun sets from Drabbe (1954) ...... 26 2.7 Numerals compared...... 27 2.8 Sound correspondences between /t/ and /k/...... 28 2.9 Correspondence set /w/ or /h/ ...... 29 2.10 Correspondence set /d/, /j/ and /ɡ/...... 30 2.11 Lexical items compared ‘mother’, ‘father’ and ‘person/people’...... 31 2.12 Lexical items in the Wanam variety compared to the rest of the Yelmek-branch. 31 2.13 Correspondance set /l/ and /r/ ...... 32

3.1 Minimal pairs and near-minimal pairs for vowel phonemes...... 41 3.2 Minimal pairs for the voiced vs. voiceless distinction in plosives...... 51 3.3 Minimal pairs and near minimal pairs for the three nasal positions...... 55 3.4 Tautosyllabic consonant clusters...... 57 3.5 Yelmek orthography conventions ...... 72

4.1 Word classes signpost ...... 74 4.2 Stems with shortened stem in the attributive ...... 81 4.3 Illustrative list of other property stems ...... 82 4.4 Colour terms ...... 82 4.5 Special modifier for human ...... 84 4.6 Numerals in Yelmek ...... 91

xv xvi LIST OF TABLES

5.1 Overview of gender assignment ...... 124 5.2 Personal pronouns in nominative accusative...... 129 5.3 Overview of the expression of ontological categories...... 142 5.4 List of kinship term in Wanam-Yelmek...... 149

6.1 Core cases in Yelmek...... 154 6.2 Peripheral case markers in Yelmek...... 154 6.3 Functionally unitary case markers with complex morphology...... 155 6.4 Possessive pronouns in nominative and accusative...... 187 6.5 Possessive affixes for kinship terms ...... 189

7.1 Overview of inflectional marking ...... 205 7.2 Schematic representation of the Distant Past Tense subject inflection...... 207 7.3 Schematic representation of the Recent Past Tense subject inflection...... 208 7.4 Schematic representation of the Present Tense inflection...... 209 7.5 Schematic representation of the Future Tense inflection...... 210 7.6 Inflectional paradigm for eŋu ‘to eat’ ...... 211 7.7 Inflectional paradigm for iblo ‘to chase’ ...... 212 7.8 Inflectional paradigm for ukalo ‘to climb’ ...... 212 7.9 Inflectional paradigm for pio ‘to jump’ ...... 213 7.10 Inflectional particles in all tense paradigms ...... 214 7.11 Inflectional prefixes in all four tense paradigms ...... 214 7.12 Inflectional suffixes in all four tense paradigms ...... 215 7.13 /a/-shift in all four tense paradigms ...... 215 7.14 Object indexing for the person feature ...... 217 7.15 Future Tense inflection for elige ‘to ask’ ...... 221 7.16 Stem alternation for Class 1 stems ...... 225 7.17 Stem alternation for Class 2 stems ...... 226 7.18 Verbs with a /m/ and a vowel-initial stem ...... 227 7.19 Stems with one phoneme differences between stems ...... 227 7.20 Verbs with two substantially different stems...... 228 7.21 Stems that use stem alternation to indicate the number of the object (but not gender) ...... 231 7.22 Stems that use stem alternation to indicate the number and gender of the object. 231 7.23 Intransitive verbs with stem alternation for subject number...... 232 7.24 Distant Past Tense inflection ...... 236 LIST OF TABLES xvii

7.25 Recent Past Tense inflection ...... 237 7.26 Present Tense inflection ...... 239 7.27 Future Tense inflection ...... 241 7.28 Aspect markers ...... 242 7.29 Irrealis marking...... 251 7.30 Verbs stems that can carry the directional marker /-mo/ or /-me/ ...... 256 7.31 Present Tense inflection morphology used with the directional marker .... 258 7.32 Recent Past Tense marking used with the directional marker...... 258 7.33 Paradigm for iblo ‘to chase’ with directional marker ...... 259

8.1 Overview of valency constructions ...... 268 8.2 Verbs marking subject number by them alternation ...... 270 8.3 Inflection pattern for mən ‘sit’ ...... 271 8.4 Inflection pattern for te ‘to enter’ ...... 271 8.5 Anticausative forms found in the corpus...... 289

9.1 Comparison of use of the two copulas ...... 305 9.2 Paradigm copula 1: mʉ ...... 306

10.1 Clause counts for the “North Wind and the Sun” story ...... 322 10.2 Word order counts for the “North Wind and the Sun” story ...... 324 10.3 Mono-morphemic question words ...... 331 10.4 Expressions derived from basic question words ...... 331 10.5 Negative particles ...... 334

11.1 Interaction of relative particle and inflectional particles. The particles marked in green can co-occur with the relative marker, the particles marked in red can not...... 360 xviii LIST OF TABLES List of abbreviations

ABL Ablative (§6.3.3) ACC Accusative case (§6.1.2) ALL Allative (§6.3.2) ASSPL Associative plural (§6.5) ATTR Attributive marking (§4.4.2) AUX Auxiliary (§9.2) COM1 Coordinated comitative (§6.2.2) COM2 Asymmetrical comitative (§6.2.2) COM3 Attached-to comitative (§6.2.2) COP1 Copula (§9.4.1) COP2 Copula (§9.4.2) DEM Demonstrative (§4.6) DET Determiner (§5.2) DIR Directional marking (§7.6) DIS Discourse marker (§4.7.3) DIST Distal (§4.6) DPST Distant Past Tense (§7.3.2) DTR Detransitiviser (§8.5) EXCL Exclamation F Feminine (§5.1) FOC Focus marker (§6.1.2) FUT Future tense (§7.3.5) FUT.N1SG Future tense non-first singular (§7.3.5) GEN Genitive (§6.4.1) HON Honorific (§6.6.1) IMP Imperative (§10.3) IPV Imperfective (§7.4.1)

xix xx LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

IRR Irrealis (§7.3.5) LOC Locative (§6.3.1) M Masculine (§5.1) NEG Negation (§10.5) OBJ Object (§8 and 7.2) OBGL Obligatory (§7.5) PER Perlative (§6.3.4) PL Plural (§5.1.2) POSS Possessive (§6.4) POSSR Possessor (§6.4.3) POSSM Possessum (§6.4.3) PROG Progressive (§7.4) PROX Proximal (§4.6) PRS Present Tense (§7.3.4) PRV Perfective (§7.4.1) PURP Purposive (§6.2.3) Q Question (§10.4.1) REL Relativiser (§11.2) REL.NSBJ Relativiser for non-subject (§11.2) RPST Recent Past Tense (§7.3.3) RSTV Restrictive case (§6.2.4) SBJ Subject (§8 and §7.1) SG Singular (§5.1.2) VOC Vocative (§6.6.2) Chapter 1

Preliminaries

This grammar describes the Yelmek language, an endangered non-Austronesian language spoken in the Papua Province, Indonesia. The main part of this work describes the language variety spoken by the people of Wanam, a village towards the northern end of the Marianne Strait that separates Dolok Island from the mainland (see Figure 1.2). In cases where the data was available, comparisons are made with other languages of the Yelmek-Maklew family. This chapter introduces the speaker and language situation of Wanam Yelmek. It also includes discussions of previous work (§1.2), on the method of data collection and the composition of the language corpus (§1.3). This is followed by a typological profile of Yelmek (§1.4).

1.1 The Yelmek and Maklew People

1.1.1 Geographic situation

The island of New Guinea is the largest island in the southern hemisphere. It is situated to the north of Australia, being separated from it by the Arafura Sea and the Torres Strait. The wildlife of New Guinea, especially in the south, is very similar to that found in northern Australia, including, for instance, wallabies and cassowaries. The shape of the island is often described as that of a bird with the Bird’s Head region to the northwest and the tail end to the southeast (see Figure 1.1). Within this picture, Yelmek and Maklew are spoken in five villages where the belly of the bird extends into a claw shape (see Figure 1.2).

1 2 CHAPTER 1. PRELIMINARIES e 1.1: Map of New Guinea. Figur 1.1. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW PEOPLE 3

Figure 1.2: Map with Yelmek and Maklew speaking villages.

Due to New Guinea’s position immediately south of the equator, its climate is mostly trop- ical. The languages in question here are spoken in the south-western part of the island, far south from the mountain range. This area features lowland rainforest, swampy areas and also savannah grassland. Each of the two seasons, a rainy season and a dry one, transforms the landscape in its turn. During the rainy season, roughly from November to March, vast areas are flooded and many roads are reportedly impassable. During the dry season, on theother hand, the lack of water can become problematic and fires are frequent (see the picture in Figure 1.3). For the longest time, this has been a remote and inaccessible area. Traditionally, the lifestyle of people involves hunting, fishing and the production of sago. People also grow vegetables 4 CHAPTER 1. PRELIMINARIES in their gardens, such as yams and sweet potatoes and they harvest fruit trees, like coconut trees, citrus trees and banana trees. They still rely on those food sources today, but better infrastructure and the ongoing development of the area by the Indonesian government has left its mark. With regard to food, this has resulted in a growing popularity of rice, even though it has to be imported and is therefore comparatively expensive.

Figure 1.3: A road in Wanam.

1.1.2 Historical and political situation

The island of New Guinea is politically split in two. The eastern side is the country of Papua New Guinea. The western side belongs to Indonesia. This arrangement is only about 50 years old and by no means unchallenged, but the two sides already differ tremendously. The Indone- sian government has invested in infrastructure, such as roads and schools. This means that, in many ways, people on the Indonesian side have better living conditions. This has advantages to conducting research in that area; for example, it is more accessible and secure. However, there are also downsides. The languages and cultures of small groups on the Indonesian side of the border, Yelmek and Maklew among them, suffer a considerable amount of pressure from wider Indonesia, both in terms of culture and language. The village of Wanam, where the variety under consideration is spoken, provides an illustrative example of the kind of changes and pressures people are faced with in this region. In his short description of Yelmek, the missionary linguist Peter Drabbe does not actually refer to 1.1. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW PEOPLE 5

Wanam, but to Ilwayab, which was located about 5 km further north (Drabbe, 1954). Ilwayab does not exist anymore as a settlement, however. In 1973, the Indonesian government set up Wanam as the central village and urged all the people from the surrounding settlements to move there. From the ethnographic account by Nevermann (1952) it appears that people had dwelt in small hamlets spread out over the area before centralisation. Several of those settlements have constituted different subgroups and clans (Nevermann, 1952). However, there are unfortunately no records which would show whether the centralisation resulted in tensions between the groups or if cultural practices were merged or lost because of it. Ilwayab as a place is still very much present in people’s minds, especially in the older generation, as most of them were born there. Within the same generation, another big change happened, which this time split the community rather than merging settlements. In 1994, a fishing company was set up about 10km away from Wanam, reportedly by ethnically Chinese people. The prospect of paid work led many people to settle close to the company and a whole new village developed. The new village is still considered part of Wanam, even though the con- dition of the roads between the parts makes travelling fairly slow. The new part, commonly referred to as Wanam Company (“Wanam camp” or “Wanam perusahan”), has many things to make the effort of frequently going there worthwhile, however. There is a market andanum- ber of shops. There is phone reception and electricity, at least at night. There is a hospital and a bank. The old part, Wanam village (“Wanam kampung”), has none of these. There is still a primary school (SD – Sekolah Dasar), but the next school level (SMP – Sekolah Menengah Per- tama) was moved to Wanam Company too. The presence of the fishing company also causes an influx of outsiders, such as people from other parts of Papua, other parts of Indonesia andeven other countries, facilitated by the nearby air strip and the regular boat service from Merauke. The days of isolation are long gone and people’s mobility has increased dramatically. They not only travel to nearby villages, but also move to bigger cities like Merauke for work. Children are sent there for school and even university if their families can afford it. The first Yelmek person I ever met, lived in Leipzig, Germany, where he studied. This degree of mobility is still not very common and during the course of my project I was sad to learn that his scholarship program was de-funded. He had to return before finishing his degree. The fishing company was accused of illegal activities and closed at the beginning of2015. This had drastic consequences for the local population, because not only did people who worked at the company lose their jobs, but smaller businesses like shops and eateries suf- fered as well. Many people consequently went back to the more traditional ways of hunting, fishing and gardening for their subsistence. Another effect was the decrease of traffic.Most of the boats that used to dock in Wanam regularly now just stop briefly when they pass to allow passengers to board smaller boats to carry them to the shore. Recently, air travel was 6 CHAPTER 1. PRELIMINARIES interrupted too, due to a dispute about the land the air strip is on. Time will tell how the new situation will shape the village and people’s life.

Figure 1.4: Abandoned ships of the fishing company in Wanam.

Earlier history

The earlier history of the settlement is hard to reconstruct due to the lack of reliable sources. To the best of my knowledge, the only written material is an ethnographic sketch by Nevermann (1952) (see §1.2); I am aware of no other written historical records. However, the Yelmek people do transmit their history orally. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to record an elder talking about the history and movement of the group that settled in Ilwayab and later Wanam (The recording can be found in TG1-HistoryCely). In summary, it goes as follows: The first village, as far as this elder could go back, was called Yanguab [‘jaŋ.wab]. Itwas located close to where Bibikem and Woboyo are today (see the map in Figure 1.2). At the time the story begins, people were still recovering from a war with the Seli [‘se.li] people, a neighbouring tribe, with whom they now live in peace again. The following conflict, however, dislocated the people from Yanguab permanently. It all started because of a young couple: Yegngange [jeg’ŋa.ŋe], the village head’s daughter, and Menu [‘me.nu], a young man from the neighbouring village, Weliom [‘we.liom]. Marriage outside the village was strictly forbidden at this time. Still Yegngange became pregnant from Menu. This enraged her father Yanguabo. The story goes that he set a trap for Menu. When 1.1. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW PEOPLE 7

Menu would come again at night, Yegngange was to make him enter her yobu [‘jo.bu], a sleeping bag-like construction made from swamp grass [‘ti.ka]. She was then to alert her father and leave the house. The trap worked and Menu was killed that night. When Menu did not return to Weliom, his father Polimodo [‘po.li.mo.do] started searching for him. Eventually he found the remains of Manu’s body hung along the path, the flesh already eaten. He burned his son’s bones and gathered men from his village and neighbouring villages to attack Yanguab. Yanguabo learned of the imminent attack and warned his people to prepare for war, but in the end, they abandoned their village and fled. They asked other villages for support but were unsuccessful. People were afraid or still wary of the last war. Furthermore, many considered the Yanguab people the guilty party and were supportive of Polimodo. The Seli people avoided the conflict altogether by moving south to the coast. They are said to be so numerous today because they did not participate in that war. Even without support, the Yanguab people are said to have killed many enemies, because of the possession of a special stone that made arrows so sharp and strong that several men could be killed with one shot.1 The subsequent history is a long list of places where the Yanguab people settled for a while until the enemies caught up with them again and again. The people of Yanguab were so angry with their chief Yanguabo for causing this, that when his time came to die, they just left him without a burial, so wild animals would eat him. During the long time of the diaspora, several subgroups split off and settled by themselves, but eventually, the remaining group settledin Ilwayab. From there they would later move to Wanam. There is some mention of contact with outsiders. Buton people, who are said to have come by ship from Sulawesi, traded bracelets for kava and birds-of-paradise. The Yelmek were keen on the bracelets. They used them as earrings because they made nice jingling sounds. Presumably, they were made from some metal. The man favoured the black ones and the women the red ones. Other outsiders they encountered are remembered by the names of Opas, Dubiat and Musa who came to a place called Da. They seem to have been explorers or traders rather than missionaries. It is hard to estimate a time frame for those encounters. Pamela Swadling in her book about trade cycles in New Guinea, mentions traders going out from Merauke early on and some trade must have happened even before then (Merauke was only established in 1902, Swadling 1996: 176). At the time of the early contacts, the group was still very spread out, whereas when the missionaries arrived, they had already settled in Ilwayab. Here a school and a church were built. The people still remember all missionaries who ever stayed there by name. The one they hold in the highest regard, however, was the very first one Pastor Kowatzki, a German who

1Naturally occurring stones are rare in the area. Therefore, it is not surprising that stone tools would give an advantage to who ever possessed them or that mystical qualities would be attributed to them. 8 CHAPTER 1. PRELIMINARIES came with the Dutch mission and stayed several decades. People say that when Pastor Kowatzki baptised them their sins lefts them like flies and they gave up on cannibalism and headhunting. They also traded with the foreigners, but mostly to their disadvantage. People still remember that they paid one crocodile skin for one axe.

1.1.3 Clans and kinship

The dominant ethnic group in the region are the Marind. The Yelmek speaking people identify themselves as part of that group. They use Marind clan names as last names, e.g. Gebze, Kahol, Samkakai, Mahuze, Aubalik and Denolik. Linguistically Marind and Yelmek-Maklew are not related however (see §2.1 on the linguistic classification). Beside their Marind last names, every Yelmek person has a place reference as their middle name. This goes very likely back to their pre-missionary naming practices. The place reference is not to the place people were born, but a place associated with their family. Siblings would have different place references in their name. These place names are often very specific, like “road to ...”or “river near ...”. Their assignment follows specific clan-internal rules. For instance, in the story above, the chief of Yanguab was known as Yanguabo. Today, they have a preference for multisyllabic Latin sounding first names, like Kasimirus and Serafinus for instance, though, especially older people still call people by the place name. I was given the name Ilwayabo (after their old village) and people often refer to me as such. The Yelmek are patrilineally organised. The children inherit the name and clan affiliation of the father. Intra-clan marriages are not allowed. There doesn’t seem to be a practised system of sister exchange as in other groups in southern New Guinea, e.g. the language groups in the Yam family (Kashima 2020, Evans 2012). However, people try to balance the inter-clan marriages to some extent, but some depth can accumulate, i.e. a number of women can marry from one clan into the other, but the underlying assumption is that it has to go the other way too eventually. I was unable to determine how strictly that is enforced or if there are fixed cut-off points. There is no practised taboo on marrying an outsider. Clan membership is evident in a number of features. A salient one is the pattern of face painting for the traditional outfit. The pictures on page 9 show different examples.2 Different clans also have a different set of names for their dogs. This is important enough to themthat in practice dogs often have two names, one in accordance with the wife’s clan and onename from the husband’s clan.

2All photographs in this thesis are my own 1.1. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW PEOPLE 9

Figure 1.5: Marince Kaize and Agus Figure 1.6: Kelementina Mahuze in the Yolmen in traditional costumes of traditional dress up of the the Cassuary and Garuda clan. Dog clan.

Figure 1.7: Petronella and Jesi Ana Figure 1.8: Maisala and Eta Gebze Aubalik in the traditional outfit in the costume of the of the Bugodi bird clan. Kakap fish clan. 10 CHAPTER 1. PRELIMINARIES

Figure 1.9: Kasimirus Gebze in Figure 1.10: Ambrosia Kahol in her traditional traditional outfit with face mask. outfit.

Figure 1.11: Essek Mahuze in traditional outfit and face mask, with bamboo bow and arrows. 1.1. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW PEOPLE 11

1.1.4 Language situation

The increase of infrastructure and mobility has had drastic consequences for the language. All education and media is in Indonesian and if you are aiming for a life outside of the village, you must be proficient in Indonesian. As the use of Indonesian increases, the village languageis rapidly losing its importance. The census data from June 2016 shows the following population numbers for the five villages:

• Wanam: 618

• Bibikem: 731

• Woboyu: 436

• Dodalim: 205

• Welbuti: 306

These numbers appear relatively high. Especially for Wanam and Bibikem, however, they include a large number of non-indigenous people. Therefore these figures do not translate easily into speaker numbers. The Ethnologue (Lewis et al. 2014) states as speaker numbers for Yelmek 400 (1978), presumably encompassing speakers in Wanam, Bibikem, Woboyo and Dodalim. For Maklew, as spoken in Welbuti, they note 120 speakers (1950). This indicates that Yelmek-Maklew has been a small group even before Indonesia took over this part of New Guinea. There is no reason to believe that speaker numbers have increased since that time. From my own experience in Wanam, it seems language competence of Yelmek is declining the younger people are. I was told that there is no fluent speaker of Yelmek under the ageof 20, but even older speakers were switching frequently between the languages. On the other hand, competence in Indonesian is generally very high. I have no reason to believe that the situation is much different in the other villages. In fact, a recent SIL survey, which amongmany Marind-speaking villages also covered Welbuti (the Maklew village), reports a similar situation (Lebold et al. 2010). Reportedly the elders in Welbuti were very concerned about the imminent disappearance of the language. This indicates a state of severe endangerment of these Yelmek and Maklew languages and any effort to document and describe them has to happen in atimely manner. 12 CHAPTER 1. PRELIMINARIES

1.2 Existing data

The first person to do research on Yelmek and the closely related language Maklew wasthe Dutch Missionary-linguist Peter Drabbe. He lived and worked in what was then Dutch New Guinea from 1935 to 1948, after having lived in the Tanimbar Islands from 1915 onwards. In his time, he collected data on 24 languages and dialects of the region (Boelaars 1950: X). The data he collected for Yelmek comes from people originally from Ilwayab and the Maklew data from people originally from Welbuti. It appears that he never actually went to either place, instead working with young people attending boarding school in Merauke. How many people contributed to his work is unclear. In 1954 Drabbe published a 12-page sketch grammar of Yelmek and Maklew in Anthropos, written in Dutch. An English account of Drabbe’s data was published by Boelaars in 1950 in his book about the linguistic position of south-west New Guinea. Besides that, there are a number of word lists. The most recent word list was collected by an SIL survey team in 2010. The survey covers mostly Marind-speaking villages, but the team also visited Welbuti, where Maklew is spoken (Lebold et al. 2010: 46-52). The earliest list I am aware of is in Geurtjen’s dictionary of Marind (Geurtjens 1933: 398-433). He refers to the language as Jab(sch) and locates it between the Bulaka river and the Princess Marianne Strait. His data seems to come from Bibikem (Geurtjens 1933: 397). Another publication that refers to Jab(sch) is the short ethnographic sketch by Hans Nevermann (Nevermann 1952). Besides describing cultural practices, he also gives a short word list of about 90 items. Especially noteworthy in this case is that he indicates which village a word comes from in the case of different translations.

1.3 Methods and language corpus

The description in this work is based on original fieldwork conducted between 2015 to 2018, adding up to a total of 12 months. For logistical reasons, I spend most of my time in Merauke, the administrative center of the region (87,634 inhabitants according to the 2010 Census). Dur- ing my first trip in 2015, I worked with speakers from both Wanam and Welbuti, butinsubse- quent trips I focused on the variety spoken in Wanam. I also went to Wanam in both 2015 and 2016 for 2-3 weeks and most of the recordings of free texts were collected during that time. Unfortunately, due to bureaucratic and logistical issues, e.g. travel permits, I was not able to spend more time in the village. In 2017, the air-strip was blocked because of land disputes and I was unable to reach to the village. In 2018, the airstrip was opened again, but all my contacts in the village happened to be in Merauke at that time. Luckily, Merauke has a large community of Yelmek and Maklew speakers. Besides conveniences like electricity and running water, 1.3. METHODS AND LANGUAGE CORPUS 13 people residing in Merauke also usually have time on their hands, whereas in the village, they are often too busy with their gardens to do linguistic work. The corpus figures below pertain to data collected for the Wanam variety. For theother Yelmek varieties, the ones spoken in Bibikem, Woboyo and Dodalim, I have recordings of a word list and some elicitation notes. For Maklew (the Welbuti variety) I have also recorded the word list, but with more extensive discussions about the words and example sentences. I also have recorded two short narratives and a version of the Jackal and crow story (Carroll et al. 2011) for this variety. The Yelmek material is archived in the collection TG1 in PARADISEC (Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultured). The Maklew material can be found in the collection TG23. Table 1.1 at the end of the section shows and overview of the material collected for each variety. The Wanam-Yelmek data in the digital corpus features a variety of speakers across an age ranging from early twenties to people in their sixties. All traditional narratives and descrip- tions of historical events are by older male speakers, because only speakers of a high enough social status and particular clan affiliation (depending on the story) are permitted to relate certain stories. Recordings based on stimulus material and many elicitation sessions were mainly conducted with younger speakers, although there were a couple of people in their fifties, who also had enough patience for this kind of task. In each of my trips, I had a main consultant, who helped facilitate recordings and travel. In 2015, that was Weren Kahol and in all other years Liberata Gebze, as well as Serafinus Gebze, who was also kind enough to answer questions via Facebook Messenger after my last field trip. I was also very lucky to have found a number of speakers in their twenties with enough computer skills to transcribe and translate recordings in ELAN. After an initial set up phase and some training, they organised themselves and split the work between themselves. The main facilitators for this were Serafinus Gebze and Liberata Gebze, who included and sought help from other people as they saw fit. They worked on a spare computer I had brought inand eventually I left the computer with them too. Because of this setup, many of the recordings have an initial transcription and translation into Indonesian. For this work I paid them an hourly rate. By 2018, I had recorded, 20h17 in total (by recording length), excluding elicitation. Of this 13h07 are transcribed and translated into Indonesian and 5h17 are interlinearly glossed and translated into English. This last part is what the description is based on. For this data collection, I have used a range of methods with varying degrees of structuring and interference from me as the researcher. Broken up into categories my corpus looks as follows:

3Click on the collection name to activate the embedded link leading to the digital collection. 14 CHAPTER 1. PRELIMINARIES

1. Songs (1h21)

2. Traditional narratives (2h13)

3. Personal narratives and interviews (4h53)

4. Stimulus material (7h10)

5. Procedurals (3h50)

6. Other conversation (0h50)

The traditional narratives and songs I recorded are often tied to specific locations or leg- ends. They are the most relevant for the preservation of cultural knowledge and I made DVDs of the data to leave with the people. Later, I started giving them their data on micro SD cards they could put into their phones. Some of the personal narratives and interviews fall into the same category. I have, for instance, a recording of an elder talking about the history of the tribe as far back as it is trans- mitted and another one talking about life in the village, before Papua became part of Indonesia. On the other hand, a lot of the personal narratives are about day-to-day activities or topics that were of interest at the time of the recording. Most of the time, these were recorded as interviews or dialogues between two speakers. The largest part of my corpus are recordings prompted by stimulus material. Note that they are only counted by length in the corpus, if they are spontaneously and free-flowing speech. Recordings of elicitation sessions and conversations Ihad with speakers about the material are not counted here. Below is a list of material I used as stimulus:

• The BowPed picture series (Bowerman and Pederson 1992)

• the reciprocal videos (Evans et al. 2004)

• the aspect videos (Caudal 2013)

• the Jackal and Crow story (Carroll et al. 2011)

• the Pear Story (Chafe 1980)

• the Frog Story (Mayer 1969)

• the North Wind and the Sun Story (folk tale)

• the Family Problems Picture Task (San Roque et al. 2012) 1.3. METHODS AND LANGUAGE CORPUS 15

I also used other material that is not made for speech elicitation. One was a children’s picture book which displayed parts of animals. Another one is the Guide book to Birds of New Guinea (Pratt and Beehler 2014). In both cases, I recorded two speakers going through the material and talk about it, without prompting from me. Some material was recorded using stimulus material I made myself. This stimulus material had the form of films about traditional activities using footage I collected during mytrips (labeled Procedurals in the list above). For the collection of speech data, I showed those films to people and recorded their running/live description and comments on the activities depicted. The list of films is as follows:

• How to harvest sago from a sago palm (see TG1-Film_Sago1)

• How to extract sago starch from sago wood (see TG1-Film_Sago2)

• How to prepare a sago pancake (see TG1-Film_Sago3)

• How to produce lime from shells (see TG1-Film_Lime)

• How to fish with traditional round nets (see TG1-Film_Fishing)

• How to make a traditional dish called Sep (see TG1-Film_MakingSep)

• How to make a fan out of a palm leaf (TG1-BraidingAmbrosia)

Structured elicitation also had a place in my project. I used it mainly to determine the paradigms of verbs. I have at present paradigms of about 150 verbs. A further use of elicitation concerned phenomena that occurred in the collected material and topics of special interest. Most recordings are video and audio. I mainly used a Q8 Zoom recorder and a variety of head-mounted and lapel microphones. The collected material is archived with PARADISEC and will also be archived with the Centre of Endangered Language documentation in Manokwari, Indonesia. Software used for the analyses of the data are ELAN, PRAAT andFLEx. Examples cited in this work are spontaneously produced utterances where possible. They are indicated by a reference to the original recording archived in PARADISEC. The name of the recording under each example has an embedded link and leads directly to the relevant item in the catalog. The metadata in PARADISEC identifies date, place and speaker of the recording on the item level. All examples cited after Chapter 2 are from the Wanam variety, unless indicated otherwise. 16 CHAPTER 1. PRELIMINARIES

Table 1.1: Corpus summary

Material Location in archive Wanam variety wordlist TG1-Yamfinder_list songs (total 1h21) for instance, in TG1- DangDang_Song and TG1- FatCassuarySong traditional narratives (total 2h13) for instance, the story about the potato thief TG1-JEL20150802_02 personal narratives and interviews for instance in TG1- (total 4h53) AntonetaLastYear stimulus material (total 7h10) for instance, the frog story in TG1- FrogStory_Ambrosia procedural recordings (total 3h50) for instance, about how to make a sago pancake in TG1- Sago3_Marsel other conversations (total 0h50) Bibikem variety wordlist TG1-BibikemList Dodalim variety wordlist TG1-DudalimList conversation about the village TG1-Dudalim three songs TG1-DudalimSong_1, TG1-DudalimSong_2, TG1-DudalimSong_3 Woboyo variety wordlist TG1-WoboyuList conversation about the village TG1-Dudalim some elicitation TG1-WoboyuPronouns Maklew variety wordlist TG2-Yamfinder a short story TG2-20150731 Jackal and crow story TG2-20150924_02 some elicitation in various items in collection TG2 1.3. METHODS AND LANGUAGE CORPUS 17

Figure 1.12: Researcher and Yelmek speakers in Tika (from left to right: Maria Kambirop, Yolanda Aubalik, Eda Aubalik, Donata Mahuze, Dominaka Duma Gebze, Tina Gregor (researcher), Arnaldus Aubalik and children .

Figure 1.13: Native speakers transcribing language material; left to right Maria Tresia Gebze, Leberata Gebze and Liborius Mahuze. 18 CHAPTER 1. PRELIMINARIES

1.4 Typological profile of Wanam Yelmek

This grammar is mainly concerned with the variety of Yelmek spoken in Wanam, which I will henceforth refer to simply as Yelmek. Comparisons with other varieties will be discussed in Chapter 2. This section is intended to give a very brief overview of the typological features of Yelmek, which the subsequent chapters will elaborate on in much more detail. In Yelmek phonology, there are three places of articulation for plosive and nasal phonemes: bilabial, alveolar and velar. The only fricative phoneme that occurs regularly is /h/. Other fricatives like /s/ and /f/ are exceedingly rare and seem to be restricted to loanwords. Besides that, there are three approximant phonemes: a labiodental, an alveolar and a palatal. Tautosyllabic consonant clusters are heavily restricted and only occur as combinations with approximants. The vowel inventory is composed of three front vowel phonemes, /i/, /e/ and /a/, two central ones, /ʉ/ and /ə/, and two in the back /u/ and /o/. Combinations of vowels are very flexible. There is no lexical tone or distinctive stress and the basic intonation is the same for declarative and interrogative clauses. Morphological marking on nouns is very limited, compared to the morphological complexity of verbs (see Chapter 6). The noun categories gender, number and person are relevant in Yelmek, but are only visible on agreeing parts of speech, not on the nouns themselves, except for pronouns and kinship terms. All three of them can be expressed on the verb for both subject and object, but only number is expressed on nominal modifiers. Yelmek has a two-gender system, with a masculine/feminine distinction in the singular, but not the plural. Gender is assigned to animate as well as inanimate referents. For number, only singular and plural are distinguished. There is no dual marking. Person further distinguishes speaker (first person) from addressee (second person) and both of them form non-speech act participants (third person). Yelmek’s morpho-syntax shows both head and dependent marking. At the level of phrases, it is mostly dependent marking. For instance in a possession construction, the possessor is marked and so is the modifier in a noun modification construction. At the level of theclause, dependent marking is achieved with case suffixes and postpositions, whereas head-marking is visible in the inflection. Both marking types are aligned in a nominative-accusative system, with recipient arguments treated the same as direct object in the case marking and differently for the purpose of verbal inflection. Some cases are marked by suffix and some by post-positions, but they generally follow the element they refer to, except for the accusative suffix, which shows distributed case marking, i.e. only the last element of the noun phrase is obligatorily marked in a continuous noun phrase, but all elements are marked in a discontinuous noun phrase. 1.5. THESIS OUTLINE 19

The verb agrees with both the subject (intransitive and transitive) and the direct object. The subject agreement shows four distinct paradigms, one for each grammatical tense: Distant Past, Recent Past, Present and Future. The marking itself exhibits distributed exponence, where the agreement information is distributed over several marking sites. The object agreement for person is expressed as a prefix and the number and gender agreement is expressed bystem alternation. The object agreement is not influenced by tense or subject agreement. Moreover, the aspectual distinction between perfective and imperfective, as well as directionality can be expressed on the verb. There is no causative, applicative or passive marking. There is only one valency changing operation, which reduces the valency of a verb by one. The most typologically unusual feature of Yelmek’s verbal morphology is the pervasive use of stem change in the verbal morphology. It can mark agreement such as number of the subject or the object, as well as gender of the object, depending on the verb. The word order is verb final, with the object usually following the subject, though, overt argument noun phrases are rare in natural speech. In terms of larger syntactic units, Yelmek uses paratactic structures, rather than embedding. Almost all clause coordination and subor- dination consists of juxtaposing of independent clauses. The only exception are one type of relative clauses and purposive adverbial clauses. There are no clause-chaining or serial verb constructions.

1.5 Thesis outline

The thesis consists of 12 chapters and three appendices. Chapter 1 sets the scene with background information on the geopolitical situation of the language and information on the speech community and language vitality. In the second chapter, I discuss the external and internal linguistic relationships of the Yelmek-Maklew language family. This includes the comparison of wordlist data from the different varieties within the family, as well as a comparison ofpronoun sets and numerals. I also attempt a preliminary discussion on sound-changes. The rest of the description focusses on the Yelmek variety spoken by the people of Wanam. Chapter 3 is dedicated to phonology. Here, I discuss the phoneme inventory as well as suprasegmental features like stress and intonation. Chapter 4 describes the different parts of speech and their morphological properties; this includes detailed sections on adjectival modifiers (see §4.4), numerals and quantifiers (see §4.5), demonstratives (see §4.6) and adverbs (see §4.7). The following two chapters are dedicated to nominal morphology. Chapter 5 focusses on nominal categories, i.e person (see §5.1.1), number (see §5.1.2) and gender (see §5.1.3), as well as different types of nominals, such as personal pronouns (see §5.2), ignorative pronouns (see §5.3) and kinship terms (see § 5.4). Chapter 6 deals with the morphological marking on nominals 20 CHAPTER 1. PRELIMINARIES including case marking (see §6.1), possession (see §6.4), as well as associative plural marking (see §6.5), address term marking (see §6.6). The next three chapters deal with the different parts of the verbal morphology. Chapter 7 focuses on verbal inflection, Chapter 8 describes valency and alignment, while Chapter 9 deals with multi-word predicates and non-verbal predicates. The last three chapters in this grammar are dedicated to clausal syntax. Chapter 10 con- centrates on simple clauses. Topics here are constituent order as well as different clause types, such as imperative clauses, interrogative clauses and negative clauses. Chapter 11 then focuses on complex clauses, such as complement clauses, relative clauses and adverbial clauses. The last chapter, Chapter 12, deals with Coordination. Beside the regular chapters, this thesis contains three appendices. The first one contains to interlinearly glossed text (see Appendix A). The second one gives a list of vocabulary useful in conversation (see Appendix B). The third one is a comparative wordlist collected from the five Yelmek-Maklew villages (see Appendix C). Chapter 2

The Yelmek and Maklew languages

2.1 Linguistic classification

The island of New Guinea is well known for its linguistic diversity. According to Evans et al. (2017), the south of the island is particularly diverse but also remarkably understudied. There have been conflicting opinions about how Yelmek and Maklew fit into the region linguistically. In an earlier classification by Wurm (1975), they are grouped with the Trans-Fly-Yelmek- Maklew group, a sub-phylum of the Trans-New-Guinea (TNG) family. Ross (2005) points out, however, “that he [Wurm] considers these languages (or all except Yelmek–Maklew) to be languages of non-TNG descent which have been in considerable contact with TNG languages and that he [Wurm] places them in a TNG ‘sub-phylum’ on typological grounds” (Ross 2005: 39), thus not necessarily genealogically related. Similarities due to contact are a very likely as Yelmek and Maklew are surrounded by TNG languages, the most dominant and widespread language of them being Marind (Figure 2.1). Ross (2005) used a comparative analysis of pronoun sets to arrive at a preliminary hypothesis about language families. His analysis presents Yelmek-Maklew as one of the subgroups of a South-Central Papuan family, alongside two other subgroups: Morehead-Upper Maro or Yam family and the Pahoturi River family. However, for Evans et al. (2017) the evidence for a South-Central Papuan family containing these three groups is too weak. They consider it safer to treat Yelmek-Maklew as an independent family. Proof or disproof of this classification can only be found when more extensive data is available. There might have been disagreement about what Yelmek-Maklew is related to, but since Drabbe’s work it has always been assumed that the group itself includes only two members: Yelmek and Maklew; two separate, but nevertheless closely related languages. According to Drabbe (1954) Yelmek is spoken in the four villages directly to the east of the Princess Marianne Strait. These are called today Wanam, Bibikem, Woboyo and Dodalim. The presumed sister

21 22 CHAPTER 2. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW LANGUAGES

Figure 2.1: Map of the languages spoken in the area. language Maklew is spoken further inland in Welbuti. Unfortunately Drabbe does not say ex- plicitly what this division is based on. As he worked with young people attending the boarding school in Merauke and never travelled to any of the villages, my best guess is that he worked with speakers from Welbuti and speakers from Ilwajab and realised that those two languages must be related. He then grouped the villages based on anecdotal information gathered from the people he worked with. In my experience, speakers do not draw a line between the languages. If they are aware of differences, they consider them dialectal. In the SIL survey it is reported how theMaklew speaker in Welbuti stated that the varieties spoken in Wanam and Bibikem are the same (Lebold et al. 2010: 24). In contrast, Drabbe (1954) identifies these as the Yelmek-speaking villages 2.2. LEXICAL COMPARISON WITHIN YELMEK-MAKLEW 23

(Drabbe 1954: 549). Personally, I have also encountered a variety of contradictory opinions.

There are hints in the literature, however, that point towards a greater diversity than Drabbe’s account suggests. The German anthropologist Hans Nevermann worked in the same geographic area around the same time as Drabbe. He spent some time at least in Bibikem, In his subsequent publication he reports on an ethnic group he calls Jabga (Nevermann 1952). From the places he refers too and from lexical items he mentions it is clear that he is talking about the same group as Drabbe. According to Nevermann (1952), Jabga includes 7 groups: Yelmek (Jelmek) and Maklew (Makleuga) as well as 5 other groups: Jabga (proper), Galum, Dibga, Mópoko and Gónek. He gives a detailed account of settlements attributed to those groups. What is of particular interest here is that he mentioned all the villages found in Drabbe (1954) except Woboyo. However, every one of these settlements is associated with a different group. Wanam belonged to the Gónek, Ilwayab to the Yelmek, Bibikem to the Jabga, Dodalim to the Galum and Welbuti to the Makleuga (Nevermann 1952: 49). On the one hand, this supports the assumption that Yelmek is spoken in Wanam (as the people from Ilwayab moved there) and Maklew is spoken in Welbuti. This seems to indicate a higher degree of diversity than just two languages. In this chapter, I will argue that there are in fact four languages in the family based on the amount of possible cognates shared between the varieties and also based on shared innovations.

2.2 Lexical comparison within Yelmek-Maklew

During my fieldwork, I collected comparable word lists from speakers that identified asbeing from Wanam, Bibikem, Dodalim, Woboyo and Welbuti, i.e. representatives of all the current settlements that are official villages. There are more remote hamlets and temporary dwellings, where Yelmek-Maklew speakers reside, but I did not have the opportunity yet to explore these further. The following comparison, therefore, is just a starting point for a study on the internal relationship between the varieties. The five lists in orthographic spelling can be found in Appendix C. The recordings of the elicitation of these word lists are archived in the PAR- ADISEC catalog: Yelmek (TG1-Yamfinder_list), Bibikem (TG1-BibikemList), Woboyo (TG1- WoboyuList), Dodalim (TG1-DudalimList) and Maklew (TG2-Yamfinder).

I first discuss the results of the word list comparison as awhole(§2.2.1) and then expand on this with a comparison of pronouns (§2.2.2), the comparison of numerals (§2.2.3) and a preliminary discussion of sound correspondences (§2.2.4). 24 CHAPTER 2. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW LANGUAGES

2.2.1 Comparison overall

The word list I used was compiled by researchers of the Languages of the Southern New Guinea project (Carroll et al. 2016) to compare lexical material across the Yam family. This list, called the Yamfinder list, is a comparably long list of 386 items in total that includes lexical items specific to the Southern New Guinea region, e.g. plants and birds. The collected materialis available in the Yamfinder database.1 Eventually that will allow a wider comparison across languages from different families. At this stage I only use it to compare the varieties withinthe Yelmek-Maklew group. The list includes a total of 386 lexical items. For 299 items, I have data for all 5 varieties. Comparing across all five varieties, only 16 items (5%) use the exact same form and 109 items (36.58%) were judged by me to be similar enough across all varieties to be possible cognates, though this is subject to ongoing investigation. The tables below show a breakdown of those numbers into pairwise comparisons of villages. Table 2.1 shows figures for full matching forms and Table 2.2 the numbers of possible cognates. Table 2.3, shows the same data, but is disregards the verbs in the count. Verbs have highly complex morphology and can potentially have suppletive stems forms. Therefore, they could easily obscure lexical similarities. However, the percentage of similar forms in the table that includes the verbs (Table 2.2) and in the table that does not include the verbs (Table 2.3) do not differ substantially. The results of the lexical comparison are represented asagraph (Figure 2.2) in the conclusion section (§2.2.5).

Table 2.1: Identical forms for all village in a pairwise comparison.

WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM BIBIKEM 120 (33.71%) WOBOYO 58 (17%) 126 (37.84%) DODALIM 75 (22.59%) 132 (40%) 169 (54%) WELBUTI 52 (14.94%) 58 (16.62%) 25 (7.69%) 38 (12%)

Table 2.2: Possible cognates in a pairwise comparison.

WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM BIBIKEM 203 (57.02%) WOBOYO 183 (55.45%) 249 (74.77%) DODALIM 204 (61%) 250 (76%) 252 (81%) WELBUTI 156 (44.83%) 144 (41.26%) 143 (44%) 116 (35%)

1http://www.yamfinder.com 2.2. LEXICAL COMPARISON WITHIN YELMEK-MAKLEW 25

Table 2.3: Possible cognates in a pairwise comparison without verbs.

WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM BIBIKEM 169 (59%) WOBOYO 153 (58%) 200 (75%) DODALIM 170 (64%) 204 (78%) 206 (84%) WELBUTI 123 (44%) 120 (43%) 112 (43%) 97 (37%)

Table 2.4: Distances between villages in kilometres.

WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM BIBIKEM 37.5 WOBOYO 54.5 18.7 DODALIM 62 26.3 7.7 WELBUTI 73.4 54.2 48.4 46.7

First of all, the figures align well with the distances between the villages (see Figure 2.4). Welbuti, which is the furthest away, also has the lowest scores for lexical similarities with the other villages, while Woboyo and Dodalim, which are the closest together, also have the highest degree of lexical similarity. That Welbuti has the lowest percentages in comparison with every other village, confirms the split Drabbe makes, between Maklew (Welbuti) and the other varieties. It splits the language family into two branches, a Maklew branch (the Welbuti variety) and a Yelmek branch (the four other varieties). Within the Yelmek branch, the percentages of similarities between the four villages are also surprisingly low. To put this into perspective: In SIL surveys, where they use lexical lists to determine relations between languages, the cut-off point is at 60%. Everything below that would be treated as separate languages (Lebold et al. 2010: 26). Using this threshold, the varieties in Bibikem, Woboyo and Dodalim (74.77% - 81%) would be one language. This would result in the assumption that there are 3 different languages, although, Wanam and Dodalim also just make the threshold (61%). The SIL threshold, however, is noticeably low. Other authors use much more conservative cut-off points. Voorhoeve (1968), for instance, considers varieties below 81% similarity different languages. By this measure, only Woboyo and Dodalim share a language (81%), all other villages varieties are distinct enough to be considered different languages. Note that Voorhoeve (1968) also compares lexical similarities between Yelmek and Maklew based on Drabbe’s material. He finds a 58% similarity between the two. 26 CHAPTER 2. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW LANGUAGES

2.2.2 Pronoun sets

The pronoun sets of languages are often used as a diagnostic feature for the relationship between languages. Ross (2005) for instance bases his preliminary grouping of Papuan languages on them. In Yelmek and Maklew, the pronouns immediately show the family resemblance between the varieties (see Table 2.5). The first-person singular forms are almost identical and the third person plural is also similar. The second-person singular in Welbuti is different from the others, but the other varieties at least have the vowel in common. Compared to the pronoun sets in Drabbe (1954), there are some small differences. There are some forms which Drabbe notes differently (see Table 2.6). In Yelmek, the first vowel in the 2PL is an /e/ in Drabbe’s description. He also has an additional /w/ after the last vowel in all the possessive forms, but it isunclear what this means from a phonetic point of view. In my data for Maklew (Welbuti), the 1SG possessive form has an extra syllable, which is lacking in Drabbe’s data.

Table 2.5: Pronoun sets of all five varieties

YELMEK MAKLEW WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM WELBUTI 1SG ŋəl ŋəl ŋər ŋər ŋəlo 1PL ŋag no data ŋo ŋo ŋag 2SG au ag ag ag obe 2PL al no data no data er omle 3SG eu no data no data iber ib 3PL em iməl imraŋ imre iməl

Table 2.6: These are the pronoun sets from the original Drabbe (1954) publication, representing his original spelling. Note, that I have adjusted the column and row labels to facilitate and easier comparison with my own data.

Yelmek Maklew nominative accusative nominative accusative 1SG ŋöl ŋölel ŋöllo ŋölél or ŋlél 1PL ŋag ŋagol ŋag ŋagol 2SG aw awol obé awol 2PL el elél omlé alél 3SG éw ébi ib ibél 3PL ém émi imél imlél 2.2. LEXICAL COMPARISON WITHIN YELMEK-MAKLEW 27

2.2.3 Numerals

The counting system of Yelmek and Maklew languages is restricted to a small set of numerals. Nowadays people use Indonesian numerals in most contexts. It is unclear if there used to be more number words in the past. Table 2.7 shows the numerals for all four varieties. Across all of them, only the first three numerals are clearly underived. They are also cognate forms, except the Welbuti term for 1. The numerals 4 and 5 are composed of the numeral for 2 and some extra morphological material, but neither in a fully transparent, nor uniform way. The Welbuti variety just reduplicates the numeral 2, in the Bibikem variety a suffix is added and in the Wanam variety some morphological material precedes the numeral for 2. The Dodalim variety then uses all three strategies to derive a numeral for 4 and in Woboyo no numeral for 4 was offered at all. The numeral for 5 as well as 10 is based on the word for ‘hand’ in Woboyo, Dodalim and Welbuti. In Welbuti, it is bəl ‘hand’ and mepola ‘one’ for the numeral 5 and the numeral for 10 is a reduplicated form of a combination including the word for ‘hand’. In Woboyo and Dodalim the structure is more opaque, though it is clearly built around orpo ‘hand’ in both varieties and at least in the Woboyo variety 10 also includes the numeral 2, which results in something akin to ‘two hands’. In the Wanam variety the numeral 10 includes alpo ‘hand’, but the numeral 5 does not. The pronunciation of this numeral also varies between speakers. Besides kereŋkapak, I have come across kerenkapak and kereŋkampak. When asked for higher numbers, speakers tend to combine those six numeral terms, if they don’t reject the idea entirely. For instance 6 would be the numeral for 5 combined with the numeral for 1 and so on. For numerals higher than 10, the term for 10 is used with the numeral 1 to 5 and then adding 1 to 4 to them for the higher ones. Even the most enthusiastic informant, however, was only able to compose numbers until 50 (see §4.5).

Table 2.7: Numerals compared.

WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM WELBUTI 1 eŋklala ukala ukara ukara mepola 2 ina ina ina ina inage 3 mʉdem mʉdem mʉdem miɟem mʉɟem emedʉinada inage 4 ebedina inada ∼emedʉinada ∼inage 5 kereŋkapak orpo kuduwe orpukabo bəlmepola orpo ina orpukabo bəlŋuka 10 alpo toi migem idebe bəlŋuka 28 CHAPTER 2. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW LANGUAGES

2.2.4 Sound correspondences

The Yelmek-Maklew varieties show a number of systematic sound correspondences. A complete comparison or reconstruction is out of the scope of the present chapter, but I will show the state of knowledge in this ongoing investigation. Previously, Usher (2014) attempts a reconstruction of the phoneme inventory of what he calls the Proto-Bulaka-river family2, aligning himself with the pre-received assumption that the family has just two members, Yelmek and Maklew. He based his work on the published wordlists from Geurtjens (1933), Nevermann (1952), Drabbe (1954) and Lebold et al. (2010). Only the last one, which is of the Welbuti variety (Maklew), is relatively recent and uses phonetic transcription. Despite the inherent problems with the material he had available, Usher’s (2014) analysis is very detailed with a full list of examples for every phoneme he reconstructs. I am in the fortunate position of having much more data available and can therefore add to his findings and discuss his claim controversially. I will in fact show how shared innovations divide up the language family in branches and different languages, which supports my findings from the figures of the lexical comparison above. In terms of internal relatedness of the different varieties, the division that is the most straightforward to trace is, of course, the one between the Yekmek branch and the Maklew branch. This aligns with the results from the possible cognate count, discussed in §2.2 above and Drabbe’s assumption that there are two members in this family. Usher (2014) claims that Maklew has co-participated with Marind dialects in a number of sound changes (Usher 2014: 31), which might explain this finding. One of those divisions is between /t/ and /k/. For a number of cognates the Welbuti variety has a /k/ sound where all other varieties have a /t/ sound. In my word list that occurs 2 times in initial position and once in medial position, see Table 2.8. However, there are many examples where /t/ is realised as /t/ in all varieties and the same for /k/.

Table 2.8: Sound correspondences between /t/ and /k/.

YELMEK MAKLEW WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM WELBUTI English ete ete ete ete ake ‘fire’ tame tame tame tame kame ‘path’ təŋ təŋ təŋ təŋ kəŋ ‘laugh’ tipunek tipək tipənce tipuge tipuŋ ‘long’ tame potnek tame potok tame potok kame potoŋ ‘foot path’

2Not all languages are in fact on the Bulaka river. Therefore, I am reluctant to use this term. 2.2. LEXICAL COMPARISON WITHIN YELMEK-MAKLEW 29

It is possible to account for this, by assuming three proto-phonemes. Usher (2014) suggests *t, *k and *c in this context. Synchronically *t would be realised as /t/ in all varieties and *k as /k/. The *c, however, would be realised as /k/ in Welbuti and /t/ in all other varieties. This analysis would hold for my data as well. Especially, because I have found that the variety of Woboyo has retained /c/ as a phoneme in its inventory. However, it does not appear in the cognates, but is largely restricted to what in Wanam-Yelmek would be an attributive suffix /- nek/. For instance, in Wanam-Yelmek the word for ‘good’ is ŋəm and as an attributive modifier it is ŋəmnek. In the Woboyo variety the same word is given as [nemənce]. Another example is the word for ‘long’ in Table 2.8. It might be that the *c was retained in the Woboyo variety only in a specific phonological context. More data, especially about the Woboyo variety, is necessary to draw a firmer conclusion, but the data so far indicates that Usher’s reconstruction of the three proto-phonemes *t, *k and *c and thus the direction of the change is correct Another prominent split is between /h/ and /w/. In my list, I have 6 cognates that are realised with an /h/ in Welbuti and a /w/ in all other varieties, three in initial position and three in medial position. This matches Usher (2014)’s proto-phoneme *w. There are however a further three cognates where a /w/ in initial position is present in all varieties. Usher (2014) unfortunately did not have such examples in his set and doesn’t distinguish them in the proto form.

Table 2.9: Correspondence set /w/ or /h/

YELMEK MAKLEW WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM WELBUTI English woko woko woko hoko ‘liver’ wi wi wi wi hi ‘flower’ owi owi owi owiye ohi ‘cassowary’ wodo wodo wodo wodo wodo ‘leg, foot’ wobia wobia wobia wobia wobia ‘younger sibling’

Regardless, of what the proto phoneme were, the Welbuti variety has clearly undergone changes that were not shared by the other variety. Welbuti is also geographically the furthest away (Table 2.4). This variety has also a far lower amount of lexical similarity with the other varieties than the other varieties have with each other. I therefore regard the Welbuti variety not only as a different language (Maklew), but as a different branch of the family, theMaklew branch, as opposed to the the Yelmek branch (see Figure 2.2). Within the Yelmek branch, the Wanam variety is furthest away from the other three, geographically (Table 2.4) and according to the results from the possible cognates count (Table 2.2). It also shows innovations that are not present in the other varieties. For instance, in a number 30 CHAPTER 2. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW LANGUAGES of possible cognates the variety in Wanam has the /d/ where the three other varieties in this branch have a palatal phoneme, a /j/ or /ɟ/.3 Note that the Welbuti variety (Maklew) again has innovated differently than the entire Yelmek branch and shows a /ɡ/ in the corresponding forms.4 According to Usher’s (2014) reconstruction, synchronic /d/ and /g/ derive from three proto-phonemes: *d, *ɡ and *ɟ, e.i /d/ and /ɡ/ being diachronically stable, whereas *ɟ is /d/ in present day Yelmek and /ɡ/ in present day Maklew. This matches my data with regard to Mak- lew and the Yelmek variety spoken in Wanam. In addition, my data reveals more insights into what happened in the Yelmek branch. The three varieties, the ones spoken in Bibikem, Do- dalim and Woboyu, seem to have preserved the place of articulation. This separates them from the variety in Wanam (Table 2.10). Interestingly, for the lexical items in the first half of the table, the manner of articulation changed to a glide for the corresponding phoneme. For the lexical items in the second half of the table, however, only the cognate from Bibikem displays the glide. The cognates from Woboyo and Dodalim use /ɟ/. Usher’s reconstruction does not account for this, but again, as for the reconstruction of a proto *c, this data indicates that a proto *ɟ is feasible.

Table 2.10: Correspondence set /d/, /j/ and /ɡ/.

YELMEK MAKLEW WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM WELBUTI English adak ajak ajak ajake aɡoa ‘where’ kədak kijak kijak gijak ‘here’ apad apaj apaj apaj apeŋɡe ‘how’ ŋədel ŋədel ŋəɟer ŋəɟ er ŋeɡele ‘name’ emde ende enɟe enɟe emde ‘snot’

Another possible sound change is the loss of prenasalisation in stops in Wanam-Yelmek. Where Wanam-Yelmek doesn’t have any prenasalised stops, the other three Yelmek varieties still have them in some lexical items, for instance mbasom ‘axe’ in Bibikem and Dodalim corresponds to batom in Wanam, as well as the word for ‘big’ which mbuik in Bibikem and mbujuk in Woboyo and Dodalim. Unfortunately, I don’t have clear correspondence sets in my data and more research into the phonology of the different varieties is necessary to know for certain. Besides sound correspondences, Wanam-Yelmek differs from the other Yelmek varieties in some very noteworthy ways. Three striking examples are the expressions for ‘mother’, ‘father’ and ‘person/people’ (Table 2.11). In Wanam-Yelmek the word for mother is bia and the word for

3In the orthography used in Appendix C /j/ is written as ‘y’ and /ɟ/ is written as ‘dg’. 4There are exceptions however, e.g. the numeral 3 in Table 2.7 has a /ɟ/ where I would expect a /ɡ/. 2.2. LEXICAL COMPARISON WITHIN YELMEK-MAKLEW 31 father is ida. In all three of the other Yelmek varieties, however, bia is used for father and a non- cognate words for ‘mother’. Maklew uses non-cognate words for both. Then, Wanam-Yelmek has two distinct lexical roots for a single ‘person’ omgo and the plural ‘people’ nʉa. Maklew also marks the singular/plural split here with different lexical roots, but only the plural is cognate with the Wanam-Yelmek words. The varieties in Bibikem, Woboyo and Dodalim seem to have collapsed the distinction and use nʉa for both the singular and the plural5.

Table 2.11: Lexical items compared ‘mother’, ‘father’ and ‘person/people’.

YELMEK MAKLEW WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM WELBUTI English bia məna məna məna ngowa ‘mother’ ida bia bia bia ŋima ‘father’ omgo nʉa nʉen nʉa məlo ‘person’ nʉa nʉa nʉa nʉa ŋuha ‘people’

Besides those lexical items where the cognate meaning has visibly shifted, there are a number of cases where matching lexical items are used in Bibikem, Woboyo and Dodalim, but an entirely different one in Wanam. Some of them are illustrated inTable 2.12.

Table 2.12: Lexical items in the Wanam variety compared to the rest of the Yelmek-branch.

WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM English ebi bʉa bʉa bʉa ‘house’ mui bo bo bubo ‘taro’ yok opla opra opra ‘sleep’ oida opklo opokro opokro ‘ear’ wale tau tau tau ‘betelnut’ num agua agua agua ‘dog’ noma mogo mogo mogo ‘fruit’6

This leaves the varieties of Bibikem, Woboyo and Dodalim as a potential group. The three villages are fairly close together (Figure 2.4) and the lexical overlap is high (Table 2.2), but there is one innovation that separates Woboyo and Dodalim from the rest of the family. As can be seen in Table 2.13, they show an /r/ where the other varieties use /l/. This is consistent through my whole list. There are 27 examples; all in medial or final position, but neither /r/ or /l/ seems to occur in initial position. There are no counterexamples. The /r/ as a phoneme seems to not

5In Woboyo the singular form has a different ending, but it is unclear at this stage if this is a derivation orifit really is two different stems, both however are cognate with the plural form in Yelmek. 32 CHAPTER 2. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW LANGUAGES exist in any other variety7.

Table 2.13: Correspondance set /l/ and /r/

YELMEK MAKLEW WANAM BIBIKEM WOBOYO DODALIM WELBUTI English bila bila bira bira bila ‘throat’ kəl kəl kər kər kəl ‘tooth’ biyol biyol biyor biyor biyol ‘bamboo’

2.2.5 Conclusion for the lexical comparison

In this chapter, I argued that contrary to previous assumptions, there are more than two languages in the Yelmek-Maklew family. Based on word lists I collected, I propose to consider Drabbe’s original division into the two languages Yelmek and Maklew as a division of branches instead, thus a Yelmek-branch and a Maklew-branch. The count of possible cognates between each variety consistently shows the lowest scores when a given variety is compared to Mak- lew as spoken in Welbuti. Systematic sound correspondences also show distinct differences of Maklew (Welbuti) compared with all the other varieties in the family. This is unsurprising considering that the Welbuti village is the furthest away from all the other villages. Within the Yelmek-branch the findings are more preliminary, because they are basedon a comparatively small set of possible cognates. The picture, as it emerges so far is that the varieties spoken in Wanam and Bibikem are distinct languages, whereas Woboyo and Dodalim share a language. This shared language then is in certain respects closer to the language spoken in Bibikem than to the one spoken in Wanam, which might be expected due to the geographic spread. Figure 2.2 show the results as a graphic, indicating the percentage of possible cognates (see Table 2.2) as the nodes and indicates the shared innovations as discussed above.

7Wanam-Yelmek has /r/ as allophone of /d/ before /k/ (see §3.4.1). 2.2. LEXICAL COMPARISON WITHIN YELMEK-MAKLEW 33

35% - 45% t <> k w <> h Innovations d, j, ɟ <> g

Welbuti Maklew branch

55-61% j, ɟ <> d mb, nd

Wanam

75-76% ɟ <> d d, g <> j branch

Bibikem

81% l <> r d, g <> ɟ Yelmek Woboyo Dodalim

Figure 2.2: Internal relationship of the Yelmek-Maklew language family. Percentages represent the amount of possible cognates in pairwise comparison (see Table 2.2). Where more than one language pair is involved, the range is given from the pair with the lowest percentage to the pair with the highest percentage. Furthermore, the distinguishing innovations are indicated on the right-hand side of the language box. A <> B reads as: In this language, B corresponds to A in possible cognates sets. 34 CHAPTER 2. THE YELMEK AND MAKLEW LANGUAGES Chapter 3

Phonology

3.1 Overview

In this chapter, I discuss the basic phonology of Yelmek as spoken in Wanam (see map in Figure 1.2). I start with the phoneme inventory and a discussion of possible and impossible combinations of vowels and consonants respectively, as well as some morphophonemic phenomena. Then I describe stress and intonation. The chapter ends with a section on the orthographic conventions for the rest of the thesis. The vowel inventory is composed of three front vowel phonemes, /i/, /e/ and /a/, two central vowels, /ʉ/ and /ə/, and two back vowels /u/ and /o/, see Figure 3.1. Vowels are the only possible nuclei for syllables. Combinations of two or three vowels within a syllable are frequent. Vowel length is not phonemic, but the lengthening of vowels can occur for morphological or prosodic reasons (see §3.3.3). Yelmek does not have a phonemic tone distinction. The individual vowel segments are discussed in more detail in §3.3.

i• •• ʉ •• u

e• •• •• o ə •• •• ••

a• ••

Figure 3.1: The Yelmek vowel inventory.

Figure 3.2 shows the consonant inventory. For plosives and nasals, Yelmek uses three places of articulation: bilabial, alveolar and velar. Plosives have a further voicing distinction. Frica- tives are rare. The ones that do occur are the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ and voiceless glottal

35 36 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

Bilabial Labio-velar Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Plosive p b t d k g Nasal m n ŋ Fricative s h Approx w j Lat. appr. l

Figure 3.2: Yelmek’s consonant inventory.

/h/. Furthermore, there are a lateral approximant /l/, as well as a labio-velar approximant /w/ and a palatal approximant /j/. The consonant phonemes are discussed in more detail in §3.4. Consonant clusters are restricted to combinations that involve approximants (see §3.4.5). The remainder of this chapter is organised as follows. Section §3.2 puts Yelmek’s vowel and consonant inventory in a wider typological context. Section 3.3.1 presents Yelmek’s vowels phonemes, followed by §3.3.2 on vowel sequences and §3.3.3 on vowel lengthening. Section 3.4 discusses consonants, including §3.4.6 about consonant clusters and epenthetic schwa. This is followed by a section describing the morphonemic phenomenon of vowel deletion (§3.5).The next two sections then moves from the segmental level to the suprasegmental level, discussing stress in §3.6.1 and intonation in §3.6.2. The final section §3.7 explains the orthographic conventions used in this thesis.

3.2 Yelmek’s phoneme inventory in context

Compared to the sample of the World Atlas of Language Structure (WALS) Yelmek has a ‘small’ consonant inventory. This groups Yelmek with 15.8% of the 563 languages in their sample (Maddieson 2013a). Maddieson (2013a) even observes a “particular concentrations of “small” inventories in New Guinea”. Yelmek, therefore, aligns with the wider distribution of such inventories. The Yelmek vowel inventory, on the other hand, would be considered ‘large’ in the WALS sample, which groups Yelmek with 32.5% of their sample (Maddieson 2013b), but again this confirms the expectation as Maddieson (2013b) finds a concentration of larger than average vowel inventories at least in interior New Guinea. A detailed typological comparison within New Guinea is much more difficult as no recent survey is readily available. This is partially due to the fact that endangered languages are under-represented in phonetic and phonological studies. Only this year, a special issue of JASA1, bringing together counter-examples to this tendency, stresses in its introduction that

1The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 147, Special issue on the phonetics of under-documented 3.2. YELMEK’S PHONEME INVENTORY IN CONTEXT 37

“the vast majority of research is performed using what might be called scientifically prominent languages (a type of convenience sampling)—particularly English and languages of Europe and parts of Asia” (Tucker and Wright 2020: 2741). Even among the JIPA2 illustrations of the IPA, which cover a vast number of languages, only two are on Papuan languages (by early 2020). For a comparison of Yelmek’s phoneme inventory with wider New Guinea, we have to go back to Foley’s (1986) Languages of New Guinea. Foley’s (1986) generalisations about Papuan (= non-Austronesian) languages in New Guinea largely hold for Yelmek. Foley (1986) claims that the systems are generally relatively simple in Papuan languages. He uses the consonant inventory of Fore, an Eastern Highlands language for illustration (Foley 1986: 55): /p/, /t/, /k/, /ʔ/, /m/, /n/, /s/, /w/ and /y/. The consonant inventory of Yelmek is very similar to this. It also has /p/, /t/ and /k/ as phonemes, though /ʔ/ only occurs as an allophone of /k/. Yelmek also has a phonemic voicing distinction in stops, which, according to Foley (1986: 61) is the most common additional distinctive phonetic feature. In his sample, many languages with voiced stops also have prenasalisation of voiced stops. This, however, is absent in Yelmek. Nasals as phonemes are produced on the same three places of articulation as stops, i.e. /n/, /m/ and /ŋ/. The fricative /s/ occurs in Yelmek, although very rarely. In my current dictionary of 665 entries, only 15 have an /s/ and they might all be loan words (see §3.4.3 for a discussion on this). Yelmek has no other fricative phonemically (except maybe /h/). This is in line with (Foley 1986: 56) who states ”Papuan languages are generally not rich in fricative phonemes”. Furthermore, Foley (1986: 56) discusses two semivowels /w/ and /y/. From the symbols he uses, it is unclear what quality he intended, but I would assume one is labial and one is palatal. These two are also present in Yelmek. On top of that, Yelmek has a phonemic lateral approximant /l/. The consonant inventory of Yelmek is shown in Figure 3.2, and the separate phonemes are discussed in more detail in §3.4. When it comes to vowels, the basic vowel system in Papuan languages consists of the five vowels: i, e, a, o and u, according to Foley (1986). If a sixth vowel phoneme is present, then it is commonly an /ɔ/ or a central vowel between /ɨ/ and /ʌ/, most often realised as [ə]. Systems with more than seven vowels, he considers extremely rare (Foley 1986: 52-54). Yelmek does have seven vowel phonemes and among them the basic five, which Foley mentions. Moreover the sixth vowel phoneme is a central vowel, as Foley would have predicted. However, the seventh vowel phoneme in Yelmek, the rounded central /ʉ/, is not mentioned at all in Foley (1986). Yelmek’s vowel inventory is shown in Figure 3.1 and the separate phonemes are discussed in §3.3. Compared to other languages in Southern New Guinea, Yelmek stands out moderately. A languages https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0001107 2Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY forthcoming special issue of LD&C3 includes contributions about six languages in Southern New Guinea, Yelmek among them. In his introduction to the special issue, Evans states that South New Guinea does not have distinctive typological features when it comes to Phonology, but shows some notable absences, such as no tone, no pitch accent or distinctive stress, nor features like ejectives (Evans forthcoming). This is all true for Yelmek. Among the six languages discussed in this special issue, Yelmek is most similar to Batur, which belongs to the Lower Fly sub-branch of the Marind-Anim family, thus is neither related nor geographically close. Yelmek and Batur differ from the two Yam languages and the two Pahoturi River discussed in the special issue in that they both have small consonant inventories as well as a lack of prenasalised stops. Furthermore, Yelmek has a velar nasal /ŋ/, which is absent in Batur and the two Yam languages, but present in the two Pahoturi River languages. Furthermore, Yelmek is the only language among the six, which has no /r/ phoneme, though it does retain it as an alophone in very limited contexts (see §3.4.1).

3.3 Vowels

3.3.1 Monophthongs

Yelmek has seven vowel phonemes: three front vowels, /i/, /e/ and /a/, two central vowels, /ʉ/ and /ə/, and two back vowels /u/ and /o/. Vowel length is not phonemic. In addition to the oral vowels, the three marginal nasal vowels, /ẽ /, /ã/ and /æ̃ /, are produced by speakers for interactional purposes, as what Ward (2006) calls “non-lexical conversational sounds”. That means that they are produced to indicate, for instance, agreement or simply that the listener is still following. They are not distinct phonemes within lexical items. Figure 3.1 illustrates the vowel phonemes in a standardised vowel chart, and Figure 3.3 shows the realisation of a sample of vowels produced by a male speaker4 during a recital of the “The North Wind and the Sun” story. All measurements were done using Praat5. All plots were made in RStudio6 using the ggplot2 package. The tokens for this graph were manually selected and measured to reduce the error rate. However, that also means that the number of tokens is relatively small. Below, I will discuss each vowel in turn and show them in plots with a larger number of tokens. The tokens for the plots for the individual vowels are produced by

3Language Documentation & Conservation, special issue on Papuan languages of Southern New Guinea 4Kasimirus Gebze, born 1966, lives in Wanam. 5Boersma, Paul & Weenink, David. 2017. Praat: doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.0.16. URL: http://www.praat.org/ 6RStudio Team. 2015. RStudio: Integrated Development for R. RStudio, Inc., Boston, MA URL http://www.rstudio.com/. 3.3. VOWELS 39 forced alignment of 11 recordings of varying length, spoken by the same older female speaker7, who lives and grew up in Wanam. In a nutshell, this means that an algorithm developed by McAuliffe, Socolof, Mihuc, Wagner and Sonderegger (2017) takes the transcriptions, which are time-aligned to utterances in ELAN8. It then aligned them on the phoneme level of the recording. Based on this time-aligned data, a PRAAT script then extracts vowel formants. This yielded measurements for 6583 vowel tokens. These were then used for the graphs of the individual vowels9. Note that the texts used for this have been transcribed by native speakers using Indonesian orthography and not in IPA, that means some tokens are doubtless false. On the other hand, the interesting perspective such a comparably large amount of tokens offers makes it still a worthwhile approach. I will, therefore, combine the insights from the quantitative perspective with the insights from my qualitative analyses for this description. All seven vowel phonemes are found in minimal pairs and near-minimal pairs (see Table 3.1) and each will be discussed in turn below.

7Ambrosia Kahol, born 1972, lives in Wanam 8ELAN [Computer software]. Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Retrieved from https://tla.mpi.nl/tools/tla-tools/elan/ 9Thanks to Simón González for the technical realisation of this. 40 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

200

400

Vowel quality

u 600

ə first.formant a

800

1000

3000 2000 1000 second.formant

Figure 3.3: Vowel realisation by a male speaker telling the ”The Northwind and the Sun” story. 3.3. VOWELS 41 ‘tomor- ‘place’ ‘bad’ ‘opening’ o kol.ku ‘scratch.PRS’ w /o/ dom jo.pəl row’ wo.bo ‘nose’ ‘people’ /ʉ/ bʉ.ma nʉa ‘heart’ edible tree’ ‘urine’ ‘ /u/ ku.la ‘cook.RPST’ bu.lo o.ŋo nua ’ ‘big’ ‘thick’ ‘centipede’ ‘sago’ ‘leaf’ .ŋa /a/ mua ba.ma ‘chew.1SG.DPST’ dam ‘inside kal ba.la ba.lo o daŋ ‘to stand’ et sea- er’ ‘w ope’ ‘beehive’ ‘fish’ ‘riv ‘r ‘tooth’ /ə/ wəl dəm jə.pəl dəŋ kəl son’ wəw ‘later’ ‘heavy’ ‘put.RPST’ ‘roof’ ‘with’ .la e.be ew e.ma /e/ ke b w dem w oat’ o’ ‘thr ‘build.PRS’ ‘tar ‘grass’ ‘night’ able 3.1: Minimal pairs and near-minimal pairs for vowel phonemes. /i/ ki.lo muj wi bi.la wil T 42 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

Vowel /a/ The phoneme /a/ appears in all positions in the word (ex. 1).

(1) a. word-initial: agəl ‘body’ b. word-medial: kaga ‘grandkin’ c. word-final: gaga ‘language’

The range of this vowel in terms of first and second formant is quite large and overall it is the most frequently occurring vowel based on the forced alignment data. There were 2633 tokens extracted by the algorithm. Figure 3.4 shows a graph with the individual tokens as dots. The lines are generated by the algorithm to show density. From the graph, it can be seen that these tokens form one centre, i.e. one area of high density. It is unlikely, therefore, to be more than one phoneme. It is quite likely that there are different allophones, but the distinction was so gradient in the datathat the algorithm did not reveal it10. In the future, I will investigate this further using a smaller but cleaner data set.

Figure 3.4: Vowel /a/ realisation by a female speaker (forced alignment data)

10We made different plots using preceding and following segments as variable, but without a clear result 3.3. VOWELS 43

Vowel /e/ The phoneme /e/ also appears in all positions in the word (ex. 2). The phonetic realisation of the first formant is between close-mid (F1 400Hz) and open-mid (F1 600Hz).

(2) a. word-initial: em ‘they’ b. word-medial: meme ‘young woman’ c. word-final: ame ‘who’

Figure 3.5 shows 1839 tokens, which spread over a large range of second format values. Nevertheless, they only have one centre of density. Note, that the current orthography the native speaker transcribers use for the transcription does not distinguish /ə/ from /e/. Therefore, the large spread towards the centre can be accounted for by the fact that some of them are actually schwas.

Figure 3.5: Vowel /e/ realisation by a female speaker (forced alignment data)

Vowel /i/ The phoneme /i/ can form an entire word by itself (e.g. i ‘hair’), but it also can be found in all positions within a word (ex. 3). Its centre of density, displayed in Figure 3.6, is 44 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY higher than the one for /e/, but still much less close (F1 300Hz) and more close-mid (F1 400Hz) than the canonical /i/ (found in languages like French). 643 tokens were used for this plot.

(3) a. word-initial: ina ‘two’ b. word-medial: olikop ‘young man’ c. word-final: temi ‘black’

Figure 3.6: Vowel /i/ realisation by a female speaker (forced alignment data)

Vowel /o/ The phoneme /o/ covers the back and mid (closed-mid and open-mid) range of the vowel space leaning to open-mid, as shown in Figure 3.7. It can occur in all positions in the word (ex. 4). In terms of F2 it spreads far less than /e/ and /i/ and has a very dense centre at F1 ∼500Hz and F2 ∼1000Hz.

(4) a. word-initial: omgo ‘person’ b. word-medial: gomnek ‘male’ c. word-final: bemo ‘head’ 3.3. VOWELS 45

Figure 3.7: Vowel /o/ realisation by a female speaker (forced alignment data)

Vowel /u/ and /ʉ/ There are two phonemes for high rounded vowels; the high-back vowel /u/ and the high-central vowel /ʉ/. The back vowel /u/ is found in all positions in the word (see ex. 5). The high central is much rarer and more restricted. There is no unrounded variant of either. I will discuss them together because they only occur in complementary distribution in medial position. There are clear minimal pairs between /u/ and /ʉ/, for instance, nua ‘edible tree’ vs. nʉa ‘people’ and also minimal between other vowels and /ʉ/ as in the set: bʉma ‘nose’ vs. bama ‘I chewed’ vs. bema ‘later(1SG)’. All minimal pairs I have found are in medial position.

(5) a. word-initial: unugu ‘clothes’ b. word-medial: num ‘dog’ c. word-final: ju ‘water’

The distinction between /u/ and /ʉ/ in medial position is reflected in the three plots, showing the tokens for /u/ and /ʉ/ based on the position in the word; Initial position (Figure 3.9), medial position (Figure 3.10) and final position (Figure 3.8). In Figure 3.8 for the final position, the tokens (125) are fairly spread out, and the one centre that shows is not very dense. This 46 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

Figure 3.8: Vowel /u/ and /ʉ/ realisation by a female speaker in final position (forced alignment data)

Figure 3.9: Vowel /u/ and /ʉ/ realisation by a female speaker in initial position (forced alignment data) 3.3. VOWELS 47

Figure 3.10: Vowel /u/ and /ʉ/ realisation by a female speaker in medial position (forced alignment data) indicates that the two phonemes are not distinguished in word-final position and explains why no minimal pairs were found here. The picture is different in Figure 3.9 and Figure 3.10, which both show more than one centre, although the the second centre in 3.10 is rather faint. Figure 3.9 only has 12 tokens, and the 2-3 centres that show are not reliable. Figure 3.10, on the other hand, includes 264 tokens, which is more than the number of tokens for the final position and the initial position together. Here one very dense centre shows in the back and another less dense centre in a more central area. The centre in the central area is weaker and only visible in the curves of the line rather than an enclosed space, but it still indicates that we do indeed have two phonemes in medial position. It also shows that the central /ʉ/ is rarer than the back /u/.

Vowel /ə/ The central vowel /ə/ is much more restricted in its environment than the other vowel phonemes. It does not occur word-initially or word-finally and is perceptibly shorter. It is a phoneme, however, distinct from epenthetic schwas that are inserted to break up illicit consonant clusters (see §3.4.6). First of all, there are minimal pairs with all other phonemes, except the other central vowel /ʉ/(see Table 3.1). The absence of a minimal pair between the central vowels is very likely not systematic, but simply due to the rarity of /ʉ/. More notably is the absence of a minimal pair 48 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY between a schwa and zero, e.g. a hypothetical pəlak vs. a hypothetical plak. However, Yelmek is very restrictive on consonant clusters. Therefore, the opportunity for such a pair to occur is very limited. Furthermore, the phonemic schwa behaves differently to the epenthetic schwa in morphological processes. Where the epenthetic schwa disappears when it is not required by the syllable structure to break up a cluster, the phonemic schwa is not affected by affixation. For instance, If the focus marker /=i/ attaches to a word like akəl ‘banana’ which has the [əl] as part of the stem, the schwa is retained, resulting in [a.kə.li] (ex. 6), not [a.kli]. If the schwa would be just epenthetic to give the syllable a vowel nucleus, then the schwa would disappear as soon as the extra vowel is added, because /kl/ is a permissible consonant cluster.

(6) /a.kəl/ + /-i/ ⟶ [a.kə.li] ‘banana’ (not [a.kli])

More evidence comes from the first-person object prefix /ŋə-/ (see §7.2.1). In contrast to the accusative suffix /-l/ discussed in§3.4.6 with regards to epenthetic schwa, /ŋə-/ comes with an /ə/ as part of its morphological form. This is evident from the fact that it triggers vowel deletion of the initial vowel of the verb root it attaches to (see §3.5 on vowel deletion). In example (7) for instance, the uninflected verb root is /oŋumo/. The initial /o/ is preserved with other inflectional prefixes, but as example (7) shows, the /o/ is deleted if the first person object prefix is present. If the /ə/ was not part of the morphological form of the prefixthen the /ŋ/ would behave similarly to the accusative suffix /-l/ (see §3.4.6); It would attach to the vowel-initial root without any changes since there is no illicit consonant cluster to split up.

(7) ŋə.ŋu.ma

ŋə- oŋumo –a 1OBJ- wrap.fOBJ -RPST

‘They wrapped me up (with bandages)’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #127)

3.3.2 Vowel sequences

Beyond monophthongs, we find sequences with two or even more vowels. There is no restriction on hetero-syllabic sequences, but even tauto-syllabic sequences show a very high variabil- ity.11 Combinations of two vowels are the most common. Some of the possible combinations are illustrated in examples (8)-(11). Combinations of more than two vowels are also possible

11The distinction between hetero-syllabic sequences and tauto-syllabic sequences is based on the syllabification rules discussed in Section 3.4.6. 3.3. VOWELS 49

(see ex. 12), but less frequent. These three segment sequences usually include what could be analysed as glides or approximants (see 3.4.5 on approximants). There is no restriction on the order of the vowels. In the examples below, this is illustrated by different vowel combinations. Example (8) shows the combination of the two front vowels /e/ and /i/; in (8a) /e/ precedes /i/ and in (8b) it is the other way around. Example (9) shows the same for /a/ and /u/ and example (10) for /i/ and /o/. The only combinations I have not found in my corpus yet are combinations with schwa, but that might be because it is hard to perceive. Combinations with the other central vowel /ʉ/ are certainly possible (see ex. 11). No combination of vowels behaves differently from other combinations in an obvious way, i.e. no combinations have to be split by a glottal stop. Therefore, I am hesitant to call some or all combinations diphthongs.

(8) a. /dei.dik/ ‘afternoon’ b. /wie.ke/ ‘salt’ (9) a. /mau/ ‘absent’ b. /nua/ ‘edible tree species’ (10) a. /biol/ ‘bamboo’ b. /oi.da/ ‘ear’ (11) a. /ka.mʉa/ ‘copula (second person singular)’ b. /bʉi.na.sem/ ‘tomahawk’ (12) a. /wie.ia/ ‘seek (recent past tense)’ b. /ke.da.ŋuai/ ‘then’

3.3.3 Vowel lengthening

Vowel length is only relevant in specific morphophonological contexts. There are clitics12, which consist just of a single vowel, like the focus marker /=i/. If they attach to a word that ends in the same vowel as the morpheme, the vowels merge and become one long vowel. In example (13), this happens to the final vowel in imaneki ‘something’. Figure 3.11 shows the spectogram for this example. Here the double /i/ is noticeably longer than the single one at the beginning of the word.

(13) gaga imanekii ma imkana

12Throughout the thesis, I define clitics to be those morphemes that phonetically attach to words, no matter what their word class is. For more information on clitics see Section 4.1. 50 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

gaga ima -nek -i =i ma im -ka =na speech IG.thing -ATTR.SG -ACC =FOC FUT.1SG.SBJ speak -1SG.SBJ.FUT =DIS ‘I will tell a story’ (TG1-NorthWindSun 00:00:1)

100

) 20 z H ( gaga imanekii ma imkana h c t i P

gaga imanekii ma imkana

g a g a i m a i k ii m a i m k a n a

I will tell a story

17.8 19.86 Time (s)

Figure 3.11: Spectrogram and pitch track to example 13.

The same example (13) shows another lengthening phenomenon. Utterance-final vowels, as /a/ in example (13) in Figure 3.11, are also frequently lengthened.

3.4 Consonants

Yelmek has 14 consonant phonemes (Table 3.2). This is a comparatively small inventory. The neighbouring language Coastal Marind, for instance, has 19 consonant phonemes (Ols- son 2017). Other languages discussed in Southern New Guinea are even richer in phonemes; Nmbo, for instance, has 28 phonemes (Kashima 2020). 3.4. CONSONANTS 51

There are three places of articulation for plosives and nasals: bilabial, alveolar and velar. Fricatives are marginal phonemes. The ones that occur are the voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ and the voiceless glottal /h/. Furthermore, there are two approximants: /j/, /w/ and one lateral /l/. I have not found any evidence of co-articulated phonemes, such as prenasalised or labialised stops. Drabbe (1954: 549) lists prenasalised /mb/ and /md/ for Yelmek, but I have not found any convincing examples for this in my own corpus of Wanam Yelmek. However, I have examples of prenasalised stops in my word lists of the varieties spoken in other villages (see Chapter 2.2), which indicates that they were present in the language family at some stage.

3.4.1 Plosives

There are contrasting voiced and unvoiced plosives for all three places of articulation: bilabial, alveolar, and velar. However, the distinction is only made in word-initial and intervocalic positions. In final position, voicing is not distinctive. The final plosive assimilates the voicing from the following consonant. Table 3.2 shows minimal pairs for the voicing distinction in plosives.

Table 3.2: Minimal pairs for the voiced vs. voiceless distinction in plosives.

Place of Voiced Voiceless articulation Bilabial ba ‘particle (for future non-first per- pa ‘particle (for third person femi- son)’ nine singular in recent past tense)’ ki.ba ‘cook (plural subject in recent ki.pa ‘take (plural subject in recent past tense)’ past tense)’ Alveolar da ‘feet’ ta ‘enter (recent past tense)’ ŋo.do ‘sound’ ŋo.to ‘fill (present tense)’ Velar ga.ga ‘language’ ka.ga ‘grandkin’ a.gəl ‘body’ a.kəl ‘banana’

The voiceless variant of the plosives has a positive voice onset time (VOT), while the voiced variant has a negative VOT. That means there is voicing during the closure of the stop, before the actual release. This is exemplified with the spectrograms and waveforms (see Figure 3.12) for the two particles ba and for pa from Table 3.2. The voice onset time of /k/ can be twice as long as the one for /p/ and /t/, both in initial and in intervocalic position. This could arguably be counted as aspiration (see Figure 3.13). It is not, however, contrastive. 52 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

Figure 3.12: The two particles ba and pa; The selection hairs mark the time from the beginning of the voicing until the onset of the vowel for ba (0. 141s). For pa it marks the time from the release to the onset of the voicing (0. 013s).

Figure 3.13: Spectrogram for /ka/ out of kaluli ‘bird of paradise’ pronounced by WK (JEL20150804_3_Yamfinder 00:22:10), VOT is 47ms and aspiration 27ms) 3.4. CONSONANTS 53

In word-final position, voicing is not contrastive. This is evidenced by there being nomini- mal pairs in which word-final voicing of plosives creates a difference in meaning. Furthermore, the voicing of final plosives assimilates to the voicing of the initial segment of the following word. This is illustrated in Figure 3.14 for the word jəp ‘middle’. Figure 3.14 shows the spectrogram of jəp ban ‘from the middle’. Because the initial plosive of the postposition is voiced, the final plosive of jəp is also voiced, which is visible as continuous voicing in the spectogram. If a final plosive is followed by a word starting in a voiceless consonant, then it is voiceless. Plo- sives at all places of articulation are subject to this rule of assimilation. Utterance final plosives show a voicing bar, which indicates that they are voiced by default in this position.

Figure 3.14: Spectrogram and waveform for /jəp ban/ ‘from the middle’

There is, however, a particularity of alveolar plosives. Alveolar plosives in final position tend to be pronounced as trills when followed by a voiceless consonant, particularly in fast speech. Figure 3.15 illustrates this for the phrase /kagebed kəm/ ‘It is his grandfather’. There is some variation between speakers and also within a speaker depending on speech rate. 54 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

Figure 3.15: Spectrogram and waveform for [kageber kəm] ‘It is his grandkin’

There is another phonotactic particularity pertaining to the velar plosives. If the final /k/ is part of a suffix, e.g. –nek ‘ATTR’, -nemek ‘ATTR.PL’ or –wak ‘LOC’, it is usually reduced to [ʔ] or zero utterance internally. It seems to be only fully pronounced if it is at the end of the utterance or intonation unit. Example (14) gives an example where /k/ is phonetically realised, whereas in example (15) it is not.

(14) alimo waw wak

alimo waw wak sun outside LOC

‘The sun is out.’ (TG1-AspectLibe 00:13:23)

(15) aah eme waw wa ŋalapama eki 3.4. CONSONANTS 55

aah eme waw wak ŋalapama eki EXCL already outside LOC exit.RPST.1SG this

‘Ah, now I am already outside.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 00:19:57)

3.4.2 Nasals

Nasals occur at bilabial, alveolar and velar places of articulation. All of them can occur word- initially, word-finally and inter-vocalically as illustrated in Table 3.3.

Table 3.3: Minimal pairs and near minimal pairs for the three nasal positions.

/n/ /m/ /ŋ/ Word-initial noma ‘fruit’ momo ‘breast’ ŋomo ’exchange’ maija ‘not’ ŋaija ‘to fall’ Word- ŋane ‘copula (mas- ŋame ’copula (fem- medial culine) inine)’ iina ‘two’ ima ‘what’ iŋje ‘to hear’ noma ‘fruit’ oŋa ‘sago, food’ Word-final dan-dan ‘wok’ dam ‘inside’ daŋ ‘to stand’ jana-jana ’spear’ jam ‘cold, wet’ jaŋ ‘child’ mən ‘to sit’ meŋ ‘turn’ dəm ‘fish’ dəŋ ‘rope’

3.4.3 Fricatives

There are only two fricatives in Yelmek: /s/ and /h/. Each only occurs in a small number of lexical items. The /s/, for instance, is only found in 7 items (see ex. 16) in the whole Yamfinder word list13 of 364 core vocabulary items. Usher (2014) even claims it is only found in loanwords. Examples (16a-c) , are very likely loans from Marind (Bruno Olsson p.c.), but the origin of examples (16d-g) is presently unclear.

(16) a. mes.wak ‘old (human)’ b. sen.da.wi ‘east wind’ c. sa.wok ‘brother-in-law’ d. pas.wak ‘arrowhead’

13This is a word list put together for the Souther New Guinea project to compare languages of the region [http://yamfinder.com/ yamfinder] ). 56 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

e. bui.na.sem ‘tomahawk’ f. sak ‘eagle’ g. ke.musu ‘star’

Drabbe (1954: 549) included an /f/ in Maklew’s phoneme inventory, but not for Yelmek. Labiodental fricative /f/ does not occur in my Yamfinder word lists for either language. The only other fricative is glottal /h/. The evidence for its phonemic status is rather weak. Speakers volunteered minimal pairs with and without /h/ word-initially (see ex. 17). However, there is considerable variation between speakers and within speakers as to when /h/ is realised and when it is dropped. There are no minimal pairs in the corpus for /h/ in intervocalic or final position. Additionally, there is a large amount of hypercorrection, both in spelling and pronunciation for all positions.

(17) a. e.ge ‘tree’ vs. he.ge ‘stick’ b. au ‘you’ vs. hau ‘knee’ c. hi ‘wind’ vs. i ‘hair’

3.4.4 Laterals

The lateral approximant /l/ occurs intervocalically, word-finally and in consonant clusters (see §3.4.6). It does not occur word-initially, though it may occur syllable initially. In example (18), a list of minimal pairs is given14.

(18) a. e.le ‘fish bone’ vs. e.ge ‘tree’ b. al.pol ‘hand in (accusative case)’ vs. al.pod ‘hand (in instrumental case)’ c. kəl ‘teeth’ vs. kəm ‘copula third person’

3.4.5 Approximants

Yelmek also has two (non-lateral) approximants: labio-velar /w/ and palatal /j/. In example (19), minimal pairs for /w/ and /j/ are listed. Phonetically the distinction between these approximants and the vowel, /u/ and /i/ respectively, is gradient. Therefore, I differentiate them based on the syllable structure. This also has caveats, because vowel combinations are very flexible (see §3.3.2) and the distinction between a complex nucleus and a simplex nucleus plus approximant is not straightforward. Generally, I treat them as approximants if they are syllable initial, and as vowels if they are syllable-final.

14The /l/ in some instances sounds velarised, but the systematicity of this observation is yet to be tested. 3.4. CONSONANTS 57

(19) a. wo ‘mouth’ vs. jo ‘do, say’ b. wa.wak ‘outside’ vs. ja.ja ‘aunt’

3.4.6 Consonant clusters and epenthetic schwa

Yelmek only allows a very restricted set of consonant clusters in syllable onsets and codas. Clusters are only allowed if the consonant closest to the nucleus is an approximant. Clusters with other combinations or more than two consonants do not occur. Illicit clusters are broken up either by a syllable boundary or an epenthetic central vowel. I will first discuss the syllable structure in Yelmek more generally and then explain the vowel insertion. Table 3.4 shows a list of possible consonant clusters in onset and coda position. Examples for these clusters are given below.

Table 3.4: Tautosyllabic consonant clusters.

Possible clusters in onset position Possible clusters in coda position /pl/ /lt/ /bl/ /lp/ /kl/ /lk/ /gl/ /lm/ /wl/ /mp/ /kw/ /ŋp/ (/nj/)15

Blevins (1995) defines the syllable as “the phonological unit, which organises segmental melodies in terms of sonority” in which “each sonority peak defines a unique syllable” (Blevins 1995: 207). Based on this definition, the most common syllable structure in Yelmek isCV,although syllables that just consist of a single vowel or a vowel sequence occur as well. Complex onsets or codas are rare and heavily restricted. The examples in (20) show the possible syllable structures.

(20) a. V: i ‘hair’ b. VV: au ‘you.SG’ c. VC: al ‘you.PL’ d. VCC: wəlm ’smell’ e. CV: ma ‘1SG.SBJ.FUT’ f. CVV: mau ‘absent’ g. CVC: ŋag ‘we’ 58 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

h. CVCC: wolk ‘walk/ a walk’ i. CVVC: nʉal ‘people.ACC’ j. CVVCC: biolt ‘bamboo.INST’ k. CCV: gla.mo ‘scrape’ l. CCVC: blʉm ‘sugar cane’ m. CCVCC: not attested

I follow Blevins’ (1995: 221) view that syllable structure is assigned rather than lexically determined for three reasons. Firstly, the syllable structure of Yelmek is non-distinctive, i.e. I have no evidence for minimal pairs depending on the syllable structure. Secondly, it is fully predictable taking the restrictions on consonant clusters into account (the below). Thirdly, affixes that attach to stems are not always possible syllables by themselves and can changethe syllable structure of the host word (see the discussion on epenthetic schwa later in this section). This indicates that syllabification in Yelmek is a process that applies post-lexically. The most frequent tautosyllabic consonant cluster is a combination of a plosive with the lateral approximant /l/. Examples of clusters in onset position are shown in (21) for the word- initial position and (22) for the word-medial position. The syllable boundary is marked with a dot.

(21) a. plia.ŋa ‘hit’ b. blʉm ‘sugar cane’ c. kle.me ‘praise’ d. gle.tok ‘letter’ e. wla.ka ‘soak’

(22) a. ko.ple ‘pick’ b. al.bla ‘all’ c. po.kla ‘open.RPST’ d. wi.gle ‘morning’ e. ko.wlo ‘sing.PRS’

The examples in (21) show in particular that this is a tautosyllabic cluster, because in word- initial position, the two consonants cannot belong to two different syllables. Furthermore, the examples in (22) show that the clusters are not split word-medially either. Note that (21e) and (22e) show the cluster /wl/, which is the only cluster with a non-plosive and /l/ in onset 3.4. CONSONANTS 59 position. No other consonant is found in a cluster with /l/ in onset position in my corpus. That includes, interestingly enough, the alveolar plosives /t/ and /d/. In coda position, clusters are restricted to combinations with /l/ as well (see ex. 23). Only plosives and /m/ are found in clusters in coda position.

(23) a. biolt ‘bamboo.INST’ (no /dl/) b. welp ‘leave’ (no /bl/) c. wolk ‘walk/ a walk’ (no /gl/) d. wəlm ‘smell/kiss’ (no /nl/ or /ŋl/)

In contrast to clusters in onset position, clusters in coda position only occur word-finally. If the same combination of consonants occurs word-medially, the syllable boundary splits the cluster as can be seen in the examples in (24).

(24) a. ma wol.ka ‘I will go.’ b. ko wel.pu.ga ‘(they) provided (something)’

There are some consonant clusters involving other approximants than /l/. One is /kw/ as in example (25). In other languages in south New Guinea /kw/ and /gw/ occur as co-articulated labio-velar phonemes, rather than combinations of two segments, e.g. Komnzo (Döhler 2016: 57). In Yelmek, however, these are two segments. In example (25) for instance, there is a morpheme break in-between, i.e. the /k/ is a prefix.

(25) kwa.ka

k- wako -a RPST- take.PL.OBJ -RPST

‘He took them.’

The other possible cluster is /nj/, as in (26), but I have not found an instance where it appears word-initially and there seems to be a syllable boundary between /n/ and /j/ in most cases where it appears word-medially.

(26) wanja ‘moon’

The only other cluster with a nasal occurs word-finally when the reduced form of the past perfective suffix /-p(u)/ is added to a stem ending in a nasal as inexample(27).

(27) a. wemp ‘eat.DPST.PRV’ 60 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

b. wiaŋp ‘finish.DPST.PRV’

All the examples above show that clusters in Yelmek conform to ‘sonority scales’ (cf. Clements 1990, Blevins 1995). Blevins (1995: 210), for instance, formulates this principle into a Sonority Sequencing Generalization. This generalisation states that within a syllable, the relative sonority of segments rises towards the nucleus, making the nucleus a sonority peak or plateau. The consonant clusters in Yelmek follow this principle, i.e. segments closer to the nucleus (approximants and nasals) are more sonorous than the segments further away (plosives). Tautosyllable clusters with more than two consonants are not permitted, but heterosyllabic consonant clusters are basically unrestricted. Example (28) shows an instance of a complex coda followed by a consonantal onset and (29) a consonantal coda followed by a complex onset. I have not found an instance of a complex coda followed by a complex onset.

(28) weimp.ma ‘tell.DPST.1SG.SBJ’ (29) ŋem.kle.me ‘recommend.PRS’

Some combinations are very rare, for instance, the only combination of a consonant with /s/ is in /sw/, but /s/ are very rare to start with. Furthermore, /j/ occurs in very few combinations, almost exclusively with nasals. If a cluster can not be split into different syllables, then an epenthetic vowel, usually a schwa, is inserted. Vowel insertion as a process can be best illustrated in the context of affixation. If the affix is not a syllable by itself, it needs to be incorporated into thesyllable structure of the stem. The most frequent example of this is the accusative suffix /-l/. Single consonants cannot form a syllable by themselves in Yelmek. If the /-l/ suffix attaches to a word that ends in a vowel it merely becomes the coda of the last syllable, e.g. alpo ‘hand’ and alpol ‘hand.ACC’. However, if the stem ends in a consonant, an epenthetic vowel has to be inserted to split the resulting cluster. In codas, no clusters with an /l/ after another consonant are permitted. Therefore, if /-l/ attaches to op ‘money’, it becomes [op.əl]. This applies even if the preceding consonant is also an /l/, e.g. ŋəl ‘1SG(NOM)’ which becomes [ŋəl.əl] ‘1SG.ACC’. On the other hand, vowel insertion is not triggered if another suffix is added to the /-l/ suffix, which starts in a vowel. In that case, the /-l/ becomes the onset of a new syllable. For instance, the focus marker /=i/ is frequently found added to the accusative. Example (30) illustrates this for op ‘money’. Without the focus marker, a schwa is inserted to split the cluster. With the focus marker, no schwa is inserted; instead, the cluster is split by a syllable boundary.

(30) a. op ‘money’ + /-l/ ‘accusative’ → [op.əl] b. op ‘money’ + /-l/ ‘accusative’ + /=i/ ‘focus’ → [op.li] 3.5. MORPHOPHONEMICS 61

This epenthetic schwa is distinct from the phonemic schwa discussed in §3.3.1. If the schwa is phonemic in the preceding syllable, then it does not disappear when another vowel is added.

3.5 Morphophonemics

There are a number of morphophonemic phenomena in Yelmek, that is phonological phenomena that occur after morphological content is added. Most of these phenomena are restricted to very specific contexts and will be discussed together with the morphological content inthe relevant section, e.g. the possessive suffix -ebed that becomes -ebegi when a focus marker is added (see §6.4.3). Another morphophonemic phenomenon, schwa insertion, is discussed in the section on consonant clusters above (§3.4.6). In the current section, I focus on the interaction of stem vowels and affix vowels, because the same rules apply to all contexts and notjust to one type of affix. In Yelmek, stem-peripheral vowels are deleted if an affixe is attached that has a vowel in the relevant position. This means a stem-initial vowel is deleted if the prefix ends in a vowel and a root-final vowel is deleted if the suffix starts in a vowel. For instance, if the prefix/ŋə-/ ‘first-person object’ is added to any verb root that starts in a vowel, this initial vowel is deleted. In example (31), for instance, the Present Tense prefix /k-/ does not have any effect on the stem- initial vowel /o/ (see ex. 31a), whereas the prefix /ŋə-/ triggers the vowel deletion, because the prefix ends in a vowel. More information on verbal inflection can be found inChapter 7.

(31) a. /k-/ + olomo → [ko.lo.mo] ‘He calls him/her/them’ b. /ŋə-/ + olomo → [ŋə.lo.mo] ‘He calls me’

Another example of a prefix that triggers vowel deletion is the second-person object prefix /a-/. When it is added to vowel-initial verb stem as in example (3.5), the stem-initial vowel is deleted as in the previous example.

(32) /k-/ + /a-/ + olomo → [ka.lo.mo] ‘He calls you’

Vowel-initial suffixes have the same effect on vowel-final stems. The Recent Past suffix/-a/ and the Imperfective suffix /-ai/ are good examples for this. Example (33) and (34) show how the stem-final vowel of the verb is deleted when these suffixes attach.

(33) /p-/+ olomo + /-a/ → [po.lo.ma] ‘He called him/her/them’ (34) /w-/ + olomo + /-ai/ → [wo.lo.mai] ‘He was calling me.’

In contrast, vowel initial clitics do not trigger the vowel deletion on the stems they attach to. Clitics like the focus marker /=i/ or the question marker /=a/ are simply added. These clitics 62 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY do not readily attach to verbs, but the effect is visible on other parts of speech. Example (35) shows the combination of the aspectual adverb eme ‘already’ and the focus clitic /=i/, while example (36) shows an instance of the ignorative pronoun ame with the question clitic /=a/.

(35) eme + /=i/ → [emei] ‘already’ (36) ame + /=a/ →[amea] ‘who’

To a limited extent, the stem-final vowels are also deleted if the attaching affix startsina consonant. For instance, the Perfective suffix /-pu/ sometimes has the same effect on stem-final vowels as in example (37). The conditions of this phenomenon are still under investigation, though it might simply be inter-speaker variation.

(37) /w-/ + olomo + /-pu/ → [wo.lom.pu] ‘He called him/her/them’

The suffix /-pu/, in turn, is frequently subject to vowel deletion when another suffixis added (see ex. 38).

(38) /w-/ + olomo + /-pu/ + /-ma/ → [wo.lomp.ma] ‘I called him/her/them’

Yelmek’s strong restrictions on consonant clusters, however, only give limited scope to vowel deletion when consonant-initial affixes are added. Furthermore, there is considerable inter-speaker and intra-speaker variation with regards to vowel deletion with consonant initial affixes. This suggests that there might be an ongoing change for the vowel deletion ruleinthis context.

3.6 Prosody

Yelmek does not use suprasegmental features to distinguish words on a lexical level. There is no evidence for lexical tone or contrastive stress. The other prosodic category, intonation, does not distinguish the declarative clauses and questions, but the intonation contour of imperative clauses differs. In the first part of this section, I discuss syllable prominence and stress(see 3.6.1), and in the second part, I deal with intonation (see 3.6.2).

3.6.1 Stress

Himmelmann and Ladd (2008: 248) describe stress as the greater prominence of one syllable in a word over its neighbouring syllables. Although syllables vary in prominence, there is no conclusive evidence for word-level stress in Yelmek and I thus assume there is none. Syl- lable prominence varies over different instances of the same word in different contexts. As 3.6. PROSODY 63 an illustrative example, the figures below show the word /o.mo.to/ ‘jaw’ in isolation andin a phrase. Three acoustic features are typically related to stress, pitch, intensity and duration (Himmelmann and Ladd 2008: 248). I will refer to them in my discussion of this example.

Figure 3.16, 3.18 and 3.20 show the spectrograms of the word in isolation compared to the word embedded in a phrase (Figure 3.17, 3.19 and 3.21), first showing the intensity (Figure 3.16 and 3.17), and then the pitch contour (Figure 3.18 and 3.19), and finally with the formants (Figure 3.20 and 3.21).

Figure 3.16: Spectrogram and intensity contour of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in isolation

Figure 3.17: Spectrogram and intensity contour of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in the phrase omoto milom ba kəm ‘It is pigs’s jaw.’ in example 39 64 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

Figure 3.18: Spectrogram and pitch contour of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in isolation.

Figure 3.19: Spectrogram and pitch contour of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in the phrase omoto milom ba kəm ‘It is pigs’s jaw.’ in example 39

Figure 3.20: Spectrogram with formants of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in isolation. 3.6. PROSODY 65

Figure 3.21: Spectrogram with formants of the word omoto ‘jaw’ in the phrase omoto milom ba kəm ‘It is pigs’s jaw.’ in example (39)

For /o.mo.to/ in isolation, I perceive the stress on the second syllable. This is consistent with the pitch contour shown in Figure 3.18, but not with either the intensity peak or the vowel length. In contrast to the pitch contour, the intensity contour in Figure 3.16 has the highest peak over the vowel of the first syllable, although the difference with the other syllables is minimal, especially with the second syllable. Furthermore, the duration of all three vowels is very similar, the first one being slightly longer than the other two. Therefore, theword /o.mo.to/ in isolation seems to have stress on the second syllable, and the perception seems to relate mainly to pitch. However, this differs when the same lexical item occurs in a phrase. The Figure in 3.17, 3.19 and 3.21 display the spectrogram of the phrase in example (39), which includes /o.mo.to/ ‘jaw’ in initial position.

(39) omoto milom ba kəm

omoto milom bak kəm jaw pig GEN COP.3SG

‘It is a pig’s jaw.

For the instance of /o.mo.to/ ‘jaw’ in example (39), I perceive the stress on the final syllable, rather than the second as in the instance in isolation. Figure 3.16 and 3.18 confirm this impres- sion visually, i.e. both the intensity contour and the pitch contour are highest over the third syllable. The vowel in this syllable is also the longest. On the other hand, the formants for the three vowels are remarkably similar in both o.mo.to in isolation (Figure 3.20) and o.mo.to in a phrase (Figure 3.21), which suggests that vowel quality might not be a determining factor. 66 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

In sum, comparing the two instances of o.mo.to ‘jaw’, one pronounced in isolation and one in a phrase, shows several things. Firstly, my perception of stress is supported by features that can be measured in the acoustic signal. However, they are not the same features in both instances of the word. The only feature that is a factor in both cases is the pitch, but the pitch relates very strongly to the intonation of the utterance as a whole. We will see in the next section that the overall intonation contour is practically the same across different utterance types and relates to the boundaries of the phonological word much more than to the makeup of the phonological word itself. Even more striking is the fact that the perceived stress shifts from the second syllable to the third syllable (which is consistent with the measurements). If the perceived stress pattern of the word in isolation represents the word stress, one would expect the stressed syllable to become the target for the intonation pitch peak when uttered in a phrase, rather than a syllable that is not stressed when the word is uttered in isolation. However, that is not what happens in the two examples. Note that this shift occurs widely in Yelmek, not just for this particular word. Furthermore, even looking at a large sample with the forced alignment data did not reveal anything else. Though the data indicated that the earlier a syllable appears in a given word, the more intense it tends to be and the later it is placed in a word, the higher the pitch tends to be. One possible conclusion is that Yelmek does not have word-level stress, and what the I perceived is not actually stress. Tabain et al. (2014) speak of the phenomenon of stress ghosting, which means being biased by your first language when perceiving stress in another language, i.e. hearing stress without phonetic evidence for it (Tabain et al. 2014: 52). We did see acoustic evidence for the perceived stress in the examples shown above, but interpreting these acoustic features as stress might be the stress ghosting here. Note that it has been argued that some dialects of Indonesian do not have phonetic stress (Van Zanten et al., 2003). I am not aware of detailed phonetic work about stress in the local dialect of Indonesian spoken in the south of Papua, but a connection is possible. Perception data from native speakers of Yelmek could shed more light on this question. As this is not available at this stage, the question of Yelmek word-level stress will be subject to future research. There is one further descriptive point I would like to include here. We saw in earlier sections that the monophthongs each cover a large phonetic range. The forced alignment data allowed me to plot the vowel quality depending on the intensity of the vowel. The idea is that if there was a word-level stress, it might influence the vowel quality and thereby produce allophones, which make the phonetic range look larger than it actually is. However, this is not the case. Figure 3.22 shows the resulting graph for the vowel /a/. The phonetic range of intense vowels (here labelled stressed) and less intense vowels (labelled as unstressed) overlap to such a large extent that an analysis as allophones is not feasible. This is just an indication. A more 3.6. PROSODY 67 detailed and better controlled phonetic study is out of the scope of this descriptive grammar.

Figure 3.22: Stressed (intense) and unstressed (low intensity) vowel /a/ in different positions in the word, based on forced alignment data.

3.6.2 Intonation

In terms of intonation, there is no salient difference between declaratives, content questions and polar questions. The pitch contour over an utterance typically rises during the first phonological word and then steadily falls during the rest of the utterance. The intonation contour of an imperative utterance is typically flat. Figure 3.23 shows the spectrogram with the pitch contour for a typical declarative sentence. The utterance in (40) is taken from the “North Wind and the Sun” story told by a female speaker 68 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

(LG). Figure 13 shows how the contour is rising across the first word ina ‘two’ and then steadily falls until the end of the utterance

(40) ina gagal ko ŋonapkai

ina gaga -l ko ŋonapkai two language -ACC PL.SBJ tell.IPV

‘The two were talking.’ (TG1-NorthWindSun_Libe #4, LG)

Figure 3.23: Spectrogram to example (40). Intonation of declarative clause by LG .

If there is a focussed element in the utterance, the pitch peak coincides with it (see example (41) / Figure 3.24). In Figure 3.24, the intonation contour rises until its peak over the last syllable of imanekii, which bears the morphological focus marker /-i/.

(41) gaga imanekii ma imkana

gaga ima -nek -i =i ma im –ka =na speech IG.thing -ATTR.SG -ACC =FOC FUT.1SG.SBJ speak -1SG.SBJ.FUT =DIS

‘I will tell a story’ (TG1-NorthWindSun # 3 KG) 3.6. PROSODY 69

Figure 3.24: Intonation contour of an utterance with an element in focus imanekii by KG

Comparing the spectrograms of the declarative utterance (ex. 40/ Figure 3.23) to the spectrogram of the content question (ex. 42/ Figure 3.25) and the spectrogram of the polar question (ex. 43/ Figure 3.26) shows that the intonation contour is essentially the same in all three. The contour rises over the duration of the first word (Figure 3.25 and 3.26), which is eko ‘this’ in both instances. After that peak, the pitch contour steadily falls until the endofthe utterance16.

(42) eko ima kəm

eko ima kəm this IG.thing COP.3SG

‘What is this?’ (TG1-JEL20170327-PolarQuestions, elicited utterance, LG)

(43) eko imo bogolonek kəma

eko imo bogolo -nek kəm =a this vehicle ground -ATTR.SG COP.3SG =Q

‘Is this a motorcycle?’ (TG1-JEL20170327-PolarQuestions, elicited utterance, LG)

16Both spectrograms (Figure 3.25 and 3.26) show a bit of an upwards tail right at the end of the utterance. This is not audible and seems to be a measurements error of PRAAT. 70 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY

Figure 3.25: Spectrogram to example (42 ). Intonation contour with question word ima

Figure 3.26: Spectrogram of example (43). Pitch contour of a polar question. (TG1- JEL20170327-PolarQuestions, elicited utterance, LG) 3.7. ORTHOGRAPHY CONVENTIONS 71

In a typical imperative utterance (ex. 44) the intonation contour is flat. This is illustrated in Figure 3.27.

(44) makak jəp ba jaŋepepuge

makak jəp ba j- aŋepe -puge other middle FUT.N1SG IMP- hold -2PL.SBJ.FUT

‘(You) other (people) take the middle (of the fishing net)!’ (TG-Fishing_Mars #51, Running commentary on a video, MK)

Figure 3.27: Spectrogram and wave form for the imperative utterance /makak jəp ba jaŋepepuge/ ‘(You) other (people) take the middle (of the fishing net)!’ (ex. 19)

3.7 Orthography conventions

Yelmek does not have an established orthography. In this chapter, I have used a simplified version of the IPA to write the Yelmek examples. In the remainder of this work, there will be one more change to the orthography: the palatal glide /j/ will be spelled ‘y’. This is to facilitate 72 CHAPTER 3. PHONOLOGY readability for the native speakers who are used to spelling it like this in Indonesian orthography. In my experiences, writing /j/ as ‘j’ creates more confusion for them than unfamiliar symbols like schwa and engma.17 Table 3.5 shows a list of the phonemes with mismatching spelling. I have included a column indicating the current spelling in the corpus and my proposed standardised spelling. The proposed standardisation does not include special characters like engma or schwa, thus it can be written with a standard keyboard. The speakers whom I have proposed this to approved of it, but introducing it is an ongoing process.

Table 3.5: Yelmek orthography conventions

IPA In thesis examples In corpus Suggested standardisation ə ə kəm ‘COP’ e kem _ km ŋ ŋ maŋ ‘rain’ ng mang ng mang j y yo ‘do’ y yo y yo ʉ ʉ bʉma ‘nose’ u buma uw buwma

17This strategy admittingly does not distinguish between phonemic and epenthestic schwa. I have not found a satisfactory solution for this yet. Chapter 4

Parts of speech

The term parts of speech is traditionally used for major word classes that are distinguished grammatically in a language (cf. Schachter 1985, Evans 2000, Haspelmath 2001 and Bisang 2011). This chapter deals with parts of speech (i.e. word classes) in Yelmek. I will start with a preliminary consideration of how to recognise a word in Yelmek and how affixes, clitics and particles are defined for the purpose of this thesis. For the largest part of the chapter, Iwill focus on the different word classes and their morphological properties. Yelmek has a number of major and minor word classes. The two largest word classes, nouns and verbs, will only be summarised in this chapter because I discuss them in much more detail in the following chapters. Chapter 5 is a detailed account of the different kinds of nominals and Chapter 6 of the morphological marking nouns can receive, such as case (§6.1). The three subsequent chapters are concerned with verbs. Chapter 7 focuses on verbal inflection, Chapter 8 looks at valency and alignment and Chapter 9 at multi-word predicates. The current chapter contains an account of adjectival modifiers (§4.4), which includes a discussion of modifier stems (§4.4.1), attributive marking (§4.4.2), intensification (§4.4.3) and comparative constructions (§4.4.4).This is followed by a section on of numerals and quantifiers in §4.5. The last two sections, deal with demonstratives (§4.6) and adverbs (§4.7) respectively. Table 4.1 gives an overview of where different word classes and different subgroups of word classes are discussed within this chapter and the wider thesis.

73 74 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

Table 4.1: Word classes signpost

Common nouns In the chapter on nominals §5 and §6 and noun morphology Personal pronouns In the chapter on nominals §5.2 Possessive pronouns In the section on possession §6.4 Interrogative pronouns In the section on ignorative §5.3 and §10.4 pronouns and the section on question formation Indefinite pronouns In the section on ignorative §5.3 pronouns Kinship terms In the chapter on nominals §5 Verb In the chapters on verbal in- §7 and §8 flection and the chapter on valency and alignment Copulas In the chapter on multi-word §9 predicates Auxiliary In the chapter on multi-word §9 predicates Adjectival modifiers In this chapter §4.4 Numerals In this chapter §4.5 Quantifiers In this chapter §4.5 Demonstrative In this chapter §4.6 Adverbs In this chapter §4.7 Negators In the section on negative §10.5 clauses Determiners/articles In the section on personal §5.2 pronouns Conjunctions not a word class §11 Adpositions In the section on case §6

4.1 The unit ‘word’

The word as a morpho-syntactic unit in Yelmek is based on three criteria: free occurrence, uninterruptibility and non-selectivity. These are a subset of the ten criteria Haspelmath (2011a) discusses, and they also draw on Dixon’s (2010) definition of a grammatical word. Haspelmath (2011a) shows convincingly that the notion of word cannot be defined in a uniform and cross- linguistically valid way. If the term is to be used, it has to be defined language specifically. He argues that of the criteria commonly put forward (he discusses 10) none is sufficient and necessary to define wordhood and all have inherent problems (Haspelmath 2011a: 38). I have chosen three criteria for the description of Yelmek because they are the most applicable to this 4.1. THE UNIT ‘WORD’ 75 language. This is supposed to make transparent what underlies the subsequent morphological analyses and how I choose to write Yelmek (there is no established orthography). The first criterion, free occurrence, is described by Haspelmath (2011a: 39) as the “possi- bility of occurring as a well-formed complete (but possibly elliptical) utterance, e.g. an answer to a question” (referring to Bloomfield 1933: 160). This criterion is also used by Dixon (2010: 19) to determine a grammatical word, though of course, not all utterances are single grammatical words. This criterion works particularly well for Yelmek because it is a pro-drop language and a verb can form a single utterance without arguments. Furthermore, a modifier can also occur without its head (see §4.4) and therefore similarly constitute a single utterance. Even some function words can constitute a full utterance. Example (45) shows different uses of the negative existential marker mau. In (45a) mau is used as a function word, a negator, to mark the absence of the noun it refers to. In (45b), on the other hand, it is used as a single word utterance to give a negative reply to a polar question (see §10.4.1 on polar questions).

(45) a. yu mau water absent ‘There is no water’ (as a description of a situation, not just as an answer to a question.)

b. mau - ‘no’ (answer to a polar question)

The other two criteria, uninterruptibility and non-selectivity are interconnected. Haspel- math (2011a) states about Uniterruptibility that “while phrasal combinations may be interrupted by other material, words cannot be so interrupted” (Haspelmath 2011a: 44, referring to Bloomfield 1933: 180, Langacker 1972: 48). He further qualifies that this means uninterruptibility by free forms, i.e. word+affix combinations can be interrupted by other affixes butnot by other words, though he mentions incorporation as a possible challenge to that. In Dixon (2010) this criterion is called Cohesiveness, i.e. the parts that belong to a single grammatical word occur together (Dixon 2010: 14). In Yelmek this criterion is particularly important for inflectional particles. Particles in Yelmek cannot form an utterance on their own. They usually join other morphological material to form phonological words. That is not restricted to morphological material the particle semantically relates to. It can join the preceding or following word or form a phonological word with an adjacent particle. Therefore they do not satisfy the free occurrence criterion. However, the connection to the unit they belong to, the verb, can be interrupted. Inflectional particles are part of the verbal inflection. Certain cellsin the inflectional paradigms cannot be disambiguated without considering the particle. Forin- stance, in examples (46a) and (46b), the indexing of the subject number in the verbal inflection 76 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH is solely expressed on the particle ko. Without the particle, the form baye could be any number and person (except second-person, which uses suffixes as well as particles) within the present tense paradigm (see Chapter 7 on verbal inflection).

(46) a. nʉa em numəl ko baye nʉa em num -l ko baye people DET.PL.NOM dog -ACC PL.SBJ see.PRS ‘The people see the dog.’

b. nʉa em ko numəl baye nʉa em ko numəl baye people DET.PL.NOM PL.SBJ dog -ACC see.PRS ‘The people see the dog.’

Despite being part of the inflection, the particle does not have to be adjacent to the verb(see ex. 46a versus 46b). Other morphological material, e.g. free forms like the direct object, can be placed between the particle and the verb it belongs to, thus interfering with the cohesiveness by interrupting between the verb stem and the inflectional particle. Note that for the neighbouring language Marind, Olsson (2017) observed what he calls a “prefixal complex”, which forms a phonological word separate from the verb stem (Olsson 2017: 200). This is similar to Yelmek in that parts of the verbal inflection belong to different phonological words. On the other hand, the Marind prefixal complex is morphologically complex, where the Yelmek particle is morphologically simplex, even though it expresses several inflectional features (see Chapter 7). Therefore I use the term particle rather than a term more similar to Marind. The non-selectivity criterion intersects with the uninterruptibility criterion because some combinations that are very tight and cannot easily be interrupted are still not one word. Haspel- math (2011) describes this as follows: “While an affix tends to be highly selective with respect to the kinds of hosts it can combine with, (function) words are often able to combine with a wide range of hosts” (Hasplemath 2011: 45). This is particularly relevant for the distinction between affixes and clitics. One of Zwicky’s (1985) tests for clitics is phrased similarly “Clitics can exhibit a low degree of selection with respect to their hosts, while affixes exhibit a high degree of selection with respect to their stem.” (Zwicky 1985: 285, as well as Zwicky and Pul- lum 1983). In Yelmek, affixes are part of the verbal inflection (see Chapter 7), case marking (§6) and attributive marking (§4.4.2). They are very restricted in their choice of host. Clitics, on the other hand, are much more flexible and can even take entire clauses as their host. In Yelmek, clitics express, for instance, focus marking and question marking (§10.4.1). 4.2. NOUNS 77

4.2 Nouns

According to Schachter (1985: 7) “the label noun is assigned to the class of words in which occur the names of most person, places, and things”. In Yelmek, this label is assigned to a class of elements that, by the criteria discussed above, are words in a very prototypical way. They easily form utterances by themselves. They also are lexical roots and morphological material, such as case marking (§6) can apply to them, which is bound to the root in a cohesive way. In Yelmek nouns are an open word class and are characterised by a number of morpho- syntactic properties:

• They can be the argument of a clause without any further marking.

• They can be the head of a noun phrase.

• They can be marked by the accusative suffix /-l/. (Case marking is further discussed in §6).

• They can be modified by an element with attributive marking. (This kind of modifiers is discussed in §4.4)

• They do not take inflectional marking as verbs do (see §4.3 on the word class of verbs). To use a noun in a predicative function the use of an additional copula is required (see 9.4).

Nominals will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 5. In sum, nominal categories that are relevant for all nouns are person (§5.1.1), number (§5.1.2) and gender (§5.1.3). Common nouns do not show the values of these categories morphologically, i.e. they do not show different forms for different number values. A subgroup of nominals, Personal pronouns, on theother hand, have different forms for first, second and third person, as well as different formsfor singular and plural (§5.2). Further subgroups of nominals are ignorative pronouns (§5.3) and kinship terms (§5.4). Yelmek has only a limited amount of morphological marking on nouns (see Chapter 6). All nouns can be marked for case (see §6). There is a range of case markers, some of them are suffixes, such as the accusative (§6.1.2), the instrumental (§6.2.1) and the purposive (§6.2.3). The other case markers are postpositions. These include comitative (§6.2.2), locative (§6.3.1), ablative (§6.3.3), allative (§6.3.2), perlative (§6.3.4), restrictive (§6.2.4) and marking to express ‘alike’ (§6.2.5). Besides case marking, there is marking for possession discussed in §6.4 and Associative plural marking (see §6.5). 78 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

4.3 Verbs

Verbs, as a word class, can be morphologically recognised in Yelmek by their inflection. Verbal inflection in Yelmek includes aspect and tense marking as well as indexing for the subject and the direct object. The morphological realisation of the inflection is complex because there isno one-to-one correspondence of morpheme to category or even marking site to category. Instead, the value of a category can only be fully interpreted when taking the content of each inflectional site into account. This kind of marking pattern has been called distributed exponence (e.g. Carroll 2016, Döhler 2018) and has been noted for a number of Southern New Guinea languages (e.g. Ngkolmpu, Nen, Marori). On the other hand, the marking itself in Yelmek is very regular, with minor deviations due to stem classes, as well as differences for copulas (see §9.4) and auxiliary verbs (see §9.2). Only one part of the verbal marking is highly irregular. This is the stem alternation, which a large number of verbs show for gender and number of their object. Chapter 7 deals with verbal inflection in detail. There are three subgroups of verbs: full verbs, auxiliary verbs and copulas. Full verbs can carry the full range of inflection marking. This is illustrated in example (47). The verb form is marked in bold. It marks the tense in the particle ba and to limited extent person and number as there is a distinct first-person singular form ma (see §7.1.5). The gender, number and person of the subject is indexed in the suffix -pən. The gender of the object is indexed in the form of the verb stem. For more details on the inflection see Chapter 7. Full verbs can be further divided into subgroups by their valency (see Chapter 8 for details).

(47) omgo eu numəl ba pliaŋpən

omgo eu num -l ba pliaŋe -pən person DET.SG.NOM dog -ACC FUT.N1SG.SBJ hit.M.OBJ -3SG.M.SBJ.IRR

‘The man will hit the dog.’

Auxiliary verbs, on the other hand, are used in combination with other stems and some of them only have a limited range of inflection. In example (48), for instance, the auxiliary wedepu is combined with pliaŋe ‘hit’. This particular auxiliary verb only inflects in the Distant Past paradigm, but can index person, number and gender of the subject. The gender of the object is indexed on the stem it combines with, here the masculine stem of ‘hit’. See Chapter 9 for more information on auxiliary constructions. 4.4. ADJECTIVAL MODIFIERS 79

(48) omgo eu numəl pliaŋe wedepu

omgo eu num -l pliaŋe w- ede -pu person DET.SG.NOM dog -ACC hit.M.OBJ DPST- AUX -PRV

‘The man was hitting the dog.’

Copulas can be used with and without other stems, but also show a divergent inflectional pattern. The copula ŋaCe, for instance, only has three inflectional forms: ŋame for feminine singular subjects, ŋane for masculine singular subjects and ŋape for plural subject. This copula does not show tense, aspect, mood or any other inflection category (see §9.4 on copulas). Yelmek’s argument indexing on the verb is nominative-accusative aligned for transitive verbs, with some ergative-absolutive alignment in the verbal number marking of some verbs (see §8.3). Ditransitive verbs align in a indirective pattern. The alignment pattern is discussed in detail in Chapter 8.

4.4 Adjectival Modifiers

There is a small class of words that are only used to modify nouns. Any noun stem can be used in the same way and the same marking as these stems, but they in their turn can not be used as nouns, e.g. they can not be the head of a noun phrase. That is why I treat them as a distinct word class. It would be possible to treat these stems as a small class of adjectives. However, they require a derivational suffix in order to function as attributive modifiers. In other words, they cannot modify a noun attributively in their underived form, thus are not a word class specific to that purpose. For this reason, I call them modifiers rather than adjectives. The Yelmek modifiers in their underived form can only be used predicatively. The underived form does not inflect. Predicative modifiers do not agree in any way with the noun they refer to. In their derived form and attributive use, on the other hand, the modifier shows the number value of the noun: singular versus plural. In this section, I first discuss different modifier stems (§4.4.1) and then the attributive marking itself (§4.4.2). This is followed by a discussion of intensification (§4.4.3) and comparative constructions (§4.4.4).

4.4.1 Modifier stems

Modifier stems are used to modify nouns. In their underived form, they can occur in apredica- tive construction together with a copula (see ex. 49). The structure is the same as in a copula 80 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH construction with a noun predicate (see ex. 50). This, however, does not group modifier stems with nouns in one class, because modifier stems without attributive marking cannot function as the head of a noun phrase or receive case marking.

(49) a. belʉ eu temi ŋane belʉ eu temi ŋane stone 3SG.NOM black COP2.M ‘The stone is black.’

b. belʉ ina em temi ŋape belʉ ina em temi ŋape stone two 3PL black COP2.PL ‘The two stones are black.’

(50) omgo guru ŋane

omgo guru ŋane person teacher COP2.M

‘The man is a teacher1.’

Modifiers in predicative use do not have any inflectional marking. They do notagreewith the noun they relate to. For instance, in example (49a) the noun that is referred to by the modifier is singular and in example (49b) it is plural. This is reflected in both the postposed pronoun that serves as a determiner here, eu for singular and em for plural (see §5.2 on personal pronouns), and it is also visible in the form of the copula. However, the modifier stem has the same form in both instances. The only morphological marking modifier stems can receive are suffixes for intensification (51). Intensification is discussed in more detail in§4.4.3.

(51) a. yaŋ balak ŋane yaŋ balak ŋane child big COP2.M ‘The boy is big.’

1guru is an Indonesian word. 4.4. ADJECTIVAL MODIFIERS 81

b. yaŋ balakət ŋane yaŋ balak -kət ŋane child big -INTS COP2.M ‘The boy is very big.’

The following tables show lists of stems that are commonly found as descriptive expressions. Table 4.2 shows a list of stems that have a longer stem in the predicative use than in the attributive use with attributive suffix (see §4.4.2). Only four stems show this morphological pattern. They might be the core group of modifier stems. Note that they correspond to two of Bisang’s (2011) core semantic types in an adjectival class: dimension and value (Bisang 2011: 299). Table 4.3 shows a list of stems that are frequently used as descriptive modifiers, but have the same stem in predicative and attributive use. Table 4.4 shows all the color expressions I have found. I have not found an instance in my corpus where a color term has been intensified.

Table 4.2: Stems with shortened stem in the attributive

Yelmek English Stem Attributive form Intensified form ŋəmek ŋəm -nek ŋəməkət ‘good’ ŋəməlma wutek wut -nek wutekət ‘small’ wutelma balak baha -nek/bala -nek balakət ‘big’ balalma təmək təmə -nek təməkət ‘short’ təməlma 82 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

Table 4.3: Illustrative list of other property stems

Yelmek English Stem Attributive form Intensified form dom dom -nek domkət ‘bad’ doməlma webe webe -nek webelma ‘heavy’ popu popu -nek populma ‘light’ dəmo dəmo -nek dəmokət ‘warm/hot’ dəmolma yam yam -nek yaməlma ‘cold/wet’ ipa ipa -nek ipalma ‘very hot/spicy’ dapi dapi -nek dapilma ‘thin’ deŋo deŋo -nek populma ‘light’ kalapo kalapo -nek kalapolma ‘rotten’ kiŋo kiŋo -nek kiŋolma ‘dry’ e.g. a flower təbʉ təbʉ -nek ‘dry’ e.g. the weather, the ground kəlmap kəlmap -nek kəlmapəlma ‘rotten’ glido glido -nek glidolma ‘sharp’ e.g. a knife yik yik -nek tipukət ‘long’ tipulma

Table 4.4: Colour terms

Yelmek English Stem Attributive form temi teminek ‘black’ kokol kokolnek ‘white’ ato atonek ‘red’ yelu yelunek ‘green’ delie ‘yellow/orange’

4.4.2 Attributive marking

To use a modifier stem attributively, an attributive suffix is obligatory. The attributive suffix has two forms: /-nek/ for the singular and /-nemek/ for the plural. The attributive modifier always follows the head noun. In example (52) for instance, this is shown for the modifier stem wutek ‘small’. In both (52a) and (52b) the modifier follows the head noun, yaŋ ‘child’ in (52a) and num ‘dog’ in (52b). The form of the suffix on the modifier corresponds to the number value of the head noun. In (52a) the head noun is singular, thus the suffix is /-nek/. On the other hand 4.4. ADJECTIVAL MODIFIERS 83 in (52b) the head noun is plural and the attributive suffix is /-nemek/. No other noun category (e.g. gender) is marked on the modifier or attributive suffix.

(52) a. yaŋ wutnek yok eme pokwa yaŋ wutek -nek yok eme p- okw -a child small -ATTR.SG sleep already RPST.SG.SBJ- sleep.SG.SBJ -RPST ‘The small child is already asleep.’ (TG1-JEL20160814-FrogStory_Libe #12)

b. num wutnemek ina em gomneki ŋomka num wutek -nemek ina em gom -nek -i ŋomk -a dog small -ATTR.PL two 3PL male -ATTR.SG -ACC bite -RPST ‘The two small dogs bit the man.’ (elicited example Adjective elicitation #31, FNB_2)

In modifier construction with an attributive modifier, the head noun can be omitted. Ex- ample (53a) shows the full noun phrase omgo gomnek ‘male person/man’, whereas (53b) shows the noun phrase with the head noun omitted. The modifier does not change.

(53) a. omgo gomneki wunuguli pebga omgo gom -nek -i wunugu -l =i p- ebge -a person male -ATTR.SG -ACC clothes -ACC =FOC RPST.SG.SBJ- give.PL.OBJ -RPST ‘He gave the man clothes.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #44-45)

b. gomnek eŋkla ekdak ai kəm gom -nek eŋkla e= kedak ai kəm male -ATTR.SG one DEM= DEM.PROX PROG COP1.3SG ‘There is one man here.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #104)

The attributive suffix can derive modifiers from other word classes, e.g. nouns, inthe exact same way as with modifier stems. This is further evidence that there is no word class of adjectives, rather the attributive suffix derives a ”property-like” word with the meaning of ‘property associated with the meaning of the root’. Example (54) shows how the noun wodo 84 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

‘leg/foot’ is made into a modifier by using the attributive suffix to form an expression for ‘shoes’. As in example (53b) the head noun is omitted. Native speaker confirmed in elicitation that a possible head noun could have been (w)unugu ‘clothes’ for instance, forming a noun phrase like unugu wodonemek.

(54) wodonemek mo ŋokŋa

wodo -nemek mo ŋokŋo -a leg/foot -ATTR.PL NEG wear -RPST

‘He wore no shoes.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #55)

Indeed for some stems, it is hard to tell if they are primarily modifiers or nouns. Good examples for this are stems that specify human properties. Yelmek has a range of terms for male and female humans at different stages of their life. They differ from kinship terms because they are not used as address terms, and they do not encode the relationship between people but are based on criteria like age and marital status (see Table 4.5).

Table 4.5: Special modifier for human

Yelmek English Stem Derived form gom gomnek ‘male’ olikop olikopnek ‘young human male’ modulio modulionek ‘female’ meme memenek ‘young human female’ yua yuanek ‘married female’ emel emelnek ‘married male’

Example (55a) shows the use of modolio ‘female’ as an attributive modifier. The omitted head noun would be omgo ‘person’ as in example (53a). Then in example (55b) modolio receives accusative marking, with the suffix used for proper nouns, plus a postpositional comitative marking, which is also used for proper nouns. Similarly, in example (55c), modolio is used with the genitive marker. Last but not least, in example (55d) modolio is not marked at all and is even itself modified by an attributive modifier. 4.4. ADJECTIVAL MODIFIERS 85

(55) a. aa modolione daŋ ai ŋame aa modolio -nek daŋ ai ŋame EXCL female -ATTR.SG stand PROG COP2.F ‘Yes, the woman is standing.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #103)

b. eme kai ŋape modoliol bo eme kai ŋape modolio -l bo already PROG COP2.PL female -ACC COM3 ‘Then the others are women.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #15)

c. modolio bak wai ŋane modolio bak wai ŋane woman GEN arm COP2 ‘It is a woman’s arm.’ (elicited example, TG1-Possessive #16, FNB_2 p. 69)

d. modolio banek wai ebak kəm modolio ba -nek wai ebak kəm woman big -ATTR.SG arm 3POSS COP1.3SG ‘It is a big woman’s arm.’ (elicited example, TG1-Possessive #16, FNB_2 p. 69)

These examples show that stems referring to human properties (e.g. being male or female of a specific age) are more likely noun, evens though they more often occur asmodifier. Furthermore, there are instances, where modifiers can be derived from verb stems. Example (56) shows the use of a verb stem mən ‘sit’ as an attributive modifier. In the first part ofthe utterance mən ‘sit’is used as an inflected verb; however, in the second part, it has attributive marking and is used to form a noun phrase expressing ‘a sitting place’. 86 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

(56) ebiake məna, ebiak mənek eu kaya kəm

ebiake mən -a DIST.DEM sit -RPST

ebiak mən -nek eu kaya kəm DIST.DEM sit -ATTR.SG 3SG.NOM PROG COP1.3SG

‘He sat there, there (where) the sitting place is.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #55)

Another word class which the attributive suffix can be combined with, is numerals. Here it is used to derive an ordinal number from a regular numeral as in example (57). For more information on numerals see §4.5.

(57) a. yaŋ ina yaŋ ina child two ‘two children’

b. yaŋ inanek Heribertus yaŋ ina -nek Heribertus child two -ATTR.SG Heribertus ‘The second child is Heribertus.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #26)

4.4.3 Intensification

There are two morphological suffixes to intensify a modifier, /-kət/ and /-lma/. The latteris more productively used, with the first one restricted to a small set of stems. The stem listsin §4.4.1 indicate the possible intensification, where I had the information. There is no morphological way of marking a reverse-intensification, i.e. ‘less …’. Intensification can apply to modifiers in attributive use as well as modifiers inpredicative use. Example (58) shows the attributive use of the wutek ‘small’; in (58a) in without intensification and in (58b) with the intensification suffix /-kət/. 4.4. ADJECTIVAL MODIFIERS 87

(58) a. yaŋ wutnek ŋane

yaŋ wutek -nek ŋane child small -ATTR.SG COP2.M ‘It is a small boy.’

b. yaŋ wutnekət ŋane yaŋ wutek -nek -kət ŋane child small -ATTR.SG -INTS COP2.M ‘It is a very small boy.’

In example (59), on the other hand, wutek ‘small’ is used predicatively. Example (59a) shows the form without intensification and (59b) the intensified form. The suffix is the same asin(58), where the modifier is attributively used.

(59) a. yaŋ wutek kəm yaŋ wutek kəm child small COP1.3SG ‘The boy is small.’

b. yaŋ wutekət ŋane yaŋ wutek -kət ŋane child small -INTS COP2.M ‘The boy is very small.’

The other intensifier suffix /-lma/ can be used with the same stems that allow thesuffix /-kət/ and even many that do not allow the other suffix (see Table 4.2 and Table 4.3). This is illustrated in example (60) with wutek ‘small’ in predicative use. 88 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

(60) imo maya ka kipu, yaŋ wutekəlma ŋeŋkame

imo maya ka k- ipu vehicle NEG PRS.F.SBJ PRS- bring.M.OBJ

yaŋ wutek -lma ŋeŋkame child small -INTS COP2.F

‘She can’t bring the motor cycle. The child is very small.’ (TG1-TooMuch #10)

It is even possible to combine both suffixes on one modifier as in example (61). Speakers accepted the order /-lma/ + /-kət/, as well as the other way around.

(61) yaŋ wutelmakət ŋeŋko

yaŋ wute -lma -kət ŋeŋko child small -INTS -INTS COP2.M

‘This one there is a very small boy.’

4.4.4 Comparative constructions

Yelmek has two comparative constructions available: the locational comparative and the conjoined comparative. This terminology is based on Stassen’s (2013) chapter in the World Atlas of Language Structures (Dryer and Haspelmath 2013). He defines a comparative construction as the linguistic encoding for the comparison of inequality. In this, a comparison is “defined as a mental act by which two objects are assigned a position on a predicative scale” (Stassen 2013a). He distinguishes four different types of comparative construction, of which two are found in Yelmek; the locational comparative and the conjoined comparative. In the locational comparative construction, the comparee, i.e. the object of the comparison, is unmarked. Only the noun phrase that is the standard of comparison, i.e. the thing the comparee is compared to, is marked. In Yelmek this marking has the form of the ablative postposition ban ‘from’. In example (62a), the fastness of an activity is compared and in (62b) the respective height of two people (parameter of comparison). In both clauses it is the standard of comparison that is marked with ban. The parameter of comparison does not receive any marking. 4.4. ADJECTIVAL MODIFIERS 89

(62) a. modulionek yul yememe pa iba, gomnekəl ban modulio-nek yu -l yememe pa ibe -a woman -ATTR.SG water -ACC fast RPST.F.SBJ cook -RPST

gom -nek -l ban man -ATTR.SG -ACC ABL ‘The woman cooks water faster than the man.’ (elicited example FNB_2, p. 8)

b. gomnek ekako ilepe ŋane modulio ban gom -nek ekako ilepe ŋane modulio ban man -ATTR.SG DIST tall COP2.M woman ABL ‘That man is taller than the woman.’ (elicited example, FNB_2, p. 8)

In a Conjoined Comparative construction two clauses are juxtaposed. Each clause contains one of the elements compared. In the first clause of example (63) the man is described as very small, and in the second clause, the woman is described as very big. Thus, it expresses that the woman is bigger than the man.

(63) gomnek wutekət ŋeŋko, modulionek balakət ŋeŋkame

gom -nek wutek -kət ŋeŋko male -ATTR.SG small -INTS COP2.M

modulio -nek balak -kət ŋ- ŋkame female -ATTR.SG big -INTS DTR- COP2.F

‘The man is very small, the woman is very big.’ (TG1-Comparative #7)

There is another type of comparative construction, but it seems to be only available to relativise location in space. This construction has a comparative marker on the predicate as in example (64). The comparee is not marked and the standard of comparison is not mentioned at all. In example (64a) and (64b) it is a locational adverb that is marked and in (64c) it is an adverbial demonstrative. The suffix /-mpia/ is the same in all three cases. I have not foundthis suffix yet on any element that does not have deictic or locational function. 90 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

(64) a. doyo megempia eu kai kəm

doyo mege -mpia eu kai kəm tree high -COMP 3SG.NOM PROG COP1.3SG ‘The tree is higher.’ (elicited example, FNB_3, p. 32)

b. doyo ukumpia eu kai km doyo uku -mpia eu kai kəm tree below -COMP 3SG.NOM PROG COP1.3SG ‘The tree is lower.’ (elicited example, FNB_3, p. 32)

c. kedampia ba wapuika, ebi ma muŋlepu Wasur kedak -mpia ba wapu ika DEM -COMP FUT.N1SG go.IRR.2SG therefore ebi ma muŋle -pu Wasur 3SG.ACC maybe pass.M.OBJ -IRR Wasur ‘You will go further and pass it, Wasur.’ (TG1-JEL20160709-Demonstratives_short #11)

For a comparison of equality, no dedicated morpho-syntactic construction exists. One way of expressing equality is shown in example (65). Here the two elements that are compared are combined into a joint subject by a comitative postposition. This joint subject then is part of a copula clause, expressing ‘be tall’. The word tompuklala ‘together’ is added for emphasis2.

(65) modolionek gomnek do tompuklala ilepe ŋape modolio -nek gom -nek do tompuklala ilepe ŋape female -ATTR.SG male -ATTR.SG COM3 together tall COP2.PL ‘The woman and the man are the same height.’ (elicited example, FNB_2, p. 8)

There is no evidence of a superlative construction.

2From the examples I have, it is not clear if tompuklala is obligatory in this constructions, but other uses of the word make me doubt it. 4.5. NUMERALS AND QUANTIFIERS 91

4.5 Numerals and quantifiers

The word class of numerals and quantifiers is a closed class with very restricted membership. They behave in many ways as nouns do. They can be the head of noun classes, for instance, and can be modified by attributive modifiers (§4.4). However, there are differences as well. For one thing, they do not take accusative case marking. When numerals and quantifiers are used with a head noun, they always follow it (see ex. Y1).

(66) a. num ina – ‘one dog’ (see §4.5.1 on cardinal numerals) b. num inanek – ‘the second dog’ (see §4.5.2 on ordinal numerals) c. num balamala – ‘few dogs’ (see §4.5.3 on quantifiers)

In this section, I will discuss cardinal numerals (§4.5.1), ordinal numerals (§4.5.2) and quantifiers (§4.5.3).

4.5.1 Cardinal numbers

Yelmek has a number system based on five. The first five numerals have dedicated termsand so has the numeral for ‘ten’. All other numbers can be composed of these basic number terms. In practice, however, people use Indonesian numerals for anything higher than five. Table 4.6 shows an overview of the numerals in Yelmek.

Table 4.6: Numerals in Yelmek

1 eŋklala 11 alpo toi eŋklala 2 ina 12 alpo toi ina 3 mʉdem 13 alpo toi mʉdem 4 ebedina ... 5 kereŋkapak 20 ina alpo toi 6 kereŋkapak eŋklala 21 ina alpo toi eŋklala 7 kereŋkapak ina 22 ina alpo toi ina 8 kereŋkapak mʉdem 23 ina alpo toi mʉdem 9 kereŋkapak ebedina ... 10 alpo toi 30 mʉdem alpo toi

The numerals from 6 to 9 are composed of the word for ‘five’ followed by the words ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’ or ‘four’ respectively. The word for ‘ten’, alpo toi, is special in that it is derived from the word for ‘hand’ alpo. The origin of the morpheme toi is presently unclear. For numerals higher than ‘ten’, the number words are consecutively added to alpo toi in order to create 92 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH the numerals from ‘eleven’ to ‘nineteen’. For multiples of ten, i.e. twenty, thirty, forty and fifty, a number is added preceding alpo toi. Thus the number ‘two’ ina in front of alpo toi creates ‘twenty’; ina alpo toi. When specifically asked for it, people were able to count up to fiftyin this manner. None of my consultants offered numerals higher than that. Morphologically the first three number terms seem simplex, whereas the ebedina ‘four’ and kereŋkapak ‘five’ could be morphologically complex. However, it is not transparent what the separate parts would mean. Diachronically ebedina ‘four’ seems to be derived from ina ‘two’. The morpheme /ebed/ could possibly be a demonstrative form. kereŋkapak is even more opaque and also has a number of pronunciation variants like: kerenkapak, kelenkapak, keren kampak. When used adnominally, rather than for counting, the numeral follows the head noun (see ex. 67). Note that numerals as a word class differ from other noun modifiers in that they donot take accusative marking when they modify a direct object (see ex. 67, more in case marking in §6 and more on grammatical relations in §8.2).

(67) doyol eŋgkla ka ele wedep

doyo -l eŋgkla ka ele wedepu wood -ACC one DPST.F.SBJ put.M.OBJ AUX

‘She took one log up.’ (TG1-20180710-PLuracionalityAmbrosia #56)

In natural speech, the head noun is often left out and the numeral represents an entire noun phrase on its own. In example (68a), the numeral is the direct object and in example (68b) it is the subject.

(68) a. eŋklala ŋi mʉlia eŋklala ŋi mʉlie -a one DIS push.M.OBJ -RPST ‘He pushed one.’ (TG1-PluracionalityAmbrosia #42) 4.5. NUMERALS AND QUANTIFIERS 93

b. ina ai kəkelmani ahh kebun ŋak kai kəm Nepi ina ai kəkelme -a -ni two PROG come.PL.SBJ -RPST -DIR

ahh kebun ŋak kai kəm Nepi EXCL garden 1PL.POSS PROG COP1.3SG Nepi

‘The two came to our garden in Nepi3.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #105)

4.5.2 Ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers are derived from regular numerals with an attributive suffix /-nek/, as in example (69) and (70). In example (69) the speaker is listing her children. In example (69a) she uses a locational modifier with the attributive suffix to express ‘first’. In example(69b) she uses the same suffix attached to ina ‘two’ creating the word for ‘second’. Morpho-syntactically both constructions are the same. More information on the attributive suffix can be found in§4.4.2 above.

(69) a. yaŋ məkəlnek Anjelika yaŋ məkəl -nek Anjelika child front -ATTR.SG Anjelika

‘The first is Anjelika.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #25)

b. yaŋ inanek Heribertus yaŋ ina -nek Heribertus child two -ATTR.SG Heribertus ‘The second child is Heribertus.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #26)

It is, however, also possible to derive the term for ‘first’ from the numeral for ‘one’. This is exemplified in (70). Here the speaker is counting the layers of stacked wood, using both plain counting and ordinal numerals.

3Kebun is a Indonesian word. 94 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

(70) eŋklalanek ŋeŋkonela. eŋklala, ina, eko mʉdemnek ŋeŋkone, ina mʉdem, ebedina, kerenkapak

eŋklala -nek ŋeŋkone -la one -ATTR.SG COP2 -just

eŋklala ina eko mʉdem -nek ŋeŋkone one two this three -ATTR.SG COP2

ina mʉdem ebedina kerenkapak two three four five

‘This is the first one. One, two, this is the third one, two three, four, five.’ (Counting the layers of stacked wood, TG1-Lime_Mars #20-22)

There is also some variation for the numeral eŋklala ‘one’. When used as a head noun for instance, it often has the form eŋkla, especially when there is other morphological material following in the noun phrase, as in example (71).

(71) awol omgo ebia waŋayepu, omgo eŋkla we dang, me ina alpol ko alpol ko ŋoyopaiga

aw -ol omgo ebia w- a- eŋaye -pu 2SG -ACC person DIST.DEM DPST- 2OBJ- see.F.OBJ -PFV

omgo eŋkla we dang person one COM1 stand

me ina alpo -l ko EXCL two hand -ACC PL.SBJ

alpo -l ko ŋ- oyop -ai -ga hand -ACC PL.SBJ DTR- hold.PL.OBJ -IPV -2PL

‘People saw you there, with one person standing, the two (of you) held hands.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 04 #31-35)

4.5.3 Quantifiers

A quantifier, in the present work, is a lexical expression that indicates the quantity ofanoun referent. Yelmek has lexical expressions bala and waaŋama for ‘many/ much’, mala ‘none, 4.5. NUMERALS AND QUANTIFIERS 95 without’, balamala ‘few/ a little’, makak ‘some’ and albla ‘all’ . Each of these will be described in turn below. In Yelmek quantifiers or a different word class than adjectival modifiers inthat they do not take the attributive suffix or occur predictively.

Bala ‘many’ and mala ‘none’

In the antonym pair bala and mala in the examples below, bala express the notion of ‘large quantities’ such as ‘big’ and ‘many’, whereas mala expresses ‘none’. They both follow the head noun.

(72) nʉa bala ŋape wobo wak

nʉa bala ŋape wobo wak people many COP2.PL village LOC ‘There are many people in the village.’ (elicited example, WK, FNB_2 p. 13)

(73) nʉa mala ŋekone wobo wak

nʉa mala ŋekone wobo wak people none COP2.exist village LOC ‘There are no people in the village.’ (elicited example, WK, FNB_2 p. 13)

(74) nʉa bala keŋa dəməl

nʉa bala k- eŋu -a dəm -əl people many RPST.PL.SBJ- eat -RPST fish -ACC ‘Many people ate fish.’ (elicited example, WK, FNB_2 p. 13)

(75) nʉa mala keŋa dəməl

nʉa mala k- eŋu -a dəm -əl people none RPST.PL.SBJ- eat -RPST fish -ACC ‘No people ate fish.’ (elicited example, WK, FNB_2 p. 13) 96 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

The form of the quantifier does not vary if its head noun is a subject (seeex. 75) or part of the predication as in (76).

(76) wobo eu omgo mala kəm

wobo eu omgo mala kəm village 3SG.NOM people none COP1.SG

‘The village has no people.’ (elicited example, WK, FNB_2 p. 13)

Both quantifiers can also be used in an expression of imperative as in example(77) and (78). The negative quantifier mala will be further discussed in the section on negative clauses, specifically negative imperatives (§10.5.1).

(77) yu oŋi mala!

yu oŋi mala water drink none

‘Don’t drink!’ (elicited example, WK, FNB_2 p. 13)

(78) yu oŋi bala!

yu oŋi bala water drink many

‘Drink a lot!’ (elicited example, WK, FNB_2 p. 13)

Balamala ‘few/ a little’

The quantifier bala ‘large quantities’ and mala ‘none’ can be combined to balamala, which literally means ‘no(t a) large quantity’. This is used as a quantifier to express ‘few/ a little’ as in example (79). 4.5. NUMERALS AND QUANTIFIERS 97

(79) yaŋ balamala ŋi ŋap bioŋkata wulon

yaŋ balamala ŋi ŋap bioŋkata wulo -n child few DIS go.PL Jakarta school -PURP

‘Few children go to school in Jakarta.’ (elicited example, LG, FNB_5 p. 68)

The word balamala can also express a small quantity as in example (80).

(80) pata balamala ŋiewlepu

pata balamala ŋiewle -pu only few blow -PFV

‘He blew just a little (air).’ (TG1-NorthWindSun #39)

Makak ‘some’

The word makak can be used to express ‘some’, as in example (81), and ‘other’ as in example (82) and (83).

(81) Yelmek yaŋ wulo kai kəlki, makak wobo emak kudak komŋe, makak ika asrama wak komŋe

Yelmek yaŋ wulo kai kəlki Yelmek child school PROG enter.PL.SBJ

makak wobo emak kudak k- omŋe some/other village 3PL.POSS DEM.PROX PRS.PL.SBJ- sleep.PL.SBJ

makak ika asrama wak k- omŋe some/other causal dormitory LOC PRS.PL.SBJ- sleep.PL.SBJ

‘When Yelmek children go to school, some sleep in their villages, some then sleep in a dormitory4.’ (elicited example, LG, FNB_5 p. 69)

4asrama is on Indonesian word. 98 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

(82) makak eme koŋia albla

makak eme k- oŋi -a albla some/other already RPST.PL.SBJ- drink -RPST all ‘All the others have already finished drinking. (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #195)

(83) ahh gaga maka mau

ahh gaga maka mau EXCL speech some/other absent ‘There is no other story/the story is finished.’ (TG1-InterviesSerafinus #130)

Waŋama ‘many’

The word waŋama also expresses large quantities as in example (84).

(84) ekət nʉa waŋama kəlki wulo Musamus wak

ekət nʉa waŋama kəlki wulo Musamus wak now people many enter.PL.SBJ school Musamus LOC ‘Now many people go to school, to Musamus university.’

To negate this quantifier, the negator is placed after it as in example(85).

(85) nʉa waŋa maya kəm

nʉa waŋa maya kəm people many NEG COP1.3SG ‘There are not many people in the village.’

Albla ‘all’

The word albla5 means ‘all’ and modifies nouns. It has both collective and distributive interpretation, i.e. no distinction is made between ‘each’ and ‘every’ (ex. 86).

5There is a pronunciation variant /abla/, which occurs frequently, but is corrected to albla by informants when further prompted. 4.5. NUMERALS AND QUANTIFIERS 99

(86) modulionek oŋal pa apga yaŋəl alba

modulio -nek oŋa -l pa apge -a yaŋ -l alba female -ATTR.SG food -ACC 3SG.F.SBJ give.PL.OBJ -RPST child -ACC all ‘The woman gave food to every child/ each child’ (elicited example)

There is no restriction as to animacy of the referent or argument type. In example (87) the referent is human, in example (88) the referent is animal and in (89) it is an inanimate object. The form of the quantifier stays the same.

(87) ŋak albla ŋama

ŋak albla ŋa -ma 1PL all go.PL.PST -1SG ‘We all went.’ (elicited example, LG, FNB_5 p.8)

(88) ŋopma dəməl albla pemgama

ŋopma dəm -l albla p- emge -a -ma today fish -ACC all RPST.SG.SBJ- put.PL.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘Today I sold all the fish.’ (elicited example, FNB_5 p. 68)

(89) modulionek oŋal albla pa apga yaŋəl

modulio -nek oŋa -l albla pa apge -a yaŋ -l female -ATTR.SG food -ACC all 3SG.F.SBJ give.PL.OBJ -RPST child -ACC ‘The woman gave all the food to the child.’ (elicited example)

Furthermore, the examples above show how albla is used with different argument types. In example (87) it modifies the subject of the clause, in example (88) it is used with the object, whereas in (89) and (86) it refers to the direct and indirect object respectively. Albla can also be used with other syntactic dependence like comitative and locatives as in (90). The quantifier always follows the case marker. 100 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

(90) a. Kasim nʉa we albla kwaga Kasim nʉa we albla k- wagu -a Kasim people COM1 all RPST- go -RPST ‘Kasim and all the people came.’ (elicited example)

b. Kasim num dom albla kwaga Kasim num dom albla k- wagu -a kasim dog COM2 all RPST- go -RPST ‘Kasim came with all the dogs.’ (elicited example)

c. omgo eu num ebaki poya ebi damwak albla omgo eu num ebak -i p- oyo -a person 3SG.NOM dog 3POSS -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- search.M.OBJ -RPST

ebi dam wak albla house inside LOC all

‘The man searched his dog in the entire house (all places inside the house).’

Albla is typically the outer-most element of the noun phrase. This is visible when more material is present in the noun phrase than just the head noun. In example (91) the noun phrase also includes possessed noun phrases, one is a genitive construction (see ex. 91a) and one has a possessive pronoun (see ex. 91b). In both examples, the quantifier appears at the end of the noun phrase.

(91) a. biaŋop bak yaŋ albla kwaga bia -ŋop bak yaŋ albla k- wagu -a mother -HON GEN child all RPST- go -RPST ‘All mother’s children came.’(elicited example)

b. num awak albla kwaga num awak albla k- wagu -a dog 2POSS all RPST- go -RPST ‘All your dogs came.’ (elicited example) 4.5. NUMERALS AND QUANTIFIERS 101

It is also possible to omit the head noun altogether and only leave the quantifier (ex. 92).

(92) albla kwaga

albla k- wagu -a all RPST- go -RPST

‘All came.’(elicited example)

If used as an answer, albla can even constitute an utterance all by itself (see ex. 93).

(93) Q: oŋa albla keŋa

oŋa albla k- eŋu -a food all RPST- eat -RPST

‘Has he eaten all the food?’

A: albla all

‘All of it.’ (elicited example, TG1-QuantifierElicitation 0:21:06)

Another option is to split the noun phrase and tag albla at the end of the clause as in example (94). In this case, it is interpreted as belonging to the object, even though it never takes case marking, and constitutes a separate intonation unit. This phenomenon of quantifier floating has been described for a number of languages such as Balinese (Arka 2017) and Tagalog (Kroeger 1993). It has sparked debates especially in the field of syntax (see Cirillo 2009 for a dissertation on the subject with data from Indo-European languages). Yelmek provides an interesting data point for this discussion because it uses the quantifier floating for the object, which is the rarer circumstance. This warrants a more detailed investigation in the future.

(94) magubakəl ke kuamala albla

magubak -l ke k- wuo -a -ma -la albla sweet_potato -ACC REL.SBJ RPST- wash -RPST -1SG -just all

‘I washed all the sweet potatoes/The sweet potatoes I washed, all of them.’ (TG1-DogStory #45) 102 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

4.6 Demonstratives

Diessel (1999) defines demonstratives as deictic expressions that serve specific pragmatic and syntactic functions and are characterised by specific semantic features. The primary pragmatic use in this respect is to focus the hearer’s attention on objects or locations in the speech situation, organise the information flow and keep track of discourse participants (Diessel 1999: 2). I will use as necessary criterion for the demonstrative word class that they are deictic expressions. Yelmek demonstratives are a closed class and contain a common root /e/. This demonstrative root can be used as a clitic in copula clauses, usually accompanied by a pointing gesture. In this case, the demonstrative root forms a clitic to the copula. Example (95), for instance, shows an instance with the mʉ copula (see §9.4 on copulas). The demonstrative root cliticises to the fully inflected form of the copula, which results in theform ekəm.

(95) olikop ekəm, Balelauk

olikop e= kəm Balelauk young_man DEM= COP1 Balelauk

‘It is a young man here, Balelauk.’ (TG1-HistoryCely part 01 #9)

The same is possible with the ŋaCe copula (see §9.4 on copulas). All three forms of this copula, the feminine, the masculine and the plural form, can be hosts to the demonstrative clitic. Example (96) shows the feminine form, eŋame. In this example the speaker is pointing at a picture.

(96) num temine ŋame, eŋame

num temi -nek ŋame e= ŋame dog black -ATTR.SG COP2.F DEM= COP2.F

‘She is a police woman, this one is’ (‘Black dog’ is the expression used for the police) (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #140)

In example (96), the speaker also points at a picture, but this time is referring to the picture itself and uses the masculine form of the copula with the demonstrative root, resulting in eŋane. 4.6. DEMONSTRATIVES 103

(97) eŋane, ebii ko weŋepep

e= ŋane ebi =i ko w- eŋepe -pu DEM= COP2.M 3SG.ACC =FOC DPST.PL.SBJ DPST- hold.M.OBJ -PRV

‘This is the one, (where) they held him’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #72)

Lastly, in example (98), the speaker is using the plural form eŋape to refer to several sweet potatoes.

(98) eŋape, magubak, ai emeki welekepma

e= ŋape magubak ai emeki w- eleke -pu -ma DEM= COP2.PL sweet_potatoe PROG 3PL.ACC DPST- plant -PRV -1SG

‘These ones, the sweet potatoes, I planted them.’ (TG1-InterviewAmbrosia #69)

This use with the copula indicates that the demonstrative root can function as a nominal head in its own right. This is further supported by the fact that it can combine with case postpositions, most commonly the ablative postposition ban, as in example (99). The combination of the root with the ablative postposition forms an adverb eban.

(99) ŋəl ebani ŋalapopma bui dam ban

ŋəl e= ban =i ŋalapo -pu -ma bui dam ban 1SG DEM= ABL =FOC exit -PRV -1SG prison inside ABL

‘I came out of there, from prison.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 04 #94)

The fact that the Yelmek demonstrative root cliticises to other elements is noteworthy because it could represent a stage of a process other languages in the area have already gone through. To have a directional pro-clitic is wide-spread in Southern New Guinea. Döhler (2018: 230) for instance, discusses several directional pro-clitics, which distinguish different distances. The Yelmek demonstrative root could be on its way to become a directional pro-clitic. A number of different demonstratives can be built on this demonstrative root. Ifollow Diessel’s (1999) in distinguishing pronominal, adnominal and adverbial demonstratives. I will describe the demonstratives in turn. 104 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

• Pronominal demonstratives: eko ‘this one’, eka ‘that one’, eki ‘this one (ACC)’ (§4.6.1)

• Adnominal demonstratives: ekonek ‘this’, ekanek ‘that’, ekakonek ‘that’ (§4.6.2)

• Adverbial demonstratives: ebiak ‘far from the speaker’, kedak ‘close to the speaker’ (§4.6.3)

Besides the distinctions Diessel (1999) makes on the syntactic level, he also postulates two groups of features on the semantic level . These are deictic features, which indicate the location of the referent in the speech situation (e.g. distance from deictic centre, moving towards it or away from it) and quantitative features, which classify the referent (e.g. whether the referent is an object, a person, or a place) (Diessel 1999: 3). One of the more general results of his study was that languages differ considerably as to how they use their demonstratives and which distinctions are marked morphologically. Some languages use the same demonstratives in a wide variety of functions, where other languages have morphologically complex forms with many restrictions, e.g. syntactically, semantically, pragmatically (Diessel 1999: 1). Yelmek falls into the latter category. I will describe below the morphological structure of the Yelmek demonstratives and their syntactic functions.

4.6.1 Pronominal demonstratives

According to Diessel (1999), a pronominal demonstrative is an element that can be used in lieu of a noun or noun phrase. They usually share the morphological features of other nominals within a particular language, like gender, number and case marking (Diessel 1999: 58). Yelmek has demonstratives that are pronominal by this definition. There is a proximal demonstrative eko ‘this’ and a distal demonstrative eka ‘that’. Pronominal demonstratives can also appear in accusative case, as eki, however in this case the spatial distinction is lost. In all three forms, the demonstrative root /e/ has fused with other morphological material in an opaque way. Therefore, I will refer to and gloss them in their combined form. Example (100) shows the use of the demonstrative eko in lieu of a noun. In the first clause, the noun num is overtly mentioned, while in the second clause it is only referred to by the demonstrative eko. 4.6. DEMONSTRATIVES 105

(100) num ebi ai oyo wedepuma, eko adaka pa ta

num ebi ai oyo w- ede -pu -ma dog 3SG.ACC PROG search DPST- AUX -PRV -1SG

eko adak =a pa te -a this where =Q RPST.F.SBJ enter -RPST

‘I was looking for the dog. Where did it enter?’ (TG1-DogStory #38)

Although pronominal demonstratives can occur on their own as in example (100), they often appear adjacent to a noun without any further marking. Adnominal demonstratives with additional morphological marking are discussed in the next section (§4.6.2). In example (101), eko occurs adjacent to omgo ‘person’. Like all other adnominal modifiers, it follows its head.

(101) omgo eko waluli kolomo

omgo eko walu -l =i kolomo person this whistle -ACC =FOC play

‘This person whistles.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #149)

The difference between the two demonstratives eko ‘this’ and eka ‘that’ relates to the distance from the deictic centre, which in this case is the speaker. Consider the two consecutive examples in (102). The two speakers are talking about a picture from the Family Problems Picture Task (San Roque et al. 2012), which LG is closest to. When BG utters the sentence, she leans over and points at the figure in the picture. She uses eka ‘that’. When LG utters the same sentence, she uses eko ‘this’ because she is physically closer to the picture.

(102) a. BG: meŋebed eka epŋeni kio meŋe -ebed eka epŋe -n =i k- yo husband -3POSS that hit.F.OBJ -PURP =FOC PRS- want ‘Her husband wants to hit her.’ (Speaker is sitting further away from the picture) (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 00:22:11) 106 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

b. LG: ah, meŋebed eko epŋeni kio ah meŋ -ebed eko epŋe -n =i k- yo EXCL husband -3POSS this hit.F.OBJ -PURP =FOC PRS- want ‘Yes, her husband wants to hit her.’ (speaker is closer to the picture) (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 00:22:13)

The demonstrative eko is by far more frequent than eka in my data. This might be because of the low percentage of recordings of interaction in which people point at physical objects. In fact, most occurrences of eka come from the Family Problems Picture Task where people discuss pictures among themselves. If the demonstrative is a syntactic object, it has the form eki as in example (103). This form contains the accusative /-i/ (see §6.1.2 on accusative marking). No spatial distinction is visible in this form.

(103) ah ebi ŋi ko oyo wedep num eki

ah ebi ŋi ko oyo wedepu num eki yes 3SG.ACC DIS PL.SBJ eye AUX dog this.ACC

‘Yes, we looked for it, this dog.’ (TG1-DogStory #102)

The demonstrative has similar structural properties to the postposed third person pronoun, which is used as a definite article in Yelmek (see §4.6.1). It follows the head noun in adnominal use and also receives case marking. As with the definite article, this case marking seems tobea fossilised form of the accusative marker. However, the demonstrative has a deictic component the definite article lacks. It is also more emphatic. This is illustrated inexample(104) and (105). In the first part of the utterance, the speaker uses the third person pronoun ebi as the object of the clause whereas in the last part, she uses the demonstrative eko to stress which story she is talking about when she quotes herself. In example (104) the contrast between the definite article and the demonstrative is used in the same way. 4.6. DEMONSTRATIVES 107

(104) Bapak Marcel ebi kai weʉmpu ai weligepma Bapak Bunowo eko amege bak kəm

Bapak Marcel ebi kai w- eʉm -pu Mr. Marcel 3SG.ACC PROG DPST- tell -PRV

ai w- elige -pu -ma Bapak Bunowo PROG DPST- ask -PRV -1SG Mr. Bunowo

eko ame -ge bak kəm this who -AssPL GEN COP1.SG

“Mr. Marcel told it (the story). I asked Mr. Bunowo: “Who does this belong to?6” (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #159)

(105) num ebi ai oyo wedepuma, eko adaka pa ta

num ebi ai oyo w- ede -pu -ma dog 3SG.ACC PROG search DPST- AUX -PRV -1SG

eko adak =a pa te -a this where =Q RPST.F.SBJ enter.RPST

‘I was looking for the dog. Where did it enter?’ (TG1-DogStory #38)

4.6.2 Adnominal demonstratives

The term adnominal demonstratives or demonstrative determiner is used by Diessel (1999) for demonstratives which co-occur with a head noun, though he only treats them as a distinct category if they are formally distinguished from demonstratives in other syntactic contexts (Diessel 1999: 57). In Yelmek, there are two ways of using a demonstrative adnominally. One way is to simply place the pronominal demonstrative form adjacent to the head noun as we saw in the last section (see ex. 101). The other way is to derive an adjectival modifier from the pronominal demonstrative stem using the attributive suffix /-nek/ as in examples (106) and (107). See §4.4.2 for more information on the attributive marking.

6Bapak is an Indonesian term. 108 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

(106) welu ekanek ima ŋeŋkone karung renjani

welu eka -nek ima ŋeŋkone karung renjani net that -ATTR.SG IG.thing COP2 plastic_sack

‘That net is a plastic sack.’ (TG1-Sago2_Marsel #28)

(107) tokakəl ekonek dip ban kəm

tokakəl eko -nek dip ban kəm knife this -ATTR.SG bamboo ABL COP1.3SG

‘This knife is (made) from bamboo.’ (JEL20150730 #95, Yamfinderlist)

Note that, although there is a plural form of the attributive suffix, I have not found an instance where it occurs on a demonstrative, though I also have not found a plural argument that is accompanied by a demonstrative. Adnominal demonstratives follow the head noun. They can also occur without the head noun, the same way other modifiers with the attributive suffix do (see§4.4.2 on attributive marking). Example (107) shows an instance of ekonek without a head noun.

(108) ekonek ame ŋame?

eko -nek ame ŋame this -ATTR.SG who COP.F

‘Who is this (F)?’ (TG-Fishing_Mars #28)

The form eki differs from eko and eka in that there are no occurrences of eki plus other morphological material, i.e. there is no form like *ekinek. On the other hand, ekanek has an additional variant ekakonek as in example (109). The semantic or pragmatic difference between the two forms is not transparent from my corpus. Neither eko nor eki occurs with the extra morpheme /ko/. As shown in example (109), ekako can occur with or without an attributive marker and also with accusative marking. 4.6. DEMONSTRATIVES 109

(109) a. ekako yokgo ŋane, Alven ekako yok -go ŋane Alven that_one sleep -still COP2.M Alven ‘That one still sleeps, Alven.’ (TG1-DogStory #108)

b. ekakonek kai welpayepu ekako -nek kai w- elpaye -pu that_one -ATTR.SG PROG DPST- tell -PRV ‘That is the one (picture on which) he was telling him.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #75)

c. eki gaga ima ban ma gayoka, gaga ekakoneki eki gaga ima ban ma gayo -ka DEM.ACC speech IG.thing ABL 1SG.FUT start -1SG.FUT

gaga ekako -nek -i speech that_one -ATTR.SG -ACC ‘That story, where will I start this story from?’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #2-3)

4.6.3 Adverbial demonstratives

Adverbial demonstratives in Yelmek mark a proximal vs. distal distinction. The distal demonstrative is ebiak and the proximal form is kedak. Both forms contain the demonstrative root /e/ as well as the locative wak, fused with morphological material of unknown origin. Adverbial demonstratives are demonstratives that share properties with other adverbs in a language. As Diessel (1999: 58) points out, the term adverb refers cross-linguistically to a wide variety of items with very diverse semantic and morphological properties. They are syntactically considered modifiers of verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. Diessel (1999) argues that since this type of demonstrative is used to indicate the location of the event or situation denoted by a co-occurring verb, it is justified to call them adverbial demonstratives or demonstrative adverbs (Diessel 1999: 58). This generalisation holds for Yelmek as well (see §4.7 on adverbs). Adverbial demonstratives in Yelmek denote a location where an event takes place. They distinguish between locations perceived as close by (proximal) and locations perceived as further away (distal). In example (48) for instance, the speaker is telling about her search 110 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH for her dog. She uttered (110) when she reached the point in the story, where she discovered the dog. In the first clause, she uses kedak to refer to the location, and in the second clause, she specifies the location with a locative marker on dam ‘inside’.

(110) kedak ka kəm dam wak pa tala

kedak ka kəm dam -wak pa te -a -la PROX.DEM PRS.F.SBJ COP1.3SG inside -LOC RPST.F.SBJ enter -RPST -further

‘Here she is. She entered inside.’ (Speaker is telling a story about a missing dog, TG1-JEL20160804-TG1-DogStory #126)

Example (111) is from the Northwind and the Sun story. In this utterance, the speaker describes how the sun and the wind finish their competition by shaking hands. She isusing the distal demonstrative ebiak, expressing that the shaking of the hands happens some way off, presumably in the sky.

(111) ina ebiak ahh alpo ŋoyopai

ina ebiak ahh alpo ŋ- oyopo -ai two there EXCL hand DTR- hold.F.OBJ -IPV

‘There, the two shake hands’ (TG1-NorthWindSun_Libe #133)

The proximal adverbial demonstrative kedak can host an additional demonstrative root /e=/. This creates the form ekedak or the reduced version ekdak7, which is an emphatic form of the demonstrative. In example (112), for instance, the speaker talks about where the researcher went the year before. She uses the emphatic form to stress that the researcher did not stay in the house they are currently in.

7This addition of the demonstrative root indicates further that the root might develop into a deictic pro-clitic as mentioned in the introduction to this section. 4.6. DEMONSTRATIVES 111

(112) a. ah yok ekdak ma wokupu, klonil ka woyopula

ah yok e= kdak ma w- oku -pu yes sleep DEM= PROX NEG DPST- sleep.SG.SBJ -PFV

kloni -l ka w- oyo -pu =la pass_by -ACC F.DPST DPST- pass_by -PFV =further ‘Yes, she did not sleep here, she passed by.’ (referring to the house she is in at the moment)

b. Wanam yok ebiak ka wokupu Wanam yok ebiak ka w- oku -pu Wanam sleep DIST.DEM F.DPST DPST- sleep.SG.SBJ -PFV ‘In Wanam, she slept there.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #42-44)

Beside this emphatic form, the demonstrative can also be marked with the focus marker /=i/ as in example (113).

(113) a. ebiaki ba amgepa ebiak =i ba amge -pa DIST =FOC FUT.N1SG put -3PL.SBJ.IRR ‘There, they will put it.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #182)

b. ika pukil ebiaki ka emge wedep ika puki -l ebiak =i ka emge wedep so_then sago_leaf -ACC DIST =FOC PROG put.PL.OBJ AUX ‘Then they put the dry sago leafs there.’ (TG1-Lime_Mars #6)

The allative marker -on/-en can also be combined with the adverbial demonstratives. This marking is explained in more detail in §6.3.2. In example (114) the allative indicates that the motion is towards the place the demonstrative kedak stands for, which is the speaker’s present location. 112 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

(114) kedakon ai kekelmani em mekelak ina Wadi wo

kedak -on ai kekelma -ni em PROX.DEM -ALL PROG go.PL.PRS -DIR 3PL

mekel wak ina Wadi wo front LOC two Wadi COM

‘First they come back here, the two of them, (she) and Wadi.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #102)

In example (115) the directional marker is used with ebiak and indicates a motion to a distant location.

(115) iman ma wolka ebiaken

ima -n ma wol -ka ebiak -en what -PURP FUT.1SG.SBJ go -1SG.SBJ.IRR DIST.DEM -ALL ‘Why (for what) do I go there (lit. from here)?’ (TG1-TravelPlanAmbrosia #32)

4.7 Adverbs

As Haspelmath (2001) among others remarked, adverbs are difficult to define as a word class, because they are extremely heterogeneous in all languages. He, therefore, characterizes them broadly as modifying non-nominal constituents, such as verbs, verb phrases, adjectives, other adverbs or sentences (Haspelmath 2001: 16543). This is essentially still the same definition Schachter (1985) used, and it is still found in Bisang (2011). The class of adverbs in Yelmek can be subdivided into groups, which have only a few members each. The most distinct adverbs are temporal adverbs (§4.7.1) and linking adverbs (§4.7.2). These will be discussed in this section. Other adverbials, such as demonstrative adverbials (§4.6.3) and aspect adverbials (§7.4) are discussed in other sections. Adverbs differ from verbs in that they do not inflect and they differ from nounsinthat they cannot be the head of a noun phrase, nor can they be further modified by other elements, including other adverbs. Adverbs in Yelmek modify verbs or entire clauses. There are no degree adverbs that modify other modifiers. It is also not possible to morphologically derive an adverb from another modifier, as in English with the suffix /-ly/. 4.7. ADVERBS 113

4.7.1 Temporal adverbs

Temporal adverbs specify the location in time of the event described in the clause. There are a number of monomorphemic temporal adverbs that can be used to specify a location in time. See below for a list of the most common temporal adverbs:

• ŋopma ‘today’, which starts at a point in the middle of the night, well before dawn (about midnight) of the preceding night. People customarily describe the distinctions between ‘yesterday’ and ‘today’ with the process of making sep, a traditional food, prepared for special occasions (see TG1-MakingSep for a video of the process). The preparation takes several hours and is traditionally started between midnight and dawn. Therefore, people name this point in time as the start of ‘today’.

• wekeke ‘yesterday’, conversely, ends at midnight of the preceding night.

• yopol ‘tomorrow’ also starts at midnight.

Temporal adverbs can also be composed, like the expression for ‘the day after tomorrow’ maknek. The word maknek translates to ‘the following’ . It has the morphological marking of a modifier /-nek/ (see §4.4.2 on modifier marking). It is also found in constructions like wi maknek ‘the following night’, which means the night of the next day, as opposed to ŋopma wi, which refers to the night of the same day, and also in wəla maknek ‘next year’, which refers to the following year. To refer to the day before yesterday the construction wekeke wibal - ‘before yesterday’ is used. Entire clauses can also function as temporal adverbs (see ex. 116). This will be discussed in the Chapter on complex clauses in section 11.

(116) wəla eu kai mie

wəla eu kai mie year 3SG.NOM PROG COP1.PRS

‘last year (lit. the year that is being)’

Temporal adverbs typically occur clause-initially (see 117), but can also occur clause-finally (118) or in second position (119). 114 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH

(117) eme welpaepma wekeke

eme w- elpaye -pu -ma wekeke already DPST- tell -PRV -1SG yesterday

‘ Itold them yesterday’ (TG1-InterviewAmbrosia #177)

(118) wekeke omgo kai wowlai

wekeke omgo kai w- owlo -ai yesterday person PROG DPST- sing -IPV

‘Yesterday the man was singing.’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #143)

(119) em wekeke Tika wak ŋapu

em wekeke Tika wak ŋa -pu 3PL yesterday Tika LOC go -PRV

‘They went to Tika yesterday.’(FNB_1 p. 129)

4.7.2 Linking adverbs

Yelmek has adverbs that link clauses with each other. I consider them adverbs because the modify an entire clause. The adverb ika ‘so then’ has a linking function as a primary use, while a number of other adverbs are derived and have the linking function as a secondary use. The adverb ika can be translated as ‘so then’. It expresses a temporal sequence, often implying a causal relation. Example (120) illustrates this with clauses from the Pear Story (Chafe 1980). A boy has just fallen off his bike and spilled the content of his bag. Three other children come by then, so they help him pick up the things that have fallen out. The connection is that they help him, because they just arrive when the accident happens is expressed with the linking adverb ika. 4.7. ADVERBS 115

(120) eban mʉdem ŋi kuaga yaŋ, ika eme kolkaŋa ŋoto

eban mʉdem ŋi k- uagu -a yang then three DIS RPST- come -RPST child

ika eme k- olkaŋo -a ŋoto so_then already RPST- help -RPST fill

‘Then three came, children, so they helped fill (the bag).’ (TG1-PearStory #65)

The causal implication of ika is even more salient when it is used in questions as in example (121). The question inquires after the event that leads to the current one.

(121) ika au kemad imana ngolimnga

ika au kemad ima -n -a ŋolimnge -a so_then 2SG like.this what -PRP -EMPH do -RPST

‘Why did you do this?’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #58)

Other elements can function as linking adverbs as well. The most frequent one is eban ‘from here’. It is composed of the allative postposition ban and the demonstrative root /e=/ (see §4.6 on demonstratives). Example (122) illustrates its demonstrative function, while example (123) shows the use as a linking adverb. Example (122) is a clause from the Family Problems Picture Task. The eban is used here to express the location the speaker has come out of. This is disambiguated with the overt mention of the location after the verb.

(122) ŋəl ebani ŋalapopma bui dam ban ŋəl ebani ŋalapopma bui dam ban

ŋəl e= ban =i ŋalapo -pu -ma bui dam ban 1SG DEM= ABL =FOC exit -PRV -1SG jail inside ABL

‘I came out from here, from jail.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 04 #94)

On the other hand, in example (123) the eban expresses a temporal sequence and is interpreted as ‘then’. Example (123), is a sequence from the Northwind and the sun Story. The sun 116 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH has just defeated the east wind by making the person take off his clothes. This is connected to the next clause, in which the wind admits to having lost. The connection is made with the adverb eban.

(123) ah omgo eko unugu ebaki powla, eban sendawi ai yop: mauko

Ah omgo eko unugu ebak -i p- owlo -a EXCL person this clothes 3POSS -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- open -RPST eban sendawi ai yop mauko then east_wind PROG say -PRV ok

‘Ah, the person opened his clothes, then the wind was saying: ok.’ (TG1-NorthWindSun_Libe #123)

4.7.3 Focus adverb

The adverb ŋi relates to the wider discourse a clause is in. It is used to draw the attention of the listener to a specific event. It is different from the focus clitic /=i/ in what it marks. Thefocus clitic attaches to elements of a clause like nouns, adverbs and demonstratives to focus specific parts of the predication. The adverb ŋi, on the other hand, focusses the entire predication8.I gloss the adverb DIS for discourse marker to make the distinction more transparent. It is often used in explanations and translations, i.e. most elicited sentences have it. In narratives, it is used more sparingly. Below, I will discuss three illustrative examples from a free narrative. In this narrative, the speaker describes events that happened earlier that day and the previous night, involving a pregnant dog. The adverb ŋi can be used for clarification and make a statement more specific. Itismore restricted in its placement than other adverbs. It always comes immediately before the verb, including its inflectional particles. In example (124) the speaker states that she is going to tell a story. She then directly repeats the statement and includes the information about what story she is going to tell. The second more specific statement includes the adverb ŋi.

8The clitic seems to mark new information in many cases, whereas the ŋi is often used for contrastive focus. The exact division of labour of the two markers will be studied in more detail in a future investigation of discourse and information structure in Yelmek. 4.7. ADVERBS 117

(124) gaga imaneki ma imka, lolondu baki ŋi ma imka

gaga ima -nek -i ma im -ka language IG.thing -ATTR.SG -ACC FUT.1SG say -1SG.SBJ.IRR

Lolondu bak -i ŋi ma im -ka Lolondu GEN -ACC DIS FUT.1SG say -1SG.SBJ.IRR

‘I will tell a story. I will tell Lolondu’s (story).’ (TG1-DogStory #6-7)

The adverb ŋi can also be used to create a contrastive focus as in example (125). Here the first clause is a negative clause, expressing what she did not do. Then the second,which includes the ŋi, states what she did instead.

(125) yok maya pokwama, eki num ebi ŋi dama

yok maya p- oku -a -ma sleep NEG RPST.SG.SBJ- sleep -RPST -1SG

eki num ebi ŋi de -a -ma DEM.ACC dog DET.ACC DIS take_care_off -RPST -1SG

‘I did not sleep, I took care of the dog.’ (TG1-DogStory #124)

This adverb can also be used in an accusing manner as in example (126). Here the speaker accuses her children of leaving the door open, which in the story leads to the dog wandering off and causing the speaker a great deal of anxiety.

(126) wol al ŋi kelaga papa wo

wo -l al ŋi k- elage -a papa wo door -ACC 2PL DIS RPST.PL.SBJ- put.M.OBJ -RPST open door

‘You left the door open.’ (TG1-DogStory #107) 118 CHAPTER 4. PARTS OF SPEECH Chapter 5

Nominals

The current chapter is a description of nouns and the different nominal subgroups. It starts with a discussion on the three nominal categories: person (§5.1.1), number (§5.1.2) and gender (§5.1.3). This is followed by a discussion of personal pronouns (§5.2) and ignorative pronouns (§5.3). The chapter also contains a description of the kinship system and kinship terms (§5.4). Nominal marking, including Associative plural marking (§6.5), possession (§6.4) and case (§5.4), will be discussed in Chapter 6.

5.1 Nominal categories

In Yelmek three nominal inflection categories are expressed morphologically: person, number and gender. None of these is expressed on the noun itself, at least not for common nouns. Instead, the value of the nominal category is visible on elements that agree with the noun. For instance, modifier and determiner show the number value of the noun they agree with andthe verb shows the person, number and gender value of nouns that are its subject or direct object (see Chapter 7 on verbal inflection). Personal pronouns, on the other hand, have different forms for the different person and number values. They do not mark gender however (see§5.2 on personal pronouns). Finally, kinship terms can be marked directly for number, only to a limited extent (see §5.4 on kinship term marking). Some kinship terms also have different forms for male and female referents (e.g. bia ‘mother’ vs. ida ‘father’), but this will not be treated as an expression of grammatical gender. Yelmek does not distinguish between mass vs. count nouns or animate vs. inanimate, e.g. there is no difference in quantifier selection or verbal agreement.

119 120 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

5.1.1 Person

Yelmek distinguishes three person values: first-person (the speaker), second-person (the addressee) and third-person (non-speech-act participants). These are visible on personal pronouns and in the verbal inflection. There is no clusivity distinction. Personal pronouns have different forms for the three person values (see§5.2). Apart from that, only the verbal inflection indexes the person value of a noun (see Chapter 7). Other elements that agree with a noun, e.g. modifier, do not express person.

5.1.2 Number

Common nouns in Yelmek are not marked for number. There is a singular vs. plural distinction, but it is not generally expressed on the noun itself. Instead, it is visible on agreeing elements. Other languages in the area like Marori (Arka & Dalrymple forthcoming) show a similar system. In example (127) the noun num ‘dog’ does not differ in the singular (see ex. 127a) as opposed to the plural (see ex. 127b). However, the attributive modifier ‘black’ marks the distinction between the singular and the plural, by using the singular form of the attributive suffix /-nek/ in (127a) and the plural form /-nemek/ in (127b) (see §4.4 on adjectival modifiers). The determiner is a postposed pronoun and encodes singular vs. plural as well (see §5.2 on pronouns). The predicative modifier, on the other hand, does not differ in(127a) compared to (127b), whereas the copula marks number as well as gender as a portmanteau form (see §9.4 on copulas). There is no morphological expression of dual or higher number distinctions.

(127) a. num teminek eu balak ŋane num temi -nek eu balak ŋane dog black -ATTR.SG DET.SG big COP2.M.SG ‘The black dog is big.’ b. num teminemek em balak ŋape num temi -nemek em balak ŋape dog black -ATTR.PL DET.PL big COP2.PL ‘The black dogs are big.’

The one common noun that has a distinct singular and plural form is omgo ‘person’ as opposed to nʉa ‘people ’ (see ex. 132 below). Apart from that, personal pronouns show different forms for singular and plural (see §5.2) and kinship terms can have an associative plural marking (see §6.5). The verbal expression of number is very complex and will be discussed in Chapter 7 extensively . In sum, the verb can express the number of its subject and direct object. The subject 5.1. NOMINAL CATEGORIES 121 is mostly indexed by affixes and particles. Example (128) shows forms from the Present Tense paradigm of ‘to jump’. Here the plural is marked with the inflectional particle ko.

(128) a. eu pio eu pio 3SG.NOM jump.PRS ‘He jumps’ b. em ko pio em ko pio 3PL PRS.PL.SBJ jump.PRS ‘They jump.’

Moreover, a small number of intransitive verbs use stem alternations to mark the number of the subject as in example (129). This will be extensively discussed in Chapter 7.

(129) a. eu koku eu k- oku 3SG.NOM PRS- sleep.SG.SBJ ‘He sleeps.’

b. em komŋe em k- omŋe 3PL PRS- sleep.PL.SBJ ‘They sleep.’

Object indexing for number is solely done by stem alternations. In example (130) this is illustrated for the verb ‘to give’. In (130a) the object given is singular, whereas in (130b) the object given is plural. Each of the clauses uses a different stem of the same verb (more on stem alternation for number in §7.2).

(130) a. eu mil pelia eu mi -l p- elie -a 3SG.NOM bow -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- give.SG.OBJ -RPST ‘He gave (one) bow.’ 122 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

b. eu mil pepga eu mi -l p- epge -a 3SG.NOM bow -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- give.PL.OBJ -RPST ‘He gave (several) bows.’

5.1.3 Gender

Yelmek distinguishes two grammatical genders. They are not purely semantically determined; however, they do align with biological sex for humans and some animals. Therefore, I will refer to them as masculine and feminine. The only agreement target for gender in Yelmek is the verb, including the copula. Example (131) shows a male referent in (131a) and a female referent in (131b). The noun omgo ‘person’ itself does not encode the gender distinction, nor does the modifier banek ‘big’. Note that the distinction between man and woman can be lexically expressed, by using gomnek ‘male’ and modulionek ‘female’ as modifiers. The only element in this clause that shows the gender distinction is the copula.

(131) a. omgo banek ŋane omgo ba -nek ŋane person big -ATTR.SG COP2.M ‘It is a big man.’

b. omgo banek ŋame omgo ba -nek ŋame person big -ATTR.SG COP2.F ‘It is a big woman.’

The expression of grammatical gender in the languages of the world is very diverse. Some traditions prefer the term noun classes. Due to the nature of the Yelmek system, I follow the terminology Corbett (1991) uses in his oft-cited book about the category and call it gender. Corbett (1991) refers to Hockett (1958: 231) for the following definition of gender: “Genders are classes of nouns reflected in the behaviour of associated words” (Corbett 1991: 1). A point Corbett stresses in this, and subsequent work, is the importance of the agreement targets. “No amount of marking on a noun can prove that the language has a gender system; the evidence that nouns have gender values in a given language lies in the agreement targets which show gender.” (Corbett 2015: 90). The gender system of Yelmek conforms to this definition. It does 5.1. NOMINAL CATEGORIES 123 not even have any morphological marking on nouns and relies purely on the agreement target to show its gender. Corbett also points out that gender differs from other noun categories, because any given noun can only have one gender value, whereas they can take different case and number values (Corbett 2015: 121). In Yelmek the difference between gender and other noun categories is quite pronounced. The number of a noun, for instance, is visible on the noun’s modifier and determiners as well as on personal pronouns and verbs. The lasttwo also agree in person. On the other hand, the only agreement target for gender is the verb (see Chapter 7 on verbal inflection). Grammatical gender assignment in Yelmek is aligned with the biological sex of the referent when it is known and relevant. Inanimate objects or animals for which biological sex is not relevant (not relevant to humans, i.e. non-domestic animals like insects), have their gender assigned lexically (see Table 5.1). For instance, the gender of humans is transparently assigned according to biological sex. Body parts have what Evans (1994) calls inherited gender. That means they are assigned the gender of the body they belong to. The gender of animals follows the same principle if the biological sex of the animal is visible or relevant. For animals of which sex is more difficult to determine and for inanimate objects, the assignment of gender ismore opaque. Generally, masculine gender is prevalent and is also assigned if people are in doubt about what the right form should be. Some feminine nouns group somewhat semantically, but the groupings are never entirely consistent. This circumstance might indicate that the threshold for gender differentiation is shifting from a more inclusive system to a more restrictive system, i.e. a system where gender is distinguished for fewer and fewer nouns. Many birds are assigned feminine gender. However this could be, because birds often appear in flocks and the agreement marking on the verb for several birds (i.e. plural) would be the same as for a single feminine bird1 . Small insects and small water creatures are mostly feminine gender, for instance domna ‘louse’, galel ‘cicada’, kəlpitin ‘fly’ and klib ‘swamp prawn’; however kawe ‘butterfly’ is masculine. The assignment of small/short things to feminine gender and long/big things to masculine gender is commonly found in languages of New Guinea (Foley 2000). When I first started working on gender with speakers of Yelmek this was indeedthe explanation offered by my informants. The grouping I find in my data, however, is not asneat. For inanimate objects, it is even harder to determine a semantic grouping then for animals, mainly because even fewer nouns are feminine. Heavenly bodies often have stories relating to

1Because gender of a noun is only visible on the agreement marking of the verb, I tested for gender by embedding the target word in in the phrase “I saw a ….” (see 135). The advantage is that this is a fairly natural thing to say. The disadvantage is that the phrase for feminine nouns and the one for plural nouns are the same. On inquiring if we are talking about just one, the speaker often produced the masculine form where they had spontaneously produced the feminine form before. It is unclear if that meant that all those nouns where masculine or just that they were second-guessing themselves. 124 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

Table 5.1: Overview of gender assignment

Feminine gender Masculine gender Female human Male human Female domestic animals Male domestic animals Body parts belong to female bodies Body part belonging to masculine bodies Many birds, particularly birds that occur in flocks Small insects, such as domna ‘louse’ Large insects, such as kawe ‘butterfly’ Plants and vegetable, such as deka ‘cassava’ Plants and vegetables, such as magubak ‘sweet potato’ Heavenly bodies, such as wanya ‘moon’ Heavenly bodies, such as alimo ‘sun’ “Small things” “Big things” them that determine their gender; alimo ‘sun’ is masculine whereas wanya ‘moon’ is feminine. On the other hand, the grouping for plants and other food seems quite opaque; deka ‘cassava’ and kide ‘chili’ are feminine, whereas magubak ‘sweet potato’ is masculine and alo ‘egg’ is feminine. Having two genders is, according to Corbett (2013a), the most common arrangement, and is found in most linguistic areas with gender. Assigning gender largely semantically, as Yelmek does, is also very wide-spread. In the World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS), among the 112 languages with gender in the sample, three quarters (84) have a sex-based system (Corbett 2013b). Narrowing it down to the New Guinea region, Yelmek also does not stand out. Svärd (2019) conducted a small-scale survey (variety sample of 20 languages) on gender in languages of New Guinea. He found that half of the languages in his sample had a two-gendered sex-based system with semantic assignment and most languages (85%) did not have gender marking on nouns. On the other hand, most of his languages (80%) had a gender distinction in independent pronouns, which Yelmek does not have. Also, 80% of the languages in his sample had two or more agreement targets. Only four languages had just a single agreement target, and only one of these languages used the verb for it. In this respect, Yelmek belongs clearly with the minority. With respect to Yelmek’s close neighbours in southern New Guinea, the most similar system is probably found in Marori, where the gender of the object is coded by vowel harmony on the verb stem (Arka 2015). Other languages are much more dissimilar. Marind, for instance, has a complex four gender system and a range of agreement targets (Olsson 2017); The languages of the Tonda branch of the Yam family also have a two-gendered system to varying degrees, but it is confined to the third person singular undergoer prefix onverbs(Evans et al. 2017: 693), and the Nambu branch of the family does not have gender marking at all. 5.1. NOMINAL CATEGORIES 125

As mentioned before, there is only one agreement target for gender in Yelmek: the verb, including the copula. In this, gender differs from other noun categories, like number, which is visible on modifiers (§4.4), determiners and personal pronouns (§5.2). Example (132) illustrates the contrast between gender and number. The attributive suffix on the modifier in(132a) and (132b) are the same even though the referent of the noun is male in (132a) and female in (132b). In example (132c), however, it has a different form to mark the plural number value. Therefore, the modifier agrees with the head noun in number, but not in gender. The copula, ontheother hand, has a different form for the masculine and the feminine referent, as well as for theplural referent. Therefore, it marks number as well as gender.

(132) a. omgo wutnek ŋane omgo wutek -nek ŋane person small -ATTR.SG COP2.M ‘It is a small man.’

b. omgo wutnek ŋame omgo wutek -nek ŋame person small -ATTR.SG COP2.F ‘It is a small woman.’

c. nʉa wutnemek ŋape nʉa wutek -nemek ŋape people small -ATTR.PL COP2.PL ‘It is small people.’

Both subject and object gender are indexed on the verb, although different marking strategies are used. Note that even on verbs, gender is only distinguished in singular forms and just for third-person. Subject indexing for gender is visible in the inflectional particles and affixes. Example (133) shows forms from the Present Tense paradigm (see §7.3.4) in which a particle marks feminine gender, and the absence of the particle indicates masculine gender. Example (134), on the other hand, shows forms from the Future Tense paradigm in which the contrast is visible in the choice of suffix: /-pən/ for masculine and /-pa/ for feminine subjects. 126 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

(133) a. eu koku eu k- oku 3SG.NOM PRS- sleep.SG.SBJ ‘He sleeps.’

b. eu ka koku eu ka k- oku 3SG.NOM PRS.F.SBJ PRS- sleep.SG.SBJ ‘She sleeps.’

(134) a. eu ba akupən eu ba aku -pən 3SG.NOM FUT.N1SG sleep -3SG.M.IRR ‘He will sleep.’

b. eu ba akupa eu ba aku -pa 3SG.NOM FUT.N1SG sleep -3SG.F.IRR ‘She will sleep.’

In the Present Tense the gender of the subject is expressed with the inflectional particle /ka/. In the Distant Past Tense the same particle is used. In the Recent Past Tense the gender is also expressed by a particle, which has the form /pa/ (see §7.1 on subject indexing). In each of these paradigms, a masculine subject is indicated by the absence of the feminine particle. With the data so far, it is possible to describe the gender marking of the subject agreement as a marked form (feminine) vs. an unmarked form (masculine). It is the other way around, however, in Future Tense. Here the gender marking is not in the particle, but in the suffix. Example (134a) shows the masculine form of the suffix, /-pən/ and (134b) the feminine form /- pa/. The feminine form is the same as the 1st and 3rd person plural forms. No gender marking is used for first or second person subjects in any of the inflectional paradigms. The gender of the object is not coded in affixes or particles. There is no dedicated morpheme for the expression of object gender, even though affixes are used for indexing object person and number. The gender of an object is only visible in the verb stem. A large number of verbs in Yelmek, about 40% (see §7.2.2), allow stem alternation or even full suppletion of a stem. This is 5.1. NOMINAL CATEGORIES 127 generally part of the object indexing, although some intransitive verbs (six in total) use stem suppletion to indicate the number of the subject (see §7.2.3). For verbs that use stem alternation to mark the gender of the object, one stem indicates masculine singular objects and a different stem indicates feminine singular objects. Gender is not distinguished for plural objects. For plural objects of either gender the feminine stem is used, except if there is a dedicated plural stem (see §7.2.3). For instance, in example (135a), where the object is a man, the masculine stem baiye of the verb ‘to see’ is used, whereas in (135b) and (135c) the feminine form eŋaye is used for the feminine and the plural object respectively, which indicates that the feminine form is the default.

(135) a. ŋəl omgo wutnek ebi baiyama ŋəl omgo wutek -nek ebi baiye -a -ma 1SG person small -ATTR DET.SG.ACC see.M.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I saw a small man.’

b. ŋəl omgo wutnek ebi peŋayama ŋəl omgo wutek -nek ebi p- eŋaye -a -ma 1SG person small -ATTR DET.SG.ACC RPST.SG- see.F.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I saw a small woman.’

c. ŋəl nʉa wutnemek emi peŋayama ŋəl nʉa wutek -nemek emi p- eŋaye -a -ma 1SG people small -ATTR.PL DET.PL.ACC RPST.SG- see.PL.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I saw small people.’

On the other hand, ‘to kill’ in example (136) has three distinct stems: ogu for feminine objects, egule for masculine objects and eke for plural objects.

(136) a. ŋəl omgo wutnek ebi pegulama ŋəl omgo wutek -nek ebi p- egule -a -ma 1SG person small -ATTR DET.SG.ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- see.M.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I killed a small man.’ 128 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

b. ŋəl omgo wutnek ebi poguama ŋəl omgo wutek -nek ebi p- ogu -a -ma 1SG person small -ATTR DET.SG.ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- see.F.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I killed a small woman.’

c. ŋəl nʉa wutnemek emi pekama ŋəl nʉa wutek -nemek emi p- eke -a -ma 1SG people small -ATTR.PL DET.PL.ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- see.PL.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I killed small people.’

Verbs that do not have different stem forms use the same stem for all three. It is of course possible to have subject gender agreement marking and object gender agreement marking in the same clause (ex. 137).

(137) a. Kasim omgo ebi baiya Kasim omgo ebi baiye -a Kasim person DET.SG.ACC see.M.OBJ -RPST ‘Kasim saw the man.’

b. Antoneta omgo ebi pa baiya Antoneta omgo ebi pa baiye -a Antoneta person DET.SG.ACC RPST.F see.M.OBJ -RPST ‘Antoneta saw the man.’

As with subject indexing, gender is not distinguished in first or second person objects. Ifa first or second person is the object of a clause, the feminine stem will be used(ex. 138). This is further evidence that the feminine stem is the default stem.

(138) ŋələl mad ba ŋəpŋaipa

ŋəl -l mad ba ŋə- epŋe -ai -pa 1SG -ACC like.this FUT.N1SG 1OBJ- hit.F.OBJ -IPRV -3PL.IRR

‘They will hit me.’ (From the Family Problem Picture Task. The speaker is talking about the thoughts of a man about to go to prison. TG1-JEL20160225-FFPT-Libe_Bertila_a # 262, LG) 5.2. PERSONAL PRONOUNS 129

5.2 Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns share most properties with common nouns. They can be the head of a noun phrase and they take case marking. In contrast to common nouns, they distinguish two numbers and three persons in their form. Gender is not marked on the pronoun. Table 5.2 shows a list of personal pronouns in nominative and accusative case.2 The possessive form of personal pronouns is discussed in §6.4.

Table 5.2: Personal pronouns in nominative accusative.

Nominative form Accusative form 1SG ŋəl ŋələl 2SG au auəl 3SG eu ebi 1PL ŋag ŋagol 2PL al aləl 3PL em emi

Personal pronouns can be used independently as full noun phrases. Example (139) shows the use of the unmarked or nominative pronoun and example (140) shows the pronoun in the accusative case, with the accusative suffix /-l/.

(139) wigle ŋəl noma wiwil ina kuama

wigle ŋəl noma wiwi -l ina k- uo -a -ma morning 1SG.NOM fruit mango -ACC two RPST- wash.PL.OBJ -RPST -1SG

‘In the morning, I washed two mangos.’ (FNB_1 p.143)

(140) ŋələl mad ba ŋəpŋaipa

ŋəl -əl mad ba ŋə- epŋe -ai -pa 1SG -ACC like.this FUR 1OBJ- hit.PL.OBJ -IPV -3PL.FUT

‘They will hit me like this.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 # 262)

2Note that there is a vowel change in ŋagol from /ə/ to /o/. This could be remnant of a now unproductive vowel harmony pattern. 130 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

The accusative suffix /-l/ is the same on pronouns as on nouns, with the exception ofthe third person forms. Both the third person singular and plural are marked with the accusative suffix that is usually used with modifiers, rather than the noun suffix. Furthermore, thethird person singular also has a stem change. The accusative stem of this pronoun looks very similar to the demonstratives implying a possibly diachronic relationship between the forms. The third-person pronouns can also be used as determiner or article. In this function the pronoun follows the head noun. There is no other determiner in Yelmek. Dryer (2007: 10) mentions a similar construction for Tidore, another Papuan language. It is also wide spread in Australian languages. Louagie and Verstraete (2015) investigated this phenomenon in a sample of 75 languages and found adnominal pronouns that function as determiners in half of their sample. They even give an idea of a possible grammaticalisation pathway from personal pronoun to determiner. In Yelmek, the postposed pronoun agrees with the head noun in number and case. Different types of nouns are not distinguished (see ex. 141). In (141a) the pronoun follows a head noun that is designating an animal, whereas in (141b) the noun is not animate, but no difference is made.

(141) a. tətəli eu megiak kəm tətəli eu megiak kəm bird 3SG.NOM high.LOC COP1.3SG ‘The bird is high up.’ (elicited example, Yamfinder 1 # 139)

b. yu eu ŋi ba palu plaŋpən yu eu ŋi ba palu plaŋ -pən water 3SG.NOM DIS FUT.N1SG break break -3SG.M.IRR ‘The water will break it.’ (TG1-Lime_Mars # 121)

Both examples in (141) show the singular form of this construction. The example in (142) on the other hand shows the plural form, using nʉa em [people 3PL] for ‘the people’.

(142) nʉa em ŋolimŋa

nʉa em ŋolimŋ -a people 3PL fight -RPST

‘The people fought.’ 5.3. IGNORATIVE PRONOUNS 131

(elicited example, Yamfinder 1 # 108)

Accusative case marking is also visible on postposed pronouns. It has the same form as the free pronouns in the accusative, as shown by the examples in (143).

(143) a. num ebi ai oyo wedepuma num ebi ai oyo w- ede -pu -ma dog 3SG.ACC PROG search.F.OBJ DPST- AUX -PFV -1SG ‘I searched the dog.’ (TG1-Sago2_Marsel # 38)

b. yeŋ kaləl emi ŋao

yeŋ kal -əl emi ŋao sago leaf -ACC 3PL.ACC pull.PRS ‘He pulls out the sago leaves.’ (TG1-Sago1_ Marsel # 92)

5.3 Ignorative pronouns

Yelmek has a set of pronouns that can be used as interrogative pronouns as well as indefinite pronouns without a change in morphological form. Yelmek has two distinct pronouns with this property. The first one is ame, which relates to humans. It can be used to express ‘who’ as a question and ‘somebody’ as the indefinite pronoun. The second one is ima, which relates to all other entities, from animals to inanimate objects. Thus, it is used to ask ‘what’ as well as to express ‘something’3. Rather than describing the different uses of ame and ima as polysemous forms, I propose that the emic characterisation is to treat them as the same form. Thus, I use the label ignorative pronoun, i.e. a pronoun that expresses the speaker’s lack of knowledge at the moment of the speech act. In this section, I will first explain the term ignorative in more detail and then discuss the relevant pronouns by ontological categories, including forms that are morphologically built on the base forms, such as iman ‘why’, ameba ‘whose’ and amema ‘nobody’.

3I do not have a clear example in my corpus where ame and ima express ‘anybody’ or ‘anything’ respectively, but I would assume that it is possible because there are no distinct words to express these concepts. 132 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

The ignoratives in context The term Ignoratives was first mentioned by Karcevski (1941), but found a notable advocate in Anna Wierzbicka, who showed the usefulness of the term on for Russian as a case study (Wierzbicka 1980b). Wierzbicka (1980b) argues that interrogative, exclamative, indefinite, negative, relative and anaphoric pronouns in Russian have astrong semantic link based on their morphological relatedness. Morphological relatedness between pronominal forms is not confined to Russian. In a typologically oriented study by Martin Haspelmath (as a book in 1997 and as part of the WALS database in 2013), the author shows how wide spread the phenomenon is in the languages of the world. He investigated indefinite pronouns in a sample of 326 languages, and in 194 languages he found a morphological relationship between interrogatives and indefinite pronouns, though he does not use the term Ignorative for them. What is particularly interesting here is the geographic distribution. Haspelmath (2013b) points out that the way indefinites are formed seems to be independent of language families; instead, it exhibits a strong areal pattern by continents. In his samples, languages with interrogative based indefinite pronouns are mostly found in the Americas, Eurasia and Australia. On the other hand, languages in Africa, in New Guinea and on the islands to the east have a different type of indefinite pronouns. These languages base their indefinite pronouns on generic nouns like ‘thing’ and ‘person’. In Yelmek the pronouns do not show a relationship to generic nouns. It, therefore, does not match Haspelmath’s New Guinea languages in the sample (though, the New Guinea sample of 9 languages is admittedly rather small compared to the total number of languages spoken on the island). Instead, the indefinite pronoun and the interrogative pronoun in Yelmek are morphologically clearly linked to each other4. Their morphological relationship, however, is different from the one commonly found in European languages, where the indefinite pronoun is morphologically derived from the interrogative pronoun. Russian is a prominent example of a language where the indefinite form is derived from the interrogative by adding a particle (Wierzbicka 1980b: 323). Yelmek does not show this direction of derivation, in fact it shows no derivation at all. The indefinite pronoun and the interrogative pronoun are basically identical. According to Haspelmath (2013b) some Germanic and Slavic languages allow that too, albeit only to a limited extent. On the other hand, having identical forms for indefinite pronoun and the interrogative pronoun is particularly widespread in Australian languages, according to Haspelmath (2013b). Here the form expresses “lack of information”. A typological study covering this phenomenon in Australian languages can be found in Mushin (1995), who uses the term ‘epistememes’. One

4The type of pronouns with a interrogative/indefinite relationship has been observed for other languages in Southern New Guinea, for instance, in Nen (Evans in his forthcoming grammar of Nen) and in Nmbo (Kashima p.c.) 5.3. IGNORATIVE PRONOUNS 133

Australian language where the phenomenon is discussed as ignorative in great detail is Bininj Gun-Wok (Evans 2003). As the strategy used in Yelmek is the most similar to what is found in Australian languages, I will model my discussion on Evans (2003). Following Evans (2003), I will discuss ignoratives in relation to three basic parameters. Evans’ (2003: 273) first parameter is the ontological categories, that is the category ofthe referent an ignorative refers to. For instance, the referent of an interrogative pronoun ‘who’ is a person. Evans’ (2003: 275) second parameter is the epistemological and existential assumptions underlying the use of a given ignorative form. I will refer to these assumptions when discussing the separate forms of ignoratives. The third parameter is Relationality, which refers to the relationship between elements that are expressed by ignoratives. I will show that there is a clear morphological division, in which the stem of the ignorative marks the ontological component and the morphological marking indicate the relational component. ame - ‘who The pronoun ame relates to person/human as the ontological category. To function as the interrogative pronoun ‘who’, no further morphological marking is required. This is illustrated in example (144), where it occurs in a copula clause, which expresses ‘Who is this (one)?’.

(144) ekonek ame ŋame

eko -nek ame ŋame DEM -ATTR.SG who COP2.F

‘Who is this (one)?’ (TG-Fishing_Mars # 28)

It is possible to further mark the pronoun with the question clitic /=a/, for instance, to disambiguate multiple occurrences in one clause. In example (145), there are three ignorative pronouns, two ame ‘who/somebody’ and one ima ‘what/something’. This clitic /=a/ marks the first ame to emphasis that it has the interrogative function. The speaker therefore wants to know who the person was that was doing the ordering. The other ignorative pronouns serve as indefinite pronouns. Note that ame can not be used as a relative pronoun (see §11.2 on relative clauses). 134 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

(145) tete, amea eu mieu ame kaya wotipu imal

tete ame =a eu mieu Grandfather who =Q 3SG.NOM COP

ame kaya w- oti -pu ima-l who PROG DPST- order -PRV IG.thing -ACC

‘Grandfather, who ordered somebody to do something?’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear # 122)

Example (145) also shows the use of ame as an indefinite pronoun, i.e. the second ame in the clause. Example (146) is an even clearer instance. In this utterance the speaker is quoting something another person had said the year before. The speaker, who is making the original statement, did not want to climb a coconut tree. Therefore, he requested that somebody else be asked to do it5. This is an imperative statement not a question.

(146) amela wotipu, eu ukalpu

ame -la w- oti -pu eu ukal -pu who -further DPST- order -PFV 3SG.NOM climb -PFV

‘Order somebody else (so that) s/he climbed.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear # 184)

Furthermore, Yelmek forms questions after a name with ame ‘who’, rather than ima ‘what’ (see ex. 147).

(147) ŋedəl awak ame kəm

ŋedəl awak ame kəm name 2SG.POSS who COP1.3SG

‘What is your name?’ (TG1-InterviesSerafinus # 4)

5It is possible to interpret amela here as ‘anybody’, i.e. the non-specific reading. However, /-la/ is used with the interpretation of ‘further’ in other contexts. Therefore, I think the translation ‘somebody else’ is better here. Though if more examples of amela can be found in the future, it might become possible to formally distinguish a specific form ‘somebody’ from a non-specific form ‘anybody’ inYelmek. 5.3. IGNORATIVE PRONOUNS 135

This is also the case in examples where the pronoun is conjoint with the noun omgo ‘person’. Therefore, creating the phrase ‘who person’, rather than ‘what person’ (see ex. 148).

(148) me omgo ame awol walpayepu

me omgo ame awol w- a- elpaye -pu (excl) person who 2SG.ACC DPST- 2OBJ- tell -PFV

‘Who told you/ What person told you?’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 # 37-38)

Other pronominal forms can be derived from ame with the addition of morphological material. For instance, it is possible to form the possessive interrogative pronoun ‘whose’ based on ame (see ex. 149). To do so, ame is combined with the genitive marker bak. Notes that the ontological component, i.e. person, is expressed by choice of stem and the relational component is expressed by the genitive marking6. Incidentally, example (149b) also shows the use of the associative plural marker on ame. Here the speaker is quoting a conversation, giving both the question and the answer. The question ‘Whose is it?’ could also be translated as ‘Whose people does it belong to?’.

(149) a. kekke ame bak de ba miepən kekke ame bak de ba mie -pən strength who GEN DIS FUT.N1SG COP -3SG.M.IRR ‘Who will have the greater strength./Whose strength will be greater.’ (TG1-NorthWindSun_Libe # 28)

b. amege ba? ala ŋeŋko ame -ge bak who -AssPL GEN

al -ak ŋeŋko 2PL -POSS exist

‘Whose is it? It is yours.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear # 160)

6Presumably this form can also mean ‘somebody’s’, but I have not yet found an instance of this in my corpus. 136 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

If ame is combined with the negative particle ma, it expresses ‘nobody’ as in example (150). This is a line from a song. It is clear that ma negates the ame here, rather than the verb, because it is followed by the genitive marker, which delimits the noun phrase.

(150) Bojeme ame ma ba demepeo

Bojeme ame ma bak demepeo Bojeme who NEG GEN courage

‘In Bojeme nobody has courage.’ (JEL20150830ASamsung_1_WanamSong_1 # 2)

ima - ‘what’ The pronoun ima relates to the ontological category of non-human entities. Similar to ame ‘who/somebody’, it allows a wider range of marking and functions. It even extents into other ontological categories as I will show below. As an interrogative pronoun ima means ‘what’. It is asking about inanimate objects, animals or even more abstract entities like thoughts. The examples in (151) show two instances where the referent of ima is an inanimate object. These examples also show that ima behaves like a noun, in that it takes the noun accusative marking (see ex. 151b)

(151) a. ima ŋane ima ŋane IG.thing COP2.M ‘What is this?’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia # 227)

b. imal ma aŋkana ima -l ma aŋ -ka -na IG.thing -ACC 1SG.FUT eat -1SG.IRR -DIS ‘What will I eat?’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia # 153)

Example (152) shows the use of ima as an indefinite pronoun. The utterance is from a running commentary of a video that shows how sago is produced. In this particular scene a woman is clearing a space where a tree is going to be felled. The speaker is leaving the object of the activity unspecified, possibly because it is not clear from the video he is looking at. Later in his commentary he uses a lexical term for it. 5.3. IGNORATIVE PRONOUNS 137

(152) aŋo imali ka kako

aŋo ima -l =i ka kako aunt IG.thing -ACC -FOC PRS.F.SBJ throw_away

‘Aunt throws stuff/something away.’ (TG1-Sago1_Marsel # 22)

Example (153) also shows the indefinite pronoun use of ima, but in this case ima is referring to an abstract object, i.e. a thought. Note that example (153) is also a good illustration of how ima is used to facilitate complement clauses. The complement clause here is the direct object of the verb in the main clause, but rather than putting the complement clause into the position where you would expect the direct object, the complement clause is placed after the verb. The position of the direct object is filled with ima, which serves as a place holder (see section §11.1 on complement clauses).

(153) imali kweko: ŋələl mad ba ŋəpŋaipa

ima -l =i k- weko IG.thing -ACC =FOC PRS- think

ŋəl -l mad ba ŋə- epŋe -ai -pa 1SG -ACC like.this FUT.N1SG 1OBJ- hit.F.OBJ -IPV -3PL.IRR

‘He thinks something: “They will hit me like this.”’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 # 256-257)

It is possible to modify ima so it expresses the more specific notion ‘what kind of/a kind of’. In order to do so, ima is made into a modifier by attaching the attributive suffix. Example (154) shows this for the interrogative use asking about the kind of person visible in a picture. This contrasts with omgo ame ‘person who’ which we saw in example (148) above, which asks for the identity of a person. Example (155) then show the indefinite use of this ‘a kind of’ construction. Here it is not a question about what kind of story. Instead it is a declarative statement, one that indeed precedes most stories. 138 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

(154) omgo imane kəm

omgo ima -nek kəm person IG.thing -ATTR.SG COP1.3SG

‘What kind of person is this?’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 # 171)

(155) gaga imaneki ma ayumka

gaga ima -nek =i ma ayum -ka speech IG.thing -ATTR.SG -ACC FUT.1SG tell -1SG.SBJ.IRR

‘I will tell a kind of story.’ (TG1-NorthWindSun_Libe # 2)

Furthermore, ima can be used to ask about an instrument or tool (see ex. 156). Here the question is about the instrument that is used for cutting banana leaves of a tree. The instrument marker /-d/ attaches directly to ima.

(156) omgo gomnek imad me akələl wa

omgo gom -nek ima -d me akəl -əl wa person male -ATTR IG.thing -INST cut banana -ACC EXCL

‘What is the person cutting the banana with?’ (TG1-AspectLibe # 115)

Another usage of ima is to ask about a possessor. The genitive marker can be used with ima in the same way as with ame (example 149 above). Example (157) exemplifies this. The difference between ame bak and ima bak is that with ima the expected possessor is not a person, but an animal.

(157) woko ima ba kəm

woko ima bak kəm liver IG.thing GEN COP1.3SG

‘Whose liver is this/what kind of liver is this?’ (Yamfinder # 66) 5.3. IGNORATIVE PRONOUNS 139

Last but not least, ima can also be used as a negative pronoun when combined with the negative particle ma as in example (158). This is similar to the expression of ‘nobody’ in example (150) above.

(158) yeb imal ma baya

yeb ima -l ma baye -a middle IG.thing -ACC NEG see.M.OBJ -RPST

‘In the middle, you don’t see anything/ you see nothing.’ (TG1-HistoryCely part 01 # 97)

Other ontological categories There are other ontological categories that are logically possible, but not expressed by a dedicated ignorative pronoun, location for instance. There is a dedicated locational interrogative pronoun adak ‘where’. However, adak is only ever used as interrogative as in example (159). I have not found an utterance where it is used as an indefinite pronoun.

(159) mapi ada kamʉa

mapi adak kamʉa frog where COP2.2SG

‘Frog where are you?’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia # 71)

To express an indefinite location, a form based on ima ‘what/something’ is used, a form marked with a locative postposition. Example (160) shows a sentence taking from a running commentary on a video about how to produce lime from shells. The speaker describes how the finished lime is filled up for storage, being first unspecific about the location using ima wak ‘somewhere’ and then specifically mentions a bottle as a storage place. 140 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

(160) meino ebi ŋi pa amga

meino ebi ŋi pa amge -a lime 3SG.ACC DIS RPST.F put.PL.OBJ -RPST

ima wak biatu wak IG.thing LOC bottle LOC

‘She puts the lime somewhere, a bottle.’ (TG1-Lime_Mars # 160)

Example (161) is another instance of this. Here the speaker talks about her travelling plan to a nearby village. She is using the indefinite form, as it is clear from the context what place she refers to.

(161) wi ina imaaki ma amŋekana

wi ina ima wak =i ma amŋe -ka -na night two IG.thing LOC =FOC 1SG.FUT stay -1SG.SBJ.IRR -DIS ‘We will stay two nights in [a known, but unspecified place]’ (TG1-TravelPlanAmbrosia # 28)

Furthermore, ima can also be used with the ablative marker ban to inquire about a starting point. Example 162) is taken from a Family Problems Picture Task recording. It was uttered by the speaker after they had discussed all the pictures of the task in turn and were nowaskedto tell the whole story as shown on the pictures. The speaker uses the ablative postposition on ima to form a question asking about a starting point.

(162) eki gaga ima ban ma gayoka

eki gaga ima ban ma gayo -ka this.ACC speech IG.thing ABL FUT.1SG start -1SG.SBJ.IRR ‘Where will I start this speech.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 # 2)

Other ontological categories, such as ‘time’ and ‘reason’, are not expressed with dedicated ignorative pronouns either. Yelmek does not even have monomorphemic interrogative pronouns to express ‘when’ or ‘why’. Instead, forms based on ima are used. To express ‘when’, ima is used as an attributive modifier to wau ‘time’ as in example (163). 5.3. IGNORATIVE PRONOUNS 141

(163) au wau imane ba wamo

au wau ima -nek ba wamo 2SG time IG.thing -ATTR.SG FUT.N1SG go.DIR

‘When are you going to the village.’ (elicited example, WK, JEL20150807_4_Yamfinder8 # 110)

To express ‘why’, on the other hand, ima is marked with the purposive suffix /-n/. This can be used in an interrogative as well as an indefinite sense. Example (164) is a question about a step in the processing of sago. The interrogative character of the utterance is made explicit by the use of the question clitic /=a/. Example (165) is the answer to the question in example (164). Here the ima has a focus marker attached to the purposive suffix, instead of the question clitic, and exemplifies the indefinite use in a declarative statement.

(164) yu imana kelepkle, imana bkle

yu ima -n =a k- elepkle ima -n =a bkle water IG.thing -PURP =Q PRS- soak IG.thing -PURP =Q flush

‘Why is it soaked? Why is it flushed?’ (TG1-JEL20160720-Lime_Mars # 113, LG)

(165) yu imani ka kelepkula palu alima, eben ba ŋoplaŋpən

yu ima -n =i ka k- elepku -la palu alima water IG.thing -PURP =FOC PRS.F.SBJ PRS- soak -just break all

eben ba ŋo- plaŋ -pən then FUT.N1SG DTR- break -3SG.M.IRR

‘She soaks it for something , so it will break completely.’ (TG1-Lime_Mars # 114, MK)

Summary of Ignoratives In Yelmek, two ontological categories are expressed by ignorative pronouns. Ame is used for humans and ima is used for non-humans. Both pronouns can be used as head of a noun phrase and marked with case markers in the same way as other common nouns. Furthermore, a range of epistemological and existential assumptions can be expressed, from identifiable referent, over existing but unspecified referent to no referent. On the level 142 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS of relationally, we saw a clear division of labour where the stem expresses the ontological component and the additional morphological material marks the relational component. The expression of other ontological categories is more heterogeneous, most of which use heterosemic forms based on ima ‘what/something’. Table 5.3 shows the expression of the ontological categories discussed in this section, in interrogative, indefinite and negative use. Cells marked with n/a represent a lack of data.7

Table 5.3: Overview of the expression of ontological categories.

Ontological category Interrogative Indefinite Negative Human ame ame ame ma Non-human ima ima ima ma Location adak ima wak adak ma ima wak ma Time wau imawak n/a ‘some time’ n/a ‘never’ Reason iman iman n/a

5.4 Kinship terms

Kinship terms in Yelmek fulfil the criteria of common nouns, but they can also receive marking that common nouns can not, for instance, they can be marked with associative plural (see §6.5) and honorific marking (see §6.6). In this section, I will describe the kinship terminology itself, whereas in the next chapter (§6), I will elaborate on the marking. In Chapter 1, I mentioned that the Yelmek people ethnically identify themselves as Marind, which is the dominant indigenous group in the region (see §1.1.3). The actual kinship terms are entirely different from the Marind terms, however. Figures 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4 show the kinship terms for the Wanam variety of Yelmek. The same information is displayed in Table 5.4. It is quite possible that there used to be more distinctions. Nowadays, Indonesian terms are widely used and also the occasional Marind loan, even if there is a Yelmek term for it. The more subtle implications of using the Marind loan words or Indonesian terms instead of Yelmek are open to further investigation. The Wanam-Yelmek kinship system is essentially a Iroquois system.8 A prominent feature is the strong distinction between parallel versus cross relations, i.e. relations via only same-sex relatives versus relation via at least one relative of a different sex. Another salient distinction

7Both adak ma and ima wak ma were accepted in elicitation, but do not otherwise occur in my corpus. 8The Iroquois system as a kinship system was first identified by Morgan (1871). It is one of the six major kinship systems (Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Crow, Omaha, and Sudanese). Its main characteristic is that it distinguishes between the relations on the mother’s side and the father’s side of the family (bifurcate merging). 5.4. KINSHIP TERMS 143 is that of older versus younger siblings rather than by sex. In detail, this looks as follows. Sibling terms distinguish relative age. Older siblings are called nana and younger siblings are called wobia. There is no further distinction between different older siblings or different younger siblings, nor does the sex of the ego orthesibling matter (Figure 5.1). The word for father is ida. This term extends to all paternal uncles. All paternal aunts are called aŋo. The word for mother is bia. The term extends to all maternal aunts. All maternal uncles are called woga. The term woga is self-converse or self-reciprocal, which means it is also used for the male ego’s sister’s children. Another self-converse term is kaga. All people that are more than one generations apart call each other kaga, e.i. the term covers both grandparents and grandchildren, but can also refer to ancestors more generally (Figure 5.1). 144 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

MF MM FF FM kaga kaga kaga kaga

MZ MB M F FB FZ bia woga bia ida ida aŋo

Z B EGO B Z nana nana wobia wobia

SW S D DH ŋalago yaŋ yaŋ ŋobo

SD SS DD DS kaga kaga kaga kaga

Figure 5.1: Wanam-Yelmek kinship terms across generation.

MZ MB M F FB FZ bia woga bia ida ida aŋo

MZS MZD MBS MBD FBS FBD FZS FZD nana/ nana/ olia olia nana/ nana/ olia olia wobia wobia wobia wobia

HM / WM HF / WF ŋalago ŋobo

/ / EGO H W emel yua

Figure 5.2: Wanam-Yelmek kinship terms for cousins and in-laws.

As for the distinction between cross versus parallel relations, all cross-cousins (children of different sex sibling of the parent) are called olia whereas the normal sibling terms are used for the parallel cousins (children of the same sex sibling of the parent) (Figure 5.2). Furthermore, a 5.4. KINSHIP TERMS 145 female ego calls her brother’s children yayaŋo and her sister’s children yaŋ (Figure 5.3), whereas a male ego calls his sister’s children woga and his brother’s children yaŋ (Figure 5.4).

Z EGO B Z EGO B

ZD ZS ZS ZD BS BD BD BS yaŋ yaŋ yayaŋo yayaŋo woga woga yaŋ yaŋ

Figure 5.3: Wanam-Yelmek kinship Figure 5.4: Wanam-Yelmek kinship terms for nieces and nephews terms for nieces and nephews from a female perspective. from a male perspective.

The term for husband is eml and the term for wife is yua. The term for mother-in-law as well as daughter-in-law is ngalago. The term for father-in-law as well as son-in-law is ŋobo, another self-converse term (Figures 5.1 and 5.2). There are special terms for men married to sisters: nakom and mekalo. The first one is a Marind loan. There is also a term for twowoman married to brothers, which is inak. The existence of special terms for these relationships implies that there used to be a system of sister exchange in place in earlier times. Some terms differ depending on whether they are used by the person in the relation orby a third person. From a third person’s perspective a wife is called kepŋe, a husband meŋe and the daughter or son of somebody omŋa. This is for instance used in possessive phrases like kepŋebed, wife.3POSS ‘his wife’. It is likely that there are more terms, than the three mentioned here, but these are the only ones that occur in my corpus. Another way of representing a kinship system is by the syncretism it uses between terms. This approach is taken by the Parabank research group9. They treat the kinship system of any language as a particular matrix of ‘equivalences’ or ‘syncretisms’, i.e. which kin relations are named by identical or similar terms, and which are differentiated (Evans et al., 2019). This approach allows a more quantitative comparison across languages, because a large number of values can be calculated by comparing every cell with every other cell (For more information on the Project https://glottobank.org/#parabank); cf. also Evans et al. 2019).

9Parabank is part of the Glottobank project https://glottobank.org/. The main people involved are Nicholas Evans, Simon Greenhill, Kyla Quinn and Wolfgang Barth. They are based at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL), at the Australian National University (ANU) and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany. 146 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

In figure 5.5 to 5.9, the kinship terms are displayed in a Parabank matrix10. Matching colours represent matching forms. On their own, these graphs serve as a quick visual overview of how forms are distributed. It highlights the pattern of syncretisme and shows where the language chooses to make a distinction. This will enable a comparison with the kinship system of other languages in the region and world wide beyond the morphological form of the kinship terms themselves.

Figure 5.5: Sibling terms.

Figure 5.6: Terms for parents, Aunts and Uncles.

Figure 5.7: Terms for grandparents and grandchildren.

Figure 5.8: Terms for Cousins.

10My special thanks to Wolfgang Barth for creating this graph for me. 5.4. KINSHIP TERMS 147

Figure 5.9: Terms for Sons, daughters, nephews and nieces.

Further research might reveal more terms and more distinctions in this variety of Yelmek. It would also be particularly interesting to study kinship terms in the other varieties of Yelmek and in Maklew to get a fuller picture.

Substrate effects on Indonesian

Nowadays people use the Indonesian terms more than the Yelmek terms, to the point that they are not sure how specific relations are called in Yelmek anymore and there might have been more terms than the ones listed here, but they did not come up during elicitation. On the other hand, there are substrate effects too, in terms of transferring Yelmek semantics to Indonesian terms. For instance, I have overheard people extend the use of the Indonesian word for grandfather tete to refer to grandchildren of both sex, which conforms with the kinship structure of Yelmek, but not of Indonesian. That means they are using the Indonesian words, but are making the Yelmek distinctions. Unfortunately, I have only anecdotal evidence for this at present. 148 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS 5.4. KINSHIP TERMS 149

Table 5.4: List of kinship term in Wanam-Yelmek.

Abbreviation Meaning Yelmek term M mother bia MB mother’s brother woga MZ mother’s sister bia MZS mother’s sister’s son nana/wobia MZD mother’s sister’s daughter nana/wobia MBS mother’s brother’s son olia MBD mother’s brother’s daughter olia MF mother’s father kaga MM mother’s mother kaga F father ida FB father’s brother ida FBS father’s brother’s son nana/wobia FBD father’s brother’s daughter nana/wobia FZ father’s sister oŋa FZS father’s sister’s son olia FZD father’s sister’s daughter olia FF father’s father kaga FM father’s mother kaga B older brother nana younger brother wobia BS woman’s brother’s son yayaŋo man’s brother’s son yaŋ BD woman’s brother’s daughter yayaŋo man’s brother’s daughter yaŋ Z older sister nana younger sister wobia ZS woman’s sister’s son yaŋ man’s sister’s son woga ZD woman’s sister’s daughter yaŋ ZD man’s sister’s daughter woga S son yaŋ SW son’s wife ŋalago SD son’s son kaga SS son’s daughter kaga D daughter yaŋ DH daughter’s husband ŋobo DD daughter’s daughter kaga DS daughter’s son kaga H husband emel HM husband’s mother ŋalago HF husband’s father ŋobo W wife yua WM wife’s mother ŋalago WF wife’s father ŋobo 150 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS

5.5 The noun phrase

Being able to be a head of a noun phrase is one of the defining criteria of the noun word class. A full noun phrase typically consists of a head and a range of other elements that relate to the head, such as modifiers (see §4.4), numerals and quantifiers (see §4.5), as well as determiners and demonstratives (see §4.6). Figure 5.10 shows a schematic overview.

head noun modifier numeral/quantifier demonstrative/determiner

Figure 5.10: The structure of the noun phrase.

There are three properties of the Yelmek noun phrase that deserve particular mention. The first is about the order of elements. Elements in a noun phrase generally follow thehead. Apart from that, the order of elements is flexible. Example (166) shows a noun phrase with three elements: a head noun yaŋ ‘child’, a postposed pronoun in determiner function and a modifier with attributive marking. In both(166a) and (166b) the head noun yaŋ ‘child’ comes first, but the order of the article and the modifier is different in both examples.

(166) a. yaŋ eu wutnek yopu aliŋgalaga

[yaŋ eu wutek -nek]푁 푃 yo -pu aliŋgalaga child 3SG small -ATTR.SG say -PRV thank_you.PL ‘The small child said thank you(PL)’ (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #179)

b. yaŋ wutnek eu opalam ebi poula

[yaŋ wutek -nek eu]푁 푃 opalam ebi p- oulo -a child small -ATTR.SG 3SG watch 3SG.ACC RPST.SG- watch -RPST ‘The small child watched it.’

(TG1-FrogStory_Libe #9)

The second noticeable property is that the head of a noun phrase is not obligatory and can be omitted. This can be seen in Example (167). In (167a) the full noun phrase omgo gomnek is expressed and in (167b) the head noun omgo is omitted.

(167) a. omgo gomneki wunuguli pebga

[omgo gom -nek -i]푁 푃 wunugu -l =i p- ebge -a person male -ATTR.SG -ACC clothes -ACC =FOC RPST.SG.SBJ- give.PL.OBJ -RPST 5.5. THE NOUN PHRASE 151

‘He gave the man clothes.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #44-45)

b. gomnek eŋkla ekdak ai kəm

[gom -nek]푁 푃 eŋkla e= kedak ai kəm male -ATTR.SG one DEM= DEM.PROX PROG COP1.3SG ‘There is one man here.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #104)

Lastly, it is possible to place elements outside of the noun phrase they belong to. Example (168) shows this with the modifier yam ‘cold’. In example (168) the head noun yu ‘water’ is at the beginning of the clause and the noun modifier yamnemek ‘cold’ is at the end of the clause. The noun phrase, therefore, is discontinuous, but the modifier is still accusative marked because its head noun yu ‘water’ is a direct object.

(168) yul ebiak ke kemge yamnemeki yu -l ebiak ke k- emge yam -nemek -i water -ACC there REL.NSBJ PRS.PL- put.PL.OBJ cold -ATTR.PL -ACC ‘The place where you put cold water.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #100)

Another element that can belong to a noun phrase in a discontinuous way is the quantifier as in Example (169). Quantifiers do not take case marking, therefore albla is not marked in the same way as the modifier in Example (168).

(169) magubakəl ke kuamala albla magubak -l ke k- wuo -a -ma -la albla sweet_potato -ACC REL.SBJ RPST- wash -RPST -1SG -just all ‘I washed all the sweet potatoes/The sweet potatoes I washed, all of them.’ (TG1-DogStory #45)

Furthermore, both examples exhibit a relative marker. It is presently unclear, however, if this is a requirement for such a construction. Examples with discontinuous noun phrases are rare in my corpus. Therefore, the properties and limits of this construction remain subject to future investigation. 152 CHAPTER 5. NOMINALS Chapter 6

Nominal morphology

The focus of this chapter is the morphological marking on nouns (noun phrases). The previous chapter introduced different types of nouns as well as their general properties. The current chapter will elaborate on what marking they can receive. The majority of nominal marking in Yelmek falls under the heading of case. Blake (2001) defines case as “a system of marking dependent nouns for the type of relationship they bear to their heads” (Blake 2001: 1). To him, case marking is a type of inflectional marking that “marks the relationship of a noun toaverb at the clause level or of a noun to a preposition, postposition or another noun at the phrase level.” (Blake 2001: 1). In Yelmek, only the relationship between a noun (or noun phrase) and the verb and the relationship between two nouns (or noun phrases) to each other are marked by case. As Spencer (2009) points out “In most modern approaches to grammar the term ‘case’ is systematically ambiguous between ‘(inflected) form of a nominal word’ and ‘property ofa noun phrase (determiner phrase)” (Spencer 2009: 186). This chapter will focus on the inflected form of a nominal word, thus the morphological expression of case. Grammatical relations and alignment are discussed in Chapter 8. Yelmek has what Iggesen (2009) calls a symmetrical case system. He applies the term case symmetry to languages in which “the same distinctions of case forms [apply] evenly across their entire nominal lexicon” (Iggesen 2009: 246). That means, in Yelmek, no subgroups of nominals, e.g. pronouns, show divergent case categories or are excluded from a case category that common nouns show. Yelmek has a comparatively large number of cases, although, as in other languages, not all of these cases have equal status. Spencer (2009) summarises this cross-linguistic observation as follows: “The ‘structural’ cases (nominative, accusative, egative, absolutive, possibly also genitive and dative) are almost always taken to be inflections, but ‘semantic’ cases often have

153 154 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY the character of derivational formatives, in that they add a clearly defined meaning to the noun, much in the way that a preposition adds meaning to a noun phrase.” (Spencer 2009: 197). For the description of Yelmek, I will follow Blake’s (2001: 32) terminology and call the ‘structural’ cases core cases and the ‘semantic’ cases peripheral cases. I will further subdivide the peripheral cases into concrete nonspatial cases and spatial cases, following Haspelmath (2009: 514ff). Table 6.1 and 6.2 show a list of all monomorphemic case markers discussed in this section. Note that many of the case markers display two variants for which no discernible variable (phonetic, grammatical, sociolinguistic) has been discovered which governs the choice between them. This is the case for the comitative, the similative, the allative and the perlative, as well as the associative plural marking discussed in §6.5.

Table 6.1: Core cases in Yelmek.

Case marking relationship section Accusative -l / -i the object of the verb; patient, recipient and theme. §6.1.2 Can also mark the experiencer in experiencer constructions. Nominative unmarked the subject of the verb

Table 6.2: Peripheral case markers in Yelmek.

Case marking relationship section Concrete Instrumental -d the instrument of the §6.2.1 nonspatial verb, also means of case transport Coordinating comitative wo/we equally joint referents §6.2.2 Asymmetric comitative dom/dem unequally joint referents §6.2.2 Attached comitative do/o physically joint referents §6.2.2 Purposive -n for a purpose §6.2.3 Restrictive -ga ‘only’ the referent §6.2.5 Similative pe/po something is like some- §6.2.5 thing else Spatial case Locative wak the location of the event §6.3.1 described by the verb Allative -on/-en the event is directed to- §6.3.2 wards a location, ‘to’ Ablative ban source location or origin §6.3.3 of an event, ‘from’ Perlative bo/be along or through a refer- §6.3.4 ent 6.1. CORE CASES 155

Table 6.1 and 6.2 shows that Yelmek uses a mixture of suffixes and postposition to mark case morphologically. There is some debate in the literature whether adpositions should be called case markers or if the terms should be exclusively used with affixes (cf. Haspelmath 2009, Spencer 2009). For Yelmek, I made the analytical decision to treat single phoneme markers as suffixes (such as the accusative, instrumental and purposive), while markers that consistofa full syllable, especially a closed syllable, are treated as postpositions because they usually do not show integration into their host word. However, I will treat these postpositions as case markers, the same as suffixes, because they clearly indicate the relation the noun phrase they attach to has to their head, be it a verb or another noun phrase. Besides monomorphemic case markers, Yelmek has some case markers that are morphologically complex, but functionally unitary, which means their function cannot be fully derived from their parts. Table 6.3 shows a list of forms I have found in my corpus and in which section they are discussed.

Table 6.3: Functionally unitary case markers with complex morphology.

Combined Combined Included case markers section form meaning -lon/-len purposive accusative -l + allative -on/-en §6.3.2 wakon/waken benefactive locative wak + allative -on/-en §6.3.2 =l bo restrictive focus =l + perlative -on/-en §6.3.4

This chapter is structured as follows. First, I will discuss core cases (§6.1), then concrete non-spacial cases (§6.2) and then spatial cases (§6.3). The next part of the chapter is concerned with nominal marking other than case. In §6.4, I discuss the expression of possession (§6.4). One way of expressing possession is the use of a genitive marker, which does counts as a case marker, according to Blake (2001), because it determines the relationship between nouns. Nevertheless, it will be discussed together with other possessive strategies in §6.4, rather than with the other case markers. Besides case and possession, Yelmek also has associative plural marking on nouns, which will be discussed in §6.5, as well as honorific and vocative marking (see §6.6).

6.1 Core cases

6.1.1 Nominative case

Yelmek has two core cases which mark core grammatical relation. In this work, a core grammatical relation is language-internally defined as a relation that is marked on the verb, i.e. 156 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY shows indexing on the verb. This reduces the possible relations down to the case marking for subjects and objects, i.e. nominative and accusative. For more information on grammatical relations and alignment see Chapter 8. Of these two inflectional values, the nominative is usually zero marked, while theac- cusative case has dedicated suffixes (see the next section §6.1.2). In example (170a), for instance, omgo ‘man’ is nominative and has no morphological marking, whereas in (170b), the man is the direct object, and is receives the accusative suffix /-l/.

(170) a. omgo numel pibla omgo num -l p- iblo -a person(NOM) dog -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- chase -RPST ‘The man chased the dog.’

b. num omgol pibla num omgo -l p- iblo -a dog(NOM) person -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- chase -RPST ‘The dog chased the man.’

One exception are personal pronouns, or more specifically, the third-person singular form, which has a distinct form for nominative, as well as a for accusative. Example (171) shows the contrast in parallel examples, the nominative form eu in (2a) and the accusative form ebi in (171b).

(171) a. eu numel pibla eu num -l p- iblo -a 3SG.NOM dog -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- chase -RPST ‘He chased the dog.’

b. num ebi pibla num ebi p- iblo -a dog(NOM) 3SG.ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- chase -RPST ‘The dog chased him.’

All other personal pronouns have an unmarked form in the nominative and a form marked with accusative suffix when in the accusative case, e.g. em ‘third-person plural (NOM)’ and 6.1. CORE CASES 157 emi ‘third-person plural (ACC), see §5.2 on personal pronouns. Throughout this thesis, I will only gloss the nominative for the third-person singular.

6.1.2 Accusative case

In contrast to the nominative case, the accusative case is marked by dedicated suffixes: /-l/ and /-i/. The accusative case is expressed on noun phrases, which either have the patient role in a transitive clause, as in example (172) or the theme or goal /recipient role in a ditransitive clause as in example (173).

(172) oŋal keŋu

oŋa -l k- eŋu food -ACC PRS- eat

‘He eats food.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #169)

(173) gomnek eu pepŋa mil yaŋәl

gom -nek eu p- epŋe -a mi ‑l yaŋ‑l male -ATTR.SG 3SG.NOM RPST.SG.SBJ- give.PL.OBJ -RPST bow -ACC child -ACC

‘The man gave bows to the child. (The child was present at the gift giving)’

However, it is also possible to use a different marking for the recipient. In example (174), the recipient is marked with a combination of the locative postposition and the allative suffix. The combination of these two case markers creates a benefactive reading. This particular example was volunteered by my language consultant (WK) because the choice in marking creates a salient difference in meaning. The use of the accusative marker implies the presence ofthe recipient and the use of the benefactive implies the absence of the recipient when the event happened.

(174) gomnek eu pepŋa mil yaŋ wakon

gom -nek eu p- epŋe -a mi -l yaŋ wak -on male -ATTR.SG 3SG.NOM RPST.SG.SBJ- give.PL.OBJ -RPST bow -ACC child LOC -ALL

‘The man gave bows to the child. (The child was not present at the gift-giving.)’ 158 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

Note that the plural marking on the verb stem refers to the direct object, mi ‘bow’. The number of the recipient, yaŋ ‘child’ is irrelevant. Both (173) and (174) can be interpreted as ‘The man gave bows to the children’. It cannot be interpreted as the giving of one bow, because in that case the verb stem would have to be singular. The accusative suffix can also be used to mark an experiencer as in example(175).

(175) ŋələl oŋa ŋəŋya

ŋəl -l oŋa ŋə- oŋyo -a 1SG -ACC food 1pOBJ- hunger -RPST

‘I am hungry.’ (Yamfinder 49-97 #147)

Within the accusative NP the marking pattern displays what Dench and Evans (1988) call a Final-marking system and some traces of a Concord system. In fact, the Yelmek system is very similar to the Diyari system they use as an illustrative example in their paper (Dench and Evans 1988: 5, citing data from Austin 1981: 94, 207). A Final-marking system in their terms is a system where only the final word of the relevant constituent is marked, whether or notitis the head (Dench and Evans 1988: 5). If the NP only consists of a head, then the accusative is expressed with the suffix /-l/ on the head. The suffix does not distinguish different types of heads. For instance, example(176) shows the suffix on two nouns that differ in animacy, and they are both marked thesame.

(176) a. yagulil kowlo yaguli -l k- owlo song -ACC PRS- sing ‘He sings a song.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #152)

b. omgol ko weŋepep omgo -l ko w- eŋepe -pu person -ACC PL.SBJ DPST- hold.M.OBJ -PRV ‘They arrested a man.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #14) 6.1. CORE CASES 159

Personal and interrogative pronouns are also marked with the suffix /-l/. The only exceptions are the third-person personal pronouns, which will be further discussed below. Example (177) shows the use of the suffix with a first-person personal pronoun and example(178) shows the use with interrogative pronouns.

(177) ŋələl mad ba ŋəpŋaipa

ŋəl -əl mad ba ŋə- epŋe -ai -pa 1SG -ACC like_this FUT.N1SG 1pOBJ- hit.f/PL.OBJ -IPV -3PL.IRR

‘They will hit me.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #257)

(178) a. imal ma aŋkana ima -l ma aŋ -ka =na what -ACC 1SG.FUT eat.FUT -1SG.FUT =DIS ‘What will I eat?’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #153)

b. kaga amel ai kapelpula kaga ame -l ai kapel -pu -la ancestor who -ACC PROG meet -PRV -further ‘What clan (lit. ancestor who) did he meet?’ (TG1-HistoryCely part 01 #84)

The other occurrence of the /-l/ accusative marker is in the cognate object constructions (see §9.1). If there are other elements in the noun phrase, then only the last element is marked. As noun-modifying elements generally follow their head noun, the accusative marked element is not the head in these NP. Accusative marking on non-head elements is morphologically different from the marking on heads. Non-head elements are uniformly marked by /-i/. Example (179) shows an instance where the property-expressing modifier bears the case, and in example (180) it is the possessive pronoun. Neither clause shows marking on the head noun. Note that numerals are never case marked. 160 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

(179) apia baneki eme ŋi keŋepa

apia ba -nek -i eme ŋi k- eŋepe -a net big -ATTR.SG -ACC already DIS PL.RPST- hold.F.OBJ -RPST

‘They hold a big net already.’ (TG-Fishing_Mars #25)

(180) yaŋ ebaki eme bengep

yaŋ ebak -i eme benge -pu child 3SG.POSS -ACC already beat -PFV

‘He has beaten his child already.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 04 #18)

Yelmek shows some characteristics of a concord system as well. Complete concord system, as described by Dench and Evans (1988: 4), have case marking on all elements of the constituent that is marked for case. In Yelmek, that is the case in a discontinuous noun phrase. For instance, in example (181) the head noun yu ‘water’ is at the beginning of the clause and the noun modifier yamnemek ‘cold’ is at the end of the clause. The noun phrase, therefore, is discontinuous and both elements are marked with an accusative marker.

(181) yul ebiak ke kemge yamnemeki

yu -l ebiak ke k- emge yam -nemek -i water -ACC there REL.NSBJ PRS.PL- put.PL.OBJ cold -ATTR.PL -ACC

‘The place where you put cold water.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #100)

In sum, Yelmek has a Final-marking system for continuous noun phrases and a Concord system for discontinuous noun phrases. Though full concord in continuous noun phrases is possible (ex. 182), it is rare in free discourse. 6.1. CORE CASES 161

(182) num yolil pətnemeki emi pibla ina ŋape

num yoli -l pət -nemek -i em -i p- iblo -a dog mouse -ACC many -ATTR.PL -ACC 3PL -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- follow -RPST

ina ŋape two COP2.PL

‘The two dogs follow the several mice, two of them.’ (FNB_1 p. 91, WK)

Some more complexity is added to the system when third-person pronouns are taken into account. In contrast to all other pronouns, third-person pronouns are not marked with the suffix /-l/. Instead they include and /i/ similar to the suffix /-i/ on non-heads, evenwhenthey are used as heads. This is shown in example (183a), where (183aa) includes the singular form ebi and (183ab) the plural form emi.

(183) a. ah ebi pelia ah ebi p- elie -a EXCL 3SG.ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- give.SG.OBJ -RPST ‘He gives it.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #148)

b. labu ŋape emi ŋolia labu ŋape em -i ŋoli -a pumpkin COP.PL 3PL -ACC carry -RPST ‘There are pumpkins, they carry them.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #157)

When the third-person pronouns are used as definite articles, they also have the form ebi and emi to express the accusative case of the head noun as in example (184).

(184) a. kumbu ebi ŋi woliopuma kumbu ebi ŋi w- olio -pu -ma kumbu 3SG.ACC DIS DPST- cook.F.OBJ -PFV -1SG ‘I cooked the kumbu (sago-banana dish) for them.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #109) 162 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

b. pu emi peŋayama yololo pu em -i p- eŋaye -a -ma yololo bone 3PL -ACC RPST- see.f/plOBJ -RPST -1SG ceiling ‘I looked at the bones on the ceiling’ (TG1-HistoryCely part 01 #100)

A further noteworthy fact about the Yelmek accusative markers is that they are polysemous and are also used for focus marking. Note that core case markers with this function are also found in Australian languages. For instance, in Jingulu (Pama-Nyungan) the ergative, and to a lesser extent the dative, can mark discourse prominence as well as case (Pensalfini 1999), though Pensalfini (1999) describes it as a more recent development in Jingulu, likely due to the influence of the English language. In Yelmek, the accusative suffix /-i/ has the same morphological form as the focus marker /=i/, except that the accusative marker behaves like a suffix, i.e. it is restricted as to what hosts it attaches to, whereas the focus marker is a clitic and freely attaches to different hosts and even phrases. That these markers are different is further supported by the fact that theycan combine. In example (185) the focus marker attaches to the accusative marker on a head noun. In (185a) to the /-l/ suffix and in(185b) to the /-i/. Phonetically the double vowel in (185b) is realised as longer than a single vowel.

(185) a. labuli ko kople labu -l =i ko k- ople pumpkin -ACC =FOC PL.SBJ PL.SBJ.PRS- pick.PL.OBJ ‘They pick pumpkins.’ (corpus example) (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #139)

b. ebii mudio kueko ebi =i mudio k- ueko 3SG.ACC =FOC brain PRS- think ‘That is what he thinks.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #362)

The accusative suffix /-l/ also has a focus marking equivalent /=l/, but it occurs muchless frequent than /=i/. In example (186) the /=l/ marks the subject of the clause, rather than the object, and expresses focus or emphasis (see §6.5 on the associative plural marking). 6.2. PERIPHERAL CASES: CONCRETE NONSPATIAL 163

(186) a. idaŋopgol wolk mala ŋape inabe emek ida -ŋop -go =l wolk mala ŋape ina be emek father -HON -AssPL =FOC go NEG COP.PL two PER 3PL ‘The father and his people have not come, the two of them.’ (TG1-TravelPlanAmbrosia #56)

b. kagagol kai ŋuwai kaga -go =l kai ŋuw -ai grandkin -AssPL -FOC PROG leave -IPV ‘When the ancestors left.’ (TG1-HistoryCely part 01 #57)

6.2 Peripheral cases: concrete nonspatial

6.2.1 Instrumental case

Instrumental is the term used for the marker that indicates the instrument, tool or means of a verbal predicate. In Yelmek, the instrument NP is marked with the suffix /-d/. The following examples illustrate the different use of the instrumental marker. In example (187) it is used to mark the tool for the cutting. Example (188) shows it with the means of transportation and example (189) ‘by means of’ a body part.

(187) imal keme tokakələd

ima -l k- eme tokakəl -d what -ACC PRS- cut knife -INST

‘What does he cut with the knife?’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #35)

(188) tətəlid ka ŋoplepu

tətəli -d ka ŋople -pu bird -INST PST.F descend -PFV

‘She came by plane.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #40) 164 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

(189) ina bemod kelkia

ina bemo -d kelkie -a two head -INST enter.PL -RPST

‘The two enter with their heads.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #131)

Further use of the instrumental case is to mark time as in example (190). This use of the instrumental case has been discussed, for instance, for Russian and Polish by Wierzbicka (1980a), in her book dedicated to the Russian instrumental case. In Russian, according to her, the time instrumental can be used for seasons of the year, as well as part of the day, but not calendar terms (Wierzbicka 1980a: 102). In my corpus of Yelmek, I have so far only found instances, where the instrumental marks parts of the day.

(190) wah Yelwayabo ka kwagu deidid

wah Yelwayabo ka k- wagu deidi -d EXCL Yelwayabo PRS.F.SBJ PRS- come.SG afternoon -INST

‘Yelwayabo comes in/with the afternoon.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #100)

The relationship between instrumental and comitative has been the subject of controversy in the literature. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) proposed a language universal grouping instrumental and comitative together as one category in their Companion Metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 135). On the other hand, a typological survey of 322 languages showed that a high percentage of languages in the world (64,7% in his sample) treat the two as distinct categories (Stolz 1996: 127). In their WALS map, Stolz, Stroh and Urdze present a sample of 322 languages, in which 76 languages treat comitative and instrumental the same, where as 213 languages treat them differently (Stolz et al. 2013). Yelmek groups with the majority of the languages in this respect, by having morphologically distinct markers for the instrumental and the comitative (§6.2.2 on comitative).

6.2.2 Comitative case

Comitative case is the term traditionally used for a marker that expresses accompaniment (Stolz et al. 2006: 17). It relates two noun phrases to each other, rather than to a verb. It is therefore 6.2. PERIPHERAL CASES: CONCRETE NONSPATIAL 165 distinct by definition from an instrumental, which marks the instrument of an event (see§6.2.1 for the marking on instruments). Yelmek has three different markers for comitative, which I will discuss in turn.

• wo/we - coordinated comitative

• dom/dem - asymmetrical comitative

• do/o - attached-to comitative

All three are postpositions. Their default position is directly after the last NP of the construction.

Coordinated comitative

To coordinate noun phrases in Yelmek the comitative marker we/wo is used. This marker is the only morphological coordination strategy on the phrasal level. I label it, nevertheless, as a comitative rather than a coordinator. See the end of the section for a discussion of this point. Coordination from a syntactic point of view is discussed in Chapter 12. That chapter also includes a discussion of coordination with wo/we as an inclusory construction. In a construction with this comitative marker we/wo both noun phrases have equal share in the activity and trigger plural marking on the verb. In example (191) for instance, the noun phrase biaŋop Ambrosia ‘mother Ambrosia’ is coordinated to the noun phrase idaŋop Kasim ‘father Kasim’. The comitative marker follows the last coordinant. The clause expresses that they are both coming together and the plural form of the verb is used.

(191) biaŋop Ambrosia idaŋop Kasim we kekəlmani

bia -ŋop Ambrosia ida -ŋop Kasim we k- ekəlme -a -ni mother -HON Ambrosia father -HON Kasim COM1 RPST- come.PL -RPST -DIR

‘Mother Ambrosia and Father Kasim came.’ (elicited example)

The comitative marker is not restricted to subjects. It can also be used to join object noun phrases together. Example (192) shows this for the noun phrases omgo modulioneki ‘woman (ACC)’ and yaŋ ‘child’, which together are the object of the hitting by the man. The sentences can only be interpreted as ‘the man hitting both the woman and the child’, not as ‘the man hitting the woman, which holds a child’. 166 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

(192) omgo eu omgo modulioneki yaŋ we wepŋepu

omgo eu omgo modulio -nek -i yaŋ we w- epŋe -pu person DET person female -ATTR.SG -ACC child COM1 DPST- hit.f/plOBJ -PRV

‘The man hit the woman and the child.’ *‘The man hit the woman with the child.’

It is possible to have this construction with more than one NP as in example (193). Here three proper names are coordinated. Speakers disagree on how many NPs can be part of one construction. The most common number is two. No matter how many NPs there are, only the last one carries the marker .

(193) Ambrosia, Kasim, Libe we kekəlmani

Ambrosia Kasim Libe we k- ekəlme -a -ni Ambrosia Kasim Libe COM1 RPST- come.PL -RPST -DIR

‘Ambrosia, Kasim and Libe came.’ (elicited example)

Usually, only the referent with the comitative marking is overtly mentioned. The others are inferred from the context. Example (194) illustrates this with an example from the frog story (Mayer 1969). In this scene, a boy and a dog fall into the water. The speaker, however, only overtly mentions the dog. The presence of the boy is only indicated by the fact that the dog is marked with the comitative and the verb appears in its plural form1.

(194) num wo ŋemga

num wo ŋemge -a dog COM1 fall.PL.SBJ -RPST

‘(He) and the dog fell.’ (TG1-Jel20160814 #128)

1The construction and its similarity to an inclusory construction will be further discussed in Chapter 12 on coordination 6.2. PERIPHERAL CASES: CONCRETE NONSPATIAL 167

Which coordinant can be omitted, is not simply a matter of animacy. For one thing, it also happens when coordinants that the same level of animacy. In example (195) two inanimate nouns are coordinated and in example (197) below two human referents. In both examples, only one noun is overtly expressed. This question will be subject to future research.

(195) oŋa wo amamo

oŋa wo amamo sago COM1 mix

‘(Coconut) and sago mix.’ (TG1-JEL20160802 #112)

In many instances, in which only one coordinant is overtly expressed, a numeral is added. The numeral is placed either after the noun carrying the comitative (see ex. 196) or before it (see ex. 197).

(196) Weren we ina kekəlmani

Weren we ina k- ekəlme -a -ni Weren COM1 two RPST- come.PL -RPST -DIR

‘(She) and Weren, the two came.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #107)

(197) ina num we yok pomŋa

ina num we yok p- omŋo -a two dog COM1 sleep RPST- sleep.PL -RPST

‘The two, (boy) and dog slept.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Libe #15)

I call this comitative a coordinator because there is no other coordinator to coordinate noun phrases in Yelmek. The only other option of coordination is to simply adjoin phrases. Coordination from a syntactic point of view is discussed in Chapter 12. That chapter also includes a discussion of coordination with wo/we as an inclusory construction. The use of the Yelmek marker as coordinator conforms to criteria for coordination for- mulated by Stassen (2000). Stassen (2000) did a large typological survey on comitative vs. 168 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY coordination systems in the worlds languages, using a sample of 260 languages from different geographic regions and families. Held up against his criteria for comitative strategies vs. coordination, the we/wo marker behaves very like a coordinator: the two NP’s involved are of equal rank, whereas in his comitative construction, the noun phrases would be of unequal rank and one NP would be invariably coded as the head of the oblique NP (Stassen 2000: 18). He also postulates that in a comitative relation, the two NPs are not prototypically part of the same NP and do not trigger dual or plural marking on the verb (Stassen 2000:18), both things the we/wo comitative does. Within Stassen’s (2000) typology, the Yelmek marker constitutes a rather rare type. Only very few languages in Stassen’s sample have a postposed marker that only marks the second NP. Unfortunately, he does not state the exact figure or which languages display this pattern. He claims that all languages with this kind of marking also allow marking on the other NP(s) (Stassen 2000: 14). In Yelmek, marking both NPs is strongly dispreferred. A possible solution to this is to treat the Yelmek marker as being in transition from comitative to coordinator. Stassen (2000) observes the diachronic tendency for languages with just a comitative strategy to develop a coordination strategy (Stassen 2000: 26). He also mentions that diachronically, comitative markers are a source for coordinators. This is a very likely scenario for Yelmek.

Asymmetrical comitative

The postposition dom/dem is used when the NPs it relates to each other are of unequal rank or have a different degree of control. This means they do not take equal part in the event. Thisis morphologically visible in the verbal inflection, which is typically singular. The postposition dom/dem can mark different types of participants. In example (198) it marks an inanimate object, in example (199) a noun denoting an animal and in example (200) a human referent. In all three examples, the marked referent is not fully part of the event denoted by the verb. In example (198) the referent is the contents of the object of the verb. Example (199) describes a scene from the Pear Story, where a man walks by. He is leading a goat. However, the verb only describes the walking of the man. Lastly, example (200) is from the Family Problems Picture task. The utterance is describing a picture in which a man hits a woman who is holding a child. The child is not part of the hitting event between the man and the woman, instead, it is just added to the woman via dem. 6.2. PERIPHERAL CASES: CONCRETE NONSPATIAL 169

(198) biatul yu dom ŋolia

biatu -l yu dom ŋoli -a bottle -ACC water COM2 carry -RPST

‘He carried a bottle with water.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #11)

(199) ked ku ba ayo -pən ima dom

ked ku ba ayo -pən ima dom now REL.NSBJ FUT.N1SG pass_by -3SG.FUT what COM2

amada amada dom deer deer COM2

‘Meanwhile, he will pass him with something, a deer (goat), with a deer (goat).’ (TG1-PearStory #24)

(200) yaŋ dem wepŋepu

yaŋ dem w- epŋe -pu child COM2 DPST- hit.f/plOBJ -PRV

‘He hit her and/with the child.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #249)

The comitative can also be combined with the third-person pronoun as in example (201) and (202). Note, that in this combination the pronoun stem is similar to the accusative form of the pronoun ebi, rather than the nominative form eu.

(201) tope dam wak ebə dem ŋaukiai

tope dam wak eb dem ŋauki -ai jar inside LOC 3SG COM2 move -IPV

‘Inside the jar, he moves around with it.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #38) 170 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

(202) num ebə dom ka wolk wedepu

num eb dom ka wolk wedepu dog 3SG COM2 DPST.F.SBJ go AUX

‘The dog with it (the jar) walks around.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #45)

The example in (201) and (202) also shows that the distribution of dom vs. dem does not depend on the phonological form of the host word, i.e. it is not an instance of vowel harmony, because the root it attaches to is the same in both examples.

Attached-to comitative

The third comitative do/o is used when there is a physical connection between the two NP in the comitative relation. It can be used when a body part is involved as in example (203) and (204).

(203) wodo do ba ŋəmlopa

wodo do ba ŋə- omlo -pa leg COM3 FUT.N1SG.SBJ 1OBJ- kick -3PL.IRR

‘They will kick me with their feet.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #265)

(204) rusa ŋalepega amada ebedo, jaŋ we pilepa

rusa ŋalepe -ga amada ebe do yaŋ we p- ilepe -a deer leave -just deer 3SG.NOM COM3 child COM2 RPST- lift.PL.OBJ -RPST

‘The deer leaves, the deer with it (the antlers), (deer) and child stand up.’ (the child is being lifted by the stag on its antlers, TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #114)

It can also be used, when the physical link is only present in the particular situation as in example (205). This utterance is from the family problem picture task. The picture in question here, shows a man telling another man about a scene in the market, where a woman holds hand with another man. 6.2. PERIPHERAL CASES: CONCRETE NONSPATIAL 171

(205) kepŋagi ebiak peŋayama, gomnek do

kepŋe -ad -i ebiak p- eŋaye -a -ma gom -nek do wife -2POSS -ACC DEM RPST- see.F.OBJ -RPST -1SG male -ATTR.SG COM3

‘I saw your wife with a man.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #107-108)

The marker can also be used with inanimate objects as in example (206). In this example both parts of clothing are stacked in a pile and therefore have a physical link.

(206) wunugu megeneki ukonek do

wunugu mege -nek -i uko -nek do clothes high -ATTR.SG -ACC ground -ATTR.SG COM3

‘(He gives him) the upper clothes with the lower clothes.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #380-382)

6.2.3 Purposive

Yelmek has a suffix that marks its host as the purpose of a verbal predicate, which Iwillcall purposive. The Yelmek purposive is expressed with a suffix /-n/. The suffix /-n/ can attachto nouns directly as in example (207), but it can also attach to verb stems as in example (208).

(207) meŋ ebi pa ŋayaŋka ika unugun ka wedep

meŋ ebi pa ŋayaŋko -a turn 3SG.ACC RPST.F.SBJ turn -RPST

ika unugu -n ka wedepu so_then clothes -PURP DPST.F AUX

‘She turns for the clothes (to take the clothes).’ (TG1-DogStory #86) 172 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

(208) ŋəl peliama jul emi oŋin

ŋəl p- eli -a -ma ju-l emi oŋi -n 1SG RPST.SG.SBJ- give.OBJ.SG -RPST water -ACC 3PL.ACC drink -PURP

‘I gave them water for drinking.’ (elicited example, FNB_1 p.123)

A very common occurrence of the suffix is in combination with the ignorative pronouns ima. This expresses the question ‘why’ as in example (209).

(209) mad iman ŋaŋumo wedepua

mad ima -n ŋaŋumo wede -pu -wa like.this IG.thing -PURP wiggle AUX -PRV -2SG

‘Why did you wiggle like this?’ (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #56)

6.2.4 Restrictive

The restrictive suffix /-ga/ expresses that a verbal predicate is restricted to the marked referent. This can be a restriction to a part of a whole as in example (210) and (211), or a restriction to one activity among a number of possible activities as in example (212). In example (210), the mouse comes out of the hole, but only with the head, thus the bemo ‘head’ is marked with the restrictive. In example (211) the woman holds her child, but just by the leg and wodo ‘leg’ is marked with the restrictive.

(210) yoli bemoga pa ŋalapa kelo ban

yoli bemo -ga pa ŋ- alap -a kelo ban mouse head -RSTV RPST.F.SBJ DTR- bring_out -RPST hole ABL

‘The mouse put only the head out of the hole.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #86) 6.2. PERIPHERAL CASES: CONCRETE NONSPATIAL 173

(211) wodoga ka weŋepepu

wodo -ga ka w- eŋepe -pu leg -RSRV DPST.F.SBJ DPST- hold.M.OBJ -PFV

‘She holds him just by the legs.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #257)

The restrictive can also be used in cognate object constructions (§9.1) where it marks the cognate object as in example (212).

(212) yokga womŋai dam wak

yok -ga w- omŋo -ai dam wak sleep -RSTV DPST- sleep -IPV inside LOC

‘They only sleep inside.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 03 #127)

6.2.5 Similative

The Yelmek similative relates nouns to each other, by indicating that the marked referent is like somebody or something else. The comparee can be overtly mentioned as in (213) or not as in (214).

(213) welok po ŋeŋkape oŋa emak

welok po ŋeŋkape oŋa emak welok like COP2.PL food 3PL.POSS

‘Their food is like welok.’ (Note: Welok is a flat sago dish. (TG1-JEL20160806-AspectAmbrosia #46)

(214) wew pe ŋeŋko

wew pe ŋeŋko paper like exist

‘It is like paper.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #41) 174 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

Yelmek does not have morphologically marker of equality like English ‘the same as’. The only other way to express similarity is is in a comitative construction as in example (215) or simple juxtaposition like ‘The woman is tall. The man is tall.’ (see §4.4.4 for more information on comparative constructions).

(215) modolionek gomnek do tompuklala ilepe ŋape

modolio -nek gom -nek do tompuklala ilepe ŋape female -ATTR.SG male -ATTR.SG COM3 together tall COP2.PL

‘The woman and the man are the same height.’ (elicited example, FNB_2, p. 8)

6.3 Peripheral cases: spatial

6.3.1 Locative

There are a number of locational markers in Yelmek. The most general one is wak, which marks something as a place or location. The marker always follows its referent directly. Example (216) illustrates that this marker has no restriction on scale for the location. In (216a) it marks a place name, Merauke. It serves equally well to mark a country as a location. On the other hand, in (216b) it is used with a kitchen implement, here a frying pan.

(216) a. eu kaya kəmla Merauke wak eu kaya kəm -la Merauke wak 3SG.NOM PROG COP.SG -further Merauke LOC ‘She is there too, in Merauke.’ b. mau imaki yopma dandaŋ wak mau ima -i yo -pu -ma dandaŋ wak no what -ACC do -PFV -1SG wok_pan LOC ‘No, I made something in the frying pan.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #113)

As a locative wak is frequently combined with locational terms, such as dam ‘inside’ (ex. 217a), wau ‘outside’ (ex. 217b), mege ‘high’ (ex. 217c) and uku ‘low’ (ex. 217d). 6.3. PERIPHERAL CASES: SPATIAL 175

(217) a. ebi dam wak kowlo ekoa ebi dam wak k- owlo eko =a house inside LOC PRS- sing DEM =Q ‘Is he singing inside the house?’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #161)

b. num ebi wau wak kedak ŋame num ebi wau wak kedak ŋame dog house outside LOC DEM.PROX COP2.F ‘The dog is outside the house.’ (Bowped FNB_1 p.68 #17)

c. mata məgiak ka kukala mata məge wak ka k- ukalo -a stone high LOC RPST.F.SBJ RPST.SG.SBJ- climb -RPST ‘She climbed up the stone.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #103)

d. uk waki ŋaipu uku wak =i ŋai -pu ground LOC =FOC fall -PRV ‘He falls down/to the ground.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #53)

The use of /-wak/ extents to the expression of a location in time (218a) or the position in an ordered process (218b) when used with a locational specifier like məkəl ‘front’.

(218) a. məkəl wak balal ko wemgai məkəl wak bala -l ko w- emge -ai front LOC fishing_device -ACC PL.SBJ DPST- put.plOBJ -IPV ‘First(in the past) they used bala (traditional fishing device).’ (TG-Fishing_Mars #38) 176 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

b. mekəl wak imal ko yabai mia mekəl wak ima -l ko yab -ai mia front LOC what -ACC PL.SBJ do -IPV coconut ‘First they use something, coconut.’ (TG1-Sago2_Marsel #32)

Note that there are a number expressions that include wak in there morphological form and show some fusion with it. These can be considered lexicalised forms, rather than reflecting a synchronic process. Examples in point are, for instance, the two adverbial demonstratives (see §4.6).

• ebe + wak → ebiak - distal demonstrative

• ked + wak → kedak - proximal demonstrative

It is also the basis of the possessive suffix on pronouns, as in ŋəl -ak ‘my’ and possibly the genitive postposition bak (see §6.4 on possession).

6.3.2 Allative

The allative case is a type of locative case that indicates the motion towards a location. The suffixes /-on/ and /-en/ are in free variation and frequently attach to thelocative wak as in example (219).

(219) a. petala ŋoulowe ka wakep Merauke wakon petala ŋoulowe ka wake -pu Merauke wak -on long get_on DPST.F.SBJ go -PRV Merauke LOC -ALL ‘Then she got on (the plane) and went to Merauke.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #218)

b. yu ŋayogo ŋeŋko weu waken yu ŋayogo ŋeŋko weu wak -en water descend exist bark LOC -ALL ‘Water is still coming out, towards the bark.’ (TG1-Sago2_Marsel #72) 6.3. PERIPHERAL CASES: SPATIAL 177

The use of the allative also extends to express a benefactive/recipient notion as in example (220) and (221). In (220) the recipient/benefactive of the bringing event is marked by the wakon and in (221) it is the recipient/benefactive of the telling.

(220) wekeke gomnek eu kalulil eŋklala kodani au wakon

wekeke gom -nek eu kaluli -l yesterday male -ATTR.SG 3SG.NOM bird.of.paradies -ACC

eŋklala k- odao -ni au wak -on one PRS- bring.F.OBJ -DIR 2SG LOC -ALL

‘Yesterday, the man brought a bird of paradise for you.’ (elicited example, FNB_2 p. 41)

(221) gaga ŋəlakon ai weyumpu

gaga ŋəl =wak -on ai w- eyume -pu speech 1SG =LOC -ALL PROG DPST- tell -PRV ‘He told the story to me.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 03 #114)

The allative can also combine with the accusative suffix. The interpretation of this combination is that of a purpose as in example (222). This marking is distinct from the dedicated purposive marker /-n/ discussed in §6.2.3.

(222) oka, yaŋlen kwagama

oka yaŋ -l -en k- wagu -a -ma EXCL child -ACC -ALL RPST- go -RPST -1SG ‘I have come for the child.’ (TG1-HistoryCely part 01 #88)

6.3.3 Ablative

The postposition ban encompasses Ablative, Source and Originative meaning. It expresses a motion away from the marked participant. Like the general locative wak, it can combine with a host noun directly or a locational specifier. Example (223) shows the use of ban with a host noun, in this case a place ‘prison’, which then results in an ablative reading. 178 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

(223) emei ŋalapop bui ban

eme =i ŋalapo -pu bui ban already =FOC exit -PFV prison ABL

‘He already came out of prison.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #348-349)

In section §6.3.1 we saw how wak can combine with locational terms (see ex. 217). The postposition ban is also frequently found combined with locational terms. In (224a) ban combines with dam ‘inside’ and in (224b) with yeb ‘middle’. There is no restriction on which locational term can combine with ban.

(224) a. eko dam ban ŋalapa ku ba wagaipən eko dam ban ŋalapo -a ku ba wagu -ai -pən DEM.PROX inside ABL exit -RPST REL.NSBJ FUT.N1SG come -IPV -3SG.M.IRR ‘The one from inside will come.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #204)

b. yeb ban ma gayoka yeb ban ma gayo -ka middle ABL FUT.1SG.SBJ start -1SG.SBJ.IRR ‘I start from the middle.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 04 #3)

The postposition ban can also be combined with the interrogative pronoun adak ‘where’ to form a question about a source location as in example (225).

(225) wekeke ad ban ka wagania

wekeke adak ban ka wagu -a -ni -wa yesterday where ABL DPST.2SG.SBJ come -DIR -2SG.DPST

‘Where did you come from yesterday’ (FNB_1 p. 127)

The use of ban also extends to express the source material of something (see ex. 226). 6.3. PERIPHERAL CASES: SPATIAL 179

(226) tokakəl ekonek dip ban kəm

tokakəl eko -nek dip ban kəm knife DEM.PROX -ATTR.SG bamboo ABL COP1.3SG

‘This knife is (made) from bamboo.’ (JEL20150730 #96)

A further extension of the use of ban is to mark the standard of comparison in a comparative construction as in example (227). Comparative constructions are further discussed in §4.4.4.

(227) gomnek eka ko ilepe ŋane modulio ban

gom -nek eka ko ilepe ŋane modulio ban male -ATTR.SG DEM.DIST PL.SBJ tall COP2.M woman ABL

‘That man is taller than the woman.’ (FNB_2, p. 8)

6.3.4 Perlative

In its basic use the postposition /bo/ or /be/ expresses perlative meaning, i.e. that something is moving ‘through’, ‘across’ or ‘along’ a referent. The examples below illustrate the range of meanings of the perlative in Yelmek. In example (228) the perlative is combined with eŋka ‘side’ and expresses a motion alongside a boulder.

(228) num eŋka bo ked ŋi woyopu

num eŋka bo ked ŋi w- oyo- pu dog side PER now DIS DPST- pass_by -PFV

‘The dog comes along the side (of the boulder)’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #127)

In example (229) the perlative is combined with dapu ‘back’ and is used to describe the process of entering through the back of the house. 180 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

(229) ebi dapu bo yayep

ebi dapu bo y- aye -pu house back PER IMP- come -IRR

‘Come through the back of the house.’ (JEl20150730 #43)

On the other hand, example (230) describes an exiting of water via the point, the plug, that is marked with the perlative.

(230) yu aba ŋalapop ebe be bumte be

yu aba ŋalapo -pu ebe be bumte be water all exit -PFV DEM PER sago.plug PER

‘The water can come out there, by the sago plug.’ (TG1-Sago2_Marsel #13)

And finally, in example (231) a dog is chased by bees. The position of the bees while they follow is expressed with the perlative.

(231) num yeme, yeme aja kweka wəw enela be, ebela be

num yeme, yeme aya k- weko -a dog run run PROG RPST- run -RPST

wəw enel -la be ebe -la be beehive back -further PER DEM -further PER

‘The dog ran, ran while the bees (followed) in the back.‘ (TG1-FrogStory_Libe #101)

When the perlative post position is combined with a host word that is already marked with an focus clitic, it expresses restrictive meaning. This is illustrated in example (232) from the Frog Story. Here a picture is describe, where the frog which lived in a jar, has gone and only the jar remains. 6.4. POSSESSION 181

(232) topel bo kəm

tope =l bo kəm jar =FOC PER COP1.3SG

‘Only the jar is left/There is only a jar.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #26)

Another example for the restrictive function is (233). Here the speaker talks about her children. At this point she has already named all her sons and informs her interlocutor that only her daughters remain to be named.

(233) eme kai ŋape modoliol bo

eme kai ŋape modolio =l bo already PROG COP2.PL female =FOC PER

‘Then the others are girls/There are only girls (left).’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #15)

6.4 Possession

Possession, as understood here, pertains to the marking of ownership and belonging as well as semantically similar relationships. In Yelmek, possessive and locational marking have strong morphological links. This is not unusual. Stassen (2009) observes in his typological study that marking for possession is similar to marking for location. In his later WALS map, 48 out of 240 languages have what he calls a Locational Possessive (Stassen 2013b). Stassen (2009) indeed points to the controversy in the literature about treating possession as an independent conceptual domain or just a subdomain of location (Stassen 2009: 12 for a summary of the arguments). I only mention this Locational Hypothesis here, to contextualise Yelmek typologically. That is to say, a morphological link between possessive and locational marking has been well recognised in the literature (see Lyons 1977: 474 for an early mention, cited from Heine 1997b). Stassen (2009) himself treats location only as one of four sources for possession. Other authors advocate even more categories. Heine (1997b), for instance, proposes eight ‘event schema’ that, according to him, can account for the majority of possessive constructions in the languages of the world (Heine 1997b:46). Only one of these schemas, the locational schema, treats location marking as a source for possessive marking (Heine 1997b: 50). 182 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

Possession can be expressed in different ways in Yelmek; some strategies marking the possessor and some the possessum. Others strategies work without morphological possessive marking altogether. I will give an overview of the strategies in this introduction and then discuss each strategy in more detail in a dedicated section. One strategy that marks the possessor uses a genitive postposition (see ex. 234 and the discussion in §6.4.1).

(234) Yelmek anim bak wobo

[[Yelmek anim bak] wobo] Yelmek people GEN place

‘The place of the Yelmek people2.’

If the possessor is a personal pronoun, then the possession is expressed by a suffix (see ex. 235, and the discussion §6.4.2). Both the genitive postposition bak and the suffix on the pronoun are morphologically related to the locative marker wak (see §6.3.1 on locative case marking).

(235) num ŋəlak

num ŋəlak dog 1SG.POSS

‘my dog’

Possessive pronouns are also used in predicative possessive constructions. In that case, possessive pronouns follows the possessum and indicates the possessive relationship (see ex. 236).

(236) omgo bahanek wai ebak kəm

[omgo baha –nek] [wai ebak] kəm person big -ATTR.SG arm 3SG.POSS COP1.3SG

‘It is the big person’s arm’/ ‘The arm belongs to the big person.’ (FNB_2 p.69, WK)

2anim is a loan from Marind. It is used in Yelmek to denote an ethnic group. In Yelmek, anim is invariant, whereas in Marind it inflects for gender and number (Bruno Olsson p.c.) 6.4. POSSESSION 183

Another strategy that involves marking the possessum occurs with kinship terms. Kinship terms can take a particular kind of possessive suffixes that is morphologically completely distinct from the suffixes found on pronouns, for instance. This is illustrated inexample(237) and discussed in §6.4.3.

(237) biebed

bia -ebed mother -3POSSR:SG.POSSM

‘His/her mother.’

Besides these strategies with suffixes and postposition, it is also possible to express possession without any overt possessive marking using the copula. This is not a HAVE-construction, instead, it is an instance of what Payne and Barshi (1999) call external possession, which they define as “constructions in which a semantic possessor-possessum relation is expressed bycod- ing the possessor (PR) as a core grammatical relation of the verb in a constituent separate from that which contains the possessum” (Payne and Barshi 1999: 3) (see ex. 238 and §6.4.4).

(238) eko wobo ka mʉa

eko wobo ka mʉ-wa this place 2PRS.F.SBJ COP1 -2SG.PRS

‘This is your place.’

Furthermore, noun-noun compounds can be formed by simply placing the nouns next to each other, as in example (239) (see §6.4.5).

(239) wodo num

wodo num leg dog

‘dog leg/dog’s leg’

Neither of the possessive construction distinguishes alienable vs. inalienable possession, but there are restrictions on what strategy can be used and which strategies can be used together in one clause. This will be discussed in the relevant section. 184 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

6.4.1 Possessor marking with the genitive

In the attributive possessive construction, the possessor is an open class noun marked with the genitive postposition bak. Personal pronouns, when used in this construction, have a different marking, which will be discussed in the section below. This type of possession has the structure: [possessor bak], possessum. The genitive postposition is always placed after the possessor NP. Example (240) shows an utterance that includes a noun and a modifier in the possessor NP. The genitive postposition is placed after the modifier.

(240) omgo bahanek bak wai kəm

[[omgo baha -nek bak] wai] kəm person big -ATTR.SG GEN arm COP1.3SG

‘It is the big person’s arm.’ (FNB_2 p.69, WK)

The possessum usually follows the possessor (see ex. 241a), but the reverse order is possible as example (241b) shows. The form of the genitive postposition is invariably bak, irrespective of the type or number of possessor or possessum. The same postposition is used for human possessors (ex. 241a) as for non-human (ex. 241b) or inanimate possessors (ex. 241c).

(241) a. Tete Lamber bak oŋa Tete Lamber bak oŋa grandfather prop_name GEN sago ‘Grandfather Lamber’s sago’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #69)

b. gaga mapi bak gaga mapi bak speech frog GEN ‘The frog’s story’ (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim)

c. mia bak ege kəm mia bak ege kəm coconut POSS tree COP1.3SG 6.4. POSSESSION 185

‘It is a coconut’s trunk.’ (Yamfinder 3 00:16:06, WK)

There is no distinction made by type of possessum either. Example (242a) shows an utterance where the possessum is a body part and example (242b) shows an utterance where the possessum is an inanimate object. The marking is the same in both sentences. Nor does the number of the possessum change the marking. The examples in (242) have the same marking as the example in (241a), where the possessum is not just a single object3.

(242) a. gomnek bak wai kəm gom -nek bak wai kəm male -ATTR.SG GEN arm COP1.3SG ‘It is the man’s arm.’ (FNB_2 p.69) b. gomnek bak ebi kəm gom -nek bak ebi kəm male -ATTR.SG GEN house COP1.3SG ‘It is the man’s house.’ (FNB_2 p.69)

The number of the possessor does not have an influence either, see example (243).

(243) Yelmek anim bak wobo ada kəm?

[[Yelmek anim bak] wobo] adak kəm Yelmek people GEN place where COP1.3SG

‘Where is the Yelmek people’s place?’ (TG1-Possession 0:04:30)

The genitive marker is also used in questions. In example (244) for instance, the genitive marker is combined with the question word for ‘who’.

3Yelmek does not distinguish count and mass nouns. 186 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

(244) kida amba kəm

kida ame bak kəm arrow who GEN COP1.3SG

‘Whose arrow is it.’ (Yamfinder 1 00:46:40)

The possessum can also be left out of the possessive construction, just like other headscan (e.g. heads in modifier constructions, see §4.4). In example (245) only the possessor and the genitive postposition are overtly given. The possessum is omitted. This example also illustrates that the genitive postposition can be marked with the accusative suffix if the possessum is omitted. The same suffix is used as for modifiers.

(245) Lolondu baki ŋi ma yomka

[Lolondu bak –i] ŋi ma yom -ka Lolondu GEN -ACC DIS FUT.1SG.SBJ tell -1SG.SBJ.IRR

‘I will tell Lolondu’s (story).’ (TG1-DogStory #7)

6.4.2 Possessive pronouns

When personal pronouns function as the possessor they are not used with the postposition bak, instead they are marked with a suffix. Table (6.4) shows the possessive pronouns. They consist of the independent pronoun and a suffix that is formally related to the locative postposition wak4. The whole morphological form of the marker is still visible in the second person pronoun in singular and plural. All other forms show some fusion. If the independent pronoun ends in a consonant, the /w/ is elided. This is not the only factor, however, because in the second person plural possessive the /w/ is preserved even though the pronoun ends in /l/. This contrasts with the first singular pronoun which also ends in /l/. However in this form the /w/ is notpresent.

4The genitive marker bak is very likely of a similar origin. 6.4. POSSESSION 187

Table 6.4: Possessive pronouns in nominative and accusative.

Non-possessed Possessive Possessive pronoun nominative pronouns accusative pronoun 1SG.POSS ŋəl ŋəlak ŋəlaki 2SG.POSS au awak awaki 3SG.POSS eu ebak ebaki 1PL.POSS ŋag ŋak ŋaki 2.PL.POSS al alwak alwaki 3.PL.POSS em emak emaki

There are two more irregularities in this paradigm. For the third singular form, the root /eb/ is used as in the accusative forms of the personal pronouns, rather than eu, the nominative form. The other irregular form is the first-person plural. Here the postposition has completely fused with the independent pronoun, otherwise, we would have seen a form like ŋagak, which does not occur. The degree of fusion between the pronoun and the postposition indicates that this is not a productive composition, but rather has undergone diachronic changes and is now lexicalised5. When the postposition wak is used as a locative, rather than possessive, it is clitisised but does not usually fuse with the host (see §6.3.1 for more information on the locative). The last column in Table (6.4) shows the possessive pronouns with accusative marking. Note that the accusative suffix /–i/ used here is the same as for modifiers, but different tothe one used on nouns and pronouns, which is /-l/ (see §6.1.2 on accusative marking). Example (246) shows a clause that includes a possessive pronoun in the accusative case. Example (246a) is an elicited example with an overt possessum and (246b) is a natural speech example where the possessum is omitted.

(246) a. gomnek eu num ŋəlaki pepŋa gomnek eu num ŋəlak -i p- epŋe -a male DET dog 1SG.POSS -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- hit.F.OBJ -RPST ‘The man hit my dog.’ (FNB_2 p.69)

5An alternative analysis would be that the possessive pronouns have morphologised the genitive bak as an extra step, rather than the locative wak directly. In this case, the forms of the possessive pronouns could be accounted for with a simple /b/ deletion. However, my current knowledge of Yelmek phonology does not give me any reason why a /b/ deletion would be triggered. Furthermore, this analysis would still leave unexplained how locative wak becomes genitive bak. It is possible of course that the locative and the genitive are not related, but as the link between locative and possession is cross-linguistically well established, I am reluctant to abandon this theory. Therefore, there is nothing gained from assuming that the possessive marking on personal pronouns is derived from the genitive marking, rather than from the locative marking. 188 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

b. ŋəl ŋaki wimpma ŋəl ŋak –i w- im –pu -ma 1SG 1PL.POSS -ACC DPST- tell -PRV -1SG ‘I told ours (our story)’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #135)

Possessive pronouns can be used in a predicative construction as an alternative to the genitive bak construction above. In this construction, a possessive pronoun is used adjacent to the possessum, in addition to the overt noun possessor. The structure is as follows: possessor푖 [possessum + possessive pronoun푖]. For instance, in example (247) no marking occurs with the possessor omgo bahanek ‘big man’. Instead, a possessive pronoun is placed adjacent to the possessum to indicate the possessive relationship.

(247) omgo bahanek wai ebak kəm

[omgo baha –nek]푖 [wai ebak푖] kəm person big -ATTR.SG arm 3SG.POSS COP1.3SG ‘It is the big person’s arm/the arm belongs to the big person.’ (FNB_2 p.69, WK)

It is not grammatical to add the genitive postposition bak into this construction (see ex. 248).

(248) *omgo banek bak wai ebak kəm

[[omgo ba –nek bak] wai ebak] kəm person big -ATTR.SG GEN arm 3SG.POSS COP1.3SG ‘It is the big person’s arm.’ (FNB_2 p.69, WK)

6.4.3 Possessor marking on kinship terms

For kinship terms6, a special set of possessor suffixes can be used (Table 6.5). These suffixes mark the possessum. They index the person of the possessor, as well as the number of the

6See §5.4 for a list of kinship terms in Yelmek. Note that for this marking kadkaya ‘friend’ is treated as a kinship term. 6.4. POSSESSION 189 possessum. Gender of possessor or possessum does not affect the marking.

Table 6.5: Possessive affixes for kinship terms

SG possessum PL possessum 1st person possessor - - 2nd person possessor -ad -ad 3rd person possessor -ebed -meged

This set of suffixes has dedicated forms for the second and third-person possessors, butnot for the first-person possessor. The lack of first-person possessor suffix fits in with anobserva- tion Baerman (2014) made in his survey of suppletive kinterms in languages of New Guinea. The pattern most widely attested in his sample opposed ego-centric reference versus others, and in every instance of this, the first-person form appeared to be a bare stem, devoid ofin- flectional marking (Baerman 2014: 425). In a clause with a possessed kinship term, the possessor is usually not overtly expressed. For instance, (249) and (250) exemplify the use of the suffix that indexes the third-person possessor on a singular possessum. In neither case is the possessor expressed by a noun phrase. Note that in (249) the demonstrative eko refers to the possessum. Example (249) is a simple copula clause. Example (250), is a bit more complex. Nevertheless, it is clear form the context that the possessor is co-referential with the direct object. Note that vowel of the possessive suffix overrides the final vowel of the host word’s stem. This is a typical morphophonemic pattern in Yelmek (see §3.5).

(249) eko meŋebed ŋeŋko

eko meŋio -ebed ŋeŋko that_one husband -3POSSR:SG.POSSM COP.M

‘That one (he) is her husband.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #115)

(250) idebed abokəl məpa yaŋəl

ida -ebed abok -l məp –a yaŋ -l father -3POSSR:SG.POSSM cheek -ACC kiss -RPST child -ACC

‘His푖 father has kissed the cheek, the child푖.’ (TG1-AspectElicitation, LG) 190 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

If the possessum is plural, the marker is /-meged/ and works similarly to /-ebed/. Example (251) shows an instance of this in a copula clause.

(251) kadkayameged ŋapeŋa

kadkaya -meged ŋape -ŋa friend -3POSSR:PL.POSSM COP2.PL -DIS

‘Those are his friends.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #505)

The possessor marking does not distinguish singular and plural possessors. To stress that the possessor is plural, a possessive pronoun can be added. Example (252), for instance, is about the mother of several children. The possessive pronoun emak ‘3PL.POSS’ adjacent to the possessor specifies that the possessor is plural, whereas the suffix on the possessum isthe same as with a singular possessor.

(252) yaŋ emak biebed pa waga

yaŋ emak bia -ebed pa wagu -a child 3PL.POSS mother -3POSSR:SG.POSS RPST.F.SBJ go -RPST

‘The children’s mother came (lit. the children their mother).’ (TG1-Possessive 0:26:43)

If the possessor is a second person, the suffix /-ad/ is used (ex. 253). This suffix also triggers vowel deletion of the stem vowel.

(253) a. ai yopu “kagad kai kuwagani” ai yo –pu kaga -ad kai kwagani when say -PRV grandkin -2POSSR PROG come.PST.DIR ‘He said “When your ancestor came …” (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #48) 6.4. POSSESSION 191

b. kepŋad madi pa ŋolimŋa kepŋe -ad mad =i pa ŋolimŋ -a wife -2POSSR like_this =FOC RPST.F.SBJ do -RPST ‘Your wife has done (like) this.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 03 #21)

(254) ina alak biad ekda pa waga

ina alak bia -ad ekda pa wagu -a two 2PL.POSS mother -2POSSR here RPST.F.SBJ go -RPST

‘You two’s mother came here.’ (TG1-Possessive 0:29:08)

All the examples above only express the possessum as an overt NP. It is, however, possible to also overtly express the possessor NP as well as the possessum NP. In this case, the possessor would be a possessive pronoun or a noun marked with the genitive postposition as in example (255).

(255) Weren ba biebed ŋame

Weren bak bia -ebed ŋame Weren GEN mother -3POSSR:SG.POSSM COP2.F

‘She is Weren’s mother.’ (FNB_2 p.69)

Within Evans and Fenwick’s (2013) indexing typology, which is specifically about possessive marking on the phrasal level, the Yelmek system of possessor marking on kinship terms can be characterised as a double-marking system with indexing of a possessive relationship on the dependent (the possessor) and double indexing on the head (the possessum), very similar to the Hungarian case they discuss in their paper (Evans and Fenwick 2013: 84, type 2M with 2I on head, ØI on dependent). One further note on morphophonemics of these suffixes: both the 2nd person possessor and the 3rd person singular possessor suffixes undergo an unexpected change when the accusative suffix is added (ex. 256). In both /-ebed/ and /-ad/ the final /d/ becomes a /g/ if the accusative marker /-i/ is added. I have only found this process with these possessive suffixes and nowhere else. 192 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

(256) a. kepŋebegi kepŋe kepŋe -ebed -i k- epŋe wife -3POSSR:SG.POSSM -ACC PRS- hit.F.OBJ ‘He hits his wife.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #296)

b. kepŋagi ebia peŋayama kepŋe -ad -i ebia p- eŋaye -a -ma wife -2POSSR -ACC DEM.DIST RPST.SG.SBJ- see.RPST -1G.RPST ‘I (just) saw your wife there.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #107)

What is particularly unusual here, is that the accusative suffix has the morphological form normally used for modifiers and not the form for nouns, which would be /-l/. This leaves room to speculate about the diachronic source of this marker, which could be a demonstrative stem /-ebe-/ plus an instrumental case /-d/. However, this does not explain the change in consonant, as the instrumental case marker does not normally change when a focus marker is attached.

6.4.4 External possession

Yelmek does not have a verb ‘to have’ to express ownership. However, the copula inflects for person and this can result in a possessive interpretation as in example (257) and (259). In example (257) two different ways of asking ‘What is your name?’ are shown. In example (257a) the second person possessive pronoun is used, but in (257b) the same meaning is achieved by using the copula inflected for second person.

(257) a. ŋədəl awak ame kəm ŋədə -l aw -ak ame kəm name -ACC 2SG -POSS who COP1.3SG ‘What is your name?’ (TG1-InterviesSerafinus #4) 6.4. POSSESSION 193

b. ŋədəl ame ka mʉa ŋədəl ame ka mʉ -wa name who PRS.2SG COP1 -2SG.PRS ‘What is your name?’ (TG1-InterviewAnna #2)

The examples in (258) and (259) show two further instances of the possessive using the copula. In both examples, the property of a body part of the possessor is expressed as a predicate.

(258) pu kəke kamʉa

pu kəke ka mʉ -wa bone hard PRS.2SG.SBJ COP1 -2SG.PRS

‘Your bones are hard/strong.’ (Yamfinder #47)

(259) ope epipi kamʉa

ope epipi ka mʉ -wa eye sick PRS.2SG.SBJ COP1 -2SG.PRS

‘Your eyes are sick.’ (Yamfinder 8 #53)

This form of possession is an instance of what Payne and Barshi (1999) call external possession. They define it as “constructions in which a semantic possessor-possessum relation is expressed by coding the possessor (PR) as a core grammatical relation of the verb in a constituent separate from that which contains the possessum” (Payne and Barshi 1999: 3). In the external possessor construction in Yelmek, the possessor is coded as the subject of the copula, i.e. the copula indexes the possessor. In the examples in (258) and (257b) the possessor is a second-person. Therefore, the copula shows second-person indexing. The possessor itself is not overtly expressed as a noun or pronoun. This kind of phenomenon as also been discussed in other languages as possessor raising (e.g. Deal 2013). 194 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

6.4.5 Compounds

Another way of relating nouns to each other is compounding. This is different from possession, which expresses the notion of ‘belonging’. The interpretation of a noun-noun compound is much broader, but in essence, it takes two concepts and joins them together to form a more specific concept, i.e. a new lexical item. In Yelmek, this difference between compounds and possessive structures is reflected in the morphology. In contrast to possessive structures, compounds do not use any specific morphological marker to indicate the relationship between two nouns, though they form one phonological word (see below). Consider the examples in (260). The two nouns of the compounds are simply placed adjacent to each other. This can be in the context of naming an item (260a) or in a longer clause as in (260b).

(260) a. yogo noma yogo noma pandanus fruit ‘pandanus fruit’ (Yamfinder #100)

b. wliga eki yogo wliga kəm wliga eki yogo wliga kəm floor_mat DEM pandanus floor_mat COP1.3SG ‘This floor mat is a pandanus floor mat.’ (Yamfinder 8 #96)

The noun-noun compound contrasts in meaning with the possessive construction as in (261). Example (261a) shows the combination of the two nouns mia ‘coconut’ and ege ‘tree’ without any marking, which results in the compound interpretation ‘coconut tree’. Example (261b) on the other hand, has the genitive marker in between the two nouns, which changes the statement into one about just a part of the coconut tree.

(261) a. mia ege kəm mia ege kəm coconut tree COP1.3SG ‘It is a coconut tree.’ (Yamfinder 00:39:06) 6.4. POSSESSION 195

b. mia bak ege kəm

mia bak ege kəm coconut GEN tree COP1.3SG

‘It is a coconut’s log’ (Yamfinder 00:16:06)

c. mia məgiak kəm

mia məgiak kəm coconut up.LOC COP.3SG

‘The coconut is high.’ (Yamfinder 00:06:39)

A noun-noun compound is treated as a single phonological word by the intonation. In a declarative sentence, the intonation rises for the duration of the first phonological word and then steadily falls. In the clause in (261a), the intonation, therefore, rises during the duration of mia ege. In (261b), on the other hand, it only rises for mia ba and then falls, because the postposition bak acts like a clitic and is, therefore, part of the phonological word mia bak, whereas ege is a separate phonological word. In (261c), only mia has rising intonation, and then the intonation falls after it because məgiak is a new phonological word. The order of elements in noun-noun compounds is flexible. In example (262), (262a) has the reverse order from (262b), and both are grammatical and the same in meaning. However, with spontaneously occurring instances, the head-final order (262b) seems to be preferred.

(262) a. mogo milom meat pig ‘pork’ (FNB_2 p.69)

b. milom mogo pig meat ‘pork’ (FNB_2 p.69) 196 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

6.5 Associative plural

As I mentioned in the previous chapter (§4.2) noun categories like number and gender are generally not expressed on the noun itself. One exception is the associative plural marking. The associative plural marking is restricted to nouns denoting a specific human being, e.g. proper names and kinship terms. This marking indicates that the referent of the noun phrase is a group of people associated with a specific person, as in example (263). Here the associative plural suffixes to a proper name, Libe. Therefore, the subject of the clause is Libe and people associated with her.

(263) Libege kekelmani

Libe -ge k- ekelme -a -ni proper_name -AssPL RPST- come.PL.SBJ -RPST -DIR

‘Libe and her people came.’ (elicited example)

There are a couple of terms used in the literature for this kind of construction like ‘group plural’ (Moravcsik 1994), ‘approximate plural’ (Jespersen 1965, cited after Daniel and Moravcsik 2013) or ‘plural a potiori’ (Grapow 1939, cited after Corbett 2000: 101)). I will use the term associative plural here, following Corbett (2000) and Daniel and Moravcsik (2013), because it seems the most descriptive term for the construction found in Yelmek. According to Daniel and Moravcsik (2013) an associative plural has two distinct properties. Firstly, it has referential heterogeneity, which means it designates a heterogeneous set as the referent. This is in opposition to the homogeneous set an additive plural refers to, in which every member shares a property. For instance, in the set ‘mothers’ every member is a mother. Secondly, associative plurals refer to a group. Daniel and Moravcsik (2013) found that the kind of group in question is usually a more tight-knit group of individuals rather than a set without internal cohesion (Daniel and Moravcsik 2013). The associative plural in Yelmek meets this definition. In example (263) above ‘Libe’ is the focal referent, the referent the implied people are associated with. The most common interpretation would be that the associates are family members of Libe, but it can also mean more generally ‘Libe and the people she was with (when she came)’. Furthermore, the verb shows plural agreement, which indicates that the subject is indeed a group, not just an individual. Typologically, the distinction between associative plural and additive plural is an interesting one. The respective WALS chapter discusses a sample of 236 languages of which 104 languages had an associative plural marker that also marked additive plural. In these languages the interpretation of the marking depended on the semantics of the noun it attaches too. 95 of 6.5. ASSOCIATIVE PLURAL 197 the languages had a special marker that is not used as an additive plural (Daniel and Moravc- sik 2013). Yelmek falls into the latter category. Its associative plural marker can only be used with a subset of nouns that allow for an associative interpretation, and it cannot be used as an additive plural marker on common or non-human nouns. There is reason to not even treat it as a number category at all. Corbett (2000: 110) argues for treating number and associativ- ity separately, because they behave differently in many respects and, at least in the cases he discussed, it can be separated out morphologically. The Yelmek data supports his argument because no other number is marked on nouns, except associative plurals. On the other hand, pronouns, which do show a singular and plural distinction, cannot be marked with the associative plural. Therefore, the marker could simply be described as an associative marker, without any reference to number. To fit in with the literature, however, I will still call it an associative plural. Daniel and Moravcsik (2013) postulate a number of lexical constraints for associate plurals, which are also true for Yelmek. For instance, they state that the focal referent and the associate referent have to belong to the same cognitive group. Therefore you can not combine a human with a non-human with an associative plural. In the case of Yelmek, the associative plural is restricted to human referents anyway, so there is no question about it. Daniel and Moravcsik (2013) also propose a hierarchy for the focal referent, which shows a preference for proper names over kin-terms over non-kin human common nouns over non-human nouns. Yelmek only uses the first two. Non-kin human common nouns can only be used with anas- sociative plural if they refer to a specific individual, like a particular ‘teacher’. Generic human terms, like omgo ‘person’ or nʉa ‘people’ cannot be combined with an associative plural (see the ungrammatical example in 264).

(264) *omgoge kekelmani

omgo -ge k- ekelme -a -ni person -AssPL RPST- come.PL.SBJ -RPST -DIR

‘The person and his people came.’ (elicited example)

The associative plural is marked in Yelmek with the suffix -go or -ge. Morphologically and phonotactically the context for go vs. ge is the same. This is similar to a number of case markers, which also have /o/ versus /e/ variants (e.g. comitative and allative). So far they seem to be in free variation7.

7For the case markers I have clear evidence that this is not vowel harmony, i.e. both variants occur on the same noun. I have not found a corresponding pair for the associative plural marking in my corpus, but I assume this 198 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY

Both go and ge are frequently extended by the focus clitic /=l/ for further emphasis. This should not be confused with the accusative marking (See §6.1.2). The examples in (265) and (266) show this combination. Here the associative plural that marks the subject includes the /=l/, but no accusative interpretation is possible, instead the interpretation is that of emphasis.

(265) a. idaŋopgol wolk mala ŋape inabe emek ida -ŋop -go =l wolk mala ŋape ina -be emek father -HON =AssPL =FOC go NEG COP.PL two -PER 3PL ‘The father and his people haven’t come, the two of them.’ (TG1-TravelPlanAmbrosia #56)

b. kagagol kai ŋuwai kaga -go =l kai ŋuw -ai grandkin -AssPL =FOC PROG leave -IPV ‘When the ancestors left.’ (TG1-HistoryCely part 01 #57)

(266) gaga emeki kedi ko weyʉmpu, Bapak Amatusgol

gaga emek -i ked =i ko w- eyʉm -pu speech 3PL -ACC now -FOC PL DPST- tell -PRV

Bapak Amatus -go -l Mister Amatus -AssPL -ACC

‘They told the stories then, Mr Amatus people (did).’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #119)

I have found one example in my corpus so far, where the marking could be interpreted as additive plural (ex. 267) in the sense of referring to a homogeneous set, i.e. a group of children. In example (267), the speaker does not know who the children are. Therefore he does not have a reference point or person to associate them to. He refers to them with the term kaga ‘grandchild’ because of their age and the interpretation is additive. This could indicate that the associative plural has the potential of widening up to more additive usages. is because the associative plural marking is a lot rarer then the case marking. In elicitation both variants of the associative plural marker are accepted on the same noun. 6.6. ADDRESS TERM MARKINGS 199

(267) emek yaŋ amegel ŋape, kaga gol ŋekape wutnemek emek

emek yaŋ ame -ge =l ŋape 3PL child who -AssPL =EMPH COP.PL

kaga -go =l ŋekape wut -nemek emek grand_kin -AssPL =FOC COP2.PL.exist small -ATTR.PL 3PL

‘Who are the children, the grandchildren, the small ones?’ (TG1-Lime_Mars #130, this is a live commentary on a recording of people fishing in the swamp.)

Other markers can combine with the associative plural, like the genitive postposition (ex. 268) and the allative postposition (ex. 269). Only the allative postposition allows the presence of the /-l/ suffix. It is not possible to combine it with the genitive postposition.

(268) a. kagago bak wobo kaga -go bak wobo grandkin -AssPL GEN place ‘The ancestor and his people’s place.’ (Elicited example)

b. *kagagol bak wobo ‘The ancestor and its people’s place’ (Elicited example)

(269) kagagol ban

kaga =go -l ban grandkin AssPL -ACC ALL

‘From the ancestor and his people.’ (Elicited example)

6.6 Address term markings

Another set of markers that is restricted to human reference are the honorific marker ŋop (§6.6.1) and the vocative marker ai (§6.6.2). Both apply only when a specific individual is ad- 200 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY dressed or talked about. Therefore, they are most often used with proper names or kinship terms, and do not occur with generic nouns like omgo ‘person’. The two markers can be combined on one noun, as in example (273) below. If combined, the vocative follows the honorific. The Yelmek honorific and vocative do not follow the standard definition of case. Theydonot relate their host to a verb or another noun. Therefore, I do not consider them case markers.

6.6.1 Honorific

The suffix /-ŋop/ is used to mark a kinship term as an address term. This means ittakesa descriptive kinship terms and marks it as denoting a specific individual, similar to using the name of the person. It is honorific in that it makes a statement more polite and deferential. It is used to address a person directly as in example (273) above, but also when talking about a person as in example (270). It is only ever used in the singular.

(270) eh wogaŋop kaya pa muka eme ŋoga

eh woga -ŋop kaya pa muk -a EXCL niece -HON PROG RPST.F blow -RPST

eme ŋog -a already ignite -RPST

‘When niece was blowing on the fire, it ignited.’ (TG1-Lime_Mars # 67)

Other noun marking, for instance, accusative marking, can be added to the address term suffix. The form of the accusative marker is the same as for common nouns(see§6.1.2 on accusative marking). Example (271) shows an instance of the accusative suffix on /-ŋop/. How- ever, it is not a prerequisite for nominal marking on kinship terms or proper names to have the /-ŋop/ suffix, i.e. the honorific marking is optional. Example(272) shows an instance with accusative marking on a proper name. 6.6. ADDRESS TERM MARKINGS 201

(271) aa bema yoka nanaŋopəl kaja ba aikipa

aa bema yo -ka nana -ŋop -l EXCL later.1SG.SBJ say -1SG.SBJ.IRR older.sibling -HON -ACC

kaya ba aiki -pa PROG FUT.N1SG redo -3SG.F.IRR

‘Later, I say to older sister to redo/rerecord it.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #143)

(272) yatak wak emeŋi pepŋa amel? Susil.

yatak wak eme =ŋi p- epŋe -a lower_neck LOC PRF =DIS RPST.SG.SBJ- hit.F.OBJ -RPST

ame -l Susi -l who -ACC Susi -ACC

‘Who did they hit in the lower neck? Susi.’ (Talking about fish jumping out of the water and bumping into the people withthe fishing net. TG-Fishing_Mars #35)

6.6.2 Vocative

The honorific suffix is distinct from the vocative, and the two can combine as inexample(273). If combined, the vocative follows the honorific.

(273) wobiaŋopai, gagali ma alpayeka

wobia -ŋop -ai gaga -l =i ma alpaye -ka younger_sibling -HON -VOC speech -ACC =FOC FUT.1SG tell -1SG.SBJ.IRR

‘Younger brother, I will tell you a story.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 04 #1)

The vocative suffix by itself is /-ai/ in the singular and /-ga/ or /-mega/ in the plural. Itis only used when calling out to somebody, i.e. to get their attention. The form /-ai/ is also used in Marind, although there it can also be used phrase finally (Olsson 2017). In Yelmek it has to 202 CHAPTER 6. NOMINAL MORPHOLOGY be adjacent to the noun it is marking. Below are two examples of the plural vocative marker. Note that the long form /-mega/ can not be used with bia ‘mother’ or most other kin terms. It might be lexically restricted to yaŋ ‘child’ (see ex 274). Combining /-ga/ with the honorific /-ŋop/, or kin terms like bia ‘mother’ however is possible (see ex. 275).

(274) yaŋmega deidi ŋemne kəm

yaŋ -mega deidi ŋem -nek kəm child -VOC.PL afternoon good -ATTR.SG COP1.3SG

‘Good afternoon children.’ (TG1-TravelPlanAmbrosia #2)

(275) biaga, wiegle ŋemne kəm (*biamega)

bia -ga wiegle ŋem -nek kəm mother -VOC.PL morning good -ATTR.SG COP1.3SG

‘Mothers, good morning.’ Chapter 7

Verbal inflection

This chapter is concerned with verbal inflection in Yelmek. Therefore, it deals with the different word-forms of a verb that express different categories. Verbs in Yelmek are a closed class of stems that can carry inflectional marking. They index both the subject and object of a clause and mark tense, aspect and mood categories. The morphological realisation of these categories is complex, because there is no one-to-one correspondence of morphemes to category or even marking site to category. Instead, the value of a category can only be fully interpreted when taking the content of each inflectional site into account. This kind of marking pattern has been called distributed exponence (e.g. Carroll 2016: 285) and has been noted for a number of southern New Guinea languages (e.g. for Ngkolmpu in Carroll 2016, for Komnzo in Döhler 2018 and for Marori p.c Wayan Arka). Evans (2019) even gives a detailed account of how such a system evolved for number in Nen. The inflectional marking in Yelmek is very regular in that all full verbs show the same marking pattern and morphological markers, with only small variations due to stem classes. Other predicate types, such as copulas and auxiliaries, can deviate. These will be discussed in a later chapter (§9). For full verbs, only one part of the verbal marking is highly irregular. This is the stem change indexing gender and number of the object (see §7.2). The verb stem of any given full verb can be recognised by placing the verb in an auxiliary construction, such as the ‘to want’ construction with the auxiliary yo. This auxiliary can be interpreted as ‘do’, ‘say’ or ‘make’, but is always translated as ‘to want’ when combined with a purposive marker (see §9.2.2 on this construction). For instance, in example (276) the two different stems for ‘to hit’ are placed in a ‘to want’ construction. In both clauses onlythe auxiliary yo inflects. The stem ‘to hit’ shows no subject indexing or tense/aspect marking, just the invariant purposive suffix /-n/. Therefore the stem can easily be isolated. Notethat, although no subject indexing is present, the object indexing for gender is still visible in the

203 204 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION stem alternation, thus giving us two stems for the verb ‘to hit’.

(276) a. epŋen kio epŋe -n k- yo hit.F.OBJ -PURP PRS- want ‘He wants to hit her.’

b. pliaŋen kio pliaŋe -n k- yo hit.M.OBJ -PURP PRS- want ‘He wants to hit him’

Based on the resulting stem forms, the morphological markers that make up the inflection can be identified. Figure 7.1 shows the verbal template for Yelmek. This figure illustrates the morphological markers used, and the information that can be gained from each position. The table that follows it shows a schematic representation of the morphological material (Table 7.1), as much as it is possible in a single layer. For the sake of transparency, I have omitted the object indexing and the directional marker, because these interact with the rest of the inflectional marking in ways that would be too confusing to represent in a single table1.

-1 0 +1 +2 +3 particle prefix STEM suffix suffix suffix subject gender subject number object gender tense aspect subject person subject person tense object number direction subject number subject number mood subject gender tense object person mood

Figure 7.1: Verbal template

Yelmek’s verbal inflection is a good example of a system in which the frame work ofCon- struction Grammar works very well. Construction morphology as advocated, for instance, by Booij (2010), treats complex words as constructions on the word level. That means that the way different parts are constructed together is considered essential for the meaning. Withitsin- flectional values spread over particles, prefix, stem and suffixes, Yelmek is a good case inpoint. Most inflectional forms, can only be interpreted by taking all the different marking sitesinto

1All of the different morphological marker will be explained in the section below. Notethat aSTEM is also a form of marking and not a name for a stem class. 205

Table 7.1: Overview of inflectional marking

Distant Past Recent Past -1 0 +1 +2 +3 -1 +1 +2 +3 1SG (w-) STEM -pu/-ai -ma (p/k-) STEM -a -ma 2SG (w-) STEM -pu/-ai -wa (p/k-) STEM -a 3SG.M (w-) STEM -pu/-ai (p/k-) STEM -a 3SG.F ka (w-) STEM -pu/-ai pa aSTEM -a 1PL ko (w-) STEM -pu/-ai (k-) STEM -a 2PL ko (w-) STEM -pu/-ai -ga (k-) STEM -a -ga 3PL ko (w-) STEM -pu/-ai (k-) STEM -a Present Future -1 0 +1 +2 +3 -1 +1 +2 +3 1SG pa aSTEM ma aSTEM -ai -ka 2SG ka aSTEM -(w)a ba aSTEM -ai -pu 3SG.M (k-) STEM ba aSTEM -ai -pən 3SG.F ka (k-) STEM ba aSTEM -ai -pa 1PL ko (k-) STEM ba aSTEM -ai -pa 2PL ko STEM -ga ba aSTEM -ai -pugo 3PL ko (k-) STEM ba aSTEM -ai -pa

account. This fact also favours an analysis in terms of morphomes, a “form of phonological strings without straightforward semantic or inflectional values” (Evans 2019: 100). This term, introduced by Aronoff (1994), is used within a Paradigm-based theory of inflection, such as advocated by Stump (2016). A detailed analysis within any particular morphological theory of Yelmek’s verbal inflection is beyond the scoop of the present work and indeed not appropriate for a descriptive grammar. I mention these here only to highlight what Yelmek can contribute to more theoretical considerations. Throughout this description, my aim is to show the data as unfiltered by theory as possible, as to make it accessible to readers from different theoretical approaches. In the sections below, I will discuss in detail each inflectional category that is expressed on the verb, referring to the relevant slots (see the template in Figure 7.1). I will start with subject indexing (§7.1) and object indexing (§7.2). I follow Haspelmath (2013a) in using the term “indexing”, instead of “agreement”, because the controller that triggers the marking of a category on a verb is not overtly expressed in many cases. Yelmek is a pro-drop language and an inflected verb form without any overtly expressed argument NPs can constitute a complete utterance. After the section concerning the argument indexing, I will talk about tense(§7.3), aspect 206 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

(§7.4) and mood (§7.5) and finally directional markers (§7.6).

7.1 Subject indexing

7.1.1 Overview

Subject indexing is marked on the particle, in the prefix slot and in the third suffix slot. There- fore, I will restrict the discussion in this section to those three slots. There are four distinct series of index markers, one for each tense value: Distant Past Tense (DPST), Recent Past Tense (RPST), Present Tense (PRS) and the Future Tense (FUT). Tense is discussed in §7.3, but I will use the tense labels in this section for the marking sets to make them more recognisable. The subject indexing distinguishes first person, second person and third person, as wellas two number values, singular vs. plural. There is no dual, trial or paucal as found in many other southern New Guinea languages. In the third-person singular, there is a further distinction of gender: masculine and feminine (for more on gender assignment, see §5.1.3). Note that the first person plural and the third person plural are identical within each paradigm. The inflectional particles are obligatory where relevant and the indexing and TAM information cannot be fully interpreted without them. They do not appear in every cell of every tense paradigm. Each paradigm uses a slightly different set and in a different subset of cells. They also mean different things if they occur in different paradigms. The particle pa, for instance, marks third-person singular feminine in Recent Past Tense and first-person singular in Present Tense. Although they always precede the verb stem, they do not have to be adjacent to it. Material such as the direct object can intervene between the particle and the stem. In certain cells, which have a particle, the first vowel of a stem shifts to /a/. This isnota purely phonotactic process, because it also takes place when the particle is not adjacent. This happens for stems that start in /e/ or /o/. I call this an a-shift. Apart from that, the stem does not inflect for any subject category. Prefixes only index the subject in Recent Past Tense and Present Tense. The prefix in the Distant Past Tense only marks tense, i.e. it does not vary for any indexing category. The Future tense does not use prefixes. Of the suffix slots, only the third is used for indexing. The future tense has suffixes for all person/number/gender combinations that are expressed in the paradigm. The other three tenses only have suffixes for some of the cells. The Distant Past Tense has three suffixes andthe Recent Past Tense and Present Tense have two suffixes each, which are a subset of the suffixes used in the Distant Past Tense. Below, I will discuss the four index sets in turn. 7.1. SUBJECT INDEXING 207

7.1.2 Distant Past Tense marking

Table 7.2: Schematic representation of the Distant Past Tense subject inflection.

-1 +2 +3 eŋu ‘to eat’ (PRV) 1SG (w-) STEM -pu/-ai -ma weŋpuma 2SG (w-) STEM -pu/-ai -(w)a weŋpua 3SG.M (w-) STEM -pu/-ai weŋpu 3SG.F ka (w-) STEM -pu/-ai ka weŋpu 1PL ko (w-) STEM -pu/-ai ko weŋpu 2PL ko (w-) STEM -pu/-ai -ga ko weŋpuga 3PL ko (w-) STEM -pu/-ai ko weŋpu

The Distant Past Tense (DPST) shows subject indexing in the choice and distribution of particles, as well as in its suffix set. It also has a distinctive prefix /w-/ for stems starting in /e/or/o/,as well as an obligatory aspect suffix /-pu/ ‘perfective’ or /-ai/ ‘imperfective’, neither of which refer to the subject, but which clearly mark a form as Distant Past Tense, which helps in interpreting the particles and suffixes. Table 7.2 shows the schematic representation of the marking pattern, as well as the realisation for the verb eŋu ‘to eat’ in perfective aspect. The markers in boldface express subject agreement, whereas the greyed ones mark tense and aspect without reference to the arguments. They will be discussed more fully in §7.3 on tense and §7.4 on aspect, rather than in this section. In this marking set two different particles are used. The particle ko appears with plural forms. Only one of the singular forms has a particle, namely the third person feminine form. There are three suffixes that express subject indexing in this tense: First-person singular /- ma/, second-person singular /-wa/ and second-person plural /-ga/. Neither the third-person singular, nor the first or third-person plural mark the subject in the suffix. The onlyformin this paradigm that does not show any subject indexing overtly is the third-person masculine form. The only full syncretism in this marking pattern is between the first-person plural and the third-person plural.

7.1.3 Recent Past Tense marking

The Recent Past Tense marking set uses fewer particles, only one, and fewer suffixes, only two, than the Distant Past Tense paradigm. On the other hand, the prefix expresses subject number information for certain stems. Table 7.3 shows a schematic representation of the Recent Past Tense marking and again the realisation for the verb ‘to eat’. 208 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

Table 7.3: Schematic representation of the Recent Past Tense subject inflection.

-1 +1 +3 eŋu ‘to eat’ 1SG (p/k-) STEM -a -ma peŋama 2SG (p/k-) STEM -a peŋa 3SG.M (p/k-) STEM -a peŋa 3SG.F pa aSTEM -a pa aŋa 1PL (k-) STEM -a keŋa 2PL (k-) STEM -a -ga keŋaga 3PL (k-) STEM -a keŋa

The Recent Past Tense paradigm can be clearly identified by an /-a/ suffix in the first suffix slot (+1). If the stem ends in a vowel, this suffix overwrites the stem vowel. The /-a/ suffix does not carry any agreement information. It is still mentioned here, because the morphological form of the agreement markers would be ambiguous without this tense information. In this tense paradigm there is only one particle, pa, which marks the third singular feminine form. This particle triggers the a-shift for stems starting in /e/ or /o/, again even whenthe particle is not adjacent to the stem. In terms of suffixes, only the first person singular andthe second person plural carry a marker, /-ma/ for first-person singular and /-ga/ for second-person plural. The prefix in slot -1 also carries agreement information in this tense paradigm. Ifthestem starts in an /u/ then all forms, except the third person singular feminine, have the prefix /k-/. If the stem starts in any other vowel the prefix is /p-/ in singular and /k-/ in plural, thus encoding number information of the subject. Stems starting in a consonant do not allow a prefix2. Even though subject agreement information can be expressed by particles, prefixes and suffixes, there are more syncretic forms in this paradigm than in the Distant Past Tense.The second-person singular and the third-person singular masculine use the same form. So do the first-person and third-person plural. When the stem starts in a consonant or triggers the/k-/ prefix in the singular forms, all four forms are syncretic to eachother.

7.1.4 Present Tense marking

The Present Tense inflection does not have any dedicated tense markers. Slot +1 and +2are not used. This in itself helps to identify a given verb form as Present Tense. This is crucial, because it uses morphological material that also occurs in the Distant Past Tense as well as in the Recent Past Tense, but in a slightly different arrangement. Table 7.4 shows a schematic

2For more information on stem classes see §7.1.6 7.1. SUBJECT INDEXING 209 representation of the marking of the Present Tense paradigm. A comparison of the different morphological markers across tense paradigms can be found in §7.1.7.

Table 7.4: Schematic representation of the Present Tense inflection.

-1 +3 eŋu ‘to eat’ 1SG pa aSTEM pa aŋu 2SG ka aSTEM -(w)a ka aŋua 3SG.M (k-) STEM keŋu 3SG.F ka (k-) STEM ka keŋu 1PL ko (k-) STEM ko keŋu 2PL ko STEM -ga ko keŋuga 3PL ko (k-) STEM ko keŋu

All but the third person singular masculine forms have a pre-verbal particle. For plural subjects this is ko, which can also be found in the Distant Past Tense. Also like the Distant Past Tense, the third-person singular feminine is marked with the particle ka. However, unlike the Distant Past Tense, the second-person singular is marked with ka as well and the first-person singular has a particle that has the same form as the third-person singular feminine marker in the Recent Past Tense paradigm, pa. The suffixes (slot +3) in this tense paradigm also have morphological forms that occurin the Distant Past Tense. However there are only suffixes in the second person, /-wa/ in second- person singular and /-ga/ in second-person plural, whereas the Distant Past Tense also has a suffix for first-person singular. The Present Tense marking also includes a prefix in slot -1. Its morphological form is /k-/ as in the Recent Past Tense, but unlike in the Recent Past Tense, the /k-/ is added to all vowel- initial stems, disregarding the specific vowel quality. Another difference is that the prefix only applies to third person forms, singular and plural, as well as first-person plural. Therefore, the prefix carries some weight in interpreting the agreement information. The forms without the prefix have a vowel change of stem-initial vowels to /a/. The result is that only the first-person plural and the third person plural show a syncretism.

7.1.5 Future Tense marking

The indexing in future tense uses particles and suffixes (slot +3) in all cells in the paradigm and prefixes in none. On the other hand, there is a-shift in all cells of the stem starting in/e/or/o/. 210 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

A schematic representation of the marking is given in Table 7.5.3

Table 7.5: Schematic representation of the Future Tense inflection.

+3 eŋu ‘to eat’ 1SG ma aSTEM -ka ma aŋka 2SG ba aSTEM -pu ba aŋpu 3SG.M ba aSTEM -pən ba aŋpən 3SG.F ba aSTEM -pa ba aŋpa 1PL ba aSTEM -pa ba aŋpa 2PL ba aSTEM -pugV ba aŋpuge 3PL ba aSTEM -pa ba aŋpa

Where in the other three tense paradigms it was necessary to consider particles, prefixes and suffixes together to disambiguate the indexed values, in the future tense paradigm the suffix alone indexes all relevant subject categories. The suffixes in this paradigm arealsomor- phologically distinct from the ones in the three other tense paradigms. The particles in this set only make one agreement distinction. The first person singular is marked with ma, whereas all other forms are marked with ba. The remaining syncretism between third-person singular, first-person plural and third-person plural is reflected in both particle and suffixsets.

7.1.6 Stem classes

The subject-indexing part of the verbal inflection is very regular in Yelmek, but there aresome particularities that group verb stems into stem classes. I refer to these as stem classes, rather than verb classes, because, as we will see in the section on object indexing (§7.2), a verb can have several stem alternations, which can each belong to a different stem class. The inflectional particularities, which will be discussed in this section, pertain to the morpho-syntactic form of the stem, not the semantics of the verb. There are four stem classes, which differ mainly in their ability to occur with prefixes. They are listed below together with the phonological property they can be recognised by. Note that even though they can be characterised by their phonological properties, the marking particularities for each class are not phonologically determined.

• Class 1: Stems starting in /e/ or /o/

3The second-person-plural suffix is given as -pugV because there is some variation in this vowel between verbs. For eŋu ‘to eat’ the form ends in /e/, but for other verbs the suffix can be -puga or -pugo. The systematicity behind variation is yet to be determined. 7.1. SUBJECT INDEXING 211

• Class 2: Stems starting in /i/

• Class 3: Stems starting in /u/

• Class 4: Stems starting in consonants

Class 1 is the largest class and it also has the largest number of marking possibilities, i.e. it allows more prefixes and prefix distinctions. This class occurs with prefixes in alltenses where relevant. In the Recent Past Tense it uses the special prefix set which makes a number distinction. This is also the only stem class that shows the a-shift.

Table 7.6 shows the paradigm of eŋu ‘eat’, combining all the separate tense paradigms we have seen throughout the last section. The stem belongs to Class 1 and illustrates the features specific to this class. All morphological marking particular to this stem class is giveninbold the table. In the Distant Past Tense, the /w-/ prefix occurs. In the Recent Past, there is a prefix /p-/ in the singular and /k-/ in the plural, as opposed to just a prefix /k-/ in the entire paradigm. Therefore, this is one of the two stem classes that mark number agreement for the subject in Recent Past Tense. In the Present Tense paradigm the prefix is /k-/ in the forms that allowa prefix. This verb stem also uses the a-shift, which changes the initial vowel of the stemto/a/ for most of the cells that have a particle with the vowel /a/.

Table 7.6: Inflectional paradigm for eŋu ‘to eat’

DPST RPST PRS FUT 1SG weŋpuma peŋama pa aŋu ma aŋka 2SG weŋpua peŋa ka aŋua ba aŋpu 3SG.M weŋpu peŋa keŋu ba aŋpən 3SG.F ka weŋpu pa aŋa ka keŋu ba aŋpa 1PL ko weŋpu keŋa ko keŋu ba aŋpa 2PL ko weŋpuga keŋaga ko keŋuga ba aŋpuge 3PL ko weŋpu keŋa ko keŋu ba aŋpa 212 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

Table 7.7: Inflectional paradigm for iblo ‘to chase’

DPST RPST PRS FUT 1SG iblopma piblama pa iblo ma ibloka 2SG iblopua pibla ka ibloa ba iblopu 3SG.M iblopu pibla kiblo ba iblopən 3SG.F ka iblopu pa ibla ka kiblo ba iblopa 1PL ko iblopu kibla ko kiblo ba iblopa 2PL ko iblopuga kibloga ko kibloga ba iblopugo 3PL ko iblopu kibla ko kiblo ba iblopa

The stems in Class 2 take the same Recent Past Tense prefix set as the stems in Class 1. Therefore, this is the other stem class that marks subject in the prefix here. On the other hand, they neither have a prefix in Distant Past Tense nor do they show a-shift. Table 7.7 shows an example paradigm for the verb iblo ‘to chase’.

Class 3 stems get prefixed in Recent Past Tense and Present tense. However, the prefixset in Recent Past Tense does not distinguish number. Table 7.8 shows the inflectional paradigm of ukalo ‘to climb’. It allows the /k-/ prefix in the Recent Past Tense, but instead of having /p-/ in the singular as the Class 1 and Class 2 stems, it has /k-/ in singular and plural. This stem class neither allow the /w-/ prefix in the Distant Past Tense, nor does it show the a-shift.

Table 7.8: Inflectional paradigm for ukalo ‘to climb’

DPST RPST PRS FUT 1SG ukalopma kukalama pa ukalo ma ukalka 2SG ukalopua kukala ka ukaloa ba ukalpu 3SG.M ukalopu kukala kukalo ba ukalpən 3SG.F ka ukalopu pa ukala ka kukalo ba ukalpa 1PL ko ukalopu kukala ko kukalo ba ukalpa 2PL ko ukalpuga kukalago ko ukaloga ba ukalpugo 3PL ko ukalpu kukala ko kukalo ba ukalpa

Lastly, Class 4 does not occur with subject agreement prefixes at all. It does not have a-shift. Table 7.9 shows the paradigm for pio ‘to jump’. 7.1. SUBJECT INDEXING 213

Table 7.9: Inflectional paradigm for pio ‘to jump’

DPST RPST PRS FUT 1SG pipma piama pa pio ma pika 2SG pipua pia ka pioa ba pipu 3SG.M pipu pia pio ba pipən 3SG.F ka pipu pa pia ka pio ba pipa 1PL ko pipu pia ko pio ba pipa 2PL ko pipuga piaga ko pioga ba pipuga 3PL ko pipu pia ko pio ba pipa

7.1.7 Subject indexing: Summary

As we saw above, the four tenses have a very distinct pattern, which differs in what marking strategy is used and where the syncretisms are. There is one syncretism that is present in all four marking patterns: the first-person plural and the third-person plural are the same ineach of them. In all other respects, the marking patterns vary and it is necessary to look at all three marking sites, particles, prefixes and suffixes, to determine what cell in the paradigm aform belongs to. Table 7.10, shows the particles in all four tense paradigms. From this table it is clear that particles do not consistently mark the same cell. In the Future Tense all cells have a particle, whereas in the Recent Past Tense only the third-person singular is marked by a particle. The other two paradigms fall somewhere in between. The Present Tense marks all but the third- singular masculine form with a particle, whereas the Distant Past Tense only uses particles for the plural forms and the third-person feminine singular. The morphological form of some particles is not exclusive to a tense paradigm. In the Distant Past Tense, Recent Past Tense and Present Tense the inventory of particles is the same, but the particles are used in different ways in each of them. The particle pa, for instance, is used to mark the third-person singular feminine in the Recent Past Tense, but it marks the first-person singular in the Present tense. The situation is similar for the particle ka, which is used for the third-person singular feminine in the Distant Past Tense and Present Tense, but is also used for second-person singular in Present Tense. Therefore it is necessary to know which tense a given form belongs to, to correctly interpret the particles. The Future Tense then uses an entirely different set of particles and makes a different distinction. Here the first-person singular is singled out by being marked differently to all other forms. 214 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

Table 7.10: Inflectional particles in all tense paradigms

DPST RPST PRS FUT 1SG pa ma 2SG ka ba 3SG.M ba 3SG.F ka pa ka ba 1PL ko ko ba 2PL ko ko ba 3PL ko ko ba

The prefixes in slot -1 also pattern interestingly across the four tenses, as shown inTable 7.11. They only index subject number in Recent Past Tense and Present Tense. In the Distant Past Tense all forms can have the same prefix and in the Future tense no form has a prefix.How they convey subject information differs as well. In the Present Tense it is simply the casethat certain forms do not allow a prefix (first and second-person singular as well as second-person plural). In the Recent Past Tense, on the other hand, certain stem classes have a different prefix in the singular compared to the plural. It is also noteworthy that which stem class takes a prefix differs from one tense to another. The prefix /w-/ in the Distant Past Tense onlyoccurs on Class 1 stems. In the Recent Past Tense stems of Class 3 will have a prefix /k-/ in singular and plural, but stems of Class 1 or Class 2 have a prefix /p-/ in the singular and a /k-/ inthe plural. This radically differs from the Present Tense in which all stems of Class 1,2and3get a /k-/ prefix.

Table 7.11: Inflectional prefixes in all four tense paradigms

DPST RPST PRS FUT 1SG (w-) p/k- 2SG (w-) p/k- 3SG.M (w-) p/k- k- 3SG.F (w-) k- 1PL (w-) k- k- 2PL (w-) k- 3PL (w-) k- k-

Table 7.12 shows the suffixes in slot +3. The suffixes are easier to interpret in the sensethat morphological markers do not mark different cells in the different tenses. However, which cells have an suffix in slot +3 still varies greatly. The Future Tense again has suffixesinall 7.1. SUBJECT INDEXING 215 cells, which differ completely from the suffixes in the other paradigms. The Distant PastTense uses three suffixes (first and second-person singular as well as second-person plural). Theother two tenses use a subset of the Distant Past Tense suffixes. The Recent Past Tense uses the first- person singular suffix and the second-person plural suffix, whereas the Present Tense usesthe second-person suffixes for singular and plural.

Table 7.12: Inflectional suffixes in all four tense paradigms

DPST RPST PRS FUT 1SG -ma -ma -ka 2SG -wa -(w)a -pu 3SG.M -pən 3SG.F -pa 1PL -pa 2PL -ga -ga -ga -pugV 3PL -pa

Lastly, a comparison of the occurrence of the a-shift across the four tense paradigms (Table 7.13) shows that it only appears in cells that also have a particle with an /a/ vowel. However, in some cells no a-shift occurs even though such a particle is present. This is the caseforthe third-person singular feminine in both the Distant Past Tense and in the Present Tense, which indicates that the a-shift is not merely a phonologically-conditioned reflex of the /a/ofthe particle.

Table 7.13: /a/-shift in all four tense paradigms

DPST RPST PRS FUT 1SG pa aSTEM ma aSTEM 2SG ka aSTEM ba aSTEM 3SG.M ba aSTEM 3SG.F ka pa aSTEM ka ba aSTEM 1PL ko ko ba aSTEM 2PL ko ko ba aSTEM 3PL ko ko ba aSTEM 216 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

7.2 Object indexing

The verb indexes the person, gender and number of its direct object. The person of the object is marked as a prefix, whereas the gender and number feature are marked by stem alternation. The object indexing intersects with the subject indexing, but there are no combined markers. Nor does object indexing make any reference to tense, aspect or modality. Although the verb indexes the same categories for subjects and for objects (number, gender, person) the marking strategies for object indexing are very different. The three features, person, gender and number, do not show distributed exponence, nor do they have portmanteau marking. They do indeed have distinct marking sites, the prefix for the person feature and stem for the gender and number feature, as well as different marking pre-requisites, e.g. what verbs they can apply to. The three features only intersect to a limited extent. Person intersects with gender since gender is only distinguished for third-person object forms and number intersects with gender, since gender is only expressed in singular forms.

Because the marking strategies for each feature differ so drastically, I will discuss each in turn. I will start with the affixal person marking (§7.2.1), continue with gender marking on the stem (§7.2.2) and the number marking on the stem (§7.2.3).

7.2.1 Object indexing for person

The object indexing prefix distinguishes three person values; first person (speaker), second person (addressee) and third person (non-speech-act-participant). It does not make any further reference to number or gender. First and second-person objects are expressed by prefix. For third-person object there is no morphological marking. It can be identified paradigmatically, i.e. by the lack of first and second-person marking. Only to this unmarked third-person stem does the stem change for gender apply (see §7.2.2). The stem change for number also applies to the first and second-person forms (see §7.2.3). Table 7.14 shows a schematic representation of the person indexing for objects and how it is realised on the example of kapo ‘to meet’ and olomo ‘to call to somebody’. Below, I will elaborate on each of the markings. 7.2. OBJECT INDEXING 217

Table 7.14: Object indexing for the person feature

Marking ‘to meet’ ‘to call’ (Present Tense) (Present Tense) First person ŋə/- STEM ŋəkapo (SG) ŋəlomo (SG) ŋəkapo (PL) ŋəlomo (PL) Second person a/- STEM kapo (SG) palomo (SG) kapo (PL) palomo (PL) Third person STEM kapo (SG) polomo (SG) kapo (PL) polomo (PL)

First-person object marking

If the object is a first person, the prefix /ŋə-/ is added to the stem4. For instance, if the verb kapo ‘to meet’ is expressed with a first-person object, it becomes ŋəkapo ‘to meet me/us’. There is evidence that the schwa is phonemic in this morpheme. If the verb stem starts in a vowel, the schwa replaces that vowel, e.g. olomo ‘to call to s.b.’ becomes ŋəlomo ‘to call to me/us’. This first-person object prefix occupies the same slot as the subject indexing prefixes.If they both apply at the same time, i.e. tense paradigms that actually have a prefix in the given form, then the object prefix takes precedence and the subject prefix or tense prefix isnotex- pressed. There is no effect on the particles. The examples in(277) and (278) illustrated this with contrastive examples from the olomo ‘to call to’ paradigm. Example (277a) shows the inflection of olomo for a third person object in Recent Past Tense. This form has a /p-/ prefix as part of the subject indexing. The form in (277b), also Recent Past Tense, has a first-person object and therefore a first-person object prefix instead of the subject prefix.

4There is formal similarity to the free pronoun for first-person singular ŋəl, which indicate a diachronic relationship. 218 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

(277) a. poloma p- olomo -a RPST.SG.SBJ- call -RPST ‘He called to her/him/them.’

b. ŋəloma ŋə- olomo -a 1OBJ- call -RPST ‘He called to me/us.’

The examples in (278) are in Distant Past Tense and show the same pattern. Example (278a) has the tense prefix /w-/, which is replaced by the object prefix in(278b).

(278) a. wolompu w- olomo -pu DPST- call -PRV ‘He called her/him/them.’

b. ŋəlompu ŋə- olomo -pu 1OBJ- call -PRV ‘He called to me/us.’

The examples in (279) show this in utterances from the corpus for the verb eŋaye ‘to see’. Combined with the first-person prefix it becomes ŋəŋaye in both singular (see 279a) and plural (see 279b).

(279) a. ame ŋəŋayepu ebi ame ŋə- eŋaye -pu ebi who 1OBJ- see.F.OBJ -PRV DIS ‘Who saw me?’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 03 #38) 7.2. OBJECT INDEXING 219

b. ika ŋagol eki ebia ebia ŋəŋayep ika ŋag -l eki ebia ebia ŋə- eŋaye -pu then 1PL -ACC DEM.ACC DEM.DIST DEM.DIST 1OBJ- see.PL.OBJ -PRV ‘He saw us there.’ (TG1-LibeTravel recording 01 #197)

The particles of the subject indexing are not affected by the object prefix. Example (280) illustrates this for the Distant Past Tense and example (281) for the Future Tense. Example (280a) has a third-person object and therefore shows both the subject marking particle ko and the prefix /w-/. In contrast, (280b) has a first-person object form. Here the prefix is replaced with the object prefix, but the particle stays the same. The same is true for the FutureTense particle in (281), which is not affected by object indexing.

(280) a. ko wolompu ko w- olomo -pu DPST.PL.SBJ DPST- call -PRV ‘They called her/him/them.’

b. ko ŋəlompu ko ŋə- olomo -pu DPST.PL.SBJ 1OBJ- call -PRV ‘They called to me/us.’

(281) depi ba ŋəyopopən

depi ba ŋə- oyopo -pən hug FUT.N1SG.SBJ 1OBJ- embrace -3SG.SBJ.IRR

‘He will embrace me.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #356)

The first-person object prefix is also used in experiencer constructions, where the stimulus is the subject and the experiencer the affected object. In example (282), the experiencer is a first-person object. Therefore the verb emge ‘to put’ is marked with the object prefix. As with the examples above, the expected tense prefix, here /w-/ for Distant Past Tense, is not visible when the first-person object prefix is present. 220 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

(282) bisa mauko, ŋələl oyo eme ŋəmgep

bisa mauko ŋəl -l oyo eme ŋə- emge -pu able not 1SG -ACC fear already 1OBJ- put.PL.OBJ -PRV

‘I can’t. I am already afraid.5’ (TG1-LibeTravel recording 02 #180)

Second-person objects

If the object is a second-person singular or plural, the first vowel of the stem changes to /a/. In contrast to the first-person object marking, the prefixes of the subject indexing still apply regularly. The examples in (283) correspond to the examples in (277) and (278) above. They show the second-person object indexing for the verb olomo ‘to call to’. They show the same prefixes as in example (277a) and (278a), instead of deleting them as the first-person object prefix does in example (277b) and (278b). However, the object prefix still overrides the first vowel of the stem. With a third-person object (283a) would be polomo and (283b) wolomo as in example (277) and (278) respectively (this is also illustrated in Table 7.15).

(283) a. paloma p- a- olomo -a RPST.SG.SBJ- 2OBJ- call -RPST ‘He called to you.’

b. walompu w- a- olomo -pu DPST- 2OBJ- call -PRV ‘He called you.’

In example (284), the use of the second-person object prefix is illustrated on corpus examples for the verb epŋe ‘to hit’. Because the verb stem is of Class 1, there is a subject marking prefix /p-/ in this Recent Past Tense inflection. For a third-person object the form wouldbe pepŋa, but because the object is a second person, it is papŋa. Example (284b) shows the same effect for the verb elpaye ‘tell’. Because the stem starts in /e/, it receives a prefix /w-/ in Distant Past Tense and would result in the form welpayepu for a third-person object. With a second- person object, however, it is walpayepu.

5bisa is a Indonesian word. 7.2. OBJECT INDEXING 221

(284) a. awol eki ima bana awol papŋa au -l eki ima ban =a au -l p- a- epŋe -a 2SG -ACC DEM.ACC IG.thing ABL =Q 2SG -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- 2OBJ- hit -RPST ‘Why did he hit you?’ (TG1-LibeTravel recording 03 #88)

b. awol walpayepu? au -l w- a- elpaye -pu 2SG -ACC DPST- 2OBJ- tell -PRV ‘Who told you?’ (TG1-LibeTravel recording 03 #38)

On the surface, the second-person object prefix /a-/ looks very similar to the a-shift, which occurs with Class 1 stems in some cells of the paradigm. Especially in the Future Tense inflection the forms are ambiguous. For instance, the verb elige ‘to ask’ has an a-shift for all forms of the Future Tense Paradigm (Table 7.15; for more information in Future Tense inflection and a-shift, see §7.1.5).

Table 7.15: Future Tense inflection for elige ‘to ask’

elige ‘to ask’ 1SG ma aligeka 2SG ba aligepu 3SG.M ba aligepa 3SG.F ba aligepən 1PL ba aligepa 2PL ba aligepugo 3PL ba aligepa

If this verb is used with a second person object as in (285), no further change occurs. The first vowel of the stem has already shifted to /a/, therefore only the second person accusative pronoun makes clear that it is a second-person object. The verb form is ambiguous. Without the pronouns, the utterance could be interpreted as “I will ask her/him/them what their name is.”. 222 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

(285) awol ma aligeka oka ŋədel awak ameke

au -l ma alige -ka oka ŋədel awak ameke 2SG -ACC FUT.1SG.SBJ ask -1SG.IRR DIS name 2SG.POSS who

‘I will ask you what your name is.’ (TG1-InterviewMarselina #4)

Despite the ambiguous forms, the second-person object prefix is different from the a-shift, which only occurs if a particle is present in a given cell. The a-shift also never coincides with a prefix. The second person prefix, on the other hand, occurs in all cells, regardless ofwhether there are any particle or prefix.

7.2.2 Object indexing for gender

Grammatical gender in Yelmek is only expressed on the verb. Yelmek has a two way-gender distinction, which aligns with biological sex for animate nouns, i.e. masculine vs. feminine, and is lexically defined for inanimate nouns. The semantics of the assignment of genderare fully discussed in §5.1.3. This section is concerned with the expression of gender. The verb inflects for both subject (intransitive and transitive) and object gender, but the marking strategy is essentially different. The gender of the subject is marked by particles and suffixes (see§7.1), whereas the gender of the object gender is expressed in stem alternations. This is a cross- linguistically particularly rare, possibly unique, morphological phenomenon. Example (286) illustrates the six possible combinations: feminine subject and feminine object in (286a), feminine subject and masculine object in (286b), masculine subject and feminine object in (286c), as well as masculine subject and masculine object in (286d). For comparison, I have added two examples for intransitive subjects as well ( see ex. 286e and ex. 286f ). The details of the subject indexing are discussed in §7.1. Below, I will elaborate on the object indexing for number (see §7.2.3).

(286) a. pa ayapo -a RPST.F.SBJ hold.F.OBJ -RPST ‘She held her.’

b. pa aŋepe -a RPST.F.SBJ hold.M.OBJ -RPST ‘She held him.’ 7.2. OBJECT INDEXING 223

c. p- oyopo -a RPST.SG.SBJ- hold.F.OBJ -RPST ‘He held her.’

d. p- eŋepe -a RPST.SG.SBJ- hold.M.OBJ -RPST ‘He held him.’

e. pa te -a RPST.F.SBJ enter -RPST ‘She entered.’

f. te -a enter -RPST ‘He entered.’

Not all Yelmek verbs have alternating stems. Of the 120 verbs for which I have reliable paradigms for, 70 verbs do not change at all. There is no clear semantic distinction between verbs with non-alternating stems and those with alternating stems. Intransitive verbs have no alternating stems naturally. However, a number of those 70 non-alternating stems are not intransitive. Of the 50 verbs with alternating stems, 7 have alternating stems for number, but not for gender. They will be discussed in the next section (§7.2.3). This section will focus on the 43 verbs that have alternating stems to mark a gender distinction. Object indexing distinguishes two genders, masculine and feminine. The gender distinction is only made in the third person and only in the singular. In (287), two examples are given; one with a masculine object (287a) and one with a feminine object (287b). The gender distinction is only visible in the verb. In the clause with the masculine object, the form baiye is used, whereas in the clause with the feminine object the form is eŋaye. Even though these two forms are phonologically very different, it is still the same verb. This is similar to the suppletive verb forms ‘go’ and ‘went’ in English. The forms of the stems and to what extent they are suppletive will be discussed in detail further below. 224 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

(287) a. ŋəl omgo wutnek ebi baiyama ŋəl omgo wutek -nek ebi baiye -a -ma 1SG person small -ATTR.SG DET.SG.ACC see.M.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I saw the small man.’

b. ŋəl omgo wutnek ebi peŋayama ŋəl omgo wutek -nek ebi p- eŋaye -a -ma 1SG person small -ATTR.SG DET.SG.ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- see.F.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I saw the small woman.’

The feminine stem is the default stem and the masculine stem the marked one, even though the default gender in terms of gender assignment is the masculine (see §5.1.3 on gender assignment). This sounds counter-intuitive, but Gray and Gregor (2019) show it can be accounted for assuming under-specification for gender at some level. This section is only concerned withthe expression of gender. The evidence for the feminine stem as default shows in several circum- stances. For instance, if the object is plural then the stem has the same form as the feminine stem. In example (288a) the object of the clause is ‘(several) women’, whereas in (288b) it is ‘(several) men’. The verb form in both clauses is the same. Note, that the verb is not the only agreement target for other noun categories. In (288a) and (288b), the noun modifier, as well as the determiners mark plurality. Gender is the only noun category that is solely expressed on the verb (see §5.1 on noun categories).

(288) a. ŋəl omgo modulionemek emi peŋayama ŋəl omgo modulio -nemek emi p- eŋaye -a -ma 1SG person female -ATTR.PL DET.PL.ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- see.F.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I saw the small women.’

b. ŋəl omgo gomnemek emi peŋayama ŋəl omgo gom -nemek emi p- eŋaye -a -ma 1SG person male -ATTR.PL DET.PL.ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- see.PL.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I saw the small men.’

For first and second person objects, the feminine stem is used as well. This isfurther evidence that the feminine stem is the default form and the masculine the marked one. Example (289) is from the Family Problem Picture Task. The speaker is talking about the thoughts of a 7.2. OBJECT INDEXING 225 man about to go to prison. In the story/on the picture, it is clearly a man thinking the thought, but the form used in this utterance is still the feminine one. Despite the feminine stem being the default stem, I will continue to gloss it and call it the feminine stem to make the distinction clear.

(289) ŋələl mad ba ŋəpŋaipa

ŋəl -l mad ba ŋə- epŋe -ai -pa 1SG -ACC like.this FUT.N1SG.SBJ 1OBJ- hit.F.OBJ -IPV -3PL.IRR

‘They will hit me like this.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #262, LG)

The forms of each stem display a gradient level of phonological similarity. Although there is no reliable way of predicting the stem alternation for any verb, it is possible to group verbs by the formal pattern of their alternation. We will discuss each of those possible groupings in turn. The first group of verbs all have stems belonging to Class 1(see§7.1.6 on stem classes). Table 7.16 shows a list of relevant stems. Table 7.16: Stem alternation for Class 1 stems

meaning stem for F.SG.OBJ stem for M.SG.OBJ CALL oko eke TAKE OFF owlo ewle GOSSIP oiyomo eyume EXTRACT olapo elape TIE oŋumo eŋume MOVE s.b. okio ekie FEAR oiyaŋo eyaŋe WATCH oulo eule PUT olo ele

Just considering the data in Table 7.16, I will first show how the alternation could be analysed as circumfix and then explain why that is not a good solution. The rule for thecircumfix could look the following way:

[푉 √푉 → 표√표/[−푚푎푠푐]]

[푉 √푉 → 푒√푒/[+푚푎푠푐]] 226 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

In the section on stem classes (§7.1.6) we saw that stems in Class 1 have additional morphological material in their inflection compared to other stems. They receive prefixes inthe Distant Past Tense and Recent Past Tense, which other stems do not. Therefore, it would seem fitting that they have other affixal markers particular to their class as well. However, thecircumfix analysis fails when taking other stems into account. For instance, there are alarge number of verbs, which have stems starting and ending in /e/, which do not alternate at all. These verbs use the same stem for masculine and feminine e.g. elpaye ‘to tell’ and elikle ‘to throw’. The same is true for stems starting and ending in /o/, e.g. olomo ‘to call to’ and oklo ‘to open’. Furthermore, there are stems that start and end in /e/ or /o/, but their alternation differs, e.g. ewiye ‘to search him’ alternates with oyo ‘to search her’ and eŋepe ‘to hold him’ alternates with oiyopo ‘to hold her’. Last but not least, there are stems that show the reverse pattern, i.e. they have /e/ in the feminine stem and /o/ in the masculine, like eme ‘to cut her’ and oto ‘to cut him’. The circumfix analysis alone therefore cannot account for the synchronic facts of the stem alternation of this group of verbs. Diachronically, a gender affix that changed the vowel is a very plausible pathway for the pattern we see today. However, this will be subject to future investigation. There is another conceivable group based on the first vowel. This group has stems from Class 2 as their masculine forms. That these stems belong to one stem class already indicates that this is a grouping. Table 7.17 shows examples of stems in this grouping. The stem alternation here is just in the first vowel; the masculine stem has an /i/ and the feminine stemhas an /o/. This again lends itself to an affixal analysis, with a possible prefix /i-/.

[푉 √푉 → 표√표/[−푚푎푠푐]]

[푉 √푉 → 푖√표/[+푚푎푠푐]]

Table 7.17: Stem alternation for Class 2 stems

meaning stem for F.SG.OBJ stem for M.SG.OBJ PUT INSIDE okŋo ikŋo PEEL oŋlo iŋlo SCAPE oko iko ERECT olo ilo

But again, as with the group above there are many exceptions. For instance, ‘to touch’ has the reverse pattern: igaiyo for feminine objects and ogaiyo for masculine objects. There are also verbs like ‘to lift’, which have a stem with /e/ for the feminine form, elepe, which coincides with 7.2. OBJECT INDEXING 227 a final /e/ for the masculine stem ilepe. As with the grouping above, this suggests a diachronic pathway via an affix. An /i-/ prefix would be conceivable.

Table 7.18: Verbs with a /m/ and a vowel-initial stem

meaning stem for F.SG.OBJ stem for M.SG.OBJ ATTACH emte məte SET UP omko məko PUSH emlie məlie CHOP eme me SPLIT omkle məkle PASS eŋle məŋle CUDDLE epe məpe FOLD omŋe məŋe

The third group of verbs has in common that the masculine stem starts in an /m/ (Table 7.18). Compared to the feminine stem, they seem to have lost the initial vowel and then a schwa is inserted to split up the consonant cluster. However, there are exceptions, for instance, ‘to pass’ and ‘to cuddle’ for which the /m/ seem to have been added to the feminine stem. Furthermore, there are stems that only have a minimal change, but do not group in a mean- ingful way for the amount of data I have currently available, three examples are shown in Table 7.19. It is likely that a larger amount of data will reveal other plausible groupings.

Table 7.19: Stems with one phoneme differences between stems

meaning stem for F.SG.OBJ stem for M.SG.OBJ BUY ekeme ekme UNTIE poiyako piake SHARE gale galie

To sum up the stem alternations that only have small differences between the stems, there is a high degree of irregularity in how stems alternate. The feminine stem is the base form. Evidence for that firstly comes from the fact that the feminine form is syncretic with theplural form, which does not mark gender and secondly from the fact that the feminine stem is also used for the gender-neutral first and second-person objects and for valency alternations (see §8.5). Therefore, treating the masculine as the marked value and the feminine as the unmarked one involves less complex rules and is therefore preferable. So far three alternation patterns have emerged: there is a group that has /o/ stem-initially and stem-finally in the feminine 228 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION form, which corresponds to /e/ in the masculine form. Another group has an initial /i/ in the masculine form, in the place of the initial vowel of the feminine form. In the third group, the masculine stem does not have the initial vowel the feminine form shows, instead starting with the consonant, which is always /m/ in the examples I have found. Therefore, the masculine stem cannot be predicted from the feminine stem even though this is the base form. It is, however, possible to know the feminine form from the masculine form with some degree of certainty. Practical rules could be as follows. If the masculine stem starts and ends in /e/ the feminine stem very likely starts and ends in /o/. If the masculine stem starts in /i/ then the feminine stem very likely starts and end in the same vowel that the masculine stem ended in. If the masculine stem starts in /m/, then the feminine stem very likely has an extra vowel in front of the /m/, which will be identical with the stem final vowel of the masculine stem. And then there are the stems that differ to a degree that they can be considered suppletion (Table 7.20).

Table 7.20: Verbs with two substantially different stems.

meaning stem for F.SG.OBJ stem for M.SG.OBJ stem for plural COOK ulo ibo HIT epŋe pliaŋe SEARCH oyo ewiye SEE eŋaye baiye CATCH/HOLD oiyopo eŋepe CUT eme oto BRING/TAKE odao ipe wako THROW emleŋe oikio kako

According to Mel’čuk (1994: 377) “two linguistic signs are in a relation of suppletion if the semantic difference between them is maximally regular (i.e., it is grammatical inflectional or derivational) while their formal difference is maximally irregular (i.e. it is not covered byany alternation)”. The stem alternation in Yelmek is semantically regular. When a given verb has a masculine singular object it uses one form of the alternating stems, when it occurs with any other kind of object it uses the other stem. On the other hand, the formal difference, as in the morpho-phonemic difference is maximally different, particularly for the stems inTable 7.20. This definition can be further refined. In the literature about suppletion, the phenomenon is usually treated as gradient, with weak suppletion on the one hand and strong suppletion on the other (for instance, Dressler 1985b, Veselinova 2006); weak suppletion referring to irregular changes with only small morpho-phonological differences and strong suppletion to large 7.2. OBJECT INDEXING 229 morpho-phonological differences, even entirely different forms. In Yelmek some of the small irregular changes, we saw above could be considered weak suppletion. More interesting are the cases in Table 7.20, which I argue are instances of strong suppletion, because the alternations are entirely unpredictable and they also show very substantial morpho-phonological changes. The reason I want to emphasise this is that verbal suppletion for gender is not mentioned anywhere in the literature for instance, neither Veselinova (2006) in her large typological study, nor Corbett (1991) or Corbett and Fedden (2016) mentioned it. Mel’čuk (1994: 362) discusses noun suppletion for gender, which is a phenomenon not widely accepted to even qualify as suppletion. The closest phenomenon, I have found is suppletion for noun classes in some Trans-New-Guinea languages in the Highland (Sonja Riesberg p.c). Verbal suppletion for gender is not the only suppletion that occurs in Yelmek. There is also verbal suppletion for number. This will be discussed in the next section.

7.2.3 Object indexing for number

For a restricted number of verbs (Table 7.21 and 7.22), Yelmek marks the number of the direct object by stem alternation. I am treating this as a different phenomenon to the gender alternation discussed in the last section. The gender alternation is sensitive to the number feature only in as much as the gender distinction is just made in the singular. Verbs that show the gender alternation, use the default stem for the plural forms (§7.2.2). In contrast, verbs that show stem alternation for number utilise distinct stems for the singular and the plural. In example (290a) the object is singular (one bow) and in example (290b) plural (two bows). As common nouns do show number marking themselves, the number of the object is only visible in the numeral and on the verb. The stems of the verb in both examples are different; elie for the singular object and epge for the plural object.

(290) a. eu mil pelia eu mi -l p- elie -a 3SG bow -ACC RPST.SG- give.SG.OBJ -RPST ‘He gave a bow.’

b. eu mil ina pepga eu mi -l ina p- epge -a 3SG bow -ACC two RPST.SG- give.PL.OBJ -RPST ‘He gave two bows.’ 230 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

This phenomenon is often discussed as verbal number or pluractionality in the literature (see Wood 2007 for a typological study of this phenomenon). It is common in languages of North America and a number of New-Guinea Languages have it as well. In the sample of the World Atlas of Language Structures, 34 out of 193 have this feature (Veselinova 2013b). Corbett (2000: 246) distinguishes between event number and participant number. According to him a plural event is one that involves, for instance, more than one time or more than one place (Corbett 2000: 246), which makes it more akin to verbal aspect than to number (Corbett 2000: 247). Participant number on the other hand, has varying verb forms depending on the number of participants (Corbett 2000: 247). Neither of these qualify as agreement for him. In Yelmek, stem alternation for number has similarities to participant number. I will argue, however, that it functions very much like agreement in this language. First of all, the marking does not index event number or distributivity. This can be seen in example (291), which describes a contrastive video pair, which involves ‘bringing’ and ‘giving’, both verbs have stems alternating for number in Yelmek (Table 7.21 and 7.22 below respectively). (291a) is a speaker’s response to watching a video showing three girls holding three coconuts and carrying them together to three sitting people. They put them down together, thus a collective activity (video number AsPl-1-5 by Lindsey and Schokkin). The contrasting example in (291b) describes a situation with the same scene, but now the three girls bring the coconuts one by one, thus distributively (video number AsPl-1-6 by Lindsey and Schokkin).

(291) a. miali ko kwako, mʉdem ŋi kemga mia -l =i ko k- wako mʉdem ŋi k- emge -a coconut -ACC =FOC PL.SBJ PRS- go.plOBJ three DIS RPST.SG.SBJ- put.PL.OBJ ‘They bring coconut. They put three down (collectively).’ ‘Mereka bawa kelapa. Mereka taru tiga.’ (TG1-PluracionalityAmbrosia #121)

b. ina miali ko wako wedep, emi ŋi kemga ina mia -l =i ko wako wedep two coconut -ACC =FOC PL.SBJ go AUX

em -i ŋi k- emge -a 3PL -ACC DIS RPST.SG.SBJ- put.PL.OBJ -RPST ‘Two bring coconuts, they put them down.’ ‘Mereka dua sedang ada bawa bawa kelapa mereka sudah taru’ (TG1-PluracionalityAmbrosia: 164) 7.2. OBJECT INDEXING 231

The older female speaker, who provided both utterances, uses the same verb stems, i.e. the plural forms. Thus, she does not distinguish the two events by stem alternation. What she does, however, is to express the distinction between collective and distributive event by construction. For the collective event, she uses the full verb wako ‘bring a plural object’ in its fully inflected form. The distributive event, on the other hand, she expresses bymeans of a auxiliary verb construction, using the inflected auxiliary verb wedep and the uninflected stem of ‘to bring’. This indicates that she is aware of the difference between the two videos. Incidentally, the speaker who transcribed the recording and who did not know which video was described in which instance, translated the sentence in (290b) with an iterative form in Indonesian. This is further evidence that this is how this distinction is linguistically encoded in Yelmek. Furthermore, in a different elicitation session in which I specifically showed thevideos one after another and pointed out the difference, the speakers still described them inthesame way (see TG1-20180709-ElicitationPluracionality). It is of course possible that plural event marking can be expressed with a stem change, but could just not be observed in a collective vs. distributive contrast like this. I think this is unlikely though. I have not found mismatches between the number of participants and the number the stem is expressing in my corpus. I conclude therefore, that the stem alternation in Yelmek does not mark event number. Only a restricted number of stems, six in total, have this stem alternation for number of the object. Two verbs, ‘to give’ and ‘to close’, have one stem to express singular and one for plural (Table 7.21). A further four verbs show the number alternation as well as gender alternation (Table 7.22).

Table 7.21: Stems that use stem alternation to indicate the number of the object (but not gender)

meaning stem for F.SG.OBJ stem for M.SG.OBJ stem for plural GIVE elie elie epge CLOSE bʉe bʉe eŋe

Table 7.22: Stems that use stem alternation to indicate the number and gender of the object.

meaning stem for F.SG.OBJ stem for M.SG.OBJ stem for plural PUT olo ele emge BRING/TAKE odao ipe wako THROW emleŋe oikio kako KILL ogu egule eke 232 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

Table 7.23: Intransitive verbs with stem alternation for subject number.

meaning stem for singular subject stem for plural subject ENTER te kəlki SLEEP okʉ omŋe FALL ŋaiyo ŋemge GO wako ŋa COME wago ekelme Copula mʉ ŋo

Languages with verbal number typically have ergative alignment for verbal number marking, i.e. they show verbal number marking for the sole argument of an intransitive clause and for the direct object of a transitive clause, but not for the agent of the transitive clause (Veseli- nova 2006: 160). This is also the case for Yelmek, even though in every other respect alignment is nominative-accusative (see §8.3). Table 7.23 shows the intransitive verbs that mark the number of the subject by stem alternation. This gives us 12 stems that show stem alternation for number. Cross-linguistically, this figure is quite high. Veselinova (2006) did a large typological study on suppletion. She found that 33 (17.09%) languages in her sample had suppletion for number, but the typical number of verbs that showed suppletion was 1-4. Only 8 out of the 33 languages had 10 verbs or more Veselinova (2006: 207). On the other hand, semantically the Yelmek verbs fall into the groups which Veselinova (2006: 154) has found in her sample. Her groups are, in order of number of occurrences: motion (intransitive), motion verbs (transitive), position, die/injure and stative verbs. Only 5% of the verbs she found do not fall in any of these categories (Veselinova 2006: 154). Of the verbs in Table 7.23, all except ‘to sleep’ and the copula are intransitive motion verbs and they fall into the category of stative verbs. The verbs in Table 7.21 and 7.22 are all transitive motion verbs, except for ‘to kill’, which belongs to the group of verbs expressing ‘die/injure’. Verbal number in Yelmek is therefore comparable to verbal number in other languages. Corbett (2000) and others, like Durie (1986), argue that verbal number is not agreement (or indexing). Instead, these cases are treated as classificatory verbs, which means they are only compatible with a restricted set of noun phrases (Corbett 2000: 248), like the distinction in English between ‘to kill’ and ‘to massacre’. Corbett (2000) also compares these to verbs, which also classify their referents like ‘to eat’ and ‘to drink’, which differ with respect to what is in- gested. Or verbs in languages, where the shape of the object matters for verbs like ‘to give’ or ‘to put’. He concludes that in these languages, there is no ‘grammatical roundness’. It is merely a matter of the lexical meaning of the verb (Corbett 2000: 248). Participant number works the 7.3. TENSE 233 same for him. Yelmek has a fairly large number of verbs, which makes an analysis as classificatory verbs less elegant. What is more, the stem alternation is also used to mark genderin such a large number of verbs that treating it as anything else than gender agreement/indexing would require a whole different level of theoretical justification. Moreover, there are verbs that have alternating stems for gender as well as number. This all points towards ‘agreement’ or ‘indexing’ as the best analysis for the Yelmek stem alternations for number as well as gender.

7.3 Tense

7.3.1 Overview

Following Comrie (1985: 9), tense is the expression of a location in time. It is distinct from aspect, which encodes the internal temporal structure of an event. This section will focus on tense, while aspect is discussed in the following section (see §7.4). Comrie (1985) distinguishes between absolute tense and relative tense. He defines absolute tense as having the present moment as its deictic centre (Comrie 1985: 36). Therefore, all locations in time are referred to from the point of view of the speech event. Conversely, relative tense uses a different point in time as its deictic centre or the reference point, usually given by the context (Comrie 1985: 56). Yelmek has four absolute tenses: Distant Past Tense, Recent Past Tense, Present Tense and Future Tense. There is one further tense distinction, which is just a relative tense and can not be used as an absolute tense; this is the Delayed Future. People customarily describe the distinctions between wekeke ‘yesterday’ and ŋopma ‘today’ with the process of making sep, a traditional food, prepared for special occasions (see TG1- MakingSep for a video of the process). The preparation takes several hours and is traditionally started between midnight and dawn. Therefore, people name this point in time as the start of ‘today’ (for more informations on temporal adverbials, see §4.7). Below, is a set of elicited examples to illustrate the distinction between the four tenses, starting with the Distant Past Tense (ex. 292), followed by the Recent Past Tense (ex. 293), then the Present Tense (ex. 294) and finally the Future Tense (ex. 295).

(292) wekeke wiked ulopma oŋal

wekeke wike -d ulo -pu –ma oŋa -l yesterday dawn/dusk -INST cook.PL.OBJ -PRV -1SG sago -ACC

‘Yesterday at dawn I cooked sago.’ (FNB_4 p. 83) 234 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

(293) ŋopma wiket kulama oŋal

ŋopma wiket k- ulo -a -ma oŋa -l today dawn/dusk RPST- cook.f/plOBJ -RPST -1SG sago -ACC

‘Today at dawn, I cooked sago.’ (FNB_4 p. 83)

(294) ŋəl oŋal kay pa ulo

ŋəl oŋa -l kay pa ulo 1SG sago -ACC PROG PRS.1SG cook.f/plOBJ

‘I am cooking sago.’ (FNB_4 p. 85)

(295) yopol wigle ma oŋal uloka

yopol wigle ma oŋa -l ulo -ka tomorrow morning FUT.1SG.SBJ sago -ACC cook. -1SG.SBJ.IRR

‘Tomorrow morning, I will cook sago.’ (FNB_4 p. 83)

Almost all inflectional tense markers on the verb encode subject categories as well. Very few markers mark tense alone. These are found in slot -1, the prefix slot, and +1, the first suffix slot (see Figure 7.1). I will discuss these markers in more detail together with the relevant tense pattern below. In §7.1 I discussed the inflection marking from the perspective of the subject indexing. In this section, I will discuss the marking from the perspective of tense.

7.3.2 Distant Past Tense

The Distant Past Tense is a pre-hodiernal tense; it is used for events that occur before the day of the speech act. No further distinctions are made for more remote past tenses. The example in (296) shows an utterance from a description of how to produce sago. The speaker is watching a video of the process and comments on it. The video has reached the final stage of the process where the woman is packing up the prepared sago starch. The speaker is summarising the process by explaining that the day before, the people have scraped out the sago palm. He saw that in the video I showed him previously. He is using the Distant Past Tense to describe the 7.3. TENSE 235 event from the day before (second clause). In contrast, he is using the Recent Past Tense to describe the beating process that has just ended (first clause).

(296) wekekeli ko demege wogpu, ŋopa ebi ŋi pa nomla

wekeke =i ko demege w- ogo -pu yesterday =FOC DPST.PL.SBJ work DPST- pound -PRV

ŋopma ebi ŋi pa nomlo -a today 3SG.ACC DIS RPST.F.SBJ beat -RPST

‘Yesterday they just scraped it. Today, she has beaten it.’ (TG1-Sago2_Marsel #144-145)

This is similar to example (297). Here the same speaker talks about traditional ways of fishing. He is comparing the traditional tools with the modern ones. For the first clauseabout the past he uses the Distant Past Tense and for the second clause about the present day, he uses the Present Tense.

(297) mekel wak balal ko wemgai, eked apiad ŋi ko kio

mekel wak bala -l ko w- emge -ai front LOC fishing_device -ACC PL.SBJ DPST- put.PL.OBJ -IPV

eked apia -d ŋi ko k- yo now net -INST DIS PL.SBJ PRS- do

‘In the past, they used fishing devices (made from hollow pieces of wood). Nowthey do it with fishing nets.’ (TG-Fishing_Mars #39)

Table 7.24 shows the inflectional marking in Distant Past Tense in the schematic representation and for the verb ‘to eat’. This Table is a repetition of the table in the section on subject indexing, because the Distant Past Tense marking is almost completely fused with the subject indexing. There is only one slot that has a marker, which exclusively marks tense in this paradigm. This is the prefix slot, which is filled with the prefix /w-/. This prefix form doesnot occur in any of the other of the tense paradigms; it only appears if the verb stem starts in /e/ or /o/. If the stem starts in a consonant or in any other vowel, there is no prefix. 236 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

Table 7.24: Distant Past Tense inflection

-1 +2 +3 eŋu ‘to eat’ 1SG (w-) STEM -pu/ai -ma weŋpuma 2SG (w-) STEM -pu/ai -(w)a weŋpua 3SG.M (w-) STEM -pu/ai weŋpu 3SG.F ka (w-) STEM -pu/ai ka weŋpu 1PL ko (w-) STEM -pu/ai ko weŋpu 2PL ko (w-) STEM -pu/ai -ga ko weŋpuga

Moreover, the Distant Past Tense is the only inflection paradigm with an obligatory aspect marker. This marker occurs in slot +2 and has the form /-pu/ or /-p/ for perfective (ex. 296) and /-ai/ for imperfective (ex. 297). The aspect distinction will be discussed in §7.4.

7.3.3 Recent Past Tense

The Recent Past Tense is used for events shortly before the speech event, usually only going back until about midnight of the preceding night. It is therefore a hodiernal past tense. In example (298), the speaker reports on what somebody else said earlier in the day, using the Recent Past Tense for the verb ‘to say’. She is voicing her displeasure about the fact that the expressed plan has not been followed through. She is using a Recent Past Tense again to say that it is already afternoon now.

(298) ŋopma eki ka kia “ŋak ŋalepe no kio” eki deide eme ŋayaŋka

ŋopma eki ka kio -a today DEM RPST.2SG say.RPST

ŋak ŋalepe no kio eki deide eme ŋayaŋk -a 1PL leave DIS want.PRS DEM afternoon already become -RPST

‘Today you said “we want to leave.’, (but) it already is (lit. became) afternoon.’ (TG1-TravelPlanAmbrosia 00:00:19 #4)

In a narrative, the Recent Past Tense can be used for events further back as well, if the events are connected to other events that are currently relevant, for instance, in a narrative where events are in a direct sequence with a current event. The example in (299) is from a story about a dog that gave birth in the early morning. The speaker told the story right after the dog was found. She uses the Recent Past Tense through the narrative. Note, that there is 7.3. TENSE 237 a night between the start of the sequence of events and the telling of the story. This suggests that tense boundaries can be stretched to some extent.

(299) kaya pa ŋalapa, ika meŋapa ŋayaŋka, ika ebiake aya pa ta damwake

kaya pa ŋalape -a PROG RPST.F.SBJ exit -RPST

ika meŋ a pa ŋayaŋke -a then turn EXCL RPST.F.SBJ turn -RPST

ika ebiak -ke aya pa te -a dam wak -ke then DEM.DIST -DIR PROG RPST.F.SBJ enter -RPST inside LOC -DIR

‘She came out again, then turns around then enters again.’ (TG1-DogStory #23)

The marking of the Recent Past Tense is fused with the subject indexing. Table 7.25 shows the schematic representation of the paradigm and how it is realised on the verb ‘to eat’. The one marker that just indicates tense on its own is the suffix in slot +1. It attaches to the stem directly. If the stem ends in a vowel, the vowel is replaced by the /-a/. There is no aspect marking on the Recent Past Tense.

Table 7.25: Recent Past Tense inflection

7.3.4 Present Tense

The Present Tense paradigm is used when describing events that occur at the time of the speech act and also for habitual events. This is in line with Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca’s (1994) definition of present tense, in that they view it not as a primarily deictic temporal reference, 238 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION but as a cover term for various types of imperfective situation with the moment of speech as the reference point (Bybee et al. 1994: 126). Nevertheless, I will call it Present Tense, because it has its own inflection pattern. In example (300), the speaker describes what is happening in the video she is watching. The video shows her and her family preparing traditional food. She uses Present Tense to describe what is happening on the screen at the moment she is talking about it.

(300) belul wewdi pa ayopo

belu -l wew -d =i pa oyopo stone -ACC bark -INST =FOC PRS.1SG hold.F.OBJ

‘I hold the stone with the bark.’ (TG1-MakingSep_Ambrosia #172)

Example (301), on the other hand, is from an interview. The speaker is being asked about her day-to-day life. She answers the question using the Present Tense to describe what she is doing habitually.

(301) oka wigle ŋi dewi we pa ŋekuame, a oŋa kay pa ulo emaken

oka wigle ŋi dewi we pa ŋ- kuame EXCL morning DIS dark COM PRS.1SG DTR- wake

a oŋŋa kay pa ulo em wak -ken EXCL sago PROG PRS.1SG cook.f/plOBJ 3PL LOC -DIR

‘It is still dark, when I get up in the morning. I cook food for them.’ (TG1-InterviewAmbrosia #14-15)

In contrast to the Distant Past Tense and the Recent Past Tense, the Present Tense does not have any marker, which exclusively marks tense. A given form can be identified by a lack of the marking the two past tenses show. Nevertheless, the subject indexing forms a paradigm distinct from the other tenses. Table 7.26 shows the schematic representation of the Present Tense Paradigm and its realisation for the verb ‘to eat’. 7.3. TENSE 239

Table 7.26: Present Tense inflection

7.3.5 Future Tense

Events that occur after the speech event are expressed with a distinct marking pattern, which I will call the Future Tense. The set of forms is used for events in both the near and the distant future. In example (302), for instance, the speaker first talks about what they will do later in the day and then what they will do tomorrow using the same inflection.

(302) yok ebi kay ma amŋeka yopol owo ka iba mepən yaguli kay ma kelkika

yok ebi kay ma omŋe -ka sleep DET.ACC PROG FUR.1SG sleep.PL.SBJ -1SG.SBJ.IRR

yopol owo kay ba me -pən tomorrow dawn PROG FUT.N1SG.SBJ cut -3SG.M.IRR

yaguli kay ma kəlki -ka song PROG FUT.1SG enter.PL.SBJ -1SG.SBJ.IRR

‘(Later) we will sleep. Tomorrow at day break we will go to church.’ (TG1-TravelPlanAmbrosia #34)

The same can be seen in examples (303) and (304), which are marked with the temporal adverb ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’ respectively, but the verbs have the same future marking. 240 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

(303) ŋag ŋopma ŋiba ŋalepepa

ŋag ŋopma ŋi ba ŋalepe -pa 3PL today DIS FUT.N1SG.SBJ leave -1PL.IRR

‘Today, we will leave.’ (TG1-TravelPlanAmbrosia #10)

(304) yopol ba ŋalepepən

yopo ba ŋalepe -pən tomorrow FUT.N1SG.SBJ leave -3SG.M.IRR

‘Tomorrow he will leave’ (TG1-LibeTravel recording 01 #76)

There is, however, a distinction that can be made within the Future Tense inflection. This distinction is not an absolute, but a relative one and it marks a ‘delayed’ future. This is marked on the particle. For the general future, the particles ma and ba are used, whereas for the delayed future the particle bema and bia are used. The forms ma and bema are used for first person singular and ba as well as bia for all other person and numbers. Example (305), for instance, is the answer to the question “Are we leaving today/now?’ The answer encodes the fact that there will be an intervening time span between now and when it will happen, e.g. something else needs to happen first. In the examples above (302-304), this is not expressed. There, only the adverb marks that the event will not happen immediately.

(305) yopol bia ŋalapepa

yopol bia ŋalape -pa tomorrow later leave -1PL.FUT

‘Tomorrow we will leave. (answering a question about leaving today)’ (TG1-TravelPlanAmbrosia #19)

This can also be used without a temporal adverb, as in example (306). Here it can be translated as ‘later’ and again encodes that there has to be an intervening time span. 7.4. ASPECT 241

(306) ai yopu: “bema akelmeka ebiake” ai yo -pu bema akelme -ka ebiak -ke PROG say -PRV later.SG enter.PL.SBJ -1SG.SBJ.IRR DEM.DIST -DIR ‘I said: Later we will go there’ (TG1-LibeTravel recording 01 #141)

Table 7.27: Future Tense inflection

+3 eŋu ‘to eat’ 1SG ma/bema aSTEM -ka ma aŋka 2SG ba/bia aSTEM -pu ba aŋpu 3SG.M ba/bia aSTEM -pən ba aŋpən 3SG.F ba/bia aSTEM -pa ba aŋpa 1PL ba/bia aSTEM -pa ba aŋpa 2PL ba/bia aSTEM -puge ba aŋpuge 3PL ba/bia aSTEM -pa ba aŋpa

Table 7.27 shows the inflectional paradigm for the Future Tense. It is composed of Irrealis suffixes, which encode person, number and gender of the subject (more information aboutthe Irrealis is provided in §7.5). On the other hand, it has the tense encoding particle pre-verbally. The particle only marks one distinction: it has a different form for first-person singular subject, ma ‘first-person singular future’ and bema ‘first-person singular delayed future’. All other forms are marked with the same particle; ba ‘future’ and bia ‘delayed future’.

7.4 Aspect

Comrie (1976: 3) defines aspect as “different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a situation”. It relates to how the structure of an event is perceived, rather than when the event is taking place. Aspect can be expressed in Yelmek by inflectional marking by the choice of suffix; /-pu/ for perfective and /-ai/ for imperfective. The morphological form of the aspectual marking is not influenced by subject or object indexing. It depends, however, on the tense marking inas much as only Distant Past Tense and Future tense allow marking for aspect on the verb (see §7.4.1). In addition to that, there is a set of adverbials that can further influence the aspectual interpretation of a clause (discussed in §7.4.2). Table 7.28 shows a list of both kinds of aspect markers. 242 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

Table 7.28: Aspect markers

verbal inflection -ai Imperfective -pu Perfective adverbial kay/kaya/ka/ai Progressive ‘when’ eme Completive ‘already’ ked Punctional ‘now’

7.4.1 Perfective and Imperfective

The aspectual distinction that is made as part of the verbal inflection is one between perfective and imperfective. According to Comrie (1976: 16) “perfectivity indicates the view of a situation as a single whole, without distinction of the various separate phases that make up that situation; while the imperfective pays essential attention to the internal structure of the situation”. In the Distant Past Tense the perfective is marked by the suffix /-p(u)/ as in example (307), and the imperfective by suffix /-ai/, see example (308). The /u/ of the perfective suffix is lost in some cells of the paradigm, most commonly in the first person form as in example (307a).

(307) a. ibopma ibo -pu -ma cook.M.OBJ -PRV -1SG.DPST ‘I cooked.’ (elicited example, LG)

b. ibopu ibo -pu cook.M.OBJ -PRV ‘He cooked.’ (elicited example, LG)

(308) ibaima

ibo -ai -ma cook.M.OBJ -IPV -1SG.DPST

‘I was cooking.’ (elicited example, LG) 7.4. ASPECT 243

Perfective in the Distant Past Tense is used to report on a string of events, as in the suc- cessive utterances in examples (309a-c). In these three utterances, the speaker reports on what happened a year earlier, when the researcher last came. The ‘descending by plane’, ‘not sleeping in a place’ and ‘passing by’ are all phrased with the perfective as individual, non- overlapping events.

(309) a. tətəlit ka ŋoplepu tətəli -d ka ŋ- ople -pu bird/plane -INST DPST.F.SBJ DTR- descend. -PRV ‘She came (lit. descended) by plane.’

b. ah yok ekdak ma wokupu ah yok ekdak ma w- oku -pu EXCL sleep here NEG DPST- sleep.SG.SBJ -PRV ‘She didn’t sleep here.’

c. klonil ka woyopula kloni -l ka w- oyo -pu -la pass_by -ACC DPST.F.SBJ DPST- pass -PRV -further ‘She passed by (here and went further).’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #41-42, AK)

In example (310), the speaker talks about the past and the implements they used for fishing, thus a habitual activity.

(310) məkəl wak balal ko wemgai

məkəl wak bala -l ko w- emge –ai front LOC Bala -ACC PL.SBJ DPST- put.PL.OBJ -IPV

‘First (in the past) they were using (lit. put) Bala (traditional fishing device)’ (TG-Fishing_Mars #3, MK)

Example (311) also has a habitual reading. Here the situation described is one that unfolds in a prison cell. 244 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

(311) yokga womŋai damwak

yok =ga w- omŋe -ai dam wak sleep =just DPST- sleep -IPV inside LOC

‘They were just sleeping like this inside (the prison).’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 03 #127. From the Family Problem picture task. De- scribing the state of the prison cell, LG)

On the other hand, example (312) expresses a continuous, rather than a habitual event. The utterance is from the Family Problems Picture Task. The speaker accuses his wife of cheat- ing, because she was seen with another man in the market, holding hands. This is describing one specific occurrence, thus not something that happens habitually. Even so, the distinction though is only clear from the context. In another context, this might well be interpreted as habitual.

(312) alpol ko ŋoyopaiga

alpo -l ko ŋ- oyopo -ai -ga hand -ACC DPST.PL.SBJ DTR- hold.F.OBJ -IPV -2PL

‘You were holding hands.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 03 #35, LG)

Note that the Distant Past Tense always has an aspect marker. This slot cannot be left empty. In the future tense only the imperfective is marked; by /-ai/ (ex. 313). In contrast to the Distant Past Tense, the aspect slot can be empty in the Future tense (ex. 314). Indeed, the Perfective marking might have merged with the subject indexing diachronically. Apart from the first-person singular, all subject indexing suffixes start with /p/: /-pu/ - ‘2SG’, /-pugo/-2PL, /-pa/ - ‘3SG.F/1PL/3PL’ and /-pən/ - ‘3SG.M’. This could be a residue of an overt perfective marker. The synchronic forms, however, are underspecified for aspect, if the imperfective marker isnot present. 7.4. ASPECT 245

(313) ma ibaika

ma ibo -ai -ka FUT.1SG cook.M.OBJ -IPV -1SG.SBJ.IRR

‘I will cook (continuously).’

(314) ma iboka

ma ibo -ka FUT.1SG cook.M.OBJ -1SG.SBJ.IRR

‘I will cook.’

How that is used is illustrated in example (315a-c). These utterances are taken from the Family Problems Picture Task and describe the picture of a man with bound hands, who is thinking about what life in prison will be like (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01). Example (315a) is not marked imperfective and therefore is neutral with respect to aspect. Example (315b) is marked imperfective. As in the Distant Past imperfective this utterance can be interpreted as a continuous or habitual event.

(315) a. ma teka bui dam ma te -ka bui dam FUR.1SG enter -1SG.IRR prison inside ‘I will go to prison.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #266)

b. ebala ma opoga … opoga ma yayaika, maya ma ŋalapaika ebala ma opo -ga from.here 1FUT.1SG eye -just

opo -ga ma yaye -ai -ka eye -just 1FUT.1SG look-IPV -1SG.SBJ.IRR

maya ma ŋalape -ai -ka NEG FUT.1SG exit -IPV -1SG.IRR

‘From here (the prison), I will just be looking (outside), I will not be exiting.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #267-268) 246 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

The recent past and the present tense do not use perfective and imperfective marking. This is not unusual. Comrie (1976: 73) notes that “an explicit perfective, distinct from the imperfective, is most common in the past tense, and least common in the present tense”. He argues that this follows simply because the present tense is “essentially a descriptive tense” and thus can normally only be of imperfective meaning (Comrie 1976: 72). If the Present Tense has inherent imperfective meaning, the Recent Past Tense can easily be argued to have the corresponding inherent perfective meaning. This view is supported by examples like (316). Here the completive adverb eme ‘already’ is used. For the utterance in Recent Past Tense (ex. 316a.) this brings out the perfective reading. Adding eme to that sentence does not change the interpretation, because it is viewed as a whole.

(316) a. omgo eme powla omgo eme p- owlo -a person already RPST.SG.SBJ.- sing -RPST ‘The person sang already’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #32)

b. omgo eme kowlo omgo eme k- owlo person already PRS- sing ‘The person already knows how to sing’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #33)

When eme is added the Present Tense utterance in (316b), however, it is not interpreted as a completed action in the present tense, but rather as an ability to perform the action, preserving the imperfective character of this tense. Example (317), shows how the Present Tense and the Recent Past Tense are used together to express the sequence and the completion of an event. The utterance is from the live commentary on a video. In the video, three girls carry three coconuts towards three sitting people and put the coconuts down in front of them. In the first clause, the speaker uses the Present Tense to describe what is happening. In the second clause, she uses the Recent Past Tense to indicate that the event is completed now. 7.4. ASPECT 247

(317) miali ko kwako, mʉdem ŋi kemga

mia -l =i ko k- wako mʉdem ŋi k- emge -a coconut -ACC =FOC PL.SBJ PRS- go.PL.OBJ three DIS RPST- put.PL.OBJ -RPST

‘They bring coconuts. They put three down (collectively).’ ‘Mereka bawa kelapa. Mereka taru tiga.’(Indonesian) (TG1-PluracionalityAmbrosia #121)

It would be possible to treat the Present Tense and the Recent Past Tense together as one hodiernal tense, in which the Present tense is the imperfective form and the Recent Past Tense the perfective form. However, because the Present Tense and the Recent Past Tense have distinct subject indexing paradigms, I treat them as distinct tenses. This is further supported by the fact that the perfective/imperfective distinction is marked in Distant Past Tense and Future Tense with dedicated suffixes, thus being morphologically entirely different from what this distinction would be like.

7.4.2 Aspectual adverbials

In addition to the grammaticalised method of expressing aspect, i.e. the suffixes, there are lexical or periphrastic ways to further define the temporal and aspectual structure of a predicate. There is the adverbs kay, which in a broad sense marks progression and is often used with the discourse function ‘when this happens …’, encompasses ‘while this happens …’ as well as ‘once this has happened …’. The contrasting adverb is ked, which marks that a momentary change occurs. It can be translated as ‘now’ or ‘at this moment’. The third adverb eme marks completion and can be translated as ‘already’. By definition, a progressive form views an action as ongoing at reference time. Itdiffers from an imperfective form, because it typically applies to dynamic predicates and not stative ones (Bybee et al. 1994: 126, Comrie 1976: 32). The adverb kay (alternative forms kaya, ka or ai) in Yelmek marks a predicate as progressive as in example (318). Here the speaker describes a process he has just seen happening on the screen. According to Comrie (1976: 50) a progressive implies a dynamic event, i.e. an event that requires effort to maintain. Conversely, a state does not require effort to maintain, only to start or change (Comrie 1976: 50). This is clearly the case in example (318), where the process described, the washing of the sago, is a dynamic process, which would stop if the agent stopped actively adding water. 248 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

(318) yu ebi kaya pa bəkla oŋal

yu ebi kaya pa bəkl -a oŋa -l water 3SG.CC PROG RPST.F.SBJ flush -RPST sago -ACC ‘She flushed out the sago with water.’ (TG1-Sago2_Marsel #65)

This marker kay is very often used as a discourse marker. In this function, it doesnot necessarily require dynamicity. It is, for instance, very commonly used with a copula to express that something is present. Example (319) describes the background of a scene, the presence of a beehive, which is important for the unfolding events in this particular story.

(319) wəw ai kəm

wəw ai kəm beehive PROG COP1.3SG ‘There is a beehive.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Libe #64)

In example (320), the progressive adverb is combined with an imperfective Distant Past Tense form. The situation described here in the most basic interpretation is that the predicate in the first clause happened (the arrest), while the predicate in the second clause (the hitting) was in progress.

(320) ima ban ko weŋepep … aa … yuaneki ebaki kay wepŋai

ima ban ko w- eŋepe -p aa IG.thing ABL PL.SBJ DPST- hold.M.OBJ -PRV EXCL

yua -nek -i ebak -i kay w- epŋe -ai wife -ATTR -ACC 3SG.POSS -ACC PROG DPST- hit.F.OBJ -IPV

‘They arrested him, when he was hitting his wife.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 04 #15-16)

In this construction, another adverb is also frequently found. The adverb ked expresses the opposite of the progressive and could be translated as ‘now’. It marks a predicate as occurring in a specific instance. Example (321), for instance, is from the Frog Story. At this particular moment in the story, a dog falls from a window. 7.4. ASPECT 249

(321) num eko ked ŋi ŋaipu

num eko ked ŋi ŋayo -pu dog this now DIS fall.SG.SBJ -PRV

‘That moment the dog fell’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #51)

The two adverbs kaya and ked frequently occur together in a bi-clausal construction (see ex. 322) to express a conditional ‘if/when … then’. This kind of bi-clausal construction will be further discussed in §12 on clausal combinations.

(322) yopol ebi kaya ma kelkikana petala, oŋal tetutu ked ŋi ba alpa wik

yopol ebi kaya ma kelki -ka =na tomorrow house PROG FUT.1SG.SBJ enter.PL.SBJ -IRR.1SG =DIS

petala oŋa -l tetutu ked ŋi ba ele -pa wik then sago -ACC rub now DIS FUT.N1SG.SBJ put -1PL.IRR night

‘Tomorrow when we will come, then we will prepare sago.’ (TG1-TravelPlanAmbrosia #74)

The use of imperfective in discourse for setting up a background situation, has been widely observed in the literature (Bybee et al. 1994: 126). If it is common for the imperfective to be used for that, then it is not surprising that a progressive form can have the same function. What is unusual in Yelmek is that the progressive adverb can also be used with perfective marked predicates as in example (323). In cases like this, the interpretation is close to ‘once this happened …’

(323) yaŋwutnek kay ŋomo yopu mapil

yaŋ wutek -nek kay ŋomo yo -pu mapi -l child small -ATTR PROG care_for do -PRV frog -ACC

‘The child was taking care of a frog.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #3)

Another adverb, relevant in this section, is eme, which can be translated as ‘already’; it marks the completion or boundedness of an event (see 324 and 325). 250 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

(324) eme ko weimpuga, eme ko iŋyep

eme ko w- eim -puga already DPST.PL DPST- tell -2PL.DPST

eme ko iŋye -pu already DPST.PL hear -PRV

‘They already told it. We heard it.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #140)

(325) aa eme wawa ŋalapama eki

aa eme wawa ŋalape -a -ma eki EXCL already outside exit -RPST -1SG DEM

‘I am already outside’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #357)

As we saw above, it has an interesting semantic effect when combined with Present Tense, as in example (326). Here the Present Tense is combined with the adverb and is interpreted as the referent having the ability to sing.

(326) omgo eme kowlo

omgo eme k- owlo person already PRS- sing

‘The person already knows how to sing’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #33)

7.5 Mood

According to Palmer (2001: 1), “modality differs from tense and aspect in that is does not refer directly to any characteristics of the event, but simply to the status of the proposition”. In the first edition of the same book, he specifically defines modality as “the grammaticalization of speaker’s (subjective) attitudes and opinions” (Palmer 1986: 16). Furthermore, mood is considered the expression of modality as part of the verbal morphology (Palmer 1986: 21). This 7.5. MOOD 251 section is concerned with two modality categories, imperative and obligation, which in Yelmek are part of the verbal inflection, thus mood marking. Imperative, Obligation and Future Tense all use the same set of suffixes (Table 7.29). They simply differ in the morphological material that precedes the stem. I label this setofsuffixes Irrealis precisely because it can have this range of functions, which all have in common that they describe non-factual events. Palmer (2001) treats the realis /irrealis distinction as a core distinction in modality. He acknowledges the criticism this terminology has raised, but considers the terms useful enough to use them regardless. One strong critic of the term is Cristofaro (2012), who controversially discusses the explanatory value of this term. In this light, I want to stress that I use ‘Irrealis’ purely as a descriptive label without making any further theoretical claim about the distinction.

Table 7.29: Irrealis marking.

SBJ slot +3 1SG aSTEM -ka 2SG aSTEM -pu 3SG.M aSTEM -pən 3SG.F aSTEM -pa 1PL aSTEM -pa 2PL aSTEM -pugV 3PL aSTEM -pa

The schematic representation of this Irrealis paradigm is presented in Table 7.29. The suffixes distinguish person, number and gender of the subject (see§7.1 for more information on subject indexing). Besides the suffixes, the stem also shows a-shift, indicated with aSTEM in Table 7.29. As in the tense paradigms, a-shift is restricted to stems of stem Class 1(moreon a-shift in §7.1). In addition to this marking, both the Future Tense and the Obligation use preverbal particles. Example (327) shows contrasting examples of ulo ‘to cook’. Example (327a) expresses the Future Tense with the Future Tense particle ma. This particle is specific to the first person singular, all other forms use the particle ba. Example (327b) on the other hand expresses an obligation to cook, using the particle ka. This particle does not mark any subject category. Both the Future Tense and the Obligation use the same Irrealis suffix /-ka/. 252 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

(327) a. ma oŋal uloka ma oŋa -l ulo -ka FUT.1SG sago -ACC cook.f/plOBJ -IRR.1SG ‘I will cook sago’

b. ka oŋal uloka ka oŋa -l ulo -ka OBLG sago -ACC cook.PL.OBJ -1SG.IRR ‘I have to cook sago’ (FNB_4:86)

For the Imperative marking, no particle is used. Instead a palatal glide is added as a prefix if the stem starts in a vowel (see ex. 328). Note that the a-shift of the initial vowel is preserved, which shows that it is part of the inflection and not a phonotactic reflex of a preverbal particle. The a-shift also shows that this form is indeed from the same paradigm as the suffixes inthe Future Tense marking and the Obligation marking, rather than a perfective marking suffix /- pu/. There is no particular tense reading to the imperative, as in Nen for instance, which has a dedicated future imperative (Evans 2019: 114).

(328) a. oŋa yaŋpu oŋa y- eŋu -pu sago IMP- eat -2SG.IRR ‘Eat!’ (elicited example)

b. ked yawlpu ked y- owlo -pu now IMP- sing -IRR.2SG ‘Sing now.’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #24)

Bybee et al. (1994) observe in their language sample that future is the most commonly occurring other use of imperative as well as the other way around. They argue that the imperative developed out of the future use, because these imperatives have the properties of primary 7.6. DIRECTIONAL MARKERS 253 futures in all other respects (Bybee et al. 1994: 273). The morphological connection between the two in Yelmek is therefore not surprising. Note that the prohibitive is not formed by the negation of an imperative. Instead the negator mala is used (see §10.5.2) and the verb does not inflect. (329) shows three examples for the use of mala. In this construction, the negator always appears clause finally and the verb does not show subject indexing.

(329) a. oiyo yo mala oiyo yo mala fear do NEG ‘Don’t worry (lit. do without fear).’ (Yamfinder 7b #31) b. yu oŋi mala! yu oŋi mala water drink NEG ‘Don’t drink!’ (elicited example, WK, FNB_2 p. 13)

c. mad owlo mala! mad owlo mala like sing NEG ‘Don’t sing like this!’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #55)

7.6 Directional markers

Suffix slot +2 in the template can contain a directional marker for a number of verbs,mostof which, but not all, are motion verbs. The main function of the directional marker is to express movement towards somewhere. The suffix is situated between the verb stem and the subject indexing suffix. There are two distinct markers, one for future tense and one for non-future tenses. When it occurs in Future Tense it has the form /-mo/ or /-me/. The other one is a suffix /-ni/, which has an irregular inflection pattern with elements from all three of the other tenses, Present Tense, Recent Past Tense and Distant Past Tense. This indicates that the two suffixes are not just allomorphs of each other. Further evidence for this point is that all verbs that allow 254 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION the /-ni/ suffix also allow the /-mo/ suffix, but not vice-versa. I will discuss both suffixesinturn below.

7.6.1 /mo/ and /me/

The directional marker in Future Tense has the form /-mo/ or /-me/. The examples below illustrate the use of the suffix. The first three examples are from the Family Problems Picture Task. The utterances are by a man who imagines what his reception will be like when he comes home again. Two motion verbs are used: ‘to descend’ (ex. 330) and ‘to run’ (ex. 331).

(330) yuanek kaya ba ŋoplemopa […] etala megeban

yua -nek kaya ba ŋ- ople -mo -pa wife -ATTR.SG PROG FUR DTR- put_down -DIR -IRR.F.SG

etala mege =ban floor high =ABL

‘When my wife will descend from the high floor (floor of a house on stilts)(towards me).’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #357-359)

(331) yeme wekmopən

yeme weko -mo -pən run run -DIR -3SG.M.IRR ‘He will run towards me’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #434)

The suffix is not restricted to typical motion verbs, however. In example(332) it is used with the verb ‘to share’, which can nevertheless be conceptualised as including a motion towards the speaker. This example is from the Frog Story. In this utterance, the little boy demands to be given one of the frog children. This can be interpreted as a motion towards him.

(332) ŋalemogo ŋomo ka yokana

ŋ- gale -mo -go ŋomo ka yo -ka =na 1OBJ- share -DIR -IRR.2PL care must do -IRR.1SG =DIS ‘Give me one (lit. share with me), I must take care of it.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #184) 7.6. DIRECTIONAL MARKERS 255

In example (333), the verb ‘to bring’ is used with the suffix; once again, motion towards a specific location, here the home of the speaker, is expressed. Note that in this exampleitis the narrative deixis that is relevant. The deictic centre is where the speaker is situated in the narrative, not where she is while she tells the story.

(333) ka ba adamopa yaŋŋobəl eki ked ba ikopaŋa

ka ba odao -mo -pa yaŋ-ŋob -l eki PROG FUT.N1SG.SBJ bring.F.OBJ -DIR -IRR.3SG.F child -HON -ACC DEM.ACC

ked ba iko -pa =ŋa now FUR dig -1PL.IRR =DIS

‘When she will bring Child6, we will dig it out.’ (TG1-InterviewAmbrosia #52)

For most cells in the paradigm, the subject indexing is the same when the directional marker is used, with the notable exception of the second person forms. Without the directional marker the second person singular is marked with just the suffix /-pu/ and the second person plural is marked with /-pugo/ (see §7.1 on subject indexing). With the directional marker, the second person singular does not have any subject indexing suffix (see ex. 334) and the second person plural only retains the /-go/ (see ex. 335).

(334) yaŋimo

y- oŋi -mo IMP- drink -DIR

‘Drink!’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #283)

(335) ado kedak ba kalkimogo

ado kedak ba kalkio -mo -go EXCL here FUT.N1SG.SBJ enter.PL.SBJ -DIR -2PL.IRR

‘Oh dear, here you will enter.’ (TG1-InterviewAmbrosia #176)

6‘Child’ here is the kinship reference to me, the researcher. She uses ‘child’ because I am close in age to her daughter, but she adds the honorific to be polite. 256 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

Only a small number of verbs allow this suffix. Table 7.30 shows a list of verbs that I have found in the corpus or were accepted in elicitation. Most of the verbs in this list are motion verbs or can be interpreted as involving a motion, with the notable exceptions of ‘to sit’ and ‘to sleep’. From the few corpus examples I have at the moment, it is not clear what the directional is expressing with verbs like these. More data will hopefully make this clearer in the future.

Table 7.30: Verbs stems that can carry the directional marker /-mo/ or /-me/

Stem for singular subject Meaning ŋalape ‘to exit’ te ‘to enter’ ŋayo/ŋemge ‘to fall’ pio ‘to jump’ ŋake ‘to move’ wagu ‘to go’ weko ‘to run’ iblo ‘to chase’ ipe/ odao ‘to bring’ gale ‘to share’ epŋe/pliaŋe ‘to hit’ ŋekwame ‘to wake up’ ŋolo ‘to drop’ mən ‘to sit’ oku/omŋe ‘to sleep’ oŋi ‘to drink’

7.6.2 /ni/

The suffix /-ni/ has similar properties to /-mo/-me/ in that it indicates a motion towards somewhere. In examples (336) and (336) this is illustrated with the singular and plural stem of ‘to come’ (more about the stem alternation for number in §7.2.3). In both cases a motion towards the speaker, or rather the narrative centre, is indicated, which is frequently interpreted as ‘coming back’.

(336) ebi ka kwagani kedakon

ebi ka k- wag -a -ni kedak -kon then PROG PRS- come.SG.SBJ -RPST -DIR here -towards

‘Then she came back here.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #86) 7.6. DIRECTIONAL MARKERS 257

(337) aa ebi kay kakelmaniga idaŋobəl ai yopma

aa ebi kay k- akelme -a -ni -ga EXCL then PROG PRS- come.PL.SBJ -RPST -DIR -2PL

ida -ŋob -l ai yo -p -ma father -HON -ACC PROG do -PRV -1SG

‘When you came back, I was saying to father ...’ (TG1-InterviewAmbrosia #49-50)

This directional marker can also be used with ‘to bring’ as in example (337), also involving a motion towards the location of the speaker. The only other verb that this marker has been found or accepted with is iblo ‘to chase’.

(338) kay kodani ekakonek, tətəlid ka ŋoplepu

kay k- odao -a -ni ekakonek PROG PRS- bring.F.OBJ -RPST -DIR DEM

tətəli -d ka ŋ- ople -pu plane -INST DPST.F.SBJ DTR- put_down -PRV

‘When he brought her here, she came by plane.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #39-40)

What is interesting with this marker is that it triggers an irregular inflection. The examples above are all from contexts in which Distant Past Inflection would be appropriate. Example (336) and (338) are from a narrative describing events that happened the year before. The example in (337) describes events not that long before the time of the speech event, nevertheless the use of the Distant Past Tense inflection in the second clause of that example (visible inthe Perfective marking), shows that this is a Distant Past Tense context. However, the inflection that occurs with this directional marker is not the one of the Distant Past Tense. Instead, it uses the particles and suffixes of the Present Tense inflection plus the Recent Past Tense suffix. To illustrate this Table 7.31 shows the schema of the Present Tense inflection, marking in red the morphological markers that are used in the paradigm with the direction marker. Table 7.32 shows the Recent Past Tense inflection, with the relevant markers in green. 258 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION

Table 7.31: Present Tense inflection morphology used with the directional marker

-1 +3 1SG pa STEM 2SG ka STEM -(w)a 3SG.M (k-) STEM 3SG.F ka (k-) STEM 1PL ko (k-) STEM 2PL ko STEM -ga 3PL ko (k-) STEM

Table 7.32: Recent Past Tense marking used with the directional marker.

-1 +1 +3 1SG (p/k-) STEM -a -ma 2SG (p/k-) STEM -a 3SG.M (p/k-) STEM -a 3SG.F pa aSTEM -a 1PL (k-) STEM -a 2PL (k-) STEM -a -ga 3PL (k-) STEM -a

Table 7.33 then illustrates how this is realised with the directional marker iblo ‘to chase’. The paradigm has the particles and prefixes from the Present Tense inflection, the suffix inthe +1 slot from the Recent Past Inflection and the subject indexing suffix in slot +3 again fromthe Present Tense inflection.

For instance, the first singular form with the directional marker is pa iblani. In comparison, the Distant Past Tense form would be iblopma, which has no particles and two entirely different suffixes; /-p/ ‘Perfective’ and /-ma/ ‘first person singular’. The corresponding Recent Past Tense form is piblama, which has the same suffix /-a/ as the form with the directional marker, butalso has a suffix /-ma/ ‘first person singular’ and a prefix /p-/ ‘singular subject’, neither ofwhich do not occur in the form with the directional marker. Finally, the Present Tense form pa iblo, shares the particle with the directionally marked form, but lacks the suffix /-a/, that is otherwise only found in the Recent Past Tense. 7.6. DIRECTIONAL MARKERS 259

Table 7.33: Paradigm for iblo ‘to chase’ with directional marker

-1 +1 +2 +3 inflected form 1SG pa iblo -a -ni pa iblani 2SG ka iblo -a -ni -(w)a ka iblania 3SG.M (k-) iblo -a -ni kiblani 3SG.F ka (k-) iblo -a -ni ka kiblani 1PL ko (k-) iblo -a -ni ko kiblani 2PL ko iblo -a -ni -ga ko iblaniga 3PL ko (k-) iblo -a -ni ko kiblani 260 CHAPTER 7. VERBAL INFLECTION Chapter 8

Valency and alignment

8.1 Overview

This chapter deals with aspects of valency in the grammar of Yelmek based on a number of morpho-syntactic features. Valency in Yelmek is visible in both head-marking and dependent- marking (terminology based on Nichols 1986). Both the verb and the arguments themselves mark the role an argument has in a clause. Head-marking features (grammatical relations marked on the verb) and dependent-marking features (grammatical relations marked on the arguments) are aligned in a nominative-accusative marking system. Furthermore for objects, Yelmek has an indirective alignment system in the head-marking (following terminology by Dryer 1986 and Haspelmath 2011b). Only the direct object is indexed on the verb. There is no applicative or causative marking that would allow an index for an additional participant to be added. For the dependent marking, no distinction between different kind of objects is made, i.e. both direct object and indirect object are marked with the accusative. The only valency-changing operation in Yelmek is one that reduces the valency (see §8.5). The chapter is structured as follows. Firstly, I discuss grammatical relations (§8.2) and then alignment (§8.3). This will lead to the discussion of valency classes (§8.4) and finally valency changing operations (§8.5).

8.2 Grammatical relations

There are two ways of recognising an argument in Yelmek, firstly by head-marking and secondly by the dependent-marking. An argument in Yelmek is indexed on the verb. A Yelmek verb can index up to two arguments. An intransitive verb indexes one argument and a transitive or ditransitive verb indexes two. Indexing is obligatory. There are two types of indexing.

261 262 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

One type marks the person, number and gender in a specific set of markers fused with the tense marking. The morphological forms of this marking is complex and is discussed in great detail in §7.1. This type of indexing is used for the single argument of an intransitive verb as well as for the agent of a transitive or ditransitive verb. Thus, arguments indexed with this set of morphological markers will be called subject. The other type of indexing is morphologically distinct from the subject indexing. It uses different prefixes and stem changes for the marking (see§7.2 for the forms). This indexing cross-references the patient or undergoer of the transitive as well as the ditransitive verb. Thus, arguments indexed in that way will be called direct objects. In terms of dependent marking, the subject has the nominative case and direct object has the accusative case. The nominative case is not morphologically expressed, whereas the accusative case is marked by a suffix (see §6.1 on case marking). The accusative suffix is not restricted to direct objects. For instance, recipients ofaverb can also be marked with the accusative case. To contrast these from direct object, which are cross-referenced on the verb, I will call them indirect objects. Indirect objects are not indexed on the verb. There is no applicative or causative marking to index a third argument on the verb. In sum, there are three argument roles in Ylemek that can be distinguished from all other arguments by the fact that they are indexed on the verb or carry accusative marking. I will follow Dixon (2010: 98) in calling the first kind core arguments and the latter kind peripheral arguments (or adjuncts). The corresponding cases are discussed in Chapter 6 as core cases (§6.1) versus peripheral cases (§6.2) following terminology by Blake (2001). Other language-particular criteria to distinguish arguments from adjuncts that are frequently used in the literature do not work particularly well for Yelmek. For instance, one criterion could be that arguments are obligatorily expressed as noun phrases, whereas adjunct NPs can be omitted. In Yelmek, however, a clause can consist of an inflected verb on its own. The clause in the corpus example (339) could have three arguments: the out-taker, the taken- out thing or person, the place it is taken out from. However, none of these are expressed by on overt NP. The only obligatory expression of an argument is in the indexing.

(339) eme kelapa

eme k- elape -a already RPST.SG- extract -RPST

‘They have taken him outside.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #368) 8.3. ALIGNMENT 263

Another frequently employed criterion, is that of word order, which would rely on the restrictions of certain participants to certain positions in the clause as a diagnostic. However, there is no such restriction in Yelmek. Furthermore, there are no voice-changing constructions that could be employed as a diagnostic either. Therefore, I simply rely on indexing and case marking the recognise arguments.

8.3 Alignment

In the last section, I explained what I consider an argument of a clause and how I use the terms subject, direct object and indirect object. In this section, I will elaborate on the alignment pattern of the arguments, using the finer-grained semantic roles S, A, P, T and R labels usedin Haspelmath (2011b). The sole argument (S) is indexed on the verb by a combination of affixes and particles. This index-marking is fused with tense marking and forms a complex paradigm (see Chapter 7 on verbal inflection). The argument itself has no morphological case marker (seeex. 340).

(340) S ŋəl pio -a -ma 1SG jump -RPST -1SG ‘I jump.’

On a prototypical transitive verb, one that has an agent (A) and a patient (P) argument, the same marking on the verb is used for the A argument as for the S argument (ex. 341). The A argument, like the S argument, does not have case marking. This is why I use one label, subject, for both S and A throughout this thesis.

(341) A P ŋəl omgo -l pliaŋe -a -ma 1SG person -ACC hit.M.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I hit the man.’

The P argument is, however, treated differently by the morpho-syntax. For one thing, the P argument receives a case marking suffix /-l/ (see ex. 341), but the index-marking also differs from the subject index-marking. The P argument is indexed on the verb stem with a different strategy. The person value of the P argument is marked on the verb with one of two prefixes, /ŋə-/ for first-person (see ex. 342a) and /a-/ for second-person (see ex. 342b). 264 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

(342) a. A P omgo ŋəl -l ŋə- epŋe -a person 1SG -ACC 1OBJ- hit.F.OBJ -RPST ‘The person hit me.’

b. A P omgo au -l p- a- epŋe -a person 1SG -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- 2OBJ- hit.F.OBJ -RPST ‘The person hit you.’

Third-person objects are not specifically marked. These prefixes do not make any reference to tense. The gender and number value of the P argument on the other hand is marked by stem alternation. Example (343) shows the stem alternations for the verb ‘to bring’ depending on the gender of the P argument; feminine in example (343a) and masculine in example (343b), as well as for number, illustrated by example (343c). The indexing for the P arguments are explained in more detail in §7.2. Here, I just want to show that the P argument is treated very differently from both the S and A arguments. This is the case for the indexing on the verb, as well as the case-marking. Yelmek, therefore shows a nominative-accusative alignment pattern.

(343) a. ŋəl omgol podama ŋəl omgo -l p- odao -a -ma 1SG person -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- bring.F.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I brought the woman.’

b. ŋəl omgol pipama ŋəl omgo -l p- ipe -a -ma 1SG person -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- bring.M.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I brought the man.’

c. ŋəl nʉal kwakama ŋəl nʉa -l k- wako -a -ma 1SG person -ACC RPST- bring.PL.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I brought the people.’

There is one aspect of head-marking which arguably shows an ergative-absolutive alignment pattern. A small set of intransitive verbs show number indexing by stem alternation. 8.3. ALIGNMENT 265

Stem alternation mark indexing on the verb is relatively widespread. The majority of stem alternations indicate the gender of the object (see §7.2 on object indexing). Some stems even show stem alternation for gender and for number. The part that is relevant for the alignment is that some intransitive verbs mark the number of the S argument by stem alternation (see ex. 344), whereas most verbs mark the number of the P argument by stem alternation (see ex 345). This could be called a split in the alignment pattern. Dixon (1994: 70) calls this system a split-S system, if intransitive verbs are divided into two sets; one set in which S behaves like A and one set in which S behaves like P. This is opposed to a fluid-S system in which each intransitive verb has the potential of taking either marking (Dixon 1994: 82). In the case of Yelmek, one set would be the intransitive verbs that show stem alternation for number and thus an ergative-absolutive alignment. The other set would be all other intransitive verbs, which show the nominative-accusative alignment. However, it could also be argued that it is simply a matter of some verbs showing stem alternations and others do not, rather than an alignment split. I favour the latter analysis, because it could only be considered a partial split in Yelmek. The S arguments that align with the P arguments, do so only with respect to one feature: number. All other features (head-marking: person and gender, dependent marking: case) still align with A arguments. Example (344) illustrates this for the verb ‘to sleep’. In (344a) the subject is singular and in (344b) the subject is plural. Consequently, (344a) uses the singular stem of the verb te and (344b) uses the plural stem of the verb kəlkio. There are only 5 intransitive verbs, which show this stem alternation. In §8.4.1 the full list is discussed.

(344) a. S(SG) eu te -a ebi dam wak 3SG.NOM enter.SG.SBJ -RPST house inside LOC ‘He entered the house.’

b. S(PL) em kəlkio -a ebi dam wak 3PL enter.PL.SBJ -RPST house inside LOC ‘They enter the house.’

How this could be considered ergative-absolutive alignment becomes apparent when compared to verbs like ‘to give’ in example (345). Here the stem used with singular objects is elie (see ex. 345a) and for plural objects epge is used (see ex. 345b). For transitive verbs, the subject number is never indexed by stem alternation, it is only ever the object number. 266 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

(345) a. A P(SG) eu mi -l p- elie -a 3SG.NOM bow -ACC RPST.SG- give.SG.OBJ -RPST ‘He gave a bow.’

b. A P(PL) eu mi -l ina p- epge -a 3SG.NOM bow -ACC two RPST.SG- give.PL.OBJ -RPST ‘He gave two bows.’

On the other hand, the affixal index-marking is still aligned nominative-accusative onin- transitive verbs with stem change. There is only a slight variation, which is that the first-person singular has the same marking as the first-person plural. This is illustrated in the examples below for the Recent Past Tense paradigm. Example (346) shows an intransitive verb with stem alternation, example (347) shows an intransitive verb without stem alternation and example (348) shows a transitive verb. For the first-person singular, all three verb stems have the suffix /-ma/. For the first-person plural only the intransitive verb with stem alternation has the suffix /-ma/ (see ex. 346b). The other intransitive verb as well as the transitive verb do not have this suffix in the plural. This shows two things. First, the affixal marking is thesameforA arguments as well as both types of intransitive S. Secondly, the slight variation for first-person forms does not align the S argument of intransitive verbs with stem alternations to A or P, and will be disregarded for the purpose of alignment, though it could be argued that it is a trace of a tripartite alignment system.

(346) a. ŋəl tama - ‘I entered’ b. ŋag kəlkiama - ‘We entered’

(347) a. ŋəl piama - ‘I jumped’ b. ŋag pia - ‘We jumped’

(348) a. ŋəl numəl pepŋama - ‘I hit the dog.’ b. ŋag numəl kepŋa - ‘We hit the dog.’

Furthermore, the examples (346) to (348) show that the dependent marking is nominative- accusatively aligned for both types of intransitive verbs. The pronouns in (346) as well as (347) are nominative case, i.e. they lack accusative marking. This aligns them with the pronouns used for A in (348). 8.4. VALENCY CLASSES 267

Let us turn to verbs with three arguments now. For the theme (T) and recipient (R) argument, the alignment in the case-marking is different from the alignment in argument-indexing. On the one hand, in both, T and R receive the same case suffix /-l/ as in example (349). This is the same marking as for the P argument of a transitive verb. Objects in Yelmek, therefore, show a neutral alignment system (Haspelmath 2011b: 541) in terms of dependent marking.

(349) gomnek eu pepga mil ina ŋәlәl

gom -nek eu p- epga -a mi -l ina ŋәl -l man -ATTR.SG 3SG.NOM RPST.PL.SBJ- give.PL.OBJ -RPST bow -ACC two 1SG -ACC

‘The man gave a two bow to me.’ (elicited example)

On the other hand, only T is indexed on the verb. In example (349), the recipient is a first- person argument, but the verb shows no first-person indexing. On the other hand, the verb does show plural indexing, thus indexes the argument ‘two bows’, which is T. This aligns T with the P argument, as opposed to the R argument. T and P can therefore be considered the direct object, whereas R is the indirect object, following the terminology of Dryer (1986) and Haspelmath (2011b). Haspelmath (2011: 541) calls this an indirective alignment system.

8.4 Valency classes

With grammatical relations and alignment in mind, we can now look at what valency classes verbs can be grouped in based on their morphological marking. Table 8.1 shows the possible valency constructions, which will be discussed in turn below. The ŋ-forms in the table refer to the result of the valency reducing operation (see §8.5). It appears twice in the table because if the operation applies to a bivalent verb the outcome is monovalent and if the operation applies to a trivalent verb then the outcome is bivalent. 268 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

Table 8.1: Overview of valency constructions

Head-marking Dependent-marking Monovalent Simple intransitives S-V NPø Special intransitives S-V NPø ŋ-forms SDTR-V NPø Bivalent Simple transitives A/P-V NPø, NP-ACC Experiencer verbs NPACC, NPø Cognate object constructions A-V NPø, CogObj-ACC ŋ-forms ADTR-V NPø, NP-ACC Copula constructions Cs CC CS-V NPø, NP-ACC Trivalent Ditransitive verbs A/P-V NPø, NP-ACC, NP-ACC

8.4.1 Monovalent constructions

Monovalent verbs have the same subject inflection pattern as bivalent and trivalent verbs. There are verbs that are monovalent in their base, i.e. underived, form and then there are verbs that are monovalent in their derived form. In this section, I will only discuss the underived verbs. The derived ones will be discussed in §8.5.

Simple intransitives

Simple intransitive is the label I use for verbs that semantically only require one argument, like ‘to sit’ in example (350).

(350) yayaŋo eme pa məna

yayaŋo eme pa mən -a aunt PRF RPST.F sit -RPST

‘Aunt already sat there.’ (TG1-Lime_Mars #78)

Clauses with intransitive verbs can accommodate a location (see ex. 351), but the location cannot be treated as an argument, e.g. be marked with an accusative (see ex. 351c). 8.4. VALENCY CLASSES 269

(351) a. mapi doyo megiak məna

mapi doyo mege -wak mən -a frog wood high -LOC sit -RPST

‘The frog sits on top of the tree (trunk).’ (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #169)

b. ma teka bui dam

ma te -ka bui dam FUT.1SG enter -IRR.SG jail inside

‘I will go to jail (lit. I will enter inside jail.)’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #266)

c. ma teka buil

ma teka bui -l FUT.1SG enter -IRR.1SG jail -ACC

‘I will enter jail.’

There are constructions, however, that allow for accusative marked arguments with intransitive verbs. These constructions are cognate object constructions and experiencer object constructions. Both of these constructions are discussed in §8.4.2.

Special intransitives

A special type of intransitive verbs is the one that uses stem alternations to mark subject number. Stem alternation in Yelmek is otherwise only found to mark object categories. The sig- nificance of this marking on the alignment is discussed in§8.3 above. Veselinova (2006), in her large typological study on suppletion, found suppletion for number in 33 languages, that is 17.09% of her sample. Theses languages typically had 1 to 4 verbs with number suppletion. Yelmek has 6 intransitive verbs belonging to this group, including one copula (Table 8.2) and two further transitive verbs. Suppletion for number in Yelmek is discussed in §7.2.3. In this section, we focus on the intransitive verbs. Table 8.2 shows a list of the relevant verb stems. 270 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

Table 8.2: Verbs marking subject number by them alternation

meaning stem for SG.SBJ stem for PL.SBJ ENTER te kəlkio SLEEP okʉ omŋe FALL ŋaiyo ŋemge GO wako ŋa COME wago ekelme Copula mʉ ŋo

What is particularly noteworthy about these verbs is that their affixal subject indexing marking differs slightly from the simple intransitive verbs. For these verbs the first person plural has the same marking as the first person singular, whereas in all other verbs the first person plural is not marked for person at all. For instance, example (352) shows a simple intransitive verb pio ‘jump’ in the Recent Past inflection. Example (352a) has the suffix /-ma/ to mark the first person singular, but to mark the first person plural in(352b), no such suffix is employed. In (353), on the other hand, there is a different stem used for singular (see 353a) and plural (see 353b). Furthermore, the suffix /-ma/ is used for both singular and plural first person.

(352) a. ŋəl piama ‘I have jumped’

b. ŋag pia ‘We have jumped’

(353) a. ŋəl pokʉama ‘I have slept’

b. ŋag pomŋama ‘We have slept’

This effect is found across all four tense paradigms. Table 8.3 below shows the inflectional paradigm for the simple intransitive verb ‘to sit’ and Table 8.4 shows the paradigm for ‘to enter’, which marks the subject number via stem alternation. The rows for the first person are marked in blue and the relevant morphological material in bold. Comparing the two tables shows that the simple intransitive verb ‘to sit’ uses different particles and affixes for the first person singular compared to the first person plural. On the other hand the verb ‘to enter’ uses the same particles and affixes in the first person singular as in the first person plural. 8.4. VALENCY CLASSES 271

Table 8.3: Inflection pattern for mən ‘sit’

DPST RPST PRS FUT 1SG mənpuma mənama pa məne ma məneka 2SG mənpua məna ka mənewa ba mənepu 3SG.M mənpu məna məne ba mənepən 3SG.F ka mənpu pa məna ka məne ba mənepa 1PL ko mənpu məna ko məne ba mənepa 2PL ko mənpuga mənaga ko mənega ba mənepuge 3PL ko mənpu məna ko məne mənepa

Table 8.4: Inflection pattern for te ‘to enter’

DPST RPST PRS FUT 1SG tepma tama pa te ma teka 2SG tepwa ta ka tea ba tepu 3SG.M tep ta te ba tepən 3SG.F ka tep pa ta ka te ba tepa 1PL kəlkipma kəlkiama pa kəlkio ma kəlkika 2PL kəlkipuge kəlkiaga ko kəlkioga ba kəlkigo 3PL kəlkipu kəlkia ko kəlkio ba kəlkipa

Weather predicates

Weather predicates behave like simple intransitive verbs using the weather phenomenon, e.g. ‘rain’, as the subject. I have not found any impersonal constructions. Some verbs are very specific to the weather referent, like ‘the sun is shining’ in(354). Most verbs, however, can be used in a wide variety of non-weather related contexts. For instance, ‘it rains’ is just expressed as ‘rain falls’ in (355) and setting of the sun is expressed with the verb ‘to enter’ in (356).

(354) alimo kelalnek ai yaplepu

alimo kelal -nek ai yaple -pu sun hot -ATTR.SG PROG shine -PRV

‘The hot sun shone.’ (TG1-NorthWindSun_Libe #90) 272 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

(355) ŋopma maŋ ŋaya ŋopma maŋ ŋayo -a today rain fall -RPST ‘Today it rained.’ (Yamfinder 8 (00:28:59))

(356) alimo teni kio, deidik eme ŋaika alimo te -n =i k- yo deidik eme ŋaiko -a sun enter -PURP =FOC PRS- do afternoon already become -RPST ‘The sun sets. It is afternoon already.’ (Yamfinder 7b 00:27:47)

Some weather predicates are also valency-reduced forms of transitive verbs. For instance to express the rising of the sun, the ŋ-form of the verb ‘to extract’ is used, which means ‘to exit’ (357).

(357) alimo ŋalapa wigle alimo ŋ- olapo -a wigle sun DTR- extract -RPST morning ‘The sun rose in the morning.’ (Yamfinder 7c 00:03:01)

Another example is the blowing of the wind. This is expressed in Yelmek with a valency reduced form of the verb ‘take off’ (358).

(358) sendawi ŋewla sendawi ŋ- ewle -a wind DTR- take_off -RPST ‘The wind blows.’ (TG1-FEEL_COLD #17)

The valency-reduced forms are technically monovalent, because they only have one argument. However, because they are derived from transitive verbs, I will discuss them in the section on valency changing operations (§8.5). 8.4. VALENCY CLASSES 273

8.4.2 Bivalent constructions

Bivalent verbs by definition allow two arguments. In this group fall simple transitive verbs, experiencer constructions, cognate object constructions and certain copula constructions. I will discuss these in turn.

Simple transitive verbs

Simple transitive verbs is the label I use for verbs that behave like a prototypical transitive verb like ’to hit’ (see example 359). In verbs like this, the verb agrees with both the subject and the object. If the subject is overtly expressed it has no overt case marking, whereas an overtly expressed object receives accusative marking (more on case marking in §6.1). In Yelmek, neither argument has to be expressed by an overt NP. The presence or absence of an overt object does not influence the morphological marking on the verb (see example 359c).

(359) a. em omgol pliaŋa em omgo -l pliaŋe -a 3PL person -ACC hit.M.OBJ -RPST ‘They hit the man.’

b. em ŋələl pepŋa em ŋəl -l p- epŋe -a 3PL 1SG -ACC RPST.SG- hit.F.OBJ -RPST ‘They hit me.’

c. apada pepŋa apad =a p- epŋe -a how =Q RPST.SG.SBJ- hit.F.OBJ -RPST ‘Why did he hit her?’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 : 240)

One group of verbs is easily identifiable as transitive, because of the stem change tomark object gender and number (see §7.2 on object indexing). For verbs that do not have stem change, it is more difficult to determine how many arguments they have. Consider the examples in(360) and (361). In example (360a), the verb ‘to tie’ takes a direct object, ‘a rope’. In example (360b) on the other hand, ‘rope’ is marked as the instrument and no direct object is overtly mentioned. 274 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

Both sentences are equally grammatical. We can still be certain that ‘to tie’ is transitive because it marks object gender by stem change; eŋume ‘to tie a masculine object’ and oŋumo ‘to tie a feminine object’. The verb pio ‘to jump’ in example (361) does not have a stem change, but it can also be used with (ex. 361a) and without a direct object (ex. 361b). It might be possible to argue that it is an ambitransitive verb. There is no evidence, however, for a change in argument structure here.

(360) a. ŋəl dəŋəl peŋumama ŋəl dəŋ -l p- eŋume -a -ma 1SG rope -ACC RPST.SG.SBJ- tie.M.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I tied the rope.’ (FNB_5: 22)

b. ŋəl dəŋəd peŋumama ŋəl dəŋ -d p- eŋume -a -ma 1SG rope -INST RPST.SG.SBJ- tie.M.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I tied something with a rope.’ (FNB_5: 22)

(361) a. modulionek wo eŋklala pa pia modulio -nek wo eŋklala pa pio -a female -ATTR.SG time one RPST.F.SBJ jump -RPST ‘The woman jumped one time.’ (TG1-ElicitationPluracionality #42)

b. doyol eme pia doyo -l eme pio -a wood -ACC already jump -RPST ‘He jumped over the wood.’ (TG1-JUMP #2)

Experiencer object constructions

Another type of transitive construction is used to express experiences. In an experiencer construction one argument is the stimulus and one the experiencer. Experiencer object construc- 8.4. VALENCY CLASSES 275 tions exist in a number of Papuan languages. For instance Pawley et al. (2000) give a detailed discussion for Kalam and Reesink (1998) for Usan. In Yelmek, the experiencer in a experiencer object construction receives the accusative marking. Note that it is lexically determined which experiences are expressed in an experiencer construction. ‘Being cold’ and ‘being hot’ can be expressed by such a construction using the verb ‘to enter’ (ex. 362). Another example is ‘being hungry’ or ‘being thirsty’ (ex. 363). In both case the verb oŋyo is used together with a stimulus; ‘food’ to express hunger or ‘drink/water’ to express thirst. This verb can also take cigarettes or betelnuts as stimulus. On the other hand, the verb ‘to feel’ does not form an experiencer construction (ex. 364).

(362) ŋələl yam ta

ŋəl -l yam te -a 1SG -ACC cold/wet enter -RPST

‘I am cold (lit. Cold entered me.)’

(363) numəl oŋa poŋya oka

numə -l oŋa p- oŋyo -a oka dog -ACC food RPST- make_hungry.F.OBJ -RPST EXCL

‘Oh dear, the dog is already hungry.’ (JEL20150819_1 #21)

(364) ŋəl dəmo eme peaŋama

ŋəl dəmo eme p- eaŋe -a -ma 1SG heat already RPST.SG- feel -RPST -1SG

‘I felt cold already.’ (TG1-FEEL_COLD #6)

I found one verb of cognition that is also expressed as an experiencer construction; elwabe ‘forget’. This verb, however, can only be used for abstract things, e.g. a song (ex. 365a), not for physical things. e.g. a phone (ex. 365b.). The latter scenario would be expressed with ‘to put’, akin to ‘leaving something behind’ and not as an experiencer construction. 276 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

(365) a. ŋələl yaguli ŋəlwabe ŋi ŋəlwaba ŋəl -l yaguli ŋə- elwabe ŋi ŋə- elwabe -a 1SG -ACC song 1OBJ- forget DIS 1OBJ- forget -RPST ‘I forgot the song’ (FNB_7: 8)

b. ŋəl HPəl ebele polama ŋəl HP -l ebele p- olo -a -ma 1SG cell_phone -ACC DEM RPST.SG- put.F.OBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I forgot my phone1’ (FNB_7: 8)

The antonym ‘to remember’ does not form an experiencer construction (ex. 366).

(366) ŋəl imal ŋodoyama

ŋəl ima -l ŋodoyo -a -ma 1SG IG.thing -ACC remember -RPST -SG

‘I remembered something.’ (FNB_6: 57)

A predicate that is expressed somewhat unusually, is ‘to know s.th’. It is formed with woka ‘to know’ and the copula (ex. 367a). What is unusual about it, is the way it forms the negative. It does not negate the copula, but has the negator as a suffix on woka (ex. 368).

(367) a. modolionek wokan ŋame yaŋ wutnek eki modolio -nek woka -n ŋame yaŋ wutek -nek eki female -ATTR.SG know -PURP COP2.F child small -ATTR.SG DEM.ACC ‘The woman knows this child’ (FNB_6: 103)

1The locals call a cell phone HP [ha’pe], presumably derived from the company name Hewlett-Packard 8.4. VALENCY CLASSES 277

b. ŋəl gagal wokan pa mʉYelmek gaga ŋəl gaga -l woka -n pa mʉ Yelmek gaga 1SG language -ACC know -PURP PRS.1SG COP1 Yelmek language ‘I know the Yelmek language.’ (FNB_6: 103)

c. ŋəl wokan pa mʉ tamel woboakon ŋəl woka -n pa mʉ 1SG know -PURP PRS.1SG COP1

tame -l wobo =wak =on path -ACC home =LOC =towards

‘I know the way home.’ (FNB_6: 103)

(368) a. ima ŋame wokaman pa mʉ ima ŋame woka -ma -n pa mʉ what COP2.F know -NEG -PURP PRS.1SG COP1 ‘I don’t know what it is.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #38)

b. ked opəl wokaman ŋuai ked op -l woka -ma -n ŋuai now money -ACC know -NEG -PURP COP1.PL ‘They didn’t know about money.’ (TG1-PastTime #337)

Constructions in which the verb takes an entire clause as an argument will be discussed in §11.1.

Cognate object constructions

In a cognate object construction, the direct object of the verb has a stem that is cognate with the verb itself. These constructions are discussed in more detail in §9.1. The reason I mention them here as well is that they behave structurally similar to simple transitive verbs. The cognate 278 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT object in a cognate object construction occupies the same position and gets the same marking, i.e. accusative case, as a direct object that is not in a cognate object construction. In example (369a) the verb owlo ‘to sing’ takes the direct object yaguli ‘song’, which is not a cognate. In comparison, example (369b) shows a cognate object construction for the verb ‘to sing’. Here the accusative marked direct object is the stem owlo.

(369) a. yagulil kowlo yaguli -l k- owlo song -ACC PRS- sing ‘He sings a song.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #153)

b. owlol kowlo owlo -l k- owlo sing -ACC PRS- sing ‘He sings and sings.’ (TG1-AspectLibe #140)

The accusative marking is not the only case marking that can be used in this construction. Another case marking that is frequently found is the Restrictive case suffix /-ga/, but as with the accusative suffix, it can be used with cognate objects (see 370b) as well as non-cognate objects (see 370a)

(370) a. yaguliga wowlaima yaguli -ga w- owlo -ai -ma song -RSTV DPST- sing -IPV -1SG ‘I always just prayed.’(lit. I was just singing songs.) (TG1-MimpiKasim_1#41)

b. owloga kowlo owlo -ga k- owlo sing -RSTV PRS- sing ‘He is just singing (over and over again).’ (elicited example) 8.4. VALENCY CLASSES 279

Despite all the parallels to simple transitive constructions, cognate object constructions are a separate category of bivalent constructions. For one thing, the word class of the cognate object is unclear. Yelmek does not have morphological markers that derive a noun from a verb or the other way around. There is some evidence that the cognate object stem is not simply nominalised by the lack of inflectional marking or, for that matter, by the addition ofcase marking. Although the cognate object stem does not show subject indexing, it does still show object indexing. In example (371b), the gender of the object is referenced on the verb by stem alternation, i.e. the masculine stem is used. The masculine stem is used because the pierced object has masculine gender, as can be seen from Example (371a). The utterance in Example (371a) directly precedes the one in Example (371b) in the narrative.

(371) a. weʉpe ŋeŋko

weʉ pe ŋeŋko bark like COP.M ‘It is like bark/paper.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #41)

b. ebi ŋi mad ikŋoga pikŋa ebi ŋi mad ikŋo -ga p- ikŋo -a 3SG.ACC DIS like.this insert.M.OBJ -RSTV PRS- insert.M.OBJ -RPST ‘He pierced it like this.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #42)

Another point that makes cognate object constructions different from constructions with transitive verbs is that it is possible to have an additional overt object in a cognate object construction. In example (371), for instance, the pierced thing is expressed with an accusative pronoun and in example (372) the direct object is an overt NP with accusative marking.

(372) wewəl ipeŋeli kipeŋu

wew -l ipeŋe -l =i k- ipeŋu bark -ACC lay_out -ACC =FOC PRS- lay_out

‘(They) are lay out the tree bark.’ (TG1-Sago1_Marsel #187) 280 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

Copula constructions

Some copula constructions can be regarded as bivalent constructions because they require two arguments: a copula subject and a copula complement (terminology adopted from Dixon 2010: 100). Yelmek has a number of different copulas on different positions on a morpho-syntactic spectrum from least verb-like to fully verb-like. Chapter 9 has a detailed discussion of copulas. In the present section, I will focus on the most verb-like copula ŋayaŋko ‘to become’, because it shows the bivalent character most clearly. Copula clauses with ŋayaŋko ‘to become’ are used for statements about attributes or identity. One argument, the copula subject, is the one whose attribute or identity is expressed and the other argument, the copula complement, is the attribute or identifying thing. Despite the different terminology for arguments in copula constructions, the marking on the verbandon the arguments is exactly the same as for simple transitive verbs (see ex. 373). Example (373) shows an utterance from a speaker, watching a video in which a man is jumping up and down. The copula subject is not overtly expressed, but indicated in the subject indexing. The copula complement, the kangaroo, is marked with an accusative suffix.

(373) dokibonəl ba ŋaiŋko

dokibon -l ba ŋaiŋko kangaroo -ACC FUT.N1SG.SBJ become

‘Do you want to become a kangaroo?’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #61)

8.4.3 Trivalent constructions

Trivalent constructions in Yelmek involve a ditransitive verb and three arguments: a subject argument without case marking and two objects marked with the accusative. Of the two objects, one is typically a recipient. Only two arguments are marked on the verb; the subject and the direct object. There is no applicative or causative marking. Therefore, in this work ditransitive verbs are those that allow two accusative marked objects. Furthermore, I refer to the object that is cross-referenced on the verb as the direct object and to a further object that is not cross-referenced on the verb as an indirect object for transparency. There is no analytic need for the label indirect object otherwise. Example (374) shows the verb ‘to give’. In (374a) it has two overt accusative marked objects; the object that is given, i.e. mi ‘bow’, and the recipient, i.e. ŋəl ‘first person singular’. This is, however, not the only way to code those two arguments. Example (374b) shows how 8.4. VALENCY CLASSES 281 the recipient can also be marked as a locative. Both example sentences are grammatical. The difference is a semantic one. If the indirect object is marked with an accusative, the interpretation is one of a direct involvement of the recipient, e.g. in the case of (374a) a handing over of a bow in person. In (374b), the giving is more indirect. The recipient could have, for instance, not been present at the giving and the giver just left the bow.

(374) a. gomnek eu pelia mil ŋələl gom -nek eu p- elie -a mi -l ŋəl -l male -ATTR.SG DET RPST.SG.SBJ- give.SG.OBJ -RPST bow -ACC 1SG -ACC ‘The man gave a bow to me.’ (recipient present) (FNB_6: 21)

b. gomnek eu pelia mil ŋəlakon gom -nek eu p- elie -a mi -l ŋəl wakon male -ATTR.SG DET PRST.SG- give.SG.OBJ -RPST bow -ACC 1SG LOC.DIR ‘The man gave a bow to me.’ (recipient absent) (FNB_6: 21)

The verb in example (374) agrees with the direct object ‘the bow’. If it were to agree with the indirect object, it would receive the first-person object prefix /ŋə-/. In example (375), this is even more obvious, because the indirect object is singular and the direct object is plural. Here the verb shows plural object indexing.

(375) ebi ŋi pepga: “mada au emeki ba ŋokŋopu.”

ebi ŋi p- epge -a 3SG.ACC DIS RPST.SG- give.PL -RPST

mada au emek -i ba ŋ- okŋo -pu like_this 2SG 3PL -ACC FUT DTR- insert -2SG.IRR

‘He gives (the clothes) to him: “You will wear these like this.”’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #52-53)

The indirect object does not need to be a recipient. In example (376), it is the clothes and in example (377) an instrument. Example (376) illustrates the use of the verb ‘to insert/ to dress’. Both the dressee and the clothes are marked with an accusative suffix, which makes them both 282 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT arguments of the verb by the definition discussed in §8.2. The verb agrees with the gender of the dressee; the girl in (376a) and the boy in (376b), which therefore is the direct object. The clothes, therefore, are the indirect objects in both examples. In example (377a), the sago is the direct object of the pounding. That is also the case for (377b), but here also the instrument of the pounding, the sago hammer, is added. Both are marked with an accusative. Instruments are marked with a suffix /-d/ when they are adjuncts.

(376) a. yaŋəl ka kokŋo unugul yaŋ -l ka k- okŋo unugu -l child -ACC PRS.3SG.F PRS- insert.F.OBJ clothes -ACC ‘She dresses the girl.’ (FNB_6: 76)

b. yaŋəl ka kokŋo unugul yaŋ -l ka k- ikŋo unugu -l child -ACC PRS.3SG.M PRS- insert.M.OBJ clothes -ACC ‘She dresses the boy.’ (FNB_6: 76)

(377) a. eu oŋal ka kogo eu oŋal ka k- ogo 3SG.NOM sago -ACC PRS.SG.F.SBJ PRS- pound ‘She pounds the sago’ (FNB_5: 15)

b. eu yawigal oŋali ka kogo eu yawiga -l oŋa -l =i 3SG.NOM sago_hammer -ACC sago -ACC =FOC

ka k- ogo PRS.3SG.F RPST- pound ‘She pounds the sago with a sago hammer.’ (FNB_5: 15) 8.5. VALENCY CHANGING OPERATIONS 283

c. *eu yawigal ka kogo eu yawiga -l ka k- ogo 3SG.F sago_hammer -ACC PRS.3SG.F.SBJ PRS- pound ‘The pounds (with) the sago hammer.’ (FNB_5: 15)

Another semantic role, the benefactive, is not usually treated as an indirect object, instead it receives locative marking, as in (374b) above and (378) and (379) below.

(378) ŋəl doyol emaken pa alwaka

ŋəl doyo -l em waken pa olwako -a 1SG wood -ACC 3PL LOC.TOWARDS RPST.1SG bring -RPST

‘I bring the wood for them.’ (FNB_5: 10)

(379) ŋəl numəl ebaken ŋi beŋama

ŋəl num -l ebi waken ŋi beŋe -a -ma 1SG dog -ACC 3SG.ACC LOC -towards DIS beat -RPST -1SG

‘I beat the dog for him.’ (FNB_5: 11)

8.5 Valency changing operations

There is only one valency changing operation in Yelmek, one that reduces the valency. This operation is used to express anticausative, reflexive and reciprocal meaning. I gloss it asde- transitiviser (DTR) to give it a neutral label. There is no other voice alternation, e.g. passive voice, or valency increasing operations, e.g. applicative or causative. This valency-reducing operation is morphologically marked by the prefix /ŋ-/. It reduces the valency of a verb by one. In the case of a transitive verb it derives an intransitive verb from a transitive one as in example (380).

(380) a. kwame ‘to wake somebody’ b. ŋekwame ‘to wake up’ 284 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

In the case of a ditransitive verb, the result is a transitive verb as in example (381).

(381) a. elikle ‘to throw something to somebody.’ b. ŋelikle ‘to throw something away.’

For verbs that mark the gender of the object by stem change (see §7.2.2) and thus have more than one stem form available, the feminine form of the stem is used to build the intransitive form (ex. 382).

(382) a. olo ‘to put s.th (f) somewhere’ b. ele ‘to put s.th (m) somewhere’ c. ŋolo ‘to drop, to be born’

8.5.1 The Anticausative use

The most common use of the /ŋ-/ form is as an anticausative. Schäfer (2009: 643) defines an anticausative as denoting an inchoative change-of-state event. It is the intransitive alternate of the causative alternation, in which the sole argument of the intransitive use bears the same semantic relation to the verb as the object of the transitive use. In Yelmek, the intransitive form is the derived one, i.e. it has a dedicated marking, therefore I will use the term anticausative rather than causative. Schäfer (2009: 645) also points out that many languages show the same morphology for anticausatives as for passives and middles. Alexiadou (2014) more specifically discusses 4 languages, besides English, and shows that Greek uses the same morphological marking for synthetic passive, dispositional middle, anti-causative and reflexive. Whereas He- brew, German and Romance languages treat at least the dispositional middle, the anticausative and the reflexive the same (Alexiadou 2014). Having a multipurpose marker therefore is not unheard of. The anticausative reading comes about because the base form, i.e. the transitive form, has an actor or causer and an affected object, whereas the derived form only has an affected participant, but no overt causer. With respect to the affectedness of the subject, it resembles a middle voice (Kemmer 1993), but both phenomena differ in distinct ways. Schäfer (2009: 645) discusses the crucial differences between middle and anticausative in the following way. Firstly, in a middle construction the external argument is understood to be implicitly present. Another difference is that a middle construction allows an instrumental argument, whereasan anticausative does not (Schäfer 2009: 646). Examples (383) and (384) illustrate the anticausative for the verb ‘to wake’. In example (383), the speaker describes a sequence in a video in which a man enters the scene and wakes 8.5. VALENCY CHANGING OPERATIONS 285 another man up who is asleep in a chair. In example (384), on the other hand, the referent wakes up (in the morning) of its own accord.

(383) omgo eŋkla kepleni kio, eme piagaya, kwamel kwame

omgo eŋkla keple -n -i k- yo person one meet.M.OBJ -PURP -FOC PRS- do

eme p- iagaye -a PFV RPST- touch.PL.OBJ -RPST

kwame -l kwame wake -ACC wake.PRS

‘The first man comes/meets him, he touched him waking himup.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #210-211)

(384) kaya ŋekwama yaŋ wutnek

kaya ŋ- kwame -a yaŋ wut -nek PROG DTR- wake -RPST child small -ATTR.SG

‘The small child woke up.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Libe)

Examples (385) and (386) show the anticausative alternation for ‘break’, from ‘to break something’ in (385) to ‘chatter’ in (386).

(385) paluli ka plaŋo

palu -l =i ka plaŋo broken_pieces -ACC =FOC PRS.F.SBJ break.PRS

‘She breaks the pieces.’ (grinding shells into powder) (TG1-Lime_Mars #125) 286 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

(386) tope palpalu ŋi ŋoplaŋpu

tope pal∼palu ŋi ŋ- plaŋ -pu jar broken_pieces DIS DTR- break -PFV

‘The jar shattered.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #54)

Examples (383)-(386) show the prefix /ŋ-/ with a verb stem that starts in a consonant and an epenthetic vowel is inserted to split the cluster (see §3.4.6 on consonant clusters). If the verb stem starts in a vowel, the quality of this vowel is preserved. This property distinguishes the prefix /ŋ-/ for the valency reducing alternation form the prefix /ŋə-/ for the first personobject marking as the later prefix overrides the first vowel of the stem(§7.2.1 on object indexing). Example (387) shows an example of the prefix with a vowel initial verb stem, elume ‘detach’.

(387) a. ked elumen wedep ked elume -n wedepu now detach -PURP AUX ‘(The dog) wants to take (the jar) off.’ (TG1-JEL20160814-FrogStory_Kasim #43)

b. mau ŋelume wedep mau ŋ- elume wedepu NEG DTR- detach AUX ‘It doesn’t come off.’ (TG1-JEL20160814-FrogStory_Kasim #44)

Example (387) also illustrates the property of the anticausative that distinguishes it from a passive or a reflexive, which is the absence of an implied agent. The examples in(387) are from the Frog Story. The speaker describes a picture where a dog has stuck his head in a jar and now cannot get the jar off. In (387a), the form base form is used to describe that the dog is trying to get the jar off. The consecutive clause in(387b) is the anticausative counterpart expressing that the jar does not come off. Neither sentence uses overt arguments. However, the elicited sentences in (389) make clear which arguments can and cannot be present with an anticausative. Example (389a) and (389b) were rejected by the native speaker2, because

2The sentences were rejected in an elicitation session. I constructed these examples based on a clause they had 8.5. VALENCY CHANGING OPERATIONS 287 both express a transitive structure. On the other hand, (389c) is grammatical, because here the person is the affected participant, not the jar, which leaves the clause intransitive.

(388) a. *ked topel ŋelume wedep ked tope -l ŋ- elume wedepu now jar -ACC DTR- detach AUX ‘(The dog) takes the jar off.’ (elicited example, FNB_4 p. 124)

b. *omgo topel mau ŋelume wedep *omgo tope -l mau ŋ- elume wedepu person jar -ACC NEG DTR- detach AUX ‘The person can’t take the jar off.’ (elicited example, FNB_4 p. 124)

c. omgo mau ŋelume wedep, tope ban omgo mau ŋ- elume wedep tope ban person NEG DTR- detach AUX jar ABL ‘The person can’t get detach, from the jar.’ (elicited example, FNB_4 p. 124)

Where Yelmek deviates from the above definition of anticausative is when it comes to ditransitive verbs. In Schäfer’s definition, an intransitive is derived from a transitive. Moreim- portantly the object of the transitive form matches the sole argument of the intransitive one. Yelmek is not quite that restricted with this alternation. Example (389) shows the ditransitive verb ‘to insert s.th. into s.th.’ and the derived form ‘to wear something’. The derived form is not intransitive, but transitive. However, it is still the direct object of the ditransitive that matches the subject of the derived transitive.

spontaneously produced when telling the Frog Story. I presented these clauses and the speaker did not accept them with the intended interpretation. 288 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

(389) okŋoli pa akŋo emek -i okŋo -l =i pa okŋo emek -i insert.f/plOBJ -ACC =FOC PRS.1SG insert.f/plOBJ 3PL -ACC ‘I insert them into them (straps of leafs into other straps of leafs to plait a fan).’ (TG1-JEL20160731-Flechten_Ambrosia #107)

wodonemeki mo ŋokŋa a. wodo -nemek -i mo ŋ- okŋo -a foot -ATTR.PL -ACC NEG DTR- insert.f/plOBJ -RPST ‘He did not wear shoes.’ ( TG1-JEL20160225-FPPT-Libe_Bertila_a #55)

Lastly, example (390) shows the anticausative form for elikle ‘to throw something to somebody’. In this case, the middle reduces the ditransitive verb to express a transitive, but the direct object of the ditransitive form in not coreferential with the subject of the transitive form. In- stead, the indirect object is replaced by an adverbial demonstrative.

(390) wulala ebaki kedak ŋelikle, mapil, mapil ojo wedepu

wulala ebak -i kedak ŋ- elikle clothes 3POSS -ACC there DTR- throw

mapi -l mapi -l oyo wedepu frog -ACC frog -ACC search AUX

‘He throws his clothes there, searching for the frog.’ (TG1-JEL20160814-FrogStory_Libe #34-35) 8.5. VALENCY CHANGING OPERATIONS 289

Table 8.5 shows a list of Anticausative forms I have found in my corpus.

Table 8.5: Anticausative forms found in the corpus.

meaning base form anticausative WAKE kwamo ‘to wake s.b. up’ ŋekwamo ‘to wake up’ BREAK plaŋe ‘to break s.th.’ ŋoplaŋe ‘to chatter’ THROW elikle ‘to throw s.b. s.th.’ ŋelikle ‘to throw s.th. away’ DETACH elume ‘to detach s.th.’ ŋelume ‘to detach’ CARRY olio ‘to ask for s.th.’ ŋolio ‘to bear s.th.’ EXIT olapo ‘take out s.th’ ŋalapo ‘exit, come out’ PASS eŋle ‘to pass s.b.’ eule LIFT elepe ‘to lift her/them up’ ŋalepe ‘to stand up/ to leave’ PUT olo ‘to put s.th somewhere’ ŋolo ‘to drop’ DESCEND ople ‘to lower s.th./to pick s.th.’ ŋople ‘to descend’ CUT eme ‘to cut s.th.’ ŋeme ‘to take picture’ or ‘to end’ TIE iblo ‘to tie s.th with s.th’ ŋablo ‘to tie something up together’

Note that there are verb stems that start with /ŋ/ and are not detransitivised forms, or at least I have not found a matching counter part. Some illustrative examples are ŋauki ‘move with something’, ŋolilo ‘hide’, ŋolimo ‘fight’, ŋolimŋo ‘work’, ŋodoyo ‘talk’ and ŋedayo ‘rage’. A particularly interesting one is also ‘fall’, which has a singular form ŋaiyo as well as a plural form ŋemge.

8.5.2 The Reflexive use

The difference between a reflexive and an anticausative is that in a reflexive clause the subject and the object are identical. In Yelmek, the same marking on the verb is used to express a reflexive as for the anticausative. The reflexive, however, uses an additional adverb igom ‘self’ (ex. 391). I do not consider it a reflexive pronoun for two reasons. Firstly, it is invariable and does not inflect (ex. 393). Secondly, it is not an argument of the verb. The prefix reduces the valency of the verb. A verb like ‘to help’ in example (391) then only has one argument slot left, which is already taken by the other argument. In this regard, igom ‘self’ is similar to what König and Gast (2002) describe as an intensifier. They divide self -forms in English into three categories: reflexive pronoun, untriggered self -forms and intensifiers; the last category being the form that does not fill an argument position. 290 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

(391) maya polkaŋama nʉa makaki, ŋəl igom ŋokaŋama

maya p- olkaŋo -a -ma nʉa makak -i NEG RPST.SG- help -RPST -1SG people other -ACC

ŋəl igom ŋ- okaŋo -a -ma 1SG self DTR- help -RPST -1SG

‘I don’t help other people, I only help myself’ (FNB_6: 77)

If adverbial igom ‘self’ is used without the middle marking then the construction expresses that somebody is doing something himself, but not necessarily to himself as in example (392).

(392) tete igomi weimp yapalianeki

tete igom =i w- im -pu yapalia -nek -i grandfather self =FOC DPST- tell -PFV Yapalia -ATTR -ACC

‘Grandfather told Yapalia’s story himself.’ (TG1-JEL20160802-AntonetaLastYear #128)

As with the anticausative, the reflexive can be formed both with transitive (see ex. 391) and ditransitive verbs (see ex. 393).

(393) a. ŋəl igom ŋemtama ŋəl igom ŋ- emte -a -ma 1SG self DTR- attach.f/plOBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I attached myself to something (e.g. with glue)’ (elicited example, FNB_5 p. 44)

b. au igom ŋemta au igom ŋ- emte -a 2SG self DTR- attach.f/plOBJ -RPST ‘You attached yourself to something (e.g. with glue)’ (elicited example, FNB_5 p. 44) 8.5. VALENCY CHANGING OPERATIONS 291

c. eu igom ŋemta eu igom ŋ- emte -a 3SG.NOM self DTR- attach.f/plOBJ -RPST ‘He attached himself to something (e.g. with glue)’ (elicited example, FNB_5 p. 44)

d. eu igom ŋemta eu pa igom ŋ- emte -a 3SG.NOM RPST.F self DTR- attach.f/plOBJ -RPST ‘She attached herself to something (e.g. with glue)’ (elicited example, FNB_5 p. 44)

e. eu igom mogol ŋemta nak igom mogo -l ŋ- emte -a 1PL self flesh -ACC DTR- attach.f/plOBJ -RPST ‘We attached us to each other’s flesh (individually)’ (elicited example, FNB_5 p. 44)

8.5.3 The Reciprocal use

In a reciprocal construction, both participants are subject and object at the same time. Mor- phologically, the same prefix /ŋ-/ is used. Example (394), shows the reciprocal construction for the verb ‘to meet’. In (394a) ‘to meet’ has the underived transitive form, whereas in (394b) the prefix is used.

(394) a. kai kapop, weŋayep yaŋ kai kapo -pu w- eŋaye -pu yaŋ PROG meet -PRV DPST- see.f/pl -PRV child ‘When he met them, he saw the child.’ (TG1-JEL20170225-FPPT-Libe_Bertila_d #40-41) 292 CHAPTER 8. VALENCY AND ALIGNMENT

b. ŋak inala Finus we eme ŋakapa ŋak ina -la Finus we eme ŋ- kapo -a 1PL two -AUG Finus COM1 already DTR- meet -RPST ‘We two (me and Finus) met’ (FNB_6: 79)

Optionally, the pronominal form mele-mele ‘each other’ can be used (ex. 395).

(395) a. inala mele-mele ŋakapa ina -la mele mele ŋ- kapo -a two -AUG each_other DTR- meet -RPST ‘two people met each other’ (FNB_6: 79)

b. inala mele-mele ŋokaŋa ina -la mele mele ŋ- okaŋo -a two -AUG each_other DTR- help -RPST ‘the two helped each other’ (FNB_6: 77)

The reciprocal construction is also possible with ditransitive verbs (see ex. 396).

(396) a. mele-mele ŋebgepa mele mele ŋ- ebge -pa each_other DTR- give.PL.OBJ -PL.SBJ.IRR ‘They give each other things, exchange things.’ (TG1-HistoryCely part 02a #286)

b. ŋak eme ŋemta ŋak eme ŋ- emte -a 1PL already DTR- attach.PL.OBJ -RPST ‘We attached ourselves to something (e.g. with glue)’ (elicited example, FNB_5 p. 44) Chapter 9

Multi-word predicates and non-verbal predicates

The last two chapters were mainly concerned with predicates that are formed with full lexical verbs. It is possible to have other predicate types, however. A predicate in Yelmek can also be complex in that it consists of an inflecting stem and a non-inflecting stem. In this chapter,I will discuss three types of multi-word predicates: Cognate object constructions (§9.1), auxiliary verb constructions (§9.2) and light verb constructions (§9.3). Lastly, this chapter also contains the description of non-verbal predicates with copulas (§9.4), because they differ from predicates with full verbs in similar ways as the complex predicates, in that they are more compositional in nature.

9.1 Cognate object construction

Cognate object construction in Yelmek are predicates that consist of two stems combined into one predicate. Yelmek does not have clause chaining constructions like many Trans-New- Guinea languages do. Complex predicates in Yelmek only express one event. They usually express a specific aspectual meaning. For instance, it is interpreted as ongoing or having long duration (see §7.4 on aspect). It can also mark the difference between an activity being dis- tributional or collective (see §7.2.3). In a cognate object construction, the direct object of the verb has a stem that is cognate with the verb itself. This object occupies the same position and receives the same marking, i.e. accusative case, as a direct object that is not in a cognate object construction (see ex. 397).

293 294 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES

(397) kuwamel kuwame

kuwame -l kuwame wake -ACC wake

‘He is waking him (by shaking him.)’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #211)

Cognate object constructions are relatively common in Southern New Guinea. They are found, for instance, in languages like Komnzo (Döhler 2016: 351) and Ngkolmpu (Carroll 2016). There are two main differences between the Yelmek construction and the constructions found particularly in those languages. Firstly, Yelmek does not have nominalisation morphology deriving nouns from verbs, and secondly, the construction is formed with regular verbs, i.e. it is not formed with middle verbs as in Komzo and Ngkolmpu. The cognate object construction in Yelmek is also different from what Pawley (2006) calls verbal adjunct in Kalam. In Kalam, as in Yelmek, different stems are combined into one predicate to express a single event. The difference is that the adjunct stem in Kalam is a distinct kind of stem, whereas inYelmekitis a regular verb stem without any additional derivational morphology. Cognate object constructions in Yelmek usually consist of two stems, but more are possible (see ex. 398c). Only one of the stems fully inflects. Example (398) shows this for the verb owlo ‘to sing’. In all three examples (398a, 398b and 398c), only the final stem shows inflection. The other stem shows no subject indexing. Instead, it can, but does not have to, carry case marking. The two case suffixes, which are the most common in this constructions arethe accusative suffix /-l/ (see ex. 398a) and the restrictive suffix /-ga/ (see ex. 398b).

(398) a. owlol kowlo owlo -l k- owlo sing -ACC PRS- sing ’He sings and sings.’ (TG1-AspectLibe #140)

b. owloga ka powla owlo -ga ka p- owlo -a sing -RSTV PROG RPST.SG.SBJ- sing -RPST ‘He was just singing.’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #10) 9.1. COGNATE OBJECT CONSTRUCTION 295

c. wekeke owlo owlol wowlai wekeke owlo owlo -l w- owlo -ai yesterday sing sing -ACC DPST- sing -IPV ‘Yesterday, he was singing and singing.’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #5)

What is particularly unexpected in this construction is that the first stem does not show subject indexing, but the object indexing is still present, i.e. stem changes and prefixes are preserved. For instance, in example (399) the gender of the object is referenced on the verb by stem alternation, i.e. the masculine stem is used. If no gender feature were present, then the feminine stem would be used by default (see §7.2.2 on object gender indexing).

(399) ebi ŋi mad ikŋoga pikŋa

ebi ŋi mad ikŋo -ga p- ikŋo -a 3SG.ACC DIS like.this insert.M.OBJ -RSTV PRS- insert.M.OBJ -RPST

‘He pierces it like this.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #42)

What makes this construction different from other transitive constructions is that itcan be used with intransitive verbs. In example (400), the verb de ‘to stand’ is combined with the cognate object daŋ to form a statement that literally means ‘to stand the stand’.

(400) yalmala daŋ aya da

yalmala daŋ aya de -a then stand PROG stand -RPST

‘Then he gets to his feet. (lit. Then he stands the stand.)’ (TG1-ElicitationPluracionality #11)

Pseudo-cognate object constructions Many intransitive verbs form this construction with special lexicalised objects. The morphological relation of the object stem and the verb stem can be more obscure than with the regular cognate object constructions. In some cases, the stems seem to be not morphological related at all. Nevertheless, in this construction, the object stem is still semantically fully included in the verb meaning, and the clause would be fully grammatical without it. I follow Döhler (2016: 351) in labelling these constructions pseudo-cognate 296 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES object constructions. With pseudo-cognate object constructions, the case marker is not obligatory. In (401a) the pseudo-cognate object to oku ‘to sleep(SG)’ is yok, which is not the simply uninflected stem as (398) above. It does, however, carry the accusative suffix. (401b) is another example. The object wolk ‘go/walk/come’ is not the same stem as waku(SG)/akelme(PL) ‘come’ it combines with. There is also no accusative marking in this example. Note it is possible to hypothesise a morphological relationship in both the ‘sleep’ and the ‘walk’, which is nevertheless different from the instances of the regular cognate object construction.

(401) a. ŋəl yokəl pokwama ŋəl yok -l p- oku -a -ma 1SG sleep -ACC RPST.SG- sleep.SG.SBJ -RPST -1SG ‘I slept.’

b. woboak Wanam wolk yakelmege wobo =wak Wanam wolk y- akelme -ge place =LOC Wanam go IMP- come.PL.SBJ -2PL ‘To the village, to Wanam, come.’ (elicited example, JEL20150804_4_SLEEP 6) (TG1-InterviewAmbrosia #142)

Cognate object constructions vs. incorporation There is no morphological marker in Yelmek to derive a noun from a verb or a verb from a noun. However, verb stems, i.e. stems that can carry inflectional marking, never occur with case marking, except in a cognate object construction. Therefore, this construction is distinct from a common object + verb construction. There, however, are parallels between cognate object constructions and object incorporation. According to Mithun (1984a), the constituting stems in an incorporated structure may be of all grammatical classes, and the resulting compound can be of any grammatical class as well (Mithun 1984a: 848). She describes the bond between the two stems as semantic and syntactic. The object loses its referentiality. The resulting predicate indicates, for instance, a unitary or institutionalised activity, rather than an activity acting on a specific object (Mithun 1984a: 850). To an extent, this characterises the Yelmek construction as well. Where it deviates is that according to Mithun (1984: 848) “compounding is done for a reason. Some entity, quality, or activity is recognised sufficiently often to be considered name-worthy in its own right”. In Yelmek, this could be argued for some cognate object constructions, but the majority of verbal compounds describe very commonplace activities (see ex. 402). 9.2. AUXILIARY CONSTRUCTION 297

(402) a. ongil ko wongiai ongi -l ko w- oŋi -ai drink -ACC PL.SBJ DPST- drink -IMPV ‘They were drinking.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #162)

b. kuwamel kuwame kuwame -l kuwame wake -ACC wake ‘He is waking him (by shaking him.)’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #211)

c. emgeli pa amga emge -l =i pa emge -a put.f/plOBJ -ACC =FOC RPST.F put.PL.OBJ -RPST ‘She puts them down.’ (TG1-PluracionalityAmbrosia #175)

9.2 Auxiliary construction

The term auxiliary construction in this work refers to a predicate that is composed of two stems, of which only one shows subject infection. In example (403), the auxiliary verb wedepu has the Distant Past Tense prefix as well as the Perfective suffix, whereas the full lexical verb owlo ‘sing’ is unmarked.

(403) kai owlo wedep

kai owlo w- ede -pu PROG sing DPST- AUX -PRV

‘When he was singing.’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #133)

In terms of their internal structure, auxiliary verb constructions are very similar to cognate object constructions. However, there are several differences. Firstly, an auxiliary verb can combine with a large variety of verb stems, whereas in cognate object constructions the verb 298 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES only combines with another stem that is cognate to it or lexically specified to fill this position (§9.1). I will discuss different auxiliary verbs and what they combine with below. Secondly, in a cognate object construction, the cognate object is semantically fully sub- merged in the verb meaning and the verb can form a grammatical utterance without the cognate object. The auxiliary verb, on the other hand, contributes very little semantic content to the predicate. Most of the meaning is determined by the uninflected stem.

9.2.1 Constructions with wedepu

The most common auxiliary verb is wedepu. It can combine with verbal stems as in example (403) above, where it combines with owlo ‘to sing’. There is no apparent restriction on the type of verb an auxiliary combines with. Auxiliary verbs are also used with noun stems as in example (404), where it combines with wəlm ‘smell’. No specific lexical meaning of the auxiliary verb is apparent from my corpus.

(404) wəlm ebi wedep: ima kem?

wəlm ebi w- ede -pu ima kem smell DET.ACC DPST- AUX -PRV what COP

‘He sniffs it: What is this? (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #107)

The main functions of constructions with this auxiliary verb are to express durative (see ex. 405), repetitive (see ex. 406) and distributive events (see ex. 407). Example (405) illustrates the durative use of the auxiliary verb. The utterance is from a story in which the speaker is describing in much detail, how she has been looking for a dog all of the previous evening. In (405), she reaches the point in the story, where she has finally found it. The use of the auxiliary verb construction emphasises the length of the search.

(405) ahh ebi ŋi ko oyo wedep num eki

ahh ebi ŋi ko oyo w- ede -pu num eki EXCL 3SG.ACC DIS PL.SBJ search DPST- AUX -pu dog DEM.ACC

‘Ah, the dog we have been looking for’ (TG1-DogStory #102) 9.2. AUXILIARY CONSTRUCTION 299

The repetitive use of the construction is illustrated in example (406). Here the speaker is describing a video she is watching. In the video, three girls are lifting up three long logs together. They repeat the action three times. The first time, the girls lift the logs, the speaker is just using the full verb to describe what is happening (see ex. 406a). After that, she shifts to the auxiliary verb construction, to describe the repeating action (see 406b and 406c).

(406) a. doyoli ko kelepu doyo -l =i ko k- elepu wood -ACC =FOC PL.SBJ PRS- lift.f/plOBJ.PRS ‘They lift the logs.’ (TG1-PluracionalityAmbrosia #51)

b. emi ŋi ko elepe wedepu megiaken emi ŋi ko elepe w- ede -pu mege -waken 3PL.ACC DIS PL.SBJ lift DPST- AUX -PRV high -LOC.DIR ‘They lifted it up (again)’ (TG1-PluracionalityAmbrosia #52)

c. ukwake ople wedepu ukwake ople w- ede -pu low -LOC.DIR pick DPST- AUX -PRV ‘They put it down again.’ (TG1-PluracionalityAmbrosia #53)

The use of the auxiliary verb extends to the expression of distributive events. Example (407) shows contrastive examples for a distributive action and a collective action. In (407a), the children enter the house together and in (407b) they do so one by one. The collective event (407a) is expressed with just the full verb, whereas the distributive event (407b) is expressed with the auxiliary verb construction.

(407) a. yaŋ ina ŋape, ebi dam waken kelkia yaŋ ina ŋape ebi dam wak -en kelkio -a child two COP.PL house inside LOC -towards enter -RPST ‘There are two children. They entered the house (together).’ (TG1-ElicitationPluracionality #27) 300 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES

b. yaŋ mʉdem ebi dam waken kelki wedep yaŋ mʉdem ebi dam wak -en kelki w- ede -pu child three house inside LOC -ALL enter.PL DPST- AUX -PRV ‘Three children entered the house (one by one).’ (TG1-ElicitationPluracionality #28)

The auxiliary verb wedepu does inflect for person, number and gender of the subject. How- ever, its form is restricted to the Distant Past Tense paradigm, without it expressing Distant Past Tense in all cases. It appears to be a fossilised form. The origin of the stem ede is presently unclear. Another, less frequently found, auxiliary verb is wekipu. This auxiliary verb usually expresses a linear motion or motion towards somewhere (see ex. 408).

(408) a. wolk e wekipu golu wolk e w- eki -pu golu go EXCL DPST- AUX -PRV forest ‘They go towards the forest.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #68)

b. kedamie wolk ebi ngi wekip kedak-mie wolk ebi ngi w- eki -pu PROX-COP go house DIS DPST- AUX -PRV ‘Then he goes home.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #185)

As with wedepu, wekipu also has a defective paradigm in that it only has forms in the Distant Past Tense.

9.2.2 Constructions with yo ‘do’

Another common auxiliary verb is yo, which differs from the auxiliary verbs discussed inthe last section because it can be used outside of an auxiliary verb construction. In this case, it is used to express ‘do, make’ or ‘say’, which nevertheless still need more morphological material to form a full predicate. I will gloss it with a meaning label in the auxiliary construction, rather then AUX, to keep it distinct from other auxiliary verbs. Another difference between 9.2. AUXILIARY CONSTRUCTION 301 yo and other auxiliary verbs, is that it has a full and regular inflectional paradigm, where other auxiliary verbs are usually defective. In this section, I will focus on yo in auxiliary verb constructions. Auxiliary verb constructions with yo usually express the meaning ‘to want’ (ex. 409) and ‘to try’ (ex. 410). In both cases, the other stem, epnge ‘hit’ and okŋo ‘insert’ respectively, combines with the purposive suffix /-n/.

(409) a. mengebed eka epngeni kio menge -ebed eka epnge -n =i k- yo husband -3POSSR:SG.POSSM that hit.F.OBJ -PURP =FOC PRS- want ‘Her husband wants to hit her.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #414)

b. Tinal okŋoni ka kio Tina -l okŋo -n =i ka k- yo Tina -ACC insert.F.OBJ -PURP =FOC PRS.F.SBJ PRS- want ‘She wants to put Tina inside here.’ (TG1-InterviewAmbrosia #171)

(410) emi oyopon yopma

em -i oyopo -n yo -pu -ma 3PL -ACC hold.PL.OBJ -PURP want -PRV -1SG

‘I wanted/tried to catch several (frogs)’ (elicited example)

Both combinations, with a verb stem (as in ex. 409 and 410), as well as combinations with nouns, are possible (411).

(411) yaŋ wutnek oŋan kio

yaŋ wut -nek oŋa -n k- yo child small -ATTR.SG food -PURP PRS- do

‘The child wants food.’ (TG1-20180731-Laugh #35) 302 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES

Auxiliary verb constructions with a purposive case are distinct from adverbial clauses with a purposive marker, although the morphological marking looks similar. The main formal difference is the divergent word order (412).

(412) a. ebi pwaka oŋa ulon ebi p- wako -a oŋa ulo -n 3SG.ACC PRS.G- go.SG -RPST food cook -PRUP ‘He goes to cook food.’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #153)

b. eu pa aka ŋelel olomon eu pa wako -a ŋel -l olomo -n 3SG RPST.F.SBJ go -RPST 1SG -ACC call -PURP ‘She went to call me’ (TG1-20180817-RelativeClause_2 #8)

9.3 Light verb constructions

A light verb construction in this work is a multi-word predicate that uses a fully inflected lexical verb or a copula together with an uninflected stem to form a predicate. This aligns with Butt’s (2003) characterisation of light verb. According to her, light verbs are always part of a complex predication, as well as that they are form identical with a main-verb (Butt 2003: 3). She further stipulates that light verbs must be distinguishable from auxiliaries and main verbs (Butt 2003: 4). In Yelmek, light verb constructions are usually more restricted than auxiliary constructions in what can combine. I first discuss constructions with lexical verbs (§9.3.1) and then constructions with the copula (§9.3.2).

9.3.1 Light verb constructions with lexical stems

Light verb constructions that involve full lexical verbs are usually idiomatic, in that they are restricted to lexically defined combinations that express specific concepts. For instance, in example (413a), the verb ‘to see’ is combined with opo ‘eye’ to express an intensity in looking or watching. In example (413b), the verb ‘to move s.b./s.th.’ is combined with ilago ‘a lie’ to express that somebody is being tricked. 9.3. LIGHT VERB CONSTRUCTIONS 303

(413) a. opoga ko bayep opo -ga ko baye -pu eye -RSTV PL.SBJ see.M.OBJ -PRV ‘They just eyed him.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #458)

b. ilagoga pekia ilago -ga p- ekie -a lie -RSTV PRS- move.M.OBJ -RPST ‘He just tricked them’ (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #129)

Another interesting example is the expression of ‘to think’. Here the verb ‘to run’ is either combined with bulo ‘heart’ (see ex. 414a) or mudio ‘brain’ (see ex. 414b), depending on the thought being more emotional or more rational.

(414) a. bulo ebala wekai: kai ma ŋalapoka bui damban bulo ebala weko -ai heart DEM run -IPV

kai ma ŋalapo -ka bui dam ban PROG FUT.1SG leave -IRR.SG jail inside ABL

‘He thought: When I will leave prison …’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 04 #29)

b. mudio ebala wekai: kai ma teka eki … mudio ebala weko -ai brain DEM run -IPV

kai ma te -ka eki PROG FUT.SG enter -1SG.SBJ.IRR DEM.ACC

‘He thought: When I will enter (jail) …’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #312) 304 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES

9.3.2 Light verb constructions with copula

The light verb construction with a copula has the same structure as a light verb construction with a lexical verb. The copula inflects, but the uninflected stem contributes to the mainpart of the semantics. The copula is often used in this way, to express the prerequisite events tothe main events in a story. This is possible with stative verbs like mən ‘to sit’ in example (415). This example is from the Frog Story, describing the first picture in which a little boy sits inhis room and looks at a frog in a glass, setting the scene for the story to start.

(415) yaŋ wetnek mən kəm

yaŋ wetek -nek mən kəm child small -ATTR.SG sit COP.3SG

‘The small child sits there.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Libe #4)

This construction is also possible with more dynamic verbs like ‘to get dressed’ (see 416a) and ‘to wash’ (see 416b). In (416), the speaker tells about her morning routine to set the scene for the events that she wants to talk about, which in this case is an incident with a dog.

(416) a. yalmala wenugu ŋokŋo pa mʉ yalmala wenugu ŋ- okŋo pa mʉ then clothes DTR- insert PRS.F.SBJ COP ‘Then I dressed.’ (TG1-DogStory #36)

b. yalmala magubakel uwo pamʉ yalmala magubak -l uwo pa mʉ then sweet_potato -ACC wash PRS.F.SBJ COP ‘Then I washed sweet potatoes.’ (TG1-DogStory #43)

9.4 Non-verbal predicates

According to Dryer (2007: 224), there are three types of non-verbal predication: adjectival predication, nominal predication and locative predication. In Yelmek, as in many other languages, a 9.4. NON-VERBAL PREDICATES 305 copula is used for this type of construction. Cross-linguistically, the morphological properties of copulas vary. Dryer (2007) discusses verbs, affixes and particles as copulas. Yelmek hastwo different copulas, which both have some verbal properties, but inflect irregularly andnotwith all distinctions compared to other verbs. There are also full verbs that can be used in adjectival and nominal predication, for instance məŋe ‘stay, keep, maintain’ and ŋaiyaŋko ‘become’ (see §8 verb types). However, they inflect fully regularly and will not be discussed in this section. In Yelmek, it is obligatory to use some verbal element or copula to form a predicate. Dixon’s (2010) terminology differs from Dryer (2007) in that he describes copulas according to the relation they express. He uses the terms: identity, attribution, location, benefaction and possession (Dixon 2010: 159). The first three roughly match Dryer’s three-way distinction into nominal, adjectival and locative predication. Dryer (2007) does mention possession, but not as an overall category. In Yelmek, copula clauses can express identity, attribution, location and possession. Examples of benefactive use are not attested. There is no clear cut division of labour between the different copulas; instead, both can have a range of functions. Thereis a tendency for the second copula (section 9.4.2) to be used for more time stable contexts and the other one for more transient contexts. However, in elicitation, speakers use them inter- changeably. This implies that it is more a question of pragmatic effect than lexical restriction, a topic that warrants more detailed investigation in the future. Table 9.1 shows a comparison of the two copulas according to their use. The use of each copula will be elaborated on and exemplified in the respective section.

Table 9.1: Comparison of use of the two copulas

Use COP1 mʉ COP2 ŋaCe Identity Attribution Location Possession Benefaction DEM pro-clitic Light verb construction Derived forms

9.4.1 Copula 1: mʉ

The mʉ copula can be used to express identity, attribution, location and possession. It is the more verb-like of the two copulas. It inflects for tense and aspect and the same number and 306 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES gender categories as other verbs do. However, the pattern is more irregular and defective in some places. For instance, the Recent Past Tense and the Present Tense use the same form (morphologically the Present Tense form). Moreover, there is a stem change with full suppletion marking the number of the copula subject. For that reason, the affixal marking pattern for all the person plural forms is identical to the singular person forms (see §8.4.1 for other verbs with this kind of suppletion pattern).1 Table 9.2 shows the paradigm for this copula.

Table 9.2: Paradigm copula 1: mʉ

DPST RPST and PRS FUT 1SG miema pa mʉ ma mieka 2SG miewa ka mʉ ba mie 3SG.M mie kəm ba miepən 3SG.F ka mie ka kəm ba miepa 1PL ŋuaima pa ŋo ma ŋuaikoka 2PL ŋuaiga ka ŋo ba ŋuaigo 3PL ŋuai ŋo ba ŋuaipu

Example (417) shows the copula expressing identity and in example (418) it expresses attribution.

(417) ŋəl ibu rumah tangga pa mʉ

ŋəl ibu_rumah_tangga(IND pa mʉ 1SG house_wife PRS.1SG COP1

‘I am a house wife.’ (TG-120160704-InterviewMarselina #14)

(418) ŋəl kəke pa mʉ

ŋəl kəke pa mʉ 1SG hard PRS.1SG COP1

‘I am strong.’ (elicited example, FNB_3 p. 117-119)

1The second-person plural from in the Future Tense shows a further irregularity, an extra syllable /ko/, which has not been found with any other verb so far. 9.4. NON-VERBAL PREDICATES 307

The examples in (419), (420) and (421) show different instances of the copula with locations: example (419) with a first-person, example (420) with a second-person and example (421) with a third person.

(419) yep ebedina wa pa mʉ

yep ebedina wak pa mʉ middle four LOC PRS.1SG COP1

‘I am in semester four (university).’ (TG1-InterviesSerafinus #42)

(420) mapi ada ka mʉa

mapi adak ka mʉ=a frog where PRS.2SG COP1 =Q

‘Frog where are you?’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #71)

(421) eme kai ba ŋuaipu wobo wak

eme kai ba ŋuai -pu wobo wak already PROG FUT.N1SG.SBJ COP1.PL -PRV place LOC

‘They will be already there, at home.’ (TG1-TravelPlanAmbrosia #43)

External possession with the copula The same copula can also be used to express possession as in examples (422) and (423). This is unattested for the other copula discussed in the next section. This form of possession is an instance of what Payne and Barshi (1999) call external possession. They define it as “constructions in which a semantic possessor-possessum relation is expressed by coding the possessor (PR) as a core grammatical relation of the verb in a constituent separate from that which contains the possessum” (Payne and Barshi 1999: 3). In the external possessor construction in Yelmek, the possessor is coded as the subject of the copula, i.e. the copula indexes the possessor. In the examples in (422) and (423) the possessor is a second-person. Therefore, the copula shows second-person indexing. The possessor itself is not overtly expressed as a noun or pronoun. This kind of phenomenon has also been discussed in other languages as possessor raising (e.g. Deal 2013). 308 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES

(422) a. pu kəke kamʉa pu kəke ka mʉ=a bone hard PRS.2SG COP2 =EMPH ‘Your bones are hard/strong.’ (Yamfinder #47) b. ope epipi kamʉa ope epipi ka mʉ=a eye sick PRS.2SG COP1 =EMPH ‘Your eyes are sick.’ (Yamfinder #53)

(423) ŋədəl ame ka mʉa

ŋədəl ame ka mʉ=a name who PRS.2SG COP1 =Q

‘What is your name?’ (TG1-InterviewAnna #2)

Copula and demonstrative proclitic The demonstrative proclitic /e=/ can attach to the copula directly (424). This is usually accompanied by a pointing gesture. For more information in the demonstrative proclitic see §4.6.

(424) wogaai ima ekəm

woga -ai ima e=kəm uncle -VOC what DEM= COP1

‘Uncle, what is this?’ (TG1-Sago1_Marsel #139)

Copula in light verb constructions Furthermore, copulas can be used in light verb constructions (§9.3.2) as in examples (425) and (426). 9.4. NON-VERBAL PREDICATES 309

(425) təŋ iman ka ŋoa

təŋ ima -n ka ŋo =a laugh what -PURP PRS.2SG COP1.PL =Q

‘Why are you (PL) laughing?’ (elicited example, Yamfinder_list #78)

(426) weu balaneki keda mie ewle mie

weu bala -nek -i kedak mie ewle mie jacket big -ATTR.SG -ACC DEM.PROX COP1.DPST take_off COP1.DPST

‘Then, he took the big jacket off.’ (TG1-NorthWindSun_Libe #112)

The idiomatic way of expressing ‘not knowing’ uses the light verb construction with the copula as well (see ex. 9.4.1).

(427) ima ŋame ŋəl wokaman pa mʉ

ima ŋame ŋəl woka -ma -n pa mʉ what COP2 1SG know -NEG -PURP PRS.1SG COP1

‘What is this? I don’t know.’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #38)

Copula in Recent Past and Present Tense The same forms of the copula are used for present tense and for recent past. The examples in (428) and (429) both use the present tense form of the copula, but note that the speaker is talking about what she did in the morning (of the same day), which is usually a recent past context.

(428) yalmala magubakəl uwo pa mʉ

yalmala magubak -l uwo pa mʉ then sweet_potato -ACC wash PRS.1SG COP1

‘Then I washed sweet potato.’ (TG1-JEL20160804-DogStory #43) 310 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES

(429) mən ai pa mʉ: “Oka adaki ba yapopa.”

mən ai pa mʉ sit PROG PRS.1SG COP1

oka adak =i ba yapo -pa EXCL.pity where =FOC FUT give_birth -FUT.3SG.F

‘I was sitting wondering “Oh dear, where will (the dog) give birth”’ (TG1-DogStory #27)

9.4.2 Copula 2: ŋaCe

The ŋaCe copula is used for statements about identity, attribution and location. This particular copula is less verb-like than the previous one. It does not follow the usual verbal inflection pattern. Only third person forms are attested and no tense marking is visible. It has only three basic forms:

• ŋane - third person masculine singular

• ŋame - third person feminine singular

• ŋape - third person plural

Example (430) illustrates the use of the copula to express identity in a nominal predication. Note that the copula subject is frequently omitted in contexts like this. In this example, the speaker makes a statement about her husband. Only the copula complement ‘civil servant’ is overtly expressed here. The copula subject is implied from the context.

(430) PNS ŋane

PNS ŋane civil.servant COP2.M

‘He is a civil servant.’ (pns = pegawai negeri sipil(Indonesian)) (TG1-20160704-InterviewMarselina #10)

The same copula is also used for adjectival predicates or attributive statements as in example (431). Here it is a statement about the properties of rattan. In this clause both the copula subject (‘rattan’) and the copula complement (‘soft’) are overtly expressed. 9.4. NON-VERBAL PREDICATES 311

(431) tup yep ŋame

tup yep ŋame rattan soft COP1.F

‘The rattan is soft.’ (TG-Fishing_Mars #49)

Example (432) shows the use of the copula to express a location/locative predication. Again both the copula subject and the copula complement are overtly expressed.

(432) num megiak ŋame

num mege =wak ŋame dog high =LOC COP2.F

‘The dog is on top.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Kasim #158)

The copula can also be directly combined with a demonstrative proclitic, as in example (433). This combination can form a clause by itself.

(433) num temine ŋame, eŋame

num temi -nek ŋame e= ŋame dog black -ATTR.SG COP2.F DEM= COP2.F

‘This is a police woman, this one.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #140)

In all the examples above, except possibly the locational one, the predication can be interpreted as a time-stable property. This copula is interchangeable with the copula discussed in the section above. Example (434) shows an asyndetic disjunction between the structurally equivalent clauses ‘being a man’ and ‘being a woman’. In the first clause, the speaker uses the copula 1 and in the second clause the copula 2. This indicates that the difference between the two copulas is not in the semantics. Possible pragmatics factors will be subject to future investigation. 312 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES

(434) yaŋ məkəlnek apad gomnek kəm, modolionek ŋame

yaŋ məkəl -nek apad gom -nek kəm child front -ATTR.SG how male -ATTR.SG COP1.3SG

modolio -nek ŋame female -ATTR.SG COP2.F

‘Is the first child a boy or a girl.’ (TG1-AntoneataLastYear #11)

Derived copulas So far, we have only discussed the basic form of the copula. It is possible, however, to derive another form by adding the detransitiviser prefix. The difference between the basic form and the derived from aligns with the two types of nominal predication Dryer (2007: 233) distinguishes: true nominal predication and equational clauses. In an equational clause, the predicate is referential and identifies the individual denoted by the subject with the individual denoted by the predicate. In a true nominal predicate, on the other hand, the predicate is non-referential and can denote something generic (Dryer 2007: 233). In Yelmek, the basic form of the copula is used for true nominal predication, whereas the derived form is used for equational clauses. This derived form is composed of the detransitivising prefix /ŋ-/ and the copula (see §8.5 on valency changing operations). The resulting forms are:

• ŋeŋkone (M)

• ŋeŋkame (F)

• ŋeŋkape (PL)

Example (435) shows the use of the feminine form and example (436) the use of the plural form. The change of the stem is discussed further below.

(435) yayaŋo Neta ŋeŋkame

yayaŋo Neta ŋe- ŋkame aunt proper_name DTR-COP2.F

‘This is aunt Neta.’ (TG1-Sago3_Mars #2) 9.4. NON-VERBAL PREDICATES 313

(436) yaŋ enam ŋeŋkape ŋelak

yaŋ enam ŋe- ŋkape ŋel -ak child six DTR- COP2.PL 1SG -POSS

‘I have six children. (lit. there exist my six children)’ (TG1-JEL20160802-AntonetaLastYear #33)

The masculine form deviates further by having an additional vowel change. Instead of *ŋeŋkane the form ŋeŋkone is used. It is not clear why. The form is illustrated in example (437).

(437) ee maplene ŋeŋkone

ee maple -nek ŋe -ŋkone EXCL sago_channel -ATTR.SG DTR -COP2.M

‘There is the sago channel.’ (TG1-Sago2_Marsel #186)

An interesting function of this copula form is its use in discourse. For instance, to introduce a new referent into discourse, Yelmek frequently uses a reduced form of the copula; ŋeŋko. This form is morphologically based on the masculine singular form for the equational clause; ŋeŋkone, but in the discourse function it is gender-neutral, as in example (438)2 where it is used with a plural referent and (439) where it is used with a feminine referent, as opposed to example (440) with a masculine singular referent. The form does not change across the three examples.

(438) pu anim ba ŋeŋko, renjani

pu_anim bak ŋe- ŋko renjani pu_people GEN DTR- COP2 plastic

‘It is foreigners ’ plastic bag. (lit. foreigners’ plastic bag exists.)’ (TG1-Sago2_Marsel #30)

2The term the syllable /pu/ in pu anim is derived from the sound a gun makes. There were no guns before the arrival of outsiders. It is unclear which group of foreigners it was originally associated with, but today is commonly used for (non-Papuan-indigenous) Indonesians. 314 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES

(439) oŋa ŋeŋko, oŋali ka kilepe

oŋa ŋe- ŋko oŋa -l =i ka k- ilepe sago DTR- COP2 sago -ACC =FOC PRS.F.SBJ PRS- lift

‘This is sago. She lifts the sago up.’ (TG1-Sago3_Mars #69)

(440) eko meŋebed ŋeŋko, eko kepŋebed ŋeŋkame

eko meŋe -ebed ŋeŋko this_one husband -3POSSR:SG.POSSM exist

eko kepŋe -ebed ŋe- ŋkame this_one wife -3POSSR:SG.POSSM DTR- COP2.F

‘This is her husband, this is his wife. (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #115-116)

There is one further use that only applies to the derived form of the copula; it can occur in verb combinations as in examples (441) and (442). In this particular construction, the verb stem which the copula combines with is marked with the suffix /-ge/ ‘still’.

(441) elapege ŋeŋko

elape -ge ŋe- ŋko extract -still DTR- COP2

‘He is still extracting it.’ (TG1-JEL20160720 #58)

(442) wogaŋop ekemege ŋeŋkame

woga -ŋop ekeme -ge ŋe- ŋkame niece -HON pick -still DTR- COP2.F

‘The niece is still picking (shells from the pile of ashes).’ (TG1-Lime_Mars #128) 9.4. NON-VERBAL PREDICATES 315

Morphologically, the derived copula shows an unusual phonotactic process. When adding the prefix /ŋe-/ the expected result would be *ŋeŋame and *ŋeŋape. However, what we find are:

• ŋe + ŋame → ŋeŋkame

• ŋe + ŋape → ŋeŋkape

• ŋe + ŋane → ŋeŋkone

This indicates that the underlying form of the root actually includes a plosive, e.g. /ŋkame/. Diachronically, this could even have been a prenasalised stop. Yelmek does not have prenasalised stops synchronically, but many languages in the region do. The reasoning for the surface realisation is as follows. A cluster like /ŋk/ is not permitted in Yelmek, therefore, it surfaces as just /ŋ/. However, when an additional prefix is present, the cluster is re-syllabified rather than deleted, i.e. the nasal goes with the first syllable and the plosive with the second, allowing both to be part of the surface form. There is another morpheme that triggers the same kind of surface realisation as /ŋe-/. The demonstrative proclitic /e/ can combine with the copula stem directly as in example (443). In that case, the same surface realisation is present. However, there is also a form eŋame as in example (433) above. The two forms seem to express the same thing. I hypothesise that forms with /ŋk/ are archaic and reflect the diachronic root form with either a cluster or a prenasalised stop. Nowadays the root has been reanalysed as ŋame for instance, and as the combination with the demonstrative root is still a productive process speakers vary as to which form they use.

(443) eko kepŋebed eŋkame

eko kepŋe -ebed e= ŋkame this_one wife -3POSSR:SG.POSSM DEM= COP2.F ‘This one is his wife’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #327)

The same phonotactic process occurs for the negative form of the copula. The negative copula is formed by combining the copula with a negative particle (see §10.5). The two negative particles that can participate in this process are maya and mau. In my corpus, none of the other negative particles combines with the copula. The examples in (444) show how the particle morphologically combines with the copula. As with the detransitiviser prefix discussed above, adding maya triggers the underlying form /ŋkape/ (ex. 444a) and /ŋkame/ (ex. 444b) respectively. This process is the reason I treat this form as one word rather than two adjacent ones. 316 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES

(444) a. a yopu mayaŋkape yoklon ah yo -pu maya- ŋkape yok -lon EXCL do/say -PRV NEG- COP2.PL sleep -PURP ‘We said: “There are no sleeping places.”’ (TG1-LibeTravel #269)

b. modulio mayaŋkame, gomne ŋeŋko modulio maya- ŋkame gom -nek ŋeŋko woman NEG- COP2.F male -ATTR.SG COP ‘It is not a woman, it is a man.’ (TG1-20180723-Negation_1 00:39:18)

The negative copula form also shows the same vowel change for the masculine form as the derived existential form ŋeŋkone, as well as the reduction to /ŋko/, see the examples in (445a). Note that the nasal is often not audible in this combination asin(445b).

(445) a. tokakel mayaŋko tokakel maya- ŋko knife NEG- COP2.M ‘There is no knife.’ (TG1-Flechten_Ambrosia 0:18:00)

b. yu ŋem mayako yu ŋem maya -ŋko water good NEG -COP2.M ‘The water is not good.’ (TG1-20180723-Negation-01 #35) 9.4. NON-VERBAL PREDICATES 317

When the other negative particle mau is combined with the copula the /k/ also surfaces, but the nasal is lost (see ex. 446).

(446) nʉa maukape

nʉa mau-ŋkape people absent-COP2.PL

‘There are no people’ (TG1-InterviewAmbrosia #349) 318 CHAPTER 9. MULTI-WORD PREDICATES AND NON-VERBAL PREDICATES Chapter 10

Simple clauses

Simple clauses in this work are defined as clauses that are monoclausal and are not dependent on other clauses. Clauses with a dependency relation, such as complement clauses and relative clauses are discussed in the next chapter (§11). In the current chapter, I concentrate on the basics of clausal structure, starting with constituent order (§10.1) and the different clause types, i.e. declarative (§10.2), imperative (§10.3), interrogative (§10.4) and negative clauses (§10.5). Grammatical relations and valency are discussed in Chapter 8.

10.1 Constituent Order

A simple declarative clause in Yelmek can solely consist of an inflected verb. The inflectional marking on the verb does not change depending on the presence or absence of an overt argument NP. If overt argument NPs are present, the most basic constituent order is verb-final. The most common way of ordering elements is illustrated in Figure 1, though, there is some flexi- bility with regards to ordering of the elements in a clause. Divergent orders do not trigger any additional morphological marking. Note that all these elements would not occur together in a single clause, not in natural speech at least. In fact, all except the inflected verb are optional, in that they are not required to form a acceptable utterance. Therefore, I will discuss constituent ordering building up from a minimal clause.

319 320 CHAPTER 10. SIMPLE CLAUSES on cognate object on distinction of the adverb cted verb 9.1 8.2 ct ect object/ adjunct cted verb erb ect object indir (see § two) infle construction) clausal subje dir uninfle (see § adv

Figure 10.1: Constituent order in a simple clause

10.1.1 Clauses without argument NPs

A minimal clause consists of just an inflected verb. Example (447) shows an utterance by a speaker talking about a style of woven bag that was introduced by incoming foreigners. He uses two clauses. The first one has the subject overtly expressed, while the second oneonly consists of the verb without the arguments that are implied. Note that this is not a clause chaining construction, as the verbs in both clauses are fully inflected1.

(447) pu anim kai tepu … woŋai … ah

pu_anim kai te -pu w- oŋo -ai ah foreigner PROG enter -PFV DPST- weave -IPV EXCL

‘The foreigners came … (they) were weaving (them) … yes.’2 (Elder talking about how they foreigners brought a differently woven bag. TG1-Sago2_Marsel #164-165)

In natural speech, the inflected verb form is very commonly accompanied by adverbs, e.g. a temporal adverb as in Example 448) for the temporal adverb kay. If a temporal adverb and a discourse marker are present, the temporal adverb precedes the discourse marker3 and the verb, for instance in Example 449, which has the temporal adverb eme followed by the discourse marker ŋi.

1They three dots signal a hesitation. 2The word pu anim is composed of the Marind loan anim for people/ethnic group and pu, which I have been told comes from the sound guns make. 3More details on the discourse marker in §4.7.3 10.1. CONSTITUENT ORDER 321

(448) kay wowlpu

kay w- owlo -pu PROG DPST- take_off.PL.OBJ -PRV

‘(He) takes (his shoes) off.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #19)

(449) eme ŋi ŋopla

eme ŋi ŋople -a PRF DIS descend -RPST

‘(He) has climbed down (the tree).’ (TG1-PearStory #9)

Other elements are possible too, for instance, a location as in example (450).

(450) ukwaki ŋaipu

uku =wak =i ŋai -pu ground =LOC =FOC fall -PRV

‘(He) falls to the ground.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #53)

Clausal adverbs like wigle ’morning’ and wekeke ’yesterday’4, on the other hand, are most commonly found either in clause-initial (see ex. 451a and ex. 451b) or in second position (see ex. 451c).

(451) a. wigle kai ŋekuwampu wigle kai ŋ- kuwame -pu morning PROG DTR- wake -PRV ‘He was waking up in the morning.’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #21)

4For details on adverbs as a word class see §4.7 322 CHAPTER 10. SIMPLE CLAUSES

b. wekeke omgo kai wowlai wekeke omgo kai w- owlo -ai yesterday person PROG DPST- sing -IPV ‘Yesterday the man was singing.’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #143)

c. em wekeke Tika wak ŋapu em wekeke Tika wak ŋa -pu 3PL yesterday Tika LOC go -PRV ‘They went to Tika yesterday.’ (FNB_1 p. 129)

Clauses like these are very common. To illustrate the point, Table 10.1 below shows the figures for the two texts in the Appendix 1. One text is the recital of “The Northwind andthe Sun” story by an older male speaker, and the other one is a free narrative by an older female speaker. Both speakers are in their 50th and married to each other. As can be seen from the table, a great many clauses do not express arguments by overt NPs. In the “North Wind and the Sun” recital more than half of the clauses have not overt NP arguments. In the Dog story more clauses have arguments than not, which is probably due to the fact that there are a large number of characters in that story, whereas the “Northwind and the Sun” story only has three characters. I will discuss the order of elements in clauses with NPs in the next section.

Table 10.1: Clause counts (main clauses) for the “North Wind and the Sun” story recited by Kasim Gebze and a free narrative by Ambrosia Kahol (see Appendix A)

The Northwind and the The Dog Story Sun Clauses without argument NPs 39 (55.7%) 55 (43.6%) Clauses with only S as NP 16 (22.8%) 31 (24.6%) Clauses with only O as NP 10 (14.3%) 34 (27%) Clauses with both S and O as NP 5 (7.1%) 5 (4%) Clause total 70 126

10.1.2 Clauses with arguments

If both the subject and the object are overtly expressed as NPs, the subject usually precedes the object, and both precede the verb. Example (452) illustrates the default order with an utterance 10.1. CONSTITUENT ORDER 323 from the Frog Story. The scene described here shows a boy and a dog watching a frog in a jar. The subject is overtly expressed by the numeral ina ‘two’, and the object is expressed with the accusative pronoun ebi. Note, that it does not influence the word order if the arguments NPs are proper nouns, numerals or pronouns.

(452) ina ebi ko kengayu

ina ebi ko k- engayu two 3SG.ACC PRS.PL.SBJ PRS- see.F.OBJ

‘The two watch it (the frog).’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #13)

It is possible, however, for one argument to appear out of its default position. For instance, in example (453) direct object following the verb and in (454) the subject follows the verb.

(453) omgo kai ba ŋolipən, biatuliga

omgo kai ba ŋolio -pən biatu -l =i =ga person PROG FUT.N1SG.SBJ carry -3SG.IRR bottle -ACC =FOC =RSTV

‘The person will carry it, the bottle.’ (TG1-InstrumentalCommitative #14; 0:20:54)

(454) eme pokŋa eko Alven, numəl ebi

eme p- okŋo -a eko Alven num- l ebi already RPST.SG.SBJ- insert.F.OBJ -RPST this Alven dog -ACC DET.ACC

‘Alven brought her in, the dog.’ (Appendix 1 example 744)

In my corpus, clauses with the arguments preceding the verb are far more common, however. Table 10.2 shows the word order count for the “The Northwind and the Sun” as well as the free narrative again. From these figures, the default order is clearly SV, OV and SOV. Note that OVO refers to examples in which parts of the object NP comes before and after the verb or the object is repeated, as in example (455). 324 CHAPTER 10. SIMPLE CLAUSES

Table 10.2: Word order counts for the “North Wind and the Sun” story recited by Kasim Gebze and a free narrative by Ambrosia Kahol (see Appendix A)

The Northwind and the Sun The Dog Story SV 15 27 VS 1 4 OV 12 30 VO 1 3 SOV 5 3 OVO 3 1 SVO - 1 VSO - 1 VOS - 1

(455) ahh ebi ŋi ko oyo wedep num eki

ahh ebi ŋi ko oyo wedepu num eki EXCL 3SG.ACC DIS DPST.PL.SBJ search AUX dog this.ACC

‘Yes, this the one we looked for, this dog.’ (Dog Story in Appendix 1 example 771)

If two objects are overtly expressed, they can both be placed in front of the verb, as in example (456) where the order is indirect object ŋələl ‘me’ > direct object eŋklal ‘one’ > verb ‘give’. Note that numerals do not take case marking. That is why there is no accusative suffix present in this example.

(456) ŋələl eŋklala ba ŋəgalemo

ŋəl -l eŋklala ba ŋə- gale -mo 1SG -ACC one FUT.N1SG.SBJ 1OBJ- give -DIR

‘If you give me one (then I will take care of it.)’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #183)

The indirect object can also appear as only material before the verb. Example (457) shows two instances of this. Example (457a) is from the Pear Story. In the situation described here, a boy gives pears to three other boys, one each. The recipients are expressed by the plural pronoun in front of the verb. This is even more transparent in example (457b) from the Family Problems Picture Task. In the scene described here, a prison guard hands a man a pile of 10.1. CONSTITUENT ORDER 325 clothes. The recipient is singular, so is the pronoun that precedes the verb, whereas the number expressed in the verb stem is plural, referring to the direct object, the clothes.

(457) a. pepga eŋklala-eŋklala emi p- epge -a eŋklala eŋklala 3PL.ACC RPST.SG- give.PL.OBJ -RPST one one ‘(He) gives them one each.’ (TG1-PearStory #85)

b. ebi ŋi pepga: “mada au emeki ba ŋokŋopu.” ebi ŋi p- epge -a 3SG.ACC DIS RPST.SG- give.PL.OBJ -RPST

mada au emek -i ba ŋokŋo -pu like_this 2SG 3PL -ACC FUT.N1SG.SBJ wear -2SG.IRR

‘(He) gives (the clothes) to him: “You will wear these like this.”’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #52-53)

As with the bivalent construction in (453), the objects can be placed after the verb ina trivalent construction (see ex. 458). Example (458) shows how the speaker spontaneously ordered the arguments in an elicitation session; the indirect object following the direct object and both following the verb.

(458) gomnek eu pelia mil ŋələl

gom -nek eu p- elie -a mi -l ŋəl -l male -ATTR.SG DET RPST.SG- give.SG -RPST bow -ACC 1SG -ACC

‘The man gave a bow to me.’ (FNB_6: 21)

10.1.3 The pre-verbal position

One position in the clause stands out, that is the position right before the verb. This pre-verbal position is particularly salient for the discourse. Not just because it is often the only one filled. It is also evident from the fact that focused elements, as well as elements marked with the question particle or the emphatic clitics, are usually found in this position. For instance, in 326 CHAPTER 10. SIMPLE CLAUSES example (459), the manner adverb mad is placed here and marked with the focus marker. With this, the speaker stresses the manner of the event, rather than any of the participants.

(459) ŋələl madi ba ŋəpŋepa damwak

ŋəl -əl mad =i ba ŋə- epŋe -pa dam =wak 1SG -ACC like.this =FOC FUT.N1SG.SBJ DTR- hit.M.OBJ -1.PL.IRR inside =LOC

‘They will hit me like this inside (prison).’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #16)

Another example is (460). Here the accusative object is additionally marked with the focus clitic.

(460) alpoli weŋepaiwa

alpo -l =i w- eŋepe -ai -wa hand -ACC =FOC DPST- hold.M.OBJ -IPV -2SG

‘You held his hand.’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 02 #224)

Example (476) shows the question clitic in the question word apad. This is not an obligatory marking and serves to give the question word more emphasis.

(461) rusal apada koko

rusa -l apad =a k- oko deer -ACC how =Q PRS.PL- call.PRS

‘What is ‘rusa’ called/What do they call ‘rusa’?5’ (TG1-FrogStory_Libe #113)

10.2 Declarative clauses

Declarative clauses show the constituent order described above (§10.1), whereas imperative clauses and interrogative clauses vary in ways I will describe in the sections below (§10.3 and §10.4 respectively).

5rusa is an Indonesian word. 10.2. DECLARATIVE CLAUSES 327

The valency of a verb does not influence the constituent order. Different verb types and their properties are discussed in Chapter 8. Multi-word predicates and copula clauses show the same structure as presented in Figure 10.1. For instance, the typical position for cognate objects is right before the verb as in example (462) (see §9.1 for more details on cognate objects constructions).

(462) owlol kowlo

owlo -l k- owlo sing -ACC PRS- sing

‘He sings and sings.’ (TG1-AspectLibe #140)

Auxiliary constructions are ordered in the same way. This is illustrated in example (463) with a ‘want’ construction. The auxiliary yo inflects and is clause-final. The uninflected verb precedes the auxiliary, and the direct object precedes both the uninflected verb form and the inflected auxiliary. For more details on auxiliary constructions see§9.2.

(463) emi oyopon yopma

em -i oyopo -n yo -pu -ma 3PL -ACC hold.PL.OBJ -PURP want -PRV -1SG

‘I wanted/tried to catch several (frogs)’

Non-verbal predicates, like copula constructions, have the copula in the same position as verbal clauses have the inflected verb form (see example 464). The position of the copula subject corresponds directly to the subject in a verbal clause and the copula complement to the object.

(464) tup yep ŋame

tup yep ŋame rattan soft COP1.F

‘The rattan is soft.’ (TG-Fishing_Mars #49) 328 CHAPTER 10. SIMPLE CLAUSES

10.3 Imperative clauses

Imperative clauses differ to declarative and interrogative clauses in three main ways. Firstly, imperative clauses have a different prosody. The intonation of imperative clauses is flat(see §3.6.2 on intonation). Secondly, the negation is asymmetric in Horn’s (2010) terms, where the negation of declarative clauses is symmetrical (see §10.5). Thirdly, the verb in an imperative clause has a particular inflection. The imperative form of a verb has the same inflection asthe future tense second-person forms, except that instead of a pre-verbal particle, it has a prefix /y-/. Section §7.1 on subject indexing and section §7.5 on mood deal with the marking in more detail. In terms of constituent order, imperative clauses are arranged like declarative clauses. For instance, in (465) the speaker is commanding a person to lift up three logs. The direct object consists of a numeral and a determiner with accusative marking. As in declarative clauses, the object is placed before the verb, but can also be placed after the verb (see ex. 466). The subject is indicated by the suffix on the verb.

(465) mudem emi yalepepu

mʉdem emi y- elepe -pu three DET.PL.ACC IMP- lift.PL.OBJ -IRR.2SG

‘Lift the three (logs) up!’ (TG1-PluracionalityAmbrosia #111)

(466) yaŋepepu apial

y- eŋepe -pu apia -l IMP- hold.M.OBJ -IRR.2SG net -ACC

‘Hold the net!’ (TG-Fishing_Mars #52)

Like declarative clauses, imperative clauses can appear with overt object NP, as in example (465) and (466) or without overt argument NPs as in example (467). 10.4. INTERROGATIVE CLAUSES 329

(467) ked yawlpu

ked y- owlo -pu now IMP- sing -2SG.IRR

‘Sing now.’ (TG1-AspectElicitation #24)

The subject in an imperative clause is rarely overtly mentioned as an NP, but it does occur. In example (468) for instance, the subject is first called with a vocative form and then referred to with a second person pronoun. Note that the verb does not show the imperative prefix, because the prefix is only visible on vowel initial verbs.

(468) nanaŋobai, au ŋekuwampu

nana -ŋob -ai au ŋe- kuwame -pu older_sibling -HON -VOC 2SG DTR- wake -2SG.IRR

‘Sister, wake up!’ (TG1-LibeTravel recording 02 #362)

10.4 Interrogative clauses

Two types of interrogative clauses are discussed in this section: polar questions (§10.4.1) and content questions (§10.4.2). A polar question requires only an affirmative or negative reply, while a content question requests some more substantial information. In Yelmek, polar questions are formed with an optional clitic /=a/. Content questions use question words.

10.4.1 Polar questions

A polar question in Yelmek can be formed with or without an interrogative clitic. The examples in (469) illustrate the use of the interrogative clitic. The clitic attaches to the element that is questioned or the end of the clause (Ex. 469a). It can also attach to question words/interrogative pronouns for extra emphasis (Ex. 469b). 330 CHAPTER 10. SIMPLE CLAUSES

(469) a. tame wak ŋapea tame wak ŋape =a path LOC COP1.PL =Q ‘They are in the street, right?’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #316)

b. gaga imala weyumpu gaga ima -l =a w- eyum -pu speech what -ACC =Q DPST- tell -PFV ‘What are they talking about?’ (TG1-FPPT-Libe_Bertila recording 01 #167)

This clitic, however, is optional. A polar question is also well-formed without it (ex. 470). Example (470) also illustrates a typical question/answer pattern. Note that there is no one word affirmative, like English ‘yes’, though a polar question can be negated with thenegative existential ‘mau’.

(470) a. Libe eme peŋaya? Libe eme p- eŋaye -a Libe PRF RPST.SG- see.F.OBJ -RPST ‘Have you seen Libe?’ (FNB_6: 14)

b. maya peŋayama maya p- eŋaye -a -ma NEG RPST- see.F.OBJ -RPST ‘I have not seen her.’ (FNB_6: 14)

10.4.2 Content Question

For content questions, a set of interrogative pronouns is used. There are four basic forms: ame ‘who’, ima ‘what’, adak ‘where’ and apad ‘how’ (see Table 10.3). The first two ame ‘who’ and ima ‘what’ can also be used as indefinite pronouns (see §5.3). There is no mono-morphemic question word for ‘when’ and is expressed periphrastically (see ex. 480). 10.4. INTERROGATIVE CLAUSES 331

Table 10.3: Mono-morphemic question words

ame ‘who’ ima ‘what’ adak ‘where’ apad ‘how’

From this basic question words, it is possible to derive other questions by adding case markers directly to the base form. For instance, to ask about the owner of something the genitive post-position bak6 simply follows the question word ame ‘who’, to form ame bak ‘whose’. Table 10.4 shows an illustrative list of forms I have found in my corpus.

Table 10.4: Expressions derived from basic question words

ame bak ‘whose’ iman ‘what for’, ‘why’ ima ban ‘from where’ imad ‘with what’

Both the mono-morphemic and the derived question words are commonly found in the discourse salient pre-verbal slot, particularly when they are marked with an additional focus marker or question clitic. Example (471) to (21) show the interrogative pronoun ame ‘who’, ima ‘what’ and adak ‘where’ in a simple copula clause. If the content question is about the object of a transitive verb, the interrogative pronouns receive accusative marking (see ex. 474).

(471) ekonek ame ŋame

eko -nek ame ŋame DEM -ATTR.SG who COP2.F

‘Who is this?’ (TG-Fishing_Mars #28)

(472) ima ŋane

ima ŋane what COP2.M

‘What is this?’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #227)

6More information on case marking in §6 332 CHAPTER 10. SIMPLE CLAUSES

(473) mapi ada kamʉa

mapi adak ka mʉ-wa frog where PRS.2SG.SBJ COP1 -2SG ‘Frog where are you?’ (TG1-FrogStory_Ambrosia #71)

(474) imal ma aŋkana

ima -l ma oŋu -ka =na what -ACC FUT.1SG eat -1SG.FUT =DIS ‘What will I eat?’ (TG1-AspectAmbrosia #153)

The meaning of apad ‘how’ is quite broad. It can have a range of interpretations without the use of additional case marking or any other morphological marking. In example (475), it expresses ‘how’ in the sense of ‘like what’. The question here is about what a child will look like at a certain point in the future.