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Morphology and Syntax of Gerunds in Truku Seediq : a Third Function of Austronesian “Voice” Morphology

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Morphology and Syntax of Gerunds in Truku Seediq : a Third Function of Austronesian “Voice” Morphology MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX OF GERUNDS IN TRUKU SEEDIQ : A THIRD FUNCTION OF AUSTRONESIAN “VOICE” MORPHOLOGY A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY IN LINGUISTICS SUMMER 2017 By Mayumi Oiwa-Bungard Dissertation Committee: Robert Blust, chairperson Yuko Otsuka, chairperson Lyle Campbell Shinichiro Fukuda Li Jiang Dedicated to the memory of Yudaw Pisaw, a beloved friend ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my most profound gratitude to the hospitality and generosity of the many members of the Truku community in the Bsngan and the Qowgan villages that I crossed paths with over the years. I’d like to especially acknowledge my consultants, the late 田信德 (Tian Xin-de), 朱玉茹 (Zhu Yu-ru), 戴秋貴 (Dai Qiu-gui), and 林玉 夏 (Lin Yu-xia). Their dedication and passion for the language have been an endless source of inspiration to me. Pastor Dai and Ms. Lin also provided me with what I can call home away from home, and treated me like family. I am hugely indebted to my committee members. I would like to express special thanks to my two co-chairs and mentors, Dr. Robert Blust and Dr. Yuko Otsuka. Dr. Blust encouraged me to apply for the PhD program, when I was ready to leave academia after receiving my Master’s degree. If it wasn’t for the gentle push from such a prominent figure in the field, I would never have seen the potential in myself. I could not have completed this dissertation without Dr. Otsuka’s countless acute observations and constructive critiques on my analysis and writing. I also owe a great amount of gratitude to her for emotional support and frequent reassurances. The research for this dissertation was partially funded by a Taiwan Fellowship offered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China. I am thankful to Dr. Elizabeth Zeitoun and the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica for hosting me for the duration of the fellowship. Dr. Zeitoun’s wealth of knowledge in Formosan linguistics and analytical feedback were critical in refining my research questions. She also continues to be supportive and encouraging after the conclusion of the fellowship. Many current and former students in the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Department of Linguistics have had significant impact in my life, both at the professional and personal levels. Apay Tang, Jonathan Kuo, Victoria Chen, and Ya-chi Yeh were directly involved with my research in various aspects, from recruiting consultants and arranging my field trips to translating for me. Jonathan and Victoria also frequently gave me valuable insights to my research. I am extremely lucky to have such hard-working and brilliant colleagues as you two. I also deeply appreciate the friendship of many other students that I shared so much laughter and so many tears with. I would like to extend special thanks to Katie Gao, Kate Hardeman- iii Guthrie, Sunju Kim, Claire Stabile, Nozomi Tanaka, and Hiroko Sato – thank you for putting up with me over so many years! My parents have been a source of constant support and comfort throughout my life. I hope I can finally make them feel (somewhat) at ease with the completion of my Ph.D. Ryan, I don’t have enough words to express how grateful I am for your love, patience, understanding, and unwavering support. Thank you for always believing in me. And let’s not forget – this dissertation wouldn’t have been complete without all the hard work you put into proofreading it! iv ABSTRACT This dissertation is the first account of gerund constructions in Truku Seediq, an Austronesian language spoken in Taiwan with a Philippine-type voice system. Gerunds are an in-between syntactic category exhibiting both prototypically nominal characteristics and prototypically sentential characteristics. They are event- or state-denoting and derived by a productive nominalization process applied to verbal stems. The aims of this dissertation are to provide a detailed morphosyntactic analysis of Truku gerunds and to seek the historical origins of their morphology. Careful investigation unveils an array of both prototypically nominal and prototypically sentential features associated with the construction, confirming previous cross-linguistic characterization of gerunds. They also manifest typologically unique patterns, such as an interaction with external possession and limitations on voice alternation. Gerunds in Truku are derived via highly polysemous morphemes. Markers for indicative gerunds also function as voice markers and thematic nominalizers. An identical pattern of reduplication not only creates subjunctive gerunds but also marks futurity and derives means/manner nominalizations. Despite surface similarities, I demonstrate these functions to be distinct from one another on semantic, distributional, and syntactic grounds. I propose probable scenarios for the development of Truku gerund markers based on their reconstructed functions in the proto language and cross-linguistic comparisons at the diachronic level. Upon scrutiny, it becomes apparent that Seediq added new functions to two sets of preexisting morphemes: voice markers/ thematic nominalizers (indicative gerund formation) and a pattern of reduplication (subjunctive gerund formation). Both can be traced back to Proto- Austronesian and are widely reflected in its daughter languages. Nevertheless, these innovations are unique to Seediq. They are most likely independent innovations. In spite of distinct origins, indicative and subjunctive gerund markers underwent comparable lines of change that conspired to expand the verbal paradigm of the language. This change involved loss of thematic orientation and a semantic shift towards denotation of events rather than entities. Simultaneously, the original functions of the morphemes were left intact, yielding an unusual level of morphological polysemy. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..................................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................v TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................................................. xi LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................................ xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................... xiii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................1 1.1. Overview ...................................................................................................................................1 1.2. Language profile .......................................................................................................................3 1.3. Data and methodology ..............................................................................................................5 1.4. Phoneme inventory and orthography ........................................................................................6 1.5. Organization of the dissertation ................................................................................................8 CHAPTER 2: MORPHOSYNTACTIC SKETCH OF TRUKU SEEDIQ .....................................10 2.1. The voice system.....................................................................................................................10 2.2. Verbal morphology .................................................................................................................11 2.2.1. Finite voice morphology ..............................................................................................11 2.2.2. Tense, aspect, and mood ...............................................................................................13 2.2.3. Nonfinite voice morphology ........................................................................................14 2.2.4. Hortative morphology ..................................................................................................15 2.2.5. Stative morphology ......................................................................................................16 2.3. Nominal predicates .................................................................................................................17 2.4. Existential constructions .........................................................................................................18 2.5. Word order and case-marking .................................................................................................19 2.6. Pronouns .................................................................................................................................21 2.7. Causativization ........................................................................................................................24 2.8. Serial verb constructions .........................................................................................................26 2.9. Negation ..................................................................................................................................27
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