The Coastal Marind Language
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This document is downloaded from DR‑NTU (https://dr.ntu.edu.sg) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The coastal marind language Olsson, Bruno 2018 Olsson, B. (2018). The coastal marind language. Doctoral thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. http://hdl.handle.net/10356/73235 https://doi.org/10.32657/10356/73235 Downloaded on 01 Oct 2021 11:12:23 SGT THE COASTAL MARIND LANGUAGE BRUNO OLSSON SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES 2017 The Coastal Marind language Bruno Olsson School of Humanities A thesis submitted to the Nanyang Technological University in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2017 List of abbreviations. Gloss Label Explanation (m) Malay/Indonesian word 1, 2, 3 1st, 2nd 3rd person sg, pl singular, plural 2|3 2nd or 3rd person I, II, III, IV Genders I, II, III and IV Chapter 6 3pl>1 3pl Actor acts on 1st person §8.2.2.2 a Actor §8.2 acpn Accompaniment §12.2 act Actualis §14.3.1 aff Affectionate §14.3.3 all Allative §12.3 apl Associative plural §5.4.2 cont Continuative §13.2.4 ct Contessive §14.4.5 ctft Counterfactual §13.3 dat Dative §8.3 dep Dependent dir Directional Orientation §10.1.4 dist Distal §3.3.2.1 dur Past Durative §13.2.1 ext Extended §13.2.3 frus Frustrative §14.4.1 fut Future §13.2.7 fut2 2nd Future §13.2.7 gen Genitive §8.4 giv Given §14.1 hab Habitual §13.2.6 hort Hortative §17.1.3 slf.int Self-interrogative §14.3.4 imp Imperative §17.1.1 iness Inessive §9.3.2 ingrs Ingressive §16.3.5 int Interrogative §17.3.1 Continued on next page. Continued from previous page. ipfv Non-past Imperfective §13.2.2 jus Jussive §17.1.2 loc Locational Orientation §10.1.5 mir Mirative §14.3.2 neut Neutral Orientation §10.1.2 obj Object Orientation §10.1.3 only Restrictive Orientation §10.1.6 perf Perfect §13.2.5 pl.imp Plural Imperative §17.1.1 pla Pluractional §13.4 poss Possessor §8.4 prs Present pri Prioritive §14.4.3 proh Prohibitive §17.1.4 prow Pro-word §3.3.3 prox Proximate §3.3.2.1 prstv Presentative §14.3.5 pst Past ptcl Particle §3.3.9 ptcp Participial §4.5.3 q Polar question §17.2 quot Quotative §3.3.3.4 rcpr Reciprocal §12.4 re Repetitive §14.4.2 rem Remote §3.3.2.1 rlq Relinquitive §16.3.7 sep Separative §12.3 u Undergoer §8.5 ven Venitive §14.5 with Instrumental-Comitative §9.3.3 Acknowledgments I had just arrived in Wambi for the first time, and as my guide had abandoned me to go look for the man that he figured could be my host in Wambi—Paulus Yolmend—I found myself standing alone in the shade of the coconut palms in what seemed to be a deserted village. As I was contemplating what the villagers’ reaction to my intrusion would be like, an old woman slowly made her way past me, struggling under an enormous load of firewood. She threw a glance at me, greeted me in Dutch and then proceeded to interrogate me in Marind, but as I was trying to stammer out a response she lost her interest and continued on with her burden. Somewhat bewildered by the casual indifference of my interlocutor, it dawned on me that after spending two months in South Papua, I had for the first time arrived in a place where the villagers— or at least some of them—considered the local language to be a suitable means of communication with a stranger. This, I thought, will be a good place for learning Marind. Although I leave it to the villagers to judge how much of their language I man- aged to learn, Wambi was indeed a wonderful place for doing fieldwork. I am in- debted to all of the villagers who accepted my presence so naturally, and especially to Paulus Yolmend and Yustina Mahuze who agreed to let me move into one of their two houses, pleasantly located at the beach in Wambi. I am overwhelmed by the generosity they and the rest of their large family showed me by letting me into their lives, and for letting me record them, and for not minding that I was constantly look- ing over their shoulders, trying to figure out what they were doing and what on earth they were saying to each other. Although everybody in my vicinity happily agreed to being recorded, they also made it wonderfully clear how gruesome they found the work of assisting me with transcription and translation—not to mention elicitation of verb paradigms. Some of my regular helpers would practically be climbing the walls in despair as we sat in the sweltering heat, and I asked them for the umpteenth time to repeat what they heard in the headphones, alil en, alil en, slowly, slowly. I am taken by the loyalty displayed by the team of transcribers, all of whom would prefer not to: Pau Yolmend 5 (grandson of my host Paulus Yolmend), Alo Yolmend (Paulus and Yustina’s second youngest son), Sepi Yolmend (the village secretary) and Ricky Basik-Basik (son of the village chief). My heartfelt thanks also go out to Paulus and Yustina’s eldest son, Budi Yolmend, as well as his family, for helping me with a myriad of things—practical and linguistic—in Merauke and during his visits to Wambi. Budi’s calm and intelligence was of enormous help in managing various logistic and interpersonal challenges. Special thanks also to Rafael Samkakai and his wife, Sela Gebze, who hosted me during my first short trip to a Marind village (Duhmilah, east of Wambi) and who adopted me into their family and the wallaby clan. In Merauke, my warmest thanks go out to Kalasina Agaki and her husband, Nur- man Nurhasan, and the rest of their family, who were my hosts in Merauke during part of my second trip and during my last trip. I became close friends with the eldest son in the family, Dedi Agaki, who was born and grew up in a Marind village. Trying to emulate Dedi’s sense of humor and approach to life is possibly the most valuable fieldwork skill I ever learned. Various people in kohi-milah—the white world—helped me. I am grateful to Har- ald Hammarström and Nicholas Evans, who indepedently of each other suggested that I consider working on Marind for my thesis. The latter also hosted me during three productive weeks at the Australian National University in Canberra, together with Jane Simpson. David Gil generously provided me with information about the conditions in Merauke and gave me several useful contacts, as did Wayan Arka. Dur- ing my first trip and parts of my second trip I was hosted by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart while visiting Merauke, who kindly provided me with a room and gave me access to the mission archive. I am very grateful to Father Kees de Rooij and Archbishop Nicolaus Adi Seputra for their help and generosity. I wish to thank Todd Barlin, who entrusted the films he made in Wambi in the 90’s to me, and Darja Hoenigman for making this possible. It was an honor to be able to return Todd Barlin’s valuable documentation to the villagers. Thanks also to Ger Reesink, Sebas- tian Fedden, Timothy Usher and Edgar Suter for advice and critical comments, and to Bernhard Wälchli, who hosted me as a visiting PhD student in Stockholm, and contributed valuable insights about the Marind gender system, as well as general encouragement. In Singapore, I thank my main supervisor, Frantisek Kratochvil, for fruitful dis- cussion and crucial help in arranging my fieldwork. Thanks also to my secondary supervisor, Alec Coupe, especially for assuming the role of main supervisor during the critical last stages of the writing process. Finally, I extend heartfelt expressions of gratitude (and apologies) to family and friends in Singapore, Stockholm, Berkeley and Canberra. Contents 1 Preliminaries 25 1.1 General information ........................... 25 1.1.1 Structural profile ......................... 26 1.1.1.1 Phonology. ....................... 26 1.1.1.2 Verbs. .......................... 26 1.1.1.3 Nominals. ........................ 27 1.1.1.4 Syntax. ......................... 28 1.2 Relationships with other languages ................... 29 1.2.1 The Marindic languages and the Anim language family .... 30 1.2.2 The Marindic languages ..................... 31 1.2.2.1 Languages vs. dialects. ................ 32 1.2.2.2 Sound changes. .................... 33 1.2.2.3 Grammar. ........................ 34 1.2.3 Language contact ......................... 37 1.3 The Marind people ............................ 38 1.3.1 Geography ............................ 38 1.3.2 Ethnographic remarks ...................... 39 1.3.3 Demography ........................... 41 1.3.4 Socioeconomic setting, subsistence ............... 41 1.4 Previous research ............................. 43 1.5 This grammar ............................... 44 1.5.1 The fieldwork ........................... 44 1.5.2 The corpus ............................ 45 1.5.3 Summary and topics for future research ............ 46 2 Phonology 49 2.1 Segmental phonology .......................... 49 2.1.1 Consonants ............................ 49 2.1.1.1 Stops. .......................... 50 9 2.1.1.2 Nasals. ......................... 52 2.1.1.3 Fricatives. ........................ 52 2.1.1.4 Approximants. ..................... 52 2.1.1.5 Liquid. ......................... 53 2.1.2 Vowels ............................... 57 2.1.2.1 The marginal vowel /ɐ/. ............... 57 2.1.2.2 Vowel allomorphy. ................... 58 2.2 Phonotactics ................................ 58 2.2.1 Epenthetic /a/ .......................... 59 2.3 Suprasegmentals ............................. 60 2.4 Metrical structure ............................. 60 2.4.1 Insertion of pretonic epenthetic /a/ ............... 62 2.4.2 Syncopation of antepretonic /a/ ...............