Papers on six languages of Papua New Guinea Pacific Linguistics 616 Pacific Linguistics is a publisher specialising in grammars and linguistic descriptions, dictionaries and other materials on languages of the Pacific, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, southeast and south Asia, and Australia. Pacific Linguistics, established in 1963 through an initial grant from the Hunter Douglas Fund, is associated with the School of Culture, History and Language in the College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University. The authors and editors of Pacific Linguistics publications are drawn from a wide range of institutions around the world. Publications are refereed by scholars with relevant expertise, who are usually not members of the editorial board. FOUNDING EDITOR: Stephen A. Wurm EDITORIAL BOARD: I Wayan Arka and Malcolm Ross (Managing Editors), Mark Donohue, Nicholas Evans, David Nash, Andrew Pawley, Paul Sidwell, Jane Simpson, and Darrell Tryon EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Karen Adams, Arizona State University Marian Klamer, Universiteit Leiden Alexander Adelaar, University of Melbourne Harold Koch, The Australian National Peter Austin, School of Oriental and African University Studies Frantisek Lichtenberk, University of Byron Bender, University of Hawai‘i Auckland Walter Bisang, Johannes Gutenberg- John Lynch, University of the South Pacific Universität Mainz Patrick McConvell, Australian Institute of Robert Blust, University of Hawai‘i Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander David Bradley, La Trobe University Studies Lyle Campbell, University of Utah William McGregor, Aarhus Universitet James Collins, Universiti Kebangsaan Ulrike Mosel, Christian-Albrechts- Malaysia Universität zu Kiel Bernard Comrie, Max Planck Institute for Claire Moyse-Faurie, Centre National de la Evolutionary Anthropology Recherche Scientifique Matthew Dryer, State University of New York Bernd Nothofer, Johann Wolfgang Goethe- at Buffalo Universität Frankfurt am Main Jerold A. Edmondson, University of Texas at Ger Reesink, Universiteit Leiden Arlington Lawrence Reid, University of Hawai‘i Margaret Florey, Monash University Jean-Claude Rivierre, Centre National de la William Foley, University of Sydney Recherche Scientifique Karl Franklin, SIL International Melenaite Taumoefolau, University of Charles Grimes, SIL International Auckland Nikolaus Himmelmann, Universität zu Köln Tasaku Tsunoda, University of Tokyo Lillian Huang, National Taiwan Normal John Wolff, Cornell University University Elizabeth Zeitoun, Academica Sinica Bambang Kaswanti Purwo, Universitas Atma Jaya Papers on six languages of Papua New Guinea edited by Joan Hooley Pacific Linguistics College of Asia and the Pacific The Australian National University Published by Pacific Linguistics School of Culture, History and Language College of Asia and the Pacific The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Copyright in this edition is vested with Pacific Linguistics First published 2010 National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Title: Papers on six languages of Papua New Guinea / Joan Hooley (editor). ISBN: 9780858836211 (pbk.) Series: Pacific Linguistics 617. Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Subjects: Papuan languages ― Grammar. Austronesian languages ― Grammar. Other authors/ contributors: Hooley, Joan. Dewey Number: 499.12 Cover photo: Looking down over more than a dozen houses to the valleys and mountains beyond, the photographer was Kirk Franklin, who took it on behalf of SIL. The photo is of Mangga Village in Morobe province. Copyedited by Melissa Crowther Typeset by Jeanette Coombes Cover design by Julie Manley Printed and bound by Addcolour Digital Pty Ltd, Fyshwick, Canberra Table of contents Preface vi Map: Location of language areas referred to by the authors vii 1 Yongkom discourse: ergativity and topic STEVE CHRISTENSEN 1 2 Participant reference in Namia BECKY FELDPAUSCH 41 3 Elements of sentence construction and cohesion in Awad Bing CAROLYN FINAMOR 73 4 Tense and mood pairs in Umbu-Ungu JUNE HEAD 103 5 Can verbs be cohesive? The multiple roles of wiing ‘do’ in Mangga Buang discourse JOAN HOOLEY 113 6 Ergative in Numanggang DAVID HYNUM 129 v Preface All of the authors whose articles appear in this volume are, or have been, members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics working in Papua New Guinea. Each of their papers included here describes features of morphology and/or syntax in a language in which the author has worked and, where relevant, something of the impact that these features have within discourse. Four of the languages discussed are Papuan languages, two are Austronesian. This volume has been several years in the making. As editor, I am greatly indebted to Marie Keilah, now deceased, for all her work in the earlier stages of preparing the papers for publication. Marie served in the Academic Publishing section at Ukarumpa PNG for many years. I am also most grateful to all of the authors for their hard work and patience, and to my husband Bruce for his encouragement and extensive help in the final stages of proof reading and correcting the manuscripts. Joan Hooley Brisbane 2010 vi vii Location of language areas referred to by the authors 1 Yongkom discourse: ergativity and topic STEVE CHRISTENSEN 1 Introduction 1.1 The Yongkom language and people Yongkom is a Papuan language of the Trans New Guinea phylum, Central and South New Guinea stock, Ok family, Lowland Ok sub-family (Voorhoeve 1975). The name of the language Yongkom [jo.om] is a self-referent name which has no inherent meaning. The Yongkom people live in the north-western part of Western Province in Papua New Guinea. They are mostly subsistence farmers, although some have jobs in town, either in the trades or services. They live west of the lower reaches of the Ok Tedi (Alice River) from its mouth at the Fly River to the foothills at the junction of the Ok Birim. From there their land extends north-west into West Papua to the Ok Kao (Kowo River). They also live in the area south of Kiunga as far as the northern shores of Lake Murray and over into the northern part of where the Fly River bulges into Papua. There are roughly 20,000 Yongkom, of which approximately 6000 live in Papua New Guinea. The author lived off and on with the Yongkom people between 1991 and 2004 working under the auspices of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). Ukin Kerem, Akope Katupon, Kanin Amyap, Dayop Omet and Jude Dagi have been most helpful in teaching me the language. The data in this paper represents the Kabom/Kagaip dialect which is spoken in the Yongkom villages along the Ok Tedi. 1.2 Phonology The language has contrastive vowel length, which is represented orthographically by writing the vowel twice. There is loss of voicing in the syllable coda for the plosives. Plosives following nasals tend to be voiced. The orthograph <r> is phonetically [R]. The orthograph <k> tends to be voiced or even pronounced as a fricative intervocalically. Primary stress is on the first syllable of the word, and the language uses intonation rather than being a tonal language. There are three morphophonemic processes to note here. When a stem ends in a vowel, and the following suffix starts with a /b/, an /m/ is inserted between them: ari ‘up’ plus -bed (locative marker) is realised as arimbed. When a stem ends in a vowel, and the following suffix starts with a vowel, a /y/ is inserted between them: baku ‘nail’ plus -iib 1 2 Steve Christensen ‘with’ is realised as bakuyiib. Finally, when a stem or a suffix ends in a /b/, and the following suffix starts with a vowel, the /b/ becomes /w/: bereeb ‘fat’ plus -iib ‘with’ is realised as bereewiib. 1.3 Morphology and syntax Li and Lang (1979:308–309) state that ‘the general structural characteristics of the Papuan languages [are]: (i) The basic word order is SOV. (ii) The Papuan languages are overwhelmingly postpositional. (iii) Modifiers (i.e. adjectives, numerals, demonstratives) generally follow the head noun. (iv) The genitive construction typically has the order genitive + head. (v) Verb morphology tends to be complex. (vi) The relation between two clauses within a complex sentence is normally indicated by an affix on the subordinate verb. (vii) There are no relation-changing rules such as passive, raising, dative movement. (viii) Those Papuan languages which have case systems are mostly ergative … Almost all the languages with case marking systems are members of the Trans-New Guinea phylum.’ Yongkom has all of these characteristics. The SOV word order mentioned in (i) is the most common word order for Yongkom, with 75 per cent of the clauses which have both subject and object noun phrases being in that order. Relation changing rules, item (vii), are briefly discussed prior to example (35) below. (In summary, there are no morphological processes for passive, raising, and dative movement, but the semantics of these processes can be attained in other ways.) Characteristic (viii), that the case system is ergative, is part of what I hope to demonstrate in this paper.1 The remaining characteristics, listed (ii)–(vi) above, can all be seen illustrated in 2 example (1), which is a typical Yongkom sentence. 1 Among the other Ok languages, Ninggirum has an ergative marker (H. Oates pers. comm.); Faiwol, Telefol, Bimin and Mianmin do not (F. Mecklenburg pers. comm.; P.M. Healey 1965b; T. Weber pers. comm.; Smith 1977). 2 Abbreviations used in examples in this paper are: 1 first person HAB habitual aspect PA past tense 2 second person IMP imperative PERF perfective aspect 3 third person INDEF indefinite PL plural ADVR adverbialiser INST instrument PROHIB prohibitive CAUS causative INT intensifier PROM prominence COMP completive IO indirect object RCP recipient DESIR desiderative IRR irrealis REFL reflexive DUR durative LOC locative S singular ERG ergative M male SM sentence medial EXCL exclamatory NEG negation SWR switch reference F female NOM nominaliser TOP topic FUT future O object Ø zero form or zero anaphora Yongkom discourse: ergativity and topic 3 (1) Karub kuu ye okad yaa wen-e ambib embeng yenb-ekor-e, man TOP his land to go-SM house small tie-PERF-SM kuyaa dober-embir-imam-een.