The prefix ni- in Kuloonaay: grammaticalization pathways in a three-morpheme system By David C. Lowry August 2015 Word Count: 19,719 Presented as part of the requirement of the MA Degree in Field Linguistics, Centre for Linguistics, Translation & Literacy, Redcliffe College. DECLARATION This dissertation is the product of my own work. I declare also that the dissertation is available for photocopying, reference purposes and Inter-Library Loan. David Christopher Lowry 2 ABSTRACT Title: The prefix ni- in Kuloonaay: grammaticalization pathways in a three- morpheme system. Author: David C. Lowry Date: August 2015 The prefix ni- is the most common particle in the verbal system of Jola Kuloonaay, an Atlantic language of Senegal and The Gambia. Its complex distribution has made it difficult to classify, and a variety of labels have been proposed in the literature. Other authors writing on Kuloonaay and on related Jola languages have described this prefix in terms of a single morpheme whose distribution follows an eclectic list of rules for which the synchronic motivation is not obvious. An alternative approach, presented here, is to describe the ni- prefix in terms of three distinct morphemes, each following a simple set of rules within a restricted domain. This study explores the three-morpheme hypothesis from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. At a synchronic level, a small corpus of narrative texts is used to verify that the model proposed corresponds to the behaviour of ni- in natural text. At a diachronic level, data from a selection of other Jola languages is drawn upon in order to gain insight into the grammaticalization pathways by which the three morpheme ni- system may have evolved. 3 PREFACE I first had the privilege of working with the Kuloonaay language in 2010 – 2011, when I was invited to join my SIL colleagues Pascal and Janet Frésard in The Gambia for a year, to carry out a study of narrative discourse. Over the course of that year, I got to know many wonderful ‘Kaloon’ people, who were tremendous fun to work with and hugely generous with their time in welcoming me and helping me to understand their language. Three years later, in 2014, I was invited back by Pascal and Janet to work again with the Kuloonaay language, this time in the role of a linguist/exegete for the translation of Luke’s gospel. This has been a similarly enjoyable task, and again a great privilege to work with some outstanding and motivated people. During my time of working with the language, I have come up against certain common morphemes whose behaviour, at first sight, is both intriguing and baffling, and none more so than the prefix ni-. The aim of this study is to carry out a thorough investigation of this prefix, both at a synchronic and a diachronic level, to understand not only how it works in current Kuloonaay, but also how it has evolved. I have a long list of Kaloon people to thank for their contribution in various ways. I am grateful to all those who have supplied the 15 narrative texts, collected during my stint in The Gambia, that make up the corpus necessary for this work. I am especially grateful for the time and patience of Joseph Sambou, Ekiyen Jarju, Remy 4 Sambou, Matthias George-Jatta and Eric Diatta, all of whom have been prepared to be interrogated at length as I have tried to gain insights into how their language works. I am grateful for the academic supervision of my SIL colleagues Colin Mills, Tim Gaved and Maik Gibson, and for all the ways they have helped me to develop and to sharpen my linguistic competence through the exercise of writing this dissertation. A big thank you in particular needs to go to my delightful and fun Northern Irish wife, Ruthie. Her support, patience, warmth and general loveliness have been a huge blessing during long hours of writing, as has her careful proofreading of this work. Finally, I give thanks to God for the enormous privilege not only of existing in His astonishingly glorious universe, but also of getting to spend my time researching aspects of how it works. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings (Proverbs 25:2, NIV). Every new insight I gain into the minutiae of morphosyntax and language change in Kuloonaay reminds me of the indescribable brilliance of the eternal mind that first conceived all such linguistic systems, and that perfectly understands every detail. 5 CONTENTS Chapter Page DECLARATION ....................................................................................................... 2 ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. 3 PREFACE................................................................................................................ 4 LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... 7 LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................. 8 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 1 Introduction ....................................................................................11 CHAPTER 2 Theoretical background and methodology ......................................16 CHAPTER 3 Morphophonemic considerations....................................................33 CHAPTER 4 Ni- main .........................................................................................46 CHAPTER 5 Ni- secondary .................................................................................57 CHAPTER 6 Ni- habitual .....................................................................................69 CHAPTER 7 Distinguishing between the three ni- morphemes ...........................78 CHAPTER 8 Conclusions ...................................................................................87 BIBLIOGRAPHY .....................................................................................................93 APPENDIX A: Text corpus summary ......................................................................99 APPENDIX B: Example Kuloonaay text ................................................................ 101 APPENDIX C: Sample consent form ..................................................................... 106 6 LIST OF TABLES Table Page Table I: Verbal agreement markers for noun classes ..............................................22 Table II: Verbal agreement markers for human subjects .........................................22 Table III: TAM categories ........................................................................................24 Table IV: Morphological and syntactic modifications that accompany different organizations of the utterance .................................................................................27 Table V: Definition of main clause and secondary clause .......................................29 Table VI: Feature chart for Kuloonaay consonants .................................................34 Table VII: Possibilities for the initial phoneme of the morpheme to which ni- attaches ...............................................................................................................................36 Table VIII: Morphophonemic rules for ni- ................................................................37 Table IX: Range of possible pronunciations for niŋ plus host noun .........................40 Table X: The ‘two-series’ approach to ni- in Kuloonaay ..........................................43 Table XI: Different ni- secondary verb types ...........................................................62 Table XII: Morphophonemic behaviour of ni- habitual for 3s and C2s .....................70 Table XIII: -ē suffixes .............................................................................................80 Table XIV: Word-level distinctive features for different ni- verbs .............................82 Table XV: Statistical count for ni- in the text corpus ................................................86 Table XVI: Summary of the three ni- morphemes ...................................................88 7 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page Figure 1: Map of the Kaloon region of Senegal .......................................................12 Figure 2: Tree diagram showing the relationship between different Jola varieties ...14 Figure 3: A hypothesis for the evolution of ni- forms ...............................................42 Figure 4: Possible evolution of ni- secondary in subject-focus and object-focus clauses ...................................................................................................................66 Figure 5: Summary of suggested grammaticalization pathways for the three ni- morphemes .............................................................................................................89 8 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1s, 2s, 3s 1st, 2nd, 3rd person singular 1p, 2p, 3p 1st, 2nd, 3rd person plural 1d, 1pe, 1pi 1st person dual, 1st person plural exclusive, 1st person plural inclusive AGR Agreement marker ART Article (definite) ATR Advanced tongue root C, CL Noun classifier (‘C’ is used in conjunction with a noun-class number, ‘CL’ is used elsewhere). COP Copular DEM Demonstrative DIR Directional suffix. For a verb of motion, this reverses the direction of the verb. For a punctual action, this indicates that the action takes place elsewhere (see Wilkinson