A Grammar of Mantauran (Rukai)
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Was I that lucky? Elizabeth Zeitoun(齊莉莎) Academia Sinica 2017/06/03 1 Fieldwork A schematic overview 2 1991‐1992 1991‐ 2005‐ 1992‐ 2013‐ Languages studied for the past 26 years 3 1991‐1992 1991‐ 2005‐ 1992‐ 2013‐ Languages studied for the past 26 years 4 1991‐1992 1991‐ 2005‐ 1992‐ 2013‐ Languages studied for the past 26 years 5 1991‐1992 1991‐ 2005‐ 1992‐ 2013‐ Languages studied for the past 26 years 6 Why not start with the Wu Dah‐you award? 2004 The dynamic/stative dichotomy in Formosan languages (Zeitoun & Huang 2000) 7 The dynamic/stative distinction •My first major paper was Zeitoun & Huang (2000) where we showed that the Formosan languages exhibit a pervasive distinction between dynamic and stative verbs. • Stative verbs are marked by Ø or ma‐ and in other contexts, these same verbs are marked by ka‐ (e.g. when marked as negative, imperative, causative, irrealis, and/or nominalized). •Conversely, dynamic verbs are marked by M‐ or Ø and in other contexts, these same verbs are unmarked (e.g. when marked as negative, imperative, causative, irrealis, and/or nominalized). Verb type Indicative AV form Alternant form –Basic Stem (negated or affixed) Dynamic /M/ Ø Ø Stative Ø ka‐ ma‐ 8 Twice awarded the MOST Outstanding Research Award: Ups and downs 2010 9 Rukai The Wanshan village (萬山村)in 1992, at the time when I carried my first fieldwork there • Rukai includes six main dialects: Tanan, Labuan, Budai, Maga, Tona and Mantauran. 10 Rukai http://www.wretch.cc/blog/maler3733 •In August 1992, as I was just starting working as a research assistant at Academia Sinica, I was asked by Prof. Paul Jen‐ kuei Li to study Mantauran as part of a project regarding the survey of the languages spoken in Kaohsiung County (now part of Kaohsiung City). •I could have worked on that dialect just for the duration of the project, that is for only one year. • However, I found a few things rather challenging: •my informant’s (Lü Yu‐zhi) attitude and reticence towards linguists (she used to say that we were “stealing her language”) •the controversial position of Mantauran in the Rukai family •its seemingly “aberrant” grammar •the paucity of the data (a wordlist with about 700 words) 11 Rukai • Difficulties encountered – Chinese – Analyzing a language for which there was no description was extremely difficult. – Challenges included: •Getting used to the sounds of the language (my informant would not let me use a tape recorder and my first encounter with the language consisted in transcribing texts!). • Avoiding always referring to other Rukai dialects (make cross‐ reference is useful once a dialect is well‐understood; otherwise, it can be a source of error, e.g., I first believed that one of the negators in Mantauran was ‐kai until I found out that it was ‐ka‐i [‐Neg‐3S.Gen]). •Finding “good” informants; most were very good storytellers, but would refuse all kinds of elicitation. 12 Rukai –It took me five years (1992 1997) to realize I should focus on 1 dialect first, before I could start working on the internal relationship of the Rukai dialects. –To write a whole grammar: •I had to avoid two pitfalls: –avoid repeating Li’s (1973) extensive grammar on Tanan Rukai; –avoid constantly referring to other Rukai and/or other Formosan languages. –It takes an enormous amount of time to understand a language, and you never get it completely. It took me 10 years to complete the Grammar of Mantauran (Rukai) (Zeitoun 2007). Dixon (2010:81‐83) recommended this grammar among 14 grammars written in the past fifty years on languages around the world! 13 Rukai Lü Yu‐zhi (1924‐2000) Lan Gui‐ying (1947‐) Guan Yue‐ying (1938‐) 14 Rukai •The work aims to present a comprehensive grammar of Mantauran. My goals were to : –provide a description of the most salient characteristics of the grammar of Mantauran in order to reach a better understanding of this language and –make available enough empirical data to show in what respect Mantauran differs from the other Rukai dialects and other Formosan languages in general. The major outcome of this research is to serve as a basis for a comparative study of the Rukai dialects (Zeitoun in preparation). 15 Rukai •It exhibits a very rich morphology: – affixation, – stem modification – reduplication – compounding •It displays eleven word classes but it lacks major categories : it has NO adjective, preposition, case marker, auxiliary verb etc. •It is a head‐marking language. •It is also an accusative language. 16 Rukai •Within the noun phrase, the determiner always precedes the noun. •The verb phrase is composed of a verb and its complement. • Temporal adjuncts occur outside the verb phrase, either in sentence‐initial or in sentence‐final position. •The voice system is based on a dichotomy between an active voice and a passive voice. –The verb attracts: Core arguments •aspectual and modal affixes Subjects Non‐subjects •negatorsand pronominal clitics (S/A) (O) Aff Neg Nom Gen Obl 17 Rukai • Mantauran has two major types of clauses: –the first is nominal and –the second is verbal the predicate usually occurs sentence‐initially • Word order within the clause (i.e. in post‐verbal position) is rather free. • Topicalization represents a more restricted phenomenon. –The subject of the sentence can be topicalized in both active and passive sentences, with a co‐referent pronoun appearing on the main verb. –Only definite objects are allowed to be topicalized. 18 Rukai •It exhibits four types of complement strategies: –zero strategy –verb serialization – nominalization – causativization • Adverbial clauses are: subordinate clauses • juxtaposed/coordinated clauses are: co‐ranking clauses 19 Twice awarded the MOST Outstanding Research Award: Ups and downs 2015 20 Saisiyat •In 2005, I started working on the morphology of Saisiyat. –I had worked on that language before (I started in 1999) and –I had, for a couple of years, analyzed texts with my assistant. –I had worked on reduplication in Saisiyat with Chen‐huei Wu (while in her Post‐MA program in 2003‐2004). •Again, this work was rather challenging: –Before and during the time I was writing this book, there were up to 63 publications. –I worked on the Saisiyat morphology for five years and a half and was able to come up with a monograph of over 1,300 pages, which was trimmed –after review and for the sake of its publication –to 600 pages. Qian Dou Chi‐mei (1932‐) Gao De‐sheng (1928‐2017) Zhu A‐liang (1928‐2015) 21 Saisiyat •This manuscript of over 600 pages is divided in ten chapters. –Overview of the Tungho Saisiyat grammar (including its phonology and morphosyntax), – Morphological units, morphological processes, and major lexical categories –Nominal and verbal morphology (including valency‐changing operations such as causativity, reflexivity and reciprocity). – Nominalization and composite verbs. The morphological analysis is cast in terms of the morpheme‐ based approach. Robert Blust, Editor of the Oceanic Linguistic series, states (in an ad of the book) that “only a few hundred speakers of Saisiyat remain […] making this work not only valuable for its content, but timely in saving something of a language that may not survive very far into the future. A few pioneering studies of Saisiyat have been done so far, but nothing of this magnitude.” 22 And now what? •Writing of the comparative study of Rukai •Writing of the Kanakanavu and Saaroa grammars while also re‐examining their relationship (and their connection to Rukai) • Editing of the Saisiyat dictionary and writing on Saisiyat lexicon • Editing of an annotated bibliography of Formosan languages with a short historiography of the Formosan linguistics field 23 A comparative study of Rukai •It aims to provide a comparative study of the Rukai dialects in order to: –provide a reconstruction of grammatical morphemes at the Proto‐Rukai level and – reassess their internal relationships (Zeitoun 2003, in preparation) •This is a very complex topic, and I just give an example here of this comparative work with the grammaticalization of verbs as prepositions in Tanan and a comparison with the other Rukai dialects. Proto Rukai Western Rukai South‐eastern Rukai Maga Tona MLT Budai LB Mantauran Labuan Tanan 24 A comparative study of Rukai • Throughout a detailed review of Li’s (1973) work as a background for a comparative study of Rukai, I reconstruct the locative/directional and instrumental verbal paradigm in Rukai as follows (Zeitoun 2017, in preparation). Gloss Mantauran Maga Tona Budai Labuan Tanan Proto‐Rukai ‘be at’ om‐iki ikée y‐a‐kay y‐a‐kay y‐a‐kay y‐a‐kay *i‐a‐kai ‘come from’ ’aliki pa‐salké pa‐silikay pa‐twalay pa‐twalay ’a‐twalay *salikai ‘arrive’ m‐o‐kela u‐kÆla w‐a‐kela w‐a‐kela w‐a‐kela w‐a‐kela *w‐a‐kela ‘use’ to’araki sarké syakay arakay ahakay arakay *ara‐kai ‘do for’ ’iraki kérké kyakay pasiakay pasiakay pasiakay *ki‐ara‐kai, *si‐a‐kai 25 Kanakanavu and Saaroa •In two recent papers (Teng & Zeitoun 2016 and Zeitoun & Teng 2016), we show that earlier voice forms that were identified as PF (PV or UVP), LF (LV or UVL) and B/IF are actually nominalized forms. •A schematic comparison of Kanakanavu voice and nominalization systems is shown in Table 1. We exclude from this comparison the various aspectual distinctions that interact closely with focus/voice. Table 1. A schematic comparison of Kanakanavu focus (or voice) system (Tsuchida 1976, Mei 1982, Wu 2006, Ross 2009, Zeitoun & Teng 2016) Kanakanavu Focus Tsuchida (1976) AF NAF AF PF / LF SF <um> ‐a / ‐un ‐ai Mei (1982) AF OF T/LF OF1 OF2 <um> ‐un ‐ai ni…‐a(n) Wu (2006) AF PF LF I/BF <um> ‐ai / ‐un ‐a(n) si‐ Voice and nominalization Ross (2009) Voice AV UV AV UVP / UVL <um> ‐un NMLZ AGTNMLZ PATNMLZ LOCNMLZ INSNMLZ <in> ta‐…(‐an) si‐ Zeitoun & Teng Voice AV UV (2016) <um> ‐un NMLZ AGTNMLZ PATNMLZ LOCNMLZ INSNMLZ ta‐, na‐, <in>…(‐an) ta‐…(‐an) si‐ <um> ‐an ‐an 26 Voice vs.