COPYRIGHT AND USE OF THIS THESIS This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Director of Copyright Services sydney.edu.au/copyright A GRAMMAR OF NIAS SELATAN Lea Brown A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of University of Sydney 2001 Except where otherwise acknowledged, this thesis represents the original research of the author Lea Brown (Pamela Leanne Brown) University of Sydney 2001 ______________________ i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A funny thing happened on my way from doing my B.A. at Melbourne Uni to the rest of my life: I went to a seminar given by Bill Foley in which he described some of his adventures during field work in PNG. It sounded ... well ... tantalizing. And that seminar was directly responsible for my doing this thesis. Now, while I haven't followed in Bill's footsteps exactly, I've had a few adventures myself. So for the adventures, the memories, the other life, that this thesis has brought me, I want to thank Bill Foley. Bill has also been my supervisor, and I want to thank him, warmly and effusively, for his comments and discussions about my work throughout the writing period, as well as for his patience, his faith in me, his friendship and his support over the time it has taken to complete this work. The person who is directly responsible for refining my thoughts about almost every topic in this study in the last year is Matthew Dryer, without whose acuity of mind and incisive observations I feel I would have been lost. I can't thank Matthew enough for his help. There are also a number of other people whose comments on my work have been invaluable and to whom I am also enormously grateful. These include Jane Simpson, Nikolaus Himmelmann, Andrew Pawley, Mark Donohue, Malcolm Ross, Sander Adelaar, Deborah Hill and Phil Rose. Other people to whom I am as enormously grateful for reasons other than directly related to the writing of the thesis are those who have provided some kind of life support during the very extended period it took to do this thesis. In Nias I am extremely grateful to two families for taking me into their homes, as a complete stranger, and treating me as family: Pak Zagötö and his family, and Gusti Fau and her family. In Medan I think I was unbelievably fortunate in being taken in by Bruce and Rens North, Bruce's brother Philip, and Bruce and Rens' kids Jayce and Siara, whose warmth and affection provided sanctuary from the more anxious times of fieldwork. Other people in Nias, Medan and Jakarta who have helped in so many other ways, and to whom I extend my deepest gratitude are Ama Gumi and Ina Gumi, Adi Laoli, Reverend Lase, Pak Gulö and his family, Hein Steinhauer, Mark Flint and in particular, Sitasi Laiya and her family. I feel great joy in getting to know Sitasi, and I am extremely thankful to her for her friendship and help, and her insightful comments about various aspects of the grammar. In Australia, I'd like to thank Andy Pawley for letting me have a cubby hole at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at ANU for the three and a half years I worked there, and for the last few months as I prepared to submit. I am also grateful to all of the staff and students of Linguistics at RSPAS for the academic life ii they've provided over the time I've been there, and for the pleasure I've had in being made to feel part of their family. The greatest academic gift I've had has come from Anna Wierzbicka. Her acute mental microscope, which teaches her students to question and re-question every word and every thought, to accept no vagueness or fuzzy boundaries, has made linguistic analysis intensely interesting and endlessly enjoyable. I just hope some of her training has rubbed off on me. I also worked with Anna as her research assistant for three and a half years, and I feel extremely grateful to life for providing me with this experience. What has been the most magical aspect of this study to me is the discovery of how extraordinarily coherent this thing called a language is. I'm not sure that I could have seen the truly amazing influences each part of a language has on all the other parts if I hadn't 'done the whole thing'. A language is like symphony—each part fits with the other parts with such beauty and precision that it leaves one awe-struck at its design. To all the people who have set me on the road to this discovery, I am forever grateful. These include, apart from Anna Wierzbicka, Bill Foley, Bob Dixon, Harold Koch, Avery Andrews, Karl Rensch, Phil Rose, David Bradley and Annette Schmidt. I would also like to thank the Indonesian Government for allowing me to do fieldwork in their beautiful country, in particular Dr. Masinambow and the staff at LIPI for processing my research permit, Dr. Ali and Hein Steinhauer at the Pusat Bahasa, and the Indonesian Cultural Attaché in Canberra who assisted in getting everything done. I am also grateful to Bernd Nothofer and Jim Fox for their help with information and various other organizational details of my initial trip to Nias. I am also grateful to the Research Institute for Asia and the Pacific at Sydney University, and the Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee for providing funds for my initial field trip. In Canberra, I would like to thank Annette and Paul Wellings for their friendship and support over many years. Perhaps above all, I am deeply thankful to my mother, who has always supported the things that her brat has done even though she has had profound reservations about their value to my life. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements............................................................................i Table of contents............................................................................. iii List of tables................................................................................... x Abbreviations................................................................................. xi Abstract......................................................................................xiii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Introduction............................................................................. 1 1.2 Contact history......................................................................... 2 1.3 Nias: the place, the people............................................................ 3 1.4 Dialects of Nias ........................................................................ 7 1.4.1 Dialectal differences............................................................ 9 1.5 The role of Indonesian in community life..........................................12 1.6 Previous linguistic studies...........................................................12 1.7 Fieldwork for this study .............................................................17 1.8 Data base for this study. .............................................................19 CHAPTER 2 PHONOLOGY 21 SECTION 1: CONSONANTS 2.1 Inventory of consonant phonemes..................................................21 2.2 Phonetic description of unusual consonants.......................................22 2.2.1 Labial sounds...................................................................23 2.2.1.1 Origins of the bilabial trill in Nias .....................................24 2.2.2 (Dento-)alveolar sounds.......................................................28 2.2.3 (Alveo-)palatal sounds ........................................................31 2.3 Minimal contrasts.....................................................................32 2.4 Discussion of phonemic status of segments .......................................35 2.4.1 /b/ - /ß/...........................................................................36 2.4.2 /f/ vs /v/ .........................................................................38 2.4.3 /c/................................................................................39 2.4.4 Glottal stop .....................................................................40 2.4.5 /y/................................................................................44 2.4.6 /w/ ...............................................................................46 SECTION 2: VOWELS 2.5 Vowel phonemes......................................................................47 2.6 Minimal pairs..........................................................................48 SECTION 3: PHONOTACTIC STRUCTURE 2.7 Syllable, word and stress............................................................49 2.8 Words with lexical