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Spatial Deixis in Chintang Aspects of a Grammar of Space

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Spatial Deixis in Chintang Aspects of a Grammar of Space Spatial Deixis in Chintang Aspects of a Grammar of Space vorgelegt von Tyko Dirksmeyer im Mai als wissenscha liche Arbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades “Magister Artium” (M.A.) (Magisterarbeit) am Institut für Linguistik der Philologischen Fakultät der Universität Leipzig stud. phil. Tyko Dirksmeyer Eduardstraße Leipzig-Plagwitz [email protected] geboren am . August in Hamburg Matrikel-Nummer Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Balthasar Bickel Prof. Dr. Bernard Comrie Institut für Linguistik Arbeitsbereich Linguistik Universität Leipzig Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie Beethovenstraße Deutscher Platz Leipzig Leipzig Contents Acknowledgements xi Preface xiii 1 Introduction 1 . eoretical context . . Aims and scope of this study . . Structure of the study . . e Chintang language and its speakers . .. Previous work on Chintang . .. Grammatical basics . . Methodology . .. Space game . .. Topological relations questionnaire . .. Demonstrative questionnaire . I Theoretical Foundations 11 2 Space through time and in language 13 . Historical conceptions of space . . Relativity research in Nijmegen . . Inventory of primitives . . Semantic typology of space in language . 3 Deixis 27 4 Transposition 33 II Empirical Findings 37 5 Non-angular spatial specifications 39 . General deictics . .. Spatial uses . .. Non-spatial uses . . Toponymy . . Topology . iii 6 Frames of reference 53 . Intrinsic . . Absolute . .. Mapping operations . .. Altitudinal locative cases . .. e vertical dimension proper . . Relative . 7 Motion 67 8 Deictic transposition in Chintang and Belhare 69 . Deictic transposition in Belhare . . Chintang parallels . .. Altitudinal a- and u- terms . .. Altitudinal ba- terms . . Parallel structures in Chintang and Belhare? . . Evidence . . Function of a- and u- . . Selecting a different G . . Transposition in Chintang? . 9 Conclusions 83 . Chintang and the larger picture . . Outlook and perspectives for further research . Appendix 91 A Space Game 91 A. Subjects . A. Materials . A.. Original task . A.. Adaptation . A. Procedure . A.. Original task . A.. Adaptation . A. Instructions . B Topological relations questionnaire 103 C Demonstrative questionnaire 109 D Summary in German 119 References 121 iv List of Tables . Chintang independent personal pronouns and possessive prefixes . . Some Chintang cases and their morphological markers . . General demonstratives and some of their case inflections in Chintang . . Spatial demonstratives in Chintang . . Altitudinal locative case markers . . Altitudinal deictic motion verbs . . Case inflection of Belhare demonstratives . . Altitudinal locative case inflection in Belhare . . Spatial case paradigm for the altitudinal ba-terms . A. Instructions for the player acting as director in the space game . A. Instructions for the player acting as matcher in the space game . v List of Figures . Major semantic subfields in spatial language . . Frames of reference . . Named parts of objects . . Named parts of objects under rotation . . Sectors projected off a Ground object . . Absolute demonstrative roots . . Reference from the deictic origin in Belhare . . Reference with a transposed zero-point in Belhare . . Applicability of altitudinal ba- terms . . A possible description in Chintang . . A closer look at some possible descriptions . . Selecting a Ground other than the speaker . A. Route of the space game . A. Route of the space game . A. Route of the space game . A. Consultants playing the space game . B. Scenes – of the topological relations picture series . B. Scenes – of the topological relations picture series . B. Scenes – of the topological relations picture series . B. Scenes – of the topological relations picture series . B. Scenes – of the topological relations picture series . B. Scenes – of the topological relations picture series . vii List of Abbreviations most agent-like argument ablative additive focus addressee associative basic locative construction comitative demonstrative directive distal dual e exclusive emphatic ergative Figure Ground genitive honorific i inclusive imperative infinitive instrumental imperfective lative mediative - non-, e.g. non-singular (i.e., dual or plural) nativizer (adapts loanwords) ix noun phrase most patient-like argument plural Papua New Guinea perfect pronoun proximal past sole argument of an intransitive predicate singular speaker transposed viewpoint of the observer village development committee origin of a coordinate system Interlinear glosses comply with the Leipzig Glossing Rules. Examples are referenced in the format session.XXX, with XXXrepresenting the utterance number within the session. Session names may serve as a hint to the text genre they are taken from: labels beginning with ctn_spa represent space game sessions (cf. p. ), labels including the sequence toprel refer to the topological relations picture series (cf. p. ), labels of the form demq refer to the demonstrative questionnaire (cf. p. ), labels beginning with CLLDCh indicate sessions from the child language subcorpus (usually naturally situated discourse between children or children and adults; I have, however, only cited utterances from adult speakers here), and all other labels mark all other kinds of texts, mostly narratives, but also (prompted) discourse. All files in the corpus, together with full session metadata, can be retrieved from the DoBeS archive at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (or will be available there as soon as translation, morphosyntactic analysis, interlinear glossing, media alignment and anno- tation are completed to an extent that allows submission). x Acknowledgements e project reported in this thesis, small though it is, would not have been possible without the support of numerous individuals and institutions. First and foremost, thanks are due to my native speaker consultants, Manoj Rai, Janaki Rai, Rikhi Maya Rai, Lash Kumari Rai, Ganesh Rai and Durga Kumari Rai, who readily shared knowledge of and intuitions about their language with me, and patiently answered my questions despite being busy with work and exams of their own. Even where no explicit source is cited, the information owes its presentation to the Chintang and Puma Documentation Project (CPDP), funded by Volkswagenstiung as part of the DoBeS program (Grant № II/ , –, PI Balthasar Bickel). Financial support from the Ger- man Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the University of Leipzig’s Philologische Fakultät, and from my parents made it possible for me to collect data in the field, for which I am deeply grateful. I am also indebted to Dr. Asifa Majid and Erica Renckens at the Max Planck Institute for Psy- cholinguistics in Nijmegen for granting me access to the Language and Cognition Group’s stim- uli archive and permission to use their unpublished materials. Years of hard work on the part of my academic teachers gave me the tools necessary to make some sense out of the literature and embark on my venture. One “extraordinary and plenipotentiary” educator, Prof. Novel Kishore Rai, introduced me to the Nepali language and provided untiring support in every matter there- aer. Laxmi Nath Shrestha taught me Nepali with an ease that is rare in post-childhood language acquisition. e administration of !पाल र एिशयाली अन-./धान 1/2 (Centre for Nepalese and Asian Studies, CNAS) made their premises and facilities available for me to conduct the space game. A big nonverbal ध/यबाद goes to the महज8, (Maharjan) family for their unequalled Newari hospital- ity during my stays in Kirtipur, to 9ब9नता महज8, (Binita Maharjan) for her assistance in producing the Nepali translation of the space game instructions, and various family members, friends and acquaintances for their willingness to test the instructions. xi I owe untold thanks to Luise Dorenbusch for persistently providing inspiration, motivation, food for thought and belly, and props that proved otherwise unobtainable. To Florian Hintz for mak- ing timely physical submission of this thesis possible despite my being thousands of kilometers away and immersed in bureaucracy of an entirely different kind. To Claudia Schmidt at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig for taking over the back-office work in preparation of the Leipzig Spring School on Linguistic Diversity while I was in Nepal. And to the staff at the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Republic of Uzbekistan for bearing my occasional absent-mindedness while I was thinking of space in Chintang instead of development cooperation, security policy, and other branches of diplomacy that I should have been concentrating on instead. A silent word of gratitude may also be extended to Apple Computers, Inc. for producing equip- ment that can turn even harsh external conditions into a st century workplace, and a slightly louder one (because it does not carry–unintended–commercial overtones) to LATEX, more pre- cisely Jonathan Kew’s Unicode-enabled X TE EX, for supplying me with moments of puzzlement, triumph, and eventually relief and peace of mind. It goes without saying that responsibility for all remaining shortcomings rests solely with myself. Tyko Dirksmeyer Tashkent, May , xii Preface e idea for writing a thesis on this topic grew out of a class on “Contemporary research on lin- guistic relativity” taught by Balthasar Bickel at the University of Leipzig in the summer semester of . I found that my philosophical
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