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4. Reconstructions of Nominal Suffixes

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4. Reconstructions of Nominal Suffixes -46- 4. RECONSTRUCTIONS OF NOMINAL SUFFIXES 4.1 INTRODUCTION This chapter includes discussions of cases and a number of derivational suffixes, including number (dual, trial (in Arabana-Wangkangurru) and plural), the privative, and the specification of definiteness. Emphatic particles and deictics have not been considered here, since data were available only in the languages for which detailed grammars have been written. A consideration of the marking of deixis in third person pronouns, where information was available for all but languages, has been given in chapter 6 (section 6.7). It must be emphasised from the beginning that not all forms could be reconstructed, and plausible etymologies could not be found for all the innovated suffixes. Some changes leave no trace; elsewhere, the source of the innovative forms has been obliterated; in other cases, the source of the change or an explanation could not be found in the time available. While there was no space in this investigation for a detailed and systematic reconstruction of noun phrase syntax in Karnic, it was necessary to look at several areas which particularly affected the reconstructions of forms. The most important was constituent order. A few brief comments have been made in section 4.2.1 below. 4.1.1 Case Functions A brief overview of the most common case functions in Karnic is given below. For further information, see Blake (1994), or Blake (1977) for examples of uses of these cases in other Australian languages. • The nominative marks the subject of an intransitive verb, or the topic of a verbless clause. • The ergative marks the subject of a transitive verb and the instrument of a clause. • The accusative marks the object of a transitive verb. • The dative has a variety of functions. Most commonly, the dative marks the indirect object, the purpose of an action (for example, to go for meat), the beneficiary of an action and the possessor of an object. • The genitive marks nouns as the possessor of another nominal. It is usually identical to the dative but is marked distinctly in a few languages. • The kinship proprietive marks a noun (usually a kin term) as a possessum. • The locative, ablative and allative are local cases, indicating the position of a noun or the direction of movement. Chapter 4: Reconstructions of Nominal Suffixes -47- • The causal or apprehensive/aversive marks an object of fear or the reason for an action, and could be translated as “for fear of…” • The proprietive denotes a relation of ownership between the head and the suffixed noun. This suffix denotes the presence of an object (and is usually glossed as ‘having’) (see Sutton (1976)). • The privative (or caritative) denotes the absence of the noun. See further Evans (1990). • Modal case is the use of case to signal the tense or modality of the clause. See further Evans (1995), Nordlinger (1997, 1998a) and section 4.15 below. There are also three number suffixes which have been included – singular, dual, plural and “other”, which is a cliticisation of the word “one” to the noun (section 4.18) and functions as a contrastive suffix. 4.1.2 Allomorphy and syncretism The majority of Karnic languages show very little allomorphy in cases; that is, there is usually a single form for each case. In Diyari, however, and to a lesser extent in Wangkumara, there are rather complex allomorphy conditions governing the use of a particular form in a particular context. In Diyari, the relevant categories are: masculine and feminine personal names, and singular and non-singular common nouns.38 In Wangkumara, allomorphy is conditioned in the ergative by a combination of stem length and gender, and in the other cases primarily by gender alone. In a few languages (such as Mithaka), a variety of forms were given for a particular case but the conditioning of the allomorphy was not recorded. A somewhat different issue is the patterns of case syncretism which exist in different languages. These may depend on the type of nominal; in Arabana-Wangkangurru, for example, the ergative, instrumental and ablative are marked by a single case in pronouns, but not in nouns. This will be discussed in the relevant case sections. See also section 5.1.2. Reconstruction of allomorphy is by necessity rather crude, since the environments cannot often be determined. Often allomorphs are reconstructed on the basis of there being a number of plausible and related candidates for reconstruction to the proto- language. 38 In Reuther’s (nd.a) grammar of Diyari, kin terms decline in the same paradigm as proper nouns. Where Austin (1981b) and Reuther differ, both forms are given and are discussed. Chapter 4: Reconstructions of Nominal Suffixes -48- 4.1.3 A note on paradigm tables and chapter layout. In this chapter, each case will be discussed separately, and so one case will appear in each table. In the chapters on the reconstructions of pronouns (chapters 5 - 6), each person/number/gender will be discussed separately, so in those chapters each table contains a number of cases but a single stem. Blanks in tables indicate that a form has not been recorded, or could not be found in the data. 4.2 TWO COMMENTS ON NOUN PHRASE SYNTAX. These points are raised here because of the apparent origin of a number of case forms in the cliticisation and further suffixation of third person pronouns. As will be seen from sections 4.4, 4.6 and 4.7, in some languages it is easy to see that pronominal forms have evolved into case markers. The following two sections are a demonstration that the requisite syntactic conditions for such a change to occur are still present in a number of Karnic languages. 4.2.1 Constituent Order in the noun phrase39 A brief note is warranted here on the relative order of elements of the noun phrase. There is a considerable degree of variation, even within languages, but some broad generalisations may be made and these can aid in the reconstruction of nominal suffixes. The order of elements in the noun phrase in many Pama-Nyungan languages can be summarised in the observation that the generic noun tends to come before the specific, that is, that the head precedes the modifier. In Wangkangurru (but not Arabana), for example, the principle is so regular in certain domains that the generic noun is treated for the purposes of stress like a proclitic; compare the following examples from Hercus (1994:102):40 (1) kathi-mayarru “edible rat”, from kathi “meat”, mayarru “rat” paya-kuti “swan”, from paya “bird”, kuti “type of swan” pawa-thirrthi-pawa “sp. of edible grass seed”, cf pawa “any edible grass seed” wangk’arabana “the Arabana language”, from wangka “speech”, Arabana. Also relevant here is the inclusion of modifying pronouns juxtaposed to nouns. The pronouns generally follow the noun.41 This is the most important constituent ordering 39 Information on constituent order was taken only from those languages for which detailed grammars have been published; that is, Arabana-Wangkangurru, Diyari, Pitta-Pitta, Yandruwandha and Wangkumara. This was to avoid making possibly spurious claims about languages for which there is little data and for which this author has very little experience. 40 There are also a number of examples with other words. 41 In Diyari it was found in a study of texts (Austin (1981b:234-254)) that the pronoun generally preceded the noun, except in formulaic phrases such as the beginnings of stories, continued next page. Chapter 4: Reconstructions of Nominal Suffixes -49- for case reconstruction; many more comments could be made but discussion will be confined to this aspect. Noun phrases consisting of a noun and a pronoun agreeing with it in number, gender and case are found regularly in a number of languages. They are common in Pitta-Pitta, where the pronoun appears to mark definiteness (see Blake (1979b:193,214) and also the introduction to chapter 6, where examples are given). The following example is reproduced from chapter 6: (2) kathi-nha i-nha-ka rtipu-lu pantutharrpa-ka. Snake-ACC he-ACC-HERE stone-ERG crash.down-PAST. “A stone crashed down and killed the snake.” (Blake (1979b:196)) The relative ordering of the pronoun and noun follows the schema just described; the generic noun ‘snake’ is modified by the specific ‘that one, him’. 4.2.2 Case marking in the noun phrase Case marking is, in general, obligatorily marked at some point on the noun phrase, but not necessarily on every constituent. The most common case marking strategy, apart from marking all constituents, is the marking of the final element of the noun phrase. This is Capell’s group declension (1979:547). See also Dench and Evans (1988:5ff) for a discussion of the phenomenon. Here are some examples from Yandruwandha: (3) mitji ngathu dukana [marawitju pulyali] eye 1SG.ERG poke-IP finger small-WITH “I poked my eye with my little finger.” (Breen (1975a, eg 256)) (4) thudathawanhana nganyi [padla mudlu malkirriyi] lie-go-NP 1SG.NOM place bean.tree many-LOC “I camped yesterday in a place with a lot of bean trees.” (Breen (1975a, eg 257)) (5) kathi thukali / walya kalpurru thalpalu / walya rdarlamurrulu animal mussel-ERG / not coolibah leaf-ERG / not bark-ERG // ngarru kathi thukali / mandrirnanga // only animal mussel-ERG / get-CONT “[They] picked up [the nardoo paste and spooned it into their mouths] with a mussel [shell], not with a coolibah leaf and not with bark, only with a mussel [shell].' (Breen (1975a) ex 259) where the pronoun was second. Since formulaic phrases tend to preserve earlier stages of the language, it could be argued that the order of elements has changed in Diyari.
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