Straight from the Source: The semantics and functions of the ablative case clitic of Iraqw Anne Kruijt s1289349 June 2017 [email protected] Thesis in partial fulfillment of Research Master Linguistics, Leiden University Supervisor: Prof. Dr. M. Mous Second reader: Dr. E. Crevels ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I need to thank my wonderful language consultant Basilisa Hhao who has helped me with the collection of the data and worked patiently with me as my language teacher. Another special thanks to Ephraim Neema who opened his house to me and provided me with a home during my time at Kwermusl. I am also very grateful to Prof. Dr. M. Mous for introducing me to Kwermusl and its community. His support both during the period in the field and in the period afterwards have proved to be invaluable. I am also very thankful for receiving the Uhlenbeck Scholarship and Lustra+scholarship from Leiden University, which provided me with the funding that made the fieldwork for this research possible. Lastly, a brief shout out to my family, friends, and housemates (in particular Sanne) for all the mental support, coffee breaks and, in general, keeping me sane. Na’as lówa alé! ii ABSTRACT This thesis focuses on the description of the ablative case clitic of Iraqw, a Cushitic language of Tanzania. The ablative case clitic of Iraqw is reported to have multiple functions and is attested to be used for expressing source, location, time, reason, and (simile) adverbial constructions. Especially the apparent extension of source to location marker is remarkable, as Iraqw has a separate goal marker and this particular Source=Location≠Goal syncretism is extremely rare in languages of the world. The ablative case clitic is part of the adverbial case clitics of Iraqw, which consist of the ablative, directional, instrumental, and reason case clitics. These clitics introduce an extra oblique argument to a clause and are closely tied to the verb. The source semantics of the ablative clitic inherently express Place and Path. In locational clauses the notion of Path is expressed in a durative aspect and the clitic therefore does not function as a primary locative marker. The ablative is also used in other contexts. It can be extended into the temporal domain to describe a temporal source and into the causal domain to denote the cause of an event. The ablative clitic is used in adverbial constructions that describe similarity and is grammaticalized in certain intensifying verbal adverbs. In conclusion the ablative case clitic is a source marker, and not a locative marker. Therefore I propose the pattern Source≠Location≠Goal for Iraqw. Keywords: Source marker, ablative case, location, spatial domain iii CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................................................... ii ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................................... iii ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF TABLES AND MAPS .......................................................................................................................... vi 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 On the Iraqw people, language, and culture ....................................................................................... 1 1.2 Research topic ..................................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Methodology ....................................................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Note on Iraqw orthography and glossing choices .............................................................................. 5 1.5 Structure of this thesis ........................................................................................................................ 6 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...................................................................................................................... 7 2.1 Cognitive semantics ............................................................................................................................ 7 2.2 Syncretism of source and location ...................................................................................................... 8 2.3 Semantic domains and overlap ......................................................................................................... 11 3. STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES ....................................................................................................................... 13 3.1 The adverbial case clitics .................................................................................................................. 13 3.1.1 Attachment issues....................................................................................................................... 14 3.1.2 Syntax ......................................................................................................................................... 17 3.1.3 Differences between the ablative and the other case clitics ...................................................... 19 3.2 Verbal nouns ..................................................................................................................................... 21 3.2.1 General properties of Iraqw verbal nouns ................................................................................. 21 3.2.2 The ablative clitic on verbal nouns ............................................................................................ 23 3.3 Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 28 4. SYNCRETISM OF SOURCE AND LOCATION ............................................................................................... 29 4.1 Source constructions ......................................................................................................................... 29 4.1.1 The source of a motion .............................................................................................................. 30 4.1.2 The source of a non-motion event ............................................................................................. 32 4.1.3 Note on locational nouns ........................................................................................................... 35 iv 4.2 Locative constructions ...................................................................................................................... 37 4.2.1 Basic locative constructions in Iraqw ........................................................................................ 40 4.2.2 Locative use of the ablative case clitic ...................................................................................... 42 4.2.3 Locative use of the directional case clitic ................................................................................. 46 4.2.4 Note on locational nouns and motion events on ablative grounds ............................................ 48 4.2.5 Note on the syntactic-semantics interface ................................................................................. 52 4.3 Discussion and summary .................................................................................................................. 55 5. EXTENSIONS OF MEANING ....................................................................................................................... 56 5.1 Temporal domain .............................................................................................................................. 56 5.1.1 Temporal constructions with the ablative clitic ......................................................................... 57 5.1.2 The temporal noun iimír and the ablative clitic ........................................................................ 60 5.2 Causal domain ................................................................................................................................... 65 5.2.1 The ablative case clitic in causal constructions ......................................................................... 66 5.2.2 The reason case clitic ................................................................................................................. 68 5.3 Adverbial domain .............................................................................................................................. 71 5.3.1 Iraqw adverbials ......................................................................................................................... 72 5.3.2 Verbal adverbs with an incorporated ablative clitic .................................................................. 73 5.3.3 The ablative clitic in simile ‘such as/like’ constructions .......................................................... 76 5.3.4 Adverbalization with adverbial case clitics ............................................................................... 78 6. CONCLUSIONS .........................................................................................................................................