DigitalResources SIL eBook 30 ® A Grammar Sketch and Lexicon of Arawak (Lokono Dian) Willem J. A. Pet A Grammar Sketch and Lexicon of Arawak (Lokono Dian) WillemJ.A.Pet SIL e-Books 30 ©2011 SIL International® ISBN: 978-1-55671-288-3 ISSN: 1934-2470 Fair Use Policy Books published in the SIL e-Books (SILEB) series are intended for scholarly research and educational use. You may make copies of these publications for research or instructional purposes free of charge (within fair use guidelines) and without further permission. Republication or commercial use of SILEB or the documents contained therein is expressly prohibited without the written consent of the copyright holder(s). Series Editor George Huttar Volume Editor Mary Ruth Wise Copy Editor Eugene Burnham Compositor Judy Benjamin Abstract A Grammar Sketch and Lexicon of Arawak (Lokono Dian) Willem J. A. Pet Arawak (Lokono Dian), an Amerindian language in the Arawakan language family, is rel- atively undescribed. The purpose of this study is to give a general, bottom-up sketch of Arawak. It starts with comments on the phonology, then discusses morphology and syntax, and ends with comments about discourse. Typologically, Arawak is primarily a right-branching SVO language with postpositions. Most noun modifiers precede their heads, though heavy relative clauses follow. Question words, relative pronouns, and focused constituents appear at the left periphery of the clause. Of particular interest is an asymmetry involving the distribution of a dummy verb in WH-movement constructions. Subjects, direct objects, time phrases, and locative phrases may be moved without otherwise affecting the structure of a sentence. Focusing or ques- tioning a manner adverbial, or fronting of a negative verb, however, involves the obliga- tory insertion of a semantically empty dummy verb as the main verb. This book is a revision of Lokono Dian: The Arawak Language of Suriname: A Sketch of its Grammatical Structure and Lexicon, the author’s Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1987. iii Contents ListofFigures.................................vii Acknowledgements. ix Abbreviations..................................x Part 1: Grammar ................................1 1Introduction .................................2 1.1GeneralCommentsaboutArawak . 4 1.2PreviousStudiesofArawak . 4 1.3Purpose.................................5 1.4Overview ................................5 2PhonologyandMorphology . 7 2.1Phonology................................7 2.1.1Segmentals. 7 2.1.2PrefixesandVowelClusterReduction. 9 2.1.3Stress...............................9 2.1.4OrthographicandOtherConventions. 9 2.2LexicalClassesandMorphology. 10 2.3Nominals................................11 2.3.1PersonalPronouns. 11 2.3.1.1 Morphological Forms of Personal Pronouns ............ 12 2.3.1.2 Gender, Number, and Humanness in Arawak ........... 13 2.3.2 Demonstrative Pronouns and Adjectives, and Articles . 14 2.3.3Nouns ..............................16 2.3.3.1 Inalienable and Alienable Nouns ................. 17 2.3.3.2 Gender in Nouns ......................... 18 2.3.3.3 Number in Nouns ......................... 18 2.3.3.4 Shape Classes ........................... 20 2.3.4DerivedNouns. 21 2.3.4.1 Event Verb + -koana ....................... 22 2.3.4.2 Stative Verb + -bero ....................... 23 2.3.4.3 Event Verb + -lhin ........................ 22 2.3.4.4 Noun Quantifier + -li, -ro, -ninon, -be ............... 22 iv Contents v 2.3.4.5 Verb + -n ............................. 22 2.3.4.6 Verb + -thi, -tho, or -sia ...................... 22 2.3.4.7 Complex Derived Nouns...................... 24 2.4Verbs..................................24 2.4.1EventVerbs. 24 2.4.1.1 Event Verb Stem Forms ...................... 24 2.4.1.2 Event Verb Classes ........................ 30 2.4.1.3 Event Verb Structure ....................... 31 2.4.1.4 Derived Event Verbs........................ 37 2.4.2StativeVerbs . 38 2.4.2.1 Stative Verb Structure ....................... 39 2.4.2.2 Derived Stative Verbs ....................... 41 2.4.3OtherVerbs. 42 2.4.3.1 The Dummy Verb ......................... 42 2.4.3.2 The Copula ............................ 43 2.5Postpositions. 44 2.5.1TheLexicalStatusofPostpositions . 44 2.5.2KindsofPostpositions . 45 2.5.3Abbreviations,Compounds,andSuffixes. 45 2.6Functors................................48 2.6.1QuestionWordsandRelativePronouns . 48 2.6.2Conjunctions . 48 2.6.3Numbers.............................49 2.6.4 AdverbialandTense Particles,andTime Words . 50 3NounPhraseandSentenceSyntax. 52 3.1NounPhraseStructure. 52 3.1.1TheDeterminer. 52 3.1.2TheQuantifierPhrase . 53 3.1.3PossessiveNounPhrases . 53 3.1.4Pre-HeadRelativeClauses . 54 3.1.5TheHeadoftheNounPhrase . 57 3.1.6Post-HeadRelativeClauses. 59 3.2SentenceStructure . 60 3.2.1EventSentences . 61 3.2.1.1 The ‘COMP’ Position ....................... 63 3.2.1.2 The TOPIC Position ........................ 66 3.2.1.3 Event Sentence Structure ..................... 67 3.2.2DummyVerbSentences . 67 3.2.2.1 The Result of Fronting....................... 68 3.2.2.2 Manner Adverbials Versus Time and Locative Phrases....... 71 3.2.2.3 Dummy Verbs in Quotation Citations ............... 75 3.2.2.4 The Subject of Dummy Verb Sentences .............. 77 3.2.3StativeSentences. 78 3.2.3.1 Equative and Attributive Sentences ................ 78 3.2.3.2 Stative Sentences with Stative Verbs ............... 79 4RelativeClauses. 83 4.1 Differences in Pre- and Post-Head Relative Clauses . 83 4.2FreeRelativeClauses . 87 vi Contents 4.3EmbeddedQuestions. 89 4.4 Constituents Accessible to Relativization . 90 4.4.1SubjectRelativization . 90 4.4.2DirectObjectRelativization. 91 4.4.3IndirectObjectRelativization. 92 4.4.4 Relativization of Objects of Postpositions. 92 4.4.4.1 Postposition Stranding ...................... 93 4.4.4.2 Strategies to Avoid Postposition Stranding ............ 95 5 Aspectual Particles and the Contribution of Discourse to ArawakSyntax . 100 5.1Tense/AspectSuffixesandParticles . 102 5.1.1Tense,Aspect,orBoth?. 102 5.2Tense/AspectinNarrativeDiscourse. 106 5.2.1ForegroundandBackgroundInformation . 108 5.2.2OtherKindsofInformationinaDiscourse . 109 5.2.3TensioninaNarrativeandTense/Aspect . 110 6Conclusion.................................114 6.1Summary ...............................114 6.2AreasNeedingFurtherResearch. 115 Part 2: Lexicon................................117 AShortLexiconofSurinameArawak. 118 EnglishIndexforLexicon . 167 Appendix: Arawak Narrative Texts ......................204 TheBusTripStory. 204 TheJaguarStory. 207 TheBombStory..............................212 TheTapirStory..............................216 TheMetamorphosisStory. 223 Bibliography.................................228 List of Figures Figure 1. Internal Classification of Arawakan Languages . 3 Figure2.PhonologicalSystemofArawak . 8 Figure3.DistinctiveFeaturesofArawakVowels . 8 Figure4.ArawakPersonalPronouns. 12 Figure5.ArawakNumberandGenderFeatures. 13 Figure 6. Demonstrative Pronouns and Adjectives, and Articles . ..........15 Figure7.EventVerbStructure . 31 Figure8.StativeVerbStructure. 40 Figure9.SelectedArawakPostpositions . 46 Figure10.FormsofLocationalPostpositions . 47 Figure11.ArawakNumbers. 50 Figure12.ArawakNounPhraseStructure . 52 Figure13.EventSentenceStructure . 61 Figure14.SentenceStructurewithTOPICandCOMP . 67 Figure 15. Surface Constituent Order in Dummy Verb Sentences . 68 Figure16.TypicalArawakEventSentence . 71 Figure 17: Positions Requiring the Dummy Verb . 73 Figure18.SentencewithFrontedObject. 74 Figure19.SentencewithFrontedVerb. 74 Figure 20. Sentence with Fronted Manner Adverbial. 75 Figure 21. Structural Features of Relative-Clause-Like Constructions . 90 Figure 22. Object Relativization in Stative Clauses . 97 Figure23.DeepStructureGenres. 101 vii viii List of Figures Figure24.Tense/AspectSuffixesandParticles. 102 Figure25.RepresentationofTime . 103 Figure26.RelativePresentinthePast . 103 Figure27.TenseandAspectofVerbSuffixes . 104 Acknowledgements It is difficult to know how to adequately acknowledge all those who helped me along the way in my doctoral studies. Although the types and amounts of help given differed, each bit of help, regardless of the amount or type, was indispensable. Certainly the task would have been impossible without the help of the members of my Special Committee. Joseph Grimes, committee chairman, and Wayne Harbert, who worked most closely with me in the final nine months revising and re-revising, both put in untold hours in editing, consulting, and encouraging. Also, the other committee members, James Gair, Gerald Kelley, and Wayles Browne (serving as proxy for Joseph Grimes during the fi- nal stages of writing) deserve my thanks. A special note of appreciation goes to Marcia Pet, who spent many hours working with me in editing and revising various drafts. Many of the insights into Arawak are hers or are due to her probing questions. None of what is written in these pages would have been possible without the cooperation and help of Arawak friends in the villages of Cassipora and Powakka, Suriname. In particu- lar I want to thank Willem Ebesilio, the former captain of Powakka, and Adolf Sabajo, the captain of Cassipora, for allowing my family to become part of their respective villages. I also want to thank all the other Arawak friends who not only provided the materials incor- porated in this study, but also took us under their wings as part of their extended family: Hank Sabajo, W. F. Makosi and family, Nelis Biswane and family, Hans Jubithana and