PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Series C - 112 PAPERS IN KOSRAEAN AND PONAPEIC Elaine M. Good Weldis Welley Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Good, E.M. and Welley, W. editors. Papers in Kosraean and Ponapeic. C-112, vi + 201 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1989. DOI:10.15144/PL-C112.cover ©1989 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. PACIFIC LINGUISTICS is issued through the Linguistic Circle of Canberra and consists of four series: SERIES A: OccasionalPapers SERIES C: Books SERIES B: Monographs SERIES D: Special Publications FOUNDING EDITOR: S.A. Wurrn EDITORIAL BOARD: T.E. Dutton, M.D. Ross, D.T. Tryon EDITORIALADVISERS: B.W.Bender H.P. McKaughan University of Hawaii University of Hawaii DavidBradley P. Miihlhilusler La TrobeUniversity Bond University Michael G. Clyne G.N. O'Grady Monash University University of Victoria, B.C. S.H. Elbert A.K. Pawley University of Hawaii University of Auckland KJ. Franklin K.L. Pike Summer Institute of Linguistics Summer Institute of Linguistics W.W. Glover E.C. Polome Summer Institute of Linguistics University of Texas G.W.Grace Gillian Sankoff University of Hawaii University of Pennsylvania M.A.K. Halliday W.A.L. Stokhof University of Sydney University of Leiden E. Haugen B.K. T'sou Harvard University City Polytechnic of Hong Kong A. Healey E.M. Uhlenbeck Summer Institute of Linguistics University of Leiden L.A. Hercus J.W.M. Verhaar Australian National University Divine Word Institute, Madang John Lynch C.L. Voorhoeve University of Papua NewGuinea University of Leiden K.A. McElhanon Summer Institute of Linguistics All correspondence concerning PACIFIC LINGUISTICS, including orders and subscriptions, should be addressed to: PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies The Australian National University G.P.O. Box 4, Canberra, A.C.T. 260 1 Australia Copyright © The Authors First Published 1989 Typeset by Anne Rees Maps drawn by Theo Baumann Printed by A.N.U. Printing Service Bound by Adriatic Bookbinders Pty Ltd The editors are indebted to the Australian National University for assistance in the production of this series This publication was made possible by an initial grant from the Hunter Douglas Fund ISSN 0078-7558 ISBN 0 85883 390 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction IV A preliminary grammar sketch, text, and vocabulary of Pingilapese 1- 114 NP-NP constructions in Ponapeic languages 115-126 Clause-final determiners in Kosraean 127-196 iii INTRODUCTION In this volume, there are several papers which describe particular aspects of Kosraean and Ponapeic languages. The paper on 'Clause-final determiners in Kosraean' is actually an edited version of my dissertation written at the University of Hawaii in the years 1983- 1985. Originally it contained some comments of the relevance of the topic to the theory of Government and Binding and the reader is referred to the original dissertationfor reference to that. The grammar sketch, word-list and text of Pingilapese is the first published general material on this Ponapeic language. Weldis Welley, from Pingilap, was the source of all the data in these papers. It provides a general place to begin for further research. The paper on 'NP-NP constructions in Ponapeic languages' is actually a revision of an earlier paper written for Working Papers in Linguistics at the University of Hawaii. I actually had very little to add to the basic description in this paper, though perhaps some more speculations as to the implications. There are several people I need to thank for their input into this volume. Of course, my long­ suffering supervisor in Hawaii, Dr Roderick Jacobs, probably had the most input into what I am presently able to put out in linguistics. (However, he is not responsible for my speculations and errors. I take responsibility for those.) He not only had linguistic input, but was a friend and pulled me out of other difficultieswhen needed. And the other faculty, staff, and students at HI had much to do with keeping up my morale during the long process of graduate degrees. Certainly my parents, Mr and Mrs Claud Good, had the first input as they insisted that I continue on my university work until I at least had my undergraduate degree. Summer Institute of Linguistics has encouraged, pushed, and insisted that I keep on doing linguistics and has helped in many ways. More recently, USP-PLU and the University of Papua New Guinea has provided the impetus and time to continue on with research and writing. I am grateful to all three organisations. Very recently, Malcolm Ross, referee for this volume, has continued to 'hang in there' with me when I was somewhat reluctant to keep going. Thank you and thank you to the others at the Australian NationalUniversity, PacificLinguistics who encouraged me. The material contained in this volume has been developed and checked and rechecked with vernacular speakers of the languages concerned. Hopefully, the areas of uncertainty, though, stand out clearly and will inspire other linguists to do further research into the topics and languages, particularly in these days when I believe that syntax of Austronesian languages will begin to play a much more prominent role in comparativelinguistics here in the Pacific area. v Good, E.M. and Welley, W. editors. Papers in Kosraean and Ponapeic. C-112, vi + 201 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1989. DOI:10.15144/PL-C112.cover ©1989 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. A PRELIMINARY GRAMMAR SKETCH,TEXT AND VOCABULARY OF PINGILAPESE ELAINEM. GOOD AND WELDIS WELLEY INTRODUCITON Pingilapese is one variety of the Ponapeic language (Rehg 1981), a nuclear Micronesian language. It is spoken by about 1000 people who live on the coral atoll of Pingilap and on the island of Ponape. Pingilap atoll is located at about 163°E and 6°N, approximately 200 miles southeast of Ponape and 100 miles northwest of Kosrae. The Pingilapese language is closely related to the other Ponapeic languages: Ponapean, Ngatikese and Mokilese. However, as minimal research has been done on Ngatikese and Pingilapese, it is not yet determined to which of the varieties of Ponapeic Pingilapese is most closely related. Of the Ponapeic languages, both Mokilese and Ponapean boast an excellent grammar and dictionary (Harrison 1976, 1977; Rehg 1979, 1981). Under such circumstances, it is no doubt understandable that Pingilapese people sometimes feel that (1) their language has no grammar and (2) that there must be many fewer words in their language than in other Ponapeic languages. This preliminary grammar and word list are thus offered to the Pingilapese people in hopes that they will see that their language does indeed have a grammar. In fact, the grammar is complicated enough that in this short paper, we are able to only briefly describe the main structures of the language. But we hope that others who know and study Micronesian languages will become interested in correcting and expanding the material contained in both the grammar and vocabulary. The vocabulary, of necessity, contains only a fraction of the words that actually are used in Pingilapese. But again, we invite corrections and expansion. Section 1 of this account deals with the sounds and spelling for Pingilapese. Section 2 describes noun phrases and Section 3 verb phrases. Section 4 discusses sentence structure. The text is in Section 5, and a vocabulary in Section6. 1.0 SOUNDS AND SPELLING In this section, we first describe the phonemes in Pingilapese and give examples of their occurrence. Then we give examples of the phonemic contrast between the phonemes and list the spelling symbols that are used in the examples. Papers in Kosraean andPonapeic, 1-114. Pacifi c Linguistics, C- 1 12, 1989. © Elaine M. Good and Weldis Welley 1 Good, E.M. and Welley, W. "A preliminary grammar sketch, text, and vocabulary of Pingilapese". In Good, E.M. and Welley, W. editors, Papers in Kosraean and Ponapeic. C-112:1-114. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1989. DOI:10.15144/PL-C112.1 ©1989 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. 2 ELAINE M. GOOD AND WEWIS WEUEY 1.1 PHONEMES The following are the phonemes in Pingilapese as determined by a preliminary study. A description of the phonemes, some of their phonetic variants, and examples of their occurrence are given. 1. 2 CONSONANTS /p/ voiceless bilabial stop par'old, sprouting coconut' apEIR'shoulder' An unreleased variant may occurword finally. tEp - teP'an ear ornament' /pw/ velarised rounded voiceless bilabial stop pWar'to appear, to rise (said of the sun)' aupwi'loose-tongued' An unrounded variant (which may also be unreleased) occurs word fmally. teipw - teipw - teiPw 'pandanus' /tI voiceless dental stop tEp'to stumble and fall' aute'to load, to fill (T)' An unreleased variant may occur word fmally. autJ·t - autJ·t'to load, to fill (I)' !k/ voiceless velar stop kapw'new' tEke'to take meat out of a coconut' An unreleased variant may occur word fmally. tetJ·k - tet:J·k'to work' /s/ voiceless alveloar fricative sewe'people' anseu'time' re's'type of bird' /m! voiced bilabial nasal m:Jur'to be alive' asimel'a sea perch' tam'outrigger boom' /mw/ rounded velarised voiced