ResearchOnline@JCU This file is part of the following reference: Boettger, Juliane (2015) Topics in the grammar of Lele: a language of Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. PhD thesis, James Cook University. Access to this file is available from: http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/41204/ The author has certified to JCU that they have made a reasonable effort to gain permission and acknowledge the owner of any third party copyright material included in this document. If you believe that this is not the case, please contact [email protected] and quote http://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/41204/ Topics in the Grammar of Lele A Language of Manus Island, Papua New Guinea by Juliane Boettger A thesis submitted to James Cook University, Cairns in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy College of Arts, Society and Education - James Cook University March 2015 Table of Contents Contents i List of Tables viii List of Figures xi Conventions and Abbreviations xiv Statement of Authorship xv Acknowledgements xvi Abstract xix I Introduction 1 1 Introduction 2 1.1 Background ............................. 2 1.2 An Admiralties Time Line from a Western Perspective . 6 1.3 The Lele People and Culture ................... 8 1.4 Demography and Settlement Patterns ............. 9 1.5 Environment, Subsistence and Economy . 12 1.6 Education and Religion ...................... 14 1.7 Sociolinguistic Situation and Language Vitality . 17 1.8 Typological profile and Genetic Affiliation . 19 1.9 Previous Research and Language Descriptions . 22 1.10 Data Collection and Methodology of Research . 23 1.11 Structure of this Thesis ...................... 23 i II Phonology 25 2 Phonology 26 2.1 Segmental Phonology ....................... 26 2.1.1 Plosives ............................ 27 2.1.1.1 Voicing ........................ 27 2.1.1.2 Aspiration ...................... 27 2.1.1.3 The phoneme /p/ . 28 2.1.1.4 The phoneme /t/ . 28 2.1.1.5 The phoneme /k/ . 28 2.1.2 Fricatives ........................... 29 2.1.3 Nasals ............................. 30 2.1.4 Liquids ............................ 30 2.1.5 Labialised Consonants ................... 31 2.1.6 Prenasalised Stops ..................... 32 2.1.6.1 Bilabial Trill ..................... 34 2.1.6.2 Secondary Nasal Grade . 35 2.1.7 Glides ............................. 35 2.1.8 Vowels ............................ 36 2.1.9 Vowel Sequences and Diphthongs . 40 2.2 Syllable Structure ......................... 41 2.3 Phonological Word ......................... 43 2.4 Morphophonemic Changes .................... 44 2.4.1 Vowel assimilation ..................... 44 2.4.2 Consonant Mutation /t/–/r/ . 45 2.5 Orthographic Conventions .................... 46 III Open Word Classes 47 3 Verbs 48 3.1 Conjugational Classes ....................... 48 3.1.1 Class I: Stem Vowel Changes . 49 3.1.2 Class II: Prefixes ar- / ta- / re- . 54 ii 3.1.3 Irregular Conjugational Patterns . 57 3.2 Verbal Categories .......................... 61 3.2.1 Person / Number ...................... 62 3.2.2 Reality Status ........................ 64 3.2.3 Modality ........................... 68 3.2.3.1 Intentional na= . 69 3.2.3.2 Potential (w)a= ................... 73 3.2.4 Aspect ............................. 75 3.2.4.1 Perfect kV(agr)n- . 76 3.2.4.1.1 Function and Usage of the Perfect kV(agr)n- ................... 76 3.2.4.1.2 Formal Analysis of Perfect kV(agr)n- . 81 3.2.4.2 Aspectual Distinctions with Auxiliary Construc- tions ......................... 84 3.2.4.2.1 Progressive V(agr)r / to . 85 3.2.4.2.2 Habitual Aspect ta . 89 3.2.4.3 Compatibility of Progressive and Habitual . 92 3.2.4.4 Secondary Aspectual Distinctions . 93 3.2.4.4.1 Durative Aspect . 93 3.2.4.4.2 Continuative / Repetitive . 94 3.2.4.5 Summary: Aspect in Lele . 96 3.2.5 Non-Singular Intensifier ha- . 97 3.3 Verbal Subclasses . 100 3.3.1 Transitivity . 100 3.3.1.1 Transitivity, Specificity and Noun Incorporation 102 3.3.2 Verbs of Motion . 107 3.3.3 Existentials . 109 3.3.3.1 Copula I V(agr)r / to . 109 3.3.3.2 Copula II ta . 114 3.3.3.3 Existential ie . 116 3.3.3.4 Existential sou . 118 3.3.3.5 Summary: Existentials and verbal markers . 119 iii 3.3.4 Generic po ‘do, make’ . 120 3.3.5 Verbs with Nominal Morphology . 122 3.4 Verbal Derivation . 123 4 Nouns 128 4.1 Common Nouns . 129 4.2 Personal Nouns . 131 4.3 Locational Nouns and Relational Nouns . 132 4.4 Nominal Possession: Direct and Indirect Possession . 135 4.4.1 Direct Possession . 137 4.4.2 Indirect Possession: General and Alimentary Classifiers138 4.4.3 Body Parts . 141 4.4.4 Kinship Terms . 144 4.4.4.1 Linguistic Characteristics of kinship Terms. 145 4.4.4.2 Nursery Forms and Special Address Forms . 148 4.4.5 Nouns in Direct and Indirect Possession Constructions 148 4.4.6 Numeral Classifiers . 149 4.5 Nominalised Forms . 151 4.5.1 Nominalisation with suffix -(y)a . 151 4.5.2 Nominaliser -ai . 153 4.5.3 Nominalisation by Reduplication . 153 4.5.4 Conversion . 153 4.6 Summary Table: Criteria for Nouns . 153 4.7 The Noun Phrase . 156 4.7.1 I Determiners . 156 4.7.2 III Possessors . 158 4.7.3 IV Numeral Classifiers . 158 4.7.4 V Adjectives . 159 4.7.5 Noun Phrase Syntax . 159 5 Adjectives 161 6 Adverbs 168 iv IV Closed Classes 176 7 Personal Pronouns 177 8 Demonstratives 183 8.1 Nominal Demonstratives . 183 8.2 Local Adverbial Demonstratives . 186 9 Numerals 189 10 Numeral Classifiers 193 10.1 Individual Numeral Classifiers . 196 10.1.1 Bundles of Long Items . 198 10.1.2 Canoes, Trees . 199 10.1.3 Money .............................200 10.1.4 Humans ............................201 10.1.5 Houses ............................202 10.1.6 Plates, Pieces . 203 10.1.7 Branches of Fruit . 204 10.1.8 Days ..............................205 10.1.9 Rivers .............................206 10.1.10 Pieces of Meat . 207 10.1.11 Long Parts . 208 10.1.12 Leaves ............................209 10.1.13 Bundles of Leaves . 210 10.1.14 Roads, Ground . 211 10.1.15 Knives, Axes . 212 10.1.16 Baskets ............................213 10.1.17 Villages ............................214 10.1.18 Groups of Trees . 215 10.1.19 Semantic Criteria for Numeral Classifiers . 216 11 Interrogatives 218 12 Prepositions 225 v 13 Connectors 230 13.1 Conjunction e ............................230 13.2 Conjunction ma . 231 13.3 Disjunctor nde . 231 13.4 Adversative hepke . 232 13.5 Sequential pe= . 233 14 Negators 235 14.1 Negator pwi .............................235 14.2 Prohibitive mʙue and nde . 236 15 Particles 237 15.1 Focus Particle ke . 237 15.2 Intensifier (y)e . 238 15.3 Particle te ..............................238 V The Clause and Clause Types 239 16 The Clause 240 16.1 Verbless Clauses . 242 16.1.1 Predicative Possession . 243 16.2 Copula Clauses . 245 16.3 Simple Verbal Clause . 246 16.3.1 Transitive Clauses . 247 16.3.2 Ditransitive Clauses . 248 16.3.3 Oblique Arguments . 249 16.4 Complex Predication: Serial Verb Constructions . 250 16.4.1 Semantic Classification of Lele SVCs . 252 16.4.1.1 Motion/Location . 252 16.4.1.2 Sequential . 253 16.4.1.3 Causative . 254 16.4.1.4 Purposive . 254 16.5 Polarity ................................255 16.6 Subordination ............................256 vi 16.6.1 Relative Clauses . 256 16.6.2 Conditional Clauses . 259 16.6.3 Purpose Clause . 260 16.6.4 Sequential Clause . 260 Bibliography 263 Appendices 270 A Pictures I B Interlinearised and Glossed Texts IV I The Story of Pipalnandren V II Kut lap Losa XXII III How the dogs lost their speech XLIX IV Ngarmui - The Cave of the Dogs LVI V How the Chouka came to Manus mainland LXXIII VI How the coconut came to Manus LXXXVI VII Pat Lokomou XCI C Lele Vocabulary Items XCVI Lele Vocabulary XCVI vii List of Tables 1.1 The uses of kamel ‘male, man’ . 11 2.1 Lele consonant inventory ..................... 26 2.2 Voicing of plosives ......................... 27 2.3 Aspiration of plosives ....................... 27 2.4 Secondary nasal grade in Lele . 35 2.5 Vowel phonemes .......................... 36 2.6 Diphthongs and vowel sequences . 40 2.7 Syllable types ............................ 41 2.8 Consonant clustering ....................... 42 2.9 Phonemes and their orthographic representations . 46 3.1 Sample paradigm: sap ’collect’ . 49 3.2 Paradigm for his ’jump’ ...................... 50 3.3 Paradigm for mul ’return’ ..................... 50 3.4 Paradigm for soho ’wait’ ..................... 50 3.5 Conjugational Class Ia: /e/ ‘SG’, /a/ ‘NSG’ . 52 3.6 Conjugational Class Ib: /e/ ‘1SG, 3SG’, /a/ ‘2SG, NSG’ . 53 3.7 Conjugational Class Ic: vowel alternation /u/ ‘1SG’, /e/ ‘2SG’, ‘NSG’, /i/ ‘3SG’ ........................... 54 3.8 Paradigm for tandikeni ‘send someone’ . 55 3.9 A selection of class II verbs .................... 56 3.10 Irregular Verbal Inflection ..................... 57 3.11 Copula V(agr)r / to realis ...................... 57 3.12 Paradigm me ’come’ ........................ 58 3.13 Paradigm la ’go’ .......................... 59 3.14 Paradigm for yan ’eat.TR’ ..................... 61 viii 3.15 The Structure of a verb in the realis (unmarked) status . 62 3.16 Paradigm for sap ‘collect’ ..................... 62 3.17 The structure of a verb marked for irrealis and modality . 68 3.18 The structure of a verb marked for perfect aspect . 76 3.19 Perfect forms for yan ‘eat’ .................... 82 3.20 Paradigm for kena ’go.PRF’ .................... 82 3.21 The Structure of Auxiliary Constructions . 85 3.22 Paradigm for the progressive aspect . 86 3.23 The structure of a verb marked for the non-singular intensi- fier ha- ................................ 97 3.24 Copula I V(agr)ro / to . 110 3.25 Paradigm sou ‘stay / remain’ IRR . 118 3.26 Existentials in Lele and verbal marking .