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Seminars
All seminars are held in the CRLD Reading
Room, NR6 Building, La Trobe University
Friday 25th May, 11am to 1pm
Presented by Dr Simon Overall, La Trobe University
Title: Nasal and oral spreading in Aguaruna (Jivaroan)
Abstract:
This paper describes complementary processes of nasal and oral spreading in Aguaruna, a Jivaroan language of north Peru, and addresses the theoretical problems involved in analysing the data. Nasal spreading is a well-documented areal feature of Amazonian languages. Aguaruna shows phonemic vowel nasality that is associated phonetically with a domain consisting of contiguous vowels [i,  , u, a] and glides [w, y, ]. Morphophonological alternations show that nasality is underlyingly a property of a subset of the domain, and spreads within it. Spreading is blocked by word boundaries or any non-glide consonant, but glottal [h] surfaces as nasal when adjacent to a nasal vowel.
The phonemes /m/ and /n/ have oral allophones [mb], [nd] that surface when followed by a sequence of oral vowels and consonants within the phonological word. This denasalisation process has a phonetic motivation in anticipatory raising of the velum, and has been described as basically optional, with some predictability based on the quality of the following vowel(s) (Payne 1978, Corbera 1994, Overall 2007). A second, morphologically conditioned denasalisation process is triggered by two suffixes, and manifested in nasal vowels and glides losing their nasal quality, and oral realisation of stops. This process appears to be unrelated to the phonologically conditioned denasalisation, and there is no obvious phonetic motivation for it.
The data show that there is no simple correlation between nasality and orality in Aguaruna consonants and vowels. While nasal [m] and [n] always appear in the context of nasal vowels, they may also surface in the context of oral vowels. It is the oral allophones [mb] and [nd] that have a restricted distribution, and are therefore the marked forms. So the analysis would appear to require both nasal spreading and oral spreading to take account of the data.
References:
Corbera Mori, A. 1994. Fonologia e gramática do Aguaruna (Jivaro). Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Campinas, Brazil
Overall, S. E. 2007. A Grammar of Aguaruna. PhD dissertation, RCLT, La Trobe University.
Payne, David L. 1978. Nasalidad en Aguaruna (Second edition). Serie Linguistica Peruana 15, Lima: Instituto Linguistico de Verano
Future CRLD seminars
Friday 1st June, 11am to 1pm
Presented by Sander Adelar
Title: Problems in reviving Siraya
Abstract:
Siraya is a dormant language once spoken in the Tainan region in Southwest Taiwan. It also became a lingua franca when missionaries used it for religious, administrative and educational purposes outside its native area in the first half of the 17th century. It ceased to be spoken at the beginning of the 20th century. However, for the last decade or so there has been a growing identity awareness among descendants of the erstwhile Siraya community, who are trying to obtain official tribe status and are involved in reviving the Siraya language. Meanwhile, I worked on the analysis and description of a 17th century Siraya translation of the Gospel of St. Matthew, which recently culminated in a book (Adelaar 2011).
Today I would like to discuss ways to integrate my analysis with the revival activities of the Siraya community. Some of the issues that need special attention are:
1. the endings -en (patient voice) and -an (locative voice): are there important grounds for maintaining the implied voice opposition?
2. two lexical sources which represent different Siraya dialects: should they be combined (thereby creating an unrepresentative dialect mix)? Or should lexicon from the phonologically innovative dialect be adjusted to the phonology of the conservative dialect via the application of the comparative method?
3. "anticipating sequences" (AS). Siraya complex verb phrases often consist of an adverb followed by a lexical verb; this adverb is the head of the verb phrase and usually carries TAM -, voice - and pronominal marking. An anticipating sequence is generally a formal part (an initial consonant, syllable, or two syllables) of the lexical verb which is prefixed to the adverbial head. Examples:
Raraman=hu; ka; kmi-dung; k[m]ita
Father-your; who; AS-do.or.be.in.the.dark; [actor]see
'your Father who sees in secret'
Mu-imid=kamu; kawa; m-u-mha; ki; ata?
AS-do.all=you; QU; actor-motion-understand; case marker; this;
'Do you understand all this?'
Anticipating sequences abound in one Siraya dialect but are absent in the other. Were they an integrated part of the basic grammar of this one dialect, or were they only a stylistic device? And more practically, should they be taught in the Siraya language revival programme, or can they be ignored?
These and other problems need to be addressed in the revival of Siraya.
Reference:
Adelaar, Alexander, 2011, Siraya. Retrieving the phonology, grammar and lexicon of a dormant Formosan language. Trends in Linguistics. Documentation 30. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton
Friday 8th June, 11am to 1pm
Presented by Ian Tupper
Title: Agentive case marking in Pamosu, a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea.
Abstract:
In this presentation, I discuss agentive case marking in Pamosu, a Papuan language of Madang Province (Papua New Guinea). The term "agentive case marking" has been used in recent years to describe apparently ergative case marking which is not obligatory. Studies of agentive case marking in Papuan as well as Australian and Tibeto-Burman languages have found that the distribution of case markers is not random but is constrained by a variety of context-dependent (pragmatic) factors.
Pamosu is a head-marking language; core relations are obligatorily indexed on the verb and optionally flagged with nominals (free pronouns and noun phrases). Verbal indexing of core relations is consistently on an accusative system. Agentive case marking is restricted to nominals functioning as A arguments. Case marking is not obligatory, but is constrained by the requirement to disambiguate clauses in which the function of nominals can be assigned in more than one way.
Friday 22th June, 11am to 1pm
Presented by Tim Brickell
Title: Double trouble!: Clitic doubling in Tondano.
Abstract: TBA
Friday 29th June, 11am to 1pm
Presented by Andra L. Berez, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Title: Lexicalization, narrative structure, and Ahtna directionals: Observations using GIS
Abstract:
Travel narration is a genre of Ahtna (Athabascan) spontaneous monologue that is characterized by spatially rich descriptions of overland foot and sled travel covering hundreds of square miles of Ahtna territory in southcentral Alaska. Among the grammatical systems used in the narratives to describe travel paths is a class of semantically riverine directionals with a historically complex morphological structure.
In this talk I use Geographic Information Systems technology and high-resolution topographic imagery to show how the individual morphemes in the directionals are undergoing lexicalization, causing individual morphemes to become semantically bleached and lose their capacity to describe precise and subtle differences in direction and location. Furthermore, I show how in discourse, speakers are deploying the morphology of the directionals in unexpected ways to create narrative structure that mirrors the structure of the physical journeys being described.
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