A Grammar of Mian

Description

Winner of the 2013 ALT Gabelentz Award Mian is a non-Austronesian ('Papuan') language of the Ok family spoken in the Highlands fringe in western Papua New Guinea. Mian has approximately 1,400 speakers and is highly endangered. This grammar is the first comprehensive description of the language. It is based on primary field data consisting of a text corpus that covers different genres of the oral tradition, namely myths and ancestor stories, historical accounts, accounts of the initiation ritual, conversations, and procedural texts. The corpus was recorded by the author during a total of eleven months of field work from 2004 to 2008. The book provides a thorough description of all areas of Mian grammar and gives an in-depth analysis of many points of typological interest, such as the complex system of lexical tone, the interaction between a gender system and a system of classificatory prefixes on verbs of object movement, manipulation or handling, which allows the highlighting of certain characteristics of a referent in a given situation, the complex verbal morphology which allows fine-grained tense-aspect-mood distinctions, and a switch-reference system in which switch-reference suffixes on medial verbs are homophonous with and derived from suffixes functioning as tense and aspect markers in final verbs. The book is rounded off by a collection of traditional and contemporary texts (fully glossed and translated) and a word list comprising some 1,600 items, giving lexical tone, word class and meaning. Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1 The language and its speakers 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Mian wéng: The Mian language 1.2 The Ok languages 1.2.1 The Ok languages as a family 1.2.2 Previous linguistic research on the Ok languages 1.3 Typological profile 1.4 Note on the revised version 1.5 Fieldwork and consultants 1.6 The Miatén: The Mianmin people 1.6.1 Landscape and climate 1.6.2 Mianmin settlements 1.6.3 Food preparation 1.6.4 Political organization 1.7 Notes on examples and the orthography 1.7.1 Examples 1.7.2 Orthography in the examples 2 Phonology 2.0 Introduction 2.1 Consonants 2.1.1 Phonetic description and allophonic distribution of consonants 2.1.1.1 Stops 2.1.1.2 Nasals 2.1.1.3 Fricatives 2.1.1.4 The lateral glide /l/ 2.1.1.5 Semivowels 2.1.2 Minimal pairs for consonants 2.1.3 Regular phonological processes for consonants 2.1.3.1 Final devoicing 2.1.3.2 Aspiration and withheld release 2.1.3.3 Word-final free variation of [ph], [p⌝], [f], and [φ] 2.1.3.4 Intervocalic lenition of /b/ and /k/ 2.1.3.5 Homorganic nasal assimilation 2.1.3.6 Optional schwa-insertion into consonant clusters 2.1.4 Assimilation with following alveolar nasal /n/ 2.2 Vowels 2.2.1 Phonetic description and allophonic distribution of vowels 2.2.2 Minimal and near-minimal pairs for Mian vowels 2.3 Vowel length 2.4 Pharyngealization 2.4.1 Contrasts involving pharyngealization 2.4.2 Creaky voice accompanying pharyngealized /aˤ/ 2.4.3 Pharyngealized /aˤ/ and word accent 2.5 Phonologically conditioned allomorphy 2.5.1 The existential verb bi 2.5.2 The verb -lò ‘hit, kill’ 2.5.3 The article =i ‘Animate plural’ 2.5.4 The subject suffixes -i ‘lSG.SBJ’ and -ib(o) ‘2/3PL.AN.SBJ’ 2.5.5 The subject suffix -o ‘3SG.F.SBJ’ 2.5.6 -bio ‘General past’ 2.5.7 -so ‘Hesternal past’ 2.5.8 =a ‘Question’ and =e ‘(Content) Question’ 2.6 Phonotactics 2.6.1 Syllable structure 2.6.2 Syllable-initial consonant clusters 2.6.3 Heterosyllabic consonant clusters 2.6.4 Vowel clusters 2.7 Vowel harmony 2.7.1 In classificatory prefixes 2.7.2 In the modal suffix /Vm/ ‘Deontic’ 2.7.3 In the bound pronouns of the ‘alone’-series 2.8 Tone 2.8.1 Introduction 2.8.2 Tonal phonology of nouns and adjectives 2.8.2.1 Tone association in monosyllables 2.8.2.2 Tone association in disyllables 2.8.2.3 Nominals with the accent on the first syllable 2.8.2.4 Tone association in trisyllables 2.8.3 Expanding the tonal domain 2.8.3.1 Tone in non-verbal predications 2.8.3.2 Cliticization of the article 2.8.3.3 Tone in noun-noun compounds 2.8.3.4 Contour delinking across word boundaries 2.8.4 Tonal phonology of the verb 2.8.4.1 Accent and tonal melodies 2.8.4.2 Unaccented verbs 2.8.4.3 Stem accented verbs 2.8.4.4 Off-stem accented verbs 2.8.4.5 The inherently accented irrealis suffixes 2.8.4.6 Tone of -ûb’- ‘give’ and of compounds with -ûb’- ‘give’ 2.8.5 High tone in forms of the non-hodiernal past 2.8.6 High tone on the stem of the verb ge/gen ‘build, roll, fasten’ 2.8.7 The LH melody in lexical reduplications 2.8.8 Tone and syllable prominence 2.9 Orthography 3 Word classes 3.0 Introduction 3.1 Nouns 3.1.1 Properties common to all nouns 3.1.2 Compound nouns 3.1.3 Additive co-compounds 3.1.4 Noun-to-verb derivation 3.1.5 Noun-to-adverb/adjective derivation 3.1.6 Adjective-to-noun derivation 3.1.7 Proper names and kin nouns 3.1.8 Dyads 3.1.8.1 dum ‘father and child’ and hat ‘mother and child’ 3.1.8.2 mikim ‘siblings of opposite sex’ and dab ‘siblings of same sex’ 3.1.8.3 kam ‘(married) couple’ 3.1.9 Temporal nouns and noun phrases 3.1.10 Verbal nouns 3.2 Verbs 3.2.1 Notation conventions for verbs 3.2.2 Verb compounds 3.2.3 Denominal and deadjectival verbs derived with -an 3.2.4 Function verbs 3.3 Articles 3.3.1 The pronominal article and referentiality 3.3.2 The collective article =o 3.4 Adjectives 3.5 Prenominal modifiers 3.6 Adverbs 3.7 Pronouns 3.7.1 The free pronoun series 3.7.2 Possessive pronoun series 3.7.3 The bound pronoun series 3.7.4 Emphatic pronouns 3.7.5 The possessive pronouns with nominal function 3.7.6 The negative pronoun suffix -kob 3.7.7 The free ‘alone’-series 3.7.8 Reflexive pronouns 3.7.9 Demonstratives 3.7.10 Synopsis of pronouns 3.7.11 Interrogatives 3.7.12 Note on indefinites 3.8 Directionals 3.8.1 Demonstrative directionals 3.9 Postpositions 3.10 Quantifiers 3.11 Conjunctions and subordinators 3.11.1 eka ‘and’ 3.11.2 bleka ‘or’ 3.11.3 otâne ‘but’ 3.11.4 kesoa ‘because, since’ 3.11.5 bita ‘until’ 3.11.6 mole ‘if’ 3.12 Ideophones 3.12.1 With function verb ge/ga ‘say’ 3.12.2 With function verb ge/ga ‘say’ or existential verb n/bl~bi 3.12.3 With motion verbs 3.12.4 With function verb ge/ga ‘say’ or motion verb 3.12.5 With a semantically more specific verb 3.13 Clitics and particles 3.13.1 Illocutionary force clitics 3.13.2 Medial verb clitics 3.13.3 The negative clitic =ba 3.13.4 The negative clitic =mo 3.13.5 The interrogative clitic =mō 3.13.6 The topic clitic =le 3.13.7 The noun phrase modifier =sa ‘too’ 3.13.8 Interjections and formulaic utterances 3.14 Grammatical relations 3.14.1 Subject 3.14.2 Object 3.14.3 Ditransitives 4 Gender 4.0 Introduction 4.1 Agreement on the article 4.2 Gender assignment 4.2.1 Nouns referring to animates 4.2.1.1 Nouns of masculine gender referring to humans 4.2.1.2 Nouns of feminine gender referring to humans 4.2.2 Nouns referring to inanimates 4.2.2.1 Nouns of neuter 1 gender 4.2.2.2 Nouns of neuter 2 gender 4.3 Cross-classification 4.4 Gender assignment of Tok Pisin loans 4.5 Summary of the agreement patterns 4.6 Alternative analysis of the gender system 4.6.1 Two genders: Only masculine and feminine 4.6.2 Polarity 4.7 Evaluation 5 Classificatory verb prefixes 5.0 Introduction 5.1 Classificatory prefixes 5.2 The M-class: dob-/dol- 5.3 The F-class: om-/dol- 5.4 The long class: tob-/tebel- 5.5 The bundle class: gol-/gulel- 5.6 The covering class: gam-/gemel- 5.7 The residue class: ob-/ol- 5.8 Verbs with obligatory classificatory prefix 5.9 Gender system vs. classification by prefix 5.10 Reclassification 5.10.1 Plurals of inanimate nouns of neuter 1 gender 5.10.2 Use of feminine singular om- for broken and half objects 6 The noun phrase 6.0 Introduction 6.1 Pronouns as noun phrases 6.2 Minimal noun phrases 6.2.1 Bare nouns 6.2.2 Articles as noun phrase determiners 6.2.3 Emphatic pronouns as noun phrase determiners 6.3 Modified noun phrases 6.3.1 Adjectival modifiers 6.3.2 mak ‘certain, (an)other’ 6.3.3 Prenominal modifiers 6.3.4 Reduplicated adjectives 6.3.5 Quantifiers 6.3.6 The intensifiers dót ‘very’, wekîb ‘very’, and klâ ‘really’ 6.3.7 Demonstratives in the noun phrase 6.3.8 Relative clauses 6.4 Attributive possession 6.5 Taxonomic terms 6.6 Dyadic terms 6.7 Noun phrase coordination 6.8 Noun phrase apposition 6.9 Noun phrase topicalization 6.10 Focused noun phrases 7 The postpositional phrase 7.0 Introduction 7.1 Simple spatial postpositional phrases with a directional 7.2 Simple spatial postpositional phrases with a nominal postposition 7.3 Postpositional phrases with complex postpositions 7.4 Nouns in complex postpositions 7.5 Temporal postpositional phrases 8 Verb morphology 8.0 Introduction 8.1 Classification of verbs 8.2 Notation conventions for verbs 8.3 Perfective and imperfective verb stems 8.3.1 Biaspectual verbs: Stem alternation 8.3.1.1 Suffixation 8.3.1.2 Apophony 8.3.1.3 Suppletion 8.3.2 Irregular aspectual stem alternation 8.3.2.1 tl~te/tle~te ‘come’ 8.3.2.2 un~on/une ‘go’ 8.3.3 Trans-aspectual verbs 8.3.4 Defective verbs 8.4 Conjugation classes 8.5 Argument marking 8.5.1 Pronominal affixes 8.5.2 Subject suffix 8.5.3 Object prefix (accusative alignment) 8.5.4 Object (or subject) prefix (absolutive alignment) 8.5.4.1 Classificatory prefixes 8.5.4.2 Stem apophony in perfective ‘cut and break’-verbs 8.5.5 Object suffix (indirective alignment) 8.5.5.1 The zero root ‘transfer’ 8.5.5.2 Compounds with -ûb’- ‘give (PFV)’ in the perfective 8.5.5.3 Recipient marking in the imperfective 8.5.5.4 Semantic spectrum of the suffixed object 8.5.5.5 Verbs with obligatory object suffix 8.5.5.6 Verbs which never have an object suffix 8.6 TAM morphology of final verbs 8.6.1 TAM markers (pre-subject slot) 8.6.1.1 -nab ‘Near past’ 8.6.1.2 -b(H) ‘Non-hodiernal past’ 8.6.1.3 -s ‘Remote past’ 8.6.1.4 -b ‘Imperfective’ 8.6.1.5 -l ‘Imperfective’ 8.6.1.6 -m ‘Inchoative imperfective’ 8.6.1.7 -n ~ -Ø ‘Realis’ 8.6.1.8 -(a)mab ~ -aamab and -omab ‘Irrealis’ 8.6.1.9 -aa(m) ‘Deontic’ in C-stems 8.6.2 Tense markers (post-subject slot) 8.6.2.1 -bio ‘General past’ 8.6.2.2 -so ‘Hesternal past’ 8.6.3 Perfective stems serialized with na ‘do’ 8.6.4 A note on the verb -êb ‘take’ 8.6.5 Inflection of the existential verb 8.6.6 Negation (with the existential verb) 8.6.7 Auxiliary-serialized verbs 8.6.7.1 Auxiliary-serialization with imperfective stems 8.6.7.2 Habitual forms 8.6.7.3 Auxiliary-serialization with perfective stems 8.6.7.4 Auxiliary-serialized irrealis forms of perfective stems 8.6.7.5 Auxiliary-serialized verb forms plus -Vm ‘Deontic’ 8.6.7.6 Prohibitive 8.6.8 Hortative 8.6.8.1 Perfective hortatives 8.6.8.2 Imperfective hortatives 8.6.8.3 Stem change in hortative forms 8.6.9 Imperative 8.7 Non-finite verb forms 8.7.1 M-forms 8.7.1.1 Perfective M-forms 8.7.1.2 Imperfective M-forms 8.7.1.3 Imperfective M-forms of N-Stems 8.7.2 Verbal nouns 8.7.2.1 Perfective verbal nouns 8.7.2.2 Imperfective verbal nouns 8.7.2.3 Imperfective verbal nouns of N-stems 8.7.2.4 The verbal noun of basic motion verbs 8.7.2.5 The verbal noun of the function verbs 8.7.2.6 The verbal noun of the existential verb 8.8 Iteratives 8.9 Function verb constructions 8.9.1 With ge/ga ‘say’ 8.9.2 With ke ‘do’ 8.10 Noun-verb idioms 8.11 The ‘Immediate action’ construction 9 Argument structure and the syntax of the clause 9.0 Introduction 9.1 Intransitives 9.1.1 Motion verbs 9.1.2 Directly inflected directionals as intransitives verbs 9.1.3 Locative adjuncts 9.1.4 Noun phrases as locative adjuncts 9.1.5 Classificatory prefixes in intransitive verbs 9.1.6 Denominal and deadjectival inchoative verbs 9.1.7 Underivable intransitives 9.2 Transitives 9.2.1 Transitives with classificatory prefix (absolutive alignment) 9.2.2 Transitives with object prefix (accusative alignment) 9.2.3 Transitives with object suffix (indirective aligment) 9.2.4 Transitives without object affix 9.3 Ambitransitives 9.4 Derived transitives 9.4.1 Productive derivation of transitives 9.4.2 Idiosyncratic derivation 9.5 Ditransitives 9.6 Derived ditransitives 9.6.1 Productive derivation of ditransitives 9.6.2 Idiosyncratic derivation of ditransitives 9.6.2.1 -Ø῀- ‘give (PFV)’ from -Ø῀ 'take (PFV)’ 9.6.2.2 -ka- ‘give (IPFV)’ from -ka ‘put (IPFV)’ 9.6.2.3 dei- -/– ‘leave sth for sb’ (PFV) from dei-/– ‘leave sb/sth (PFV)’ 9.7 Possessor raising 9.8 Impersonal verbs 9.9 Reflexivization 9.10 Constituent order 9.10.1 Argument order in transitive clauses 9.10.2 Argument order in ditransitive clauses 9.10.3 Position of non-arguments 9.10.4 Position of adverbs 9.10.5 Position of postpositional adjuncts 9.10.6 Position of nominal adjuncts 9.10.7 Position of temporal nouns 9.10.8 Position of adverbial clauses 9.11 Non-verbal clauses 9.11.1 Identity 9.11.2 Property 9.11.3 Possession 9.11.4 Negation in non-verbal clauses 9.12 Reciprocal constructions 9.12.1 The bare reciprocal construction 9.12.2 The sese-construction 9.12.3 The morphological status of -sese 9.12.4 A variant of the sese-construction 9.12.5 Reciprocals in the imperfective 9.13 A note on causatives 10 Question formation 10.0 Introduction 10.1 Polar questions 10.1.1 Polar questions with the interrogative clitic =a 10.1.2 Polar questions with bleka ‘or‘ at the end of the sentence 10.1.3 Alternative questions with bleka ‘or’ 10.2 Content questions 10.2.1 The interrogative word fab 10.2.2 fab ‘where?’ 10.2.3 ‘fatnà- ‘do what?’ 10.2.4 The verbal noun fatnàmin ‘what’ 10.2.5 Fatnàmin with derivational suffixes 10.2.6 Fatnàmin plus the nominal postposition dim ‘on’ 10.2.7 The interrogative word wan 10.2.8 Is wan an interrogative verb? 10.3 Topic-only questions 11 Chaining constructions 11.0 Introduction 11.1 Serial verb constructions 11.1.1 Core-level serial verb constructions 11.1.1.1 Serialization of intransitive verbs 11.1.1.2 Serialization of a transitive and an intransitive verb 11.1.1.3 Serialization of transitive verbs and argument sharing 11.1.1.4 Auxiliary-serialized stems inside a core SVC 11.1.1.5 Directionals inside a core SVC 11.1.2 Nuclear serial verb constructions 11.1.3 Verb serialization versus compounding (synopsis) 11.1.4 The morphological status of the auxiliary 11.1.5 Causative serialization 11.1.6 Purposive serialization 11.2 Medial verb morphology and clause chaining 11.2.1 Introduction and terminology 11.2.2 Medial versus final verbs 11.2.3 Switch reference morphology in directly inflected verbs 11.2.3.1 Unusual behaviour of -n ‘(SS.)SEQ’ 11.2.3.2 -b ‘DS.SIM’ 11.2.3.3 The DS sequential markers and -Ø and -s 11.2.3.4 -m ‘Inchoative imperfective’ plus -s ‘DS.SEQ’ 11.2.3.5 -nab ‘DS.SEQ.SHORT INTERVAL’ 11.2.4 The existential verb n/bi~bl as a medial verb 11.2.5 Auxiliary-serialization in medial verbs 11.2.5.1 -bi ‘Imperfective auxiliary’ 11.2.5.2 -bi ‘Imperfective auxiliary’ plus -Ø ‘DS.SIM’ 11.2.5.3 -biaan ‘Imperfective SS.SIM auxiliary’ 11.2.5.4 Imperfective auxiliaries and perfective stems 11.2.6 Complications in the Mian S/R system 11.2.6.1 Inconsistencies in S/R marking 11.2.6.2 Accounting for the inconsistencies in S/R marking 11.2.7 Tense marking in medial verbs 11.2.8 Tense marking with -bio ‘General past’ in medial verbs 11.2.9 Tense marking with -so ‘Hesternal past’ in medial verbs 11.2.10 Postposed locative adjuncts 11.2.11 Referential overlap 11.2.12 Repetition, repair and elaboration in clause chains 11.2.13 Shortened medial clauses 11.3 Topicalized medial clauses 11.4 Tail-head linkage 11.5 Medial verbs in utterance-final position 11.6 Non-verbal clauses in clause chains 12 Operator scope in clause chaining constructions 12.0 Introduction 12.1 Illocutionary force 12.2 Polarity 12.3 Tense 12.3.1 Pre-subject slot tense suffixes 12.3.2 Post-subject slot tense suffixes 12.4 Mood 12.4.1 -n ~ -Ø ‘Realis’ 12.4.2 -(a)mab/-omab ‘Irrealis’ 12.4.3 -(V)m ‘Deontic’ 12.5 Aspect 12.5.1 Scope of habitual marking 13 Embedding 13.0 Introduction 13.1 Embedded quotatives 13.1.1 Quotatives as sentential complements 13.1.2 Embedded questions 13.2 Adverbial clauses 13.2.1 Conditional adverbial clauses with mole ‘if’ 13.2.2 Causal adverbial clauses with kesoa ‘because’ 13.2.3 Temporal adverbial clauses with bita ‘until’ 13.2.4 Adverbial clauses with the article =o 13.2.5 Topicalized adverbial clauses 13.2.6 Adverbial clauses with the postpositions temwât ‘while’ and dim ‘at the time when’ 13.2.7 The semantic difference between temwât ‘while’ and dim ‘at the time when’ 13.3 Relative clauses 13.3.1 Prenominal relative clauses 13.3.2 Head-internal relative clauses 13.3.3 Omission of the internal head in head-internal relative clauses 13.3.4 Use of resumptive pronouns after head-internal relative clauses 13.3.5 Other markers of head-internal relative clauses 13.3.6 Complex head-internal relative clauses and switch reference 13.3.7 An analytical issue in head-internal relative clauses Appendix I Texts 1 The origin of the Afoksitgabáam fruit 2 Danenok and his brother 3 Rolling smokes Appendix II Mian-English wordlist Notes References Index