Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.5 Summary
Despite the fact that there are few studies on Kanakanavu, all the aforementioned
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works will adequately serve a useful purpose in the analyses in Chapter 3, since we may further compare and examine the actual morphological realization of each voice, and then to look at the voice system from a multi-dimensional perspective. The next chapter will first give a morphosyntactic description of Kanakanavu’s voice system, with a small discussion of semantic roles. In Chapter 4, we will move further to the discourse aspects of the voice system.
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Chapter 3 Voice Constructions in Kanakanavu
3.1 Introduction
The voice system in Kanakanavu generally exhibits a similar pattern as seen in many other Formosan languages. There have already been several discussions concerning this issue (cf. Tsuchida 1976, Mei 1982, Chang 2006, Wu 2006, etc.).
However, as mentioned in Chapter 2, none of these works has succeeded in presenting a clearer picture of the variant morphological forms and the syntactic structure of each voice construction. Therefore, one of the primary goals of the present chapter is to firstly lay out the morphosyntactic features of the voice system in this language, and then in Chapter 4, we will aim for the discourse implications of how people employ the voice.
A complication regarding this issue is perhaps the case of locative constructions, since the expected form, -an, turns out to be relatively unproductive comparing with the other voice types. Hence, we will look at this particular voice construction with special attention in this chapter, too.
We will first provide a sketch of Kanakanavu’s grammar in Section 3.2, and then we examine each voice construction in more details in Section 3.3. Section 3.4 offers an overview of the voice markers and those in non-indicative structures. The interaction of voice and tense, aspect, and modality markers will be presented in Section 3.5. Finally, an interim summary will be given in Section 3.6.
3.2 A sketch of Kanakanavu’s grammar
Before turning to Kanakanavu’s voice constructions, we will first provide a brief
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introduction to the basic grammatical characteristics of Kanakanavu. Aspects such as phonology, word order, pronominal system, and discourse/case markers will be briefly discussed, most of which are based on previous literature.
3.2.1 Phonological inventory
There are at least eleven to twelve consonant phonemes in Kanakanavu. See Table 3.1. The consonant inventory generally reflects the typological tendency that a voiceless plosive/fricative phoneme is often predicted when the voiced counterpart exists, but not vice versa (Croft 2002:165). Note, however, that the phoneme /v/, for some reason, is an exception.24
Table 3.1 Consonants in Kanakanavu25 (cf. Tsuchida 2003)
manner position
Labial Dental/alveolar Velar Glottal
Plosive Voiceless p t k ʔ
According to Tsuchida (2003), /v/ was pronounced as a voiced bilabial fricative /β/ several decades ago. However, the voiced bilabial fricative is not retained anymore,
24 One possible explanation for the exception is that the phoneme /v/, which developed from /β/, was reconstructed as /b/ in PAn (Wolff 2010:149). Since the voiceless counterpart /p/ already exists in contemporary speech, the universal implication still holds.
25 The present paper will adopt the traditional transcription in Formosan literature, as shown below.
IPA Symbols adopted
28
since it is replaced with the labio-dental fricative /v/ in the present day, at least in the speech community of our informants26.
Affricate /ts/ and fricative /s/ are palatalized if they are followed by high front vowel /i/, as seen in examples given below.
cina ‘mother’ /tsina/ [tɕina]
sii ‘because’ [siː] [ɕiː]
We should also note that the /r-l/ distinction is documented in Tsuchida’s transcription, although they may not cause any distinctive meanings when one is substituted for another. Therefore, only the phoneme /r/ will be employed throughout the present study, unless a particular reference to the two phonemes is intended.
The vowels in Kanakanavu, on the other hand, are not as numerous as many other languages, since it has a basic vowel inventory of six.
Table 3.2 Vowels in Kanakanavu
frontness
height
Front Central Back
High i u u
Mid e o
Low a
Finally, Kanakanavu’s syllable structure, based on the Tsuchida (1976, 2003), is basically (C)V, but there are also instances where nasal sounds occur as a coda. Hence, the syllabic structure of Kanakanavu may be refined as follows:
Kanakanavu’s syllable structure: (C)V(Nasal)27
26 Our informants are: Mu’u (翁坤), male, aged 80; ’angai (蕭能吉), male, aged 78; Paicu (翁范秀香), female, aged 73; Pani (孔岳中), male, aged 60; ’angai (翁博學), male, aged 65 (at the time of
elicitation).
27 There is, however, one exception to this proposed structure in our data, namely tassa ‘two’. We
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Table 3.3 gives examples of different syllabic types. The stress is usually placed on the penultimate syllable.
Table 3.3 Syllable structure in Kanakanavu
Type Example Meaning
(C)V28 vatu stone
(C)VV29 mataa and
(C)VNasal
manmaan
like(C)GlideV tia (irrealis/future marker)
(C)VGlide cau person
It has been stated that Kanakanavu’s independent free morphemes mostly have three or more syllables (Sung 1966, Tsuchida 1976, 2003, Ho 1997:232). However, it is also likely that, due to a simplification taking place among the younger generations and the speech rate in conversations, words containing less than three syllables are emerging. For those who are interested in the phonological development of Kanakanavu language, see Tsuchida (1976, 2003), and Wolff (2010:141-154) for more details.
3.2.2 Word order
Kanakanavu generally follows a Verb-Agent-Theme word order. Consider the following data first.
(3)a. usu’u-un cuma paici na takuacapa put-PV father wine LOC shelf
‘Father put the wine on the shelf.’
speculate that it might be a result of vowel reduction and consonant assimilation.
/tacusa/(tacsa)[tassa]
28 A single vowel is generally scarce in Kanakanavu, since there is always a glottal stop preceding a vowel without any consonant preceding it.
29 Here the symbol VV does not imply two separate syllables, but a lengthening vowel.
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b. *usu’u-un paici cuma na takuacapa put-PV wine father LOC shelf
The ungrammaticality in (3) reveals that the word order in this language is canonically VSO. Since in both AV and PV constructions, the agent or the one who carries out the action directly follows the verb, and then the patient (or possibly other) argument comes later in a neutral and non-topicalized clause. Below are more examples.
Intransitive
(4) acee=cu tacau iisua AV.leave=COS dog that
‘The dog went away.’
Transitive
(5) tia miapacai Pi’i tutui iisua FUT AV.kill PN pig that
‘Pi’i is going to kill that pig.’
Prepositional predicate (Location)
(6) ’esi=ku na tanasa
EXIST=1SG.NOM LOC house
‘I’m at home.’
Nominal predicate
(7) seeto sua iiku student NOM 1SG.NOM
‘I am a student.’
(8) sua iiku ia, seeto
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NOM 1SG.NOM TOP student
‘I am a student.’
(9) *seeto iiku student 1SG.NOM
However, nominal predicates, as in (7)-(9), require a nominative marker sua if not in a topicalized structure. Therefore, sentences like (9) are not acceptable.
Although the canonical word order is Verb-Agent-Theme, there are occasional instances where the Theme precedes the Agent. In such cases, the interpretation will often depend on animacy. Consider first the sentences (10)-(11) below, in which the word order determines the relations, whether in AV or NAV clauses.
(10) a. tia marivura’u Pani Pi’i FUT AV.beat PN PN
‘Pani is going to beat Pi’i.’ (Not ‘Pi’i is going to beat Pani.’) b. tia marivura’u Pi’i Pani
FUT AV.beat PN PN
‘Pi’i is going to beat Pani.’ (Not ‘Pani is going to beat Pi’i.’) (11)a. tia arivura-’un Pani tacau
FUT beat-PV PN dog
‘Pani is going to beat the dog.’ (Not ‘The dog is going to beat Pani.’) b. tia arivura-’un tacau Pani
FUT beat-PV dog PN
‘The dog is going to beat Pani.’ (Not ‘Pani is going to beat the dog.’)
The above sentences clearly show that, when both nominal arguments are equally animate (as in (10)), or similarly animate (as in (11)), the interpretation selects the noun that follows directly the verb as the Agent. However, if the animacy level
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apparently differs, the meaning of the clause will match that of a common sense, which dictates that the more animate argument carries out the action on the inanimate argument. See the AV sentence below for an illustration.
(12)a. tia k<um>a-kuun Pani vakatu FUT Ca<AV>-eat PN watermelon
‘Pani is going to eat watermelon.’
b. tia k<um>a-kuun vakatu Pani FUT Ca<AV> -eat watermelon PN ‘Pani is going to eat watermelon.’
Nevertheless, in NAV sentences, the canonical word order is still the norm if the nominative case marker is present, hence the semantic anomaly in (13b) below.
(13)a. tia kuun-un Pani sua vakatu FUT eat-PV PN NOM watermelon ‘Pani is going to eat the watermelon.’
b. ?tia kuun-un vakatu sua Pani FUT eat-PV watermelon NOM Pani ‘The watermelon is going to eat Pani.’
Therefore, the basic word order in Kanakanavu is Verb-Agent-Theme, although speakers may occasionally produce sentences with the Agent preceding the verb with a topicalizer, possibly due to the influence of Mandarin Chinese.
3.2.3 Pronominal system
The pronominal system in Kanakanavu has been discussed in Mei (1982). The following table is adapted from Lan (2012). However, the independent focused
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pronoun for the third person singular and plural should not be a zero form (as they lack an overt morpheme in Mei’s account), since the pronouns nguain and nguani are found in our data.
Table 3.4 Pronominal system in Kanakanavu. (cf. Mei 1982)
Independent Bound
Focused Unfocused/OBL NOM GEN
1SG iiku/iikia ’ikua =ku/=kia =(m)aku
1PL
INCL iikita kitana =kita =(mi)ta
EXCL iikim(i) kimia =kim(i) =mia
2SG iikasu kasua =kasu =(mu)su
2PL iikamu kamua =kamu =mu
3SG
nguain
’inia =in(i) =kee/=in(i)3PL
nguani
’inia =in(i) =kee/=in(i)It is stated in the literature that 3rd person personal pronouns in Formosan languages are often derived from demonstrative pronouns (Ross 2006:536), but in Kanakanavu, nguain and nguani do not have demonstrative uses. However, demonstratives like iisua ‘that’ may mean ‘he/she’.
It is noticeable that the unfocused and oblique independent pronouns all appear with an –a suffix at the end. Although we are not able to identify the origin of the oblique forms, the –a suffix might have something to do with PAn reflexes30.
3.2.4 Markers sua, na and ia
The case system in Kanakanavu does not seem to be frequent in use.
30Ross (2006:15-16) states that the oblique pronouns in Kanakanavu are attached with PAn suffix –an, but the final nasal sound is absent in the present-day speech.
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Alternatively speaking, when the word order is Verb-Agent-Theme, the nominative and oblique case markers do not surface on many occasions. The addition of markers like sua would result in a discoursal emphasis on the argument, although speakers often use topicalized structure with ia to yield a similar effect. Yet another marker, na, is more like a locative preposition, but indeed it shows an oblique case use in a few cases of transitive sentences. Below are a list of the markers and some examples.
Table 3.5 Discourse and case markers in Kanakanavu
Marker Functions
ia
Topicna
Locative Goal (Oblique)
sua
Nominative Oblique
Discourse deictic [+referential, +definite]
(14) ’arating iisi ia, koo=pa=maku urupacai k<um>uun ’uru chopsticks this TOP NEG=yet=1SG.GEN use.PV Ca<AV>eat rice
‘As for these chopsticks, I haven’t used (them) to eat rice.’
(15) a. ’esi=ku
na
tanasa EXIST=1SG.NOM LOC house‘I’m at home.’
b. see-vua=maku (sua) vantuku iisi na Pani IV-give=1SG.GEN NOM money this LOC PN ‘I (always) give this money to Pani.’
c. tia miapacai Pani (na) Pi’i
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FUT AV.kill PN LOC PN
‘Pani will kill Pi’i.’
(16) a. na-te=maku kuun-un sua tammi, nakai NA-FUT=1SG.GEN eat-PV NOM sweet.potato but
nerisuacu tacau PFV.PV-eat.up dog
‘I was going to eat the sweet potatoes, but the dog ate them all.’
b. aririan=ku
sua
sisiin tamna riang listen.secretly=1SG.NOM OBL bird.type POSS sound ‘I would listen to sound of the (kind of) bird.’c. sua iiku ia, te=maku vura’u-un manu=maku NOM 1SG.NOM TOP FUT=1SG.GEN hit-PV child=1SG.GEN ‘As for me, I’m going to hit my child.’
In (15a), the marker na has a clear locative interpretation. Sentence (15b), on the other hand, also imply a location but is more of an allative use. This marker may have an oblique-like function, indicating an action performed on this argument, as seen in (15c).
The nominative marker sua more often than not results in an emphasis on the following argument.31 Hence, example (16c) shows that the argument iiku is not part of the core arguments of vura’uun ‘hit’ in the syntax, but is merely what the speaker employs to emphasize which individual would carry out the action.
Up to this point, we have demonstrated the essential characteristics of Kanakanavu, and these features are more or less typical of Formosan languages. With the understanding of Kanakanavu’s basic grammar, we may now turn to the voice
31 Alternatively, sua serves as a pragmatic marker, resulting in high referentiality and definiteness of the following argument. This marker is likely to be originated from the demonstrative iisua ‘that’.
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system in the next section.
3.3 Morphology and syntax of the voice construction
As the previous discussions serve as the background knowledge, this section gives a descriptive analysis of each voice construction, along with a brief reference to how the system works in structures like imperative and narrative constructions. For purposes of the paper, we will adopt a four-way distinction of the voice system in our discussions, rather than the Actor-Undergoer dichotomy (cf. Ross 2009), due to the fact that the four voice types yield semantically different interpretations.32 The case with indicative modality will be dealt with next.
3.3.1 Voice in indicative mood
The voice paradigm in indicative constructions in Kanakanavu corresponds to PAn forms. One particular voice type indicates that, prototypically speaking, a specific semantic role is instantiated as the grammatical subject of the clause.
Therefore, the use of PV construction, for example, introduces a patient grammatical subject.
In the following sections, each voice construction will be surveyed with respect to argument structure.
3.3.1.1 Agent voice
Not surprisingly, the element m is a distinctive AV morpheme in Kanakanavu language, although there are several variants, ranging from prefixes, infixes, to zero
32 We will show in Section 3.3.1.4 that there are only three major voice types in Kanakanavu in the present day.
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form. This type of morpheme prototypically denotes an actor as the grammatical subject. However, AV construction is definitely not restricted to one semantic role as the subject, since it is, as in other voice constructions, a one-to-many correspondence.
See the following data (17)-(18) for some possibilities (grammatical subject in boldface).
(17) NOM: Agent
k<um>a-kuun=ku vutukuru.
Ca<AV>-eat=1SG.NOM fish
‘I eat fish.’
(18) NOM: Agent
ø.tantaniaru=ku c<um>a-cu’ura sinatu AV.every.day=1SG.NOM Ca<AV>-see book
‘I read books every day.’
(19) NOM: Theme
ø.acee=cu
nguain
AV.leave=COS 3SG.NOM
‘He/She has left.’
(20) NOM: Experiencer t<um>a-tang
manu
Ca<AV>-cry child‘The child is crying.’
In (17) and (18), the grammatical subjects both refer to actors of the actions denoted by the verbs. Sentence (19) is an entity that has moved from one place to another, hence the theme. The AV construction may introduce a role of experiencer, since the verb tang, meaning ‘to cry’, requires an individual experiencing an emotion
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as the subject, as in (20).
To summarize up to this point, the possible semantic roles that may be introduced by an AV marker are at least Agent, Theme, and Experiencer. In the next subsection, we will turn to the case of patient voice.
3.3.1.2 Patient voice
When PV construction is used, the agent of the action does not receive nominative case anymore. Instead, what is in nominative position often refers to the entity being affected.
The patient voice marker in Kanakanavu seems to be highly predictable in terms of its phonetic realization. When the preceding vowel33is u or a, the PV form -un is attached. The first preceding vowel a will be deleted during the affixation, and the vowel preceding a, if any, is likely to be assimilated. Examples are ‘give’ vua > vuun,
‘look after’ eecara > eecaruun, and ‘get angry’ arakuracu > arakuracuun, etc. If it is
u that precedes the PV marker, the affix becomes -un, as in ‘tell’ tuturu > tuturuun.
The PV form turns into -en when following e (‘throw’ teen > teenen),34 and into -in when following i (‘sing’ aracani > aracaniin).
The patient voice marker indicates that the grammatical subject is canonically given the semantic role Patient. However, this marker may instantiate various thematic roles other than Patient. In fact, PV constructions involve the most semantic roles assigned to the grammatical subject of a clause, if comparing with the other voice types. Below are the data collected so far (grammatical subject in boldface).
(21) NOM: Patient
33Theprecedingis never a(non-nasal)consonant, sincenon-nasal consonantsare not allowed in the codaposition of asyllable, unless theword is borroweddueto language contact.
34 When the preceding element is a consonant, the PV form agrees with the vowel that precedes the stem-final consonant.
39
kuun-un=cu=maku tammi eat-PV=COS=1SG.NOM sweet.potato
‘I already ate the sweet potatoes.’
(22) NOM: Recipient/Goal
iikasu
ia vu-un=maku sinatu 2SG.NOM TOP give-PV=1SG.GEN book‘You are the one whom I give the book.’
(23) NOM: Transported theme
usu’u-un cuma
paici
na takuacapa put-PV father wine LOC shelf‘Father put the win on the shelf.’
(24) NOM: Theme
matapari-in
tanuku
fall-PV cup‘The cup fell.’
(25) NOM: Perceived stimulus cu’uru-un=maku
manu
see-PV=1SG.GEN child‘I saw the child.’
(26) NOM: Content
sua
Pani ia tavaru’u-un=maku
NOM PN TOP know-PV=1SG.GEN‘Pani is the person I know.’
(27) NOM: Location
sua
tanasa
iisi ia usu’u-un=maku sien sinatu NOM house this TOP put-PV=1SG.GEN there book40
‘This house is where I put the book.’
The above examples have shown that the use of PV construction involves semantic roles such as Patient, Theme, Stimulus, and Content, etc., assigned to the nominative argument of the clause. As illustrated in (27), PV constructions may be employed to mark an argument of location as the clausal subject. Note, however, that when such constructions (with a location) occur in a topicalized structure, a deictic expression like sien ‘there’ or ‘inia ‘there’ will likely be added. Sentence (28) below is another example.
(28) (sua) takuuna iisi ia t<in>een=maku
’inia
sinatu NOM shelf this TOP <PFV.PV>throw=1SG.GEN there book‘The shelf is where I threw the book.’
Finally, we have found in our data that intransitive verbs like ukusa ‘go’ are capable of bearing a PV marker. One question thus arises: What does such a verb denote in a PV construction? To answer this question, we need to first examine the data (29).
(29)a. ukusu-un=maku m-ara tikuru iisi go-PV=1SG.GEN AV-take clothes this
‘I will go bring the clothes back.’
b. ukusu-un=maku m-arivura’u (sua/*na) kavangvang mamanu go-PV=1SG.GEN AV-hit NOM/OBL all children
‘I (instead of the others) will go hit all the children.’
The semantics of (29a) and (29b) imply that maku ‘I’ will go somewhere and perform the action denoted by the following verb. As a matter of fact, the sentence turns out to be unacceptable when ukusa ‘go’ is attached with the AV marker (see
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(30)), when the second verb is PV-marked (see (31)), or when the motion verb is replaced by another similar verb iovatu ‘come’ (see (32)).
(30) *mokusa=ku m-arivura’u kavangvang mamanu AV.go=1SG.NOM AV-hit all children (31) *ukusu-un=maku arivura’u-un kavangvang mamanu go-AV=1SG.GEN hit-PV all children (32) *iovatu-un=maku m-ara tikuru
come-PV=1SG.GEN AV-take clothes
These sentences (30)-(32) are indicative of three phenomena: a) The verb go, when PV-marked, always occurs in verb serialization and is grammaticalized into an auxiliary-like element; b) Kanakanavu has an AV constraint effect on V2, as evidenced in Wu (2006); c) Only the verb go, not come, has this grammaticalized usage, which shows a lexically idiosyncratic development.
These sentences (30)-(32) are indicative of three phenomena: a) The verb go, when PV-marked, always occurs in verb serialization and is grammaticalized into an auxiliary-like element; b) Kanakanavu has an AV constraint effect on V2, as evidenced in Wu (2006); c) Only the verb go, not come, has this grammaticalized usage, which shows a lexically idiosyncratic development.