Locative Focus in Saisiyat

Saisiyat verbs have a complicated system for marking different focuses, which is also a feature of other Formosan languages. Basically, there are four verbal focuses used in Saisiyat to semantically distinguish between Agents (AF), Patients (PF), Locations (LF), and Beneficiaries or Instruments (RF). Although these verbal focuses are attached to verbs and form an inherently dynamic meaning together with the verbal predicate, the LF verb forms are exploited by many Formosan languages as a means to indicate a location where certain action is as well relevant. Moreover, on the lexical level, many canonical locations or toponyms can be recognized by the presence of the proto Austronesian locative suffix *–an with nouns or even verbs. In Saisiyat, similar processes of such morphological nominalization are also very productive. Here are three such instances:

(31) pangra:an okik koza in-osa’-an.

walk Neg how_much Perf-go-LF “(The boy) has not walked far away.” (Pear 5: 61) (32) okik koza in-osa’-an ma’an.

Neg how_much Perf-go-LF 1^st-Gen

“The way I have gone is not long. (lit.).” (Fieldnotes) (33) hini ka-osa’-an.

this KA-go-LF

“This is the destination I am going.” (Fieldnotes)

In example (31), the LF verb, though serves as the complement of the dynamic verb,

walk, and actually designates a more or less static meaning: the distance/way one has gone. In example (32), the static reading is more obvious. The typical way for forming a nominalized location in Saisiyat is shown in example (33) by simultaneously attaching the stative marker KA- (Zeitoun, and Huang 2000; Yeh 2001) and the locative focus marker onto the verb. The adding of the stative marker furthers the static nature of such expressions. Due to the mixing property between static and dynamic spatial relations of such LF forms, we single out its uses in this section.

8. Dynamic Motion Events

To start with, we resume to the components in a Motion event. We list in the table below the verbs that are usually used in expressing spatial movements.

Table 3. Spatial Verbs in Saisiyat

Saisiyat Glossed in English

sapi:h ; may to pass

hinsailo’ to turn round (at the same place); rotate

rokosiza; kalkosiza to turn (and move for a distance)

hinkosiza to turn (without path)

hinkyo to turn

lobih to return

hinibih to turn around

kaslatar to exit (human)

kas'oehaz to exit (animal)

kas'aboe to enter

matira to approach

potngol to arrive

kasapo’ to come in

homakama to crawl

minsatal to go beyond

kasnakoza to go across a river

kikosiza to move

alibih to move backwords

mokakaso to go backwards

According to Talmy’s cross-linguistic investigation on lexicalization patterns, a Motion event may also incorporate expressions about the supporting (Co-event) relations, Manner and Cause. Since these two elements can be left unspecified sometimes, he regards the element Path as “the core schema” that frames the relation between the translational Motion with respect to the Figure and Ground.

Based on this line of research, he also classifies the languages in the world into satellite-framed languages and verb-framed languages. In a satellite-framed language, the path traversed by the Agent is expressed or mapped on to the satellites, which “are certain immediate constituents of a verb root other than inflections, auxiliaries, or nominal arguments.” If the core schema is contained in verb roots of inherent directionality, such languages are characterized as verb-framed. The notion of this typological dichotomy then continues to be the foci of many linguists in subsequent cross-linguistic research concerning larger scales of motion narration (e.g., Fillmore, 1989; Berman & Slobin, 1994; Slobin, 1996; Muehleisen & Imai, 1997). Hence, we believe this distinction might be an insightful one, in spite of the fact that Tamly (2000b: 102) also points out there is indeterminacy in the internal composition of the category of “satellites.” Before unfolding the following discussion, we would make a modification on the distinction between satellite-framed and verb-framed. As in a langue, there can be several conflated patterns for the same type or different types of motions, we think it is more appropriate to call this dichotomy a continuum rather than absolute opposite poles. In the rest of this section, we will examine what might be the typical way of encoding a dynamic Motion event, and see whether we can categorize Saisiyat along this continuum.

Table 4 displays Saisiyat has an inventory of Path conflated verbs for self-propelled motions.

Table 4. Path conflated motion verbs² in Saisiyat

[+ Deixis] [+ Path]

rima’ “go” panakiS “ascend”

wa:i’ “come” oeha:oe “descend”

kas’abo “enter”

kaslatar “exit”

kas’oehaz “out”

sahpi:h “pass”

mopez³ “cross”

paray/pay “via/along/through”

The table is by no means an exhaustive list of Saisiyat path verbs; there are other verbs that are inherently directed: lososo:i “proceed,” hinbaat “move along the horizontal axis,” sasiwazay “part,” and so on. The purpose here is to demonstrate that Saisiyat is capable of expressing the spatial movements by these verb roots with different focuses rather than by satellite-like elements such as the particle in English.

The reason why we treat the two deictic verbs distinctly is that we agree on Choi’s (1991: 86) point that “Deixis often patterns differently from other kinds of Paths.” In Saisiyat, these two verbs can precede other non-spatial verbs and get some meaning erosion in their motion content, but we will not deal with this development in the present discussion. In addition to these Path verbs, Saisiyat also has motion verbs conflating Manner, such as ae’ae’aw “run,” aloron “float,” and so on, and motion verbs encoding Cause, like ’osa “throw.” The Saisiyat verb kasra:i’ “down” is

2 These verbs are listed in their dependent forms, that is, forms used in imperative sentence.

3 The status of this verb as a dependent form is not sure because of the lack of more fieldnotes. Besides, its “cross” meaning here in only related to medium such as road. There is another word kasnakoraeh for crossing streams or bridges. Hence, whether these two verbs belong to Path verbs requires further investigation.

actually one instance mentioned by Talmy as the rare conflating pattern: Motion + Ground. In fact, there are also many motion verbs in Saisiyat that conflate the Figure with Motion as in the pattern in Atsugewi (Talmy 2000b: 59). Motion events with body parts or garments as the Figure are expressed by transforming the nominal forms into verbs e.g., ma-ngabas (AF+ mouth) “open mouth,” and hahoeway (shoes) “put on shoes.”

Thus, in order to observe the major conflating pattern in Saisiyat, we make use of the data collected by making informants retell the famous Pear film, which abounds in motion depictions. There are 419 intonation units in the five Pear narratives. Total types of the motion verbs are 33. In order to focus on Path expression in spatial motions, we count only motions that involve physical movements as instances. As a consequence, the “self-contained Motion” (Talmy 2000b: 35), which leads to no overall change in an object’s location will not be tackled here. Posture motions, like hinibih “(body) turn around,” sakosiza “look around,” sanabih “(head) turn back,”

and some dynamic actions like bilis “touch,” tono’ “bump into,” ti:is “wipe,” and so on are then excluded in the 33 types. Before giving an account on the conflating pattern, we provide the information about the average verb types and the number of intonation units in each Saisiyat narrator in Table 5 and check if there are any radical individual differences:

Table 5. Verb types and length in each Pear narration

Pear Story Types of motion verbs

(T)

Num. of intonation units (IU)

T/IU

Speaker 1 13 126 0.10

Speaker 2 8 48 0.17

Speaker 3 20 50 0.40

Speaker 4 24 89 0.27

Speaker 5 14 106 0.13

Average

From this table, we see that Speaker 3 and 4 seem to prefer picking up spatial scenes that concern directional movements of objects, and may be able to add higher degree of dynamism to the narrations with a variety of motion verbs. In Table 6, we give a compositional analysis on the 33 types. Each type is illustrated in the form of the bare verb root (i.e., dependent form), but in fact may contain instances with possible focus marking.

Table6. Conflating elements in the 168 occurrences

[+ Deixis] Num. [+ Path] Num. [+ Manner] Num.

rima’ “go” 24 sahpi:h “pass” 2 pangra:an “walk” 7 wa:i’ “come” 19 sahae “fall” 4 ngizo’ “tumble” 1 oeha:o “descend” 1 kolobikol “trip” 1 panakiS “ascend” 1 ae’ae’aw “run” 2 kalben “fall down” 8 ta’itol/kasna’itol⁴ “climb” 4 lobih “return” 3 ronay “rotate” 1 lososo:i “proceed” 2 saah/losaah “spill” 6 sasiwazy “part” 5

ra:iw “leave” 3 osa’ “go” 1 ila “to” 5 pay “via” 7 rorol “follow” 2

Total types 2 13 7

% 6.06 39.39 21.21

Total tokens 43 44 22

% 25.59 26.19 13.09

[+ Cause] Num. [+ Figure] Num. [+ Ground] Num.

askan “put” 12 hangaw “set ladder” 1 kasra:i’ “down” 5

4 The verb “climb”, in fact, has inherent directionality UP, but compared with the pure Path verb

“ascend,” “climb” still manifests in the Manner aspect. Therefore, we categorize it as motion conflating Manner. Besides, even though we think the two forms for “climb” here have derivational relationship, we list both of them for reference. So is the case with the verb “spill.”

tabe “fill in” 2 mari’ “take/get” 6 aras “bring/take” 8 hoehoe “pull” 7 sisil “lift” 6 si-til’itol “lift” 1 pama’ “ride” 9 sarak⁵ “stomp” 2

Total types 9 1 1 27.27 3.03 3.03

Total tokens 53 1 5

32.54 0.59 2.97

We can discover that Saisiyat speakers are inclined to express translational motions with Path conflated verbs because Deictic verbs and other Path verbs constitute 15 of these 33 types (or 45.45%). More than 50 percent (51.78%) of spatial motions express the core schema by directed verbs rather than other satellite elements. At the same time we can notice that deictic verbs, though with very restricted types, have widespread usages and high token frequency (almost amounting to the sum of all 13 types of other Path verbs). In addition, Saisiyat speakers also frequently introduce the Co-events (i.e., Manner and Cause) to the dynamic spatial relations. The reason why there is a large portion of motions conflating Cause might be related to the nature of the film. Unlike the Frog stories probed into by Berman and Slobin (1994), the Pear film seems to contain more caused scenes involving agents displacing moving objects, such as fallen pears or bikes, to different locations.

In sum, for a directed motion, Saisiyat speakers typically describe it with a Path verb, and Saisiyat may be closer to the pole as a verb-frame language. However, it

5 At first glance, one may consider the verb “stomp” should be a motion verb, conflating Manner. But in the context it is used, the verb “stomp” functions as a transitive verb and exerts a cause to make the bike go. This is the reason why it is put in this category.

still differs from more canonical verb-framed languages such as Spanish in the respect of conflating Co-events. It also frequently incorporates Manner or Cause in motion events, like some canonical satellite-framed languages.