CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND GRAMMAR SKETCH OF YAMI
2.4 P REVIOUS STUDY ON Y AMI VERBAL AFFIXES
國
立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Work done on Mayrinax Atayal by Huang (2000) has shown that the predicate might result in different degrees of stativity/dynamicity after affixation of the AV affixes m-, -um-, and ma-. Huang and Huang’s study (2007) on Tsou have shown that the coding of involved participants is influenced by the verbal meaning. Reconstruction work on Formosan verbal morphology by Ross (2015) has shown that the so-called AV affixes in Formosan languages does not necessarily signal an actor subject while its affixation is supposed to have
actor/agent subject. Hence, the appropriateness of AV, as a cover term to refer to -um-, ma-, m-, and Ø comes into focus.
Himmelmann (2005) has listed four attested voice alternations—AV, PV, LV, and CV (conveyance voice) for Philippine and Formosan languages while discussing the typological characteristics of Asia and Madagascar (p. 167-168). He has suggested that aspect, mood, and voice are interrelated and these voice/aspect/mood distinctions involve a mixture of prefixes, suffixes, and infixes. His claim is further supported by his later work on the multifunctional ma- of Tagalog (Himmelmann 2006). He suggests that the prefix ma-
“participates in two different, but related paradigms”—the affix for potentive dynamic verbs in undergoer voice and for basic statives (Himmelmann 2006: 489).
Studies from different perspectives and under different theoretical frameworks on Austronesian verbal morphology have attempted to explain its function and its relation with the thematic role of clause subjects. Some treat it as a voice affix, some treat it as a
transitivity affix, and others relate it with verbal meaning and discuss its influence on coding of involved participants after its affixation. The function of Austronesian verbal morphology should not be limited to only altering transitivity of clause or signaling the thematic role of a clause subject as its various functions (e.g. Tagalog ma-) have started to be identified in the literature.
2.4 Previous study on Yami verbal affixes
Previous works on Yami discuss the verbal affixes as voice and its presence signals the thematic role of a clause subject that is determined via a traditional thematic role list including agent, patient, location, instrument, beneficiary, etc. Ho (1990) has identified eight constructions including one argument clause, agent focus construction (AF), patient focus construction (PF), location focus construction (LF), instrument focus construction (IF),
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beneficiary focus construction (BF), reason focus construction (RF), and time focus
construction (TF). She lists affixes—m-, -om-, ma-, or Ø for the verb of one-argument clause in Yami; m- or om- for AV construction (p. 69); -en/Ø or -an for PV construction (p. 68); -an for LV construction; i- for both IF and BF construction; i- and -an for RF construction; ka- for TF construction. The verbal affixes for eight different clauses classified by Ho are summarized in Table 10.
Table 10 Ho’s (1990) classification of Yami verbal affixes
one-argument AF PF LF IF BF RF TF
Affixes m-, -om-, ma-, Ø m-, om- -en, -an -an i- i- i-, -an ka- (Ho 1990: 68-69)
Rau and Dong (2006) in their reference grammar of Yami have summarized the verbal affixes based on tense, mood, and aspect, as cited in Table 11.
Table 11 Yami pivot, mood, and aspect morphemes
Indicative Non-indicative
AF (Actor) Intransitive
Dynamic Dynamic Stative Stative Imperative (Atemporal)
Subjunctive (Projective) Neutral Perfective Neutral Perfective Dynamic Stative
-om- ni-om- Ø N- a- Rau and Dong (2006) have identified four focus/voice constructions and classified verbs according to their stativity/dynamicity and intransitivity/transitivity. Works done by Ho (1990) and Rau and Dong (2006) have both discussed Yami verbal focus/voice affixes, but differences are found when one compares their works. Rau and Dong (2006) do not include the affix -an as PF affix while Ho does. Ho (1990) identifies seven focus constructions while Rau and Dong (2006) have identified four and divided the four types of voice constructions into two major categories—actor (AF) and non-actor (NAF) focus constructions.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
While Ho (1990) has identified the affix ma- as one-argument verbal affix, Rau and Dong (2006) treat ma- as a stative affix. Later on, Y. Chang (2011) working on the affix ma- of Yami has identified four functions of the verbal affix ma- in Yami. These functions include stative ma-, as in (34a), active ma-, as in (34b), potentive ma-, as in (34c-d), and passive ma-, as in (34e).
(34)
a. stative ma-
ya ma-spi o ciawang
AUX MA-break NOM bowl
‘The bowl is broken.’ (Y. Chang 2011: 26) b. actor ma-
ko=ma-layo
1.S.NOM=MA-run
‘I am running.’ (Y. Chang 2011: 31) c. potentive ma-
ma-lam=ka mangay do Jimowrod
MA-walk=2.S.NOM AV-go LOC PN
‘You can walk to Jimowrod.’ (Y. Chang 2011: 25) d potentive ma-
ma-kalat=na ori ni kaka o noy
MA-climb=3.S.GEN that GEN elder_brother NOM coconun_palm
‘Elder brother can/is able to climb that coconut palm.’ (Y. Chang 2011: 37) e. passive ma-
siai=ni-ma-niahey [no ino] j
3.P.NOM=PFV-MA-frighten GEN dog
‘They were frightened by the dog.’ (Y. Chang 2011: 24)
The properties of the root it attached to—its meaning, the required arguments, and the thematic role of subject of these four types of ma- clauses—are summarized in Table 12.
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Table 12 Meaning of ma- affixed predicate and its argument structure
Root meaning number of
argument
Subject
noun or stative verb state 1 theme
non-stative verb-1 state, ability, method Note that the functions of the affix ma- that Y. Chang (2011) has discussed not only involve voice, but also mood and stativity/dynamicity. This further suggests that the voice affix in Yami is not simply a voice affix that signals the thematic role of a clause subject or a transitivity affix that alters the valency of the clause. Some, if not all, of these verbal affixes might be multi-functional as the Yami affix ma- that has participated in different paradigms.
Y. Chang (2011) has focused her study on one of the functions of the affix ma- in Yami and has identified it as a modal verb through discussing its semantic and syntactic properties. She does not consider and compare other voice affixes with ma- and has limited her study on potentive ma-. However, Y. Chang’s study to the affix ma- has further confirmed
Himmelmann’s typological study in 2005—aspect, mood, and voice are interrelated and voice/aspect/mood distinctions are coded via a mixture of prefixes, suffixes, and infixes.
Furthermore, her study has motivated us to re-examine other voice affixes for their multi-functionality. In doing so, our data has further supported and confirmed her study on the potentive ma- in Yami.
Shih (2013) has observed that the meaning and valency of verb change after the affixation of these so-called voice affixes and co-occurrence of these verbal affixes on one predicate has also violated the one-voice-per-clause constraint. Hence, she has suggested that these affixes should be treated as transitivity affixes. She has suggested that the function of the affixes m, mi-, om-/<om>, and ma- are to intransitivize clauses and ma-, -en, -an, and i- are to transitivize clauses. She refers to these affixes as primary affixes and defines them as follows:
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
“In Yami, the primary affixes refer to those focus/voice affixes, which are attached to the outer side of the verb, such as intransitive markers ma-, mi-, om-/<om>, m- and transitive/applicative markers i.e. -en, -an, and i-.” (Shih 2013: 94)
The rich verbal morphology of Yami and its relation to the thematic role of clause subjects have been discussed from different perspectives via different terminologies—focus, voice, transitivity, etc (e.g. Ho 1990, Deng 2005, Rau and Dong 2006, Shih 2013). These all lead to one issue and that is its complexity. The verbal affixes in Yami do not only agree with the role of clause subject; it also triggers meaning and valency change in some instances according to Shih (2013). Furthermore, these affixes also seem to encode tense, aspect, and mood information at the same time as the examples illustrate in (35). The affix ma- in (35a) signals undergoer subject and at the same time expresses that the actor has the ability to carry out the action depicted by the predicate. In (35b), the affix ni- signals undergoer subject and realis event.
(35)
na ni-ma-yowyaw ni tawey sira
3.S.GEN PFV-POT.PV-frighten_away GEN PN 3.P.NOM
o ra-rako a tao
NOM RED-big L people
‘David was able to frighten away them—the giants.’ (Y. Chang 2011: 35)
b. ya na ni-zakat o kois no kanakan
AUX 3.S.GEN PFV.PV-kill NOM pig GEN child
‘The child has killed the pigs.’ (Ho 1990:65)
From the previous literature discussed, it is acknowledged that the verbal morphology of Austronesian languages does not simply encode information of thematic role of clause subjects. Huang’s (2000) work on Mayrinax Atayal and Ross’ (2015) morphological
reconstruction on Proto Austronesian verb classes have shown that different classes of verbs (stative vs. dynamic; agentive, weather, perception, movement, position, involuntary activity, inanimate activity, mental event, resultative, and state) are attached by different verbal affixes. For instance, the affixes ma- and Ø form stative-like predicates and m- and -um- dynamic-like predicates in Mayrinax Atayal. These properties complicate the issue when one aims to explore the function or functions of these verbal affixes and its relation with the thematic role of clause subjects.
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Yami also exhibits various voice variants, but a verb with a full set of voice variants is rarely found, as has been discussed in the earlier section on Yami voice variants. The
examples in (29) illustrate four voice variants of the verb kan ‘eat’ in Yami, reduplicated in (36). When the verb kan ‘eat’ exhibits four voices in Yami, the correspondence between the verbal affixes and the thematic role of the clause subject is not as regular as expected.
(36)
a. k-om-an so wakay si Salang
<AV>eat OBL sweet_potato NOM PN
‘Salang wants to eat a sweet potato. (lit.) The one who wants to eat a sweet potato is Salang.’ (Rau and Dong 2006: 87)
‘Salang ate some rice from there. (lit.) What Salang ate a little bit from there was rice.’ (Rau and Dong 2006: 87)
d. i-akan na ni Salang o among ya
IV-eat 3.S.GEN GEN PN NOM fish this
‘Salang took this fish and ate it. (lit.) What was given for Salang to eat was this fish.’
(Rau and Dong 2006: 87) The nominative case-marked NP is mogis ‘rice’ in (36c), whereas its predicate is affixed with the locative voice affix -an; among ‘fish’ in (36d), whereas its predicate is affixed with the instrument voice affix i-. The two NPs mogis and among are the entities that undergo influence of the action done by the actor participant in (36c) and (36d), respectively, but the verbal affixation for these two examples differs—one affixes with the location affix -an and the other one affixes with the instrument/beneficiary affix i-. These two examples in Yami serve as counterexamples for voice analysis, and this type of problem is referred to as the mismatch problem in the literature.
Furthermore, it has been observed that some affixes appear to have the same function and one affix exhibits more than one function in Yami. For instance, the affix <om> is
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
observed in (36a) in constructing a clause with an actor subject in Yami, and the affix m- is also found in actor subject clauses, as exemplified in (36a’). The affix ma- is observed to construct clauses with an actor or patient subject, as in (36b) and (36d), respectively. The lack of full-fledged verbs (a verb with a full set of voice variants), the mismatch problem, many-to-one affix (more than one affix serves the same function), and one-to-many affix (one affix serves more than one function) are rather confusing when one seeks to explore the language from the perspective of grammatical voice without consideration of other factors.
Hence, the present study aims to re-examine the function or functions of Yami verbal affixes through examination of the roots/stems these affixes attach to, the thematic role of clause subjects, the number of participants involved, and its case marking via different types of clauses including declaratives, negatives, negative imperatives, and interrogatives. In doing so, we hope to get a better understanding of the function or functions of these verbal affixes, their relation with clause subjects, and influence of verbal meaning on choice of these verbal affixation if possible.
As previous studies have shown, verbal meaning or verb classes do have some influences on the voice alternations and thematic role of participant(s) encoded by its argument(s) (Huang and Huang, 2007). When verbal meaning is an influencing factor, the study of Yami verbal affixes should take semantic criteria into consideration. The revised macro-role hierarchy proposed by Foley (2005) that is built based on Dowty’s (1991) proto-roles is employed to determine the thematic role of clause subjects in the present study as Dowty’s proto-roles are determined solely based on verbal semantics.
In the following section, the framework that is employed to re-examined Yami verbal affixed and the thematic role of clause subjects are discussed, and the terminologies that are used in the present study are defined.