Linguistics – Page 2 – Thomas Dougherty

Translating the Chūzan Seikan — Part 1

January 3, 2015 tomdougherty3 Comments

The Ryūkyū Koku Chūzan Seikan (琉球國中山世鑑 ‘A Record of the Ages of Chūzan, the Ryūkyū Kingdom’) was compiled in 1650 CE by Haneji Chōshū (羽地朝秀). It is written in Early Modern Japanese and Classical Chinese and details the Ryūkyū Kingdom. This translation is based on the Tajima manuscript, which has been digitized by the University of the Ryūkyūs Library. As per the name, this manuscript was copied by by Tajima Risaburō. Based on his other manuscripts, it was likely copied some time in the 1890s CE, but the exact date is unknown. Like most of Tajima’s manuscripts, it has extensive annotations, in three different colors of ink, though all are presumably by Tajima himself. They include exegesis on various aspects of the text, as well as quotations from the Omoro Sōshi and other works.

The first 15 pages consist of an introduction to the work and a genealogy of the Kings of Ryūkyū, written in Classical Chinese. I have chosen to start, rather than from the very beginning, at the initial portion written in Japanese. Additionally, there are no page numbers, so I start counting from the initial page of the manuscript, not including the cover. Thus, I start on the verso, or b, side of page 15, and for continuity’s sake, I stop shortly before the end of the page.

I first reproduce, with some modernizations due to font limitations, the original text. I then add my interlinear glossed interpretation of the text. This is, of course, a work in progress and there are bound to be errors. Next, I include a free translation. Finally, I include any commentary I feel is necessary.

Original text

(Page 15b)
琉球國中山世鑑巻一

琉球開闢之事

(1) 曩昔天城ニ阿摩美久ト云神御坐シケリ天帝是ヲ召シ
(2) 宣ケルハ此下ニ神ノ可住多處有リ去レトモ未タ島ト
(3) 不成事コソクヤシケレ爾降リテ島ヲ可作トソ下知シ
(4) 給ケル阿摩美久畏リ降リテ見ルニ多地トハ見ニケレ
(5) トモ東海ノ浪ハ西海ニ打越シ西海ノ浪ハ東海ニ打越
(6) シテ未タ島トソ不成ケル去程ニ阿摩美久天ヘ上リ土
(7) 石草木ヲ給ハヲハ¹嶋ヲ作リテ奉ントソ奏シケル天帝
(8) 睿慮感有テ土石草木ヲ給リテケレハ阿摩美久土石草木
(9) ヲ持下リ嶋ノ数ヲハ作リテケリ.

Transcription and Interlinear Gloss

(Page 15b)

RYŪKYŪ KOKU CHŪZAN SEIKAN MAKI ICHI
Ryūkyū Kingdom Chūzan Historical.Record Scroll One

RYŪKYŪ KAIBYAKU=NO KOTO
Ryūkyū Creation=GEN matter

(1) MUKASHI² TEN GUSUKU=ni AMAMIKYU³ to IF-U KAMI OWAs-iker-i TENTEI KORE=wo MEs-i
once heaven castle=LOC Amamikyu say.DV say-ADN deity reside.HON-RETR-FIN Heavenly.Emperor her=ACC summon.HON-INF

(2) NOTAMAF-Iker-e-ba KOKO SITA=ni KAMI=no SUM-UBE-KI OFO-KI TOKORO Ar-i-sar-e-domo IMAda SIMA to
say.HON-RETR-EV-CONJ here below=LOC deity-GEN reside-DEB-ADN many-ADN place exist-INF-completely-EV-CONC yet island be.DV

(3) NAR-AZ-U KOTO=koso kuyashi-kere NANJI KUDAr-ite SIMA=wo TUKUR-UBE-SI to zo SITA SIRAs-i-
become-NEG-ADN matter EFP regretful-EV you descend-CC island=ACC make-DEB-FIN be.DV EFP below rule-INF-

(4) -TAMAF-Iker-u AMAMIKYU KASIKOMAr-i FUr-ite MI-ru=ni OFO-KI TOKORO to fa MI-n-iker-e-
-HON-RETR-ADN Amamikyu obey-INF descend-CC look-ADN=LOC many-ADN place be.DV TOP see-PFV-RETR-EV-

(5) -domo TOUKAI=no NAMI fa SEIKAI=ni UT-I KOs-i SEIKAI=no NAMI fa TOUKAI=ni UT-I KO[s-ite]
-CONC Eastern.Sea⁴=GEN wave TOP Western.Sea=LOC hit-INF go.over-INF Western.Sea=GEN wave TOP Eastern.Sea=LOC hit-INF go.over-CC

(6) IMAda SIMA to zo NAR-AZ-Iker-u S-AR-U FODO=ni AMAMIKYU TEN=fe AGAR-I TUTI
yet island be.DV EFP become-NEG-RETR-ADN thus-exist-ADN degree=LOC Amamikyu heaven=ALL rise-INF earth

(7) ISI KUSA KI=wo TAMAfar-e-ba SIMA=wo TUKUr-ite TATEMATUR-Am-u to zo MAWOs-iker-u TENTEI
stone grass tree=ACC present-EV-CONJ island=ACC make-CC offer.HUM-TENT-FIN say.DV FPT say.HUM-RETR-ADN Heavenly.Emperor

(8) EIRYO KANZI AR-Ite TUTI ISI KUSA KI=wo TAMAF-I-Ar-ite-ker-e-ba AMAMIKYU TUTI ISI KUSA KI
Emperor’s.pleasure feeling exist-CC earth stone grass tree=ACC bestow-INF-exist-PFV-RETR-EV-CONJ Amamikyu earth stone grass tree

(9) =wo MOT-I KUDAr-i SIMA=no KAZU=woba TUKUr-ite-ker-i…
=ACC hold-INF bestow-INF island=GEN number=ACC.TOP make-PFV=RETR-FIN

Free Translation

A Record of the Ages of Chūzan, the Ryūkyū Kingdom, Volume 1

On the Creation of the Ryūkyūs

Once, a goddess who was called Amamikyu lived in a Heavenly Castle. The Heavenly Emperor summoned her, and when he said, “Although there were many places below here where spirits resided, the fact that there were not yet islands was regrettable. You should go down to make islands.” ruling over the [lands] below. Amamikyu descended obediently and when she looked, although she saw that there were many lands, and waves washed from the Eastern Sea into the Western Sea, and washed from the Western Sea into the Eastern Sea, and yet, there were not islands. And then, Amamikyu said, “I will make and offer islands and present trees and grass and stone and earth to the the Heavens [for you].” The Heavenly Emperor was pleased and when he bestowed Amamikyu [with] trees and grass and stone and earth, Amamikyu made a number of islands and bestowed them with trees and grass and stone and earth.

Notes

(1) The Shimabukuro-bon (URI: http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1217404) is much clearer, with 給ハレハ tamafareba, which makes a lot more sense. Thanks to Matt Treyvaud for pointing this out to me.

(2) I had originally assumed that 曩昔 mukasi was something more complex. Matt Treyvaud pointed out an entry in 「日本国語大辞典」, which I don’t have access to at the moment, which has it simply as mukasi.

(3) It is generally assumed that Amamikyu—spelled <あまみきよ> in Old Okinawan, and pronounced as [amamit͡ɕuː] in Modern Okinawan—is partially cognate with Amami, as in the Amami Islands.

(4) In modern Okinawan, the Eastern Sea is [ʔagaɾinuʔumi], and the Western Sea is [niɕinuʔumi]. These correspond to the Pacific Ocean and the East China Sea, respectively.

Update 10 Jan. 2014

Fixed a few errors. Thanks to Matt Treyvaud for catching them. If anyone else has any comments, questions, or concerns, please feel free to contact me. As always, any mistakes remain my own.

Update 27 February 2016

Commentor David pointed out an important typo: the document was compiled in 1650, not 1605. This was a typo on my part, and is now corrected in the original text.

References

Haneji, Chōshū. 1605. Ryūkyū Koku Chūzan Seikan [A Record of the Ages of Chūzan, the Ryūkyū Kingdom]. Copied by Tajima Risaburō, University of the Ryūkyūs Library manuscript.

Abbreviations

ACC – accusative case
ADN – adnominal form
ALL – allative case (‘toward’)
CC – clause-chaining converb (‘and’)
CONC – concessive converb (‘although’)
CONJ – conjunctive converb (‘because’, ‘when’)
DEB – debitive mood
DV – defective verb
EFP – emphatic focus particle
EV – evidential mood
FIN – final form
GEN – genitive case
HON – honorific
INF – infinitive
LOC – locative case
NEG – negative
RETR – retrospective aspect
TENT – tentative mood
TOP – topic

Linguistic periodization of Okinawan – Part 1

December 23, 2014 tomdoughertyLeave a comment

Last time, I talked about one way of periodizing Okinawan, based off of non-linguistic criteria. This time, I’m going to talk about two linguistic criteria we might use to differentiate Modern Okinawan from earlier forms of Okinawan.

The first criterion is a major reanalysis in the verbal system which occurred at some point in the history of Okinawan, sometime after our Old Okinawan texts (to 1609 CE), and presumably sometime during Middle Okinawan (from 1609 to 1879 CE), though it isn’t clear to me at this point when this would have occurred—especially owing to the fact that I don’t have access to the Ryūka Zenshū, the major collection of Middle and Early Modern Okinawan poetry, but if memory serves me correctly, this sort of construction is not attested in the Ryūka.

This reanalysis took the derived, morphologically complex construction of the infinitive form of the main verb plus the auxiliary verb or- ‘to exist’—but in this case the progressive auxiliary, and reanalyzed it as the basic, morphologically simplex imperfective form of the verb, an analysis first proposed by Hattori Shirō (Vovin 2009: 611).

The second morphological change, which post-dated this first change, is another reanalysis. This time, an extension of the use of the adnominal -ru with both consonant and vowel stem verbs, rather than just vowel stem verbs. Historically, consonant stem verbs would use the allomorph -u.

This can be seen in the example above, but for a further example, compare Old Okinawan <てる> ter-u |shine-ADN| with Modern Shuri Okinawan <てぃゆる> tiyu-ru |shine.IPFV-ADN|.

So in summary: two innovations which can be used to divide Modern from pre-Modern (Middle?) Okinawan are the reanalysis of the morphologically complex progressive construction as the morphologically simplex imperfective form of the verb, as well as the expansion of the adnominal -ru to all verb classes.

Update (23 December 2014)

I found the verb form <待る> MAT-Uru|wait-ADN| (the capitals indicate my inference of a semantographic Chinese character) in the Ryūka Gimon Roku (Gyokuzan 1900: 2b). Compare Western Old Japanese mat-u |wait-ADN|.

Reference

Gyokuzan. 1900. Ryūka Gimon Roku ‘A List of Questions [About] Ryūka.’ University f the Ryūkyūs manuscript. URI: http://ir.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/handle/123456789/10289

Vovin, Alexander. 2009. A Descriptive and Comparative Grammar of Western Old Japanese. Part Two: Adjectives, Verbs, Adverbs, Conjunctions, Particles, and Postpositions. Folkestone: Global Oriental.

The chronology of Okinawan

December 19, 2014June 26, 2017 tomdougherty1 Comment

To the best of my knowledge, there is no agreed upon chronology of Okinawan into the usual terminology of “modern”, “Middle”, “Old”, etc. This is a simple attempt at creating such a terminology.

Our earliest well-dated texts, like the Haytwong Ceykwukki (「海東諸國紀」 ‘A Record of the Various Countries of the Eastern Sea’, 8 May 1501 CE¹) or the Tamaudun epitaph (somewhere from 12 October to 10 November 1501 CE²), are all from the 15th century CE. The first book of the Omoro Sōshi (「おもろさうし」 ‘A Collection of Omoro‘) claims to have been compiled between 1531 and 1532 CE³—with most of the books dating later, but we know the Omoro Sōshi was recompiled much later (and at several different times over), and the omoro poetic form (and potentially some omoro in the collection) is claimed to date back to the 5th or 6th century CE (Hokama and Saigo 1972: 527). These all fall under the banner of what I call “Old Okinawan.”

The next large set of texts which we can use to create a chronology for Okinawan are the ryūka (‘Ryūkyūan⁴ Poems’). However, these partially overlap both with Old Okinawan and modern Okinawan, with the oldest ryūka dating from the 14th and 15th centuries CE, up to the 20th century CE (Shimabukuro and Onaga 1983: 9).

In the absence of well-formed linguistic diagnostic criteria, I think it is best to appeal to non-linguistic factors in this case, though this is something I intend to return to in the future. One possible criterion here would be a major societal change, such as the collapse or overthrow of a ruling dynasty, a major natural disaster, large-scale population movement, or similar sorts of factors. Large-scale linguistic change will likely lag behind this, but will likely be related, as we can see in many cases of language death and endangerment.

As for the case of Okinawan, we have several points where we can put some tentative boundaries. The first of these would be the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Okinawa (三山 Jpn. sanzan) under King Shō Hashi (尚巴志) in 1492 CE. However, we only have one extant text from before this period, Liúqiú kuăn yìyŭ (琉球館譯語 ‘A Wordlist of Ryūkyūan’), which was compiled in 1469 CE. All other texts, to the best of my knowledge, post-date the start of the 16th century. So this date is certainly important, as it likely would have marked the start of the various levelings that would occur in Okinawan (cf., the fact that all attested Okinawan varieties aside from Naha and Itoman have the same pitch accent system as Shuri), but with basically no linguistic evidence, we will likely not even be able to come to firm conclusions in the future. We will call Okinawan before 1492 CE Pre-Unification Old Okinawan.

The next major societal change in Okinawa would have been the Satsuma invasion 1609 CE. This would have marked much more extensive contact, at least among the nobility, between the (Early Modern) Japanese language and Okinawan. From 1492 CE to 1609 CE, we will use the term Post-Unification Old Okinawan, and from 1609 CE, we have Middle Okinawan.

I am intentionally avoiding the qualifiers “Early” and “Late” here, as I think they would be more appropriately based on linguistic factors, and “Pre-“and “Post-Unification” make it more clear that we’re dating Old Okinawan based on extra-linguistic factors.

The next event we will use as an extra-linguistic diagnostic is the formal annexation of Okinawa as Okinawa Prefecture by the Empire of Japan in 1879 CE. A similar event, the reorganization of the Ryūkyūs into the Ryūkyū Domain (琉球藩 Jpn. Ryūkyū Han) took place slightly earlier, in 1872 CE. Either date will do, as they both mark an even stronger subsumption of the Ryūkyūs under the Japanese. We will choose the later date simply for convenience. This will mark the end of Middle Okinawan, and the start of Modern Okinawan.

To summarize:

Date	Period	Criterion
Before 1492 CE	Pre-Unification Old Okinawan	Pre-dates unification of the Ryūkyū Kingdom
1492-1609 CE	Post-Unification Old Okinawan	Post-dates the unification of the Ryūkyū Kingdom
1609-1879 CE	Middle Okinawan	Post-dates the Satsuma invasion
After 1879 CE	Modern Okinawan	Post-dates formal annexation

Hopefully in the future I’ll be able to give some more firm linguistic diagnostic criteria, but for the time being, this will have to do.

References

Hokama, Shuzen and Nobutsuna Saigō. 1972. Omoro Sōshi [‘A Collection of Omoro]. Nihon Shisō Taikei 18. Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten.

Shimabukuro, Seibin and Toshio Onaga. 1983. Hyō’on Hyōshaku Ryūka Zenshu [‘The Complete Ryūka, Annotated and Transcribed’]. Tōkyō: Musashino Sho’in.

Footnotes

1. Date given in the manuscript: 「弘治十四年四月二十二日」’22 Day, 4th Lunar Month 14th Year of the Reign of the Hóngzhì Emperor (of the Ming Dynasty)’.

2. Date given on the inscription: 「大明弘治十四年九月大吉日」 ‘An Auspicious Day, 9th Lunar Month, 14th Year of the Reign of the Hóngzhì Emperor of the Ming Dynasty’.

3. Date given as: 「嘉靖十年」 ’10th Year of the Reign of the Jiājìng Emperor (of the Ming Dynasty)’

4. As opposed to Chinese (Jpn. 漢歌 karauta) or Japanese (Jpn. 和歌 waka) poetry.

How do you spell [kʰəˈnɛfli]?

September 10, 2014June 26, 2017 tomdoughertyLeave a comment

My mom and her mother will, from time to time, make a type of egg noodle or dumpling—these are kind of in the middle of the two, which you use a knife to cut noodle-like portions into a pot of boiling water. We call each individual noodle/dumpling a [kʰəˈnɛfli], and the plural—also the name for the dish itself—is [kʰəˈnɛfliz].

I have never asked my mom or grandmother how to spell [kʰəˈnɛfli], and it only occurred to me the other day while watching a cooking show making a similar dish that I had absolutely no clue how to spell the name of the dish. So what is our mystery food?

After a bit of digging I found that this is Spätzle, a southern German dish. Spätzle apparently comes in two varieties: Spätzle [ˈʃpɛtslə] (literally ‘little sparrow’), which are noodle-like, and Knöpfle [ˈknøpflə] (literally ‘little button’), which are little balls.

A picture of Spätzle — Noodle-like Spätzle, by Qwerty Binary. Used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

A picture of Knöpfle — Ball-like Knöpfle, by Kobako. Used under a CC BY-SA 2.5 license.

So there appears to be an interesting, but not at all unexpected bit of phonological (and even morphological) incorporation of an originally German word (Knöpfle) into English.

First is the epenthetic schwa inserted to break up the [kn] cluster. This is unlike how English historically handled /kn/, which was at one point a valid consonant cluster in English (as preserved orthographically in words like <knight> or <knell>), where this cluster was reduced to just [n]: so not *[kəˈnai̯t] but [nai̯t]¹, and not *[kəˈnɛl] but [nɛl]).

Second is the change of the German vowel [ø] into an English vowel. In my English, I’ve noticed two ways in which this vowel is accommodated into English phonology. The first is found here, with [ø] being loaned in as English [ɛ], relatively close to the height and backness of its German counterpart. The second is found in the name Schrödinger, with [ø] being loaned in as English [ou̯], relatively close to its orthographic equivalent.

Finally, in terms of loan phonology, is the reduction of the [pf] cluster. Again, this is not at all unexpected in English, where [pf] is only a valid consonant cluster across syllable boundaries.

More interesting to me is the semantic change here: a bit of synecdoche where the name of the variant becomes the name of the name of the dish proper—that is, the term Knöpfle replacing the term Spätzle to describe the dish. Unfortunately, without more data, I can’t determine when this happened. Is it unique to my family? I wonder what the Pennsylvania Dutch call the dish? My mother’s side of the family is from Upstate New York, and is Dutch rather than German. I wonder if there is some regional variation there?

1. Unless you’re French, in which case it’s [kəˈnɪɡət].

Rendaku in Okinawan

August 6, 2014 tomdougherty1 Comment

Rendaku (連濁 ‘sequential voicing’) refers in Japonic languages to a number of morphophonological alterations where the voiceless initial segment of non-initial element in a compound, under certain conditions, becomes its voiced counterpart.

A number of forms originated from historical contractions. For instance, there is a clear semantic difference between 山川 yamakawa [jamakawa] ‘mountains and rivers’ (a dvandva compound) and 山川 yamagawa [jamaɡawa] ‘mountain river’. Historically, yamagawa would have been a contraction of earlier *[jama=no kawa] |mountain=GEN river|. In earlier varieties of Japanese, voiced stops were in fact pre-nasalized voiced stops (cf. Miyake 2003: 196), so when the genitive case marker contracted, it would have contracted to a form like [jama^ŋɡawa].

While these sorts of historical contractions produced rendaku alternations, a number of rules restrict when rendaku may occur (for a more full discussion, see Vance 1987: 133-148), and, additionally, a number of forms have been created through analogy.

For instance, 時々 tokidoki [tokidoki] ‘sometimes’ is historically a reduplication of the word 時 toki [toki] ‘time’. The initial segment of the second element is [d], the voiced counterpart to the original segment [t]. It is likely that no contraction took place in this form or any of the other reduplicated forms, but, based on an analogical extension of the rendaku pattern. these forms acquired a rendaku-like voicing alternation.

While there appear to be some examples of rendaku in Japonic languages other than Japanese, none of these are well studied at present. One example I noticed recently in Okinawan is the verbal auxiliary -busha- ‘to want to do (something)’, from the adjective husha- ‘to want, to wish for’. For instance:

(1) shumutsi husha-n
book want-FIN
‘[I] want a book.’

(2) shumutsi kachi-busha-n
book write\INF-want.to-FIN
‘[I] want to write a book.’

Compare these with the standard Japanese cognate 欲しい hoshii ‘to want, to wish for’ and the auxiliary ほしい hoshii:

(3) hon=ga hoshi-i
book=NOM want-IPFV
‘[I] want a book.’

(4) hon=o ka-ite hoshi-i
book=ACC write-SUB want-IPFV
‘[I] want [someone else] to write a book.’

In addition to the rendaku alternation in Okinawan, the auxiliary co-occurs with the infinitive form of the verb. In Japanese, there is no rendaku alternation, and this auxiliary co-occurs with with the subordinating converb -(i)te, rather than the infinitive. And there is a semantic difference between the Okinawan and Japanese auxiliary: the Okinawan auxiliary busha- means that speaker wants to do something, while the Japanese auxiliary hoshi- means that the speaker wants someone else to do something. The Japanese equivalent to (2) would use the auxiliary たい tai:

(5) hon=o kak-i-ta-i
book=ACC write-INF-want.to-IPFV
‘[I] want to write a book.’

Okinawan busha- is apparently a case of analogical rendaku, as there should be no intervening elements, even historically, between the infinitive and the auxiliary. So what about contraction-based rendaku? This appears to be more sparse in Okinawan than in Japanese, but still does appear to occur. For instance, the Okinawan word for ‘hair’ is kii [kiː], and we find several forms where an apparent contraction-motivated rendaku has occured. For instance, one word for ‘hair (on the head)’ is karazigii [kaɾadʑiɡiː], likely from *karazi=nu kii |head.hair=GEN hair| (this uncontracted form, [kaɾadʑinukiː], is still extant in Okinawan). Similarly, ‘nose hair’ is hanagii [hanaɡiː], likely from *hana=nu kii.

However, the exact situation in Okinawan is complicated by the large number of loans from Japanese, some which were likely borrowed as rendaku. This can make it difficult to untangle the exact extent of rendaku in Okinawan. For instance, Okinawan has borrowed the Japanese word tamago [tamaɡo] ‘egg’ as tamagu [tamaɡu] ‘egg’, while the native Okinawan word is kuuga [kuuɡa] ‘egg’. This Japanese form is from the compound *tama=no ko |ball=GEN small.thing|, with a rendaku alternation of ko ‘child, egg, small thing’. Thus, while Okinawan tamagu does come from a rendaku alternation, it is likely not a result of rendaku in Okinawan.

I think one likely productive area of research would be on the various sound symbolic words in Okinawan. These appear to be quite resistant to borrowing, and most are distinct from their Japanese equivalents. For instance, Japanese kankan ‘[shine] intensely’ is equivalent to Okinawan kwankwan ‘[shine] intensely’. On quick inspection, these sound symbolic words in Okinawan seem to conform to the same rendaku rules that Japanese does.

Further attention, as always, is warranted.

Thanks to reddit users weserkai and Hakaku for pointing out several errors in the initial version of this post.

Some Nivkh vowel correspondences

June 5, 2014 tomdoughertyLeave a comment

While the likes of Robert Austerlitz and Roman Jakobson did some initial work reconstructing the language history of Nivkh, much remains, especially in terms of the vowel system of Nivkh.

Nivkh, a critically endangered language isolate spoken in the Russian Far East, can roughly be divided into two dialect groups: Amur-Northwest Sakhalin (abbreviated NWN) varieties and Southeast Sakhalin (abbreviated SEN) varieties. Speakers reportedly claim further differences to be small, and no thorough research has been done on the language up to this point (Shiraishi 2006: 10–12).

One interesting correspondence has to do with /ɨ/. It seems that at least two vowel phonemes underwent a merger to /ɨ/ in the Amur-Northwest Sakhalin varieties, but not in the Southeast Sakhalin varieties, which have either /ɨ/ or /a/. Some examples (all data taken from Savel’eva and Taksami 1970):

(1) NWN [mrɨ-] ‘to swim’
SEN [mra-] ‘to swim’

(2) NWN [ŋɨŋg] ‘hair’
SEN [ŋamx] ‘hair’
PN ?*ŋVmVk

(3) NWN [vɨlki] ‘chain’
SEN [valki] ‘chain’
PN ?*vVlki

(3) NWN [indɨ-] (with no direct object) ~ [ŋr̥ɨ-] (with no DO) ‘to see’
SEN [idɨ-] (w/ no DO) ~ [ŋr̥ɨ-] (/w DO) ‘to see’
PN ?*(i-)ŋr̥ɨ- ‘to see’

(4) NWN [kɨls] ‘length’
SEN [kɨlr̥] ‘length’

(2) is a bit suspicious, due to the number of changes needed between NWN [ŋɨŋg] and SEN [ŋamx]—the deletion of the second vowel, the assimilation of PN *m to NWN [ŋ] due to the following velar, the spirantization of PN *k to SEN [x], and the voicing assimilation of PN *mk to NWN [ŋg], but I think these forms are ultimately cognate.

Another interesting thing is the large number of consonant clusters found in Nivkh. This is unlike the situation found its neighbors, and, both internal variation as well as loanwords into Ainu and Ul’ta (Orok) make it clear that this vowel loss is recent. A good example of this is the word for ‘reindeer’, where we have good internal evidence, as well as good external evidence—the Nivkh word was loaned into Ainu and into Japanese.

(5) NWN [cʰolŋi]
SEN [tlaŋi]
PN ?*Tolanki
Sakhalin Ainu [tunakaj]
Japanese [tonakai]

It is likely that Nivkh /ŋ/ has a secondary origin, from earlier *nk. Also interesting, but perhaps not at all surprising, is the correspondence of Nivkh [l] to Sakhalin Ainu [n]—unsurprising because Ainu does not have [l]. The internal evidence points to just final *-i, while the external evidence points to a final diphthong, *-ai. Here I privileged the former kind of evidence over the latter.

Finally, I still have no good explanation for the distribution of [cʰ] and [t], which I reconstruct with the placeholder *T. Compare the above with the word for ‘tree’, which is frustratingly reversed in terms of which group has which consonant:

(6) NWN [tiɣr] ‘tree’
SEN [cʰxar̥] ‘tree’
PN ?*Tikar̥ (n.b., initial and medial fricatives are secondary in Nivkh)

References
Savel’eva, Valentina Nikolaevna and Chuner Mixaylovich Taksami. 1970. Nivxsko-Russkiy Slovar’ [Nivkh-Russian Dictionary]. Moscow: Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya.

Shiraishi, Hidetoshi. 2006. Topics in Nivkh Phonology. PhD dissertation: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

Kakari-Musubi — When a non-finite sentence is finite

May 29, 2014 tomdougherty1 Comment

In this post, I’d like to talk more generally about kakari-musubi (係り結び ‘binding’) constructions, which I’ll abbreviate KMCs.

So, first of all, a bit of a refresher as to what these phenomenon are. A prototypical KMC is one where a kakari particle (係助詞 kakari joshi) occurs, and where the matrix verbal of the sentence takes on a different marking than would otherwise be expected. Despite this definition, traditionally, the topic particle (=pa in Western Old Japanese) and the additive-scalar focus particle (=mö in Western Old Japanese) have also been considered kakari particles, despite the fact that they trigger the expected endings.

The following table summarizes the situation in Western Old Japanese:

[table class=”table table-striped”]
Particle, Meaning, Verb form
=pa, topic, FIN
=mö, additive-scalar (also/even) focus, FIN
=ya, polar (yes/no) question, ATTR
=ka, content (wh-) question, ATTR
=sö~=ⁿzö, emphasis, ATTR
=namo, emphasis, ATTR
=kösö, strong emphasis, EV
[/table]

We find a similar, though interestingly not the same situation in Okinawan. In particular, the two question markers behave quite differently than any of the other particles. I’ll deal with Okinawan in particular at a later date, but here a table equivalent to the one above for Okinawan:

[table class=”table table-striped”]
Particle, Meaning, Verb form
=ya, topic, FIN
=n, additive-scalar (also/even) focus, FIN
-i, polar (yes/no) question, FIN
=ga, content (wh-) question, TENT
=du, emphasis, ATTR
[/table]

In all of these cases, we would generally expect the final form (or some non-finite form) of a verbal, rather than these alternative forms. Some examples:

(1) 庭尓敷流雪波知敝之久 (TOP + FIN)
NIPA-ni pur-u YUKÎ=pa ti-pê sik-u
garden-LOC fall-ATTR snow=TOP thousand-layer.CLF cover-FIN
‘The snow that falls on the garden covers [the ground] in many (lit. a thousand) layers.’ (MYS 17:3960)

(2) 奈尓乎可於母波牟 (CQ + ATTR)
nani-wo=ka omöp-am-u
what-ACC=CQ think-TENT-ATTR
‘What would [you] think?’ (MYS 17:3967)

(3) 安連曽久夜思伎 (EMPH + ATTR)
are=sö kuyasi-kî
I=EMPH be.regretable-ATTR
‘I am regrettable.’ (MYS 17:3939)

(4) 雪己曽波春日消良米 (EMPH + EV)
YUKÎ=kösö=pa PARU PÎ KIY-Uram-ë
snow=EMPH=TOP spring day melt-NPST.TENT-EV
‘Snow melts [on] a spring day.’ (MYS 9:1782)

Note that transcriptions in ALLCAPS indicates semantographic, rather than syllabic writing. So the character 雪 YUKÎ is used to mean ‘snow’ (it’s semantic value), rather than any syllabic value that might be associated with it. Compare this to 波 pa, which is used for its phonetic value, not its meaning, ‘wave’.

(4) is doubly interesting because while both kösö and pa occur, going off of the verb ending, kösö takes precedence. Also, PARU PÎ ‘spring day’ is not marked for case. I have translated it here as if it is a locative, as WOJ kiy- ‘to vanish, to disappear; to melt (of snow or ice)’ is an intransitive verb. While Western Old Japanese has both differential subject and differential object marking, where under certain circumstances the subject and object markers do not occur, this is not the case for any sort of locative marking.

An interesting, and likely related, phenomenon is that these “anomalous” endings can occur even without a kakari particle triggering them. While most of could be easily explained away due to the other sort of modal information the endings contain, the attributive can occur as a marker of final predication without any trigger:

(5) 我衣手乃干時毛名寸
WA=^ŋGA KÖRÖMÖⁿDE=nö POR-U TÖKÎ=mô na-kî
1sg=POSS sleeve=GEN dry-ATTR time=ASF be.not-ATTR
‘There is no time at all for my sleeves to dry.’ (MYS X:1994) (Vovin 2009: 624; glossing and transcription modified to match my own).

That being said, Vovin (2009: 626) compares the semantics of this sort of construction to constructions in modern Japanese with a verb, the inferrential evidential の no, and the copula だ da, so here too it might be that there is some sort of modal meaning that is triggering the change. This is, in any case, a very interesting sort of insubordination—a formally subordinate clause which is used as a main clause—as it in a way lines up with some of the functions of insubordinate clauses presented in Evans (2007), like expressing modality and evidentiality, but doesn’t resemble them in many other ways.

Note that these are the final two lines of MYS X:1994. There is no potential head that …nakî could be modifying as a relative clause. Also note that the additive-scalar focus particle mö is misspelled as mô in (5). For those worried that this might invalidate this poem’s status as an example, Vovin (2009: 623–632) cites 14 more examples in WOJ, and 7 examples from EOJ.

Note
An earlier version of the article had a typo, saying Okinawan =ga required the attributive ending. Non-final =ga requires the tentative ending, as I described in an earlier article.

References
Evans, Nicholas. 2007. “Insubordination and its uses.” In: Irina Nikolaeva (ed.). Finiteness: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 366–431.

Vovin, Alexander. 2009. A Descriptive and Comparative Grammar of Western Old Japanese. Part Two: Adjectives, Verbs, Adverbs, Conjunctions, Particles, Prepositions. Folkestone: Global Oriental.

Misbehavior in the mountains — The irregular structure of some verbs in Ainu

May 21, 2014 tomdoughertyLeave a comment

Ainu is fairly well-known for being a highly synthetic language (I dislike the term “polysynthetic” for a number of reasons), which has both noun incorporation and a set of three applicative prefixes.

Noun incorporation in Ainu is, with a few exceptions, fairly typologically typical. In the “template” of Ainu verbs, there is a slot where direct objects, whether they are in the form of pronominal agreement prefixes or incorporated nouns, fit. A very minimal transitive verb template is given in (1):

(1) A_AGR-O_AGR/I.O-V

Where A_AGR is any of the prefixes which mark agreement for the subject of a transitive verb, O_AGR is any of the prefixes which mark agreement for the direct object of a transitive verb, O_I.O is an incorporated noun, and V is the root verb.

(2a) and (2b) give more concrete examples:

(2a) Aunkore ka somo ki ruwe ne wa.
a-un-kor-e ka somo ∅-∅-ki ruwe ne wa
INDF.A-1PL.EXCL-give-CAUS even not 3.A-3.O-do FACT COP EMPH
‘The fact is, [she] didn’t even give us any.’ (Nakagawa and Nakamoto 2004)

(2b) To okari puy anetoyta kor.
to okari puy an-∅-e-toy-ta kor
lake around marsh.marigold.root INDF.A-3.O-APL-earth-gather PROG
‘[I] was gathering marsh marigold roots from around the lake.’ (Izutsu and Tezuka 2006)

Both the subject and object slots seem to be obligatory (cf. Baker 1996), though in the third person there are no overt markers.

When nouns are incorporated, as one might expect, the valency of the verb is reduced by one. This means that only polyvalent verbs (transitives, causativized intransitives and transitives, etc.) should be able to incorporate nouns, as there cannot be a zero-valent verb. This also means that for these verbs to take new direct object, a valency increasing device—such as a causative or the applicative marker e-, which can function as a non-causative transitivizer (see Bugaeva 2010)—is needed. We see this in (2b).

(2b) also illustrates that applicatives alter the internal structure of a verb in Ainu. The root verb in that construction is ta ‘to gather (from under the surface)’, which is a transitive verb, so has the structure given in (1). With an incorporated noun, its structure is altered. Our best evidence for this is because the indefinite person and first person plural set of agreement markers have a tripartite alignment—that is, each has a separate marker for the subject of a transitive verb, the subject of an intransitive verb, and the direct object of a transitive verb. So we find the following sort of construction:

(3a) turep-ta-an
giant.lily-gather-INDF.S
‘[Someone] gathers giant lilies.’

(3b) *an-turep-ta
INDF.A-giant.lily-gather
‘[Someone] gathers giant lilies.’

As we can see in (2b), however, with the applicative e- and an incorporated noun, we now have a transitive verb again. The structure of a monomorphemic verb with an applicative is diagrammed below in (4a). A similar structural diagram for a verb with an incorporated noun and then an applicative is given in (4b).

(4a) A-O_APL-APL-V

(4b) A-O_APL-APL-O_I.O-V

To add to my abbreviations above, O_APL is the object agreement needed because of the addition of an applicative prefix and APL is the applicative prefix itself.

Some verbs, however, do not behave as we would expect. I have two examples: ekimne ‘to be in the mountains, to go into the mountains’ and eronne ‘to be on the ror (the seat of honor reserved for guests in a traditional Ainu home)’. The former is from e-kim-ne |APL-mountain-COP|, and the later is from e-ror-ne |APL-seat.of.honor-COP|, with the expected change of [ɾ] → [n] / _ [n] from one of the several sandhi rules found in Ainu. Some examples in context:

(4) ∅-∅-ne=no sir-an kor anakne, somo e-kim-ne-an=pe ∅-∅-ne.
3.S-3.O-COP=ADVZ weather-exist.SG PROG TOP NEG APL-mountain-COP-INDF.S=NMLZ 3.S-3.O-COP
‘When the weather had become so, it was that I didn’t go into the mountains.’ (Nakagawa 2001: 82)

(4b) o-tu kes pa-ta / o-re kes pa-ta / e-kim-ne-an kor
APL-two after year-LOC APL-three after year-LOC APL-mountain-COP-INDF.S PROG
‘After two years, / after three years, / I was in the mountains,[and…]’ (Nakagawa 2008: 296)

(This is from a yukar, an Ainu oral epic. The slashes here indicate metrical breaks.)

Instead of the pattern we see in (2b), that of a transitive verb de-transitivized by an incorporated noun and re-transitivized by an applicative, we see the same pattern as in (3a), a transitive verb de-transitivized by an incorporated noun, and—despite the presence of an applicative—no re-transitivization.

So their structure seems to be:

(5) S-APL-O_I.O-V-S_ITR

Where S is most of the prefixes for marking agreement with intransitive subjects, and S_ITR is the limited set of markers for intransitive subjects which are suffixes.

At this time, I have no good explanation for why this occurs. Simply put: these verbs misbehave.

References:
Baker, Mark. 1996. The Polysynthesis Parameter. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bugaeva, Anna. 2010. Ainu applicatives in typological perspective. Studies in Language 34:4. pp. 749–801. DOI: 10.1075/sl.34.4.01bug

Izutsu, Katsunobu and Yoritaka Tezuka. 2006. Kiso Ainugo [Basic Ainu]. Sapporo: Sapporo Dōshoten.

Nakagawa, Hiroshi. 2001. Ainu Kōshōbungei Tekisuto Shū 1: Shirasawa Nabe Kōjutsu — Ōkami kara Nigareta Musume [Ainu Oral Literature Text 1: Narrated by Nabe Shirasawa — The Girl who Escaped from Wolves]. Chiba Daigaku Yūrashia Gengo Bunka Ronkōza [Chiba University Journal of Eurasian Languages and Cultures] 3, pp. 52–66.

Nakagawa, Hiroshi. 2008. Ainu Kōshōbungei Tekisuto Shū 8: Shirasawa Nabe Kōjutsu —Yukar Irupaye: Sinutapka-jin, Ishikari-jin to Tatakau [[Ainu Oral Literature Text 8: Narrated by Nabe Shirasawa — Yukar Irupaye: The Sinutapka Man Fights the Ishikari Man]. Chiba Daigaku Yūrashia Gengo Bunka Ronkōza [Chiba University Journal of Eurasian Languages and Cultures] 10, pp. 291–313.

Nakagawa, Hiroshi and Mutsuko Nakamoto. 2004. CD Ekusupuresu Ainugo [CD Express Ainu]. Tōkyō: Hakusuisha.

Relative clauses in Okinawan

May 10, 2014 tomdoughertyLeave a comment

Last time, I mentioned that Okinawan behaves very differently than Japanese in terms of how it morphologically marks relative clauses. In Japanese, the verbal form which modifies the head of the relative clause is marked the same as a verb which is the head of a matrix clause—that is, it takes tense-aspect-mood marking, but nothing else special. For instance:

(1) kak-u hon
write-IPFV book
‘the book that (somebody) writes’

(2) hon-o kak-u
book-ACC write-IPFV
‘(Somebody) writes a book.’

In both cases, we see the verb kak- ‘to write’ appearing with the same ending, the imperfective aspect marker -u.

The situation is markedly different in Okinawan:

(3) kach-uru sumuchi
write-ATTR book
‘the book that (somebody) writes’

(4) sumuchi kach-u-n
book write-IPFV-FIN
‘(Somebody) writes a book.’

Here, the verb kak- ‘to write’ has a very different form in the one construction versus the other. In the relative clause in (3), it takes what has been traditionally called the attributive form (or rentaikei 連体形). The attributive form is distinct from the final form (or shūshikei 終止形), as seen in (4), and the key difference between the two is that the attributive form almost exclusively appears on the final verb of a relative clause, while the final form appears exclusively on the final verb of a matrix clause.

I say “almost exclusively” for the attributive form, because there are some interesting cases of insubordination—that is, a seemingly non-finite clause used as a finite clause (see Evans 2007) in which it can occur. These are again kakari musubi (係り結び) phenomenon that we touched on last time, but with a different focus particle triggering them, and a different TAM marker resulting from the presence of said focus particle.

The focus particle du, which emphasizes the word or phrase it is attached to triggers the attributive form of the verb even in cases where we would expect the final form of the verb. Compare, for instance, (4) above with (5):

(5) sumuchi du kach-uru
book EF write-ATTR
‘(Somebody) writes a book.¹‘

These sorts of phenomenon are interesting, and illustrate a little of my hesitation and struggle with finding a good label for the attributive and the final. We are not only dealing with the status of a verb in terms of being attributive—that is, modifying things in the same way as a relative clause—versus final—that is, signaling the end a matrix clause, we are also dealing with issues of focus and epistemic modality.

Another interesting issue here arises when we compare the attributive forms of different verbs in Okinawan with their counterparts in Old Japanese:

[table class=”table table-striped”]
Okinawan, Old Japanese, gloss
tach-uru, tat-u, ‘to rise’
wata-y-uru, watar-u, ‘to cross’
chu-uru, k-uru (elision of *kö-uru), ‘to come’
chi-y-uru, kî-ru, ‘to wear’
[/table]

Okinawan universally uses -uru to mark attributive forms, while Old Japanese has -u after consonant stem and r-irregular verbs, -ru after strong vowel stem verbs, -uru after other vowel stem verbs, and -ö after the copula n-. What exactly went on historically in Okinawan is not clear. Analogical leveling seems tempting at first glance, but we end up in these forms and in others with unexplained “residue”. Why, for instance, do we have palatalization of the second /t/ in ‘to rise’? Why are there seeming empty morphemes, |-y-|, with r-consonant stem and vowel stem verbs?

I’ll address this in a future post, as we’re getting pretty far from relative clauses.

1. This sort of focus would be indicated by intonation in English, represented here by the italics.

References:
Evans, Nicholas. 2007. “Insubordination and its uses.” In: Irina Nikolaeva (ed.). Finiteness: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Questions in Okinawan

May 5, 2014 tomdougherty1 Comment

In Okinawan, there are multiple possible ways to mark a question. One key difference appears to be a distinction between polar (or yes-no) questions and content (or wh-) questions. Polar questions are marked by the verbal enclitic =i, while content questions are marked with the phrasal enclitic =ga. For instance, compare the following pair of sentences:

(1) maa=nkai ʔich-abii=ga
where=LOC go.IPFV-POL=CQ
‘Where are you going?’

(2) Naafa=nkai ʔich-abii-m=i
Naha=LOC go.IPFV-POL-FIN=PQ
‘Will you go to Naha?’

However, unlike its cognate in modern Japanese, =ka, Okinawan =ga can also appear next to the phrase which it has scope over, not just the entire sentence. This in some ways resembles quantifier float. For instance:

(3) kunu yama=nu ʔuchee shichina-ʔudun=ga ya-yabii-ra
this forest=GEN inside\TOP Shichina-Udun=CQ COP-POL-TENT
‘Is Shichina Udun inside this forest?’ (Nakamatsu 1973: 78)

This is interesting in two ways.

First, the distinct between polar and content questions is lost. (3) is quite clearly a polar question, yet it does not use the polar question enclitic =i. Instead, it has the content question enclitic =ga. As far as I know, the enclitic =i is a verbal enclitic; that is, it can only attach to verb phrases. The enclitic =ga, on the other hand, can attach to a variety of different elements. At the least noun phrases, case phrases, and the infinitive form of verbs.

Second, there is a difference in the modal forms used in the sentences. There are a number of processes in Japonic languages, in the Japanese literature called kakari musubi (係り結び), where certain kinds of focus particles (including question particles) alter the mood of the main verb of the sentence. In (1), there is no mood suffix with =ga. However, with =i, as in (2), the final form -n ~ -m- (which marks the verb as being the matrix predicate of a sentence) is obligatory. Curiously, in (3)—and other cases where the content question clitic “floats”, the tentative mood marker -(u)ra is required.

I’m not really satisfied with any sort of explanation for what I’ve been calling the “final” suffix in any Japonic language. I think we have pretty good evidence that something mood-related is going on, as it is fairly clearly from all other cases of these sorts of kakari musubi phenomenon, in whatever variety of Japonic you want to look at, aside from this final suffix and another suffix called the attributive (which marks the verb phrase as being the modifier in a relative clause, as in (4a) and (b)), these are modal markers that are involved. However, what sort of mood we’re dealing with in terms of the final and the attributive I don’t think is very clear at this point.

(4a.) sumuchi yum-u-n
book read-IPFV-FIN
‘I read a book.’

(4b.) yum-uru sumuchi
read-ATTR book
‘the book that I read’

Nakamatsu, Takeo. 1973. Okinawago no Bunpō [Okinawan Grammar]. Naha: Okinawa Hōgen Bunka Kenkyū-zyo.