Strona 1 A Grammar of Bora with Special Attention to Tone ©2012 SIL International Strona 2 SIL International® Publications in Linguistics Publication 148 Publications in Linguistics are published by SIL Inter- national® . The series is a venue for works covering a broad range of topics in linguistics, especially the analytical treatment of minority languages from all parts of the world. While most volumes are authored by members of SIL, suitable works by others will also form part of the series. Editor in Chief Michael C. Cahill Volume Editor Mary Ruth Wise Production Staff Bonnie Brown, Managing Editor Barbara Alber, Cover design Diana Weber, Cover photograph ©2012 SIL International Strona 3 A Grammar of Bora with Special Attention to Tone Wesley Thiesen and David Weber SIL International® Dallas, Texas ©2012 SIL International Strona 4 ©2012 by SIL International® Library of Congress Catalog No: 2012933805 eISBN: 978-1-55671-353-8 ISSN: 1040-0850 Printed in the United States of America All Rights Reserved Electronic edition published 2013 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, record- ing, or otherwise—without the express permission of the SIL International® . However, short passages, generally understood to be within the limits of fair use, may be quoted without written permission. Typeset by the second author with XƎTEX. The Bora texts were formatted with the interlinear text package of Kew & McConnel (1990). Copies of this and other publications of the SIL International® may be obtained from: SIL International Publications 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Road Dallas, TX 75236-5629 Voice: 972-708-7404 Fax: 972-708-7363 [email protected] www.ethnologue.com/bookstore.asp ©2012 SIL International Strona 5 In memory of Eva Thiesen (1925–2009) ©2012 SIL International Strona 6 ©2012 SIL International Strona 7 Contents List of Figures xviii List of Tables xxi Preface xxv Authorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxv Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvi Why is Bora so interesting? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii Abbreviations and Conventions xxix Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxii 1 The Bora People 1 1.1 Demographics and history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 The future of the Bora language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.3 Social structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.3.1 Festivals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3.2 The patrón system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 1.4 Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 1.4.1 Agriculture and gathering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 1.4.2 Food preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1.4.3 Hunting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.4.4 Fishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.4.5 Animal husbandry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 1.4.6 House construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 1.4.7 Weaving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 1.5 Dress and personal adornment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 1.6 Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 1.6.1 The boa constrictor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 1.6.2 Burial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 1.7 Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 vii ©2012 SIL International Strona 8 viii CONTENTS 1.8 The Bora signal drums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 1.8.1 Various functions of the drums . . . . . . . . . . . 22 1.8.2 How the signal drums are made . . . . . . . . . . . 23 1.8.3 How messages are drummed . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 2 Phonology 27 2.1 The Bora writing system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 2.2 Syllables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 2.3 Vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2.3.1 Rules applying to vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 2.3.2 Vowel length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.4 Consonants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 2.4.1 The glottal stop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 2.4.2 Palatalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 2.4.3 Preaspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 2.5 Apocope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 2.6 Reduplication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 2.7 Quantity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 2.7.1 The minimal word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.7.2 “Heavy” syllables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.7.3 Suffixes that add weight to a monosyllabic root . . 49 2.7.4 Quantity alternations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2.7.4.1 Length suppressed by -ːcu ‘duIn’ and -ːne ‘plural’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2.7.4.2 Vowel length alternating with [ˣ] before vowel length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 2.7.4.3 Maintaining syllable weight in imperatives 51 2.7.4.4 Length in pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 2.7.4.5 Allomorphy conditioned by preceding syl- lable weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 2.8 Unresolved issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 3 Tone 55 3.1 Some basic facts and overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 3.2 The tonal elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 3.3 Default tones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 3.3.1 Final default low tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 3.3.2 Default high tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 3.4 The cyclical nature of suffixation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 3.5 Lexically marked tones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 3.5.1 Lexically marked low tones . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 3.5.2 Lexically marked high tones . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 ©2012 SIL International Strona 9 CONTENTS ix 3.5.3 Nonfinite verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 3.6 The *llx constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 3.7 Phrase final tone changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 3.7.1 Penultimate low tone split . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 3.7.2 Final low tone split . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 3.8 The interaction of tone and vowel length . . . . . . . . . . 75 3.9 The tones of isolated words (“citation forms”) . . . . . . . . 76 3.10 Tone changes caused by suffixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 3.10.1 Suffixes affecting the host’s final tones . . . . . . . 77 3.10.2 Affixes that affect the host’s initial tones . . . . . . 78 3.10.3 Suffixes affecting both initial and final tones . . . . 79 3.11 Tone conflicts and their resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 3.11.1 Blocking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 3.11.2 Delinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 3.11.2.1 Delinking by the person markers . . . . . . 83 3.11.2.2 Delinking by -⃝diL ‘animate’, -⃝ke L ‘objAn’, -⃝ki L ‘purpose’, -⃝maL ‘with’, -⃝te L ‘go.do’ and -⃝du L ‘like’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 3.11.2.3 Delinking by #⃝…-jɨɨ(va) H ‘deny’ . . . . . 85 3.11.2.4 Delinking by -⃝σ L ‘future’ . . . . . . . . . . 86 3.11.2.5 Delinking by -ro ∼ -ra ‘frustrative, contra- expectation’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 3.11.3 Bumping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 3.12 Grammatical tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 3.12.1 Tone on the verbs of subordinate clauses . . . . . . 89 3.12.2 The tones of proclitics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 3.12.3 The default tone of nouns and classifiers . . . . . . 94 3.13 The rule of three and boundary marking . . . . . . . . . . . 95 3.14 Areas for further study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 4 Word Formation 99 4.1 Derivation with tone: nonfinite verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 4.2 Compounding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4.2.1 Compound nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4.2.1.1 Headed by classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4.2.1.2 Headed by nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4.2.1.3 Object incorporation . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 4.2.2 Compound verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 4.3 Affixal derivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 4.3.1 Verbs derived from verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 4.3.2 Verbs derived from nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 4.3.2.1 -lle ‘treat like, regard as’ . . . . . . . . . . 109 ©2012 SIL International Strona 10 x CONTENTS 4.3.2.2 -nu ‘do’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 4.3.2.3 -ːve ‘sIn’ and -te ‘become’ . . . . . . . . . . 111 4.3.2.4 -va ‘have’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 4.3.2.5 -jkimei ‘behave like’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 4.3.3 Nouns from verbs with -ta ‘corresponding to’ . . . 113 4.3.4 Participles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 4.3.5 Negative deverbal adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 4.3.6 Affixal “verbs” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 4.3.6.1 -pi ‘excessive’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 4.3.6.2 -lle ‘try’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 4.3.6.3 -pejtso ‘upon encountering’ . . . . . . . . . 117 4.3.6.4 Relocation to or from doing . . . . . . . . 118 4.3.7 Adverbs and adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 4.4 Verbs with incorporated instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 5 Main Clauses and Verbs 125 5.1 Basic sentence structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 5.2 Subjects indicated with classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 5.3 Predicate complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 5.4 End of main verb markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 5.4.1 -hi ∼ -h ⟨t⟩ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 5.4.2 -ne ⟨n⟩ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 5.5 Statements of fact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 5.6 The structure of the verb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 5.7 Verbal categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 5.7.1 Transitive, intransitive, stative . . . . . . . . . . . 136 5.7.2 Single or multiple action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 5.7.3 Marking multiple action with intransitive verbs . . 140 5.8 Valence-changing suffixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 5.8.1 -tso ‘causative’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 5.8.2 -mei ‘reflexive or passive’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 5.8.3 -jcatsi ‘reciprocal’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 5.9 Tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 5.9.1 The present-past tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 5.9.2 The future tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 5.9.3 Tense-marking second-position clitics . . . . . . . 151 5.9.3.1 -pe ‘remote past’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 5.9.3.2 -ne ∼ -hne ‘recent past’ . . . . . . . . . . . 152 5.9.3.3 -i ∼ -iíkye ‘projected time (PT)’ . . . . . . . 153 5.10 Aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 5.10.1 Aspect and the singular versus multiple contrast . 154 5.10.2 Aspect indicated by -ʔiˣkʲʰa ‘habitual’ . . . . . . . . 154 ©2012 SIL International Strona 11 CONTENTS xi 5.11 Mood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 5.12 Adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 5.12.1 Affixal adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 5.12.1.1 -juco (ː) ‘now’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 5.12.1.2 -ro ∼ -ra ∼ -yo ∼ -ya ‘frustrative, contra- expectation’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 5.12.2 Lexical adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 6 Classifiers 163 6.1 Form, distribution, tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 6.1.1 General facts about animate and inanimate classi- fiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 6.1.1.1 Animate classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 6.1.1.2 Inanimate classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 6.1.2 Classifiers derived from verb roots . . . . . . . . . 168 6.1.3 Classifiers cognate with other morphemes . . . . . 170 6.1.4 The tones of classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 6.2 The uses of classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 6.2.1 Classifiers indicating the subject . . . . . . . . . . 173 6.2.2 Classifiers with adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 6.2.3 Classifiers with bound nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 6.2.4 Classifiers to form qualifier phrases . . . . . . . . . 175 6.2.4.1 Classifiers with demonstrative, indefinite, and interrogative modifiers . . . . . . . . . 175 6.2.4.2 Classifiers with numerals and quantifiers . 176 6.2.4.3 Classifiers forming connectives with a(ː)- ‘thematic’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 6.2.5 Classifiers with nonfinite verbs . . . . . . . . . . . 177 6.2.6 Classifiers as heads of relative clauses . . . . . . . 178 6.2.7 The classifier -nɛ with complement clauses . . . . 178 6.2.8 Classifiers with free possessive pronouns . . . . . . 179 6.2.9 Classifiers to individuate collective or general nouns 179 6.2.10 Multiple classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 6.2.11 Classifiers after -ɛ ‘pertain to’ or -ɛmɛ ‘similar to’ . 180 6.2.12 Reference in discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 6.3 The structural status of classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 6.3.1 Some classifiers have corresponding free nouns . . 182 6.3.2 Classifiers have the referential properties typical of nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 6.3.3 Classifiers have the distribution typical of nouns . 185 6.3.4 Classifiers head their phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 ©2012 SIL International Strona 12 xii CONTENTS 7 Nouns and Noun Phrases 189 7.1 Apposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 7.2 Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 7.2.1 Concrete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 7.2.1.1 Animate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 7.2.1.2 Inanimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 7.2.2 Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 7.2.3 Locative nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 7.3 Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 7.3.1 The singular of collective nouns . . . . . . . . . . . 200 7.3.2 Plural nouns formed with plural classifiers . . . . . 200 7.3.3 Pluralization with -⃝mɯ L . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 7.3.4 The plural suffix -nɛ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 7.3.5 The plural suffix -⁽ˀ⁾hɨ ̀ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 7.3.6 The plural suffix -ʔaɲɛ ‘various’ . . . . . . . . . . . 204 7.3.7 The plural suffix -βa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 7.4 Suffixes that modify nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 7.4.1 -coba ‘augment’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 7.4.2 -wuu ∼ -wu ‘diminutive, small, few’ . . . . . . . . 207 7.4.3 -uvu ‘maximal’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 7.5 Quantifier phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 7.6 Conjoining noun phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 7.7 Numeral phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 7.7.1 The composition of numeral phrases . . . . . . . . 212 7.7.2 Agreement with numeral phrases . . . . . . . . . . 218 7.8 Adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 7.8.1 Prenominal modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 7.8.1.1 ɨ́mɨa ‘of good quality’ . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 7.8.1.2 mítyane ‘much’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 7.8.2 Qualifier phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 7.8.3 Predicate adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 7.8.4 Adjectives used as adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 7.8.5 Suffixes added to adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 7.8.5.1 -wuu ∼ -wu ‘diminutive, very’ . . . . . . . 226 7.8.5.2 -icho ‘somewhat’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 7.8.5.3 The co-occurrence of -kpɯ(ɯ)(ː) and -iʧʰo 228 7.8.5.4 -uvu ‘maximal’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 8 Pronouns 231 8.1 Personal pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 8.1.1 The form of personal pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . 231 8.1.2 The use of personal pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 ©2012 SIL International Strona 13 CONTENTS xiii 8.2 Inanimate anaphoric pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 8.3 The anaphor i ‘self’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 8.4 Demonstrative pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 8.4.1 Animate demonstrative pronouns . . . . . . . . . . 240 8.4.2 Inanimate demonstrative pronouns . . . . . . . . . 241 8.5 Indefinite pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 8.5.1 Animate indefinite pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 8.5.2 Inanimate indefinite pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 8.6 Possessive pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 9 The Genitive Construction 251 9.1 Genitive tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 9.1.1 Stem-forming suffixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 9.1.2 Lexically marked tones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 9.1.3 Affixation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 9.1.4 The possessor’s penult high extension . . . . . . . 258 9.2 The uses of the genitive construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 10 Case and Grammatical Relations 267 10.1 Subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268 10.2 -ke ∼ -ø ‘object’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273 10.2.1 Object complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 10.2.2 The addressee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 10.2.3 Objects as cliticized classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 10.2.4 Causee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 10.3 -vu ‘goal’ or ‘theme’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 10.3.1 Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 10.3.2 Theme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 10.3.3 The object of a causativized verb . . . . . . . . . . 280 10.4 -tu ‘source’ (ablative) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 10.4.1 Some matters of form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 10.4.2 Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283 10.4.3 Partitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 10.4.4 About, concerning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 10.4.5 Site of attachment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 10.4.6 Time after . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 10.4.7 Contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 10.5 -ri ‘inanimate obliques’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 10.5.1 Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 10.5.2 Cause or reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 10.5.3 Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292 10.5.4 Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 ©2012 SIL International Strona 14 xiv CONTENTS 10.5.5 Topic of conversation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 10.6 -ma ‘with’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 10.6.1 Co-subject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 10.6.2 Circumstance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 10.6.3 Instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 10.6.4 Beneficiary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 10.7 -hlliíhye ∼ -llii ‘motive’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 10.7.1 Beneficiary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 10.7.2 Reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 10.8 -hdu ‘comparative’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 10.9 Vocative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 11 Clitics 305 11.1 Evidential clitics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306 11.1.1 -hja ‘nonwitnessed’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306 11.1.2 -va ‘reportative’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 11.2 Adverbial clitics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 11.2.1 -re ∼ -ye ‘only’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310 11.2.2 -juco ‘focus’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 11.2.3 -uba ‘probable’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312 11.2.4 -háaáca ∼ -ha ‘realize’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 11.2.5 -ra ∼ -ro ‘frustrative, contraexpectation’ . . . . . . 313 11.2.6 -ca ‘affirm’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314 11.2.7 -haja ∼ -ha ‘challenge veracity’ . . . . . . . . . . . 314 11.2.8 -ami ‘disgust’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 11.2.9 -hde ‘be able’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 11.2.10 -mei ‘pity’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 11.2.11 -jtane ‘exclude’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316 11.2.12 -véjɨu ‘similar to’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 11.2.13 The combination -i-ɾo ‘contrary’ . . . . . . . . . . . 317 12 Some Minor Categories 319 12.1 Conjunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 12.2 Interjections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 12.3 Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 12.4 Onomatopoeia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322 13 Negation 325 13.1 Negation with adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 13.2 Simple negation in finite clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326 13.3 Contrastive negation with -jɨ́ɨv́ a ‘deny’ . . . . . . . . . . . 327 13.3.1 -jɨ́ɨv́ a with verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328 ©2012 SIL International Strona 15 CONTENTS xv 13.3.2 -jɨ́ɨv́ a with nominals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 13.4 Prohibitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330 13.5 Negation in subordinate clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331 14 Imperatives 333 14.1 The form of imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 14.1.1 Tone in imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334 14.1.2 Comparison of imperative and genitive pronominal proclitics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337 14.1.3 Stem changes in imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337 14.2 Modifying imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340 14.2.1 Emphatic imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340 14.2.2 -co ‘implore’ and -juj ‘quick’ with imperatives . . . 341 14.2.3 The adverb ɨ́ɨć úi ‘quickly; hurry’ . . . . . . . . . . 342 14.3 Degrees of strength of imperatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344 14.3.1 Explanations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 14.3.2 Exhortation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 14.3.3 Hortatives with májo and métsu ‘let’s go’ . . . . . 346 14.3.4 Softening imperatives with kpai ‘permit’ . . . . . . 347 15 Question Formation 349 15.1 Yes/no questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 15.2 Content questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349 15.2.1 Animate interrogative pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . 351 15.2.2 Inanimate interrogative pronouns . . . . . . . . . . 353 15.3 Rhetorical questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354 16 Complementation 357 16.1 General comments about subordination . . . . . . . . . . . 357 16.2 Complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 16.2.1 Subject complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360 16.2.2 Object complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360 16.3 -ne ⟨ø⟩ versus ⟨event⟩ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364 17 Adverbial Clauses 369 17.1 Purpose clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369 17.2 Conditional adverbial clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 17.2.1 “Normal” conditional clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 17.2.2 Counterfactual conditional clauses . . . . . . . . . 372 17.3 Temporal adverbial clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373 17.4 Adverbial relative clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 17.4.1 Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376 ©2012 SIL International Strona 16 xvi CONTENTS 17.4.2 Causal adverbial clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376 17.4.3 Comparison and manner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377 18 Relative Clauses 379 18.1 The structure of relative clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380 18.1.1 Appositive embedded clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 18.1.2 Relative clauses with an internal coreferent . . . . 387 18.1.3 Relative clauses possessing their head . . . . . . . 388 18.2 Relativizing into subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389 18.3 Relativizing into nonsubject positions . . . . . . . . . . . . 391 19 Some Comments on Discourse 395 19.1 The thematic connective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395 19.1.1 The form of connectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395 19.1.1.1 Pronominal connectives . . . . . . . . . . . 396 19.1.1.2 Adverbial connectives . . . . . . . . . . . . 397 19.1.2 The use of thematic connectives . . . . . . . . . . . 397 19.1.3 Thematic connectives and subordinate clauses . . . 402 19.1.4 Topic decay and reestablishment . . . . . . . . . . 404 19.2 Co-text or context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404 19.3 Ellipsis and gapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405 Appendices 407 A Dialect Differences 407 B Speculations on Diachronic Processes 411 C A List of Bound Adjectival Stems 413 D Affixes 419 D.1 Affixes without segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420 D.2 Suffixes with segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421 E The Bora Classifiers 449 E.1 Explanation and disclaimers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449 E.2 Classifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450 F Bora Kinship Terminology 465 F.1 Husband — wife relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468 F.2 Sibling — sibling relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469 F.3 Parent — child relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469 ©2012 SIL International Strona 17 CONTENTS xvii F.4 Grandparent — grandchild relationship . . . . . . . . . . . 470 F.5 Uncle/aunt — nephew/niece relationship . . . . . . . . . . 470 F.6 Brother-in-law — sister-in-law relationship . . . . . . . . . 471 F.7 Parents-in-law — son-/daughter-in-law relationship . . . . 471 F.8 Fathers-in-law — mothers-in-law relationship . . . . . . . . 472 F.9 Addessing persons not related by kinship . . . . . . . . . . 472 G Bora Texts 473 Bibliography 531 Index 535 ©2012 SIL International Strona 18 List of Figures 1.1 Where the Bora people live . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2.1 Light and heavy syllables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 3.1 The relationship of tone and syllabification . . . . . . . . . 57 3.2 Final default low tone (fdlt) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 3.3 Default high tone dht . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 3.4 TD: úmehe, níívuwa, majcho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 3.5 TD: llííñájaatéébé mujtáhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 3.6 TD: májchotémevaj, úmehééneháñe, níívúwaúvuma . . . 63 3.7 TD: ɨ́hvetétsotéroóbe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 3.8 TD: úméhevu, úmɨhévu, nohcówu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 3.9 TD: awácunu, áwacúnu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 3.10 TD: máánimáréjuco, ámánamúréjuco . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 3.11 TD: túkévetsóhi, túkévétsoobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 3.12 TD: túkevétso, túkevétsohaamɨ, túkevétsoobe . . . . . . 69 3.13 The *llx constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 3.14 Penultimate Low Tone Split (plts) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 3.15 TD: llámaára, majchóvaábe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 3.16 The singular masculine pronoun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 3.17 Final Low Tone Split (flts) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 3.18 TD: mééníívyeébe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 3.19 TD: awácunútéhi, úméhewáréjuco . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 3.20 TD: májchóvámejɨ́ɨ(́ va) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 3.21 TD: májchotéhi, májchojéhi, majchóvaábe . . . . . . . . . 81 3.22 TD: májchotéébe, majchóváme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 3.23 TD: dómájcotéébevaj, ɨ́hvetéteebévaj . . . . . . . . . . . 82 3.24 TD: májchótsoóbe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 3.25 TD: ímíbájchótumútsi, ímíbajchóvájúcoomútsi . . . . . . 84 3.26 TD: ní:vúwáwúudi, úméhéwáwúuma . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 3.27 TD: waháróuvúdu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 3.28 TD: lléénéébejɨ́ɨv́ a, á:hɨ́véváábejɨ́ɨv́ a . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 xviii ©2012 SIL International Strona 19 LIST OF FIGURES xix 3.29 TD: ó májchóteéhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 3.30 TD: májchótsotéjúcóóroóbe, ɨ́hvetétsojéjúcooráhi . . . . 87 3.31 TD: ɨ́hvetétsójeráhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 3.32 TD: úújetérólleke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 3.33 TD: dsɨ́jɨ́vétsómeke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 3.34 TD: ímíbájchoki, májchómeke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 3.35 TD: dsɨ́jɨ́vétsóíyónélliíhye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 4.1 Nonfinite tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 4.2 TD: wákimyéi múnáajpi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 4.3 TD: ó cáyobávatéhi, cáyobávatétsómé . . . . . . . . . . . 120 5.1 The verb stem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 5.2 The verb (nonimperative) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 5.3 The imperative verb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 5.4 Grammatical relations: ‘cause to see’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 5.5 Grammatical relations: reflexive and causative . . . . . . . 146 5.6 Another view of ‘he allowed himself to be beaten’ . . . . . 146 5.7 Grammatical relations: ‘cause to cut oneself’ . . . . . . . . 147 5.8 TD: a:hɨ́vetéhi, a:hɨ́véteéhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 6.1 Classifiers derived from verb roots by length . . . . . . . . 169 6.2 TD: tsiíwa, íwaá . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 6.3 TD: tsúúcáawa, tsíeméwa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 6.4 ‘A table like this one.’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 7.1 The order of nominal suffixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 7.2 The grammatical relation of prenominal modifiers . . . . . 219 8.1 STR: example 531 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 9.1 TD: tá ñáhbeke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 9.2 TD: tácáraca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 9.3 The possessor’s penultimate high extension (pphe) . . . . . 259 9.4 STR: díñáhbé táábake ‘your brother’s wife’ . . . . . . . . . 259 9.5 TD: díñáhbé táábake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 10.1 Grammatical relations: causatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 10.2 Grammatical relations: verbs like pícyo ‘put’ . . . . . . . . 277 10.3 STR: tsaalle ímujpáñéécú íhyójtsɨvu iwátájcónema . . . . 278 10.4 Inversion with watájco ‘cover’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 10.5 Animacy-motivated inversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 10.6 Grammatical relations: ‘Put on all your little jewels.’ . . . . 280 ©2012 SIL International Strona 20 xx LIST OF FIGURES 10.7 Grammatical relations: causatives of transitive verbs . . . . 281 10.8 STR: O chéméébedi góócóóbeke úhbaábe. . . . . . . . . . 285 14.1 A comparison of imperative and nonfinite tone . . . . . . . 335 14.2 TD: májchóteé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341 16.1 STR: subordinate clause verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357 16.2 STR: Ó aahɨ́veté u méénújá pañévu . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 16.3 STR: …oohííbyé oke ɨ́hdoobe dsɨ́ɨń ene bájú pañe. . . . . 363 16.4 STR: ɨ́mɨáájú o úwaabómé ímí úraavyéné oke ditye úúbállé(neri) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364 16.5 TD: mecáhcújtsóne, meímíba:vyéné . . . . . . . . . . . . 366 16.6 TD: delinking by ⟨event⟩: i wá:jacújúcó:ne . . . . . . . . . 366 17.1 STR: O májchóné boone o péjucóóhi. . . . . . . . . . . . . 375 18.1 STR: Ó ájtumɨ́ tsaapi Jóáa imyéme íjcyáábeke. . . . . . . 385 18.2 STR: Árónáa diibye oohííbyeke dsɨ́jɨ́vétsóóbeke ɨ́daatsó- lléme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386 18.3 STR: Dííbyema wákímeíbyema péjúcoóbe. . . . . . . . . . 391 D.1 TD: ó ca:yóbáhi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421 D.2 TD: llo:rácobámu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422 D.3 TD: cá:nídivu, ámánadítyu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424 D.4 TD: te:híubáha, wajpíubáhaáca . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426 D.5 TD: bájtsóille, májchoíme, májchoóhi . . . . . . . . . . . . 430 D.6 TD: úmɨhéwuúne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 D.7 TD: cóhpene, cóhpéneúvu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 D.8 TD: tútávaavéne. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438 D.9 TD: wáñehjɨ́núiyáhi, wáñehjɨ́núíyólleke . . . . . . . . . . 439 D.10 TD: ɨ́hvetéráhi, ɨ́hvetéróne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441 D.11 TD: ɨ́hvetéturóne, ááhɨ́vetétuúbe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443 D.12 TD: újɨ́coúvu, ajchúhó:uúvuréjuco . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444 D.13 TD: wáñehjɨ́vaténevu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445 D.14 TD: majchóva:bévaj . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446 D.15 TD: mɨ́amúnáájpí:vyeébe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447 D.16 TD: ámánáwuúmu, áyánéwu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448 D.17 TD: óhtsárɨ́jɨ́wuúmuréjuco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448 F.1 Terms of reference for kinsmen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466 F.2 Terms for addressing another person . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467 ©2012 SIL International