Benjamin, Aesthetic Elements in Temiar Grammar

8/17/2019 Benjamin, Aesthetic Elements in Temiar Grammar

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The esthetics o f Grammar

Sound and Meaning in the Languageso Mainland Sout heast sia

edited y

effrey P Williams

M C M B R I D G EUNIV RSITY P R SS


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C M B R I D G EUNIVERSITY PRESS

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3 Aesthetic elements in Temiar grammar

Geoffrey enjamin

ntroduction

Temiar is a Mon-Khmer Austroasiatic) language o f he Central As ian division,spoken by almost 30,000 people in the interior of northern Peninsular MalaysiaMap 2). Until recently, the Temiars were living in relatively autonomous tribal

circumstances. Currently, their lifeways are changing rapidly, involving a shiftfrom their former subsistence-based existence to a cash-based one. For youngerTemiars, this has been associated with almost universal primary education,resulting in basic literacy in Malay, the unrelated) national language, as well

as with shifts in their social and religious orientations. The Temiar languagehowever, is still employed in all domains of daily life except those that requireformal literacy, and it therefore remains essentially unwritten.

Aesthesis and iconicity in language

People who lack writing necessarily have a different sense of what a language isthan do literate people. Roy Harris 1987: 51 fT.) relates this difference to what

he calls scriptism - the tyranny o the written word. For non literate people, alanguage consists primarily in the sounds and/or oral articulatory) gestures o fspeech. Approaches to linguistic analysis that commence by declaring anyconnection between sounds nd me nings to be rbitr ry re therefore meth-odologically questionable. On the contrary, such iconicity should be searchedfor and if found incorporated into the analysis, along with an investigation oits relation to the social circumstances o the language s speakers.

A major reason for linguistic iconicity is economy o expression. If a

language were to permit direct one-to-one expression to allo

its underlyingsemantic features the resulting grammar would be too complex for its speakersto cope with. Consequently, shunts or syncretisms develop, in which severaldifferent features are mapped onto a single overt surface expression- phonic,morphosyntactic, or lexical. A degree o semantic condensation is therefore aninevitable, though variable, feature o f all grammars, but it is especially markedin languages such as Tcmiar where syncretisms o this kind are frequent. Since

36


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esthetic elements in Temiar grammar

9PAHANG

....SELANG O R \ ' ' - , ' -

• /NEGRI ' , _ .J; SEMBILAN \

.._.__. -----::;ELAKA

S lSOkm

2S 50

Map 2 The location ofTemiar speakers

0

7

semantic condensation reduces arbitmriness, it necessarily results in a degree oiconicity phonaesthetic or otherwise.

There may well be a universa l tendency towards a priori phonaestheticexpression- o deictic and quanti tative contrasts especially- that has becomesubmerged or not taken up in a systematic manner in some languages. But i hespeakers o a language do take up phonic iconicity they may then in a secondary,a posteriori manner proceed to elaborate the lexical or grammatical motivation


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38 Geoffrey Benjamin

o f certain phonetic features, which would thereby become iconic rather thanarbitrary. This view is similar to Leach s suggestion ( 1971: 83) that

phonemic patterning may have semantic significance, not that it must do so; it is alinguistic option. But i f here are languages which work that way then as anthropologists

we need to be on the look out for such a possibility.

conicity is typically felt (a matter o f acsthesis) rather than known throughthe intellect. 2 Consider, for example, the a posteriori iconic phonaesthcmes th-, gland wh- in English, where an iconic form is felt to be peculiarly appropriate to aparticular set of meanings even though most speakers cannot easily say just whatthe underlying meaning is. In both a priori and a posteriori iconicity, the associated meanings are held in mind as condensed notions rather than articulatedconcepts. (Examples of both a priori and a pos teriori iconicity occur in Tcmiar.)The speakers of a language thereby generate inchoate but meaningful expectationsin their minds as to the appropriateness of particular phonetic articu lations toparticular intended meanings. This is a primary source of the familiarity they feelwhen speaking the language, especially if it is the langu age they grew up with.

3 Social dimensions of linguistic iconicity

As noted, iconicity necessarily involves symbolic condcnsation 3 Speaking, however, normally forces us to aniculate our condensed notions by mapping themonto overt conventionalized concepts. This then lays us open to others· attempts tocontrol the way in which we express our thoughts. In response, we seck to resistthis by holding on to our notions n the condensed symbolic forms in which we'dwell'. Consequently, our mental representations constantly ftip-ftop between thecondensed notional forms upon which we act (unthinkingly) and the articulatedconccprual ones through which we talk (thinkingly) to others. 4

1 On a priori and a posteriori iconic motivation, see Gcll (1979). Tufvcsson (2011: 89} followingPeirce, refers to the latter as 'diagmmmatic, or second-order, iconiciry. where likeness betweenfonn and meaning is driven by the aligning of similar fonns with similar meanings'

2 I take 'iconic' in its nonnal linguistic sense of 'Mn-arbitmry'; but I employ 'aesthetic' in itsetymological sense as having to do with what is felt or pelt•ei\wl, rather than with the later viewthat it is concerned with 'beauty'. The source is Greek a i a 8 1 J t i l < ~ .alnRI/fiKtJ.; referring to 'thingsperceptible by the senses as opposed to thin gs thinkable' The horta rf rd E n g l i ~ hDicrionary, Third edition, : 32).

3 On symbolism or better, ·symboling' as being the willed condensing together of subjectivelyheld notions, see Sperber ( 1979).

4 This view derives from Michael Po\anyi's work on 'taci t and ·explicit' knowledge (Polanyi 1959:31). Levinson (2000: 28) implies that we arc four times as reluctant to articulate our meanings inspeech than we are to parse what others are sayi ng. He suggests that this results from aphysiological constraint on the speech organs, but I believe it may also relate to a desire to keepour meanings unarticulated. For a more extended presentation of he views expressed in the nextfew paragraphs, see Benjamin (1993: 344-350).


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40 Ge ?ffrey Benjamin

by the homophony of apparently unrelated forms. In such cases it is the iconicproperties of the sounds and vocal gesture s that carry the language-poem, asGell (1979) called it. The meani ng then pertains not solely to the ostensiblereferential meaning of the speakers utterances, but also to the cultural andpsychological figure (Becker 1979) presented by the language s grammaticaland lexical pattems. 6 Tcmiar is one such language.

4 Iconic aesthesis in Temiar

In previous studies ofTemiar (Benjamin 20lla: 14; 2012) I discussed a set of

grammatical and lexical features that display the iconic-aesthetic effects ofcontrasting deictic gestures made by the vocal organs: 7

• Opening the mouth wide, as if addressing oneself to OTHER, the rest of theworld

• Closing the mouth in SELF-contemplation, as if in temporary retreat from theworld.The relatively open mouth position, manifested in Temiar by the low vowel

a the back consonants and h and vowel nasality (i.e., vclic opening),underlies the OTHER-referring features - a generalization, perhaps, of you(hoa ) -deixis. The low vowel is employed on its own as an object-referringinfix in the middle-voice inflection of the verb, as well as in a series ofsemantically similar but non-inflecting deponent verbs and middle-voicenouns. The same open-mouth articulation is also employed in the second- andthird-person pronouns, the objective case-marking particles and in a few otheridiomatic expressions. A partial list is given in Table 3.1.

The relatively closed mouth position, on the other hand, signifies the moresubjective SELF-focused, I (yee ) -deixis re alm. This is expressed phonicallyby the high vowel i and the front consonants y, c, m, and r. The high vowel i isemployed in a series of first-person pro cl itic pronouns. The same closedarticulation is also employed in nominative and instrumental case-markingparticles. Table 3.2 lists the forms discusse d in the rest of this chapter.

There is no room here to discuss the sELF -referring features indicated bythe consonants m and r. These include: (i) the employment of the closed-mouth

' A similar suggestion has been proffered by Levinson and Buren hull (2008: 169), in pointing to therelatively frequent occurrence of the symbolically con densed linguistic figures they refer to assemplates in small, traditional societies without elaborate divisions of labor, in domains that are

central to their way o f lifeFor a description o f the Temiar sound-system see Benjamin (1976: 130 153). Note that theiconicity under discussion here relates to r a l a n i c u l < ~ t o r ygesture rather than the acoustic propertics of the sounds produced by those gcsrurcs (cf. Jakobson and Waugh 1979 : 182). See alsoRcnjamin (2009: 301 -303) on related features in Malay.Non-articulated notional meanings, such as se1 F and OTHER arc indicated in small caps.


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Aesthetic clements in Tcmiar grammar

Table 3.1 Articu/atorily open fOrms

the middle-voice verbal affixhiit the pronoun 'you (singular)' (free-standing, stressed)lwh the pronoun 'you (singular)' (free-standing, unstressed, phrase-final clitic fonn of hiiii )ha- the pronoun 'you (singular)' (proclitic, unstressed fonn of hiiti )lw- the accusative (affected-patient) object-marker (optional, proclitic, u n ~ t r c ~ . w daar the inclusive dual pronoun 'you-and- ' (free-standing, stressed)

4

1ah the inclusive dual pronoun 'you-and- ' free-standing. unstressed, phrase-final clitic fonn of 1aar)1a- the inclusive dual pronoun 'you-and-r (proclitic, unstressed fonn of ;aar)1a- the delimiting detenniner (proclitic to demonstratives, and to proper nouns m direct a d d r c s ~1a- the negative-imperative marker 'don'tl '110

the demonstrative 'there, near you' (free-standing)the third-person pronoun 'he/she/it' (proclitic, unstressed)

Table 3.2 Articu/atorily closed forms

eel the pronoun 'I ' (emphatic, free-standing, stressed)the contrastive topic-marker 'as for . . ·(optional, proclitic, u n s t r e s ~ e d

\ ee 1 the pronoun 'I ' (free-standing, stressed)yeh the pronoun 'I ' (free-standing, unstressed, phrase-final clitic fonn of\·et )l'i- the pronoun ' I ' (contrastive. proclitic, unstressed fonn ofyce )n- the nominative (agent/statant) subject-marker (contrastive, optional, proclit1c. unstressed)yi- the instrument (accessory agent) marker (proclitic, unstressed)y ll 1 the instrument (inanimate accessory agent) marker (proclitie. unstressed); sometimes 'locali\c' in

meaning ('[other] place')'i- the pronoun I. my, me' (proclitic, unstressed)'i- the nominative (agcnlfstatant) subject-marker (optional, proclitic, unstressed)1i- the instrument (accessory agent) mark..:r (proclitic, unstressed)

pre-verbal eli tic -m- to indicate a range of subjective irrealis meanings intentivc.purposive, future, imperative, countctfactual, conditional, avertive, and proximalive (Benjamin. under review); and {ii) the incorporation of the front consonantr in a set of fonns to carry the notional meaning REPLICATION (OF SELF)the intensifier nP •selftsame)', the preposition n· 7- •like', the pronoun-anaphorra- 'who', and the causative verbal affix -r- -tt·r-) (Benjamin 2012) 9

The salience accorded in Temiar grammar to the SELF o 1 HER dialecticdirectly reflects the prominence of this dialectic as an organizing principle

of the Temiar cultural regime, 10 which is calqued psychocentrically upon the

9 For discussion of the semantically somewhat similar iconic status of fml and [r] in Malay, ~Benjamin (2009: 30 I 305).

1 On 'cultural regime' as opposed 10 ·a culture', see Benjamin ( 1993: 348 350, 2011b: 176). ·ormore extended discussions of Temiar dialccticism. sec Benjamin (1994, 2011a: 22 2. \). For adetailed study of its expression in musiea, perfonnance. see Roseman (1984: 421 427).


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direct experience that individual human beings have of their own subjectivityas simultaneously a controlling actor and an undergoing patient. Consciousnessitself then serves as the ultimate surrogational reality upon which language(and the cosmos) rests, and upon which meaning is constructed. This dialecticalframework did not just 'happen', but was deliberately (though inchoately)cultivated in response to the specific societal and environmental circumstancesofTemiar life, and as part of the means by which they generated a complementarity between themselves and the neighbouring populations (Benjamin 20 II b).The specific iconic patterning of certain sections of Temiar grammar has had amajor role in the maintenance of this dialectical mode o f orientation, byembedding it more deeply into the cultural framework than could have beenachieved by explicit articulation. 11

In the rest of this chapter r examine the semantic and iconic properties of hevarious affixes, clitics and reduplicative patterns that modify the meaning o fwords and utterances in Temiar, and which display a combination of a prioriand a posteriori motivations. I also briefly discuss the iconic aspects of thespecial class of words known as expressives.

5 Phonaesthetic iconicityTables 3.1 and 3.2 display some of the pronoun-linked syncretisms that affectthe surface expression of some key feature s ofTemiar grammar. Illustrations o ftheir usage are presented in examples (1}-(6), which are mostly taken rrom textsthat I collected by tape-recording and direct dictation or from notes of overheardconversations, at various times between 1964 and 201 0. Several of he sentences are taken from traditional tales concerning the doings of?rQkiiiiy or 7£Qkuu'(the thunder deity) and his younger brothe r ?ah•j (the first human). Each of theexamples contains identical or closely similar fonns that serve different grammatical functions.

Examples (1)--(3) disclose a subjective (SELF) semantic, as indicated bytheir phonically high and closed character, linked with the first-personpronoun forms. In (Ia), c 'as for ' is the contrastive topic-markercTRs). In ( b), cee is the emphatic contrastive form of the first-person

singular pronoun: 12

Most Temiars find i t difficult to talk about language in ways that would involve abstracting itaway from this dialectical imagery. The Temiar word for '(a) language', kuJ which basicallymeans "head', welt encapsulates this view, for it imp lies a dialectical conjoining of ears andtongue, hearer and speaker. Temiar, unlike many (mos t?) other languages, therefore does notderive the word for 'language' from a word mea ning ;tongue' (as with the English word'language' or the Arabo-Malay lisan .

2 To increase legibility the orthography used here indicalcs he fully detcnnined epcnthctic "owels, . I ) that would be omilted in a strictly phonemic transcription . But I also omit them when


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Aesthetic elements in Temiar grammar

(I) a. ?aluj, 1e-lo 1 £ _-hiiii1 ha-p:J 1??aJuj, what CTRS-2SG 2SG-dream.PFV?'?aluj, what did you dream ?

b. H5y Tataa 1 cee 1 t J 1 i-pc'j;:J).No Old.man, lsG NEG lsG-dream.JPFV.No Sir, I didn't dream.'

43

In (2a),yi- is the emphatic proclitic form of the pronounyee I . n (2b),yi- isthe contrastive form of the 'nominative' subject-marker (NOM), indicatingthat it was specifically the younger of the two brothers who slept. In (2c), yi-is an 'instrument' marker (INS); in (2d), ya - is an 'instrument' (or possibly a'location') marker:

(2) a. Yi-ciib ma-tiiw rFh.hQ.-go.PFV to-river belo w.I went down to the river.'

b. Na-sabg yi-?aluj 1ah.3sa-sleep.PFV NoM-7aluj 3sG.?aluj slept.'

c. pcn 1 J JI yi 1awaat.cook.NMLZ INs-bamboo'cooking with a bamboo tube'

d. ?F-siih ya 1-rc ntil.IPL.INCL-pound.PFV INs-pestle.

'We pound it with a s ~ 3

necessary to clarify the morphological processes, as in Tables 3.3 and 3.4, below. In the glosses,full-stops separate the lexical and grammatical components of each word: tanngill (sit.CAUS.NMLZ.IPFV) 'causing to sit down (impl rfective)'. The following abbreviations are employed: •'non-occurring fonn' or 'proto-language reconstruction'; I 'first-person'; 2 'second-person'; 3'third-person' ; ACC 'accusative'; CA us 'ca usative'; C' 'initial consonant'; Cf 'final consonant';C n 'medial consonant'; CTRS 'contrastive'; DU 'dual'; EM P 'emphatic'; EXCL 'exclusive'; INCL'inclusive'; INS 'instrument'; IPFV 'imperfective'; IRR 'irrealis'; MID 'middle voice'; NEG'negative'; NMLZ 'nominalizer'; NOM ·nominative'; PFV 'perfective'; PSTV 'presentative'; PL

'plural'; PROG 'progressive'; SG 'singu lar'.n Sentence (2d) is taken from one of th e very few published Temiar texts (Noone 1949: 5),where it reads e si:h ;e renti. Sentence (3c) is also taken from that text (p. 6). where it reads ejelog Jjuk. I suspect that the proclitic y 1 - is an example of grammaticization, reinforced in thisfunction by a posteriori iconicity. As an independent (prosodic) word, ya 1 means 'place',near , 'somewhere else', or simply 'at" But , when unstressed, its similarity to yi- has allowed

the at meaning to develop into an 'instrumental' proclitic. In some instances, however, y 1-sti11 retains a 'locative' meaning and might then be bencr treated as a separate word (as Noonedid in this instance).


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In (3a), i- is the unstressed proclitic form of the first-person singular pronoun. In (3b), 7i is the nominative subject-marker (NOM), referring to analready mentioned entity. 14 In (3c), 7i- is an instmment marker (I NS): 15

(3) a. ?i-ciib ma-tuuy.ISG-go.PFV to-there.I went there.

b. 1Tn-b:J 1 1i-deek 'rm.at-where NoM-house 3sG.Where is their house?

c. ?c-ja/oog1

i-juk.IPL.INCL-tread.PFV INs-foot.We tread it out with our feet.

The following examples, ( 4 }-(7), illustrate the objective (OTHER) semantic,linked with the second- and third-person pronouns, as indicated in Table 3.1.These all contain the criteria I vowel a, either alone or in combination, which isdiscussed in greater detail later as the marker of the middle-voice in verbs andsome nouns.

In (4a), ha- is the unstressed proclitic fonn of the second-person singularpronoun hiiiil you , which also occurs at the end of the same sentence in itsfully stressed form. In (4b), ha- is again the second-person singular pronoun, butthis time as the object of a verbal phrase. In (4c ), ha- (twice) is the accusative(affected-patient) definitizing object-marker Ace):

4) a. ?aluj, h:Jj ha-ta 1rl ca-hOiV7aJuj, already 2SG-make.PFV CTRS-2SG7aluj, have you made yours? -

b. Yam-bar-IFh ha-lah.IOU. EXCL.IRR-PROG-wife 2SG-EMP.

We both want to marry y u ~

14 An important correction must be inserted here. Matisoff (2003: 36, 38 41 ). through no fault ofhis own, reports my previous characterization of ca- as the statant role-marker and i- as theactor role-marker . Unfortunately, this has turned out to e incomx:t, being based on errors in an

unpublished ancestor of the present study. As the examples in this chapter make clear,contrastive and 1i nominative mark syntactic and discourse relations rather than participantroles.

15 Shorto (2006: 69) suggests that Temiar y 1 I derives from Proto-Man-Khmer 1ii· ·person .This might explain why the proclitic form of yt e 1 is 1i-; if so, the latter would be the moreoriginal form, masquerading as a reduced form. lfthis linkage can e sustained. it would lend

further support to the iconic connection made here between some of the phonetically closedforms listed in Table 3.2.

16 Polyandry is permitted by Temiar kinship rules, but such marriages are mre in practice.


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Aesthetic elements in Temiar grammar 45

c. Na·w:>g 1i-?aluj, Slj·ab ha-ran:> 1 1iJh.3sc-wake.PFV NOM·?aluj. prepare.PFV ACc·backbasket 3sG,

c p E_-kayuuh naar kmbk.pack.PFV Ace-cassava two tuber

' ?aluj woke up, prepared his [aforementioned] back-basket, packed the twotubers of cassava.'

In (Sa) there occur three variant forms of the first-person dual inclusivepronoun you and 1 : the free-s tandi ng form 1aar the unstressed procliticform 'a - (twice), and the unstres sed postposed form 'ah. n (Sb) the proclitic1a- forms the direct-address versions o names and kin-terms; in (Sc) it

delimits demonstratives; and in (Sd) it forms the negative imperative withverbs:

(5} a. ?adaa 1 1a· lah c r 1aat; 1anHnaa 1 Come ID U . INCL-EMP CTRS· ID U.INCL, IDU.INC.IRR·Tetum.PFV,

m F n _ ~ a m b o o 1un·pat 'ah.PL-Mother 3PL-miss.PF\' TOu.INCL.

Co me, let's both return home, Mother and the others arc missing us.'

b. bilah '(one's) father' (refen:nce)?abaah.' 'Father ' (direct address)

c tr r 1 'earlier today'~ t f f ? 'just now

d. ciib go] .:ciib/ 'don't go '

As a clitic, therefore, ?a-

fulfil s a diverse range o surface functions. Whatmeaning could they possibly hav e in common? The answer is that ?a- not onlycarries the meaning O T H E R but also the implication that the Other it refersto is the object o some special marking: it is salient. There is, o course,a psychological ambivalence about something that has been declared tobe both Other and salient, for, while it falls outside one's own subjectivedomain, it still remains the object of one s attention. (Indeed, the Englishword 'object' implies precisel y this ambivalence.) Thus, in addressingsomeone as Father'' (?a-baah) one treats him as an Other (to one s ownstatus as 'child') and yet acknowledges that he holds a special relationshipto oneself. In just now (?a-tn·') one s attention is directed to an objectivepoint in time, already past and done with, which nevertheless still holdsrelevance to the more subjeeth·c concerns o what one is doing now. In'don't go ' ('a-ciib ) one is adjured to put the act away from oneself andyet to hold it in mind as something forbidden.


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The same feature is found in the transpa rently OTHER-referring forrns, theproclitic pronoun na- 'third-person singular' and the demonstrative na ? that .Both occur in (6):

(6} G:Jb ~ - p i l a mmotooh kaloo 1 lah.Malay that 3sG-borrow motorbike elder.sib lin g 3sG.T hat Malay borrowed his brother's moto rbike.'

In na- and na? the OTHER-referring vowel a is preceded by the consonant nwhich is otherwise mainly employed as a prefix or infix (depending on thedialect) serving to nominalize verbs: sabg to slcep --+smbg a sleeping'(phoncmically, sbg--+.mbg); gal to sit --+gdnal or ntlgal a sitting' (phoncmically, gal--+g/n;JI or nlga[); golap to carry on shoulder' --+ganolap a carrying onshoulder' (phonemically, golap--+gnolap);jaro 1 'long'--+jmro 1 'length' (phoncmically, j r o ~ - j n r o ) ;c u to pare' - camT •a knife' (phoncmically,ccr-cllFr). Semantically, such nominals are more thing-like - more 'objective· than the verbs from which they arc derived. Thus, in the pronoun na- andthe demonstrative na? a degree of a posteriori iconicity is at play, reinforcingthe iconic effect of the OTHER-referring vowel a

6 Morphological conicity

Syncretism is not restricted to the items just discussed, for it is also exhibited inthe inflectional patterns of human nouns, verbs and adjectives, as illustrated in(7). The two features to note arc (i) the 'incopyfixed' reduplicative pattern 17 and(ii) the infixed -a-. The incopyfixcd pattern means 'plural' with adjectives (7a)and some human nouns (7b), and 'imperfective' with verbs (7c). The infix -ameans 'sing ular' (or, more strictly, ent ity -refe rring') with human nouns (7b),

and 'middle voice' with verbs (7c) and (non-productively) with a substantialnumber of "middle-voice' nouns:

(7) a. jaro 7 long (singular)je 1ro 1 long (plural)

b taa 1 sir (title for n older mantataa 1 o ld manu·1taa 1 'old men'

17 The label 'incopyfixation' is an invention ofMatisoff(2003: 28). Other autho11> have referred 10the same process as "coda copy (Kruspe 2004: 72: Burcnhult 2005: 50), 'infixed reduplication'(Diffioth t976a: 236), 'bare-consonant rcduptical ion' (Sloan 1988; Hendricks 2001) or simply'reduplication' (Benjamin 1976) Similar patterns of reduplication arc widespread in the Aslianlanguages and elsewhere in the Mon-Khmer family On present evidence, however. it is Temiarthat exhibits the highest degree of regularity in th is domain o f morphology.


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Aesthetic elements in Temia r grammar

c ciib go (perfective)caciib go (middle)

ccbciib go (imperfecti ve)

47

I discuss the inflectional morphology of human nouns no further here, as itraises complicated semantic issues . The rest of this section will concentrate onthe aesthetic components underlying the morphology of the Temiar verb- thefeature that has occasioned most of the secondary discussion of Temiar grammar by other authors. 8 Temiar adjectives are effectively stativc verbs, a n dexcept for lacking the infix - their reduplicative morphology relatestransparently to that of the dynami c verbs.

6 1 lncopyfi.·mtion

The self-iconic tcnn incopyfixation refers to the reduplicative process in which acopy of the final consonant of the stem is infixed at an earlier position in the word:s b g ~ s t g b gto lie down (phonemically, s b g ~ s g b g ) .In monosyllabic verbsthe initial consonant is copied too, as the prefixed carrier of the incopyfixed finalconsonant: g l ~gdg


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Table 3.3 Monosyllabic: gal 'to sit

VOICE

Base

Middle

Causative

ASPECT

Perfective

gal sit(completed act)

Imperfective

glgal [ g E i g ~ l lsit(incomplete act)

gaga sit (uncontrolledly,or all together at once)

trgal [tErgal] set down trlgal [tan lgOJl](completed act) set down

(incomplete act)

VERBAL NOUN

gina/ [gEin JI] - n/gal[ n e l g ~ l ]a sitting

gnagal [ g ; m a g ~ l ]a sitting(uncontrolledly, or alltogether at once)

trngal [tOJrengal]a setting down

Table 3.4 Sesquisyllabic: sobg 'to sleep (also: 'lie down', 'marry')

VOICE ASPECT

Perfective Imperfective

Base sbg [sabg] sleep sgbg [segbg] sleep(completed act) (incomplete act)

Middle sabg fall asleep(uncontrolledly)

Causative srbg [subg] put s.o. to srgbg [s:mogbg] put s.o. tosleep (completed act) sleep (incomplete act)

VERBAL NOUN

snbg [sEnbg]; sngbg[sanegbg] a sleeping

snabg [sanabg] a fallingasleep

srnbg [sarmbg] a putting(ofs.o.) to sleep

The aesthesis here is carried by a clear example of a priori iconicity. As Sapirremarked in a classic statement,

Nothing is more natural than the prevalence of reduplication, in other words, therepetition of all or part of the radical element. The process is generally employed, withself-evident symbolism, to indicate such concepts as distribution, plurality, repetition,customary activity, increase of size, added intensity, continuance. (Sapir 1921: 76;emphasis added.)

Given their relative semantic completeness , incopyfixed imperfective verbsdo not require any further completion by the addition of participants or by

embedding in any larger expression. For this reason, they usually serve as theneutral citation fonn: when asked for their word for sleep , for example,Temiars would usually say scgbg rather than sabg or sabg. The same semanticcompleteness allows incopyfixation to detransitivize verbs that are transitive intheir unreduplicated perfective form: ~ u n s a l u hWrn (3PL-shoot.blowgun.PFVanimal) they blowgunned animals (transitive), but 'un-sEhluh (3PL-shoot.blowgun.IPFv) they went blowgunning (intransitive) .


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Nevertheless, the difference between the perfective and the imperfective isslight. Verbs sometimes appear consecutively within the same utterance in bothforms with little discernible difference of meaning. In (8), for example, theperfective kab bite occurs alongside the imperfective rq>rec devour (fromrec 2 Perhaps this is just aesthetic word-play, typical of Man-Khmerlanguages more widely. Or perhaps the biting was seen as a punctiliar event,while the eating was imaged distributively as more extended temporally:

8) Na- iid Jun kah kab 1ah. Jun kah rqwec Jah3sG-fear.PFV 3PL-perhaps bite.PFV 3sG, 3PL-perhaps devour.tPFV 3sG.He feared they might bite [perfective] him, they might devour [imperfective]him. - -

What then of the uninflected perfective forms, such as gal (Table 3.2) ands bg (Table 3.3)? Here, the lack of reduplication is iconic of semantic incompleteness, indicating that the proce ss is viewedji-vrn the outside , without regardto internal temporal consistency (Comrie 1978: 12 . In other words, theperfective nonnally has to be connected with something else for its meaningto be interpretable. Typically, the s omething else is (i) a nominal , (ii) anotherverb , (iii) being embedded in discourse, or (iv) an inflection. Thus, unredupli

cated perfective verbs in Temiar tend to be employed in• simple imperatives , where you · is understood• transitive or intransitive action ex pressions , linked with overt participants• linking, reduced, discourse-continuity expressions, where they (i) lean on a

following unstressed pronoun , as in salbg weh (sleep 3ou) they slept , or(ii) lean on a following modifi er, as in huj yaal (sup finish) having drunk(the soup) , or (iii) are linked to a repetition of the verb in a repetitive settingclause , such as gatlgal weh (sit s it 3ou) [and so] they sat

• in discourse, where a perfective verb standing alone may additionally serveas a means of taking up the story from where it last left off, as with cap topack in (4c).The unreduplicated perfective f orm also serves as the stem to which the other

participant-valency inflections are added. These arc the middle-voice affix -(discussed below) and the causa tive -voice affix fEr - bcr- - r (indicatingextension of the causer s action to a causce). The morphology of the causative isdiscussed no further here, except to note that it can also be further inflected by

incopyfixation to form the imperfective-causative, such as trlgal [torEigol] fromtrgal [tugol] (Table 3.3) and srgb g [sorrgbg] from srbg [subg] (Table 3.4). 2

2° For the regular morphophonemic change involved in deriving rqwec (instead of*rccrec fromrec, see Benjamin (1976: 143).

21 See Benjamin (2012) for further discu ssio n of the Temiar causa tive.


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Similar, but not identicaL patterns are found in some of the expressives. asdiscussed later.

The term incopyfixation implies the view that Tcmiar morphology involvesphonological copying; but this may not be the best way of approaching thequestion. In emphasizing meaning over phonology, the approach just presentedaccords with the alternative approach to reduplication advocated in theMorphological Doubling theory of lnkelas and Zoll (2005), who argue that thekind o f reduplication exhibited by the Tcmiar imperfective is best thought of as thejoining together of two sister elements carrying the same meaning. On this viewthe incopyfixed Temiar imperfective would be a self-compound rather than aphonological copy , with each half of the compound sharing the same semanticfeatures , together generating a new meaning ( imperfective ) carried by the wholeform. n other words, the reduplicative morphology of the Temiar imperfectiveexhibits a transparently a priori iconicity (as Sapir s comment too would indicate).

6 2 Infixation of

The major productive function o f infixed -a- s A u N T O T H R is in formingthe middle voice o f verbs (Tables 3.3 and 3 .4). This is closely paralleled by theappearance of as a frozen infix in a large set o f non-inflecting deponent verbs and disyllabic ( middle-voice ) nouns. As argued in detail elsewhere(Benjamin 20lla , the same semantic dimension underlies ll o f these occurrences of -a- namely that the verbs and nouns in question indicate that thesubject or entity is thought of as being simultaneously its own agent (or source)and patient. It is the embedded OTHER-referring open vowel-a- that symbolizesthe incorporated patient.

6.2.1 Middle-voice verb s There are at least three circumstances in which aTemiar speaker might choo se to employ the middle voice:• The action referred to by the verb is performed with reference to some salient

other. This can apply to two kinds of activity: (i) those where the actors arcthought o f as working jointly in an all-together mode, and (ii) symmetrically reciprocal actions.

• The object of the action or event is incorporated wit/tin the verb as part of itsmeaning (producing an unaccusative verb). This carries with it the impli

cation that the action or event has no external source. Prototypically, thesewould be (i) body-moves , (ii) events thought of as absolutivc or medicpassive in character , or (iii) emotional, and hence relatively uncontrolled orundergone, actions or behaviours.

• Given its punctiliar character , the action or event referred to by the verb canbe seen as a particular d ete rminate event treated as a noteworthy object o fcomment - a proper verb , so to speak .


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The following examples illustrate these various uses of the middle voice.First, two examples o f 'salient other' middles. In (9), most of the story line'sreported actions employ the 'all-together' middle-voice forms of the verb: 22

(9) ?un-maa 1 ma-deek num-salaay rch kakeej ha-jagok3PL-retum.PFV to-house from-swiddcn downstream, g ~ t c M J DAC '-maize.sasccw ha-kayuuh s:Jd ha-saah. p a ~ - : J IsCrape.clean.MI o ACe-cassava. peeLPFV ACC-swect.potato, cOOk.MID

ha- c5s.ACC-bird.

'They returned home from the swidden downstream, (together) grated the maize .(together) scraped the cassava clean, peeled the sweet Xltato, (together) cooked thebird.

As illustrated in I 0), reciprocal action is expressed by employing a dualpronoun together with bar- 'progressive' procliticized to the middle-voice fonnof the verb. This indicates that the two actors simultaneously serve as eachother's patient:

I 0) Wc-b.-ratuuk.3DU-PR0G-fear.MI D.

'They are afraid of each other.'

The following three examples Illustrate the unaccusative usc of the middlevoice. In ( I I ) , the middle-voice body-move verb sasi


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( 12) a ?:uk na-kakoh.Water 3sc-spiii.MID.The water spilled.· (Intransitive)

b. Na-koh ~ J : J k3sG-spili.PFV water.She spilled water. (Transitive)

In (13), the middle-voice fonn of the verb do to run serves to indicate theemotionally uncontrollable exasperation felt by the two brothers at the incessantcrying of their young sister:

(13) Mcn-kaloo Ji-Jun-bood i-lah; 1wz-dadoJ yeh.

PL-elder.sibling lsa-3Pt.-not.want lsG-EMP; 3PL-run.MID \sa .My elder brothers couldn t stand me; they fled me.

Examples of detenninate-happening , proper verb middles are relativelyrare, especially when unassociated with all-together , reciprocal, absolutive oremotional meanings. In (14), however, the middle-voice inflection of he secondverb, cacaa? cat, consume , clearly indicates its noteworthy determinate happening character at this point in the story. (The middle-voice inflection of the firstverb, ra d make , on the other hand, indicates an all-together meaning.)

(14) Jadif

Happenhabisfinished

wc-ta 1cl3ou :build.M D

J J Jk manu? ma-?a/Nj.water big to-7aluj.

jadiihappen

atbehold

na-cacaa 1

3sa-Cat.MID

And when they had both built [the fish-weir] together, a large amount of watersuddenly consumed ?aluj.

6.2.2 Deponent verbs and middle-\•oice nouns The infix -a- also occursas the frozen non-productive marker of a middle-voice semantic in the classof verbs l label deponent because they appear to have laid aside (Latin:deponere) the meaning suggested by their midd le surface morphology, infavour of an ostensibly active meaning. Superficially, Temiar deponentsappear to carry an active meaning, but closer examination shows that theyindicate events or processes that arc thought of as being simultaneously -and hence dialectically - their own source and undergoer. The same alsoapplies to the entities indicated by the many Temiar nouns with a in thefirst syllable that l label middle-voice nouns . 24 The main categories are:

24 Fora substantial listing of these words, sec Ihe Appendix (pp. 28 ·37) in Benjamin (2011a). Theexamples given here are new. For a close structural parallel to the Temiar middle-voice nouns seevan Gijn s study (20 I 0) of the connection between middle voice and ideophones in Ihe Bolivianlanguage YurakarC.


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(i) dynamic and stativc verbs indi cat ing conditions or circumstances that thesource simultaneously undergoes ; (ii) animals, as creatures that move themselves through their own actions; (iii) body parts. as organs that can bethought of as both moving and being moved; and (iv) certain physicalobjects and processes, thought of as being simultaneously their own sourceand undergoer.

Deponent verbshabag to laugh (in company) : because such laughing is catching, and

therefore something both done and undergoner c e ~to grate : because the hand simultaneously docs the grating and

undergoes the resistance o f the foodsaluur to faint : because it happens to and within the fainter

Middle-voice nounscadn· 1 a small squirrel , 1alaay - alaaj elephant : animals that move

themselveskar:J:J/ knee : a body part, both moving and being moved

Despite containing the phonaest he me -a- , deponent verbs and middle-voicenouns are monomorphemic words of fixed fonn. But the -a- clement alsoappears with the same undergocr meaning in words that display a transparentinflectional and derivational histo ry (Benjamin 20 II a: 25). Dcvcrbal nominalizations are fanned in Temiar by inserting the infix -11-, but the resultant fonnsoccur sometimes with and sometimes without an additional -a-. This dependson the presence or absence, respecti vely, of an implicitly m iddle- voice undergoer meaning, as in (15) and (16):

(15) S l i i i J J ~ Sl'l'll:J:J/'r0t.MtD.NMLZ shavC.IPFV.NMLZ·rotted remains o f shavings

These words are derived from s:J,J , sas::xJ to rot and s:J,Jr, st I S.J.Jr to shave(wood) . Shaving (wood) is wholly active, but rott ing is something that theshavings undergo: hence the middl e-vo ice form sam.>', rather than the otherwise expected *san:xJ?.

A particularly telling example occurs in ( 16). Here, the stativc verb jam ,jt · 1ro?(but no j a r o ~to be distant, long has given rise to two distinct dcvcrbalnominalizations:)n1ro length (as injcnro 1 deek the length of the house ) andjanaro 7 'distanee travelled . While both derivatives are fom ed with -n-, only thelatter contains the middle-voice infix -a-, in accordance with its undcrgocrmeaning:


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16) ) < m f _ r o ~ If ~ u n - j o o g o ~

distant.NMLZ.MID land 3PL mOVC.PFV thatthe distance of territory (through which] they moved

7 Expressives

In a volume subtitled sound and meaning , the question of expressives inevitably arises. However, it seems that most of the sound-meaning symbolism inTemiar expressives is carried by a posteriori iconicity rather than by the directemployment of sound as such. 25 In other words, the iconic speech-sounds ofTemiar are primarily a consequence of mental processes directed in the first

instance at the motor activities of the speech organs. 26Expressives, which constitute a distinctive basic word-class parallel to verbs

and nouns, are utterance-adjuncts that sum up in a word or two the feelings thatare supposed to be aroused in the interlocutors minds. They are thereforeconcerned as much with connotational as with denotational meaning, describing visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory. haptic, emotional or other types ofperceptions in relation to particular phenomena (Tufvesson 2007: 53). Sincethey are voluntary additions to utterances that would still make sense without

them, one can speak good Temiar without ever using an expressive. But suchspeech would risk sounding uninvolved and unemotional.

In Temiar, the frequency of expressives varies from speaker to speaker. Whentelling stories, some speakers use them more than others - and some not at all.There is also some variation between valley populations in this regard, at least inthe texts I collected. On the other hand, spontaneous conversation oftenincludes more expressives than in story-telling. Temiars seem to be aware ofthe special character of cxprcssives. For examp le , the expressive lea/us the

snapping off of a maize cob was explained by one respondent as the yaaj orcHHh noise, sound of the action. This was an d hoc non-standard characterization, however, and it should not be assumed that Temiars necessarily think ofexpressives only in aural terms.

Linguists mostly agree on the ideal-type criteria that characterize expressives: they are employed with their own special syntax; they cannot benegated; and they possess a distinct semantic function. Other criteria,

2 s This disregards such obviously onomatopoeic fonns (which arc not necessarily exprcssives) askCI 1 kt·kuk. to describe badly perfonned drumbeats. But note that this too exhibits reduplicativemorphology, although it breaks nonnal phonological rules perhaps because it was intended toimply bad .

:u. For the motortheoryofspeech perception that lends suppon to this view, and which cla1ms thatboth listeners and speakers model speech as aniculations rather than sounds, see libennan et al.( 1967: 453) and Tsur(2006: 906, 914). Tsur s anicle contains an approving response to Diffi.oth s( 1994) Mon-Khmer example of the dominance ofaniculatory gesture over sound in the expression of iconicity.


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however, are recognized as less clear-cut, namely that expressives are supposedly not derived from any other word-class and that they possess theirown morphology (cf. Diffioth 200 I: 263). Indeed, in Temiar and other Aslianlanguages the distinctiveness often wears thin. In particular, many Temiarexpressives display an obvious relation to similarly shaped verbs, and someexpressives could potentially also be analysed as adverbs (a word-classnot otherwise salient in the language). The following examples illustratesome of the features just discussed; the expressives or expressive-likeforms are indicated by a postposed exclamation mark.

In (17), Baruj 'getting up and leaving ' (with its variants baraj, baruj) is anexample of an expressive occurring alongside its related verb (the latter heredisplaying full reduplication):

(17) a. 8;Jiuj 1un-l\'F 1 bFjruj bFjruj yaal.Baruj 3PL-Ieave.PFV start.out.l PFV start.out.IPFV finish.PFV.'Baruj They set ofT and kept going until they stopped.'

The expressive kayaab 'waking up ' n (18) was explicitly connected by myrespondent to the verb kayaab, k'·byaab 'to get up', k


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distributive - and these cany over into those exprcssivcs that employ it. Thus.although the specific referential content may lack iconic expression. the m nnerof the process it refers to finds expression in the morphology. The same appliesto those reduplicative processes that are found only in cxprcssives but notverns, namely precopyfixing and postcopyposing 7

The expressives listed in (20a) follow a marginally productive pattern, in whichthe syllable c• .cf-is precopyfixed to a sesquisyllabic vern (CaC VC).Semantically, these fall at the advernial end of the scale, but - unlike the vcrnsfrom which they are derived- they cannot be negated or take a syntactic subject.In (20b), the same pattern occurs, but with no identifiable source-vern (*paluul)).

(20) a. rFgraweeg.''conspicuously upright' , linked tor ~ w c c g .

rcgweeg 'to stand erect'scdsafood 'unable to breathe', linked to the verb s lood ' to drown. be hard

of breath'rFJlrayQ]l 'glowing, reddish colour (mahseer fish)', linked to rayCIJI rcJIIJliJI

' to glow'ITJICalofl. 'the raising of a fish's fin·, 'a raft shooting the rapids', 'a submarine

diving', linked to caloJI -cabap) ' to produce a wash in the water'

b. Na-baluh /ah, pcypaluul) .

3sc-pounce.PFV EMP , pcypa/uwr 'He pounced, prypaluuy.''

In (21 ), taken from a commercial pop-song recording sung in Tcmiar, 29 thereis an almost Shakespearian play on the syllable hoj, which by itself is the pasttense marker 'already'. But here, the singer plays with its possible derivativebahoj ' to fail to reach' through both plain (bcjhahoj) and nominalizcd (bt·llhah:Jj)precopyfixation:

(21) Bah:Jj bmhah.Jj.' 1i-saar heel lw-jaro ·Out.of.reaeh out.of.reaeh.N M LZ lsG-fol\ow.PFV when 2sG-distant

27 Diffloth ( 1979: 58), in one o f the key srudics o f phonic iconicity, puts this more generally:

Expressives are not a sort of'pre-linguistic' fonn of speech, somehow half-way between mimicryand fully strucrured linguistic fonn. They are, in fact, at the other end of the spectrum, a sort o f'post-linguistic' stage where the strucrural elements necessary for prosaic language are deliberately re-arranged and exploited for their iconic properties. and used for aesthetic communication.

2 Occasionally, this pattern is nevertheless used as an extended verb fonn, as in tW 1/ll-.w-gs


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Aesthetic elements in Temmr grammar

ma-yee 1to-ISG

b>ah

fatherhojPAST

bcjbahojout.of.reach

7

'Out o f reach , out o f reach , I follow behind when you are far away. Father(=lover) has passed out o f reach.'

The less-productive pattern exhibited by the expressives n (22) is based onthe use of incopyfixation and/or the infixation of -r - or -ra- which in a real verbwould mean causative and (the imposs ible) causative-middle respectivcly 3

Sart.gy:xJg and its variant saray:XJg refer to sounds that emanate from an unseensource, such as distant voices. Morphologically parallel to s r pog isjarado.?y(22b). The virtual source-verbs (*sayoog and *jadooy) of these forms seem notto occur:

(22) a Na-koko1 san-gy:>.:Jg.' sarrgy:>.:Jg.', kajOJl /ah tiik 1ah.3sc-crow.PFV sarrgy:>.:Jg sarrgy:>:>g , twitch.PFV EMP hand 3sG.'The bird crowed sarrf y:>:>g sarFgy:>:>g.' [unseen ] and [7aluj's] handtwitched.'

b. jarad:>:>IJ.' 'sound o f struck bamboo'

A related pattern involves the further reduplicative morphemization of the

final syllable of he stem as a separate postcopyposed word, as in (23). As withfully reduplicated verbs (17) or expressives (22a), this pattern seems to indicatea process or activity thought of as persistent or repetitious. In (23a), this patterns applied, with little semantic contortion, to the adverb gej quick by prefixing

the non-productive adjectival Ia- followed by incopyfixation and the postcopyposing of the morphemized root gej. In (23b), there is no identifiablesource-verb (*cahuud). But in (23c), the identifiable source-verbs combinereduplicative morphemization with the shared resultant clement kara-, which

on a posteriori grounds could be thought of as an adversative (ka-) causative(-r-) middle-voice (-a-) form, with the semantically strange implication helplessly caused to undergo the effect o f one s own actions .

(23) a. lrjgej gej frequently (cf. gej, lrjgej ·qu ick )b 1e fol na-brrtook, carahud lwd. ?

Why 3sc-cAus.knock.PFV, carahud hud. ?'Why is she making that disturbing knocking, carahud hud?

c. karahab hab. ' lip-sma cking' (cf. kahab 'to eat noisily')karalam lam. 'pitch blackness at night' (cf. kalam 'darkness')

10 Diflloth (1976b: 253) has identified ·ra- in Semai as expressively indicating 'simultaneousplural'. This parallels the 'simulfactivc, all-together' of the Tcmiar middle-voice fonnative -aand the 'replicative' meaning of -r· as discussed earlier


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In Temiar cxpressives, therefore, the various constitutive elements and morphological patterns just discussed serve as phonaesthemes, the meanings o f

which arc symbolically condensed rather than explicitly referential. At least onequestion remains: given that the above examples all involve various forms of aposteriori iconicity, are there no instances in Temiar o f expressives based on apriori iconicity? Does direct sound-symbolism never play a part? The followingtwo examples show that it does indeed occur, albeit in qualified form.

In (24), the syllable poy directly echoes the sound o f a bushknife on bamboo.Its extension to poy papoy (by morphemization combined with -a- infixation) toindicate repeated chopping illustrates Tufvesson s point (2011: 86) thatthrough this type of f o r m ~ m e a n i n gmapping, gradient relationships in the

perceptual world receive gradient linguistic representations :

(24) Poy. na-bahad. Poy papoy.' ya deh, naar yaajPay.' 3SG-chop.Pt-V. Pay papoy.' PRSTV PRSTV two sound

wc kay:Jk3ou-hear.PFV NOM-3ou-male.J>L.

'Poy.' she chopped. Poypapoy.' The two brothers heard the sounds [made bytwo women].

Finally, an example of an expressive that exhibits both onomatopoeic andoral-articulatory iconicity. The expressive ba ug in (25) has the phonemicpatterning of an ordinary Temiar word. But it sounds like vomiting, and itsenunciation requires the speaker to perform vomiting-like articulatory actions:

(25) Na-ruh, ba"ug.' na-ko 1.


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Documents

Benjamin, Aesthetic Elements in Temiar Grammar