A Grammar of Slave 9783110861822, 9783110107791

Citation preview

Mouton Grammar Library 5

Rice

A Grammar of Slave

Mouton Grammar Library 5

Editors Georg Bossong Wallace Chafe

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Keren Rice

A Grammar of Slave

1989 Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication

Data

Rice, Keren, 1 9 4 9 A grammar of Slave. (Mouton grammar library ; 5) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Slave language — Grammar. I. Title. II. Series. 89-3282 PM2365.R53 1989 497'.2 ISBN 0-88925.140-4

Deutsche Bibliothek

Cataloging in Publication Data

Rice, Keren: A grammar of Slave / Keren Rice. — Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1989 (Mouton grammar library ; 5) ISBN 3-11-010779-1 NE: GT

Printed on acid free paper.

© Copyright 1989 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form — by photoprint, microfilm or any other means — or transmitted or translated into a machine language without written permission from Mouton de Gruyter, a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co. Printing: Ratzlow-Druck, Berlin. Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. — Printed in Germany.

Acknowledgements

Many Dene people have been consultants for the grammar. Their energy and insights are gratefully acknowledged. The major contributors from each community are listed below. Fort Good Hope: Special recognition goes to Therese Pierrot for her cooperation, effort, and time. Cecile Manuel and Alice Masazumi also deserve special thanks. Several others made significant contributions: Lucy Jackson, Pazanne Manuel, Georgina Tobac, Mary Shae, Dora Grandjambe, Celine Proctor, Bella T'Seleie, Lucy Ann Yakeleya, George Grandjambe, Alfred Masazumi, John Shae, John Turo. Fort Franklin: Dora Gully, Malo Bewule, Johnny Neyelle, Augustine Modeste Kenney, Bernadette Kenny Taneton, Merine Vital, Georgina Neyelle, Charlie Neyelle, Merine Takazo, Ronald Cleary, Fibbi Tatti, Jane Modeste Vandermeer, Archie Tetso, Ethel Blondin-Townsend. Fort Norman: Elizabeth Yakeleya, Fred Gaudet, Fred Andrew. Fort Simpson: Ted Trindell, Philip Lafferty, Henry Squirrel, Bella Trindell. Thanks is also due to many students at the Teacher Education Program in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada for their help. These include Andy Norwegian (Fort Simpson), Jane Kenny (Fort Franklin), Doris Pellissey (Wrigley), Laura Sabourin (Fort Providence), Sarah Gaudet (Fort Franklin), Rita Denneron (Trout Lake), Tom Kakfwi (Fort Good Hope), Cecile McCauley (Fort Norman), Joanne Squirrel (Fort Providence), and Sarah Neyally (Wrigley). Thanks also to the many other Dene people I met over the years who helped make this work better. These include Margaret Thom, Laura Tutcho, Judy Tutcho, George Cleary, Doreen Cleary, and many more. Many, many thanks to all of these people. Without them, this work would have been impossible. Phil Howard contributed generously to this grammar in many ways. He made tapes of the following people available: Sarah Norn (Hay River), Sarah Sibbeston (Hay River), Raymond Sonfrere (Hay River), Willy Bertram (Fort Liard), Laura McLeod (Fort Liard), Jimmy Cholo (Fort Simpson), and Ted Trindell (Fort Simpson). Phil Howard also gave me free access to his files for this forthcoming Slavey verb dictionary. Without these files, much of the work on aspect and verb theme categories would not have been possible. The grammar also owes much the the work of other Athapaskan specialists: Phil Howard, Cindy Chambers, Michael Kruass, Jim Kari, Vic Monus, Gillian Story, Connie Naish, Ed Cook, Victor Golla, Jeff Leer, John Ritter, and others. Special recognition goes to Lynda Ackroyd and Leslie

vi

Acknowledgements

Saxon for their help in early stages of field work and for their confidence and friendship. Special thanks also to all of the people who housed me during my time in the Northwest Territories. I remember all of you with kindness and gratitude. This project was funded by the Northern Social Research Division, Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, Ottawa, Canada. This book has been many years in the coming. The bulk of the research was done between 1976 and 1982, and the major writing was done between 1980 and 1983. Since 1983, very little has been changed in this grammar; this time has been spent in preparing the manuscript for publication. This became an overwhelmingly difficult task, largely because of the size of the book. I would like to thank Marie-Louise LiebeHarkort, editor of Mouton de Gruyter, for continuing to encourage me at times when I felt like abandoning the project and for being willing to explore alternative ways of formatting the book to allow everything to be included. I would also like to thank the following people for their support over the past few years while I have been typing, editing, formatting, and printing. These include, in addition to the linguists listed above, Sharon Hargus, the faculty of the Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto (especially Ron Wardhaugh and Jack Chambers, the department chairs while this work has been going on) and students of the Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto (in particular, I'd like to thank Peter Avery and Bill Idsardi for encouragement and for help with the computer). To everyone else in the department, many thanks. Many thanks also to my family. This book is prepared on an Apple Macintosh computer and is printed on the Apple LaserWriter. Thanks to the Centre for Computing in the Humanities of the University of Toronto for helping to defray the costs of printing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introductory Remarks

1

PART I

INTRODUCTION

5

Chapter 2 The Slave Language

7

Chapter 3 Typological Characteristics: A Survey of Phrase and Sentence P A R T II

17

Types

THE SOUND SYSTEM

27

Chapter 4 The Sound System

29

Chapter 5

Consonant

53

Chapter 6

Vowel

Inventory

Inventory

79

Chapter 7 The Development of the Slave Sound System

89

Chapter 8 Tones

103

Chapter 9

129

Chapter

10

Major Phonological Rules Morpheme Structure, Surface Structure, and Syllable Structure

143

Constraints

P A R T I I I CATEGORIES

155

Chapter 11 Lexical categories

157

Chapter 12 Nouns

161

Chapter 13 Possession

207

Chapter

14 Qualifiers

23 5

Chapter

15 P r o n o u n s

253

Chapter

16 Modifiers of nouns

261

Chapter

17 Postpositions

269

Chapter

18 Deictics/Directionals

319

Chapter 19 Adverbs

3 39

viii

Table of Contents

Chapter 20 Numerals

3 73

Chapter 21 Adjectives

3 89

Chapter 22 Particles

393

Chapter 23 Postverbal

particles

Chapter 24 The Verb

403 425

Unit 1

An Overview of the Slave Verb

425

Unit 2

The classifier (verb prefix position 13)

43 9

Unit 3

Subject (verb prefix position 12)

471

Unit 4

Mode (verb prefix positions 10 and 11)

485

Unit 5

Aspect and thematic prefixes (verb prefix positions

5 87

9 and 8) Unit 6

Deictic Pronouns (verb prefix position 7)

62 3'

Unit 7

Direct object (verb prefix position 6)

62 7

Unit 8

Number (verb prefix position 5)

642

Unit 9

Pronominal Prefixes - Summary

64 5

Unit 10 Incorporated Stems (verb prefix position 4)

647

Unit 11 Customary (verb prefix position 3)

671

Unit 12 Distributive (verb prefix position 2)

677

Unit 13 Adverbs (verb prefix position 1)

703

Unit 14 Postpositions (verb prefix position 0)

741

Unit 15 Object of Incorporated Postposition (verb prefix

775

position 00) Unit 16 Adverb (verb prefix position 000)

777

Unit 17 The Verb Stem - Classificatory Verbs and the

779

Control/Noncontrol Distinction in Verb Stems Unit 18 The Aspect-Theme System

7 97

Unit 19 Verb Stem Phonology

8 57

Table of Contents

ix

Unit 20 Other Stem Variation

8 67

Unit 21 The Verb Theme Category System

871

Chapter 25 Impersonal and Denominal Verbs

931

PART IV THE MODEL

93 5

Chapter 26 An Overview of Slave Grammar

937

PART V

995

SYNTAX

Chapter 27 Word Order

997

Chapter 28 Pronouns

1005

Chapter 29 Unspecified Subjects

1031

Chapter 30 Coreference

1035

Chapter 31 Conjunction

1049

Chapter 32 Comparison

1081

Chapter 33 Negation

1101

Chapter 34 Commands and Hortatives

1109

Chapter 35 Tense, Aspect, and Mode

1113

Chapter 36 Yes/no Questions

1123

Chapter 37 Alternative Questions

1139

Chapter 38 Direct Questions

1141

Chapter 39 Indirect Questions

1175

Chapter 40 Right Extraposition

1191

Chapter 41 Topicalization

1197

Chapter 42 The Structure of Complements

1221

Chapter 43 Complementizers 1

1243

Chapter 44 Complementizers II

1259

Chapter 45 Direct and Indirect Discourse

1273

χ

Table of Contents

Chapter 46 Miscellaneous Complement-Taking Verbs

1299

Chapter 47 Relative Clauses

1309

PART VI TEXTS

133 3

Chapter 48 Texts

1335

REFERENCES

1355

INDEX

1363

DETAILED CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introductory Remarks 1.1 Organization of the grammar 1.2 Previous literature on Slave and Mackenzie Valley Athapaskan Notes

1 1 2

PARTI

5

INTRODUCTION

3

Chapter 2 The Slave Language 2.1 The Slave language 2.2 Na-Dene 2.3 Slave 2.4 Language status 2.5 Summary Notes

7 7 9 9 14 15 16

Chapter 3 Typological Characteristics: A Survey of Phrase and Sentence Types 3.1 Basic word order 3.2 Major categories and phrase types 3.2.1 Nouns 3.2.2 Postpositions 3.2.3 Verbs 3.2.3.1 Intransitive verbs 3.2.3.2 Transitive verbs 3.2.4 A d v e r b s 3.3 Sentence types 3.3.1 Questions 3.3.1.1 Yes/no questions 3.3.1.2 Content questions 3.3.2 Negatives 3.3.3 Conjunction 3.3.4 Complementation 3.3.5 Relative clauses

17 17 1 8 18 19 20 20 21 21 22 22 22 23 24 24 25 25

PART II THE SOUND SYSTEM

27

Chapter 4 The Sound System 4.1 Consonants 4.1.1 General phonetic characteristics 4.1.2 Intradialect variation 4.1.2.1 Bearlake 4.1.2.2 Hare

29 29 31 32 32 34

xii

Detailed Contents 4.1.2.3 Slavey 4.1.2.3.1 Widespread variation 4.1.2.3.2 Dialect specific variation 4.1.2.3.2.1 Fort Liard dialect 4.1.2.3.2.2 Fort Simpson dialect 4.1.2.4 Mountain 4.1.3 Interdialect variation 4 . 2 Vowels 4.2.1 Oral vowels 4.2.2 Nasal vowels 4.2.3 Long vowels 4.2.4 Vowel correspondences 4 . 3 Tone 4.4 Stress 4.5 Intonation 4.5.1 Declaratives 4.5.2 Yes/no questions 4.5.3 Conjoined structures 4.5.4 C o m p l e m e n t s 4.6 Emphasis Appendix: The orthographic system 4 . 1 Consonants 4 . 2 Vowels 4 . 3 Tone

Chapter 5 Consonant Inventory 5.1 r 5.1.1 H a r e 5.1.2 Bearlake, Slavey, Mountain 5.1.3 Summary 5.1.4 Wrigley Mountain 5.1.5 Stem-final [r] 5 . 2 Prenasalized stops 5 . 3 Oral stops and nasals 5.4 / ή / 5.4.1 n—>r in Hare 5.4.2 Nasalization and raising 5.4.3 Perfective morpheme 5.4.4 Summary 5.5 Continuants 5.5.1 Voicing alternations 5.5.2 Innovative speech 5.5.3 Bearlake 5.5.4 Slavey 5.5.5 M o u n t a i n 5.5.6 H a r e 5.5.6.1 w , w 5.5.6.2 Levelling of voicing alternations 5.5.7 Summary

35 35 36 36 37 37 37 38 39 41 43 43 44 46 46 46 47 47 48 49 50 50 50 51 53 53 53 54 56 57 57 58 60 61 61 61 62 62 62 63 69 69 70 71 71 71 71 72

Detailed Contents 5.6 Deaffrication - Hare 5.6.1 Voicing alternations 5.6.2 0 classifier verbs 5.6.3 h- classifier verbs 5.6.4 Summary 5.7 Hare [f] 5.8 Glottal stop 5.9 h 5 . 1 0 Summary Notes Chapter 6 Vowel Inventory 6.1 The oral vowels 6.1.1 /i/ 6.1.2 Id 6.1.3 /a/ 6.1.4 /o/ 6.1.5 / u / 6.1.6 / e e / 6 . 2 Nasal vowels 6.2.1 i , f , g

xiii 72 72 73 73 74 74 75 76 76 77 79 79 79 79 80 80 80 81 81 81

6.2.2 a

81

6.2.3 y

82

6.2.4 ρ

82

6.2.5 *§e 6.2.6 Some problems with nasal vowels 6.2.6.1 Hare 6.2.6.2 Other dialects 6.2.6.2.1 Velar deletion 6.2.6.2.2 Nasalization at a morpheme boundary 6.2.6.2.3 Summary 6.3 Long vowels 6.4 Summary Notes Chapter 7 The Development of the Slave Sound System 7.1 P r o t o - A t h a p a s k a n 7 . 2 Consonants 7.2.1 Initial position 7.2.2 Final position 7.2.3 Summary 7.3 Vowels 7.4 Summary Notes

82 83 83 84 84 84 85 85 87 87 89 89 90 90 93 96 98 100 101

xiv

Detailed Contents

Chapter 8 Tones 8.1 P r e l i m i n a r i e s 8.1.1 The framework 8.1.2 Slave tones 8.1.2.1 Lexical tone 8.1.2.2 Grammatical tone 8.2 The independent status of Slave tone 8.2.1 Preservation of underlying tone melodies 8.2.2 Inherently segmentless morphemes 8.2.3 Conjugation morphemes 8.3 Stem tones in Hare 8.3.1 Hare verb stem tone 8.3.2 Tone Spread 8.3.3 Vowel Deletion 8.3.4 Summary 8.4 Underlying tones 8.4.1 Lexical low tones 8.4.1.1 The suffix -e 8.4.1.2 The prefix na- 'customary, again' 8.4.1.3 S u m m a r y 8.4.2 Lexically toneless morphemes 8.4.2.1 S t e m s 8.4.2.2 Disjunct prefixes 8.4.2.3 Conjunct prefixes 8.4.2.3.1 Possessive prefixes 8.4.2.3.2 Other conjunct prefixes 8.4.2.3.3 Verb stem high tone delinking 8.4.3 Summary 8.4.4 Conjunct high tone prefixes 8.4.5 Summary 8.5 Verb stem high tone delinking in Hare - dialects 8.5.1 Dialect 1 8.5.2 Dialect 2 8.6 Some additional remarks on the Hare tone rules 8.6.1 Verb stem high tone delinking 8.6.2 Vowel deletion 8.6.3 Tone spread 8.7 Summary Notes

103 103 103 103 103 104 105 106 107 107 10 8 108 Ill 112 1 14 114 114 114 114 1 15 11 5 115 116 117 117 119 121 122 123 123 124 124 124 125 1 25 126 126 127 127

Chapter 9 Major Phonological Rules 9 . 1 Stem-initial phonology 9.1.1 The D-effect rule 9.1.2 Voicing 9.1.3 h epenthesis 9 . 2 Prefix phonology 9.2.1 Verb prefix classes 9.2.1.1 Second person singular 9.2.1.2 Optative/future

129 129 129 129 130 131 132 132 132

Detailed Contents 9.2.1.3 Epenthesis 9.2.1.4 Summary 9.3 Reduction rules 9.3.1 C V+so-->Co, Cao, Cau 9.3.2 Reciprocal ?ete~>?eh 9.3.3 nina—> nia-, nina—> nia9.3.4 CV+na->C99.3.5 CV + gha --> Ca, CV + ghp-> Cg 9.3.6 Glide deletion 9.3.7 η deletion 9.4 Assimilation rules 9.4.1 Hare 9.4.2 Bearlake, Slavey, Mountain 9.5 dy-->ny 9.6 Miscellaneous 9.6.1 Denasalization 9.6.2 ilaxing Notes

xv 133 135 1 35 135 136 136 136 137 137 138 138 138 13 8 140 140 140 141 141

Chapter 10 Morpheme Structure, Surface Structure, and Syllable Structure Constraints 10.1 Morpheme structure constraints 10.1.1 Stems 10.1.1.1 Stem-initial segments 10.1.1.2 Vowels 10.1.1.3 Stem-final consonants 10.1.2 Prefixes 10.1.2.1 Disjunct prefixes 10.1.2.2 Conjunct prefixes 10.1.2.3 Summary 10.2 Surface structure constraints 10.2.1 Stems 10.2.2 Prefixes 10.3 Words 10.4 Nasalization 10.5 Syllable structure constraints Notes

143

PART ΠΙ

15 5

CATEGORIES

Chapter 11 Lexical categories 11.1 Major categories 11.1.1 Noun 11.1.2 Verb 11.1.3 Postposition 11.2 Minor categories 11.2.1 Demonstrative/determiner

143 143 143 144 144 145 145 145 146 146 146 148 149 149 150 152

157 157 157 157 157 158 158

xvi

Detailed Contents 11.2.2 11.2.3 11.2.4 11.2.5 11.2.6 11.2.7 11.2.8 11.2.9 11.2.10 11.2.11 11.2.12

Adverb Quantifier Adjective Tense Modal Complementizer Conjunction Qualifier Focus particles Interjection Summary

Chapter 12 Nouns 1 2 . 1 Roots versus stems 1 2 . 2 Stem nouns ( 0 suffixed forms) 1 2 . 3 Other stem formatives 1 2 . 3 . 1 -e 1 2 . 3 . 2 -/ 1 2 . 3 . 3 Summary 1 2 . 4 Prefixed nouns 1 2 . 4 . 1 go1 2 . 4 . 2 Other derivational prefixes 1 2 . 4 . 2 . 1 ng1 2 . 4 . 2 . 2 ng12.4.2.3

?e-

158 158 159 159 159 159 159 159 160 160 1 60 161 161 161 163 163 163 164 164 164 165 165 165

unspecified possessor

12.4.2.4 1 2 . 4 . 2 . 5 Other derivational prefixes 1 2 . 5 Dependent nouns 1 2 . 5 . 1 Stem nouns (root+0) 1 2 . 5 . 2 Prefix+root+0 1 2 . 5 . 3 Root+e 1 2 . 5 . 4 Root+£ possessive 1 2 . 6 Deverbal nouns 1 2 . 6 . 1 Intransitive structures 1 2 . 6 . 1 . 1 Nonneuter verb themes 1 2 . 6 . 1 . 2 Neuter verb themes 1 2 . 6 . 2 Transitive structures 12.6.2.1 Verb 1 2 . 6 . 2 . 2 Object noun + verb 1 2 . 6 . 2 . 2 . 1 Agent nominalizations 1 2 . 6 . 2 . 2 . 2 Instrument nominalizations 1 2 . 6 . 2 . 3 Passive verb 12.6.2.3.1 Theme focus 1 2 . 6 . 2 . 3 . 2 Instrument focus 1 2 . 6 . 3 Aspect and mode 1 2 . 6 . 4 The nominalizer h1 2 . 6 . 5 Summary 1 2 . 7 Compound nouns

165 166 166 167 167 168 169 169 170 170 170 171 172 173 174 174 175 176 176 177 180 181 183 183

Detailed Contents

Chapter

xvii

12.7.1 Compound nouns - type 1 12.7.2 Compound nouns - type 2 12.7.3 Summary 12.7.4 Body part compounds 12.7.5 The compound formative h12.8 Other compound forms 12.8.1 Noun plus postposition 12.8.2 Noun plus stem 12.8.3 Postposition plus noun 12.8.4 Noun plus postposition plus noun 12.8.5 Compound nouns with ggh 12.9 Loanwords 12.9.1 French 12.9.2 English 12.10 Summary Notes

183 192 194 194 195 196 196 197 197 198 198 199 199 202 202 203

13 Possession 13.1 The possessive prefixes 13.1.1 The prefixes 13.1.1.1 se- first person singular possessor 13.1.1.2 ne- second person singular possessor 13.1.1.3 be-{Hr, Bl)/me-(Sl, Mt) third person singular possessor 13.1.1.4 ye- fourth person possessor 13.1.1.5 ?ede-, de- reflexive possessor 13.1.1.6 unspecified possessor 13.1.1.7 naxe- (Bl, SI, Wli)lraxe- (Hr) first person plural, second person plural possessor 13.1.1.8 ku- (Hr)/&K-, £j'-(Bl)/go-(Sl, Mt) third person plural possessor 13.1.1.9 kede- third person plural reflexive possessor 13.1.1.10 £i-(Hr, Bl)/g/- (Bl, SI, Mt) third person plural possessor 13.1.1.11 go- fourth person plural possessor 13.1.1.12 ?ete- (Bl, SI, Mt)/?ele- (Hr) reciprocal possessor 13.1.1.13 go- areal possessor 13.1.2 Nasal class prefixes 13.2 The possessive suffixes 13.2.1 -e 13.2.2 13.3 Noun stem phonology 13.3.1 Stem-initial consonants 13.3.2 S t e m - f i n a l s 13.3.2.1 Glottal final forms 13.3.2.2 Non-nasal consonant final stems

207 207 207 207 207 207 208 208 209 209 209 210 210 210 211 211 211 212 212 213 215 215 216 216 216

xviii

Detailed Contents 13.3.2.2.1 Underlying final consonants 13.3.2.2.2 /h/ final stems 13.3.2.2.2.1 Slavey 13.3.2.2.2.2 Bearlake and Mountain 13.3.2.2.2.3 Hare 13.3.2.3 Vowel-final stems 13.3.2.3.1 Slavey, Bearlake, Mountain 13.3.2.3.2 Hare 13.3.2.4 Summary 13.3.3 Tone 13.3.3.1 Hare 13.3.3.2 Other dialects 13.3.4 Summary 13.4 Syntax of possession 13.4.1 Inalienable possession 13.4.1.1 Body parts 13.4.1.2 Goods, possessions 13.4.1.3 Kinship terms 13.4.1.4 Double possessive pronouns 13.4.1.5 The inalienable possessive construction 13.4.2 Alienable possession 13.4.3 Compound and deverbal nouns 13.4.4 The possessive construction 13.4.5 Summary Notes

Chapter 14 Qualifiers 14.1 Uninflected particles 14.1.1 -wad (B1 )/-wä (Hr) 'real, true, original' 14.1.2 -kihle (SI) 'real, true, original' 14.1.3 -dewi (bl)/-ndedhi (SI)!-diwi (Hr) 14.1.4 -yu 'brave' 14.1.5 -tini, -tine 'bad, evil' 14.1.6 -k6ne 'new' 14.1.7 -ΜΙέ 'flat' 14.1.8 -d/iiie (SI)/-wüle (Bl) 'puffed up, swollen' 14.1.9 -dza 'dry' 14.1.10 xare (Hr, Bl)/xaade (SI) 'real, own' 14.2 Uninflected stems 14.2.1 -yone 'old' 14.2.2 -cho (Bl, SI, Mt)/-sho (Hr) augmentative 14.2.3 -yaa (Bl, SI, Mt)/-ya (Hr) diminutive 14.2.4 -ah (SI) diminutive 14.2.5 -tsile (Bl, SI, Mt)/-sele (Hr) 'small' 14.2.5 -jiri 'old, rotten' 14.2.7 -tseli (Bl, SI, Mt)/-sele (Hr) 'wet' 14.2.8 -wele (Hr, Bl)l-thele, -thee (SI) 'hot, warm' 14.2.9 -fa (Hr)/-*wa/i (Bl)/-tthah (SI) 'dry'

217 220 220 220 221 2 21 221 222 222 223 223 224 224 225 225 226 227 227 227 22 8 229 230 231 232 23 3 23 5 23 5 23 5 23 6 236 23 6 23 6 2 37 237 237 23 7 237 23 7 238 23 8 240 241 241 242 242 243 243

Detailed Contents 14.2.10 -tlöle (Bl, SI, M t ) ! - M e (Hr) 14.2.11 -t'