Yanomama Grammar and Intelligibility

Citation preview

INFORMATION TO USERS

This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The foiiowing explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again - beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation. Silver prints of "photographs" may be ,ordered at additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced. ,/

5. PLEASE NOTE: Soma pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received.

Xerox University MicrofiDms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108

7':>-30,432 MIGLIAZZA, Ernest Cesar, 1926YANOMAMA GRAMMAR AND INTELLIGIBILITY. Indiana University, Ph.D., 1972 Language and Literature, linguistics

University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan

@

1972

Ernest Cesar M1g1iazza

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

YANOMAMA GRAMMAR AND

I~ITELLIGIBILITY

by Ernest Cesar Migliazza

Submitted to the faculty of

~he G~~d~~te

School in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Linguistics Indiana University May, 1972

This study has been accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Linguistics, Indiana University.

Dr. Fred W. Householder, Chairman of the Committee

Dr. Joe Campbell, Member

Dr. Florence Voegelin, Member

i) VI;r:(,I, Date .J

j .~ .--;-['r l

I

/

'i. / -,-" ~-

7·) 1,0(..

....

PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In a study of this scope many people deserve to be acknowledged. I am greatly indebted to Fred W. Householder, chairman of my committee for his guidance and advice through the years and who has given a great deal of time in reading different versions of the manuscript. other members of

~y

To the

committee, Joe Campbell, Carleton Hodge, Florence

Voegelin and Roger Lass, I am also thankful for the reading of manuscripts and offering valuable suggestions. My gratitude to James V. Neel, chairman of the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Michigan for his suggestions and encouragement.

Field work and research directly pertaining to the

Yanomama were supported at various stages in Brazil by the Museu Paraense Emilio Goeldi (Belem, Para, Brazil) Baptist Mid-Missions, Indiana University thesis research scholarship, and in Venezuela by the Atomic Energy Commission Contract AT (11-1)-1552.

The writing of this

dissertation was supported in part by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and in part by the National Science Foundation grants to the University of Michigan.

All this support is gratefully acknowledged.

I wish to thank Kenneth Hill and Charles Pyle of the University of Michigan for their help in clarifying specific points in phonology and syntax.

To the faculty of the Linguiscic Department of Indiana

University who have endeavored to teach me throughout my graduate program, I am deeply grateful.

v In various ways friends and colleagues have contributed helpful comments and data.

Among them are Don Borgman, Kitty Pierce, Jim

Barker, Napoleon Chagnon and Jacques Lizot for vocabulary items; Richard Spillman, Alcida and Kenneth Taylor, Ryk Ward, Francisco Rothhammer and Daniel Boyle for valuable discussions.

None of the

people mentioned above are responsible for the mistakes which may remain. A special note of gratitude to Ron and Ann Tonks for their assistance in clarifying 8.!1d typing what I had written.

The completion

of this dissertation owes to my wife, Alice, far beyond any reference made here.

specif~c

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION I.

II.

THE LANGUAGE SITUATION

1 5

1.1

Tribal movements

1.2

Demography

15

1.3

Family Denomination

25

1.4

Languages and Dialects

33

1.5

Genetic Relationship

36

1.6

Yanomama Diglossia

45

TRANSFORMATIONS

5

63

2.1

Introduction

63

2.2

Conjoining

65

2.3

Relativization

86

2.4

Adverbials

105

2.5

Pronouns

110

2.6

Number

117

2.7

Possessives

123

2.8

Causative

128

2.9

Inchoa.tive

140

III. PHONOLOGY

145

3.1

Introduction

145

3.2

Features and Underlying Segments

147

vii

PAGE 3.3

3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

Yanam -- Redundancy Rules

153

3.31

161

Phonological Rules

Yanomam -- Redundancy Rules

186

3.41

190

Phonological Rules

Yanomam± -- Redundancy Rules

201

3.51

Phonological Rules

203

San~ma

-- Redundancy Rules

205

3.61

Phonological Rules

208

Summary of Rules

225

IV. INTELLIGIBILITY AND GRAMMAR

240

4.1

Introduction

240

4.2

Degrees of Intelligibility

241

4.3

Cultural Relations and Intelligibility

246

4.4

Intelligibility -- the competence of the hearer

250

4.5

Rules within the Hearer Competence

251

4.6

Rules outside the Hearer Competence

264

4.7

Conclusion -- Linguistic Differences

287

APPENDIX A. Part I.

COMPARATIVE WOkD LIST -- 750 ENTRIES

292

General word list -- 606 entries

295

Part II. Minor Lexicon:

Kinship terms; Personal Pronouns

Demonstratives and Relative Pronouns; Possessives Case Markers; Subordinatives; Time adverbia1s Aspects and Moda1s; Locative adverbia1s

325

viii

APPENDIX B.

GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY AND CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE

335

B.l

Geography of the Area

335

B.2

History

352

General background Historical records from the Amazon Watershed:

1500-1930

357

Historical records from the Orinoco Watershed: 1500-1900

370

Contacts and main publications on Yanomama and neighboring tribes: 1900-1970

375

B.3 Cultural Knowledge

394

Material Culture

395

Social Organization

414

World View

421

B.4 Yanomama Cultural Relations BIBLIOGRAPHY VITA

352

429 448

ix

LIST OF

Y~PS

MAP

PAGE

A

Location of Yanomama in Scuth America

4a

B

Major Location of Yanomama Villages

17

la

Villages where Data was Gathered

4b

1

The Four Major Yanomama Language Areas

4c

2

Local Pre-Colombian Expansion of Carib and Arawak (Near the Yanomama Present Area)

10

3

Yanomama and Surrounding Tribes - last century

23

4

Yanomama and Surrounding Tribes - 1970

24

5

Elevation of 1000 and 3000 feet

349

INTRODUCTION In recent years a number of theoretical claims have been proposed concerning general properties of natural languages.

In this disser-

tation the validity of some of them is tested wi.th facts from the Yanomama languages, and in some cases alternative solutions are suggested. There seems to have been a reluctance, in the past decade, on the part of the scientific world to provide a documentation of South American Indian languages and culture.

The fact that they not only

survived over thousands of years without modern medical care and almost no technological progress but were able to come to terms with their environment demonstrates a considerable degree of knowledge which at the present rate of extinction in South America may not survive another generation.

While a record of their life and works should be of interest

to anthiupology and medicine, their knowledge of ethnobotanical resources, their ecological adaptation and competence in preserving a balance of wild life and animal species is of value for the future of humanity. To the linguist the study and description of their languages should be viewed as a contribution to our knowledge and insight into the nature and universal properties of human language in general.

In

the case of the Yanomama languages they also offer an opportunity to study linguistic change under a situation relatively free from external contact. Yanomama is one of the largest groups, over 12,000 speakers, of yet unacculturated tropical forest Indians of South America.

They are

2

located in northern BrazIl and southern Venezuela (see Map A), living in over 200 villages as shown in Map B.

There are four major varieties

of Yanomama which we term Language A Yanam; B Yanomam; C D San*ma.

Their distribution is shown in Map 1.

Yanomam~;

and

Each of these languages

has a few dialects. Originall-' we intended to write a monograph on the Yanomama language and culture since, to our knowledge, no one has yet published on or described the Yanomama as a whole.

I

Later, as the work progressed

and for several reasons not mentioned here we excluded from the main body the sections on culture, history and geography condensing them in Appendix B. This dissertation consists of four studies (chapters) on the Yanomama languages plus two appendices. information on the language situation.

Chapter I gives the external It includes a historical summary

of movements of the different tribes in the area; demographic data and population density; the problem and proposal for the denomination of the family and individual languages; the evidence for genetic relationship of the Yanomama languages and information about their dialects. The chapter ends with a description of the unusual Yanomama diglossia situation in whic.h a formal chanted variety of Yanomama is used for specific social functions and intra-tribal communication.

It also shows

a probability relationship between "integrative motivation" and language learning.

Publications to date, whether in anthropology or linguistics concern only a particular area or subgroup of Yanomama.

1.

3

In the second chapter we present some of the major syntactic aspects of the language.

Recent theoretical claims are examined in

respect to the following topics:

conjoining~

relativization, adverbials,

pronouns, number, possessives, causatives and inchoatives.

Of some

interest is the discussion on conjoined and embedded sentences; double nominals and time adverbials and numerals (quantifiers). The third chapter concerns the phonology of each of the four languages.

It includes:

underlying segments, redundancy rules and

phonological rules, and a summary of all rules with their distribution. Of theoretical interest are discussions on morpheme structure conditions, nasalization, optionality of rules, some general constraints, vowel agreement and palatalization. The last chapter compares the grammar of the four languages in relation to their degree of intelligibility. asking:

Specifically, we are

what is the nature of those linguistic differences which would

most likely impair comprehension?

Cultural traits are also briefly

discussed showing their influence on mutual comprehension.

Linguistic

differences are divided into those which are within the hearer's competence and those outside his competence.

The latter are further

divided into systematic and unsystematic differences.

Systematic are

those differences resulting from the addition of a rule or restructuring involving one or two rules. intelligibility.

These have only a moderate effect on

Unsyst~lnatic diffe~ences

which directly affect com-

prehension are derived from complex restructuring; more than two or three "opaque" rules; or a number of highly idiosyncratic rules.

The

4 conclusion presents some principles concerning the relationship between intelligibility and the grammar of related languages.

Current issues

on the nature of linguistic change are discussed in the light of evidence from Yanomama. Appendix A consists of a comparative word list of 750 entries divided into several categories for the four Yanomama languages. Appendix B gives comparative information on the geography of the area; history of European contact both from the Amazon and the Orinoco watershed; comments on the main publications on the Yanomama and neighboring tribes; material culture, social organization and world view.

Finally,

a tabulation of Yanomama cultural relations is p,iven for 79 variables. The ciaca for this study was gathered at different times and places (see Map la) and on different types of field work and expeditions between September, 1958 and February, 1961; from March, 1964 to February, 1966, and a few months in 1968 and 1971.

4a

MAP A:

LD~ATICN

DfF

THE

VANDMAMA.

4b

.

"

a

".,;

VENE2U!5L

a

f.~

'0

..,~:tJ

'0 '0 a

10

,.!

..;• "

;

>. 4

3

3

.

II

o

o

aa

a7

aa

a ..

a4

a3

a2

a,

c. C ."".

Lallf,JUagG

YANOMAMA VILLAGES WHERE DATA WAS GATHERED

aOo

!l

representative

Dialects

At

..

4c

...

..

KEY: I

a

"I

,

miles

100

N

Imll

YANOMAM+ YANOMAM mil SAN+MA §3 YANAM

m

MAP I: THE FOUR MAJOR

YANOMAMA

L.ANGUAGES 1970

CHAPTER

I

THE LANGUAGE SITUATION Publications to date mentioning all the various Indian languages spoken in the area enclosed by the Negro, Branco and Orinoco Rivers fail to present, some in one way, some in another, the true total linguistic situation, mainly because they are based on earlier reports, some of which are not always accurate. The purpose of this chapter is to present an up-to-date picture of the indigenous languages of the area mentioned above including maps, tribal movements, number of speakers, denomination, languages and dialects, genetic relationship, cognate density and Yanomama diglossia. 1.1

Tribal movements From historical documents and records

l

it is evident that up to

1800 from the Amazon basin side no European reported actual encounter with the Yanomama Indians.

However, lists of tribal names probably

obtained indirectly show some locational and distributional information through names which could be identified as belonging to Yanomama local groups.

In the middle of the 16th century when many Indian tribes were

still coming out freely to the Negro and Branco main rivers there appeared the name Yanma and the name Guanama which offer the possibility of Yanomama groups.

In the documents of the 18th century one notices

that many Arawak and Carib tribal names had already disappeared.

In 1725

1. A summary of the general history of the Yanomama and neighboring tribes is given in Appendix B.

6

the Carmelite missionaries report the name Guaycas in the Rio Branco. There are good probabilities that they were Yanomama.

Doubt, however, is

cast by the list of Lobo D'Almada in 1787 where he mentions Oaycas up the Amajar{ and Parim~ Rivers who were Carib.

In the same area only

Carib and Arawak had been reported by Xavier de Andrade forty years earlier in 1740.

The possibility that the Oaycas of the Amajar{ and

Parime were Carib is strengthened by Schomburgh who reported Guaicas and Waika at Cuyuni in Guyana and Venezuela who, in spite of the homophony with the name Waika (Yanomama) were Carib. In 1755, 1774 and 1775 Noronha, Sampaio and Ferreira reported a total of thirty-three tribal names in which appears the denomination

,

Guahariba for a group living up the Padauiri, (now Marari) and Dement Rivers.

Uara~a

,

(now Araca), Uarira

This is a term designating backward and

isolated Indian groups with little or no contact with the European.

By

communication to the Orinoco from the Rio Negro the word was adopted by the Spanish as "Guaharibo'i to designate Yanomama groups in the Padamo and Orinoco Rivers, probably without realizing that the word meant "howler monkey".l

There are good possibilities that the Yanomama at war

with the Arawak of the Rio Negro (friends of the Portuguese) were referred to as Guariba.

In this period there was no news of the Yanomama

in the Marauia and Cauabur! Rivers, but in the same list the name Xama for Indian groups located at San Antonio do Castanheiro Novo (1755-75)

1. Otherwise they would have adopted it for the species of monkeys. Instead their name for that monkey in Venezuela is araguato which comes from the Carib language arawata or arowta in some dialects.

7

and at San Bernardo de Cananaus, both on the left bank of the Rio Negro at 140 and 175 leagues, respectively, from the mouth.

The Portuguese

spelling Xama [sama] which means "tapir" in Yanomama is also used as a l group denomination by the Yanomama themselves. Samathari today designates some of the Yanomama groups between the Rio Negro and the Orinoco, as well as the Yanomama between the Uraricuera and Caura headwaters, and possibly some other local groups who happen to live or have lived for sometime near a river or mountain called Xama. Portuguese maps of this period show earlier spellings of river names which could be interpreted in Yanomama.

For example, in the 1778

map locating the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Dutch Guyanas there appear the following main tributaries of the Rio Branco and Rio Negro. Right bank tributaries of the Rio Branco starting from the North: Name given in 1700

Present name

Cayauna or Acajuoude Apiau Ayarani Anaveru

"t MucaJaJ. "t MucaJaJ. • , ApJ.au

Caraterimane Muau Cuareune Mehedi

Catrirr,ani Muau

AJ"aranJ.I

Possible Yanomama version 2 kaya-u kayu-u-te apia-u hayarari araheri-u ana eri-u harateri-u kara-theri-mari mroa-u kuari-u-ri miheti -+ mhete peheti + pei-hete

1. [~amatherip.E] (morphemes underlined) literally "tapir people plural" derived from the word [samathatherillil] or "the people of the place called tapir" .

2. The -u suffix morpheme means "liquid, river". The r in a nasal context sounds like a flapped n, and is often written as an n.

8

Name given in 1700

Present name

Micaua Serreuveni

Possible Yanomama version mi-ka-u sereo-weti

Some of the left bank tributaries: Tacutu Anawa

Tarauau Vananau Vadauau Macusu Macocuau Jauaperi, Jauapiri

Jauaper{

Ararau Uatumau

Ala1aa Uatuma

tarawa-u fanafa-u or hanaha-u fatawa-u or hatawc:-u makos-u makokoa-u Yawa-piri- yawateri yawari arara-u-harata-u watuma-u

Some of the left bank tributaries of the Rio Negro can also be interpreted jn Yanomarna:

,

,

Demeni , Mapurau Uaraca , Padauiri-Padauri ~

Demeni , Mapu1au Toototobi Araca , Padauiri

temiri-temirei mapura-u thoothoto-pei-u wara-ka-u pata-u-iri

The word Januaper{ for the Yanomama of the Uraricaa was made popular by Aguiar in 1930-40 and since then has appeared in some ethnographic literature.

He probably heard it from the ~ku who lived with

the Yanomama and worked for the Boundary Commission as canoe experts.

It

is interesting that my MAku informant, Sifronio, one of the very few living ~ku speakers, insisted that the Yanomama of the Uraricuera were referred to by the ~ku as Januaper{ or Jawaper{l because their ancestors came from that river in the lower Rio Branco.

This may explain why in

the last century and early in this century explorers and travelers

1. Pronounced in Maku and Yanam of the Mucaja{ River as [dzawaper{), in Brazilian [zanuaper{)-[zawapere{), in Yanam of the Uraricaa [cawaperei) and in Yanomn~2 [yanoap-ri] or [yawarei).

9 reported that there were Jawaper{ Indians in the Uraricuera and its tributaries.

Today the name Jawaper{ refers to Indians located in that

same Jawaper! River, and who are also called Atroar{ or Waimiri and are of Carib stock. The Arawak language family covers a wide area from Bolivia and the Matto Grosso in Brazil to the Orinoco River and the Atlantic Coast of the Guianas.

In pre-Colombian times they occupied, except for the Andes, the

northern part of South America including the Caribbean Islands up to the Bahamas.

Then the Caribs, probably coming from the coast of the Guianas,

took from the Arawak the Lesser Antilles while the Europeans conquered the larger islands.

Arawak spread down through Colombia to the upper

reaches of the Amazon, and from there came up east-northeast to the Rio Negro, Rio Branco and east to the Atlantic. The Carib Indians, first met by Spanish discoverers of South America, are also a large linguistic family even in our day, occupying mainly the northern part of South America north of the Amazon River.

It

appears that their general expansion in pre- and post-Colombian times had been from the east to northwest, then at the Orinoco a split occurred in which part of them went south and part north to the Antilles in different waves of migration (see Map

2).

They also spread across the

Guiana Mountain Shield from east to west reaching the Rio Negro and on to Colombia.

The diversity of Carib languages and cultural adaptation may

be accounted for by those different waves of migration, as stated by Wilbert in his possible hypothesis of land Caribs and water Caribs (Wilbert, 1964; Layrisse and Wilbert, 1966).

As seen in Appendix B

·

Car~ · v ENE

Z UE L A

~~~~~(~~~;~.

?_ _

SEA

«(?((I(((.

~W~»'~~

W')""W"V"';i\iill)\%rf~\\\\\~

~\\f~)~i~~;\;~,~)!b\\\\\\(iiii!iiit«(\\i(i% "''P)j- ~\«w ~ ~'

.~I~~\\" ,~

.. ' 0

_.....J\."._.,./

CAR I B B E A N

i..

Ge r

." • . .

IA)' (

.,'~~r

•

eto~.'\\\\l!J «($~~\rt(\\\\ .

P!i(t;i?I~~~~'~(~ 1()J@"i!iMiil )}.

GUYANA

'._. .i/:: "::"':'::' ""':"':'. . ~~. .J ~

Variety I >

~

>

>

l_l ?~-.l~~::-Z~ 1=)I~~{-~P-l_~l!~~:~J~~f_:zJ~)r-} f-.~ 7~?L;~:L}t_}H~~ we

ti

na

na

ha

ya

ku

u

we

we

i

ya . wa

ri

i

[weti naha ya kuu wei ya warii] how (do) I 3.

say

I am asking

Same stage as above but a second variety:

the listener repeats

(echoing back) the last syllable of each bar.

[soriwa in-law

ya ku ya ku yaro heinaha] I say I say a lot that's it

In (1) given above the syllable added for euphonic purposes is the one at the end of the pause group.

This marks the end of the sentence

of the first speaker and the beginning of the second speaker. Varieties (2) and (3) belong to the same stage but their differences are quite noticeable.

In (2) the morpheme division is sacrificed for the

sake of the rhythm

although each bar starts with a morpheme even if it

costs the repetition of a syllable.

See the first bar we-ti-na and the

second starts with na again even if na was at the end of the first bar. The same is true in the third and fourth bars: ku ~ we morphemes being

we-i E

/ku u wei ya/ the syllable we is repeated.

that in the last bar the last note is E and not G. of a pause group.

I

Ithe

Notice

This marks the end

58

In (3) each bar contains a sentence or the equivalent but it always has a meaningless extra syllable consisting of an aspirated vowel, usually the same as the last vowel of the preceding syllable. This aspirated vowel is also repeated by the listener and when it is well executed both the speaker and the listener pronounce this syllable in unison. Another stage could be mentioned which is like (3) but has up to 7 or 8 syllables.

There are a few more varieties of intonation con-

cerning stages (1), (2) or (3) which have been observed but they are styles which are adopted by individuals when they learn H as teenagers. However, they are actually only minor variations of the patterns given above. In general then, H has great regularity of intonation and stress pattern regardless of statement, questions, emphasis, etc., which the L variety has not.

1

r"1 conclusion it can be said that some of the generalizations which have appeared in the literature about diglossia should be reconsidered.

1. For some description of intonation of L in the C and A languages see Albright (1965) and Migliazza and Grimes (1961).

59

Ferguson's definition l should include literate and illiterate societies.

It should be thus modified:

Diglossia is a relatively

stable language situation in which there are two varieties of a primary language each having a specific social function.

One of the varieties

is the first learned primary language and the other a superposed language learned later by formal or informal instruction. As in Ferguson's cases, Yanomama diglossia differs from the situation of standard language with regional dialects in that H is not used as a medium of ordinary conversation; but is used at a specific time, mainly at night and within a specific social setting. Fishman 2argues whether or not all societies have, or have had, a diglossia situation.

Surely it is not limited to literate societies,

nor even to a "non-literate community where a body of oral literature could play the same role as the body of written literature,,3 of Ferguson's examples, because the Yanomama have a body of literature, their mythology, which is oral in nature, but is recounted in L.

It

seems that all societies known so far have, or have had, a diglossia situation. The Yanomama case shows that where a society is untouched by another of a different culture, it maintains a stable diglossia situation. But when, because of expansion and contact with another culture, the society's norms are abandoned and social change takes place, then diglossia

1.

Ferguson, 1959, p. 336.

2.

Fishman, 2£. cit.

3.

Ferguson, 2£. cit.

60

is disrupted until a time of new social stability and language social normalization.

The birth of diglossia in a society is then connected

more to social normalizatiou of linguistic diversities than to a "sizeable body of literature" as Ferguson proposed. In relation to second language acquisition the Yanomama si.tuation suggests the importance of integrative motivation as one of the essential factors if not the only one for language learning success. Indirectly it implies that teaching methods as devised in past programs in language

pedagogy are not essential nor very significant for

learning a second language.

Spolsky (1969) has summarized effectively

the disappointing results of the research into the effectiveness of the various methodologies currently in use. ested in H around puberty.

Yanomama boys start being inter-

Their abilities, which could be predictive

of success in learning in a language aptitude test sense, are different for each individual and quite a few of them, on the basis of these tests, would be rated as potential failures.

As the Yanomama boys have no

formal teacher the only factor left to account for their success in learning H is their attitude toward it.

The attitude they have is of

the type called by LambertI in a number of papers, integrative motivation.

A similar test (indirect questionnaire) to the one described by

Spolsky (1969) was administered orally in 1969 to about eighty Yanomama young men, fifteen of whom were from a village in permanent contact with a Carib group (Makiritare).

Results have shown that all the sixty-five

youths from villages not in contact with the Carib had a very gr.eat

1.

Lambert, et. aI, (1963) as quoted in Spolsky, 1969, pp. 6-7.

61

desire, in fact it was their greatest ideal in life, to be like the men who are fluent in H.

Actually, the Yanomama have a word which indicates

one person as a convincing "speaker" or a master in H speech and argumentation" clever".

[ak mitsao] in A, [ak miya!i:] in Band C, literally "tongueThe aspiration of these Yanomama men, which showed through the

results of the indirect questionnaire, was to be like language H clevertongued speakers.

Results for the other fifteen who live in a community

constantly looked down upon by the Carib

neighbors who ridicule them in

their festivals for their formal talk H, show that only three of them had some desire to be like speakers of H. Finally, from the Yanomama diglossia situation it can be inferred that chanted varieties of social dialects change at a slower pace than a spoken one.

Assuming that the H variety was at some time in the past

a primary language (before the Yanomama local groups spread out geographically) which was chanted for certain social functions and spoken for normal conversation, it can be seen now that the spoken one has developed into at least four languages, A. B, C and D, and ffiore dialect variations within these languages, some of which are not mutually intelligible, while the chanted one maintained a uniformity such that it is understood across languages throughout the Yanomama area without much difficulty.

As there are no historical records of H, it could be argued

that H must have changed throughout the years too, but it needn't change very fast, for the fact remains that H is the SClme for any of the four different L varieties even when L speakers of the A variety have never seen or met with L speakers of the C variety, being separated geographically by hundreds of miles of forested mountains.

62

One of the reasons for this could be the fact that H is chanted in a regular rhythmic pattern with pauses and stresses at equal intervals while the L varieties, such as A compared to D, display a different word stress and different sentence stress.

H has the same sentence

stress whether spoken by A or D speakers. Another reason may be that H has also many conventional simple sentences which are repeated often during a formal dialogue, such as "this I say", "you are a friend", "it is like this", "I live here also", "don't

mention

it ", etc.

Intelligibility of H by all Yanomama men is

increased by tbe fact of not having many complex sentences even if this entails a lot of duplication and repetition. One further note is that the H variety has a number of characteristics which are strikingly similar to those proposed by K. Papago:

1

Hale for

H is chanted or sung; consists of simple sentences nearer to

the underlying representation than any surface sentences in the primary languages; a variety in which telling of the truth is obligatory • . • To explain such a similarity it seems reasonable to assume a universal cultural pattern related to the notion of the chant (music) as a functionally necessary occurrence of cognitive formalization. The phenomenon of linguistic diversity is a complex one which can neither be solved nor understood by linguists alone.

nor sociologists

The study should be approached by taking into account both

social and linguistic structure, analyzing the causal relationship of one over the other or vice versa.

Thus linguistic diversity should be

considered the subject matter of sociolinguistics.

1.

Hale,and Casagrande, 1963.

CHAPTER II TRANSFORMATIONS

2.0

Introduction One of the basic notions of current linguistic theory is that "the

linguist constructs a hypothesis concerning the actual internalized grammar of the speaker hearer."

1

The linguist endeavors to make explicit

a system of rules relating sound to meaning for each sentence in the language.

This is not a goal in itself but, as it has been suggested, the

analysis of a particular language is of interest insofar as it provides some insight into the nature and properties of language iIl general. This chapter presents the application of specific proposals to some aspects of Yanomama grammar.

The theoretical framework assumed here

is in general that proposed in various papers by Lakoff, McCawley and others.

Discussions concerning their theoretical formulation is immater-

ial here and we limit ourselves to quoting part of Lakoff.

2

Generative semantics is an outgrowth of transformational grammar as developed by Harris, Chomsky, Lees, Klima, Postal and others. The generative semantics position was arrived at through an attempt on the part of such linguists as Postal, Fillmore, Ross, McCawley, Bach, R. Lakoff, Perlmutter, myself, and others to apply consistently the methodology of transformational grammar to an ever increasing body of data. We have not all reached the same conclusions, and those presented here are only my own. However, I think it is fair to say that there has developed in recent years a general consensus in this group that semantics plays a central role in syntax. The generative

1.

Chomsky and Halle, 1968, p. 4

2.

Lakoff, 1969, footnote 1.

64

semantice position is, in essence, that syntax and semantics cannot be separated and that in the role of transformations, and of derivational constraints in general, is to relate semantic representations and surface structures. Throughout this chapter the word derivation is used and we speak of deriving a particular sentence from its underlying representation. clarification is needed here.

A

While a "full derivation"l of a sentence,

within our concept of grammar, includes those rules relating the meaning of that sentence to its phonetic representation, it is obvious that the derivations given here are but a part of it, mainly dealing with syntactic aspects.

The topics we have chosen are:

conjoined sentences, noun

phrases and verb phrases; relative clause sentences, adverbia1s, pronouns, number, possessives, causative and inchoative. We should also add that throughout this chapter we speak of synonymy relations but we are aware of the fact that it may be the case that there are no true synonymous sentences.

Quoted from Lakoff who stated, "By a full derivation we will mean a sequence Pl' . • , P of formal objects, most likely trees, such that P1 n characterizes the meaning of the sentence and Pn the phonetic representation of the sentence." A. Borkin, 1971, p.IV (manuscript).

1.

65

Conjoining Conjunctions are usually classified as coordinating and subordinating.

While "and" and "or" are among the coordinating conjunctions,

"when", "after", "then", "while", "because", and "if" are among the subordinating 0nes.

With this classification Yanomama would have coor-

dination only for noun phrases, while sentences and verb phrases would be subordinations. l (1)

v

kori-n Kori-Agent

sarna tapir

s±ra-wei kill-Aspec:!.

oko-n Oko-Agent

ma±p water

koa - ± drink-Aspect (noncompletive)

Kori kills the tapir and Oko drinks the water In sentence (1) there are no connector morphemes.

2

The only indication

that the two sentences are conjoined is the morpheme [-wei], an aspectmarker meaning that the verb kill is unspecified as to tense and that it generally agrees in tense or aspect with the verb of the second sentence. (2)

kori-n

sarna

ha -s±ra -n Asp-kill-Asp

oko-n

ma±p

koa-±

Kori kills the tapir and then Oko drinks water In example (2) there is no connector between the two sentences.

The mor-

pheme [ha- ••. -n] "Aspect", indicates that killing occurs before the drinking.

1. Gleitman (1965), quoting Webster (1960) gives a definition of coordinating conjunction: "A conjunct.ion that marks equal grammatical rank between the words or word groups that it connects." According to this definition of coordinating conjunction Yanomama has no such conjunction between sentences and verb phrases. 2.

All examples are frnm

La~guage

A unless specified otherwise.

66

(3)

kori-n

sama

s~ra-thah

oko-n

ma~p

koa-~

kill-when When Korl kills the tapir Oko drinks the water In (3) also there is no connector between the two sentences, but only the indication that when killing occurs then drinking occurs also.

There

are other morphemes meaning "because", "although", "if", etc., mutually exclusive with the three given above and occurring in the same position, but in the following discussion we will use only [wei] in our examples as it is the most connnon one especially when identical noun phrases are deleted. (4 )

kori-n sarna

v.

•

s~ra-we~

ma~p

kill-Asp

koare -ma drinkl-Asp (completive)

Kori killed the tapir and drank water Notice again that the morpheme [wei] indicates that the verb kill agrees with the verb drink in the completive aspect.

Sentences with [-wei] are

vague and ambiguous in respect to whether the actions expressed by the verbs happened simultaneously, alternating, or one after the other.

The

same occurs in the English rendering of sentence (4) in which the killing of the tapir could have happened before, after or simultaneously with the drinking of the water.

This fact could be an indication that the con-

junction of sentences and of verb phrases is of a different semantic nature than that of noun phrases.

In Yanomama while the former have no

1. We omit here the separation of the morpheme [re] inchoative, [koa-re-ma] drin~-inchoative-completive, because it is not relevant to our discussion

67

connector morpheme, the latter are connected with the

morp~me

[-8] which

can be translated "and" or I'together with". kori-s oko - vs -and -and (with) (with)

(5)

k!:p they two

h!: - !: go-Asp

Kori and Oko go That [-5] can mean together is seen in the following. l (6)a.

hamah let us

h!: -!: - so go-Asp-together

Let us go together

b.

hama h h!:-!:

so; kori - so, -together; -with, v

Let's go together;

Kori,

Oko,

0

so,

kamaca - so, komini-so I -with all-together -with,

ko -

and I, all together.

The morpheme [-so] occurs with verbs in the imperative only when the subject is in the first person plural. For the purpose of this section we assume that the verb aspects of the type presented above are derived from higher predicates in the same way as the time adverbials.

2

Thus for Yanomama there is no overt coor-

dinating conjunction in conjoined sentences and conjoined verb phrases. For conjoined noun phrases we propose that the overt coordinating conjunction [-8] is not present in the underlying representation since it is void of semantic value but introduced by transformation as a feature

1. The morpheme is pause group final. 2.

[~o]

and [0] is deleted in Language A when it is not

See the section on Adverbials, below, p. 105.

68

[+comitative] which is assigned (as shown

b~low

p.79 ) to noun phrases

when two (or more) are immediately dominated by the same noun phrase node. This section attempts to show that a single rule "Coordinate Deletion" as formulated by Koutsoudas (1970) can account only for some types of reduced coordinations in Yanomama and that regrouping although weakly motivated is still needed to account for all of them, and subsequent1y can account for the synonymy relation of the following pairs of sentences. Type I (7)a.

Conjoined sentences and conjoined noun phrases 1 kori Kori

h~-wei

go-Asp

oko ako

- ma go-compl Asp

h~

Kori went and ako went b.

s

kori oko - s k~p h~-ma -and -and they 2 (dual)

Kori and Oko went (8)a.

kori - n -Ag

wa -wei

ako - n

eats-Asp

-Ag

sarna

v

sama

wa ~ eats-non compl Asp

Kori eats the tapir and ako eats the tapir b.

kori -

S

oko -

S

k~p

- n

sama

wa - p~ - ~ ea t -they -Asp (dual)

Kori and ako eat the tapir

1. Examples are from Language A as the other languages behave the same in respect to the claim made in this section. For the sake of simplicity and for the reader who i.s not familiar with Yanomama we will use, when possible, the same morphemes. 2. [k~p] dual (pronoun) is considered a feature of the verb which agrees in person and number with the subject. See sections below "Pronouns" and "Plural" .

69

(9)a.

kori-n

v

sama

kori-n

wa - wei

haca deer

wa-!i:

Kari eats the tapir and Kori eats the deer b.

kori-n

v

v

sarna-s

haca-s

k!i:p

wa-!i:

Kori eats the tapir and the deer

c.

kori-n

v

sarna

wa-wei

oko-n

haca

w::l-:!:

Kori eats the tap ir and Oko eats the deer d.

*kori-n

v

sarna

wa-wei

oko-n

haca

Kori eats the tapir and Oko the deer e.

*kori-n

v

sama

oko-n

haca

wa-wei

Kori eats the tapir, Oko the deer Type II (IO)a.

Conjoined sentences and conjoined verb phrases kori Kori

hika -wei smiles-Asp

kori Kori

h!i:-rna go-Asp

Kari smiled and Kori went b.

kori

hika-wei

h!i:-rna

Kori smiled and went Kori who smiled went (ll)a.

kori-n

sarna s!i:ra-wei tapir kills-Asp

kori-n

ma!i:p water

koare - ma drink-compl Asp

Kari killed the tapir and Kari drank water b.

kori-n

v

sama

s!i:ra-wei

ma~p

koare-rna

Kori killed the tapir and drank water Kori who killed the tapir drank water (12)a.

kori-n

v

sama

si:ra-wei

kori-n

v sarna

ware-ma ea t s --comp I Asp

Kari killed the tapir and Kori ate the tapir

70

kori-n

(12) b.

v

sarna

v.

•

s~ra-we1

ware-rna

Kori killed and ate the tapir Kori who killed the tapir ate it kori-n

c.

v

sama

sira-wei

oko-n

sarna

ware-rna

Kori killed the tapir and Oko ate the tapir d.

*kori-n

v

sama

s~ra-wei

oko-n

ware-rna

Kori killed and Oko ate the tapir Since there are no "respectively" and "each other" constructions l in Yanornarna the above examples cover all types of reduced coordinations to our knowledge.

It should also be noted that there is no formal dif-

ference in Yanomama between relative clauses and conjoined sentences in which an identical subject NP has been deleted, as seen in Type II sentences above. Ross (1967) proposed two main rules to account for reduced coordinations.

The first, "Gapping", deletes identical occurrences of verbs;

2

and the second, "Conjunction Reduction", deletes any identical elements by a series of processes such as node-raising, deletion of lower identical constituents, tree-pruning, Chomsky-adjoining, etc.

Tai (1969) incor-

porated all the above processes including "respectively" and "reciprocal"

An equivalent (but not the same) to the "each other" construction in English is rendered in Yanomama with conjoined noun phrases (like 7b but with a transitive verb) and a verb suffix [-0] reflexive. For example, using just the pronoun "they". The sentence "they hit each other" in Yanornama is v. • s!t - 0 - ~ pik they hit-refl-Asp

1.

which can be either "each other" or "themselves". Also note that Yanornama has no distinction between active and passive constructions. 2.

This could not apply in Yanomama in transitive sentences like (9c).

71

transformations into two rules, Identity Deletion and Regrouping. Koutsoudas (1970) argues that in order to account adequately for reduced coordinations l only one optional rule is needed, namely "Coordinate Deletion" . Given a coordination in which each conjunct includes a constituent which is identical to the corresponding constituent of each other conjunct, all but one of the identical constituents may be deleted, the undeleted constituent being that of the first conjunct if it is a left-branching constituent and that of the last conjunct if it is a right-branching constituent. 2 For some languages, like Yanomama but not English, the above rule must observe the "Immediate Dominance" principle, which explains the ungrammatical sentences (9d) and (12d). An identical constituent in a coordination may be deleted only if it is immediately dominated by a conjunct of the coordination. 3

Indeed, Koutsoudas gives convincing arguments to show that Ross' Gapping and Conjunction Reduction must be collapsed into one rule Coordinate Deletion.

In fact, for Yanomama it will be seen that his rule works for

the deletion of identical constituents.

He has also argued that Reg-

rouping is not needed as no reordering rule need apply after Conjunction Reduction 4 and that evidence from languages like Hungarian provide good arguments against regrouping.

Thus a rule regrouping constituents would

seem weak both in motivation and explanatory value. S

1.

For detailed arguments see Koutsoudas, 1970.

2.

Koutsoudas, 1970, p. 2.

3.

Q£. cit., p. 7.

See also Tai, 1969.

4. See below on pp. 76 ff. supports his claim. 5.

Yet we do not see

for NP Agent extraposition in Yanomama which

See Koutsoudas, 1970, pp. 22-23.

72

at present a more revealing way of accounting for agreement, plurality and NP conjunction in Yanomama, therefore we allow regrouping. Type I sentences show conjoined sentences, agreement and noun phrase conjunction. joined verb phrases.

Type II sentences show conjoined sentences and conAs a first approximation we will start with the

latter. Assuming (as discussed on p. 67 ) that the aspect of the verb has already been assigned by a higher predicate, the underlying representation of sentences (lOa) and (lOb) can be (13)

S2

NP

----

I

............... VP

I

kori

hika [+Asp]

kori

h!i: [+Asp]

Kori

smile

Kori

go

If we do not choose to apply Coordinate Deletion then after segmentalization l and spelling rules we have (lOa). (lO)a.

kori

hika-wei

kori

h!i:nta

Kori smiled and Kori went

1. Segmentalization rules are tr2nsformations which introduce segments such as affixes, pre- and post-positions by duplicating features which represent that segment in the matrix of a noun or a verb segment. These rules determine the superficial order of the new segments. For proposal and detailed discussion of these rules see Postal (1966), Rosenbaum (1967) and Schaarschmidt (1968).

73

Choosing to apply Coordinate Deletion we obtain (14)

NP

I.

k or].

VP

h~

hiLa [ +Asp ] [ +Asp]

which after segmentalization and spelling rules will yield (lOb). (10)

kori

h~-ma

hika-wei

Kori smiled and went In cases like sentence (lOb) one can argue that tree-pruning and regrouping (which is to Chomsky-adjoin the remaining highest constituents of the reduced conjunct onto the corresponding constituent of the unreduced conjunct) applied to P-marker (14) is of no purpose except for rearranging the tree, as the constituents represented by kori hika hi remain in the same order as seen in (15). (15)

S

NP - - - - - -

I

- - - - - - VP

V~ --..........v

I

kori

h1ka [+Asp]

~~

[+Asp]

Sentences (lla) and (lIb) are derived in the same manner as (lOa) and (lOb) shown above, since their identical element is only the subject NP. Sentences (12a) and (12b) exhibit identical subject NPs and identical

74

object NPs.

Obeying the condition l that only the highest identical con-

stituent can be deleted in each application of Coordinate Deletion, the subject NP undergoes identity deletion first and therefore the object NPs are immediately dominated by conjuncts and in accordance with the Immediate Dominance Principle can be deleted.

But it should be noticed that

the object NPs will be immediately dominated by conjuncts only after regrouping has applied. (16)

Sentences (12a) and (12b) can be represented as

______

Sl NP / '

------

------ S

/ 2 ...........

VP

v

I

sarna

Kori

tapir

NP/

kori

s~ra

[-Ag]

VP

NP

~V )

Np/ kori [+Ag]

S0

[+Asp] kill

v

I

sarna

~V I ware

[+Ag]

[-Ag]

[+Asp]

Kori

tapir

eat

The first application of Coordinate Deletion will delete the subject NP of S2 because the identical elements are left-branching.

So

(17)

NP

/

Sl - - - - - -

~

NP kori

v

------

VP

/~

NP

s

/ 2 .......

V

V

I

)

sarna

s~ra

"-

:sarna

ware

We then need tree-pruning and regrouping in order to have the object NP immediately dominated by a conjunct.

1.

This is Tai's hierarchical

cc~dition,

Tai (1969), p. 22.

75

(18)

Sl NP - - - - - -

- - - - - VP

~------ VP NP /~V NP / ' . " " v VP

v

kori

I

)

sarna

s~ra

v

I

I

sama

ware

A second application of Coordinate Deletion will yield (19)

S _- 1 NP - - - -

- - - - - - VP VP

/~

/_....._. NP

I

kori

~arna

[+Ag]

[ -Ag]

VP

I V

V

I

I

s!:r~

ware [+Asp] [ +Asp]

At this point of the derivation regrouping would only rearrange the tree but the surface sequence of the constituents remains the same as seen in (19a) and thus is not needed. (19)a.

______ - S 1 NP

-------- VP NP

~

I kori

sama

VP

V~V I

s~ra

I

ware

After segmentalization and spelling rules (19) will be converted into (12b). One possible reason in favor of not allowing the regrouping of constituents in (17) above is that in Yanomama transitive sentences the

76

subject marked [+Agent] can be extraposed after the verb phrase.

Although

the dominant order for Yanomama is SOV (subject, object, verb) occasionally one hears the following variations of sentence (12b). (12b)i.

sama s~ra-wei tapir kill

ware-ma ate

kori-n Kori

tapir killed and ate, Kori Suppose we can delete the object NP from a P-marker like (17) without regrouping, we get (20)

S o --------, /S1"--..

NP

VP

NP kori [+Ag]

---- S

v

I

~_

sama [-Ag]

12

VP 1

V

V

s~ra

ware [+Asp]

J

[+Asp]

I

For the derivation of (12b) a P-marker like (20) gives the same result as P-marker (19), but we need to block the application of the rule that extraposes the subject NP after VP, otherwise from (20) we would not get (12bi) but instead the ungrammatical sentence (21)

* sama

s~ra

[-Ag]

[+Asp]

kori ware [+Ag] [+Asp]

On the other hand, if we allow regrouping we have (19) and there is no way to block the application of the rule NP-Agent Extraposition and as a result we get (12bi). in two ways.

By allowing regrouping we derive the same sentence

One way is that just shown above and the other is by first

applying NP-Agent Extraposition to each of the conjoined sentences before

77

Coordinate Deletion has applied and instead of (16) we get (22)

So S -----/l~

VP NP

I

/

~

sarna

/2~

------- S

NP

VP

V

NP

I

s~ra

/

I

kori [+Ag]

sarna

"'"

NP V

I

ware

kori [+Ag]

After two applications of Coordinate Deletion we get the same results. (23)

S S ________

NP

/1""

§ama

[-Ag]

0 ______

/~

VP

VP

J s~ra

I I ware

[+Asp]

[+Asp]

v.

S

NP

V

I

kori [+Ag]

If we do not allow regrouping we would have only one derivation for sentence (l2bi). Turning now to type I sentences given on p. 68 , the underlying representation of sentences (7a) and (7b) is (24)

S

o

S --------/1_____

NP

I

kori

VP

~

------ S

NP

I

I

oko

h~

[+Asp]

VP

I

h~

[+Asp]

If we do not choose to apply Coordinate Deletion, then after segmentalization and spelling rules we

~ave

(7a) which is repeated here for convenience.

78

(7a)

kori Kori

h~ - wei oko went (and) Oko

h~-ma

went

Choosing to apply Coordinate Deletion we obtain (25)

S

~

Sl

I

NP

NP

I

S2

/

"'-

I

kori

VP

I

oko

h~

[+Asp] In Yanomama the verb agrees in person and number with the subject and also with the object (in transitive sentences).

In the example previous-

ly discussed (Type II sentences) agreement was not noticeable because in language A the third person singular is not marked overtly.l pheme

[k~p]

The mor-

"dual third person" in sentence (7b) is the overt agreement

of the dual subject with the verb. there are two

[k~p],

At some stages of the derivation

one is the dual marker of the subject and the other

is from the agreement rule.

2

This is better seen in plural nouns or in

transitive sentences with plural subjects.

One example is the case of

topicalization as in (26)

waro p~k man plural prone

p~k

they

h~-

rna

go-Asp

the men, they went (26) is not used too often 3 but it is usually replaced by 1.

In other Yanomama languages it is marked.

See "Pronouns".

2.

For more discussion see below in section on "Plural".

3. We often heard women arriving at our house with the news "the men, they went:: ~eaning that the men of the village had left.

79

(27)

waro

pfk

hf-ma

the men went where verb.

[p~k]

indicates both the plural of man and the agreement of the

We assume that one [pfk] has been deleted and also that nouns in

the underlying representation are predicates 1 in which a pro-verb is de1eted.

This explains why in Yanomama nouns appear always with their assoc-

iated pronouns. (28) (29)

waro man

a he

it is a man

waro

p!i:k they

they are men (Languages A, B)

(29)a.

waro

b.

waro man

pa he

(Languages B, C)

it is a man

(Language A) (usually)

it is a man

(Language A) (15% of the time)

Returning to sentence (7b) we have then to specify agreement and also assign the feature [+Com] (comitative) to both NPs in (25).

It seems to

us that both operations are simplified if the two NPs are both dominated by an NP, but this can only be achieved only by regrouping.

s

(30)

NP NP

I

~---- VP

~---.....

kori

NP

I

oko

hf [+Asp]

1. See Bach (1968) and McCawley (1968) and discussion below in Pronouns and Plurals.

80

Following McCawley (1968) each NP is marked with a referential index, and in case of conjoined noun phrases we "mark the NP node [+plural] if it has a set index and [-plural] otherwise".

We will slightly revise

proposal because Yanomama has "dual" as well as "plural!!.

1

his

When the set

index has two elements we will mark the NP node [-Plu][-Sing], i.e., dual, and eventually spell [k±p].

These features will also be copied onto the

verb, then segmentalized and spelled [k±p].

(30) will then be represen-

ted as

-----------

(31)

S

NP {Xl, X2}

~I'----NPXl

kori

NPX2 [-PIU ] -Sing

oko

VP

~

[-P:u J' -Sl.ng

I

k±p

k±p

h± [+Asp]

One [k±p] will be optionally deleted later. The feature comitative [+Com] is assigned to the NPs of (30) which are both immediately dominated by an NP.

Thus we will have

NP

(32)

NP

I

~ NP

kari [+Com]

I

oko [+Com]

[+Com] after segmentalization will be spelled [so], and the final vowel [0] is deleted for A when it occurs in a position other than pause group final.

1.

The NP node must also be marked with the case feature + or -Agent.

81

Sentences (8c) and (8b) are derived in a similar way to (7a) and (7b), except that for (7b) one should notice that the plural pronoun and the agreement are both expressed.

The derivation of (8b) after Coordinate

Deletion has been applied could be represented as (33)

So

11

S ---------

- - - - - - S2

NP~ ~VP

NP

~~

NP oko [+Ag]

kori [+Ag]

v

I

V

I

sarna [-Ag]

wa [+Asp]

For the same reasons given above regrouping and agreement apply noting that the NP node dominating the conjoined NPs must be marked with the case feature [+Agent]. (34)

The verb agrees also with the object NP.

----- -----S

NP {Xl, X2}

~\---NPXl

NPX2

1 -S~ng

[-P:u

V~

~~

NPX3

V

+Ag kori [+Ag] [+Com]

I

oko k!:pa-n [+Ag] [+Com]

sarna [-Ag]

wa [+Asp]

To the verb segment in (34) segmentalization rules and spelling rules apply giving (35).

82

(35)

g] r+Sin -Ag

[+Asp] +V

I

,...

[~!~ng ] Lang. A

j

it

wa eat

p:i: they dual

:i: non completive

a it

wa eat

p;: they dual

:i: non completive

r/J

Lang. B

[+Asp]

+Ag

[=~~~g1 +Ag

[-PIU 1 -Sing J

To the nouns in (34) a restriction must be applied to the effect that whenever the feature [+Com] is present the case feature is not segmentalized. (36)

SD:

x 1

r[:~g]

L[ +Com]

1

2

SC:

2

-+

2 [+Com]

y

3

Spelling rules will specify [+Com] as [so]. When a multiple subject is more than two, as for example in the sentence (37)

kori-s

oko-s

v

waro-s man -and

p;:ka-n they-Ag

sarna

Kori, ako and the man eat the tapir the P-marker equivalent to (34) is (38).

wa- ~ - he

eat-Asp-they

83

(38)

S VP

X3} NP X2

NiXl

I

kori [+Ag] [+Com]

oko [+Ag] [+Com]

~V

NIX3

[ +PluJ +Ag

NP

Wqro [+Ag] [+Com]

p!i:kC}-n

sama [-Ag]

X4

J

I

I

wa [+Asp] I!!!U

I

I+Singl -Ag Pronoun and aspect segmentalization and spelling rules apply ordering the new segments in relation to the verb matrix. (39)

r+Sing

1

r+V [+Asp]

L-Ag J

""

1

[+Asp]

A

[!!!u]

[!!!uJ

l[~!~ng1j Lang. A

!i: non completive

wa eat

r/J

it

he they

Finally we will derive sentences (9a) and (9b) (see p.69

) with their

underlying structure represented as So

(40) S ---------

/l~ NP

VP

NP kori [ +Ag ] Kori

~~

I sarna v

tapir

------. S

~2~

NP

VP

~

V

NP

I wa

I haca

[ +Asp ]

kori [ +Ag]

eats

Kori

v

deer

V

I

wa [ +Asp ] eats

84

In the same way as the other examples (7a) or (12a) above, if we do not choose to apply Coordinate Deletion we obtain (9a).

Applying Coordinate

Deletion twice and then regrouping we obtain (41) VP

NP - - - - - - - - - - - - V

------~ NPX3

NPX

J

I

2

v

kori

sama

haca

[+Ag]

[-Ag]

[-Ag]

wa [+Asp]

Applying MCCawley's rule for plural and agreement (see above p.80

) and

our conjunction rule we will get (42)

v

kori

sarna

[+Ag]

[ Ag] [+Com]

haca [-Ag] [+Com]

wa [+Asp]

Aspect and pronoun segmentalization, and spelling rules will give figure (43) .

85

[+Sin g] +Ag

(43)

[-PlU -Sing1 [+:~p] -Ag

'"

[+Asp]

[:!!ngj

l-PlU g1 =!!n Language A One of the two occurrences of

k~p

[k~p]

wa

~

will be deleted as in the case of

sentence (7b) above. In this section we have applied "Coordinate Deletion" and when needed, Regrouping, to account for reduced coordinations and their respective synonymous conjoined sentences as given above in Type I and Type II pairs of sentences. Although Regrouping is weakly motivated, at present there is no better way to account for plurality, agreement and noun phrase conjunction.

86

Relativization In this section we propose to account for the following relative clause sentences: (44)

kori Kori

h;:-ma go-Asp

hika-wei smile-Asp

(non-restrictive)

Kori smiling went Kori who smiled went (45)a.

waro man

hika-wei

h;:-ma

(restrictive)

the man who smiled went (45)b.

waro,

hika-wei,

the man, (the man the man, *the man, (46)a.

h;:-ma

(non-restrictive)

and h~ smiled, went smiled and went) smiling, went who smiled, went v

v.

waro-n sarna man -Ag tapir

•

ware-rna eat-Asp

s~ra-we~

kill-Asp

(restric tive)

the man who killed the tapir ate it (46)b.

(47)a.

waro-n,

y

the man, the man, (the man the man,

who killed the tapir, ate it and he killed the tapir, ate it killed and ate the tapir) having killed the tapir, ate it

v sama

v.

sarna

•

ware-rna

waro-n

(non-restrictive)

ware-rna

s~ra-weL,

v sarna

v •

•

s~ra-we~

(restrictive)

ate the tapir, the man who killed the tapir the man who killed the tapir ate it (synonymous with (46a» (47)b.

v

sarna

v.

•

s~ra-we~,

ware-rna,

waro-n

tapir killed, ate, the man the man, who killed the tapir, ate it (synonymous with (46b» (48)

*ware-ma ate

waro-n man

v sarna tapir

v.

•

s~ra-we~

killed

(non-restrictive)

87

(49)a.

waro-n man-Ag

sama tapir

~~ra-wei

ma~p

kill-Asp

water

koare-ma (restrictive) drink-Asp

the man who killed the tapir drank the water (49)b.

waro-n,

s~ra-wei,

sarna

ma~p

koare-ma

(non-restrictlve)

the man, who killed the tapir, drank the water the man, and he killed the tapir, drank water (the man killed the tapir and drank water) the man having killed the tapir drank water (50)a.

ma~p

koare-ma

v

sarna

waro-n

v.

•

s~ra-wel.

(restric tive)

water drank, the man who killed the tapir (synonymous with (49a» (50)b.

sarna

s~ra-wei

ma~p

koare-ma,

waro-n

(non-restrictive)

tapir killed and water drank, the man (synonymous with (49b» (51)

waro-n man-Ag

oko Oko

mio-wei sleep-Asp

v.

s~ra-ma

(non-restrictive)

kill-Asp

the man killed Oko who was sleeping (52)a.

ware man

otamo-wei pihi-i work-Asp think-Asp

(restrictive)

the man who works is thinking the man working is thinking (52)b.

ware

otamo-wei

pihi-i

(non-restrictive)

the man, who is working, is thinking the man, and he is working, is thinking (the man is working and thinking) (52)c.

kori

otamo-wei

pihi-i

(non-restrictive)

Kori, who is working is thinking (Kori is working and thinking) (53)a.

ota~o-wei

ware

pihi-i

(restrictive)

the working man is thinking (53)b.

*otamo-wei

kori

pihi-i

*working Kori is thinking

(non-restrictive)

88

(53)c.

otamo-wei

totihi good

(restrictive)

to work is good working is good It should be clear that the Tense-Aspect [-wei] "unspecified time",

although the most cornmon verb suffix in the relative clause, is not the only suffix which can occur with the verb.

Other aspects, time adverbials

and subordinators can also occur. (54)

waro

hika-nowei completive

hf-pa go-expected future

the man who smiled will go (55)

waro man

hika-erei smile-long ago

hf-f go-non-completive

the man who smiled (long ago) is going (56)

waro

hika-thah -when

hf-ma go-compl.

the man when he smiled he went Non-restrictive relative clause sentences in Yanomarna are either identical or paraphrases of reduced conjoined sentences.

It was pointed out in the

previous section that Yanomama has no overt sentence coordination conjunction but the verb of the first sentence has a suffix [-wei] which is either neutral or, rather, subordinative in respect to time and occurs in the same spot as the Aspect suffix would occur.

All other segments, mutu-

ally exclusive with [-wei] in conjoined sentences are of a subordinate kind.

We assume that in Yanornama conjoined sentences all express some

subordination, except those exhibiting [-wei] which, when events expressed by the verb allow it, can be ambiguous as to subordination.

Thus for

89

Yanomama it seems reasonable to claim that non-restrictive relative clause sentences can be paraphrased or nearly paraphrased with conjoined sentences even if the latter have subordinated clauses.

For example,

sentence (51), because of the ambiguity of [-wei] as to the time, can be understood as the following: (57)

oko Oko

mio-wei sleep-Asp

waro-n man

oko

v.

s~ra-ma

kill-Asp

Oko was asleep and the man killed Oko (58)

oko

mio-thah

waro-n

oko

s:i:ra-ma

When Oko was asleep the man killed Oko Sentences (44) to (53) given above show that in relative clauses when the identical NP has been deleted, no relative pronoun is left in its place, but the verb of the embedded clause shows in its tense or aspect some kind of relation of subordination to the verb of the main clause.

Examples

(52) and (53) show that [-wei] can be interpreted as a participial similar to [-ing] in English, and that the verb acts like an adjective.

This is

supported by the fact that adjectival verbs in Yanomama do not take [-wei] when occurring in relative clauses.

It should also be noticed that the

difference between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses is mainly semantic rather than formal, and the commas are inserted as a distinguishing device, but in Yanomama they have no phonological (pause) value.

Therefore some of the sentences given above are ambiguous. Most of the recent studies in generative transformational grammar

have assumed that a grammar must generate conjoined structures, whether sentences or phrases, independently of relative clauses.

Lakoff (1966)

90

shows that in English non-restrictive clauses are derived from conjoined sentences.

Restrictive clauses however differ from the non-restrictive

type in semantic function 1 and in grammatical properties,2 and therefore should be derived from a different deep structure such as NP

-+

NP S.

Thompson in her 1967 paper has argued that in English all relative clause sentences should be derived from conjunctions.

In 1969 she

revised and extended her claim to noun complements and included almost all embedded sentences as derived from conjoined sentences allowing only a sentential NP in the underlying structure.

While in her 1967 paper she

proposed to consider the definite determiner as anaphoric and related to a previous sentence

in 1969 she concludes that definiteness is a

"feature which involves the manifestation in sentence

of various beliefs

and understandings of the speaker" (p. 14) and "given Karttunen's conditions 3 under which the definite determiner can be chosen, it seems pointless to seek a uniform structural device for representing definiteness in the underlying structures" (pp. 15-16).

Further on, concerning

restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses she states: The difference between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clause sentences are not of the sort that ought to be represented structurally; instead they are differences representing a speaker's decision about how to present to the hearer information present in the Basic Elemental Structure. (p. 88)

1. As an example he gives (Lakoff, 1966, p. 36) "Drug manufacturers who are rich are thieves"; the clause "who are rich" is restricting the class of "drug manufacturers", while "Drug manufacturers, who are rich, are thieves", is non-restrictive asserting that all drug manufacturers are· both rich and thieves.

2. Because only in restrictive clauses may "that" or zero be used as a relative pronoun, for example, "Cats that scratch are nasty", "The cats we saw were nasty". 3.

Karttunei.1, 1969.

91

With this assumption she proceeds to show formally how all relative clauses can be derived from conjoined sentences, thereby accounting for their relationship.

Apart from her assumptions, her derivation of the 1 following two sentences seems reasonable. (59)a. b.

I used a knife which Seymour gave me I used the knife which Seymour gave ffie

She derives the above from the conjoined sentence (59c) which she assumes to be a paraphrase 2 of (59a) and (59b) (59)c.

Seymour gave me a knife and I used it

(60)

You know that S

~-Seymour gave me a knife x

which will give (59)b.

I used the knife which Seymour gave me

by the application of the following rules:

1. The examples are from Thompson (1967) but the derivation is the same as the one given in Thompson (1969). 2. It was pointed out to me by Householder that (59a) might also correspond to "Seymour gave me several knives and I used one of them".

92

a.

opt.

Embed S2 into S3 by copying.

b.

obI.

Delete the

c.

ob1.

Change the ~ in S3 to the because this NP is a repeated occurrence of the one in Sl.

d.

Delete Sl.

orig~Lla1

S2 since it is a repetition of Sl.

On the other hand sentence (59a) where the noun "knife" is marked [-def] is derived from: (61)

_---S_

81

~--~

--

Seymour gave me a knife

-------- 82

~

I used a knife

a.

opt.

Embed Sl into S2 by copying.

b.

opt.

Delete the original Sl.

giving (59)a.

I used a knife which Seymour gave me

If rule (b) is not chosen the a in S2 must be changed to the since it is a repeated occurrence resulting in (59)d.

Seymour gave me a knife and I used the knife that Seymour gave me We cannot accept Thompson's proposal because of the semantic dis-

tinction between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses which seems to be of the same sort as all other ambiguous sentences and as such should be accounted for structurally. Another reason for not having relative clauses originating from an underlying embedded sentence, such as NP + NP S, is the difficulty one

93

encounters in trying to account syntactically for the "synonymy" relation of the following types of restrictive relative clause sentences: (62)

the man who killed the woman liked her

(63)

the man liked the woman he killed

1

If the above sentences were really synonymous then they should not be derived from two

differe~t

underlying structures.

not have a case of synonymy.

However, here we do

In (62) a statement is made that out of a

possible class of men at least the one who killed the woman liked her. While in (63) the emphasis is on the woman and the speaker desires to clarify that at least the woman who was killed by the man was one he liked.

Therefore in (62) the speaker wants to convey the information

about one particular man, and in (63) about one particular woman. seems reasonable that the two sentences would have

It

different underlying

structures with the sentence embedded in the NP which must be specified. The structure of (62) can be represented as: (64)

S

NP .--------------- VP

NP

/~ S

V

~ NP

I~I the man killed liked

the man

I

the woman

the woman The structure of (63) can be represented as:

1. Similar examples to the first two sentences were pointed out to me by Charles Pyle. His examples had Bill and Mary instead of ~ ~ and the woman. With proper names the relative clauses were non-restrictive and therefore there was no problem since they were derived from conjoined sentences.

94

s

(65) NP

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - VP V

~~

NP

~

NP

S

I~

the man

liked the woman the man killed the woman

Following Lakoff (1966) we will account for the ambiguity shown in the above examples by deriving sentenc2S (b) (non-restrictive relative clauses) from a different source than the corresponding (a) (restrictive relative clause) sentences.

Our analysis will also be justified by the

fact that the restrictive relative clause sentence (47a) is synonymous with (46a) and it will be shown that it can only be derived from an underlying structure with an embedded clause underlying (46a).

In the same

manner (47b) is synonymous with (46b) and can only be derived from the structure underlying (46b). In the given examples non-restrictive clauses which simply add information to the subject NP are just next to it and all the other constituents are in the same order as they are in their corresponding con. . d sentences. 1 J01ne

Lakoff shows the need in English for a rule

"Appositive Formation" as an intermediate step in the derivation of non-

1. The reader is referred to Lakoff (1966) for various arguments supporting the claim that non-restrictive relative clauses are derived from conjoined sentences. Also, arguments showing that these conjoined sentences are from conjunctions at the topmost S.

95

restrictive relative clauses.

1

This transformation takes one of the

conjoined sentences and adjoins it to the appropriate NP.

For Yanomama

the apparent need for such a transformation is seen when the object NP is relativized (see sentence (51)) but it is not apparent when the subject NP is relativized as in sentence (46b).

Yet our proposal is that

all relative clause sentences given above and marked non-restrictive must have gone through the "Appositive Formation" rule.

Thus the (b) sentences

above cannot be given the translation in parentheses, that is, that of a conjoined sentence.

The first reason is that it is not desirable for a

grammar to derive non-restrictive relative clauses in different ways, i.e., one with Appositive Formation and another without it.

S~condly,

if

we derive in the same way a sentence like (46b) and then interpret it in two ways, i.e., one as a reduced conjoined sentence and the other as a non-restrictive relative clause sentence, we have not shown why we can understand the two interpretations.

And thirdly, there are evidences

from some Yanomama dialects that before the identical NP has been deleted the information of having been relativized is transferred to the verb (agreement).

This is not seen in the above examples because they are

from Language A2 in which the third person singular pronoun is not overtly marked, but, for example, in Language C sentence (46b) is

1. Rosenbaum (1968) calls this rule "Non-restrictive Clause Transformation" We do not understand this transformation very well but assume that it will have some semantic restrictions and also that the sentence which is adjoined has either the subject or object NP identical to the NP to which it is adjoined.

2. See Chapter I of this dissertation for the Yanomama language situation.

96

(66)

waro-n~

man-Ag

sarna a- ra-sira-wei tapir it-who kill-Asp

a-ware-ma it- eat-Asp

It should be clarified that the third person singular agent pronoun attached to the verb is not expressed 1 in any of the Yanomama languages, but some do express it when it is re1ativized. We proceed then with the derivation of (46b).

When (46b) is under-

stood as a conjoined structure its derivdtion 2 is the following.

Th£

underlying representation of (46b) is

s

(67)

.- 0

-----/ ' 51 "

NP

VP ~~

I

waro [+Ag] man

~

v

------ 5

___ 2--.............

NP

V

~

J

I

sama

v

I

waro sama [+Ag] man tapir

s~ra

[+Asp] kill

tapir

VP ~.~

V

I

ware [+Asp] eat

Applying Coordinate Deletion twice we obtain (68) which is eventually spelled out as (46b).

------.-----5

(68)

51 ~

J

/--.............

waro [+Ag]

VP

52 I

VP

~ sama

s~ra

[+Asp]

I

ware [+Asp]

1. For a discussion on the Agreement rule and the pronouns attached to the verb see below the section on Pronouns. 2.

This was already presented in the previous section on Conjoining.

97

On the other hand when (46b) is understood as a non-restrictive relative clause sentence the "Appositive Formation" rule has applied to (67) giving l an embedded structure like (69) or an adjoined one like (70).

----------s

(69)

NP

~

NP

J

waro [+Ag]

NP

S

~

VP

~

V

vi sama

waro sarna s~ra [+Ag] [+Asp]

\

ware [+Asp]

There has been some question 2 as to where the adjoined S should be attached.

Lakoff (1966) does not show this detail but the use of the

word adjoined may indicate a P-marker not like (69) but rather like the one given by Rosenbaum (1968) which could be represented as (70)

VP

waro [+Ag]

6

.~

v

waro sarna [+Ag]

v.

s~ra

NP

V

sama

ware [+Asp]

v

\

The advantages of a P-rnarker like (70) is that Coordinate Deletion or Pronominalization 3 could apply and yield a surface like (46b).

But as

1. We are not concerned here as to which of the two conjoined sentences is going to be embedded. 2.

Rosenbaum, 1968, p. 261.

3. Like relativization, pronominalization of this kind would delete the identical nouns without leaving an overt pronoun.

98

we discussed on pp. 95-96,

we need here a Relative Clause Transformation

which adds the feature [+Re1] (equivalent to [+Wh] in English) to the noun.

While there are other good reasons (such as the pronominalization

of the NP with an embedded S, etc.) in favor of an adjoined S as in (70) which seems to reflect better the

parenth~tica1

nature of the non-rest-

rictive clause, yet how can the Relative Clause Transformation apply to a configuration like (70)?

Another similar question arises when the S is

adjoined to the object NP, as in the non-restrictive clause sentence (51). (71)

S

NP NP waro [+Ag]

I

oko

~ S

/~

V

I

oko mio ~~ra [ +Asp ] [ +Asp ]

Since the answers to these questions are not yet known,

I assume that

(46b) understood as a non-restrictive relative clause sentence is derived from an underlying structure like (67), by the application of the ru1es 1 Appositive Formation (adjoining S to the NP agent) Relative Transformation (adding [+Re1] to NP agent of the adjoined clause Agreement (Copying onto the verb the features for person, number, case, etc., including [+Re1] Coordinate Deletion (or deletion of the identical NP, which includes the re1ativized Noun deletion)

1.

Only the major rules are mentioned here.

99

Sentence (47b) is synonymous with (46b) and when it is understood as a conjoined structure its derivation differs from (46b) by one optional rule, NP Agent Extraposition which has applied to each of the sentences in (67) giving (7Z)

_ _ _ _S

Glide formation

-+

[-SYl -cns ] -back +high

C, P.16a

/

r

SYl

+high _ _ [+syl] -back

Presto

]

(181)

Back glide formation

cj>

-+

+SY1] [+rnd _ _ [+syl]

(204)

A back glide is formed between a rounded vowel and a non-rounded vowel. A,B,C,D, P.17 +SYl ] +high [ -back

Glide formation (182)

-+

B, P.17a

Glide formation

[+SYl +high1

-+

-back D, P.17b

[-syl] /

[-SYl] -cnt -nas - -

[~+sylstress]

(197)

Glide formation

1

[+SYl +high

-+

[-syl] / [-syl]

J

l+SYl - - +stress

(221)

A, P.18

SYl

-cns -+ [+ens] / /I -high +ent L+ent [h] becomes a velar [x) in word initial position.

r- 1

(182)

234

A, P.19

Nasalization of [r]

[+entJ +ens +ant

B,C, P.19a

Nasalization of [r]

[