Volume 10 Issue 1 (2012)
DOI:10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.408
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Exuberant Complexity: The Interplay of Morphology, Syntax, and
Prosody
in Central Alaskan Yup’ik
Marianne Mithun
University of California, Santa Barbara
Written varieties of many languages show greater syntactic
complexity than their spoken counterparts. The difference is not surprising:
writers have more time to create elaborate structures than speakers, who must
produce speech in a steady stream. As documentation grows of the effects of
language contact in the Americas, it is becoming ever clearer that exposure to
languages with strong literary traditions has often had a significant impact on
syntactic structure. Complexity is, however, not always due to literacy or
contact with literacy. Here it is shown that though contact can indeed result in
copied markers or replicated categories, it is not a precondition for the
development of complexity.
1. Spoken and Written
Language
A number of works have documented the fact that overall,
written language tends to show greater syntactic complexity than spoken
language, such as Chafe 1985, Biber 1988, Romaine 1992, Newmeyer 2002, Karlsson
2010, and Laury and Ono 2010. (Syntactic complexity is understood here in a
specific sense: the combination of multiple clauses within a single sentence.)
Of course within each medium, different genres can show different degrees and
types of elaboration, so the two are not discrete. Though academic prose is
likely to show greater complexity than a bus stop conversation, for example, an
informal email message might show less complexity than formal oratory. The two
may not differ sharply in their inventories of grammatical structures, but they
may differ in the relative frequencies with which particular structures are
used. Nevertheless, written styles tend to be characterized by greater syntactic
elaboration overall: writers have the luxury of time to compose their messages,
while speakers are under certain pressures to produce a steady stream of speech
in order to hold their audience. It appears that the existence of a
well-developed literary tradition can in turn affect the complexity of the
spoken language. At least some of the elaborated constructions developed by
writers can be routinized over time: recurring patterns of expression can become
conventionalized in syntactic constructions. Some of these eventually find their
way into speech.
At the same time, there is growing documentation of the effects of
European languages with literary traditions on unwritten languages of the
Americas. Contact effects appear not only in the lexicon, but also in grammar,
particularly syntax (Karttunen 1976, Campbell 1987, Mithun 1992, In press a,
Aikhenvald 2002, Heine and Kuteva 2005, 2006, Gutierrez-Morales 2008, and
others). In some instances, European syntactic markers and structures have
replaced native ones, but in others, they have resulted in new constructions
where none existed before. Such innovations do not of course indicate that
complex ideas were not expressed before contact. Spoken language contains
powerful resources for indicating relationships among ideas that written
language lacks, such as pitch, volume, and rhythm. These innovations have simply
added a certain kind of specificity to the grammar.
Such contact effects raise interesting questions concerning the extent
to which the development of elaborate syntactic complexity is triggered by
literacy or contact with a language that has literary traditions. The languages
of the Americas provide a fruitful area for the investigation of such questions
since, with certain notable exceptions, most did not have written traditions of
their own before their speakers came into contact with European colonizers. As
awareness is growing of the potentially powerful role of language contact in
shaping grammar, more is being discovered about the ways in which European
languages are affecting languages of the New World. Here it will be shown that
though contact can indeed result in copied markers and replicated categories, it
is not a precondition for the development of complexity.
2. Replicated Markers
A large number of American languages, particularly those
indigenous to Middle and South America, have copied syntactic markers directly
from Spanish or Portuguese. Examples can be seen in Sierra Popoluca, a
Mixe-Zoquean language indigenous to Mexico. Example (1) is from a
narrative.
Sierra Popoluca: Salomé Gutierrez-Morales, speaker
p.c.
(1a) ‘She said, ‘I have to go to the
river’,
|
pero
i’x je’m
ich
ɨɨ
xi’
moongpa’ ixɨ’ ikaajtsayhoom.
|
|
but she saw her baby sleeping in his hammock.
|
|
|
|
Nɨmpa, “Siga
anakyuspa yɨ’p
chɨɨxi’
|
|
She said, “If I wake this baby up,
|
|
|
|
ejtee puej mojpa weeje’ . . .
|
|
and then he starts crying, . . .’
|
(1b) ‘Then the woman filled her pail
|
poorke seetto’oba’m ichɨɨ’
imaanɨk.
|
|
because she wanted to get back to her baby, her
son.’
|
These markers of complex syntactic constructions obviously
have roots in Spanish: Sierra Popoluca
pwej [pweh] ‘then’
from Spanish
pues,
pero ‘but’ from Spanish
pero,
si-ga ‘if’ from Spanish
si, and
poorke ‘because’ from Spanish
porque.
Speaker Salomé Gutierrez-Morales reports (p.c.) that 50 years
ago, no one in his community knew any Spanish. At present, the entire younger
generation speaks Spanish, most of them exclusively. It is astonishing to
imagine that such transfers of syntactic markers, and perhaps syntactic
complexity, could occur so quickly. As Gutierrez-Morales points out, however
(2008), the story is more interesting. The conditional
siga
‘if’ seen in (1), a reduction of the longer form
si’iga, contains an element
si, apparently from Spanish. But
like many of the other copied markers, this one actually entered the language
via earlier bilingualism with neighboring Nahuatl dialects, whose speakers had
been the ones in contact with Spanish speakers. The element
iga is a
general complementizer in the neighboring Mecayapan Nahuatl, where it continues
a form related to Classical Nahuatl
iica. Modern Mecayapan also contains
a conditional marker
si’iga, similarly often reduced to
siga.
Sierra Popoluca apparently took its Spanish-based
conditional marker, and other complex syntactic constructions, from its
neighbor.
There is no clear evidence that the Spanish markers replaced existing
markers with the same functions in Sierra Popoluca. Still today the
constructions signalled by them compete with unmarked sequences of clauses. If
the Spanish markers did not replace native ones with similar functions, it could
be said that at least some of the syntactic complexity in modern Sierra Popoluca
was initially triggered by contact with Spanish, though the transfer was not
direct.
3. Replicated
Categories
Language contact may have other effects which can be more
difficult to identify, particularly in the absence of a lengthy written record.
Bilingual speakers may seek to replicate a pattern from one of their languages
in the other, using material native to that second language. Such a situation
can be seen in languages of the Iroquoian family indigenous to eastern North
America (Mithun 1992). The languages in this family from which we have
documentation of connected speech all contain coordinating conjunctions. Most of
the forms are not cognate, however.
(2) Iroquoian coordinating conjunctions:
‘and’
|
|
Mohawk
|
tánon’
|
|
|
Oneida
|
okhale’
|
|
|
Onondaga
|
ohni’
|
|
|
Cayuga
|
hni’
|
|
|
Seneca
|
khoh
|
|
|
Wyandot
|
tú:di’
|
|
|
Tuscarora
|
tisnę’
|
|
|
Cherokee
|
ale’, =hno
|
The positions of the conjunctions vary across the languages
as well: they occur between the conjuncts, after all conjuncts, or after the
first word of the second conjunct. There is thus no basis for reconstructing a
coordinate construction for their common ancestor, Proto-Iroquoian, from which
the modern constructions could have developed. The coordinate constructions in
the modern languages also differ in their degrees of grammatical development and
integration into the grammar, as well as in their frequency and obligatoriness.
In Onondaga, for example, coordinate constituents are usually linked by
intonation alone, while in Mohawk, they may be linked just by intonation but are
more often linked overtly. In Cherokee, conjunctions are common in writing but
rare in speech.
In fact the etymological sources of most of the coordinating
conjunctions can still be seen: they are descended from various kinds of
discourse adverbials.
(3) Sources in discourse adverbials
|
|
Mohawk
|
tah nón:we’
|
‘moreover, so now, now then’
|
|
|
Oneida
|
ok+ale’
|
‘just’ + ‘again’
|
|
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Onondaga
|
ohni’
|
‘also’
|
|
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Cayuga
|
hni’
|
‘also’
|
|
|
Seneca
|
khoh
|
‘too’
|
|
|
Wyandot
|
thu + di’
|
‘there’ + ‘also’
|
|
|
Cherokee
|
ale’
|
‘again’
|
Comparison of the modern languages with 19th
century records reveals that the syntactic constructions have begun to solidify
relatively recently, coinciding with the bilingualism of Iroquoian speakers in
English and French.
4. Central Alaskan
Yup’ik
In contrast with Sierra Popoluca and the Iroquoian
languages, languages of the Eskimo-Aleut family seem surprisingly devoid of
coordinating and subordinating conjunctions. Examples here are drawn from
Central Alaskan Yup’ik, spoken in southwestern Alaska. The sentence in (4)
was uttered by someone recounting a dream. It was later translated by the
speaker as ‘When I saw them take you away because you had died, I ate our
duck.’ Despite the syntactic complexity of the English translation, the
Yup’ik original contained no obvious conjunctions or complementizers.
(Punctuation here reflects intonation.)
(4) Yup’ik complex sentence without conjunctions:
George Charles, speaker p.c.
|
ayaulluten,
|
pillragni
|
|
took you away
|
they did
|
|
yaqulegpuk
|
wiinga,
|
nerellruaqa.
|
|
our duck
|
I myself
|
I ate it
|
The relations among these clauses are actually marked
morphologically. Yup’ik verbs consist of a base plus an inflectional
ending. The base consists of a root optionally followed by various suffixes. The
ending consists of a mood suffix plus a pronominal suffix which identifies the
core participants of the clause, one for intransitives and two for
transitives.
(5) Basic Yup’ik verb morphology
|
Nere-llru-a-qa
|
|
eat-PAST-TR.IND-1SG/3SG
|
|
‘I ate it.’
|
ROOT
|
(SUFFIXES)
|
MOOD
|
PRONOMINAL SUFFIX
|
BASE
|
INFLECTION
|
Figure 1: Yup’ik Verb Morphology
The mood suffixes specify whether each clause is independent
or dependent, and add additional information typically encoded in other
languages with syntactic particles. The morphological structure of (4) can be
seen in (6).
(6) Inflectional dependency marking
|
Tangerr-lu-ten,
|
ayaul-lu-ten,
|
pi-llr-agni,
|
|
see-SUB-2SG
|
go-SUB-2SG
|
do-PAST.CONTEMPORATIVE-3DU
|
|
seeing you
|
going away with
you
|
when they two did
|
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tuqu-llru-a-vet
|
|
die-PAST-CONSEQUENTIAL-2SG
|
|
because you died
|
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yaquleg-puk,
|
wiinga,
|
nere-llru-a-qa.
|
|
duck-1DU/SG
|
1ERG
|
eat-PAST-TR.INDICATIVE-1SG/3SG
|
|
our duck
|
I myself
|
I ate it
|
|
‘When I saw them take you away because you had died, I ate our
duck.’
|
The moods are described in further detail in the next
sections.
4.1 Yup’ik Independent
Moods
There are three independent moods, roughly comparable in
function to the mood categories of many other languages: Indicative,
Interrogative, and Optative. The Indicative mood is used for statements and
yes/no questions.
(7) Indicative mood: Elizabeth Ali, speaker p.c.
|
Elitnaurvigmi
|
uitaunga.
|
|
elitnaurvik-mi
|
uita-u-nga
|
|
school-LOC
|
stay-INTR.IND-1SG
|
|
‘I’m at school.’
|
The Interrogative mood is used for content
questions.
(8) Interrogative mood: Elizabeth Ali, speaker p.c.
|
Camek
|
neqengqercit?
|
|
ca-mek
|
neqe-ngqerr-tsi-t
|
|
what-ABL
|
food-have-INTERR-2SG
|
|
‘What do you have to eat?’
|
The Optative is used for tentative statements and
commands.
(9) Optative mood: Elena Charles, speaker p.c.
|
Aaniin-wa
|
qanrutellallrulliki,
|
|
aana-an=wa
|
qanrute-lar-llru-li-ki
|
|
mother-3SG/S.ERG=EMPH
|
tell-HAB-PAST-TR.OPT-3SG/3PL
|
|
‘I guess her mother used to tell her
|
|
ilallrin
|
atritnek.
|
|
ila-ller-in
|
ater-itnek
|
|
relative-former-3SG/PL.ERG
|
name-3PL/PL.ABL
|
|
the names of her deceased relatives.’
|
(10) Optative mood: Elena Charles, speaker p.c.
|
Piqcaaraa.
|
|
pi-qcaar-a-a
|
|
do-keep.trying.best-OPT-2SG
|
|
‘Keep up the good work!’
|
4.2 Yup’ik Dependent
Moods
There are ten dependent moods. The Subordinative has a
variety of uses, the most common of which is to mark a closely associated event
or idea.
(11) Subordinative mood: George Charles, speaker p.c.
|
Utaqallruut-qaa
|
misvigmi
|
|
utaqa-llru-u-t=aqq
|
mit’e-vig-mi
|
|
wait-PAST-INTR.IND-3PL=Q
|
alight-place-LOC.SG
|
|
were they waiting
|
at the airport
|
|
‘Were they waiting at the airport
|
|
wall’u-q’
|
elpet
|
qanercuuterrarluki
|
|
wall’u=qaa
|
elpet
|
qaner-cuut-ute-rrar-lu-ki
|
|
or=Q
|
2SG
|
talk-device-with.another-after-SUB-R/3PL
|
|
or
|
you
|
having first talked with them on the telephone
|
|
taillruut?
|
|
tai-llru-u-t
|
|
come-PAST-INTR.IND-3PL
|
|
they came
|
|
or did they come
after you phoned them?’
|
Participial clauses supply supplementary information, such
as description or explanation. They also often serve functions comparable to
those of relative clauses in other languages.
(12) Participial mood: Elizabeth Ali, speaker p.c.
|
Tuai-ll’
|
taqluni
|
|
tuai=llu
|
taqe-lu-ni
|
|
there=and
|
stop-SUB-3SG
|
|
‘And then he stopped,
|
|
ayarillinilria
|
atsanek
|
ukunek
|
ataucinek,
|
|
ayari-llini-lria
|
atsa-nek
|
uku-nek
|
atauciq-mek
|
|
desire-apparently-PRTC.3SG
|
fruit-ABL.PL
|
this-ABL.PL
|
one-ABL.PL
|
|
apparently desiring
|
fruits
|
these visible
|
ones
|
|
apparently admiring the fruit.’
|
There are three Contemporative moods, which contribute
meanings roughly comparable to ‘when in the past’,
‘while’, and ‘at the same time that’.
(13) Contemporative mood: George Charles, speaker
p.c.
|
Ataka,
|
kegginaqunek
|
pilillrani
|
|
ata-ka
|
kegginaqur-nek
|
pi-li-ller-ani
|
|
my father
|
mask-ABL.PL
|
thing-make-PAST.CNTP-3SG
|
|
my father
|
masks
|
when he made
|
|
‘When my father used to make masks
|
|
tangallruaqa
|
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tanga-llru-a-qa
|
|
look-PAST-TR.IND-1SG/3SG
|
|
I would watch him.’
|
(14) Contemporative mood: Elizabeth Ali, speaker
p.c.
|
Tua-i-ll’
|
ayainanemegeni
|
|
tuai=llu
|
ayag-inaner-megni
|
|
and=too
|
go-CNTP-1DU
|
|
‘And
as we two were travelling,
|
|
pellaangukuk.
|
|
pellaa-nge-u-kuk
|
|
lose.way-begin-INTR.IND-1DU
|
|
we began to wander.’
|
The Precessive mood forms temporal adverbial clauses,
setting off dependent clauses with the meaning ‘before’.
(15) Precessive mood: Elena Charles, speaker p.c.
|
Kaigmi
|
uksurpailegan,
|
|
kiak-mi
|
uksur-paileg-an
|
|
summer-LOC
|
become.winter-PRE-3SG
|
|
‘In the summertime,
before it became winter,
|
|
ayunek
|
pit’lallruuq.
|
|
ayut-nek
|
pite-lar-llru-u-q
|
|
Labrador.tea-ABL.PL
|
hunt-HAB-PAST-INTR.IND-3SG
|
|
she used to pick Labrador tea.’
|
The Concessive forms dependent clauses, adding meanings like
‘although’, ‘even though’, and ‘even if’.
(16) Concessive mood: Elena Charles, speaker p.c.
|
Canrituq
|
aninqevkenaki
|
|
ca-nrite-u-q
|
aninqe-vke-na-ki
|
|
do-not-INTR.IND.3SG
|
conserve-NEG-SUB-R/3PL
|
|
it is not
|
conserving them
|
|
‘They don’t really have to be saved,
|
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aturameng
|
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atur-a-meng
|
|
use-CNSQ-3R.PL
|
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because they’re used
|
|
because they’re being used
|
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nangengrameng
|
cavkenateng.
|
|
nange-ngrar-meng
|
ca-vke-na-teng
|
|
finish-CNCESS-3R.PL
|
do-NEG-SUB-3PL
|
|
even if they run out
|
they’re not doing anything
|
|
even though they may run out it’s OK.’
|
The Contingent mood forms temporal adverbial
‘whenever’ clauses.
(17) Contingent mood: George Charles, speaker p.c.
|
Tua-i-ll’
|
yaqulekit
|
tekitaqameng
|
iciw’
|
|
tuai=llu
|
yaqur-lek-t
|
tekite-aqa-meng
|
iciwa
|
|
then=and
|
wing-one.with-PL
|
arrive-CNTGT-3PL
|
you.know
|
|
and then
|
birds
|
when they arrive
|
you know
|
|
‘And then
when the birds arrived you know,
|
|
kayangussurrluta
|
pilallruukut
|
|
kayangur-ssur-lu-ta
|
pi-la-llru-u-kut
|
|
bird.egg-hunt-SUB-1PL
|
do-HAB-PAST-INTR.IND-1PL
|
|
we egg hunting
|
we used to do
|
|
we used to go collect eggs
|
|
up’nerkarmi,
|
|
up’nerkar-mi
|
|
spring-LOC
|
|
in the spring.’
|
The Consequential mood forms reason adverbial
clauses.
(18) Consequential mood: Elena Charles, speaker p.c.
|
Nutaqapiaraulliniata,
|
|
nutar-qapiar-aur-llini-a-ata
|
|
new-very-continue-apparently-CNSQ-3PL
|
|
‘Because they were very fresh
|
|
soupiluki,
|
kenilaranka.
|
|
soup-i-lu-ki,
|
kenir-lar-a-nka
|
|
soup-make-SUB-R/3PL
|
cook-HAB-TR.IND-1SG/3PL
|
|
making them into soup
|
I cook them
|
|
I would cook them, making soup.’
|
The Conditional mood forms conditional clauses and future
temporal adverbial clauses: ‘when in the future’.
(19) Conditional mood: George Charles, Elena Charles,
speakers p.c.
|
|
GC
|
Ayakuvet,
|
|
|
|
|
ayag-ku-vet
|
|
|
|
|
go-COND-2SG
|
|
|
|
|
‘If you go,
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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uitaqerciquten-qaa
|
amaniʔ
|
|
|
|
uita-qer-ciq-u-ten=qaa
|
ama-ni
|
|
|
|
stay-briefly-FUT-INTR.IND-2SG=Q
|
over.there-LOC
|
|
|
|
will you stay there for awhile?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
EC
|
Nani?
|
|
|
|
|
‘Where?’
|
|
|
|
GC
|
Utreskuvet
|
|
|
|
|
uterte-ku-vet
|
|
|
|
|
return-COND-2SG
|
|
|
|
|
‘When you return,
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bobinkuni-qaa
|
uitaciquten?
|
|
|
|
Bob-inku-ni=qaa
|
uita-ciq-u-ten
|
|
|
|
Bob-group-LOC.PL=A
|
stay-FUT-INTR.IND-2SG
|
|
|
|
will you stay with Bob and his family?’
|
The kinds of complex syntactic structures that are typical
in languages with literary traditions thus have Yup’ik counterparts, but
the Yup’ik constructions are in a sense more tightly integrated into the
grammar, marked by verbal morphology rather than separate conjunctions and
complementizers.
5. Deeper
Morphology
The Eskimo-Aleut languages have advanced still further in
the development of complex grammatical structures. Ideas that are typically
expressed in complex complement constructions in European languages are often
expressed within a single verb. Eskimo-Aleut languages contain verbal suffixes
that correspond to matrix verbs in most other languages, such as Yup’ik
-ni- ‘say, claim that’,
-yuke- ‘think, believe
that,
-sqe- ‘ask to, tell to’,
-testaili
‘prevent oneself or another from’, and ‑uciite-
‘not know whether, how one is’. (They also contain verb roots or
stems with similar meanings, such as Yup’ik
aper-
‘say’,
ukveke- ‘believe’,
ellimer-
‘ask to, tell to’, and
capir- ‘prevent
from’).
Verbs formed with the suffixes can be inflected either as intransitives
or transitives. When they are intransitive, what would be the subjects of the
matrix and the complement clause in other languages are interpreted as
coreferential. When they are transitive, the two participants are different. The
kinds of constructions formed by these matrix-like suffixes can be seen by
comparing the verbs in (20). (Gender is not distinguished in the Yup’ik
pronominal suffixes, but it is used here to aid in the interpretation of
reference.)
Derivational suffix
-ni- ‘say, claim’:
George Charles, speaker p.c.
(20a)
Basic verb
|
|
|
Ayagtuq.
|
|
|
|
ayag-tu-q
|
|
|
|
leave-INTR.IND-3SG
|
|
|
|
‘He’s leaving.’
|
(20b) Intransitive derived verb
|
|
|
Ayagniuq.
|
|
|
|
ayag-ni-u-q
|
|
|
|
leave-say-INTR.IND-3SG
|
|
|
|
‘He
says he (himself) is leaving.’
|
(20c) Transitive derived verb
|
|
|
Ayagnia.
|
|
|
|
ayag-ni-a-a
|
|
|
|
leave-say-TR.IND-3SG/3SG
|
|
|
|
‘He
says she’s leaving.’
|
Both components of such complex verbs can be modified by
other suffixes. The going, the saying, or both can be situated in the past, for
example.
Interaction with tense: George Charles, speaker
p.c.
(21a) Past claim
|
|
|
Agaynillruat.
|
|
|
|
ayag-ni-llru-a-at
|
|
|
|
leave-say-PAST-TR.IND-3PL/3SG
|
|
|
|
‘They said he was leaving.’
|
(21b) Claim about previous going
|
|
|
Ayallruniat.
|
|
|
|
ayag-llru-ni-a-at
|
|
|
|
leave-PAST-say-TR.IND-3PL/3SG
|
|
|
|
‘They say he left.’
|
(21c) Past claim about previous going
|
|
|
Ayallrunillruat.
|
|
|
|
ayag-llru-ni-llru-a-at
|
|
|
|
leave-PAST-say-PAST-TR.IND-3PL/3SG
|
|
|
|
‘They said he had left.’
|
An example of
-sqe- ‘ask, tell to’ is in
(22).
(22) Suffix
-sqe- ‘ask to, tell to’:
Susan Charles, speaker
|
|
|
Ilumun
|
yungcaristam
|
|
|
|
ilumun
|
yungcar-i-ta-m
|
|
|
|
truly
|
person-become-induce-DETR.AGT.NMLZ-ERG
|
|
|
|
truly
|
one who treats medically
|
|
|
|
‘It’s true, the doctor
|
|
|
|
tagesqaaten.
|
|
|
|
tage-sqe-a-aten
|
|
|
|
go.up-request-TR.IND-3SG/2SG
|
|
|
|
he
asked you
to go up
|
|
|
|
has called for you
to go up (to the
hospital).’
|
6. Contact-Induced
Developments?
The Yup’ik derivational and inflectional constructions
seen in the previous two sections show a grammatical integration of ideas at
least as elaborate as those found in European languages with long literary
traditions. Yup’ik has no comparable pre-contact tradition of literacy.
There is no evidence that the complexity seen here developed first in writing.
An obvious question is whether it could have been stimulated by contact with
languages which themselves had such histories, as we saw in Sierra Popoluca and
Iroquoian.
6.1 The Derivational
(“Matrix”) Suffixes
We are fortunate to have a fine resource for investigating
issues of language change in the Eskimo-Aleut family, the
Comparative Eskimo
Dictionary with Aleut Cognates
by Fortescue, Jacobson, and Kaplan (2010).
This work provides cognate sets across the family, which stretches from Siberia
to Greenland, as well as reconstructions for both roots and suffixes. Citing
Fortescue 1985 and Dumond 1987, Fortescue et al. suggest rough estimates of the
time depths involved.
As a reasonable estimate, one could suggest that our reconstructed
PE [Proto-Eskimoan] belongs to a period sometime around two thousand years ago,
whereas hypothetical PE-A [Proto-Eskimo-Aleut] would belong to a period of
around two thousand years earlier than that. (Fortescue, Jacobson, & Kaplan
2010:xi).
Significantly, the derivational suffixes comparable to
matrix verbs in other languages (‘say, claim that’, ‘think,
believe that’, ‘ask, tell to’, ‘prevent from’,
‘not know whether’) can all be reconstructed to at least
Proto-Eskimoan, a time that predates contact with speakers of European languages
by more than a millennium.
The processes by which these derivational constructions developed within
this family are most likely of the same types as those by which certain kinds of
matrix verbs develop into affixes all over the world. In some cases, such as
with ‘think that’, they are somewhat akin to modal or evidential
markers elsewhere, where the matrix verb provides epistemic qualification, and
the central proposition is contained within the original complement clause. In
others, such as ‘prevent from’, they may be more like causatives in
Yup’ik and other languages, where two actions are integrated into a single
event (as described for example in Heine & Kuteva 2002:117-118). The
Yup’ik suffixes are probably descended from erstwhile lexical matrix
verbs. Those matrix verbs that occurred most frequently in certain complement
constructions would have gradually fused with their complements and eroded in
form, until they ultimately became the suffixes we see today.
The Eskimoan “matrix-like” derivational suffixes are so old
that their likely sources no longer persist in the modern languages as roots, so
far as can be seen. We can, however, see the kinds of situations that would have
led to their development. Verbs with meanings like ‘say that’,
‘tell to’, ‘believe that’, etc. are among the most
frequently used matrix verbs in complement constructions. It is common
cross-linguistically for such verbs to show reduced prosodic prominence. With
verbs of saying and thinking, it is the message or thought that is the most
informative, and typically the most salient prosodically (Mithun 2009, In press
b). This prosodic relationship can be seen in modern Yup’ik. Figure 2
shows a pitch trace of the sentence ‘And she said, “Oh
dear.”’ (This sentence, like most other examples here, is from
spontaneous speech.)
Figure 2: ‘And she
said, “Oh
dear.”’
Figure 3 shows a pitch trace of the sentence ‘They
believed that this land is inhabited by spirits.’ Again, the matrix
shows reduced prosodic prominence.
Figure 3: ‘They
believed that this land is
inhabited by spirits.
Such prosodic reduction would be a preliminary step along
the path toward affix status.
Developments have gone a step further in Eskimoan languages. We know
that adjacent morphemes that co-occur especially frequently can come to be
interpreted as single units, and ultimately single morphemes. Eskimo-Aleut
languages show numerous traces of the fusion of an original root and following
suffix to what are now interpreted as single roots. The root
pite-
‘to take game’, for example, can be traced to the root
pi- ‘thing’ followed by the suffix
‑te-
‘obtain, attain’, though it is now conceived of as a single
morpheme. Similar processes have also fused frequently co-occurring adjacent
suffixes. One of the many causative suffixes, for example,
‑narqe-
‘tend to cause’, can be seen to have originated as the sequence
‑
nar- ‘cause’ +
-rqe- ‘time after
time’. Similar processes can be detected with “matrix-like”
suffixes. The suffix
-squma- ‘want one to’ is composed
etymologically of ‑
sqe- ‘ask to, tell to’ +
-uma- ‘be in state of having been’.
6.2 The Inflectional Mood
Suffixes
As seen earlier, the mood suffixes that occur in every
Yup’ik verb not only distinguish dependent from independent clauses, they
also add meanings comparable to those of the complementizers and conjunctions in
other languages that mark dependent clauses. The histories of these Yup’ik
markers also go back to a time well before contact with European
languages.
Some of the mood suffixes are reconstructible to Proto-Eskimoan as mood
(Fortescue, Jacobson, & Kaplan 2010). Nearly all are obviously descended
from derivational suffixes.
Sources of Yup’ik mood dependent markers
(23a)
|
Participial mood
|
-lria
|
|
|
|
Derivational source
|
-lria
|
Nominalizer
|
‘the one who’
|
|
|
|
qavar-
|
‘sleep’
|
|
|
|
qava-lria
|
‘the one sleeping’
|
|
|
|
|
|
(23b)
|
Subordinative mood
|
-lu
|
|
|
|
Derivational source
|
-lu
|
Nominalizer
|
‘place/thing for’
(non-productive)
|
|
|
|
tamu-
|
‘chew once’
|
|
|
|
tam-lu
|
‘chin’
|
|
|
|
|
|
(23c)
|
Past Contemporative mood
|
-ller-
|
‘when in the past’
|
|
|
Derivational source
|
-ller-
|
Past nominalizer
|
|
|
|
|
ayag-
|
‘leave’
|
|
|
|
ayag-lleq
|
‘having left’
|
|
|
|
|
|
(23d)
|
Contemporative mood
|
-ute-
|
‘at the same time as’
|
|
|
Derivational source
|
-ute-
|
‘with another’
|
|
|
|
|
qalarte-
|
‘talk’
|
|
|
|
qalar-ut-aa
|
‘he’s talking to her’
|
|
|
|
|
|
(23e)
|
Contingent mood
|
-aqa-
|
‘whenever’
|
|
|
Derivational source
|
‑aqe-
|
‘usually, habitually, repeatedly’
|
|
|
|
qavar-
|
‘sleep’
|
|
|
|
qavar-aq-uq
|
‘he would sleep’
|
|
|
|
|
|
(23f)
|
Consequential mood
|
-nga-
|
‘because’
|
|
|
Derivational source
|
-nga-
|
‘having Ved’, ‘having been Ved’
|
|
|
|
uterte-
|
‘return’
|
|
|
|
uter-nga-uq
|
‘he has returned’
(to his hometown)
|
Like those seen in the previous section, these developments
exemplify common processes of grammatical change. Cross-linguistically,
dependent clauses are often formed by nominalization. A number of the Eskimoan
mood markers are transparently descended from nominalizers that still persist in
the modern languages, either productively or frozen in modern forms. Immediately
following the mood marker in every verb is a pronominal suffix. Many of the
pronominal suffixes that occur with these moods are transparently descended from
possessive suffixes, as would be expected of nominalized forms. The pronominal
suffixes on Contemporatives are actually locative possessive forms. Thus a
construction meaning ‘when they left’ is descended from a locative
adverbial construction ‘at their leaving’.
7. The Status of the
Sentence
At the foundation of most theories of syntax is the
recognition of the sentence as the most fundamental, universal unit of
structure. But we know that speakers of English and many other languages do not
always speak in the kinds of complete sentences expected of writers. Native
English-speaking students must often be taught what constitutes a sentence in
order to write academic prose. This difference between spontaneous speech and
conventional writing raises the question of whether the sentence itself might be
a unit that arises from writing, one that might not be inherent in languages
without literary traditions or without contact with such languages.
In fact the sentence appears unusually robust in Yup’ik. Every
clause contains overt, obligatory marking of its status as dependent or
independent. The distribution of information over dependent and independent
clauses seen in the examples in section 4 looks much like that in their English
counterparts. Material in square brackets in (24) translates dependent clauses
in the Yup’ik originals.
(24)
|
Formally dependent clauses
|
|
‘Did they come [after you phoned them]?’
|
|
‘He stopped, [apparently admiring the fruit].’
|
|
‘[When my father used to make masks], I would watch him.’
|
|
‘[As we were travelling], we began to wander.’
|
|
‘In the summertime, [before it became winter], she used to pick
Labrador tea.’ ‘[Even though they may run out] it’s
OK.’
|
|
‘[When the birds arrived], we used to go collect eggs in the
spring.’
|
|
‘[Because they were very fresh], I would make soup of out
them.’
|
|
‘[If you go], will you stay there for awhile?’
|
The situation is actually even more interesting than might
first appear, however. Some of the formally dependent clause types, in
particular the Subordinative and the Participial, often appear in separate
sentences on their own (Mithun 2008). A number of cues converge to indicate that
these should indeed be considered separate sentences.
(25) Indications of status as separate sentences
|
i
|
Absence of an identifiable matrix
|
|
ii
|
Prosodic independence
|
|
iii
|
Interactive responses
|
|
iv
|
Translations as independent sentences
|
The phenomenon will be illustrated here with the
Subordinative. The passages in (26) and (27) are from a conversation between a
mother and her son. (The entire conversation was in Yup’ik, but the
context is provided with just free English translations.) As a marker of
syntactic dependency, the Subordinative indicates the close relationship of an
associated event or idea to the matrix clause. The association may be temporal,
such as close succession, or more abstract. The Subordinative marking in the
first clause in Mrs. Charles’ turn, ‘going to the hotel’,
serves this function: going to the hotel was closely associated in time to
staying there for two nights, and the two together comprised what could be
conceived of as a larger event. The Subordinative marking in the second clause
of this same turn, however, does not link that clause to some other matrix
clause. It is formally dependent by virtue of its morphology, but there is no
other independent clause it could be dependent on. The Subordinative marking
here is functioning at a higher level of structure: it indicates that the entire
sentence is closely related to the preceding discourse, a direct answer to her
son’s question.
(26) Subordinative sentence: George Charles, Elena Charles
speakers p.c.
|
GC: ‘And how long did you stay there?’
|
|
EC
|
Tua-i-llu
|
hotel-amun
|
agluta,
|
|
|
tuai=llu
|
hotel-mun
|
age-lu-ta
|
|
|
and.then=also
|
hotel-ALL
|
go.over-SUB-1PL
|
|
|
that is
|
to the hotel
|
we going over
|
|
|
‘We went to the hotel and
|
|
|
|
malgrugnek
|
qavarluta
|
|
|
|
malrug-gnek
|
qavar-lu-ta
|
|
|
|
two-ABL.DU
|
sleep-SUB-1PL
|
|
|
|
two
|
we sleeping
|
|
|
|
stayed there two nights.’
|
|
GC ‘Two.’
|
|
|
|
EC ‘Yes.’
|
|
|
|
GC ‘Mhm.’
|
The prosody of this sentence reflects the two different
levels of structure. The first clause ended with a non-terminal fall in pitch,
with little pitch reset for the following clause. That second clause, by
contrast, ended in a full, terminal fall, characteristic of independent
sentences.
Figure 4: ‘We went to the hotel and stayed there two
nights.’
The response of the son, which came after a pause, indicated
that he understood her utterance as complete. When he later translated the
exchange into English, he rendered her turn as an independent sentence.
The extension of the original syntactic construction to a larger
discourse function is robust in Yup’ik. The conversation continues in
(27). This passage consists solely of formally dependent clauses (apart from a
digression about relatives).
(27) Conversation continues: George Charles, Elena Charles
speakers p.c.
|
EC
|
Taukuk-llu
|
Tommy-m
|
aanin,
|
|
|
tauku-k-llu
|
Tommy-m
|
aana-an
|
|
|
that-DU=too
|
name-ERG
|
mother-3SG/SG.ERG
|
|
|
‘And she and Tommy’s mother
|
|
|
|
kalukaulluta
|
unuaquani.
|
|
|
|
kalukar-ute-lu-ta
|
unuaqu-ani
|
|
|
|
have.feast-BEN-SUB-R/1PL
|
next.day-3SG/SG.ABL
|
|
|
|
making us a feast
|
the next day
|
|
|
|
gave us a feast the next day.
|
|
|
|
Tamalkumta
|
kelegluta
|
quyurrluta.
|
|
|
|
tamalkur-mta
|
keleg-lu-ta
|
quyur-lu-ta
|
|
|
|
all-1PL/3
|
invite-SUB-R/1PL
|
gather-SUB-R/1PL
|
|
|
|
all of us
|
inviting us
|
gathering us
|
|
|
|
They invited all of us, gathered us together.’
|
|
GC: ‘Who was there?’
|
|
|
|
EC: ‘Tommy’s mother and his two younger sisters, and his
stepdad, his father. He is not their natural father. He’s their
stepfather.’
|
|
|
|
GC: ‘Yes.’
|
|
EC
|
Taukut
|
tua-i
|
kenekluta
|
cakneq,
|
|
|
tauku-t
|
tuai
|
keneke-lu-ta
|
cakneq
|
|
|
that.restricted-PL
|
and.then
|
love-SUB-R/1PL
|
much
|
|
|
those
|
that is
|
loving us
|
very much
|
|
|
|
kalukaqikut,
|
|
|
|
kalukar-qe-iikut
|
|
|
|
feast-PRTC-3SG/1PL
|
|
|
|
giving us a feast
|
|
|
|
maurluata.
|
|
|
|
maurlur-ata
|
|
|
|
grandmother-3PL/SG.ERG
|
|
|
|
their grandmother
|
|
|
|
‘Their grandmother and the others, loving us very much, gave us a
feast.’
|
|
EC
|
Neqkiurluni,
|
cakneq
|
assirbluni
|
|
|
neqe-kiur-lu-ni
|
cakneq
|
assir-lu-ni
|
|
|
food-prepare-SUB-3SG
|
very.much
|
be.good-SUB-3SG
|
|
|
she preparing food
|
very much
|
it being good
|
|
|
‘She prepared food, very good food.’
|
|
EC
|
Tua-i-llu
|
utertelluta,
|
|
|
tuai=llu
|
utere-lu-ta
|
|
|
and.then=too
|
return-SUB-1PL
|
|
|
and then
|
we returning
|
|
|
‘And then we returned.’
|
|
|
|
|
GC
|
‘From there did you come here?’
|
Though the entire passage is composed solely of formally
dependent clauses, the prosody shows a clear delineation into sentence-like
groupings, each of which ends in a full, terminal fall (noted in the
transcription with a period). An example of this contour can be seen in the
pitch trace in Figure 5.
Figure 5: ‘And she and Tommy’s mother gave us a
feast the next day.’
The first clause in Figure 6 shows a partial fall, followed
by partial pitch reset, but the sentence as a whole ends in a full terminal
fall.
Figure 6: ‘She prepared food, which was very
good.’
Figure 7 shows the last sentence of that turn, a single,
grammatically dependent clause, with the prosody of a complete
sentence.
Figure 7: ‘And then we returned.’
Again, evidence that these prosodic units were interpreted
as complete by the listener is provided by his backchannel responses
(‘Oh’, ‘Mhm’) at appropriate points, and his further
questions (‘Who was there?’; ‘From there did you come
here?’).
As a whole, the passage in (26) - (27) illustrates nicely this discourse
function of Subordinatives. Much as basic Subordinatives mark syntactic
dependency of clauses within a sentence (as in the sentences repeated in (28)
below), these Subordinatives mark the pragmatic dependency of independent
sentences within discourse (29).
Syntactic relations
(28a)
|
‘[Going to the hotel] we stayed two nights’
|
(28b)
|
‘[Inviting us] they gathered us together’
|
(28c)
|
‘[Loving us so much] they gave us a feast’
|
(28d)
|
‘She prepared food [it being good].’
|
Discourse relations
(29a)
|
‘How long did you stay?’
|
|
‘We went to the hotel and stayed two nights.’
|
(29b)
|
‘She and Tommy’s mother gave us a feast.
|
|
They invited us to get together.
|
|
Loving us very much, their grandmother gave us a feast.
|
|
She prepared food, good food.
|
|
And then we returned.’
|
Returning to the question of the status of the sentence in
this language, we can still say that this unit of structure is indeed robust in
Yup’ik. The formal distinction between dependent and independent clauses
goes back thousands of years, to at least Proto-Eskimo-Aleut, long before
literacy in the language or contact with Europeans. But the system is in a sense
more interesting and perhaps more complex than those well known in European
languages. Yup’ik speakers have extended these complex syntactic
constructions beyond the level of the sentence to the domain of discourse.
Similar structures can be seen throughout the languages in the family,
suggesting that this extension, too, predates contact with European languages.
The syntax-discourse boundary exists, but it can be crossed in diachronic
developments.
8. Conclusion
The Sierra Popoluca, Iroquoian, and Yup’ik material
here indicates that complex syntactic constructions can develop from a variety
of sources and through a variety of mechanisms: some language external, some
language-internal, some a mixture of the two.
Sierra Popoluca provides examples of the replication of forms,
stimulated by contact with a European language. Interestingly, the contact was
not direct: the new syntactic markers were not copied directly from Spanish, but
rather through the intermediary of neighboring Nahuatl dialects, from speakers
who were themselves not generally literate in either Spanish or Nahuatl. The
markers were not all adopted in their original forms: some underwent further
processes of development within Nahuatl, such as the conditional
siga, a
combination of the Spanish
si and the Nahuatl complementizer
iga.
The overall result in Sierra Popoluca has been an increase in the formal marking
of syntactic complexity.
The Iroquoian languages provide examples of replication of a grammatical
category, in this case coordinating conjunction. All of the modern languages
contain coordinating conjunctions, but neither the forms nor the structures they
participate in are cognate. Around the time when bilingualism in English or
French and Iroquoian languages became widespread, Iroquoian speakers began
exploiting native adverbials with meanings such as ‘(and) then’,
‘moreover’, ‘also’, ‘too’, and
‘again’ for the overt marking of syntactic coordination. In some of
the languages such marking was used first to link nominals, and in others it was
used first to link clauses. The markers were gradually extended to new contexts,
so that now, in at least some of the languages, they can serve as general
conjunctions. The languages still differ in the frequency of overt grammatical
specification of the syntactic structure.
In contrast, Central Alaskan Yup’ik provides ample evidence of the
fact that neither a literary tradition nor exposure to a language with a
literary tradition are necessary to the development of grammatical complexity.
Such complexity can come about through regular processes of internally motivated
grammatical development. The Yup’ik complex constructions seen here are in
many ways more advanced, further developed, than their counterparts in European
languages. They are primarily morphological: some derivational and some
inflectional. But they are the kinds of structures that develop out of complex
syntactic constructions. The derivational suffixes with meanings such as
‘say that’, ‘believe that’, ‘not know that’,
etc. are typical of the kinds of morphology that can develop out of erstwhile
lexical matrix verbs. The inflectional mood suffixes, particularly those marking
dependent clauses, are typical of the kinds of morphology that can develop from
syntactic particles such as subordinating conjunctions and complementizers. The
Yup’ik markers have evolved further, in several ways. They have fused
formally with the verbs over which they have scope. They have been subject to
processes of regularization typical of much grammatical change, so that they now
form inflectional paradigms. And they have been extended beyond their original
syntactic functions, still robustly operative in the language, to relating
independent sentences in discourse.
In these uses, the complexity has
been extended to a higher level of structure.
External circumstances often stimulate the development of grammatical
constructions, but it is clear that syntactic complexity can still develop in
the absence of either literacy or contact with written language.
Abbreviations
ABL = ABLATIVE, ALL = ALLATIVE, BEN = BENEFACTIVE
APPLICATIVE, CNCSS = CONCESSIVE, CNSQ = CONSEQUENTIAL, CNTG = CONTINGENT, CNTP =
CONTEMPORATIVE, COND = CONDITIONAL, DETR.AGT.NMLZ =
DETRANSITIVE.AGENTIVE.NOMINALIZER, DU = DUAL, EMPH = EMPHATIC, ERG = ERGATIVE,
FUT = FUTURE, HAB = HABITUAL, IND = INDICATIVE, INTERR = INTERROGATIVE, INTR =
INTRANSITIVE, LOC = LOCATIVE, NEG = NEGATIVE, NMLZ = NOMINALIZER, PL = PLURAL,
PRE = PRECESSIVE, PRTC = PARTICIPIAL, Q = QUESTION PARTICLE, R = COREFERENTIAL,
SG = SINGULAR, SUB = SUBORDINATIVE, TR = TRANSITIVE, 1 = FIRST PERSON, 2 =
SECOND PERSON, 3 = THIRD PERSON.
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Author’s Contact Information:
Marianne Mithun
Department of Linguistics
University of California UCSB
Santa Barbara, California 93106
USA
mmithun@linguistics.ucsb.edu
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