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AFLA VI (1999)
Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association
Reduplication, Double Consonants, Double Vowels, and
Issues of Orthography in a Small Polynesian Nation
Joseph Finney
Tuvalu ("valu" means eight) consists of eight major islands with a total population less
than len thousand, in the Samoic-Outlicr group of Polynesia, near where the equator crosses the
dale line. It was formerly the Ellicc Islands. A normal major word or morpheme consists of two
light syllables, C1C2V2. Stress is penultimate. A consonant may be zero.
Within this century, and much earlier, perhaps PPN for some words, the dialects of the
islands of Tuvalu (some more than others) have tended to change in a sequence. (I) partial
reduplication to C1V1C1V1C2V2,. (2) vowel elision to C1C1V1C2V2. The result is a new word
beginning with a double consonant.
An example is the old word pelo, "deceive, speak falsely, tell a lie." A word of this sort
would typically be pepelo in Niutao (where the phonology is conservative) and ppelo in
Nanumanga and most of the other islands. In another Polynesian area (not Tuvalu) a spelling
system was adopted such that pelo would be spelt "belo" and ppelo would be spelt "pelo". That
bears some likeness to the fairly recent change in alphabeticalization of Mandarin Chinese
words, in which the simple "p" as in "Peking" is spelt "b" now ("Beijing") and the aspirated p
(formerly having a diacritical mark) is spell with a simple "p" now.
In Tuvalu as in other lands one function of reduplication in verbs is to show greater
intensity (such as repeated acts or more forceful or prolonged activity). Many examples remain,
though there is a tendency to bleach out to the point that dictionary makers give the same gloss
lor the reduplicated form as lor the older simple form.
Another function of verbal reduplication is to show plurality. In most words in mosl
Polynesian languages, neither nouns nor verbs have morphological marking for number, and so
those with plurality reduplication arc exceptional. It's rarer in nouns than in verbs.
Some interesting complex forms of verbs are formed when (by lexical license) the verb
takes bolh intensity reduplication and plurality reduplication.
Long and double vowels are not the same, and arise dilfercntly. Both long and double
vowels have been written by linguists as double (of which "aa" and "ee" are the commonest in
Polynesia). Double vowels arc pairs of identical vowels in succession, often across a morpheme
boundary, and each vowel has its peak of loudness, separated by a period of less loudness. They
can arise from compounding, from assimilation, from reduplication of a syllable with zero
consonant, or from loss of an intervening consonant. But a long vowel has a single peak.
Once while teaching a selected class of brightcr-thanaverage 11-year-olds in preparation
for the notorious "eleven-plus" examinations, I wrote on the board the name of the mayor.
spelling it as everyone else had spelt it. "Faalo". One boy remarked, "Really, it should be spelled
with three A's: Faaalo." Historically, in terms of the etymology, he was right. And
synchronically, too.
When the colony got its independence, the association of indigenous school teachers
voted to abolish all spelling of double consonants, double vowels, and long vowels, and ordered
all such words to be written with single consonants and single vowels. (They didn't say so, but
they allowed vowel pairs cross-morphemically, so "Faalo", not "Falo"). It was interesting to note
that one bright eleven-year-old was linguistically more sophisticated than the teachers were. But
it has long been observed that when indigenous people develop their own writing, they write
phonemically, EXCEPT that they don't distinguish long from short vowels. That was true of the
ancient Romans. The ancient Greek alphabet distinguished long from short "o" and long from
short "c". but only because the sounds differed in quality.
An unintended experiment showed that Tuvalu's long vowels are only about 1.5 times
the length of short vowels, not tw ice the length.
University of Toronto
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AFLA VI (1999)
Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association
Data:
Redup 1 as intensive or frequentative, or with little change in meaning.
lili "twist, roll" > fifili "braid, weave"
liti "flip, fall, struggle, jump away " (fig: "deny what was previously admitted")
> llfiti > ffiti "spring up. jump up, jerk up"
tela "open (eyelids, arms, leaf)" > fefela > ffela "open (lips, cvclids)"
fio (PPM "whistle") > fifio > ffio
piki "stick (to s.th.), be stiff (as rigor mortis)": > pipiki "stick to"
Redup 2 as intensive or frequentative, or with little change in meaning:
liti "Hip, fall, struggle, jump away" > fitifiti "turn, loss, kick and struggle"
lili "pick, select" > filifili "sort through, pick and choose, discuss, decide"
tola (PPN, Samoan) "spread" > lolafola "announce, describe publicly at length"
foo-liki "(be) small" > foo-likiliki "(be) liny"
lua "measure, weigh" > fuafua "consider, examine, judge"
piu "be noisy" > piupiu "fqv of piu"
falu "stone, firm layer?, heart" > falufatua "(be) stony"
lulu "hair, feather" > fulululu "hair, feather"
kake "climb, escalate" > kakekake "fqv of kakc: climb continuously or repeatedly"
pela "swamp, swampy ground, swamp garden" > pclapcla "swampland"
Commonest reduplication to form plural of a verb is to reduplicate the penultimate mora:
simple: loa > loloa "long, tall"; kai > kakai "cat"
complex: katakata > katakakata; kaukau > kaukakau. likiliki > iikililiki
(Reduplicate the penultimate regardless of the complexity of the form.)
The following would be better recognized with long vowels spelt double:
ita "unwilling" > (pi) Tta; seen more clearly as: ita > iita.
kaitaua "angry" > (pi) kaitaua; seen more clearly as: kaitaua > kaitauua.
A variant of that process also lengthens the vowel in the leftmost syllable.
Redup 2 (full reduplication) for pluralizing:
fetu "fold" > felufelu (pi)
piu "(be) noisy" > piupiu (pi)
Redup 2 as frequentative of Redup 1:
fefetu: "fold up (e.g. paper, clothes)" > fetufetu "fqv. of fefetu"
fofola "stretch out (physically)" > lolafola "announce at length"
kukumi "squeeze" > "fqv" kumikumi "massage"
Double reduplication for both plural and intensive/frequentative:
piu "noisy"; piupiu (pi) piupiu; piupipiu (pi)
fia "wish" > fiafia "be happy" > fiafifia (pi)
fia-fai (literally wish to do, fia = wish, like, fai = do, make)
plural is fiafafai, Redup I of fai. Might have expected the pluralizing Redupl to affect the finite
verb "wish" and not the infinitive "do"?
Surprise to color theorists: in Tuvalu, "felo" means "yellow" on some islands, and "blue" on
other islands. Explanation is given.
Tongan (Churchward) agrees with Tuvalu in pluralizing verbs (and nouns) by penultimate
syllable reduplication with or without left syllable lengthening, and thus shows that those
processes had taken place in Proto-Polynesian.
University of Toronto
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