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A Morphological Sketch of Onondaga Elijah Deer 250544956 1. Introduction The Onondaga language, which in the language itself is called onõda’gega’ ‘language from on the hill’, is part of the Iroquoian language family, and specifically the Northern Iroquoian branch. It is a polysenthetic language with a high degree of inflection and the ability to incorporate noun roots into verb stems, and the morphology appears to be somewhere between fusional and agglutinative. Today it is spoken mainly in two places: the Six Nations reserve in Ontario, Canada, and at the Onondaga reserve, near Syracuse, NY. There are no numbers for the American side, but on Six Nations there are roughly 13 or so speakers left at present (Amos Keye, Jr. 2009, personal communication). As noted by Woodbury (2003:1-2), there are dialectal differences between the two Onondaga communities, which include differences in pronunciation and word choice. She notes also, however, that the differences are in fact negligible, as they do not cause any miscomprehension; this paper disregards them. The majority of the information and data examples in this sketch have been taken from Woodbury (2003), and the reader is directed there for a more complete analysis of the language. Data which are not referenced are my own. 2. Word Classes and Structure Onondaga words are grouped into three main categories: particles, nouns, and verbs. Particles are the morphologically simplest word types in the language, and verbs the most complex. The term “verb” also covers other types of predicating roots, including adjectives, which may function as stative-type verbs or regular verbs depending on the adjective. Nouns, depending on whether or Deer 2 not they are deverbal, stand midway between the two in terms of their morphological complexity. If a noun has been formed from a verb, it can actually turn out to be more complex than some verb forms. 2.1 Particles Particles are by definition generally invariable, serve grammatical or pragmatic purposes, and do not belong to the main classes of words of a language (Loos et al. 2004), and in Onondaga they are typically monomorphemic (Woodbury 2003). In Onondaga, the word class of particles include many deictics, locationals, and two emphatic pronouns (the prounouns for ‘I/me’ and ‘you’), as exemplified in (1): (1) a. nẽ:gẽh this ‘this one’ b. í? I ‘I/me’ c. tsha? SUB subordinator (Woodbury 2003) Woodbury also notes that some nouns may be analyzed as particles. She argues for this classification for nouns that are onomatopoeic or imitative in origin, as well as noun forms which are only ever seen in their noun form, and never take any kind of inflection nor incorporate into nouns, for example: (2) a. dahwisdahwís snipe ‘snipe’ (kind of bird) b. o-nhé?d-a? 3SG.NUET.PAT-porcupine-NOUN ‘porcupine’ (Woodbury 2003:51) It should be noted that certain nouns which Woodbury classifies as particles do appear to be divisible by the normal conventions of morpheme divisibility, as has been done for the word for ‘porcupine’ in (2). Whether this morphological divisibility is valid is debatable, as Woodbury notes, in that forms such as this are attested in these kinds of forms only, and having no Deer 3 comparison forms it is impossible to perform any kind of meaningful or informed segmentation (Woodbury 2003:51). 2.2 Content Words Onondaga content words, which includes the word classes of nouns and verbs, are composed of a noun or verb root plus a number of slots into which morphemes are inserted: Table 1: Structure of an Onondaga content word (Modified from Woodbury 2003:24) affix affix root affix affix This follows the general “Iroquoian template” of forming content words, as all of the other major languages of the northern branch form words in this way. The number and kind of slot used depends on whether the word is a noun or a verb. 3. Inflection Inflection is often a complicated process in Onondaga, due to the number of possible morphemes in a verb form, and the fact that it is not a clear-cut process. 3.1 Inflection of particles Particles, by definition, are generally not inflectible, however in Onondaga there are sporadic cases, as in this demonstrative particle from (1) a. (3) nẽgẽh-áh this-DIM ‘this specific one’ (Woodbury 2003:11) 3.2 Inflection of nouns True nouns (i.e., not deverbal) are composed minimally of a noun root, a pronominal prefix and a noun suffix. Enclitics, which tend to give prepositional information, are optional (modified from Woodbury 2003:24): Deer 4 Table 2: Structure of an Onondaga noun pronominal noun root noun suffix (clitic) For nouns, only the pronominal prefix position regularly inflects. Depending on the type of pronoun used in this position, the word may be glossed as simply the noun meaning, or as indicating possession: (4) a. ganúhsa? 3SG.NEUT.ACT-house-NOUN ‘a house’ b. ganuhsá?geh 3SG.NEUT.ACT-house-NOUN-CLIT ‘at/on the house’ c. honúhsa? 3SG.MASC.PAT-house-NOUN ‘his house’ d. gonúhsa? 3SG.FEM.PAT-house-NOUN ‘her house’ (Woodbury 2003) 3.3 Inflection of verbs Verbs have eight morphological positions including the verb root, which in the literature are referred to as “position classes”, and are numbered in Table 3 for convenience: Table 3: Position classes in an Onondaga verb (Modified from Chafe 1996; Rudes 1999, cited in Woodbury 2003:24, Table 8) 1 2 3 4 verb root 6 7 8 3.3.1 Position classes and discussion Position class 1 inflects for “prepronominal” morphemes. These affixes inflect for various meanings, including duality, negation, cislocation and translocation, as well as the so-called modals (which indicate factuality, certainty, or possibility). Some of these affixes, such as Deer 5 negation, are undoubtedly derivational. As will be discussed, however, “inflection” is an unclear term when referring to even regular morphological changes within some of the position classes, including this one. Position class 2, which is undoubtedly an inflectional position, is where pronominal information is indicated with respect to a verb form. It is obligatory in every verb. Pronominals inflect for a number of grammatical categories, including person and number, as well as for syntactic information, including subjectivity and objectivity. Pronominals which indicate syntactic information in this way can be morphologically opaque, in that there is no clear morphological indication of agent or patient, as there is with pronouns which indicate only a singular or plural subject. For example, in the word wa?há:ge? ‘he saw (it)’, the pronominal (in bold) indicates a singular, masculine subject. However, in the pronominal (in bold) in the word wa?huwá:ge? ‘he/she saw him’, there is no clear division between a possible ‘he’ or ‘she’ pronoun and a possible ‘him’ prounoun, based on the known forms for ‘he’, ‘she’, and ‘him’ (which in any case are completely different from each other); the entire meaning of ‘he/she to him’ is included in the single morphological form -huwa-. Position class 3, also arguably an inflectional position, inflects for reflexivity, as well as a category referred to as “semireflexivity”. This position indicates the degree with which the meaning of the verb root interacts with its subject. Position class 4, arguably a derivational position, is where an incorporated noun root is placed. Incorporated nouns are often the object of the verb form. See Woodbury (1975) for a detailed discussion of noun incorporation in Onondaga, and Mithun (2009) for a general description of the process in Mohawk, where she gives additional references. Position class 5 is where the verb root itself is located. Deer 6 Position class 6 is where the “true” derivational morphemes are located. These morphemes mark changes such as causation, dislocation, and reversion. They will be discussed on their own in section 4.2 below. Position class 7 inflects for aspectual information, and is the one other position class along with pronominal information (position 2) which must obligatorily be present on every verb form. Aspectual suffixes inflect for forms referred to as habitual, and stative. Finally, position class 8 includes affixes referred to as “expanded aspect” suffixes, which includes the progressive, as well as forms which allow the habitual and stative aspects of a verb to be projected into the future or past. As mentioned, it is unclear whether some of the morphemes in this class are purely inflectional or purely derivational, or a little of both. Minimally, a verb must contain the root, plus a pronominal prefix and aspectual suffix, (position classes 2 and 7). Not every position in a verb form must be filled in at once, but all positions may be filled in some forms. Chafe (1970:21) suggests more than twenty different “semantic inflections” for Onondaga verbs based on various combinations of the morphemes in each position class. However, as mentioned, it is sometimes difficult to tease apart which affixes and classes are purely inflectional or purely derivational based purely on their behaviour. It might be more approporiate to say that certain affixes or classes are “mostly” inflectional, or “mostly” derivational. For example, let us take another look at position class 1, the prepronominal class. Prepronominal morphemes may change to indicate various directional information. In this case, we will look at the morpheme TRANSLOCATION, which indicates direction away from the speaker or point of reference, and has various morphophonemic forms. The meaning of this Deer 7 morpheme is extremely regular within and across paradigms. For example, a paradigm can be created with the verb form –atgatwahs ‘to be looking’: (5) a. g-at-gátw-ahs 1SG.ACT-SEMIREF-look-HAB ‘I’m looking’ (Woodbury 2003) b. s-at-gátw-ahs 2SG.ACT-SEMIREF-look-HAB ‘you’re looking’ c. h-at-gátw-ahs 3SG.MASC.ACT-SEMIREF-look-HAB ‘he is looking’ And so on. The prepronominal prefix TRANSLOCATIVE may be added to this paradigm, again, with complete regularity in meaning: (6) a. he-g-at-gátw-ahs TRANS-1SG.ACT-SEMIREF-look-HAB ‘I’m looking that way/over there’ b. he-s-at-gátw-ahs TRANS-1SG.ACT-SEMIREF-look-HAB ‘you’re looking that way/over there’ (Woodbury 2003) Additional verbs may be used to show the regularity in meaning change when applying this morpheme: (7) ha?-d-e-ha-d-a?-nha? TRANS-DU-FUT-3SG.MASC.ACT-stand-INCH-ASP ‘he will stand up over there’ However, this particular morpheme brings about a curious change when applied to the verb root -adi- ‘to discard’. (8) a. u-g-á:di-? FACT-1SG.PAT-abandon/discard/throw-ASP ‘I threw it out (in the trash), I abandoned it, I discarded it’ b. h-u-g-á:di-? Deer 8 TRANS-FACT-1SG.PAT-abandon/discard/throw-ASP ‘I threw it over there (e.g., a ball)’ (Woodbury 2003:1401) The curious thing about the translocative morpheme in this case is that it does not bring about the regular change in meaning that it did for the other verb forms. In this case it clearly changes the meaning from ‘abandon or discard’ to ‘throw’. Etymologically, it is clear that the two verb forms are related, and it is a (unfortunate?) fact that the English glosses for the two words both use the word “throw”, as it further clouds the fact that these words, in spite of their superficial similarity, appear to mean completely different things. This phenomenon is actually not unheard of in the other Iroquoian languages, as I have gathered through informal discussions with Cayuga speakers. What, then, are we to make of this position class? At once it seems to inflect some verb forms, and derive others. I have not come across a satisfactory answer to this process so far, and perhaps more work is needed to precisely pin down the status of these morphemes. 4. Derivation Because nouns in Onondaga appear to be relatively morphologically “simple” relative to verbs in the language, there is little to speak of in terms of noun derivation. The one place where nouns do derive is when they are incorporated into verb roots, specifically adjectival roots. Verbal derivation takes place within the position classes discussed. 4.1 Noun derivation and adjectives It was difficult to find information regarding adjectival roots in Onondaga. This is thus my attempt at piecing together what I could find. Deer 9 There is no way in Onondaga to derive from nouns in the way that English derives, say, glorious from glory, as the dominant word type in the language is the verb, and verbal derivations cover most of the parts of speech which in other languages would include adjectives, adverbs, and verbs proper. However, there is one place where nouns can be modified. It’s arguable whether this is nominal derivation or verbal derivation, but I place it here under nominal derivation since the process seems to occur more often as a single process between noun root and adjectival root, and does not often inflect or derive further. Noun roots may often combine with roots which define an aspect of the noun, and which could be called “adjective” roots. For example: (9) 4.2 a. ga-nuhs-es 3SG.NEUT.ACT-house-long ‘a longhouse’ or ‘the house is long’ b. ga-nuhs-a-gæ:dah 3SG.NEUT.ACT-house-STEM.JOINER-light/white ‘a white house’ or ‘the house is white’ Verbal derivation Derivation occurs undoubtedly in position classes 4 and 6 as described in Table 3, and as we saw, it may also occur in other positions as well. Morphemes in position 6 indicate causation, benefit, reversion, instrumentality, and dislocation, which modify the basic meaning of a verb root, and can apply singly to the root itself, or in series to each other to derive further verb forms. For example, in (10), the causative, benefactive and instrumental morphemes apply: (10) a. u-de:-yes-t-a? 3SG.FEM.ACT-SEMIREF-study-CAUS-HAB ‘she learns’ b. u-de:-yes-d-anik 3SG.FEM.ACT-SEMIREF-study-CAUS-BEN.HAB ‘she teaches’ Deer 10 c. u-de:-yes-d-akhw-a? 3SG.FEM.ACT-SEMIREF-study-CAUS-INSTR-HABITUAL ‘a school’ or ‘lessons’ 4.2.1 Noun incorporation A special case of derivation, specifically, noun incorporation, may also occur with verbs. Mithun (2009) describes this process as compounding in her description of the same process in Mohawk. Basically, incorporation is the process by which a noun root is brought into the verb complex. The incorporated root is often the object of the verb incorporating it. The noun roots in (11) is bolded. (11) a. o-?geh-æ? 3SG.NEUT.PAT-dust-NOUN ‘dust’ b. ha-?geh-e-t-a? 3SG.MASC.ACT-dust-fall-CAUS-HAB ‘he dusts’ (Woodbury 2003:998) (Woodbury 2003:56) 5. Cliticization Clitics in Onondaga occur only at the end of a word. Verbs and nouns take identical clitics, though they occur more frequently with nouns. Clitics apply directly to a noun or verb form, without much regard to the morphology of the complex itself. This is in contrast to the rest of the morphology, which has a strict positionality and order. Notice that of the two examples in (12), the first one is morphologically a noun form, and the second is morphologically a verb form. The first example is repeated here from (4) b.: (12) a. ganuhsá?geh 3SG.NEUT.ACT-house-NOUN-CLIT ‘at/on the house’ Deer 11 b. u-de:-yes-d-akhw-a?-geh 3SG.FEM.ACT-SEMIREF-study-CAUS-INSTR-HAB-CLIT ‘to/at school’ References Chafe, Wallace L. 1970. A semantically based sketch of Onondaga. Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics, Memoir 25. Bloomington. Chafe, Wallace L. 1996. Sketch of Seneca, an Iroquoian language. In Handbook of North American Indians Volume 17: Languages, ed. Ives Goddard, 551-579. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Loos, Eugene E., Susan Anderson, Dwight H. Day, Jr., Paul C. Jordan, and J. Douglas Wingate, eds. 2004. Glossary of linguistic terms. http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/ Mithun, Marianne. 2009. Iroquois: Mohawk. In The Oxford handbook of compounding, eds. Rochelle Lieber, and Pavol Stekauer. New York: Oxford University Press. Rudes, Blair A. 1999. Tuscarora-English, English-Tuscarora dictionary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Woodbury, Hanni. 1973. Noun incorporation in Onondaga. Doctoral dissertation. Yale University. Woodbury, Hanni. 2003. Onondaga-English English-Onondaga dictionary. London: University of Toronto Press.