A Grammar of Miya - UCLA Department of Linguistics

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A Grammar of Miya
• they do not use a participle form (4:§2.1) ending in -a in nominal TAM's
• they use the direct object clitics (S:§4.2) rather than the genitive clitics, which would
be used for direct objects in nominal TAM' s13
Examples in nominal TAM's showing lack of participial -a and use of direct object clitics
rather than genitive clitics:
Verbal TAM
rngn plyee vgrkg
mgn piyee-ya say
mgn piyee-tla say
Examples from texts:
'I lay the child down'
'I lay him down'
'I lay her down'
Nominal TAM
ll1Gn aa pfyee vgrkg
man s-aa plyee-ya-y
man s-aa plyee-tla-y
(FIp) wiitlg bazam 'gnaa wutlg tgVam jly buway zuw ka
'it's the young men and young women who bring the sorghum'
'1 will lay the child down'
'1 will lay him down'
'I will lay her down'
(Sjn) do bly gh,may-ya dgm 'she lifted him up into a tree'
(cf. do bat-uwsa 'she washed him' , with genitive clitic)
(Sjn) do bawee-tla koowaa do nayd-za
'he would take her out and everyone would see her'
(baway 'take out' + DO clitic -tla vs. nay 'see' with participle naya + genitive
clitic -za)
4.1.2. Verbs of "neutral" transitivity. Most verbs in Miya are neutral as to
transitivity, i.e. depending on their overt or contextually understood argument structure,
they will be interpreted as transitive or intransitive. Following are some examples of verbs
which are neutral in this sense. Where the transitive and intransitive meanings would have
different English translations, the transitive meaning is on the left side of the slash. As
above, small capitals indicate tone class for completeness of data, though tone class plays
no role in intransitive vs. transitive use:
bgsg L 'w.shlbathe' kgmay HH 'spoillbe spoiled'
bgzay HH 'finishlbe finished' kaw L 'fry (in oil)'
5a L 'break, shatter' mba L 'finishlbe finished'
5a1 HH 'break (of rope, etc.)' mbal HL 'unhaftlbe unhafled'
5iy HL 'pierce/becorne pierced' mbidla HH 'melt'
5uwyg HL 'break (of stick, etc.), mbyar HL 'tear, rip'
dadgm HH 'repairlbe repaired' puwa L 'hide>14
l3As noted in 4:§1.2.3.7, when Miya borrows Hausa verbs ending in -ee, it interprets this final vowel as
I-ayl (lay! generally -7 (ee] in preconsonantal position in Miya-2:§2.2.3). These borrowed Hausa verbs
show the same morphological characteristics as derived -ay verbs in Miya. Thus, in the following sentence
in the Focused Subject Imperfective (S:§2.2.4), a nominal TAM, the direct object clitic -tla, rather than the
genitive clitic is the object of the verb lraarashay/ < Hausa rarrasaa (--7 rarrashee before pronoun object):
ndka Jifo kd jiy raarashee-tla 'it was that husband who would persuade her'.
14-rhe verb puwa 'hide' has a transitized counterpart, puway, for at least some speakers (see above). Vaziya
used only the underived form in both transitive and intransitive meanings.
7. Verbal Extensions and Verb Derivation (§4J
aom HH 'dolbe possible' raW HH 'moisten/get wet'
HH 'cook (in pot)' tsiy HL 'burn'
aiy
aiy HL 'followlbe followable' va L 'pour/spill'
gola L 'roast (before fire)' wan L 'filllbe full'
ghgdza HH 'turn' WUSG L 'pinch off/chip'
Examples (most of the intransitives have an ICP-see §4.2 below):
mon va stiw milrd-ay
ably va-ta say
mon 5aa stiw nduwul-ay
nduwul 5a-ta say
mgn woo say
nduwul wan say
a mbyar-an suw kabg tuwun-ay
kilbo tuwun mbyar-tlil say
mgn basa SllW kaba tuwun-ay
mgn basa-wan suw
man aa dlya nakgn gilrhg
nakon gilrhg gaa aiy-tiwso
'I poured out some millet'
'the water spilled'
'I broke the pot'
'the pot broke'
'I filled (it)'
'the pot is full'
'he tore my gown on me'
'my gown tore'
'I washed my gown'
'I bathed'
'I will follow this road'
'this road is followablelusable'
4.2. Intransitive Copy Pronouns (ICP). Most intransitive verbs, including
"neutral" verbs used intransitively (see examples immediately above), require an
Intransitive Copy Pronoun (ICP), i.e. a pronominal clitic attached to the verb which copies
the person, gender, and number features of the subject. In this section, I discuss the ways
the ICP is used. See S:§4.1 for a complete paradigm.
Verbs that take the ICP require its presence in all environments, including all TAM's,
affirmative or negative, statement or question (ICP's are italicized):
Perfective: na za-ka say
Imperative: tsgriy-ka
. Imperfective: njg s-aa basa-za-y
Negative TAM's: a 'gsg-ta ma-w
fa ta bawa-fii-w
ta rna tSgg-uwszi-w
Questions: a dzar-tlan ghaja?
waa dg baw-uws-a?
'you (pI) entered'
'stop!' (pI)
'she will bathe'
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'he is not sated' (Pf negative)
'don't go out!' (ms Imp negative)
'he will not sit down' (Ipf negative)
'when did they disperse?' (Pf yeslno Q)
'who went out?' (FPf word Q)
The ICP would thus appear to be a simple mark of intransitivity, adding no additional
meaning to the verb other than overtly showing the role of the grammatical subject.'S
ISAt least one other Chadic language, Kanakuru, has obligatory ICP's with intransitive verbs (Newman
1974). However, in most Chadic languages, presence of the ICP is not syntactically conditioned, though
the meaning that it adds to the sentence is not always obvious. In those languages where the ICP has
semantic/pragmatic functions, it is precluded from some environments, notably negative sentences. See