A Grammar of Miya - UCLA Department of Linguistics

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! 260 A Grammar of Miya pragmatically feasible. Since the phrases cited here contain only a noun (or pronoun), the effect is that the quantifier modifies the noun. See 9:§5.2 for more discussion. 4.4. Ordinal numerals. Formally, noun phrases containing ordinal numeral modifiers are linked genitive constructions (§3.3) with N2 being a cardinal numeral. I found two types of ordinal structures. The first, volunteered in elicitation, is simply N 1 + Linker + Cardinal #. The second type, which I found only in a text, has the same linked structure but the numeral bears prefixed and suffixed a (cf. 8:§5 for adverbial forms derived fron: nouns with -a suffixes and occasionally a- prefixes). Type 1 Type 2 sgm na wutS sgm na vaatlg 'am ta tS'1f 'the first man' 'm-aka tal n-aatsgra 'the second mixing of beer' 'the fifth man' 'the second woman' 5. Constrnctions with BA/MA/SaBA 'one who has ... , does Corresponding to Hausa mai (sg), masu (pi) 'one who has ... , one who does ... ', Miya has the following three words: { ba maSCUline} rna feminine (tone = H, with downstepped H after H) sgba plural Agreement for "animates" is with lexical gender for singulars and plural for plurals; for "inanimates", agreement is always lexical gender, regardless of number (see 8:§2.3.3 for discussion of "animacy"). Ealmal saba form a tonal phrase with their following complement as well as with a preceding coreferential noun (3:§6). Saba has underlying H tone, resulting in L in phrase initial position by INITIAL H LOWERING (3:§3.!) and (downstepped) H elsewhere. Ea and ma are two from a small group of words which have the following tonal characteristics: H in tone phrase initial position and after L but downstepped H after H.l3 Like their Hausa counterparts, these words can themselves be heads of noun phrases, or they can be attributive modifiers to nominal heads, e.g. Hausa masu kuai, Miya si;ba mir 'those who have money'; Hausa mata masu kudi, Miya (avam saba mir 'women who have money'. The Miya words participate in a broader range of constructions than their counterparts in Hausa or other Chadic languages that I am familiar with. For a description of Miya, it is desirable to present in one place all the constructions using these words. In order to facilitate cross-linguistic comparison, I have broken the description down into several partly structural, partly semantic categories. The boundaries between these categories, from the point of view of Miya structure, is sometimes arbitrary. 13See 3:§5 for a list of words with these characteristics. In the case of balma, I transcribed most of my examples with downstepped H following H, but I did transcribe some examples with a H at the same level as preceding H. Some of these could be transcription errors, but I have enough examples of both tone patterns to think that there is probably variation. Examples here are as transcribed in my field notes. I 5.1. BA/MA/saBA + simple noun or noun phrase 10. Noun Phrase Syntax (§5) 261 5.1.1. "Possessor of ... ". With concrete nouns, the head is understood as possessing the object. With nouns expressing a quality, the balmalsaba + quality can be translated as an attributive adjective (see §4.1 for true attributive adjectives): ba k3m 'householder, "sir'" (Hausa mai gida) sgba kam 'householders' bii mir 'one who has money' (m) mamir 'one who has money' (f) soba mir 'ones with money' ba yuw 'madman' (possessor of madness) rna ytiw 'madwoman' soba ytiw 'madmen' ritwun b:i shinefo 'cold wind' (wind possessing coldness) silkwam rna piyato 'sweet honey' (honey possessing sweetness) som b:i kyarati/'am rna kyarati/sgbo sgba kyarati 'tall man/tall woman/tall people' (man/woman/people possessing tallness) som ba kalakg/'am rna kalakg 'worthless man/worthless woman' (man/woman possessing worthlessness) The negated counterpart ('one who does not have .. .') uses a nominalized verbal construction (see §5.1.2) with the verb kwd 'lack': ba kwaa mir (m) 'one who has no money' makwaa mir (f) soba kwaa mIT (pi) I found one quality word, dmbdn 'good(ness), beauty', which adds the adjectival agreement suffixes (§4.!) though it is a noun in a balmalsaba phrase: acarn ba mbanna soram rna mbanya kiltg sgba mbiinniy 'good work' 'good knife' 'good thing(s)' bandzghg ba mbanna bazani rna mbanya wutlg tgVam sgba mbanniy 'handsome youth' 'beautiful girl' 'beautiful girls' 5.1.2. Agentive: 'one who does ' With nouns expressing some activity, including deverba1 nouns (4:§2.3), phrases headed by balmalsaba are understood as one who does the action expressed by the noun. This construction could be considered a type of subject relative (§5.2.!). One may differentiate the agentive phrase from the subject relative by the verb forms in the respective phrases. Agentive phrases use a noun or deverbal noun, whereas subject relatives use a participle (4:§2.1). The two types of phrases are also distinct semantically. Subject relatives are tensed, whereas agentives are generic descriptive phrases. b:i dim-, (PI) sgba dimba kitlirati 'hunter' « dlar 'hunting'; no associated verb) 'fearful person' « dkitlirati 'fear'; no associated verb) • ( ............................... .J. .......... ____________________ .. t
, i 262 bilkir, (pI) sgba kir b:l tlyad'i, (pI) sgba tlyiicfi b:l ndzahiy glti ba tably sg",m rna tlyam A Grammar of Miya 'thief' « akir 'theft'; cf. bra 'to stea!') 'farmer' « atlyatii 'fanning'; cf. tlyatii' 'to farm') 'poor person' « ndzahiy 'poverty'; cf. ndza 'to be poor') 'sharp ax' « tahiy l4 'eating'; cf. Iii 'to eat') 'razor' (lit. 'knife that shaves' < at/yam 'shaving'; cf. tllima 'to shave') 5.1.3. Statives. Stative attributives are expressed by balmalsaba with either a deverbal noun or a participle (4:§2.3, §2.1). Formally, those with participles are subject relatives (§5.2.1), i.e. 'seated man' = 'man who has sat down', while those with deverbal nouns are identical to the "one who does ... " phrases discussed in §5.1.2. In elicitation the structure with the deverbal noun and the one with the participle were sometimes given as equivalent in meaning, e.g. sgm ba tSggo (deverbal noun) = sgm b:l tSgguwso (participle) 'seated man' There is probably some pragmatic difference, e.g. 'man who has sat down' vs. 'man who is seated/sitting' . Stative expressions may consist of intransitive verbs modifying their semantic subject or transitive verbs modifying their semantic object. In either case, the English translation will be a past participle (intr. 'seated man', tr. 'built house') or an adjective implying entry into a state from some other state ('ripe fruit', 'wet gown'). Many verbs in Miya can be used either transitively or intransitively, e.g. 'break', 'get wet/moisten'. For such verbs one cannot be sure whether the stative expression is based on the intransitive or transitive sense ('broken pot' < Ithe pot brokel or I(unspecified subject) broke the pot/). Pragmatically, it makes no difference since the focus is on the state, not the manner of entry into the state. However, there is one construction where the verb must be interpreted as intransitive. This is where the verb has an Intransitive Copy Pronoun (ICP-5:§4.1), which copies person/gender/number features of the subject and, by definition, appears only with intransitive verbs. I have divided the examples into two groups. The "intransitive" examples must be understood as such either because the verb is unambiguously intransitive or because it is a participle with an ICP. Among the "transitive" examples are verbs which, for semantic, pragmatic, or formal reasons, must be understood as transitive as well as verbs which could be understood transitively or intransitively but have no overt evidence of an intransitive reading, in particular because they lack an ICP. Intransitive verbs 'am rna tSggg;::::: 'am rna tsggaza 'seated woman' sgbo sgba tSggo = sgbg sgba tsggatlgn 'seated people' « deverbal noun ats';g3 'sitting' or participle tsaga + Iep; cf. ms fonn, beginning of this §)15 lembi ba tsatSgr 'standing bull' « atsatsJr 'standing'; cf. tsar' 'to stand') 14This is the gerund (4:§2.2) of the verb til 'eat'. For verbs with no special deverbal noun, the gerund serves in its stead. Another example is ndzahiy 'poverty', immediately above. 15These phrases must be derived from the intransitive verb tsaga 'to sit down'. The transitive counterpart, 'to seat', is a derived fonn with a suffix -ay, viz. tsagay (cf. 7:§4.1.1). zuw banuwsg nduwul ba 5uwsg kabo rna niliaza Transitive verbs mMrgu ba pgraw gMruw rna pgraW ghgruwiy sgba pgraW tliwiy M kawaw 19m rna ghanaw kabg rna niliaw zuw ba tsgfaw kabo rna tsotaw jlfg husband nuwana16 ba camakg mine ba loving jlfg naaza M hiyakg husband her ba disliking M camakg naaza ba loving her vgrko ba sar-UWSg boy ba circumcision-his 10. Noun Phrase Syntax (§5) 'ripe sorghum' « na 'get ripe' + ICP) 'broken pot' « Ba 'break' + ICP) 'wet gown' « raBa' 'get wet' + ICP) 'slaughtered ram' « participle paraw) 'slaughtered cow' 'slaughtered cattIe' 'roasted meat' 'built hut' 'wet/soaked gown' (cf. phrase above with Iep) 'dry sorghum' 'dry gown' 'my beloved husband' 'her unloved husband' 'her beloved' 'a boy who is to be circumcised, circumcisable boy' The interpretation of the genitive pronouns in the last two examples presents some problems. Ea camaka naaza could potentially be interpreted as 'her [one who possesses loving]' or 'one who possesses [her loving]'. I have no way, given available data, to test which is correct, or even if it makes any difference. V
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A Grammar of Miya Russell G. Schuh
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Contents Preface, xvii Cross-refere
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x Contents 3.5. Tones of negative m
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xiv Contents 1.3.3. Pronominal vs.
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Cross-Referencing, Abbreviations, a
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Chapter 1 THE MIYA PEOPLE AND LANGU
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74 A Grammar of Miya a goat'), and
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154 A Grammar of Miya PASSAGE 2 ...
Page 101 and 102: 178 A Grammar of Miya Waataw aa Giy
Page 108: 192 A Grammar of Miya Two kin terms
Page 116: 208 ndyaan patg 'all' 'all' A Gramm
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Page 132 and 133: 240 A Grammar of Miya (98) a. ill z
Page 140: i 256 A Grammar of Miya constructio
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Page 170: 316 A Grammar of Miya • raB' zuw
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384 A Grammar af Miya 2.4. Couuterf
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... References Abraham, R. C. 1959.
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414 References n.d.a "Bade verbal s
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