The Folk Biology of the Tobelo People - Smithsonian Institution ...

NUMBER 34 25
its inflectional class; thus the entry for the verb "find" must
include a statement that it is a (transitive) verb. There is also a
noun "find" ('a tiling which has been found'), but unless aU
verbs of die same class as "find" form nouns in a simtiar way,
tiiis noun must have a separate entry along with information
about its own inflectional class. Thus unless the members of
one inflectional class are predictable from tiiose of another
(e.g., verbs and participials in English), then these are best
considered separate lexemes.
Each item occurring in the domain of Tobelo BIOTIC
FORMS is a noun; but we may illustrate a practical problem
with determining whetiier sets of members of one inflectional
class (in this case, a set of Tobelo verbs) are predictable from
members of another (Tobelo nouns in the FLORAL FORM
domain). Tobelo nouns and verbs can easdy be distinguished
tiiroughout the language (see 3.2.1 below). Yet Tobelo
informants do vary as to whetiier they consider it acceptable to
form verbs from some nouns for FLORAL FORMS. The
details of tiiis case iUustrate one method of interpreting
informant "variability" or apparent "disagreement." The question
in this example is: Can aU nouns for (i.e., names of)
FLORAL FORMS become verbs having the meaning 'to tiirow
(that FLORAL FORM, or a part of that FLORAL FORM)'?
Some informants maintain that it is possible to form from
almost any plant name 'X' a verb meaning 'to throw X (or a
part of X) at someone,' on the model of o guawe 'mango'
to-ni-guawe (T + 'you' + 'mango') 'I throw mangoes at you';
o lukama 'lansat fruit (or tree)' mo-hi-lukama ('she'+ *me'+
'lansat fruit') 'she throws lansat fruits at me,' etc. This
construction is normaUy used only for cultivated fruits, yet
names for vines, smaU herbs, trees, aroid plants, etc., were also
accepted as possible verb roots by one informant at Loleba
village, though he realized tiiey were rarely thrown, and in
some cases virtually impossible to tiirow. "If we happen to
reach the point where we tiirow them," he said, "we could say
it tiiat way." Otiier informants disagreed, tiiough the boundary
between what definitely could and could not be dirown was not
clear.
In fact, though, no informant could accept the construction as
meaning 'to throw X at someone' for some plant terms which,
used as transitive verb roots, have other specific meanings,
such as tiba (noun) 'Schizostachyum lima (Blanco) Merr.' (a
bamboo); -tiba (verb) 'to cook inside tiba bamboo'; biawa
(noun) 'Donax sp.,' -biawa (verb) 'to spear (sometiiing) with
die sharpened stem of a biawa plant' etc. For this reason, it
seems impossible to treat the transformation of plant names
into roots of verbs meaning 'to throw (that plant)' as a general
rule throughout the full range of plant terms, especially since
die construction's use for cultivated fruits seems so central to
its meaning, and since die transformation does not occur for
most nouns other tiian plant names. More likely, we may
consider the terms for 'banana,' 'mango,' 'citrus fruit' etc., to
have the same forms as the roots of verbs (which are different
lexemes) meaning 'to throw (the fruits of those plants).' For
some Tobelo speakers these may be the only nouns that form
verbs in this way. Some Tobelo, though, are simply more
wtiling than otiiers to accept use of this transformation to
spontaneously coin new lexemes having other plant-names as
their roots. In the same way, some speakers of English may find
it more acceptable tiian others to form verbs from "container"
nouns like "tube" or "jar" on the analogy of verbs like "(to)
can," "(to) bag" or "(to) bottle."
The other ways in which noun lexemes in the domain of
Tobelo FLORAL FORMS may have the same form as verbs
(the only other inflectional class which nouns might become)
are clearly very specific to particular plants or smaU sets of
plants, and clearly best handled as separate lexemes. An
example already mentioned (2.2) would be die reduplication of
some animal and plant names to form die root of die passive
verb meaning 'to have die disease with die characteristics of
(that animal or plant).'
3.1.2 The Lexemic Status of Homonymous and Polysemous
Terms
Any particular form (even one that is monomorphemic) may
also be the form of a different lexeme (e.g., "bank of a river"
and "die bank on Main Street"). It is essential to separate out
die different homonymous or polysemous "meanings," which
me forms in a semantic domain may have, tiiough examples
below wdl Ulustrate that (fortunately!) it is usually not
necessary to decide how many lexemes can be labeled by a
particular form occurring in a domain to adequately describe
that domain.
Two lexemes may be said to be homonymous if aU their
forms are the same, but they have unrelated meanings. Hunn
(1977:36), in describing Tzeltal folk zoology, instead considers
different etymologies to be die determining factor. But die
etymology of words has little to do witii whether or not they
should be considered homonyms in a structural description of
the language as it is currendy spoken. In some cases (e.g., die
two senses of "found" in die example above) homonymy is
historically a result of different etymologies, but in otiier cases
(e.g., a part in a play vs. the part in one's hair; tack, 'insert a
smaU nati into, and tack, 'sad in a zig-zag fashion') die two
words derived historicaUy from die same root must neverdieless
be treated as different lexemes in a description of modern
English. In any case, in languages such as Tobelo (or Tzeltal)
without a long written historical tradition or extensive
comparative data, it is at present difficult to recognize or prove
etymological relationships.
Polysemy, on the other hand, refers to related meanings of
die same lexeme, as in die example of container words "glass,"
"bowl," etc., which also mean 'glassful (of some substance),'
'bowlful,' etc. (as in the sentence "I already drank tiiree
glasses").
There wiU clearly be some variation among those who
describe a language (in this case, dictionary writers) about