Describing Makasae: A Trans-New Guinea Language of East Timor

499 Pages·2011·3.626 MB·

by  Adérito José Guterres Correia

Describing Makasae: A Trans-New Guinea
Language of East Timor

A. J. G. Correia

Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
University of Western Sydney
2011
Describing Makasae: A Trans-New Guinea
Language of East Timor
Adérito José Guterres Correia
Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
University of \ilestern Sydney
2A1l
Dedication
This work is dedicated to Laga-mata, the people of Laga past and present,
who welcomed and cared for me and my family, and shared with us their language
and culture. May this project help them to preserve and develop their language and
identity for future generation.
Adérito José Guterres Correia
(29 luly 2011)
Acknowledgements
The successful undertaking of this study would not have been possible
without the assistance of my supervisors. I am immeasurably indebted to my
Principal Supervisor, Dr George Saunders, who was always ready to provide me with
academic advice, review my úesis drafts and involve me in his other linguistic
projects through which I gained practical experience in grammar analysis and
lexicography.
I feel deeply grateful to Dr Geoffrey Hull, my Associate Supervisor, who had
given me my initial linguistic orientation on the languages of East Timor. His advice,
dedication and clarity of thinking have been a greaÍ help to me throughout the whole
research process. I also thank Dr Bruno Di Biase, my third Supervisor, for his useful
advice and suggesüons for improving the content and presentation of my work.
I was privileged to have also received feedback from several other academics.
I acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Dr Sandra Hale, who provided helpful
comments on matters of presentation prior to my confirmation of candidature. My
thanks go to Dr Michael Atherton who provided some feedback on my initial
confirmation of candidature. Dr Malcolm Ross kindly provided me with
encouraging advice as well as supplying me with articles for background reading. I
would like to acknowledge the support of the UV/S library and Research Offrce staff
for the various workshops and seminars on research that they offered.
Campion College, Sydney, and its president Dr David Daintree, greatly
facilitated the completion of my work in the final two years of my candidature by
providing my supervisors and myself with a regular place to meet and a congenial
academic working environment.
My work in Australia would have been impossible without the financial
assistance which the Australian Development Scholarship Programme offered. I am
grateful also to the Instituto Nacional de Linguistica (INL-Dili) and to the parish of
Laga for permitting me access to documents held there and other information
necessary for my research.
My gratitude extends to my family and friends for their moral support and
practical assistance. It was my parents who introduced me to the older generation of
Makasae speakers, and my sister Jaquelina Correia aranged meetings with groups of
Makasae-speaking \À/omen.
The successful completion of my task would have been extremely difficult
without the generous help of many members of the Makasae-speaking community of
Laga who enthusiastically shared their knowledge of the language with me for the
pu{pose of this study: the late La'idaa Tananolçoraz Hermenegildo Castro, Babai
José Pereir4 NoiMaúa Caldas, Ábó Sarnalari Rosalina Belo, Ba'ìnó António Castro,
Noi Elda, Maun Adolfo Sarmento, Pedro António Ximenes, Luis, Celestino
Ximenes, Sabino, Gregório Ximenes, tr/oi Judite Pereira, Cesarina Belo and Elígio
Amaral.
Lastly, my sincere appreciation goes to my wife Inês da Costa Moreira and
children Denize, Josué and Natanael for their patience and encouragement
throughout the entire course of my quest to apply scientific criteria to the study of an
important language of my homeland.
Statement of Authenfication
The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original
except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this
material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution.
Adérito José Guterres Correia
Table of Contents
List of Maps ................................................................................................................ ii
Abbreviations ............................................................................................................ iii
Abstract ...................................................................................................................... iv
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Aim and Rationale …….. …………………………………………………….1
1.2 Brief History of Makasae ................................................................................. 1
1.3 The East Timor Language Situation .................................................................. 3
1.3.1 Genetic Classification ............................................................................. 3
1.4 Locality of Makasae Community ...................................................................... 6
1.4.1 Southern Makasae ................................................................................... 7
1.4.2 Northern Makasae ................................................................................... 7
1.5 Varieties of Makasae ......................................................................................... 7
1.5.1 Basilectal ................................................................................................. 7
1.5.2 Mesolectal ............................................................................................... 8
1.5.3 Acrolectal ................................................................................................ 9
1.6 Language Policy ................................................................................................ 9
1.7 Makasae Literature .......................................................................................... 11
1.7.1 Literature in Makasae ............................................................................ 11
1.7.2 Literature about Makasae ...................................................................... 13
1.8 The Study of Makasae ..................................................................................... 17
2. Methodology ......................................................................................................... 18
2.1 Aim and Rationale .......................................................................................... 18
2.2 Hypothesis ....................................................................................................... 18
2.3 Framework ....................................................................................................... 18
2.4 Fieldwork ........................................................................................................ 19
2.5 Language Sources/ Informants and Corpus ..................................................... 19
2.6 Technique ........................................................................................................ 22
2.7 Tools ................................................................................................................ 22
2.8 Data Analysis .................................................................................................. 22
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2.9 Order of Data Presentation .............................................................................. 23
3. Phonology .............................................................................................................. 24
3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 24
3.2 The Phonemes of Makasae .............................................................................. 25
3.3 The Vowel System .......................................................................................... 27
3.3.1 Oral Vowels ........................................................................................... 27
3.3.2 Nasal Vowels ......................................................................................... 28
3.3.3 Atonic Vowels ....................................................................................... 29
3.3.4 Vowel Length ........................................................................................ 31
3.3.5 Vowel Epenthesis .................................................................................. 34
3.3.6 Paragoge ................................................................................................ 35
3.3.7 Apocope ................................................................................................. 35
3.4 The Consonant System .................................................................................... 36
3.4.1 Native Consonants ................................................................................. 36
3.4.2 Portuguese Consonants .......................................................................... 39
3.4.3 Apheresis ............................................................................................... 43
3.4.4 Glottalisation ......................................................................................... 43
4. Syntax ................................................................................................................... 44
4.1 Clause Structure ............................................................................................... 44
4.2 Zero Copula ..................................................................................................... 45
4.3 Polarity ............................................................................................................ 46
4.3.1 Positive Polarity Marker ........................................................................ 46
4.3.2 Negative Polarity Marker ...................................................................... 48
4.4 Interrogation .................................................................................................... 50
5. Nominals ................................................................................................................ 52
5.1 Noun Types ..................................................................................................... 52
5.1.1 Specific (Proper) Nouns ........................................................................ 52
5.1.2 Common (Generic) Nouns .................................................................... 59
5.2 Noun Functions ............................................................................................... 72
5.2.1 Unmarked Number ................................................................................ 72
5.2.2 Marked Plurals....................................................................................... 73
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5.2.3 Definiteness and Indefiniteness ............................................................. 78
5.2.4 Possession in Nouns .............................................................................. 81
5.2.5 Qualifying Nouns .................................................................................. 85
5.2.6 Quantifying Nouns ................................................................................ 90
5.2.7 The Articulatory Suffixes ...................................................................... 96
6. Personal Pronouns ............................................................................................... 98
6.1 Specific Personal Pronouns ............................................................................. 98
6.1.1 Basic Forms of Personal Pronouns ........................................................ 98
6.1.2 Honorific Functions of Personal Pronouns ......................................... 102
6.1.3 Personal Pronoun Avoidance .............................................................. 105
6.1.4 Non-Honorific Personal Pronoun Omission ....................................... 113
6.2 Generic Personal Pronouns ........................................................................... 118
6.2.1 Human Referents ................................................................................. 118
6.2.2 Non-Human and Inanimate Referents ................................................. 120
6.2.3 Neutral ................................................................................................. 122
6.3 Personal Pronouns with Emphasis ................................................................ 123
6.4 Reflexive and Reciprocal Pronouns .............................................................. 126
6.4.1 Reflexive Pronouns ............................................................................. 126
6.4.2 Reciprocal Pronouns ........................................................................... 128
6.5 Possession ...................................................................................................... 131
6.5.1 Attributive Possessive Pronouns ......................................................... 131
6.5.2 Predicative Possessive Pronouns ......................................................... 133
6.5.3 The Reflexive Possessive .................................................................... 134
6.5.4 Emphatic Reflexive Possessive Pronouns ........................................... 136
7. Interrogatives...................................................................................................... 138
7.1. Interrogative Forms ...................................................................................... 138
7.2 Interrogative Functions .................................................................................. 140
7.2.1 Nahire’e ‘who?’, ‘whom?’ ................................................................. 140
7.2.2 Na’i ‘what?’ ........................................................................................ 141
7.2.3 Nahite’e and nahiga’u ‘which?’ ......................................................... 143
7.2.4 Na’idedee, netani(hani)lafu and na’ihanilafu ‘what kind of?’
‘what…like?’ ...................................................................................... 144
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7.2.5 Nahire’e (gi)ge’e and nahire’e giduru ‘whose?’ ................................. 145
7.2.6 Nahiroba ‘how many?’, ‘how much?’ ............................................... 146
8. Relativisation ...................................................................................................... 148
8.1 The Relative Marker ...................................................................................... 148
8.1.1 The Parallel Relativiser ....................................................................... 149
8.1.2 Omission of the Relativiser ................................................................. 151
8.1.3 The Local Relativiser .......................................................................... 151
8.1.4 The Possessive Relative Construction ................................................. 153
8.1.5 Emphatic Relativisation....................................................................... 154
8.1.6 Relativised Demonstratives ................................................................. 154
9. Demonstratives ................................................................................................... 159
9.1 Deictic Demonstratives.................................................................................. 159
9.1.1 Deictic Demonstratives with Adjectival Function .............................. 161
9.1.2 Deictic Demonstratives with Pronominal Function ............................ 166
9.2 Non-Deictic Demonstratives ......................................................................... 168
9.2.1 U ‘the one’ .......................................................................................... 168
9.2.2 Uwa’a ‘the one’ .................................................................................. 169
9.2.3 Era or mai ‘the ones’ .......................................................................... 170
9.2.4 Adjectival and Pronominal Forms ....................................................... 172
9.2.5 The Emphatic Forms as Demonstrative Determiners .......................... 175
10. Quantifiers and Indefiniteness ........................................................................ 178
10.1 Specific Quantifiers ..................................................................................... 178
10.1.1 The Units in Cardinal Numerals ........................................................ 178
10.1.2 Resi and resini ................................................................................... 179
10.1.3 Higher Numerals ............................................................................... 180
10.1.4 Numerals Quantifying Nouns ............................................................ 182
10.1.5 Numerals Quantifying Pronouns ....................................................... 183
10.2 Generic Quantifiers...................................................................................... 184
10.2.1 Generic Quantifiers with Adjectival Function .................................. 184
10.2.2 Generic Quantifiers with Pronominal and Adjectival Function ........ 186
10.2.3 Generic Quantifiers with Pronominal Function ................................ 189
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