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OUTLINE OF DANI MORPHOLOGY VERHANDELINGEN VAN HET KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL-, LAND- EN VOLKENKUNDE DEEL 48 P. A. M. VAN DER STAP OUTLINE OF DANI MORPHOLOGY Springer-Science+Business Media, B.Y. 1966 ISBN 978-94-017-6353-0 ISBN 978-94-017-6361-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-6361-5 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1966 OUTLINE OF DANI MORPHOLOGY PREFACE In the very heart of West Irian or West New Guinea live the Dani's, a Highland people scattered over several valleys and along several rivers, roughly between 1370 and 1400 East. Long. and 30 and 50 South. Lat. The name "Dani" is a "pars pro toto", Dani or Dlani being the name of a certain clan in the Balim VaIley, but nowadays it is under stood by Dani's as weIl as non-Dani's to designate the whole people. The most densely populated in Dani territory is, no doubt, the Balim Valley on the eastern edge of it. The present description of Dani morphology will deal with the language spoken approximately in the centre of this Balim Valley around the Government Post Wamena by a tribe called Mugogo, if we can call this community a proper tribe: many people belonging to the Mugogo community claim to belong to other tribes.1 Due to progressive pacification and to periodic shifting of sweet potato gardens the Mugogo habitat has no sharp borders. Roughly speaking the Mugogo live in a triangle between the rivers Hethu, Wetakeik, and Balim, and even in a narrow stretch across Balim river. In this Mugogo area is situated the Government Post and the Air-strip Wamena, both of them attracting incidentally or permanently people from other Dani tribes, from other parts of New Guinea, and from as far away as Java and Sumatra, as well as a number of Europeans, Americans, and Australians representing different missionary bodies. Although the Mugogo community thus may incorporate members of other tribes, and is daily confronted with non-Dani languages, people 1 There are more phenomena, suggesting that the Mugogo are perhaps not a fully-fledged tribe at all, but a more or less integrated community of people from all over the Valley. Perhaps anthropological research will find out some day that Dani culture recognizes "asylu ms" , where criminals and other outcasts are allowed to live; if so, it is not unthinkable that the Mugogo area is such an "asylum" . Moreover, whereas as a rule the tribes are called after the component clans (e.g. Hupy-khiak, Hupy-gosi, Siep-gosi, Siep-aso, Dlani-maduan), the Mugogo community has a name which apparently deviates from this pattern (mugogo means: "heron" ) . VI OUTLINE OF DAN! MORPHOLOGY do communicate and their language functions satisfactorily without noticeable friction. Research in this area was done by the present writer during nearly six years from February 1958 until November 1963, interrupted by a five month stay in Ilaga Valley on the Western edge of Dani territory. The method of research was a direct one, without the intermediary of interpreters. This method, starting at the stage of gesticulation and mimicry, implies a cumbersome and troublesome investigation, trial and error, check, re-check, and cross-check, but has the advantage that the investigator is obliged to learn the language himself, so that the danger of overlooking important morphological categories is strongly reduced. Information was obtained from scores of people, male and female, old and young, while more intricate matters were explored and discussed with the aid of a permanent team of youngsters between sixteen and twenty five years of age. The present writer, as an investigator, had the habit, especially when exploring intricate matters, of having the informants rest and chat a while after some ten minutes of investigation, because linguistic reflec tion for the average Dani proved too tiresome a job to be reliable after a quarter of an hour's investigation; after five or ten minutes' rest the work would then be resumed. All utterances of Dani speakers to be had were noted down, but those not corroborated by at least three different and independent speakers were laid aside as being suspect, misheard, misunderstood, or idiolectic. Often it proved useful to repeat the same research with the same informant after a month or six weeks to eliminate errors; if in such a case an informant gives different information, and is confronted with his first utterances, the researcher has the opportunity to make the necessary corrections, or - at times - to track down an hitherto unknown category. The Dani have no script, and never have had, as far as is known. So no written sources are available and no direct knowledge of the history of their language is possible. For gaining historical insight into the Dani language one only can hope for the results of comparative linguistics in the future, as soon as a description of all or a large number of the New Guinea languages is available. To provide future comparative linguists with apart of their working materials is one of the purposes of the present description of Dani morphology. PREFACE VII I owe a great debt of gratitude to my superiors, His Exc. Dr. R. Staverman and the Most Reverend P. Hogenboom, who both stimu lated me not only by extending my furlough, by giving me every moral support, and by financing my studies, but above all by their warm interest in my fieldwork. Thanks to them I could dedicate all my time, during my 7!h years' stay in New Guinea, to the study of New Guinea languages. Many are those who in some way or other have helped me in writing this "Outline", and whom I cannot mention by name. The tedious task of correcting the English text was willingly under taken and carefully accomplished by my old friend, Drs C. N. M. de Goede, and by Mr. S. O. Robson B. A. For their help I owe them a great debt of gratitude. Last but not least I am very grateful towards the "Koninklijk 1nstituut voor Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkunde" for publishing this book. More than by any scholar I was stimulated by my father and by my mother who was never to see this book finished. 1t is to them that this book is dedicated in filial affection. Voorschoten. March 1966. P. v. d. Stap oJ.m. r--., .. I " .. I ." I II ~ I :' I , ... L._~ '" o > W ...J ... ...J o~ -< > ~ :l: ...J -< CO CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION When setting about the description of the morphology of a language one has to face the difficulty that what is morphologically interesting about the language, makes its appearance in sentences, and is always somehow or other linked with syntax. In Dani this is espocially dear in the case of two participles which show opposition only in syntactic valence. Nevertheless in the following pages an attempt will be made to describe Dani morphology while omitting the syntax; the ensuing diffi culty will be solved by giving a superficial description of the word classes involved. This descripion is valid only to the extent to which those word-classes enter the domain of the present morphologicaI research. Moreover, in those cases in which something has to be said about the syntactical aspects of some category or other, this will be done under the heading "us e" . Of course, this implies an anticipation of the description of Dani syntax, but it is inevitable, given the fact that morphologie al categories may have syntactical implications. A eomplete description of Dani word classes cannot be given without the description of syntax. Therefore word-dass terms will be used in the present book without further explanation. A number of terms which will be handled in the following pages may be summarized here: 2 a word is the smallest independent meaningful unit in a language, characterized by: 2 Because the tenninology used by J. C. Anceaux in "The Nimboran Language" suits a description of Dani satisfactorily, it is adopted here for that purpose. Cp. J. C. Anceaux: "The Nimboran Language", Phonology and Morphology; VerhandeIingen van het Koninlijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land-, en Volken kunde, 44; 's-Gravenhage 1965. 2 OUTLINE OF DAN! MORPHOLOGY 1. a fixed form, connected with a meaning; 2. isolability; amorpherne: the formal features marking members of a morphological category as such; a morphological category: a group of words with a partial similarity in their forms and with a common element in their meaning and/or a certain syntactic valence, whereas each of these words can be opposed to one or more other words from which they are differen tiated by precisely the same formal and semantic element and/or a different syntactic valence; a morphological set: a group of words belonging to different morpho logical categories, but corresponding with each other in form and meaning, the corresponding formal feature being caIled: root-morpheme, the corresponding semantic feature being called: lexical meaning; a categoric meaning: the semantic feature, common to all members of a morphological category; a productive category: a morphological category which may be applied by a speaker to more and more cases; an improductive category: a morphological category which can be applied by a speaker to only a restricted number of cases; such an improductive category is: either competitive, if it exists side by side with another category with the same meaning and use, or blocking, if it rules out, for a given meaning and use, the application of another category; a morphological system: a group of interrelated morphological cate gories of the same morphological set. After the expert description of Dani Phonology by Myron Bromley, there is no need for a further description.3 Only the following remarks must be made: 1. Mugogo dialect has its place - phonologically as weH as geographi caHy - in between Bromley's "Lower Aikhe Dani" and his "Lower Grand Valley Dani". 4 2. The sounds gw and kw were found so sporadically, and always beside 3 H. Myron Bromley: "The Phonology of Lower Grand Valley Dani", a Comparative Structural Study of Skewed Phonemic Patterns; Verhandelingen van het Koninlijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkunde, 34; 's-Graven hage 1961. 4 H. Myron Bromley: o.c. pp. 13 and 20 ff.