thematic cs

7/28/2019 Thematic Cs

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Vocabulary Database, Greenhill, Blust, and Gray (2003-2008). All Proto-forms cited

come from this database.

The distribution of the consonants:

Consonant Number of words Suffixes in which it appears

f 23 -fia, -fai, -faa, -fi

21 -ia, -ai, i

n 11 -nai

m 10 -mia, -mai, -maa

l 15 -lia, -lai, -laa

t 39 -tia, -tai, -taa, -ti

s 25 -sia, -sai, -saa, -si

16 -ia, -ai, -aa, -i

Mosel and Hovdhaugen (1992) suggest that the suffixes -nai, and -aa are

productive to some extent, attaching to words that are not historically n-final or -final.

In all of the eleven forms found in Milner (1966) that contain n as a thematic consonant,

the only form the n appears in is -nai. No -nia, -naa, or -ni forms can be found, with

two exceptions that will be addressed below. I was able to trace one of these words that

is, [ai], to eat, back to its Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) ancestor. It is historically

n-final, however, being descended from PMP *kaen. This is no disproof of the theorythat -nai is or was a productive suffix, but it does mean that [ainai] is not likely an

example of such productivity.

Similarly, out of the sixteen forms in Milner (1966) that have as a thematic

consonant, in nine of them the only place this consonant appears is in the suffix -aa.

There is one form, [afio], which takes the suffix -aa as the only attestation of the

thematic consonant , and can be traced to the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian root *ari ,

which has no consonant at the end. This form provides a probable example of a form

that took the semi-productive affix -aa, even though it did not have a historical word-

final .

The semi-productivity of these two consonants in suffixes can explain many of

the roots found in Milner (1966) that exhibit more than one thematic consonant. These

are as follows:

Root Gloss -Cia 1 -Cia 2 -Cai -Caa -Ci


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ee be raised eetia eenaiala path, way alaf ia alanaialofa love alofa ia alofaaa fealofa i~fealofanisola escape fesolatai solaaasoa have a friend soan ia soa iasai arrest saisailia saisaitia

The first two of these may have regularized their -Cai suffix, changing the

consonant to n, while keeping their original thematic consonant in the -Cia form. A

rather large glitch in this explanation is that the second, ala descends from PMP

*zalan , an n-final form, not an f-final form. I cannot imagine a reason for the n to

become an f, and therefore this origin is mysterious to me.

The second two of these appear to have regularized their -Caa forms, whileretaining their other thematic consonants. I could not find any historical forms for these

two words.

The last two alternations, as well as the -Ci forms of the third set, are more

difficult to explain. An explanation of the appearance of the ns might be

hypercorrection from colloquial Samoan, tautala leaga, in which all the ns which occur

in literary or high style Samoan, tautala lelei, become . Speakers who had only heard

these forms pronounced in tautala leagamay have hypercorrected in converting them

into tautala lelei, turning the s into ns, even though they were not ns historically. As

for the alternation between t and l in the last form, they mean the same thing, and I was

unable to find the proto-form for the root. This alternation remains mysterious.

Proto-forms and the Thematic Consonants:

There are 162 roots in Samoan that have thematic consonants. Out of these, I

was able to trace 19 of them back to their Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) or Proto-

Oceanic (PO) roots:

Samoan Root Gloss Suffixed Form C PMP PO

1. afio come afioaa *ari

2. inu drink inumia m *inum

3. ai eat feainai n *kaen

4. maalili feel cold maaliliia *ma-didi

5. matau fear matautia t *ma-takut


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6. anu spit anusia s *anusi

7. tai cry taisia s *tais

8. lua two lualuaia *duha

9. asu smoke asuia *asu

10. aau swim a:usia s *kakaRu

11. valu scrape valusia s *karut

12. laa step laasia s *lakaw

13. ulu go into ulufia f *ulu

14. to: plant to:fai f *tanum

15. aa root aafia f *wakaR

16. ala way alafia, alanai f, n *Zalan

17. tao cover an oven taomia m *tanek

18. tupu grow tupulaa l *tumbu19. tu: stand tu:lia l *tuud

Number 1 was discussed above as an example of the generalization of the affix -

aa. Mysteriously enough, only numbers 2-7 straightforwardly exhibit the origin of

the thematic consonant. In numbers 11 and 19, the final consonant of the historical

form shares many features with the thematic consonant, and in number 16, one of the

attested thematic consonants is in fact the final consonant of the historical form.

However, in the case of the other 8 forms, the final consonant of the historical form just

doesnt correspond to the thematic consonant in the present form. Though the

distribution of this data is not very promising, perhaps if more reconstructed forms

could be gathered, the relationships would look less inexplicable.

2. Samoan Ergative SuffixesSamoan has a set of suffixes which attach to a verb or to a noun, producing an

ergative verb (Mosel and Hovdhaugen pg 742). There are four variations of these

suffixes: -a, -ia, -ina, and -Cia where C is a thematic consonant. The -Cia and -ia

forms are no longer productive, but both -a and -ina are. Furthermore, these latter two

appear to be in free variation (Mosel and Hovdhaugen pg 198). Many roots take both,

and there does not seem to be any difference in meaning between them.

Some examples of words that take both are asa ~ asaina ~ asa:, ford, wade

through; and pue ~ pueina ~ puea, catch, and there are many others.


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Possible historical rules regulating the distribution of suffixes:

The -Cia suffixes are non-productive and the forms containing them are

presumably stored. However, although -ina and -a are not in strict complementary

distribution, the occurrences of each are not evenly distributed across root shapes. The

following chart illustrates this. H designates a syllable of two mora, with either a

diphthong or a long vowel, while L designates a syllable of one mora, with a single

short vowel.

(1)The distributions of -a and -ina:Root

Shape

Number

of -ina

example gloss Number of

-a

example gloss

H 16 to: ~ to:ina plant 1 tau ~ taua fighta-final

LL

21 asa ~ asaina wade

through

8 asa ~ asa: wade

through

i-final LL 8 ati ~

atiina

bite 44 ati ~ atia bite

other V-

final LL

43 ato ~ atoina thatch 54 tolo ~

toloa

drag

HL N/A 23 pasi ~

pa:sia

be tired

LH 7 ie: ~

ie:ina

be

weary

3 mafai ~

mafaia

be able

HH 6 lu:lu: ~

lu:lu:ina

shake N/A

a-final

LLL

12 laona ~

laonaina

feel

disgust

3 uia ~

uia:

meaning

i-final

LLL

3 liai ~

liaiina

strike a

blow

7 aati ~

aatia

bite off

other V-

final LLL

5 tapale ~

tapaleina

box 3 unoo ~

unooa

be

bruised

There are four -ina suffixed forms of the type HL, but in all cases except one the

suffix is added after the -Cai suffix. I did not list these, since the base of affixation is

not just the HL stem, but the stem along with some other affixes. The fourth form is a


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reduplicated form in which I am unsure if the length is underlying in the stem or a

result of reduplication. Though there is very little data, larger forms show an

approximately equal distribution of -ina and -a.

For most of these root shapes there is a strikingly uneven distribution of -ina

and -a. There are two types of uneven distribution - those dependent on the root shape,

and those dependent on the last vowel in the root. For the former, I propose to use

independently motivated prosodic constraints from Zuraw, Yu, and Orfitelli (2008), and

some constraints used by de Lacy (2002) for Maori.

(2)FTBIN - feet are binary under moraic analysis. (Zuraw, Yu, Orfitelli 2008, andde Lacy 2002)

(3)EDGEMOST-R - Every foot appears at the right edge of a prosodic word (Zuraw,Yu, Orfitelli 2008) A violation is incurred for every syllable intervening betweenthe right edge of a foot and the right edge of a prosodic word..

This constraint is closely related to ALLFTL, used in de Lacy (2002), but it requires

only the head foot to align, rather than all feet, and it requires alignment with the right

edge of the PrWd rather than the left edge. The constraint ALLFTL was part of the

mechanism used by de Lacy to arrive at maximal prosodic words. Since Samoan has

much larger roots than Maori, maximal prosodic words are not as convenient as in de

Lacys analysis.

(4)LAPSEFT - Adjacent unstressed moras must be separated by a foot boundary (deLacy pg 497)

(5)PARSE- Every syllable belongs to a foot (de Lacy 2002)(6)MAX-V-LENGTH Long vowels in the input must be long in the output (Zuraw,

Yu, Orfitelli 2008)

(7)ALIGN -ina-L Align the left edge of the morpheme -ina with the left edge of aPrWd. (Kager 1999, pg. 122)

Although this is a strange morpheme-specific constraint, the need for something like it

is articulated in Zuraw (2008) to account for the lack of coalescence of the [i] if an i-

final stem with the initial [i] of the morpheme.

For now I will refrain from committing to an underlying form for the morpheme

that is realized sometimes as -ina and sometimes as -a, but will call it pv in

accordance with Milner (1966), and assume that it can surface as either of -a or -ina in

order to be most harmonic.


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(8)Roots consisting of a single heavy syllable (diphthong or long vowel):reach

for

/to: +pv/ FTBIN EDGEMOST-

R

LAPSEFT MAX-V-LENGTH PARSE-

a. {(t:)}{(.na)}b. {(t:.a)} *!

c. {(t.a)} *!

d. {(t:)a} *! *

e. {(t:)i.na} *! **

There are two forms that consist of a diphthong with a denominal -a suffixed

after it. They have the exact same phonetic shape though they are two different lexical

entries, vai ~ vaia, water, and vai ~ vaia, trick, guile. As noted in Zuraw (2008),

denominal -a suffixes violate a constraint causing aVa# sequences to be syllabified as adipthhong then -a, or as aV.a# . Instead, diphthongs followed by denominal -a are

syllabified as a.v.a#. Thus, these two forms have the shape {va(.a)}, and they are

treated as LL sequences instead of as H sequences.

(9)Roots consisting of a heavy syllable followed by a light syllable:be

tired

/pa:si +pv/ FTBIN EDGEMOST-

R

LAPSEFT MAX-

V-

LENGTH

ALIGN PARSE-

a. {(p:)si}{(.na)} *! *b. {(p:si)}{(.na)} *!

c. {(p:)}{si(.na)} *! *

d. {(p.si)}{(.na)} *!

e. {(p:)}{(s.a)}

Here the aligment constraint is crucial.

When roots such as this one consisting of a long vowel in the first syllable

appear unsuffixed, the long vowel is shortened. This can be accounted for in the

following manner (Zuraw, Yu, Orfitelli 2008):

(10) Trochaic Shortening:be

tired

/pa:si/ FTBIN DEP EDGE

MOST-

R

LAPSE

FT

ALIGN MAX-V-

LENGTH

PARSE

-

a. {(p:)si} *! *

b. {(p:.si)} *!

c. {(p:)(s:)} *!


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d. {(p.si)} *

We see here that DEP is also needed, and must be ranked above MAX-V-LENGTH, as

must both EDGEMOST-Rand FTBIN.

(11) Roots consisting of a light syllable followed by a heavy:be

weary

/ie: +pv/ FTBIN EDGEMOST-R

LAPSEFT ALIGN MAX-

V-

LENGTH

PARSE-

a. {i(:)a} *! *b. {i(:.a)} *!c. {i(.a)} *! *d. {i(:)}{(.na)} *!e. {(p:)}{(s.a)}

Here we see that PARSE- must be ranked below the rest of the constraints.

(12) Roots consisting of two heavy syllables:shake /lu:lu: +pv/ FTBIN EDGEMOST-

R

LAPSEFT ALIGN MAX-

V-

LENGTH

PARSE-

a. {(l:)(l:)a} *! *

b. {(l:)}{(l:)a} *! *

c. {(l:)}{(l:a)} *!

d. {(l:)}{(l.a)} *!

e. {(l:)(l:)(.na)} *!f. {(l:)(l:)}{(.na)}

The previous examples might have worked using the ALLFTR constraint, the

counterpart to the ALLFTL used in de Lacy (2002) to describe the patterns in Maori, but

this one does not:

(13) ALLFTR - Every foot appears at the right edge of a prosodic word (deLacy 2002)

(14)shake /lu:lu: +pv/ FTBIN ALLFTR LAPSEFT ALIGN MAX-

V-

LENGTH

PARSE-

a. {(l:)(l:)a} *!** *

b. {(l:)}{(l:)a} *! *

c. {(l:)}{(l:a)} *!

d. {(l:)}{(l.a)} *

e. {(l:)(l:)(.na)} *!**** *


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f. {(l:)(l:)}{(.na)} *!

The only way to fix this would be to rankALLFTRbelow MAX-V-LENGTH,

which would be contradictory to the ordering established in (10), to explain Trochaic

Shortening. Maori words may only be four moras long at the most, and syllables of

type HH are not allowed. Samoan, however, allows not only words of shape HH, but

also even longer words with shapes such as HHL, HLH, and even HHH, and longer.

Words of up to seven mora can take affixes.

(15) Roots consisting of two light syllables:put

away

/teu +pv/ FTBIN EDGE

MOST

-R

LAPSE

FT

DEP

ALIGN MAX-V-

LENGTH

PARSE-

a. {(t.u)a} *! *

b. {te(.a)} *!c. {(t:)(.a)} *!

d. {(t.u)}{(.na)}

(16) Roots consisting of three light syllables:box /tapale +pv/ FTBIN EDGEMOST-

R

LAPSEFT DEP ALIGN MAX-

V-

LENGTH

PARSE-

a. {ta(p.le)}{(.na)} *!

b. {(t.pa)le)}{(.na)} *! *

c. {(t.pa)}{le(.na)} *!

d. {(t.pa)}{(l.a)}

In both of these cases, it is the low-ranked PARSE- that decides between

candidates. As seen in the chart in (1), a-final and i-final words of these shapes have

different distributions, a-final usually taking -ina, and i-final usually taking -a. The

OCP can be used to get this difference. It does not need to be ranked high, only above

PARSE-.

(17) a-final LL roots:wade

through

/asa +pv/ FTBIN EDGE

MOST

-R

DEP ALIGN MAX-V-

LENGTH

OCP PARSE-

a. {(.sa)a} *! * *

b. {a(s.a)} *! *

c. {(:)(s.a)} *! *


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d. {(.sa)}{(.na)}

(18) i-final LL roots:bite /ati+pv/ FTBIN EDGE

MOST

-R

DEP ALIGN MAX-V-

LENGTH

OCP PARSE-

a. {(.ti)a} *! *b. {a(t.a)} *

c. {(:)(t.a)} *!d. {(.ti)}{(.na)} *!e. {a (t.na)} *!

(19) a-final LLL roots:feel

disgust

/laona+pv/ FTBIN EDGEMOST-R

ALIGN MAX-V-

LENGTH

OCP PARSE-

a. {la(.na)}{(.na)} *b. {(l.o)na)}{(.na)} *! *c. {(l.o)}{na(.na)} *! *d. {(l.o)}{(n.a)} *!

(20) i-final LLL roots:bite

off

/aati+pv/ FTBIN EDGEMOST-R

ALIGN MAX-V-

LENGTH

OCP PARSE-

a. {a(.ti)}{(.na)} *! *b. {(.a)ti)}{(.na)} *! * *c. {(.a)}{ti(.na)} *! * *d. {(.a)}{(t.na)} *!e. {(.a)}{(t.a)}

A historical reranking of the OCP would account for the presence of those formswith the opposite suffix from what is expected according to these tableaux.

It is not as easy to acocunt for the presently attested types by reranking

constraints in the other tableaux. I propose instead that at one time, these two suffixes

were in complementary distribution, being allomorphs of the same underlying form,

probably /-ina/. This would force at least MAX-SUFFIX to be ranked lower than all of


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the constraints listed above (or if the underlying form were /-a/, DEP would be low

ranked). At some point the contrast between them disappeared for some reason, and

they were reconstructed as two different suffixes, with the same meaning, leading to

their present state of free variation.

3. ConclusionsThe thematic consonants of Samoan are surprisingly unpredictable from their

Proto-Malayo-Polynesian or Proto-Oceanic ancestors.

The distributions of the allomorphs of the ergative suffixes, though not in

complementary distribution, are describable through a set of common prosodic

constraints, many of them at work in the language anyway. This may describe ahistorical state of the language in which the ergative suffixes /-a/ and /-ina/ were

different realizations of the same underlying form. They have since been reconstructed

as two separate suffixes with the same or very nearly the same meaning.


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References

de Lacy, Paul. 2002. Maximal Words and the Maori Passive. Proceedings from the

Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (AFLA) VIII, ed. Norvin Richards.

Cambridge, MA:MIT Working Papers in Linguistics.

Greenhill, S. J., Blust. R, & Gray, R.D. (2003-2008) The Austronesian Basic

Vocabulary Database. http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/austronesian

Kager, Rene. 1999. Optimality Theory. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University

Press.

Milner, George. 1966. Samoan Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press.

Mosel, Ulrike & Even Hovdhaugen. 1992. Samoan Reference Grammar. Oslo:

Scandinavian University Press

Pawley, Andrew. 2001. Proto-Polynesian *-Cia. Issues in Austronesian Morphology: afocusshrift for Byron W. Bender,eds. Joel Bradshaw and Kenneth L. Rehg, 193-

216. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics 2001.

Zuraw, Kie. 2008. Vowel sequences in Samoan: morphology-prosody interactions.

Handout from the Field Methods Samoan-fest, UCLA.

Zuraw, Kie, Robyn Orfitelli & Kristine Yu. 2008. Word-level prosody in Samoan:

stress, length, and morphology. Ms., UCLA.

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