A Reference Grammar of Kotiria (Wanano)

8. Nonroot stem morphemes in the verb

8 Nonroot stem morphemes in the verb This chapter continues the description of the complex morphology of finite verbs in Kotiria, focusing on morphemes that are more grammaticalized than those examined in chapter 7 and that occur farther from the initial root. After showing the basic morphological template of verbs (§8.1), it goes on to discuss the specific grammatical categories of negation, intensification, modal distinctions, and imperfective and perfective aspect (§§8.2–8.5). (Analysis of word-final clause modality morphology is left for chapter 9.) A summary of the grammatical, semantic, and phonological properties of verbal morphemes (§8.6) reveals a continuum of degrees of grammaticalization much like that found for nominal morphemes. 8.1 Overview of the morphology of finite verbs Figure 8.1 presents the template of finite verbal words and basic categories of verbal morphemes, with the obligatory constituents of any finite verbal word—the verb root at the beginning, and a final suffix coding clause modality—shown in bold type. The leftmost constituent (the initial verb root) is the phonological head of the verbal word. In noun incorporation constructions (§7.6), the incorporated noun plus the verb root can be thought of as jointly occupying the Root position in figure 8.1. Positions 1 through 3 after the root represent the categories of noninitial verb roots that most commonly occur in serialized verb constructions with initial nonstative verb roots; these positions are discussed in §7.5. All noninitial roots lose their own tonal melody and are integrated into the phonological word that is the domain of tonal spread from the initial root, though each root retains its underlying specification for nasality and glottalization. Many, though not all, independent roots can also occur in noninitial position in serializations and may or may not retain their bimoraic structure in this position. Roots such as ~bҁbҁ/~bҁ ‘run; do quickly’ , for example, vary between phonologically full and reduced forms. The stem includes all morphology from the root through position 5; the lexical stem includes all morphology through position 3. A simple lexical stem consists of just a single verbal root, while a complex lexical stem may contain additional roots in a serialized construction (positions 1 through 3). Nonroot stem morphemes occur in positions 4 and 5. Nonroot stem morphemes in the verb 245 STEM LEXICAL STEM Root 1 MAN 2 ASP 3 MOD 4 NEG / INTENS 5 MOD / ASP 6 CL MOD -wa’a -ta -ka’a -sito -~bҁ -~tidi -~daka -rҁka -ruku -wi’i -bosa -~doka -roka -~sidi -~sҁ -tu’sҁ -~basi -dua -era -yҁ’dҁ -bo -~ba -~behe -~ha -pe -pҁ -ati +a-wa’a evidentials directive irrealis interrogative Figure 8.1. Morphology of finite verbs. ASP = aspect; CL MOD = clause modality ; INTENS = intensification; MAN = manner; MOD = modality; NEG = negation. The optional nonroot stem morphemes coding negation, emphasis, aspect, and various kinds of modality that follow the lexical stem are the topic of the present chapter. In general, these morphemes display higher degrees of grammaticalization, evidenced by greater phonological reductions and the fact that most of the morphemes in positions 4 and 5 cannot occur independently, in contrast to many of the noninitial roots in positions 1 through 3. Finally, position 6 is occupied by markers of four categories of clause modality; these are described in detail in chapter 9. The morphology of stative verbal words is typically less complex than that of nonstative verbal words; as noted in §7.5.5, it is relatively rare for a stative verb root to occur with morphemes of positions 1 to 3 or with morphemes coding modality (cf. §7.1). In general, a stative verb root stands alone as the head of the verbal word and additional morphology includes only (optional) aspectual and (obligatory) clause modality markers, as in (1) and the examples in §7.1.1. (1) a. phanopҁre hiatiga mahsayahkaina ~phadó-pҁ+re hí-ati+a do/be.before-LOC+OBJ COP-IMPERF+ASSERT.PERF ~basá-yáká-~ídá people-steal-NOM.PL ‘In the olden days there were people-stealers.’ [A4.1] 246 Chapter 8 b. yҁ’ҁ Mo mahkariropҁ hiha yҁ’ҁ̗ ~bó ~baká+ri+ro-pҁ hí-ha 1SG Mõ village+NOM+SG-LOC COP-VIS.IMPERF.1 ‘I am from Mõ.’ [A1.2] 8.2 Negation: -era All verbs in Kotiria, with the exception of the inherently negative verb ~badia coding nonexistence (see §7.1.2), are negated...