Kokota Grammar

CHAPTER 3: NOUN PHRASES

CHAPTER 3: NOUN PHRASES 3.1 Nominal forms 3.1.1 Nominal derivation Most phonologically unitary nominal forms consist of a single nominal root morpheme. However, two kinds of morphologically complex nominals exist: compounds, and forms derived by reduplication. 3.1.1.1 Nominal compounding Nominal compounding involves the concatenation of exactly two normally independent words. Both endocentric and exocentric compounds occur. 3.1.1.1.1 Endocentric compounds Nouns may be modified by, among other things, another noun or a stative verb (see §3.3.1.2). These are not compounds as they do not constitute a single phonological word. However, many nominal compounds appear to be the result of the morphological concatenation of a nominal head plus modifier. Such compounds are left headed and endocentric. Some have a nominal root as the second element (having the structure N+N=N), with the second element identifying the domain that the head belongs to: (3.1) a. mane-vaka b. hobo-gazu c. hiba-mautu d. kala-mhata 'white/Asian man' ('man-ship,)24 'tree branch' ('branch-wood') 'right eye' ('eye-right.side') 'bush leaves' (,leaf/hair-bush') Others have a verb as the second element, identifying a state (N+Vstative=N) or action (N+Vactive=N) that is characteristic ofthe head: (3.2) a. mane-dou b. vaka-flalo 'important man' (,man-be.big') 'aircraft' ('ship-fly') The presence of the active verb in (3.2)b. illustrates that not all endocentric nominal compounds are the result of the head plus modifier concatenation, as active verbs may not modify a noun directly, but do so within a relative clause. The compound in (3.I)d. also is not the result of head plus modifier 24 Vaka 'ship' occurs in several nominal compounds, indicating that the referent of the head nominal is non-indigenous. These include gase-vaka (,woman-ship') 'white/Asian woman' and ooe-vaka ('talk-ship') 'English, Pijin'. Vaka also occurs widely as a modifying nominal (see §3.2.3). CHAPTER 3 concatenation as the noun mhata 'bush' does not occur as a modifier, there being a corresponding adjective (see §3.2.3.1.1). Given the fact that some roots function as either a verb or a noun it is not always possible to identify whether the modifying root is a verb or noun, or is perhaps underspecified. For example, as an independent form, pamu can refer to the act of pumping a tilly lamp, or the pump itself. It is not clear which applies in (3.3). Note that pamu is a Pijin loan, indicating the recent formation oftbis compound and demonstrating the productivity ofthis kind ofnominal compounding. (3.3) zuta-pamu 'tilly lamp' ('lamp-pump') 3.1.1.1.2 Exocentric compounds Kokota exocentric compounds usually reflect the morphological concatenation of two items that would otherwise be adjacent in a syntactic structure. Many consist of a verb root plus a noun root. (3.4) a. deke-tatala b. siko-gia 'tree sp.' ('step-butterfly/moth') 'bird sp.' ('steal-lime') Example (3.4)a. is so named because it is a tree that butterflies like to land on, while the avian raptor in (3.4)b. has a white head accounted for by a custom story in which the bird tries to steal white lime powder (for chewing with betel nut) by putting its head into the lime pot. These compounds reflect the pragmatically unmarked syntactic constituent order of VSO, with the verb and first argument nominal concatenated. In (3.4)a. the noun root represents the subject of the verb root, while in (3.4)b. it represents the object. In (3.4)b. the syntactic position for agent is unfilled; however, in normal discourse agents rarely receive a full mention, the participant being indicated by zero anaphora. No compounds have been identified that involve the concatenation of a transitive verb root and a noun root representing the agent. Verb plus nominal compounds thus appear to be absolutive in character. It will also be noted that in both examples the verb root is an active verb. No stative verbs have been found in V+N nominal compounds. These compounds are thus Vactive+N=N. A small number of compounds concatenate an active verb with a stative verb (Vactive+Vstative=N). All compounds of this type identified so far have blahi 'be sacred' as the second element.. It is not clear whether others may occur. (3.5) a. ika-blahi b. nhau-blahi 'Baptism' ('wash-be...