LISSIM 6

June 1-15, 2012@ Kangra

Selected Essays

Some theoretical issues in Meiteilon

Oinam NganthoibiOinam Nganthoibi
JNU

I begin by examining instances of clausal break that may be encoded in the verb morphology. Literature so far (Chelliah 1997) (Kidwai 2010) suggests that the word /haibə/ marks the complimentizer position in Meiteilon sentences. For example,

a.       Jon         cət-kh-re            hai-bə      əi         khang-i

Jon         go-CONT-PRF     that [i]   I know-IND

‘I know that John has left’

Embedding dictates that hai-bə is used.  Embedding can also be encoded in the verb morphology as in the following example.

b.      Jon         ca-gə-də-bə-ni                                  hai-rəm-i

John     eat-ALTH_pos-EPST-that-COP           say-EVID-IND

(he) said that John should eat

In the example (b), the verb /hai/ is the verb of the matrix clause.

A cursory examination seems to suggest that the lowest verb ‘left’ and ‘eat’ bears the burden of maximum number of TAM category markers.  In other words, for a Meiteilon speaker the focus lies on the embedded verb. Given this, let us look again at another clausal break indicated by the distribution of the morpheme ‘bə’.

c.       Jon         thəbək                 təu-gə-ni             hai-rəm-bə-ni

Jon         work                      go-ALTH_po-COP say-EVID-that-COP

‘John said that (he or someone else) will do the work’

In order to establish the relative ordering of ‘bə’ I give a hierarchical ordering of morphemes in Meiteilon (Nganthoibi, 2011) appropriated from Cinque’s hierarchy of functional heads (1999) assuming that all the suffixal morphemes are individual heads

                Mood_Evaluative  >  Mood_{Speech act}   >  Mood_{Alethic necessity}  >  Mood_irrealis  > Aspect _{Perfect/Progressive}   >      Mood_Epistemic   >  Mood_volition  > Mood_{alethic possibility}  > Aspect _Prospective   >Aspect_continutive  > Mood_Evidential >         Aspect_{frequentative}  >  Mood_wish  >VR

‘bə’ is an irrealis head which takes events which are non factual (Kidwai 2010). Therefore we are looking at an event building structure which allows the verb to adjoin to various heads to build up a compositional event. However that which still needs to be determined is the position of these various heads with respect to syntactic constituents such as the edge of the VP.

To begin the discussion, one needs to establish the constituents of the lower VP which forms lexical composition of the verb.  For this purpose I give data to postulate that the morphemes which are contingent within the lower VP are (rək >hən  (sin, t^hok, t^hə, k^hət) (khay, hət, thət and thek) > VR. The causative marker is the ‘hən’ morpheme.

d.      Jon-bu mari-nə cak ca-hən-li

Jon-ACC Mary-INST food eat-CAUS-Asp

‘Mary made John eat food’

The structure of the above sentence can be explained using a double object construction used by Larson 1988 which draws parallel to causative structures (Harley 1995). As in Japanese, ‘hən’ is a bound morpheme. Since it overtly expresses causation, it will occupy the CAUS head. The other lower morphemes (sin, t^hok, t^hə, k^hət) (khay, hət, thət and thek) are more primitive to the verb root. sin, t^hok, t^hə, k^hət are deitic morphemes (Chelliah 1997) that give different points in vector spaces while khay, hət, thət and thek or the affect morphemes (Chelliah 1997)are properties of the object/patient that is marked on the verb. rək on the other hand seems to be a prepositional head which is adjoined to the entire VP. The following example shows the hierarchy of the deitic heads, the affect heads, the prepositional head and the causative.

e.      Jon-bu mari-nə ising cai-thok-hən-li

Jon-ACC Mary-INST water spinkle-OUT-CAUS-Asp

‘Mary made John sprinkle the water’

f.        Jon-bu mari-nə cəphu thu-gai-hən-li

John-Acc Mary-INST pot break-DEST-CAUS-Asp

‘Mary made John break the pot’

g.       Jon-bu mari-nə cə-thok-hən-rək-kə-də-bə-ni hai

John-ACC Mary-INST come-OUT-CAUS-ALTH^poss –EPST-IRR-COP say

‘Mary told (someone) to make John come’

These examples show that the rək morpheme occurs higher than the causative. Therefore we can assume that the lower VP is constituted of the deitic and affect morphemes while the causative marker is right above. The verb will therefore move to the CAUS head first.

Such restricting of different phases from the lowest verb is possible. But first one needs to identify the embedded clause which is determined by examining a clausal break ‘bə’. Currently I am working on finer structuring of the phases that is suggested here.

 

References:

Kidwa, Ayesha (2010). The Cartography of phases: Facts and inference in Meiteilon. In Di Sciullo, Anna Maria and Virginia Hill (Eds.) Edges Heads and Projections: Interface properties. Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 156 (pp. 233-262)

Chelliah, Shobhana L. (1997). A Grammar of Meithei. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Harley, Heidi. 1995. Subjects, Events, and Licensing. Doctoral dissertation, MIT.

   

[i] For ease of understanding and uncertainty of the function of this morpheme I gloss this morpheme as that primarily to indicate that this marks a complimentizer position.

For enquiries, write to secretary@fosssil.in