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RI$XVWURQHVLDQ /DQJXDJHVProceedingsofthe Second International Workshop
on
Information StructureofAustronesian Languages

11–13 February 2015

Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

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7RN\R 8QLYHUVLW\ RI )RUHLJQ 6WXGLHV $VDKLFKR )XFKXVKL 7RN\RThe Second International Workshop on
Information Structure ofAustronesian Languages
Dates:

13-15 February, 2015

Venue䠖

Room 304, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia andAfrica (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS)

Workshop Website
http://lingdy.aacore.jp/en/activity/is-austronesian-2.html

This workshop is funded by ILCAA Linguistic Dynamics Science Project 2 (LingDy2).

Linguistic Dynamics Science Project 2 (LingDy2) is a strategic project of ILCAA that endeavors
to build an international collaborative research framework that supports and advances research on
linguistic diversity and endangered languages.

(i)Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Information
Structure of Austronesian Languages
Contents
Analyzing questions under discussion and information structure in a Balinese narrative................... 1
Arndt Riester
Discourse and information structure in Kadorih ..................................................................................... 27
Kazuya Inagaki
Topic-Marking constructions in Bantik .................................................................................................... 41
Atsuko Utsumi
Focus and argument Indexing in Makasar ............................................................................................... 53
Anthony Jukes
A first take on information structure in Totoli - Reference management and its interrelation withvoice selection .............................................................................................................................................. 65
Sonja Riesberg
Person restriction on passive agents in Malay and givenness.................................................................. 83
Hiroki Nomoto
Pragmatic particles and information structure
in colloquial Indonesian dialogue............................................................................................................. 103
Yoshimi Miyake
Information structure and discourse markers in Tok Pisin: differences in genres ............................. 115
Masahiko Nose
The role of Bunun deixis in information structure: An initial assessment ........................................... 127
Rik De Busser
The definite marker in Balinese ............................................................................................................... 141
Shiohara, Asako and Ketut Artawa
From Borneo to Bantu: How the Malagasy third person genitive pronoun *-ni
may have become a locative suffix in Swahili ......................................................................................... 161
Alexander Adelaar
Definiteness and referent tracking in Abui ............................................................................................. 179
František Kratochvil and Benidiktus Delpada

(iii)

1

Analyzing Tuestions under Giscussion and Lnformation Vtructure
in a Balinese Qarrative
Arndt Riester (Institute for Natural Language Processing, University of Stuttgart)
Abstract
I argue against the skepticism recently expressed by Mati and Wedgwood (2013) regarding
the possibility of defining a cross-linguistic category of focus. I sketch an interpretation-basedand cross-linguistically applicable method of information-structural analysis, which makes
use of Questions under Discussion. The method is demonstrated on a Balinese narrative text.
Keywords: annotation, focus, linguistic universals, narrative, Question under Discussion

1. Introduction: is focus a universal linguistic category?
In a recent article, Mati and Wedgwood (2013) – henceforth MW – question the possibilityof universal categories of information structure; in particular, the focus notion. Their essay is
an outspoken criticism of parts of the current practice in the area of comparative information
structure, backed up by both empirical and theoretical arguments. In my paper, I will turnagainst the pessimistic conclusions drawn by MW, and instead argue in the opposite direction,
namely that universal notions of information structure are definable in a clear universal andpragmatic sense, and that they can – and, in fact, should – be used in linguistic research inorder to ensure an objective means of cross-linguistic comparison. I will demonstrate ameaning-based annotation procedure that arrives at an information-structural analysis without
making any language-specific assumptions about focus realization in particular languages.
The following two quotes by MW illustrate their critical stance towards a universal notion of
focus (emphasis added):“[F]ocus is an inherently problematic category, which has been used to draw together
phenomena in the wrong way: as instances of a single underlying entity, as opposed topotentially independent entities that produce interestingly similar effects.” (p.129)“[W]e do not think that any one definition of focus need be basic or universal, and we see nobasis for any such assumption [...]; our contention is that, from a linguistic point of view, the2Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrative

term focus may simply not denote a cohesive phenomenon about which to theorise.”(p.134)The main worries articulated by MW pertain to the fact that, often, in the literature,functionally different phenomena have been misanalyzed as being realizations of the sameunderlying information-structural feature. Moreover, they show that, often, certain
morphemes or structural operations in different languages have been prematurely classified interms of abstract information-structural functions, while counter-evidence has been ignored or
explained away. A further issue in MW’s criticism relates to the well-known problem of
imprecise or contradictory definitions of information-structural concepts found in theliterature.
In Section 2, I will refute or at least weaken some of the arguments put forward by MW.
In particular, I will address the notorious role of alleged focus markers or syntactic focus
positions in comparative research and the conclusions that should be drawn from this situation,
as well as the prevailing terminological and conceptual confusion with respect to a precise
and cross-linguistically stable definition of focus. In Sections 3 and 4, I turn to thepracticalities of analyzing information structure in a meaning-based, language-neutral way.
The Appendix contains a comprehensive information-structural analysis of a Balinese
narrative.
2. Linguistic practice and the possibility of a universal focus notion
MW provide examples from various typologically unrelated languages that document how
light-mindedly researchers have declared certain particles or syntactic positions to be focus
markers, while it should have been obvious under more careful observation that the devices inquestion can mostly also be used with a non-focal meaning, or sometimes with a special
meaning on top of what is ordinarily considered to be the core meaning of focus. For instance,elements in the preverbal “focus position” in Hungarian are known to additionally signal
exhaustivity, and various “focus particles” in the Bantu language Aghem seem to indicate
different degrees of contrast and correction. Other alleged focus markers express linguistic
functions that are correlated with focus but nevertheless distinct from it, e.g. markers of realis
mood in Somali (Afro-Asiatic), or morphemes expressing direct evidentiality in Quechua.
I entirely agree that both overly uniformist and excessively detailed focus classifications
have often done more harm than good in the history of information-structure theory, and they
have, indeed, contributed to the perception that cross-linguistic studies that concern therealization of information structure are vain and fruitless. However, other than MW, I do notArndt Riester

conclude from this that cross-linguistic comparison is indeed futile or impossible but, on thecontrary, that we need clearer definitions and better, language-independent, methods ofinformation-structural analysis. Most importantly perhaps, we should give up the idealistic
conception that information-structural functions must be hardwired to a single particularmorpheme, pitch accent, or syntactic construction. Skopeteas and Fanselow (2010) haveshown, in an elicitation study on the identificational vs. non-identificational distinction for
subject and for object focus in languages as diverse as Georgian, Hungarian, Québec Frenchand American English, that there is clear “evidence against a cross-linguistic 1:1 mapping
between types of focus and structural operations” (Skopeteas and Fanselow, 2010: 194) but
there are nevertheless robust statistical differences of focus realization across these languages.
This result could not have been achieved without the postulation of interpretive tertia
comparationis, i.e. abstract notions of information structure. Certain constructions, syntactic
operations, morphemes or prosodic features in a specific language have a statistical tendency
to be used in the expression of focus or one of its subclasses, but we cannot expect them to doso unanimously, since there will always be other aspects of form and meaning that interfere.
To tease all the factors apart is a legitimate and important linguistic goal but, in order toachieve a deeper understanding, it is indispensable to start out from some clearly defined
abstract interpretational categories.
The fact that some languages seem to mark certain sub-divisions of focus which otherlanguages ignore, or the fact that prototypical focus constructions in certain languages express
meanings that exceed the core meaning of focus should not bother us too much in this regard.
The important point, in the first place, is that we have a clear idea of what the core meaning of
focus is. To study additional meaning aspects is legitimate and valuable but should be seen asa later step.
As I said, I am fully in line with MW’s worries concerning the premature association ofcertain morphemes or syntactic positions with information-structural functions. While thismay often seem tempting, it is, in fact, bad linguistic practice. To illustrate the worries, I
simply choose the example of English, which is known for its prosodic marking of focus.
Empirical evidence shows that, often, focus constituents carry a high (or falling) nuclear pitchaccent. But, of course, this is not a license for calling the H* accent in general a focus accent.
First of all, it is not too difficult to find corpus examples in which topical, backgrounded, or
not-at-issue material is marked by the same type of pitch accent. Second, there are cases offocus constituents, especially complex ones, that are prosodically realized in a more elaboratemanner, e.g. by means of a complex, internally structured, prosodic contour that consists of aseries of different pitch accents. Third, there are other cases of focus (so-called
second-occurrence foci, cf. Beaver and Velleman 2011) that are not marked by any pitch3

4

Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrative

movement at all. Hence, unfortunately, the conclusion is that linguistic reality is “dirty” andcomplicated. We cannot expect focus to always have the exact same realization, althoughstatistical effects are clearly present. But should this seriously be considered an argument
against the benefit of an abstract concept of focus? I do not think so.
But, then what do we mean by an abstract concept of focus? The most common, and by
now more or less consensual, definition of focus given in the literature is that focus is what
constitutes the answer to an explicit or implicit question (also referred to as the Question
under Discussion (QUD) or current question, cf. Roberts 1996, Beaver and Clark 2008).
Finding the QUD and, therefore, identifying the focus has its own issues, which I will addressin Section 3. MW do not actually dispute this definition. However, they address the notorious
problem of subcategorizing focus, in particular the problem of delimiting a category ofcontrastive focus from a more basic category of ordinary (information) focus. (Similararguments concern the definition of identificational – or exhaustive – focus, and othersub-classes that have been proposed in the literature.) Doubts arise with regard to the benefitof such sub-classifications, which is why I will try to provide some clarifications. It should be
noted that there are many accounts in the literature which plainly ignore the existence of acontrastive vs. non-contrastive divide, e.g. Rooth (1992) or Büring (2008). But even inapproaches that do assume a distinct category of contrastive focus, opinions diverge of how todefine contrast and whether it should be treated only as a subcategory of focus or as an
optional add-on feature that also combines with topics / themes, cf. Vallduví & Vilkuna(1998).
A major part of the confusion relates to the unclear notion of alternatives, whose
availability, on some accounts, is taken to be a defining criterion for contrastive focus (e.g.
Selkirk 2008, Katz and Selkirk 2011) while on other accounts their presence is attributed toall sorts of focus, including the non-contrastive kind (novelty focus). The culprit for thisunfortunate confusion is probably Rooth (1985, 1992, 1996), whose theory of Alternative
Semantics contains all ingredients for a comprehensive understanding of focus but is
unfortunately presented in a somewhat ambiguous manner. “[E]voking alternatives is thegeneral function of focus.” (Rooth 1996: 276). This dictum has often been misinterpreted. In
fact, it is necessary to keep apart two notions of alternatives: firstly, sets of alternatives“evoked” by the F(ocus)-feature (so-called focus-semantic values) are simply defined in termsof the semantic type of the F-marked expression: every expression that has the same semantic
type as the focused expression is automatically an alternative. Alternative sets of this kind are,naturally, quite big, and might be called “anonymous” (Riester and Kamp 2010) or “raw”(Büring 2013) alternative sets. For instance, the focus-semantic value of the noun tree
consists of all other nouns contained in a speaker’s lexicon. It is obvious that such a big

Arndt Riester

alternative set cannot receive an extensional characterization, i.e. we are simply unable to list
all the members of this set, and it is perhaps confusing to think of an F-marked expression asa set at all, and not just, say, as a placeholder for expressions of the same semantic type.
The second type of alternatives could be described as contextually salient alternatives.
Contextually salient alternatives come much closer to an intuitive and pragmatically relevant
notion of alternatives, and they are precisely what we need in defining a notion of contrast. It
is important to note that, in Rooth’s system, contextually salient alternatives are not identified
or evoked by focus itself but by means of a special anaphoric operator, written as ~(“squiggle”), which attaches to a constituent that contains both a focus and somebackgrounded material. This constituent is called a focus domain. Note that Rooth talks aboutthe ~ operator as “restricting” the original focus-semantic value, but, again, this might be amisleading way of speaking, under the assumption that we usually do not know whichelements are contained in the original focus-semantic value in the first place. Instead of“restriction”, therefore, I prefer to talk about the “identification” of contextually salient
alternatives: a focus domain is an anaphoric expression that wants to identify one or several
alternatives in the current context (or, at least, a question antecedent). To be clear: without a ~operator, there is no discourse interaction at all. The F-feature is not itself anaphoric; afocused constituent which is not embedded in a focus domain does not have any specificalternatives that can be named. It is merely an anonymous alternative set (and it can, therefore,
only represent new but not contrastive information). This opens up a possibility to define a
notion of contrastive focus (and, conversely, a notion of a non-contrastive focus): a
contrastive focus is a focus whose alternatives can be unanimously identified in the discourse
context (É. Kiss 1998: 267, Brunetti 2009, Riester and Baumann 2013: 233), while anon-contrastive focus is not – as it is often mistakenly put – a focus “without alternatives” buta focus whose alternatives simply remain unidentified and anonymous. In the analysis below,
I will not distinguish contrastive from non-contrastive foci because I will only concentrate ona basic focus notion.
An argument that I must reject is the one that “focus is often poorly defined” (MW: 135).
While this may hold true for parts of the literature, there is no reason why this woefulsituation should persist nowadays. It has become entirely clear that focus must neither be
defined in terms of newness, nor contrast, nor exhaustivity (and certainly not in vague terms
like importance, unexpectedness etc.) All these notions describe focus-related but ultimately
distinct phenomena. To define focus in terms of the availability of alternatives is not, per se,
wrong but, as I have sketched above, typically gives rise to misunderstandings. The only clear
definition of focus is that of being the part of an assertion that answers an explicit or implicit
Question under Discussion (QUD) (e.g. Roberts 1996). Of course, this requires us to explain5

6

Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrative

what QUDs are in general, and how they can be determined. Monological text typically does
not contain any overt QUDs at all. But also dialogue typically contains fewer questions than
one would perhaps expect. Note that it may be the case that, occasionally, the implicit QUD
in a conversation deviates from an overtly asked question. (Sometimes, people choose toanswer a different specific question than the one that was explicitly asked.) To identify a
QUD at every point in discourse can be controversial, and it requires a holistic interpretationof the discourse at hand.
Upshot: The discussion above shows, in my opinion, that research on information
structure has to internalize two lessons: first, it looks as if there is little hope that we will everidentify a single expression, construction, syntactic position or pitch accent type within one
language that unanimously serves as a marker of focus. From this, it follows, second, that themarking of focus, or any other information structural category, will always show a merely
statistical distribution. Neither of this, however, justifies the negative conclusion that there
can be no abstract interpretive concept of focus, at the outset. On the contrary, the wholesituation, to my view, only increases the need for a precise interpretive definition of focus, in
combination with a clear meaning-based procedure or recipe how to identify tokens of focus
constituents in natural language data. Such a recipe is what I am going to try to provide in thenext Section. In order to underscore the fact that the described procedure of analysis is indeed
language-independent, cross-linguistically applicable, and inherently meaning-based, I will
resort to the somewhat unusual experiment of analyzing a narrative text from a language inwhich I do not have any prior expertise: the Austronesian language Balinese (cf. Arka 2003).
It goes without saying that this requires the availability of thorough linguistic glosses and atranslation which is close to the original text.1
3. Annotating Questions under Discussion and information structure
In the following, I will make the assumption that discourse is not linear but hierarchicallyorganized in the form of a discourse tree. This assumption is commonly found in theories of
discourse structure (e.g. Mann and Thompson 1988, Asher and Lascarides 2003) andinformation structure (Roberts 1996, Büring 2003, Beaver and Clark 2008) but
implementations differ. On the one hand, theories of discourse structure usually assume that

1

The Balinese text in the appendix, Bulan Kuning, including glosses and translations, was kindly

provided to me by Asako Shiohara on the occasion of the International Workshop on Information
Structure of Austronesian languages at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, February 2015. I
have slightly changed the translations to bring them a bit closer to the Balinese original, and I

Arndt Riester

text is built from so-called elementary discourse units (roughly: clauses), which themselvesrepresent the nodes of discourse trees. QUD-based theories of information structure typicallyassume that discourse trees are abstract objects structured by means of increasingly specificquestions which are ordered by an entailment relation.
The discourse trees I have in mind combine elements from both discourse structure
and theories of Questions under Discussion. The goal is to transform natural discourse into atree whose non-terminal elements are questions and whose terminal elements are theassertions of the text, in their linear order, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Discourse tree with Questions under Discussion

It is the task of the analyst to reconstruct the QUDs of the text, and, in the course of this,the geometry of the discourse tree. Well-written texts and clearly structured spoken
discourses possess an accordingly clear discourse structure. In the following, I am goingto sketch the necessary steps for an analysis procedure.
Step 1: Read the entire text carefully and make sure to understand what it is about andwhether it makes sense. It is difficult or entirely impossible to analyze text which is
incoherent or incomprehensible.
Step 2: Split the text into clauses at sentence-level conjunctions, i.e. isolate single
assertions. Do not separate sentential arguments from their embedding verbs.
Step 3: Identify parallel structures, i.e. assertions which provide different partial answers
to the same question. The goal is to identify as many parallelisms as possible, thus
capturing a maximum of coherence in the text. For instance, in the abstract Figure 1,
assertions A1’ and A1’’ have been identified as partial answers to the same question QUD1.
Partial answers to the same question need not be immediately adjacent. For instance, thefirst (A0’) and the last (A0’’) assertion in Figure 1 are both partial answers to QUD0,
although they are separated by intervening material. This material must elaborate on or7

8

Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrative

provide some background to A0’. (1) is an example from our Balinese narrative. A
sentence has been split into two clauses at the conjunction tur.
(1) a15’:

Raksasa dadi

BetaraRaksasa become god
Raksasa became a god.
a15’’:

tur

mawalibuinkasuarga.

andreturnagain

toheavenand returned to heaven.
The clauses are parallel to the extent that they have the same subject or topic Raksasa,
which is left implicit in (a15’’). I will adopt the convention to label each clause with an a(for answer or assertion) and a number that matches the number of the respective question.
A series of parallel answers to the same question, e.g. (q1), is marked by (a1’), (a1’’),(a1’’’) etc.
Step 5: Formulate the respective QUD. This is not an arbitrary move. Most importantly,
the QUD must be such that all the assertions below the question actually are congruent
with it (i.e. they must indeed answer the question). In general, this means that the QUD
can in principle target any constituent of the assertion. For instance, (a15’) could be theanswer to any of the following questions: What happened? Who became a god? What
happened to Raksasa? What did Raksasa become? Who became what? However, theselection of the proper question is restricted as soon as we have several (partial) answers.
In this case, the question must contain “the lowest common denominator” of the twopartial answers, i.e. the semantically constant element contained in all available answers,
while the alternating parts are replaced by a wh-phrase. For the little discourse above, thismeans that the question can only be (q15), as can be seen in Example (2).
(2) q15: {What happened to Raksasa?}> a15’:

Raksasa became a god[topic> a15’’:] [focus][focus domain

]

and

(he)

returned to heaven.

[topic][focus][focus domain]

Arndt Riester

The constant material in both assertions is called the background. In case the backgroundcontains a referring entity, that entity is labeled (aboutness) topic, cf. Reinhart (1981),
Krifka (2007). In (a15’’), the topic is an empty category which can, but need not, be madeexplicit. (Note that not all backgrounds contain a topic, but all (non-contrastive) aboutness
topics are backgrounded.) The constituents that provide the actual answers to the question(q15) – here, the two VPs – are assigned the label focus. The background (or topic) in
combination with the focus together form the so-called focus domain (the phrases Rooth(1992) would mark by use of the ~ operator). The focus domains of the parallel answers
must “match” each other as well as the question (Büring 2008), which simply means thatthey must share the same background. In (2), I have used the > symbols and indentation inorder to represent the tree structure in Figure 2.

Figure 2 A Question under Discussion with two partial answers

A second constraint that puts a limit on the formulation of any QUD is that QUDs should
always make reference to the immediately preceding discourse, i.e. a QUD (except at the
beginning of a discourse) must contain given material. (If it doesn’t, this means that the
text is not very coherent, i.e. that the writer or speaker randomly switches to a completely
different topic. Usually, this does not happen in rational discourse.) An example is shownin (3), and its abstract representation in Figure (3).
(3) q0: {What is the way things are?}> a0: Ada

koné

anak

exist hearsay person

luh

balu

madan

femalewidowed named

Mén Bekung.
mother Bekung[focus]

It is told that there was a widow called Mén Bekung.
> q1: {What about Mén Bekung?}> > a1: Ia

nongosdisisinalas-é

gedé.

3

live

at

side

forest-DEF

big

topic

[focus[focus domain
She lived beside the big forest.

]
]

9

10

Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrative

Figure 3 Subquestion (q1) seeking additional information about the previous discourse (a0)Note that the first question (q0), the initial question of the discourse, is what Roberts(1996) calls the Big Question, the most general question that can be asked. The answer tothis question is an all-focus sentence (a0), which is not embedded in a focus domain. (Itentirely consists of new information.) Question (q1) is a subquestion to the pair (q0-a0),
since it solicits additional information about what was said in (a0). Note that I deviate
from Roberts (1996) to the extent that I do not require that subquestions, e.g. (q1), must
be entailed by their super-question, (q0). This means that answers to subquestions can but
need not be answers to a super-question. In fact, subquestions often trigger explanations
or background information which do not, themselves, answer questions that are higher up
in the tree.2
Step 6: Identify not-at-issue material. The parts of a clause that do not answer the current
QUD can be grouped together under the notion of not-at-issue content, or conventional
implicatures (Potts 2005, Simons et al. 2010). In general, this refers to optional
information that does not contribute to the truth or falsity of the assertion. The two major
types of not-at-issue material are, firstly, supplements such as parentheticals,
non-restrictive modifiers and other appositive material like the reason clause in Example(4). The second type of not-at-issue content consists of evidentials – see Example (5) –and other speaker-oriented material, e.g. sentence-adverbs like luckily.
(4) q11: {What did Bulan Kuning learn about the magic stones?}> a11:

Sawireh iasayangang-a

because 3

love-3.ACT

Because she was loved,[not-at-issue
2]

An issue that I will not address in this paper are the more complicated question-answer

structures which arise in connection with contrastive topics (Büring 2003). While those are, in
general, very important, I skip this issue here, since there seem to be no contrastive topics
contained in the very simple narrative structure of our text.

Arndt Riester

orahin-aiakagunan manik-é

tell-3.ACT

3use

maketelu ento

jewel-DEF three

that

topic
[focus][focus domain]

she was taught the use of those three magic stones.
(5) q2: {What happened to her on a particular day?}> a2: ka-kritaang jani ia
PASS-tell

now 3[not-at-issue] topic

maan nuduk

anak

cerik

pusuh.

get

child

small

small

AV-find[focus][focus domain]

It is now told that she found a tiny little child.
The two types of not-at-issue content have in common that they do not contribute toanswering the QUD. In principle, it would be possible to change the QUD, thereby
turning not-at-issue content into at-issue (focus) content. For instance, the QUD in (4)could be {Why was she taught the use of the magic stones?} (answer: [Because she was
loved]focus), and the QUD in (5) could – perhaps – be formulated as {How certain is it thatshe found a tiny little child?} (answer: [It is (merely) told]focus) But, in fact, these QUDs
seem very unlikely, since they do not make much sense in the larger context of the story.
Table 1 gives an overview of our basic information-structure inventory.

Tag

Definition

Focus

The part of a clause that answers the current QUD

Focus domain

A piece of discourse which contains both a focus and some background, andwhich recurs elsewhere in the context differing with regard to the focus(possibly in the form of a constituent question)

BackgroundThe non-focal part of a focus domain (that part which is already mentioned in
the current QUD)

(Aboutness) topic

Referential entity in the background; ideally an element of a coreference chain

Not-at-issue

The part of a clause which provides optional information from with regard to
the current QUD

Table 1 Inventory of information-structure labels

11

12

Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrative

To conclude my brief introduction into QUD analysis, I should point out that narrative text, as
the one provided in the appendix, is not the most obvious type of discourse to demonstrate theanalysis of information structure since narratives are primarily structured on the temporaldimension. This is not to say that information structure is not important in this genre but its
impact on text structure is much bigger in informative discourse such as news, interviews orarticles in encyclopedias.
For similar reasons, the QUDs in narratives are often a bit monotonous (Whathappened? What happened next? etc.) The entire text below is divided into several more orless temporally separated sections (smaller discourse trees) rather than forming a single bigunit.
4. Two additional levels of information-structure annotation: referential and lexicalinformation status
As a final issue, complementing the QUD and focus analysis of the narrative, I will briefly
sketch another aspect of information-structural analysis: information status. Since I (and myco-author) have extensively written about information status (and the RefLex annotation
scheme) elsewhere (Baumann and Riester 2012, 2013; Riester and Baumann 2013), I will
only give a very rough overview here. Information status (Prince 1981, 1992) describes theclassification of linguistic expressions according to their degree of cognitive activation. Likein the case of focus, I assume that information status categories are definable as abstract
interpretive categories, which can be utilized cross-linguistically. It is possible to distinguish
two levels of information status, a referential level (Table 2) that describes the cognitive
status of referring expressions, and a lexical level that classifies content words in terms ofpossible semantic relations to earlier content words (Table 3). As for the referential level, I
take it that an important criterion for distinguishing referring expressions in a text is whether
they are uniquely identifiable with respect to a certain kind of context or whether they are notunique. Unique identifiability is a property associated with definiteness already since Frege(1892). (For a comprehensive account and history of definiteness, see Elbourne 2013).
However, markers of definiteness suffer the same problem that Mati and Wedgwood (2012)
have diagnosed for focus particles: they are language-specific and they are typically notstrictly defined in abstract interpretive terms. In Table 3, therefore, no reference is made to
definiteness. Instead, referring expressions are distinguished according the context classes
with respect to which they are unique. All further details of the RefLex scheme can be foundin the annotation guidelines (Riester and Baumann, in prep.)Arndt Riester

Tag

Description

Uniqueness and Context

r-given-sit

Symbolic deixis

Entityr-environment

Gestural deixis

context

r-givenCoreference anaphorar-given-displaced

Coreference

anaphora

withremote antecedent (> 5 clauses)
r-cataphor

Cataphora

uniqueintext-external

Entity unique in previous discourse
context
Entityuniqueinupcoming

discourse context
r-bridging

Bridging / associative anaphora

Entity unique in previous frame
context

r-bridging-contained

Bridging

anaphorwithembedded antecedentr-unused-unknown

Hearer-unknown, discourse-new

r-unused-known

Hearer-known, discourse-new

r-new

Discourse-new item

Entity unique in global context

Non-unique entity

Optional flags+generic

Generic or non-specific item

+predicate

Used in predicative construction

Table 2 Referential information status. Annotation units: referring expressions

Tag

Description

l-given-same

Repetition

l-given-syn

Synonym of previous item

l-given-superHypernym of previous item

l-given-whole

Holonym of previous item

l-accessible-sub

Hyponym of previous item

l-accessible-part

Meronym of previous item

l-accessible-stem

Part of the word has occured

Cognitive status

active, i.e. salient concepts

semi-active, i.e. derivable concepts

previously
l-newUnrelated within last 5 clauses

inactive concepts

Table 3 Lexical information status. Annotation units: content words

13

14

Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrative

Appendix: Analysis of a Balinese narrative
Bulan Kuningq0: {(Part 1:) What is the way things are?}> a0:

Ada koné

anak

luh

balu

madan

Mén Bekung.

exist hearsay

personfemalewidowed named

mother Bekung

l-new

l-new

l-acc-sub l-new[l-new[r-new]][not-at-issue][focus]

It is told that there was a widow called Mén Bekung.

> q1: {What about Mén Bekung?}> > a1’:

Ia

nongosdisisinalas-é

3

live

at

side

forest-DEF big

l-new

l-new

l-new
r-given

gedé.

l-new

[r-unused-known][r-bridging-contained

topic[focus]][focus domain]

She lived beside the big forest.

> > a1’’: Gegina-né

sai-saingalihjob-3.POSS

usually

AV-look for firewood

l-new

l-new

saang

ka

alas-é.

toforest-DEF

l-acc-partl-given-same(r-given)r-bridging-contr-new+generic[r-given](topic)[focus][focus domain]

Her work was to go to the forest looking for firewood.

Arndt Riester> q2: {What happened to her on a particular day?}> > a2:

ka-critaang jani

ia

maan

nuduk

anak

cerik

pusuh.

PASS-tell3get

AV-find

child

small

small

l-new

l-new

l-acc-sub l-new

now

l-new
r-given[not-at-issue

]

topic

l-given-syn[r-new][focus][focus domain]

It is now told that she found a tiny little child.

> > q3: {What happened to the child?}> > > a3: Sawireh
becausekulit-néputihskin-3.POSS

whitel-acc-part l-new

l-acc-part(r-given)r-bridging-contained[not-at-issue ...

tur

mua-né

bunterbuka

bulan-é

andface-3.POSS

round

like

moon-DEF

l-new

l-new

l-new

(r-given)r-bridging-contained[r-unused-known]... not at-issue]

lantaska-adanin

Ni

Bulan Kuning.

then

PASS-nameMs.

yellow moon (idiom)

l-new

l-new

[l-new][r-unused-unknown+predicate][focus]Because her skin was white and her face was round like the moon, she was given the name
Bulan Kuning.

15

16

Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrativeq4: {(Part 2:) What happened when Bulan Kuning was older?}
> a4:

Sedek

dina

anu

Ni Bulan Kuning

ajaka

barengatday

unknown Ms. Bulan Kuningwithtogether

l-new

l-new

[r-new[l-given-same]] [r-given][topic][backgroundl-new] [focus ...

[focus domain ...
ngalihsaang

katengahalas-é.

AV-look for

firewoodtocenterwood-DEF

l-given-samel-given-same

l-new

l-given-samer-given-samer-given+generic[r-bridging-contained]... focus]... focus domain]
One day, Ni Bulan Kuning joined in searching for firewood in the middle of the forest.
> q5: {What happened to her in the middle of the forest?}> > a5’:Di

tengahalas-é

Ni Bulan Kuning

palingat

centerforest-DEF

Ms. Bulan Kuning

get lost

l-given-samel-given-same[l-given-same] [l-new ][r-given][topic]r-given[r-given][background] [focus][focus domain]

In the middle of the forest Bulan Kuning got lost
> > a5’’: tur
and

palas

ngajakmeme-n-né.

separatewithmother-INS-3

l-new

l-new
(r-given)[r-given-displaced][focus][focus domain]

and was separated from her mother.

Arndt Riester> > q6: {How did she feel about being lost?}> > > a6: Ni Bulan Kuning

jejeh

pesan

atin-né.

Ms. Bulang Kuning scaredmuchheart-3 (idiom)[l-given-same] l-newl-acc-part(r-given)[r-given][r-bridging-contained][topic] [focus][focus domain]

Bulan Kuning was very scared.

> > a5’’’: Mara

ia

inget

when

3

become concious[l-new]

r-given[not-at-issue]

dapetang-a,

ibane

suba

saup-afind-3.ACT

oneself

already

take-3.ACT by

Mr. Giant

l-new[l-new

l-new
r-giventekén

I Raksasa][r-unused-unknown]

topic[focus][focus domain]

When she became conscious again she found herself held by Raksasa (the Giant).

> > q7: {How did she feel about this?}> > > a7: Ia

ngetorbaan

jejeh-ne3tremblebecause offear-3.POSS

l-new

l-acc-stem(r-given)

r-given[topic][r-bridging-contained+generic[focus[focus domain
She trembled because she was scared.

]
]
]

17

18

Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrativeq8: {(Part 3:) How did her relationship with Raksasa continue?}> a8’:

Ia

sayangang-a

pesan

baan

I Raksasa.

3love-3ACT

much

by

Mr. Giant

l-new[l-given-same]r-given
topic[r-given][focus][focus domain]

She was very much loved by Raksasa.

> q9: {What about Raksasa?}> > a9:I Raksasa

ngelah

manik

sakti

telungbesik

Mr. GiantAV-have

jewel

magic

three

item

[l-given-same]

l-new

l-new

[r-given][r-new[topic]][focus][focus domain]

Raksasa had three manik (jewels, magic stones),> > q10: {What kind of stones?}> > > a10’:

luire:

manik

api,

that is:

jewel

fire

l-given-same

l-new[r-new]
focus[focus domain]that is, a fire jewel,> > > a10’’:l-given-super

manik

yeh,

jewel

water

l-given-same

l-new[r-new]
focus[focus domain
a water jewel,]

Arndt Riester> > > a10’’’:manik

angin.

jewel

wind

l-given-same

l-new[r-new]
focus[focus domain]

and a wind jewel.

> > q11: {What did Bulan Kuning learn about the magic stones?}> > > a11: Sawirehiasayangang-a,

because3

love-3.ACT
l-given-samer-given[not-at-issue

orahin-aia]kagunanmanik-é

maketetelu

ento.

tell-3.ACT 3

use

jewel-DEF

three

that

l-new

l-new

l-give-samer-given[r-given[r-bridging-contained

]
]

topic
[focus][focus domain]

Because she was loved, she was taught the use of those three magic stones.

19

20

Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrative

q12: {(Part 4: What happened with the stones one day when Raksasa was away?}> a12:

KatujuI Raksasa

luas,

when

Mr. Giantgo out[l-given-same]l-new[r-given][background][focus domain ...

lantasplaibang-amanik-é

makejang tekén

then

run with-3.ACT

jewel-DEF all

l-newl-given-same[l-given-same][r-given] [r-givenbyI Bulan Kuning.
Ms. Bulan Kuning

]

topic
[focus]... focus domain]

When Raksasa happened to be out, then all the magic stones were taken away by Bulan
Kuning.

> q13: {How did Raksasa react?}> > a13’: Saget
unexpectedly[not-at-issue]teka

I Raksasa

come

Mr. Giant

l-new[l-given-same]

focus[r-given][topic][focus domain]

Unexpectedly, Raksasa returned.

> > a13’’: sahasa

nguberNi Bulan Kuning.

fiercely

AV-chase

Ms. Bulan Kuning

l-new

l-new

[l-given-same][r-given][focus][focus domain]

He fiercely chased Bulan Kuning.

Arndt Riester> > a13’’’:Makir-é

Ni Bulan Kuning

bakatangatekén

I Raksasa

when

Ms.Bulan Kuning

catch-3.ACT

by

Mr. Giant[l-given-same][r-given

]

l-new

21

[l-given-same][r-given[not-at-issue]]

lantassabat-abaanmanik-é

thenthrow-3.ACT

withstone-def that

l-new

ento

l-giv-same[r-given][focus ...
[focus domain ...
kanti

I Raksasa

mati

until

Mr. Giantdie[l-given-same]l-new[r-given]... focus]... focus domain]

When Bulan Kuning was nearly caught by Raksasa, he got these stones thrownat himself until Raksasa died.

> q14: {What happened to Bulan Kuning?}> > a14:

Ni Bulan Kuning

tengkejut

ningehsabda

Ms. Bulan Kuning

surprised

hear

voice

[l-given-same

]

l-new

l-new

l-new

[r-given]r-new[not-at-issue]

sawiréh

Ni Bulan Kuning

nyupatI Raksasa.

becauseMs. Bulan Kuning

AV-purify Mr. Giant[l-given-same] l-new[l-given-same][r-given][r-given[topic][focus[focus domain]]]

Bulan Kuning was surprised to hear a voice saying that Bulan Kuning had purified
Raksasa.

22

Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrative> q15: {What happened to Raksasa?}> > a15’: Raksasa

dadi

BetaraRaksanabecomegod

l-given-same

l-new

l-new

r-givenr-new+predicate[topic][focus][focus domain]

Raksasa became a god> > a15’’: tur

mawalibuinkasuarga.

andreturnagain

toheaven

l-new

l-new
[r-unused-known ][focus][focus domain]

and returned to heaven.

q16: {(Part 5:) What happened to Bulan Kuning, in the end?}> a16’:Ni Bulan Kuning

kaicénkasaktianmaubad-ubadan.

Ms. Bulan Kuning

PASS-give

power

treat

[l-given-same

]

l-new

l-new

l-new

[r-given][topic] [focus[r-unused-unknown+generic][focus domain]

Bulan Kuning was given the power to treat people.

> a16’’:Jani

Ni BulanKuning

mulih

now

Ms. Bulan Kuning

go home[l-given-same][l-new][r-given][topic] [focus][focus domain
Then she went home]]

Arndt Riester> a16’’’: lantas
thenngalihMémén Bekung.

AV-look formother Bekung

l-new[l-new][r-given-displaced][focus][focus domain]

and saw Mémen Bekung.
3: 3rd person, ACT: actor, AV: actor voice, DEF: definite, PASS: passive voice, POSS: possessor

23

24

Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrative

References
Arka, I. Wayan (2003). Balinese Morphosyntax: A Lexical-Functional Approach. Canberra:
Pacific Linguistics.
Asher, Nicholas and Alex Lascarides (2003). Logics of Conversation. Cambridge University
Press.
Baumann, Stefan and Arndt Riester (2012). Referential and lexical givenness: Semantic,
prosodic and cognitive aspects. In: G. Elordieta & P. Prieto (eds.) Prosody and Meaning.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 119-161.
Baumann, Stefan and Arndt Riester (2013). Coreference, lexical givenness and prosody inGerman. Lingua 136: 16-37.
Beaver, David and Brady Clark (2008). Sense and Sensitivity: How Focus Determines
Meaning. (Explorations in Semantics 5). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Beaver, David and Dan Velleman (2011). The communicative significance of primary andsecondary accents. Lingua 121: 1671-1692.
Brunetti, Lisa (2009). On links and tails in Italian. Lingua 119: 756-781.
Büring, Daniel (2003). On D-Trees, beans, and B-Accents. Linguistics & Philosophy 26(5):511-545.
Büring, Daniel (2008). What’s new (and what’s given) in the theory of focus? In:
Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, pp.
403-424.
Büring, Daniel (2013). Givenness, contrast, and topic. Talk presented at DGfS, Potsdam,
Germany.
Elbourne, Paul (2013). Definite descriptions (Oxford Studies in Semantics and Pragmatics 1).
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É. Kiss, Katalin (1998). Identificational focus vs. information focus. Language 74: 245-273.
Frege, Gottlob (1892). Über Sinn und Bedeutung. Zeitschrift für Philosophie undphilosophische Kritik 100:25-50.
Katz, Jonah and Elisabeth Selkirk (2011). Contrastive focus vs. Discourse-new: Evidence
from Phonetic Prominence in English. Language 87(4): 771-816.
Krifka, Manfred (2007). Basic notions of information structure. In C. Féry and M. Krifka(eds.) Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure 6. Potsdam, pp. 13-56.
Mann, William and Sandra Thompson (1988). Rhetorical Structure Theory: Towards afunctional theory of text organization. Text 8: 243-281.

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Mati, Dejan and Daniel Wedgwood (2013). The meanings of focus: the significance of aninterpretation-based category in cross-linguistic analysis. Journal of Linguistics 49(1):17-163.
Potts, Christopher (2005). The Logic of Conventional Implicatures. Oxford University Press.
Prince, Ellen (1981). Towards a taxonomy of given-new information. In: P. Cole (ed.)
Radical Pragmatics (Syntax and Semantics 14). New York: Academic Press, pp.
223-256.
Prince, Ellen (1992). The ZPG letter: Subjects, definiteness and information status. In W.
Mann and S. Thompson (eds.) Discourse Description: Diverse Linguistic Analyses of aFund-Raising Text. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 295-325.
Reinhart, Tanya (1981). Pramatics and linguistics: An analysis of sentence topics inpragmatics and philosophy I. Philosophica anc Studia Philosophica Gandensia Gent
27(1):53-94.
Riester, Arndt and Stefan Baumann (2013). Focus triggers and focus types from a corpus
perspective. Dialogue and discourse 4(2): 215-248.
Riester, Arndt and Stefan Baumann (in prep.) RefLex scheme – Annotation guidelines. URL:
http://www.ims.uni-stuttgart.de/institut/mitarbeiter/arndt/
Riester, Arndt and Hans Kamp. Squiggly issues: Alternative sets, complex DPs andintensionality. M. Aloni et al. (eds.) Logic, Language and Meaning. Revised Selected
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Roberts, Craige (1996). Information structure in discourse: Towards an integrated formal
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Selkirk, Elisabeth (2008). Contrastive focus, givenness and the unmarked status of‘discourse-new’. Acta Linguistics Hungarica 55: 331-346.
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Analyzing Questions under Discussion and Information Structure in a Balinese Narrative

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Press, pp. 19-106.

27

Discourse and information structure in KadorihKazuya INAGAKIVisiting Research Fellow(Kobe University of Foreign Studies)kazuyainagaki@gmail.com

1. Overview
In Inagaki (2014), I introduced prosodic features and constructions signaling information
structure in Kadorih such as topic-comment, entity-introducing, event-reporting andidentificational (or cleft) constructions. In this paper, I will point out that the description of
prosody such as pause, pitch, length and loudness is important for analyzing information
structure of Kadorih.㻌 Among these prosodic features, pause and length have not been an
issue drawing sufficient attention in previous studies on information structure. This paper will
describe the role these prosodic features play in discourse and demonstrate their importancefor interpreting information flow, boundary or structure. I will show information structure ofKadorih within the framework proposed by Chafe (1976), Prince (1981), Lambrecht (1994)
and others.
As Chafe (1979) pointed out, pause and other prosodic features function as delimiters in a
discourse. In addition, as described㻌 in numerous studies, including Inagaki (2014), prosodic
features crucially relate to understanding of a sentence in terms of information structure.
These aspects in speech tend to be missed when analyzing a spoken text which has alreadybeen transcribed by a linguist. This might be because we believe it is more important to see
distinctive formal or segmental units which associate with semantic meanings. However,non-distinctive properties, or even non-verbal properties may well be clues for an addressee tointerpret the addressor’s speech in terms of information structure. For example, eye movement
directed to some entity in the deictic world may signal a topic of the following statement.
In the following sections two issues will be discussed. First, in section 2, distribution andbehavior of prosodic features in discourse will be considered. Pause, length, and pitch will beanalyzed from the viewpoint of acoustic phonetics. Subsequently, prosodically supported
structures will also be analyzed. Second, section 3 will illustrate the role of these prosodic
features in signaling information structure.

2. Discourse analysis
In this section, I will focus on prosody in Kadorih discourse. In the following subsections,pause and its surrounding prosodic features, length and pitch will be discussed.
2.1 Pause in discourse
2.1.1 Overview
The duration and number of pauses can vary considerably among specific discourse
instances. This can be clearly seen if we compare the details of pauses in different texts. Table

28 Discourse and information structure in Kadorih

1 summarizes the number of pauses per minute and the minimum, maximum and averagepause duration in four discourse samples given by four Kadorih speakers.
Table 1: The number and duration of pauses in different texts
text
A
B
C
D

speakerfemalefemalemale
malenumber/min. duration(avg.)
25
816ms
20
688ms
19
728ms
18
1703msduration(min.)
115ms
125ms
157ms
134ms

duration(max.)
3174ms1155ms2140ms
8844ms

The texts selected here are all narrated stories belonging to the genres of folktale, daily
happening, and procedure explanation.
The number of pauses per minute seems to vary from text to text, but the figures are notsignificantly different from each other. These figures (18 to 25 per minute) can berecalculated as 3 to 4 pauses per 10 seconds. And I believe this pausing rate is true for many
fluent Kadorih speakers. If we count the number of pauses in a text uttered by a less fluent
speaker, for example, we will find more than 6 pauses per 10 seconds, in other words, morethan 36 pauses per minute. This is an unlikely situation for Kadorih native speakers. By
contrast, we will have very few opportunities to find an extreme case of a speaker who cankeep almost nonstop talking for many minutes at the rate of only 1 or 2 pauses per 10 seconds.
What is common to the pause duration in the four texts here is the minimum value. The
speakers tend to use a short pause of 100 to 200 milliseconds. If a pause is produced for 70ms,
it is too short to perceive. Generally speaking, silent intervals over 250ms are reliably pauses,
and those under 50 or 60ms are not considered as pauses (Robb et. al. 2004, cf. Kendall2009).
On the other hand, it should be noticed here that pauses ranging from 300ms to 700ms aremost commonly used by all the above speakers. However, as can be seen in Table 1, thevalues of maximum duration of pauses differ from text to text, or speaker to speaker. That is
why the average pause duration varies and ranges from 688ms to 1703ms here.
2.1.2 Pre-pause elements
This subsection introduces what kinds of elements occur before pause. More or less all
segments, syllables, prefixes (probably with the exception of the infix <an>), words, phrases,clauses, or sentences can be followed by a pause. The list in (1) contains elements frequently
occurring before pause, other than clause- or sentence-final elements.
(1) a. Fillers:anu(i) ‘um’ , e ‘er’, he ‘yeah’, nah ‘well’, nng ‘hm’, o ‘er’b. Interjections: (a)yu ‘Come on!’, ei ‘Hey!’, i ‘Hey!’c. Conjunctions: jadi ‘so’, inonko ‘and then’, iyo ‘then’, rimai ‘the story goes that’,sehingga ‘so that’, tahpi ‘but’, turus ‘and then’d. Discourse connective phrases: (amun) jadi orih ‘after having been done, insomuch
that’, umbot orih ‘after having finished that’e. Approximation adverb: kira-kira ‘roughly’, kurang-labih ‘more or less’, mungkin‘possibly’, sekihtar ‘approximately’Some other function words such as prepositions, classifier-like abstract nouns and therelativizer (i)jo are also frequently followed by a pause. The relativizer (i)jo precedes a pause

Kazuya Inagaki

29+ clause, prepositions precede a pause + word/phrase, and abstract nouns precede a pause +word/phrase as in (2)–(4). In this paper, pauses are transcribed by three dots (…).
(2)

Pre-pause element: relativizer
a. tohtok orih tahkan dasar sarupih jo … pakakisung ah nai rih‘The cutting [of the stem post] from the bottom of a side plank which … is thehighest part [of a boat when we turn the boat downside up]’b. orih naing gunai jo … palapah pisang naing arai tuh rih‘That’s the function which … of this so-called “palapah pisang”’(3)

Pre-pause element: prepositiona. harun to masang aang anui rih … aang … tohun sarupih jo pakadiang ah rih‘Only after that we install [palapah pisang] on um … in … the midst of that top
side plank’b. kira-kira himat diang isut umba … sambungan doro jo sarupih numur duo rih‘Roughly, it must be installed at little higher place than … the seam [of the No.3
side plank] with the No.2 side plank’c. amun io nokuh … booi salut oh …he jelas io anak Rungan‘If it (=river) goes to … the flow goes downriver … yeah it is for sure thetributary of Rungan river.’(4)

Pre-pause element: classifier-like abstract nouna. kira-kira kakahpai sekihtar karo … ohpat senti ka ih‘Roughly, its (=beam installed on the bottom plank) thickness is about (as muchas) … four centimeters as well, the thickness.’b. “peda borai to kumai” hion … Tempun Tajawun‘ “We are sick of eating” said … Tempun Tajawun’c. holang … uut Jehoi umba uut … Rungan‘The border [area] between … a headstream of Jehoi and a headstream … ofRungan’d. amun io nyalut nokuh hila … booi
‘If it (=river) flows to the direction … downriver’

2.2 Lengthening in discourse
This section describes a phonetic phenomenon of vowel/nasal lengthening, which iscommon in Kadorih discourse. It should be kept in mind that the duration of vowel/nasal
depends on the speech rate, and that it can also vary among discourse samples.
The following examples in (5) are two extracts from the same story. In all examples below,
lengthened segments are transcribed by capital letters (e.g. AA).
(5) a. ihtOO anui hinOO nguting ah koi-koIIk sekihtAAr karo duo sentII kahajonbindang ah …
‘We, um, again, cut it (=galvanized iron) small (into pieces) with scissors, the sizeof a piece is about (as much as) two centimeters.’b. kira-kira kakahpai sekihtar karOO … ohpat senti ka ih … kakahpai rih …
‘Roughly, its thickness is about (as much as) four centimeters as well, thethickness.’

30 Discourse and information structure in Kadorih

As can be seen in (5a), many word-final vowels may undergo lengthening at the sametime in a single intonation unit. (5a) includes five lengthened vowels: o of ihto ‘we(inclusive)’, o of hino ‘again’, i of koi-koik ‘small’, a of sekihtar ‘approximately’, and i of
senti ‘centimeter’. The sequence sekihtar + karo ‘approximately + quantity’ in (5a) is a very
useful expression for talking about quantities, and is also used in other places in the text.
When we compare the same sequence used in other places, we will find both sekihtAAr karo
as in (5a) and sekihtar karOO as in (5b).
The underlined elements in (5), sekihtar, karo, ihto and hino are frequently in texts
explaining various procedures. We can easily draw comparisons of vowel length between
them. The table given in (6) shows the result of the comparisons.
(6)

Vowel length
word
sekiht AA r
kar OO
iht OOhin OO
sekiht a r
kar o
iht o
hin o

sample
12
11
8
16
15
8
27
7

in (5ab)
372ms
358ms
506ms
421ms
85ms
60ms

average
372ms
469ms
387ms
317ms
79ms
61ms
106ms
106ms

minimum
234ms
208ms
252ms
194ms
60ms
49ms
57ms
77ms

maximum
602ms
729ms
506ms
469ms
105ms
89ms
167ms
144ms

The data of lengthened vowels is shown in the top four rows under the header, and that ofnormal short vowels can be found in the bottom four rows. It is obvious that the lengthened
and normal short vowels are categorically different in duration from each other. While thefinal short vowels are usually produced with the duration ranging from 60ms to 140ms, thelengthened vowels are usually within the range of 200ms to 600ms.
Even though not frequently, prefixes can undergo lengthening. Some examples are givenin (7) below.
(7) a. ohpat sentII ka.. … e kAAmihpih ah anui nai …
‘four centimeters as well, … er, its thinness …’
b. io rih eam io ahkaNN karo sapating lah amun tAA … pingas atawa iOO … EE
hakAAsatuk umba injah ah gi jorIIh hapa nahai amun jo …
‘It (=boat) won’t get loose anymore, even if it is stomped on, or even if it, er,
comes into contact with each other (=with another boat) when controlling, or even
if …’
In (7a), the vowel of a prefix ka- is lengthened. This prefix morphologically derives anabstract noun by attaching to an adjective such as mihpih ‘thin’. Similarly, prefixes ta- andhaka- undergo lengthening in (7b). In these cases, lengthening probably applies at the firstfoot-final syllable of each word: (ka)(mih.pih) consists of two feet (ka) and (mih.pih), and thefirst foot-final syllable is ka), (ta)(pi.ngas) has (ta) + (pi.ngas) and the relevant syllable is ta),and (ha.ka)(sa.tuk) has (ha.ka) + (sa.tuk) and the relevant syllable is ka).

Kazuya Inagaki

2.3 Roles of pause and lengthening
This section describes the roles played by pauses and lengthening in discourse. An
example in (8) includes a chain of clauses and pauses extracted from the text of procedure
explanation.
(8) a. mahkUU nah …
b. amun io jadi uras ndai pahku AAh uras segAAh …
c. sarupih jo mapan tawang tuh rih nyamah tatukup nai uras umbot pahku AAh …
d. harun to anUU …
e. EE ngurah …
f. nguhca nyahtOOng …
g. ahkan hapa to malisan AAh …
h. lisan tuh rih …
i. sanyapur umba minyAAk galapung nyahtong rih nyapur umba minyAAk harun io
manjadi lisAAn …
Translations of the respective extracts and durations of each pause are given in (9).
(9) a. to nail, well …(1390ms)
b. when the nailing is completely done and all [of them] are stable …(407ms)
c. [when] the nailing is completed for the side planks [which were jointed with] thebottom plank all the way up to the stem ...(1001ms)
d. only after that we, um …(917ms)
e. er look for …(856ms)
f. pound resin …(1170ms)
g. for us to use for caulking it (=boat) …(1046ms)
h. that caulking glue …(1084ms)
i. mixed with oil, the resin powder [we] mix it with oil, only after that it becomes
caulking glue …(659ms)
There are two kinds of pauses, namely hesitation and juncture pause (Laver 1994: 537–
539). The lines in (8a) and (8d) end, respectively, with fillers nah and anUU followed by along pause respectively (1390ms and 1001ms). This kind of pause can be seen as hesitation
pause produced after a hesitation filler. In addition, hesitation is also expressed by final
lengthening on the hesitation fillers such as anUU in (8d) and EE in (8e).
On the other hand, the final pause in (8b), which is realized after a subordinate clause, canbe seen as a juncture pause. This kind of pause is useful for a narrator to show a boundary
between sentences, clauses, as well as subject–predicate, or topic–comment pairs. In fact, therelatively short pause (407ms) between (8b) and (8c) does not show a boundary between asubordinate and main clause. The clause in (8c) is only juxtaposed within the large
subordinate clause which extends through (8b) and (8c). The clause in (8c) supplements a
condition which is expressed in the previous clause in (8b), that is, ‘when the nailing is done’.
Interestingly, this supplementation by juxtaposition in Kadorih discourse often co-occurs withfinal lengthening. The shared topic argument pahku AAh ‘the nailing’ which is dislocated in(8b) and appended in (8c) plays a ‘pivot’ role for juxtaposing, and lengthened syllables
demarcate the clauses obtained by means of juxtaposition. Of course, the intervening
supplemental clause uras segAAh ‘all are stable’ is also a juxtaposed clause, and the boundaryis also indicated by final lengthening.
This kind of clause combining by demarcative lengthening can be seen in (8i) too ― thejuxtaposition boundary is indicated by the final lengthening in minyAAk ‘oil’. In (8h), the31

32 Discourse and information structure in Kadorih

pre-pause noun phrase lisan tuh rih ‘that caulking glue’ is the shared topic argument for thefollowing statement, and the post-pause clauses sanyapur umba minyAAk ‘mixed with oil’ andgalapung nyahtong rih nyapur umba minyAAk ‘the resin powder [we] mix it with oil’ in (8i)
are the juxtaposed comments for that topic. In other words, the two clauses which convey new
information are juxtaposed in (8i). On the other hand, in (8b–c), the clauses which convey
information that is given (or accessible to the hearer) are juxtaposed. Therefore, lengthening
in Kadorih is commonly observed in the cases involving hesitation and demarcation and it canbe applied independently of information status of the units involved.
The final pause in (8h) can be seen as a juncture pause which demarcates the topic
argument in (8h) from the comment parts in (8i). However, a certain hesitation may also be
observed in the final pause in (8h) because of the semantically heavy content conveyed by thefollowing comment parts. Generally speaking, hesitation pauses tend to be produced before asemantically heavy unit (Maclay and Osgood 1959). Thus, the functions of hesitation andjuncture are not mutually exclusive, and a pause or lengthened segment may serve these twofunctions simultaneously.
2.4 Prosodic features and information flow in narratives
This subsection briefly considers the information flow by comparing prosodic features infolktale and non-folktale narratives.
In all kinds of narrative texts, pause and lengthening tend to be used more frequently inthe earlier part of a text. These prosodic features which may be roughly associated withsilence can signal that the speakers are relaxed and control their speech production, but they
can also indicate that they are under pressure and feeling bewildered.
Fillers and hesitation pauses tend to be used more often in non-folktale texts. A folktale
has fixed storyline and constructions. Therefore, what the narrator must do is to recall andproduce those fixed structures, without any need to create new structures. If narrator’smemory and production skills are strong enough, fillers and hesitation pauses will not bemuch used. On the other hand, other kinds of stories usually require creating new sentencesand gathering threads of a story. Non-folktale storytellers will need more time for these
mental processes, so that they tend to use fillers and hesitation pause many times.
Interestingly, sentence-internal boundary markings realized by lengthening and pitch
contour alone, namely without juncture pause, are observed more frequently in non-folktale
texts. When we listen to a non-folktale text in Kadorih, we will feel that many sentences are
structured in a somewhat random fashion. It can be said that non-folktale storytellers tend to
be less concerned with aesthetic differences between demarcations obtained by means ofpause, lengthening and pitch. On the other hand, folktale narrators tend to be more concernedwith this difference and they may more consciously know some sort of predominance of
pause over lengthening and pitch. This can be another reason why information flows infolktales are usually smoother than those in non-folktales.
2.5 The importance of pitch
Non-folktale storytellers sometimes do not use either pause or lengthening to mark aboundary. When we listen to such non-paused and non-lengthened sequences, we will be alittle bit confused. The extract shown in (10b) is a representative example.

Kazuya Inagaki

33(10) a. harun to masang AAh …
b. masang pahku pahku orih tanohtok tOO …
c. tanohtok ngindou to kuhung ah rih …
‘Only after that we set it (=No.2 side plank) up …
drive nails that nails were cut off by us …
their heads were cut off and thrown away by us …’
In (10b), there are two clauses juxtaposed without any intervening pause or lengthened
segment, masang pahku and pahku orih tanohtok to. In (10a), the storyteller states thepreceding operation of boat-making, and begins to move on to the next topic, that is, the next
operation in (10b), but in the middle, he suddenly jumps on to another relevant topic, that is,
cutting off the nail heads. After lengthening the last vowel and pausing, he supplements theinformation about the nails in (10c).
The annotated waveform and spectrogram of (10b) is shown in (11).
(11)

Annotated waveform and spectrogram of (10b)...
(pause)

pahku
nail

pahku
nail

orih
that

tanohtok
be.cut.off

to
us

(Hz)

5000

masang
drive

0

0

500

1000

Time (ms)

1500

2000

2500

As can be seen in the figure in (11), there is no salient pause or lengthened segment
between the first pahku part (around 1000ms) and the second pahku part. From the waveformor spectrogram, we can see a short gap between the end of the first pahku and the beginningof the second pahku. However, this gap is just the silent period for the occlusion of p in thesecond pahku. And it should be noted that the gap between masang and pahku (105ms) andthat between pahku and pahku (100ms) are almost identical in duration. That is why we canperceive the sequence of words “masang | pahku | pahku” as pronounced at the same intervalof time.
When we listen to the whole sequence in (10b), we can be strangely aware of theexistence of the boundary between the first pahku and the second pahku. The acoustic cues tothis perception is the pitch, specifically, falling pitch, rising pitch, and pitch uptrend (cf. Ladd
et. al. 1985). The figure in (12) shows the acoustic correlates of these pitch contours.

34 Discourse and information structure in Kadorih(12)

Annotated spectrogram with the F0 contour superimposed

250

F0 (Hz)

200
150
100
50

...
(pause)0masang
drive
500

pahku
nail
1000

pahku
nail
Time (ms)

orih
that
1500

tanohtok
be.cut.off

to
us
2000

2500

The figure in (12) has the same range of the sequence as the one given in (11), and thefundamental frequency of the sequence is superimposed on the spectrogram. The first pahku
is pronounced with a slight falling pitch at the end. The correlated F0 contour slightly drops
from 138Hz to 114Hz. And, the following topic argument pahku orih is pronounced with arising pitch at the end, which correlates to the sharp F0 movement observed on orih, risingfrom 120Hz to 186Hz. Moreover, the latter part of the sequence, pahku orih tanohtok to is
produced with a gradual rise which can be compared with the former part. These pitch
contours can contribute to our perception of the boundary between pahku and pahku. Bothfalling and rising pitch are the normal indicators of a clause boundary in Kadorih, and pitch
uptrend signals that the uptrend part is different enough from the rest of the sequence.
When a listener keeps up with a relatively faster pace of information flow in Kadorih, themore important acoustic cue may be the fundamental frequency (pitch) although gap (pause)and duration (length) are important as well.

3. Information structure and prosody
This section discribes some useful prosodic features for understanding information
structure of Kadorih, focusing mainly on pause.
3.1 Breathy pause
Relatively long pause beginning with a breath can be observed for all speakers of Kadorih.
This pause can be called “breathy pause”, as opposed to silent pause which does not involve a
breath. In Kadorih, it is a prototypical pause after a discourse connective or conjunction, a
topic argument, or a whole/quoted sentence. (13a) and (13b) show such breathy pause after awhole sentence, and (13c) shows a breathy pause after a conjunction. In (13d), the first pause
occurs after the quoted sentence, and the second one occurs after the whole utterance. A
breathy pause is indicated by a capital H plus three dots in each extract.
(13) a. tahpII kihtai ohcin naang aro H…
‘But he saw there were many birds (breath) … (1077ms)’
b. iyo UhkOO noon buwu ah aang taruk kacu H…
‘Then, Uhko set his fish trap on a tree (breath) …(2438ms)’
c. inonko H… (800ms) ihco ondou atuh Uhko ngindoi ah …
‘And then, (breath) … Uhko waited for it all day long’
d. “dinun ohcin naang aro poh Uhko” H… hion Mulau H…
‘ “Uhko! you got so many birds” (breath) …(759ms) said Mulau (breath) …
(1916ms)’

Kazuya Inagaki

As shown in (13), a breathy pause contributes to the demarcation between cohesive
information which is manifested in sentences. On the other hand, a breathy pause often occurs
after a topic argument in a sentence. In such a case, this kind of pause usually serves as
post-topic marker. The whole extract in (14) can be grammatically analyzed as a sentence,
which is preceded by a conjunction. (14a) shows a conjunction and a topic argument Uhko,
which are followed by a breathy long pause. In (14b), there are three clauses, that is, (a)‘carried his fish trap’, (b) ‘went to a river’, and (c) ‘(then) he set it’. None of them is separated
by a pause. The prepositional phrase in (14c) supplements the information where Uhko set his
fish trap, that is, in the river. Only between (14b) and (14c), a breathy short pause is used.
(14) a. jadi UhkOO H…
b. nakung buwu oh nokuh ihco sungoi kalawui nooi H…
c. aang anan H…
(One day, Uhko went setting his fish trap)‘So, Uhko (breath) … (982ms)
carried his fish trap went to a river and then he set it (breath) … (270ms)
there (breath) … (753ms)’
The sentence in (14) is a topic-comment construction which has multiple comments at thesame time. In other words, the topic Uhko is shared by the three comments expressed by theclauses in (14b). The information structure of (14) can be represented schematically as in (15)with respect to its presupposition and assertion.
(15)[ [TOP Uhko] [CMT nakung buwu oh][CMT nokuh ihco sungoi][CMT kalawui nooi aang anan] ]Pragmatic presupposition: Uhko is a topic for comment x
Pragmatic assertion 1:
x = carried Uhko’s fish trap
Pragmatic assertion 2:
x = went to a river
Pragmatic assertion 3:
x = set Uhko’s fish trap there (=in the river)

Sentence:

The extract in (14) was uttered after inonko Uhko ondou atuh tulak, nyalan noon buwu ah‘One day, Uhko went setting his fish trap’. At the time of the utterance, hearers already knowthat (a) there is Uhko’s fish trap, (b) Uhko goes somewhere, and (c) Uhko has a purpose to set
his fish trap. Thus, going and setting actions were already given information. However, both
actions can be new information because there are newly established relations: the relation
between the going action and the exact place where Uhko went, and the relation between
setting action and the exact place where Uhko set his fish trap. In addition, at the time ofutterance, either fish trap, going action, or setting action is not limited as a single issue.
Accordingly, none of them has been available as a sufficient and salient presupposition for thefollowing assertion. Therefore, none of the clauses can be regarded as an identificational
construction like ‘it was a river where Uhko went’ or ‘it was a river where Uhko set his fish
trap’.
The three comment clauses in (14b) do not seem to be demarcated. There is no intervening
pause or prominent lengthening. However, as we already observed in 2.5, perceptible pitch
plays a role for dividing (14b) into three comment clauses. Its acoustic analysis is shown in
(16).

35

36 Discourse and information structure in Kadorih(16)

Annotated waveform and spectrogram of (14b)

jadi

Uhko

H ...

nakung

buwu

oh

so

(name)(breath) ...

carry

fish trap

his

350

5000

(Hz)

F0 (Hz)

300
250
200
150

0

2000

0
3000

500

1000

1500

2500

nokuh

ihco

sungoikalawui

nooi

H ...

aang

anan

H ...

(go)toone

river

then.heset.it(breath) ...

at

there

(breath) ...

350

5000

(Hz)

F0 (Hz)

300
250
200
150
3000

3500

4000

4500
Time (ms)

5000

5500

0
6000

We can find the first sharp rise in fundamental frequency, up to around 330Hz, in thecolumn Uhko. The second, equally sharp rise can be found in the oh column at the very end of
the upper figure. These two sharp rises have about 80Hz increase in F0. The last rise withsuch a large increase appears in the last syllable of sungoi, at around 4000ms. The first sharp
rise is used for the topic argument Uhko, and the remaining two are main acoustic cues fordemarcating the three comment clauses. In other words, the subsequent rising pitch may
enable comment clauses to be easily linked to the foregoing topic even when the clauses are
simply juxtaposed without any boundary pausing or lengthening.
From a grammatical point of view, the first two comments of the three, nakung buwu oh‘carry his fish trap’ and nokuh ihco sungoi ‘to a river’ may be combined into a single clausethrough regarding nokuh as a preposition (‘Uhko brought his fish trap to a river’). However,the verb nakung lexically means nothing more than ‘carry something over one’s shoulder’ orjust ‘shoulder’, so that it is inherently not a legitimate motion verb like ngomin ‘bring’.
Moreover, a translation of (14) into Indonesian given by a (bilingual) native speaker contained
three independent clauses demarcated by two commas as in (17). Thus, it is more appropriate
not to combine these two comment clauses.
(17) a. Jadi Uhko memikul bubunya,b. berjalan menuju sebuah sungai,c. lalu memasang bubu di situ.

‘So Uhko carried his fish trap,
walked toward a river,and set the fish trap there.’Kazuya Inagaki

The reason why the storyteller unnecessarily separates (14b) and (14c) by a pause may be
as follows. This story will revolve around Uhko’s strange behavior, setting a fish trap on atree. Perhaps, the storyteller wanted to emphasize the key point where Uhko set his fish trap
or emphasize that Uhko once did so in the right place, namely in a river.
3.2 Constrictive pause
A short pause may be a useful signal of information structure as well. (18) shows arelatively short pause beginning with a glottal constriction (glottal stop or creaky voice). Thiskind of pause can be called “constrictive pause”, and it can serve as a pre-focus marker. The
whole extract in (18) contains two such pauses in a stretch of clauses.
(18) a. iyo Uhko buli Ҍ…
b. ngomin ohcin naang aro Ҍ…
c. ahkan Mulau H…
‘Then, Uhko went back home (constriction) …(221ms)
brought many birds (constriction) … (189ms)
for Mulau (breath) … (1347ms)’
The whole example in (18) can be seen as a topic-comment construction which has twocomments at the same time. The shared topic argument is again Uhko. The information
structure of (18) is represented in (19) and the acoustic analysis of (18) is shown in (20).
(19)

Sentence:[ [TOP Uhko] [CMT buli][CMT ngomin ohcin naang aro ahkan Mulau] ]Pragmatic presupposition: Uhko is a topic for comment x
Pragmatic assertion 1:
x = went back (home)
Pragmatic assertion 2:
x = brought many birds for Mulau(20)

Annotated waveform and spectrogram of (18)

iyo

Uhko

buli

প ...

ngominthen(name)

go.back(hold) ...

bring

ohcin

naang
bird

aro

প ...

much (hold) ...

ahkan

Mulau

H ...

for

(name)(breath) ...

350

5000

(Hz)

F0 (Hz)

300
250
200
150

0

500

1000

1500

2000
Time (ms)

2500

3000

3500

0
4000

It can be said that a Kadorih storyteller uses a constrictive pause for a particular emphasis.
After emphasizing the unlikely event of (Uhko) ngomin ohcin naang aro ‘bringing many
birds’ in (18b) (although Uhko went setting his fish trap), the story progresses in a new
direction. On the other hand, a new entity is also introduced by the prepositional phrase ahkan
Mulau, who is Uhko’s wife. The emphasis obtained by using constrictive pause helps
addressees to figure out the new direction and new entity introduced here.

37

38 Discourse and information structure in Kadorih

In addition to the constrictive pause, pitch and loudness may function as a means ofemphasis. As can be seen from the sharp F0 movement of the first three words in (20), thefrequency range of the first three words is greater than that of the remaining part, and the
waveform and spectrogram of the first three words shows higher amplitude and darker orstronger intensity than that of the remaining part.
An extract in (21) shows another kind of emphasis. The quoted statements in (21) areuttered by Mulau although storyteller made slip of the tongue.
(21) a. “[…] eam puji ulun noon buwu aang taruk kacu” hion Uhko Ҍ…
b. “aang danum” Ҍ…
c. aang sungoi” Ҍ…
‘ “[…] people have never set a fish trap on a tree” said [Mulau] (constriction) …
(304ms)“in water” (constriction) … (220ms)
in a river” (constriction) … (746ms)
In (21a), Mulau shares general knowledge about setting a fish trap with the bird-brained
Uhko. At this point, the proposition ‘people set a fish trap not on a tree’ becomes available forshaping a pragmatic presupposition. The information structure of (21bc) can be represented asin (22).
(22)

Sentence:aang danum, aang sungoi
Pragmatic presupposition: People set a fish trap (not on a tree but) in x
Pragmatic assertion 1:
x = water
Pragmatic assertion 2:
x = river

The pragmatic assertions expressed by (21b) and (21c) are identificational ones, that is,(21bc) identifies where people set a fish trap. The addressee, Uhko, once set his fish trap
appropriately in a river as shown in (14c). Thus, we can guess that Uhko knows where to set a
fish trap and that Mulau can guess so. However, Mulau emphasizes the place where a fish trap
must be set in order to warn Uhko not to act crazy.
(23)

Annotated waveform and spectrogram of (21)

taruk

kacu

hion

Uhko

প ...

aang

danum

upper

wood

said

(name)(hold) ...

at

water

aang

sungoiপ ...

(hold) ... at

প ...

river

(hold) ...
5000

300
(Hz)

F0 (Hz)

400

200
100

0

500

1000

1500

2000
Time (ms)

2500

3000

3500

0
4000

In (23) as well, it can be recognized that pitch (and possibly loudness) play a role tosignall the focus. Fundamental frequency sharply rises and falls in the columns of danum‘water’ and sungoi ‘river’, which are places focused by Mulau.

Kazuya Inagaki

4. Conclusion
In this paper, the distribution and behavior in discourse of pauses and lengthened
segments has been analyzed from the viewpoint of acoustic phonetics. Pausing andlengthening in Kadorih express hesitation and demarcation. Basically, they are used
independently of information status of the respective units. Additionally, I considered thedifference between prosodic features in folktale and non-folktale narratives with respect to theinformation flow. In particular, relatively faster pace of information flow in non-folktales
utterances usually requires the addressee to be more sensitive to the fundamental frequency(pitch) than to gap (pause) or duration (length). In section 3, I described two conspicuous
pauses in Kadorih, namely breathy and constrictive pauses. A breathy pause can be used as amarker indicating the boundary between cohesive information or as a post-topic marker, and aconstrictive pause can be used as a marker emphasizing the turning point of information flow
in a discourse or as a pre-focus marker. In addition to these pauses, other prosodic features,such as pitch or loudness may play instrumental role signaling information flow, boundary or
structure.

References
Chafe, Wallace L. 1976. Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics and point of view.
In Subject and Topic, ed. by Charles N. Li, chapter 2, 25–55. New York: Academic Press.
ņ. 1979. The flow of thought and the flow of language. In Discourse and Syntax, ed. by Givón,
Talmy, volume 12 of Syntax and Semantics, 159–81. New York: Academic Press.
Kendall, Tyler S. 2009. Speech rate, pause, and sociolinguistic variation: An examination through theSociolinguistic Archive and Analysis Project. Ph.D dissertation, Duke University.
Inagaki, Kazuya. 2014. Information structure in Kadorih. In Proceedings of the International
Workshop on Information Structure of Austronesian Languages, 229–44. Tokyo: Research Institutefor Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

Lambrecht, Kund. 1994. Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus, and the Mental
Representations of Discourse Referents, volume 71 of Cambridge Studies in Linguistics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Maclay, Howard and Charles E. Osgood. 1959. Hesitation phenomena in spontaneous speech. Word
15: 19–44.
Ladd, D. Robert, Silverman, Kim E. A., Tolkmitt, Frank, Bergmann, Günther, Scherer, Klaus R. 1985.
Evidence for the independent function of intonation contour type, voice quality, and F0 range insignalling speaker affect. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 78(2): 435–444.
Laver, John. 1994. Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Prince, Ellen. 1981. Toward a taxonomy of given–new information. In Radical Pragmatics, ed. byPeter Cole, 223–255. New York: Academic Press.
Robb, Michael P., Margaret A. Maclagan, and Yang Chen. 2004. Speaking rates of American and New
Zealand varieties of English. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics 18: 1–15.

Acknowledgement
I am very grateful to Szymon Grzelak for his valuable suggestions and comments on a previous
draft. All remaining errors and shortcomings are mine.

39

41

Topic-Marking Fonstructions in Bantik
Atsuko Utsumi
Meisei University
Abstract
This paper aims to show how a topic noun phrase (NP) is marked syntactically in the Bantik
language. Constructions that introduce a discourse-new entity, cleft-sentence construction, andleft-dislocation will be investigated.

All the above constructions can mark an NP that is referred toor activated in the immediately preceding discourse.

A cleft construction in Bantik places acontrastive topic NP in sentence-initial position, which is followed by the linker nu, which
introduces the main clause. Left-dislocation in Bantik is defined as a construction where theleft-dislocated NP is referred to again by a pronoun in the main clause. A new entity is often
introduced by a topic-introducing construction that employs the existential marker pai.

1. Introduction
The Bantik Language1 is an Austronesian language spoken in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. It issaid to belong to the Sangiric subgroup within the Philippine group, Western Malayo-Polynesian (cf.
Noorduyn 1991, Sneddon 1984 among others). It is said to be spoken by around 10,000 people in ninevillages in the vicinity of Manado, a provincial city of the North Sulawesi, and two more villages around
100 kilometers away from Manado (cf. Noorduyn 1991). Every speaker of Bantik also speaks Manado
dialect of Indonesian. As people born after 1970 mostly use the Manado dialect and people born after
1980 basically do not use Bantik, it is clearly in danger of extinction.
The syntactic features of Bantik are similar to those of other Philippine languages, and so are thetopic-introducing constructions in the following sections, but the comparison between them is beyond thefocus of this paper.
The example sentences are taken from elicitation, naturalistic data, and translation of folk tales inIndonesian to Bantik. Naturalistic data consist of folk stories “Biou ni-timpunuu bo i-boheng (The tale ofa turtle and a monkey)” and “Batu Madengkei (Mandengkei stone)”, and naturally occurring conversation“Memperbaiki Rumah (conversation about reconstucting a house)”, and “Hidupan (life)”.
Translated stories are: “Biou ni-toadaҌ bo i-lummuutu (The tale of Toada and Lumimuutu)”,“Kokokuk (The tale of a kokokuk bird)”, and “Burung Taoun dan Burun Ngulngul (The tale of Taon Bird
and Ngulngul bird)”.
1

Bantik has five vowels /i, e, a, o, u/ and fourteen consonants /p, b, t, d, k, g, s, h, j, ‫ݐ‬, m, n, ƾ, ‫ݦ‬/. The glottal
stop occurs only base-finally with a few exceptions. A word consists of a base, or a base with one or more
affixes. The basic word order is SVO while VOS word order frequently occurs when the verb is in an
Undergoer Voice.
Like many other Philippine type languages, Bantik has more than one Undergoer Voices(at least two) in addition to an Active Voice. For a detailed description of Bantik, see Bawole 1993 andUtsumi 2005.

42 Topic-Marking Constructions in Bantik

In the following discussion, several technical terms are used. “Discourse topic” is used to refer
to an entity that is important for the text and referred to repeatedly.
2. Referential statuses and linguistic expressions in Bantik
In this section, expressions that denote referential statuses of an NP will be briefly explained. I
will employ the framework of the referential hierarchy that is proposed in Gundel et al 1993, Gundel 2003,
and Hedberg 2013, among others. The description in (1) is an illustration an illustration of the givenness
hierarchy given in Hedberg 2013, modified by the author, along with English expressions and the meaningof each cognitive status. A linguistic item in the list can refer to an entity lower in the cognitive hierarchy,
so it in English can also be used to refer to an activated entity.
(1) Cognitive status

Meaning

English example

in focus

associate representation in focus of attention

itactivatedassociate representation in working memory

this/that/this NP

familiar

associate representation in memorythat NP

uniquely identifiableassociate unique representation in DP

the NP

referential

associate unique representationindefinite this NP

type identifiableassociate type representationa NP

This universal givenness hierarchy can be applied to Bantik expressions as well. Below (2) is atentative table of Bantik expressions that relates to the givenness or referentiality that described in Utsumi
2014b. In focus entities are normally expressed by zero-forms or connective pronominal forms.

If anentity is activated, the proximal or distal demonstratives follow the NP in question. When it is familiar,
the medial demonstrative follows the NP.

As for uniquely identifiable NPs, one of the following

linguistic entities precedes them: an NP introducing entities tou/side, or the mirative demonstrative ite/ete.
Tou is used for a singular NP, and side for a plural NP.

Ite is used to denote a discourse-new entity thatis already present in the non-linguistic context. A discourse-new entity that is not known to the addressee
is sometimes introduced by a bare NP, but it is also introduced by pai, an existential marker, in otherinstances.
(2) Bantik expressions and referential statusesinuniquely

focus >

activated >‫  ׎‬ie (proximal)

pronouns(connective forms)eҌe (distal)familiar >typeidentifiable >referential > identifiable‫׎‬NP

tou/side NP
ene (medial)ite (mirative proximal) pai NP

full pronounsete (mirative distal)

Both the existential marker pai and tou/side introduce a new entity into the discourse, but theAtsuko Utsumi 43

NPs they introduce differ in their information status. In Section 3, usages of the existential marker pai
will be described in comparison with usages of tou/side, in order to clarify their functions.
3. Expressions for introducing a new entity: pai and tou
A discourse-new entity can be entirely new to the addressee, but it can also be present in the
non-linguistic context, or can be assumed from a certain linguistic entity in the preceding discourse. If an
entity is entirely new and cannot be assumed from the preceding discourse, the existential marker pai will
be used to introduce it. If, on the other hand, it can be uniquely identified from the non-linguistic context
or assumed from the preceding discourse, tou/side will occur before it. In this section, their similar but
clearly different functions will be described. Tou/side will be glossed as PRO, because they behave as afree variable pronoun.
3.1 Usages of pai
Bantik has an existential marker pai. This marker has three main usages: first, it is used todenote that something exists, and in this case, it most often co-occurs with a PP that shows location, as inexample (3). Second, it is used to show possession as in example (4). Third, it is used to denote a
resultative state of the following clause, as in examples (5) and (6).
(3) supandihiҌ nu-ѶaodoҌ

LOC near

LK-seapaibatukaѶDƾ.

EXIST

stone

Karangsu

bukidiҌwulur

maatus

LOC

hill

Wulur

Maatus‘Near the sea, at the Wulur Maatus Hill, there was a stone (named) Karang.’ (Biou ni ToadaҌ bo
i-Lumimuutu)(4) iaҌSUBJ.1sg

paisinage

bua

nu

Bali.

EXIST

friend

from

LK

Bali

‘I have a friend from Bali’. (Elicitation)(5) pai
EXIST[i-dekina-idaoҌ=tesu

SUBJ-Deki

NA-reach=COMP LOC

buha

e]

Buha

DP

‘Deki has arrived at Buha.’(6) paii-stefi

EXIST SUBJ-Stevy

ma-mokouѶakuҌ=ku.

AV.NPST -washclothes=LK.1sg‘Stevy has already (started) washing my clothes’
The topic introducing function of pai derives from the first usage. A sentence with pai is often found in
the first sentence of the text, as in examples (7) and (8).

The pai in example (3) can also be analyzed ashaving a topic-introducing function, which is used in the first sentence of the folk story.

44 Topic-Marking Constructions in Bantik(7) pona e
before DP

pai

i-opoҌ,aden=nei-opoҌ

ѶRƾNRѶo.

exist

SUBJ-old.man

name=LK.3sg

SUBJ-old.man

Rongkoro‘Once upon a time, there was an old man named Grandpa Rongkoro.’ (Batu Madengkei)(8) su

Ѷou

pona

pai

side

dua

VLƾND-WXKDƾ.

LOC day

before

EXIST

SUBJ.3pltwo

one-sibling‘Days and days ago, there were two brothers.’ (Kokokuk)
3.2 Tou/Side: the marker that indicates an activated entity
We saw in the previous section that an NP that denotes an entirely new entity often follows theexistential marker pai. In contrast, when an entity has some connection with the previously emerged
entity, tou 2 and side 3, which show the information status of “referential4” or “uniquely identifiable 5”, areattached. Tou co-occurs with an NP that denotes a singular entity, both human and non-human, whereasside co-occurs with an NP that denotes plural entities.

Descriptions of tou and side are presented in

Utsumi 2014. Tou/side cannot mark an entity which cannot be assumed from the previous context, butneither can it be used to mark an entity that is fully “activated” or “in focus” in the cognitive hierarchy.
An entity “in focus” or “activated” is referred to by a pronoun, the proximal demonstrative, or the distal
demonstrative.
Tou/side can be regarded as a pronominal entity that precedes nouns, adjectives, and verbs, to form anominal phrase. Especially, a noun that denotes a human being cannot stand alone but should taketou/side as shown in (9). In example (10), tou precedes an adjective, whereas in (11), side precedes averb. Tou/side in the two examples forms nominal phrases.
(9) i-tou
SUBJ-PROmahuaneiene

ma-tuѶau

si

sie.

male

dem.medial

AV.NPST-live

LOC

here

ma-Ѷuansi-touma-pedekeҌ

AV.NPST-buy

OBJ-Prou

ADJVZ-short‘That man lives here’ (Elicitation)(10) isie
SUBJ.3sg‘S/he will buy a short one’ (Elicitation)(11) suseҌe

Loc there.distal

ma-ka-seѶei

si-sideAV.NPST-POT-see OBJ-PRO

mam-beѶeAV.NPST-work2

Tou is supposed to derive from toumata meaning “human being” in Bantik. The reconstruction of “humanbeing” in Proto-Sangiric languages (to which Bantik belongs) is *tau (Sneddon 1984).

3

Side is originally a third person plulral pronoun.

4

The term “referential” is used here according to the definition in Hedberg 2013. A referential satisfies one of
the following two conditions: (i) “It is mentioned subsequently in the discourse,” and (ii) “it is evident from thecontext that the speaker intends to refer to some specific entity.”

5
The definition of the term “uniquely identifiable” here is taken from Hedberg 2013. Something that is
uniquely identifiable satisfies both of the following conditions: (i) “the referent form contains adequate
descriptive/conceptual content to create a unique referent,” and (ii) “a unique referent can be created via a"bridging inference" by associating with an already activated referent.”Atsuko Utsumi 45‘There, (we) can see workers (lit. those who work)’ (Elicitation)
It is to be noted that tou/side is optional for non-human NPs as shown in (12)a and (12)b.
(12)a. manuҌ
that.medialene

ma-LWXƾADJVZ-black‘That chicken is black.’b. i-toumanuҌ

SUBJ-PRO chickenene

ma-LWXƾ

that.medial

ADJVZ-black‘That chicken is black.’
Although a non-human entity that is new to the discourse can occur without tou or pai, this is notalways the case. Example (13) shows that a non-human entity that is salient in the non-linguistic context
is introduced by tou. The speaker comments on the usage of tou in example (13) that if the addressee isaware of the presence of the coconut tree (pun m-baƾR), then tou is preferred. It seems a non-humanentity that is new to the discourse but is known immediately by the addressee preferably co-occurs with
tou/side.
(13) i-tou
SUBJ-PROpun m-EDƾR

ma-ѶDƾNDVDҌ

apadeҌ=ku

tree LK-coconut

ADJVZ-tallbelong=NI.1sg‘The tall coconut tree belongs to me’ (Elicitation)
In the naturalistic data, a discourse new entity may or may not co-occur with tou/side. In example (14),koѶano “king” appears for the first time but is not accompanied by a marker: the existential marker pai
does not appear either. In contrast, when it appears for the second time as shown in example (15), thereferential marker tou appears before it.

It seems that the presence of tou/side is not obligatory but

preferred when the addressee is assumed to be able to identify the NP. Example (16) shows the usage ofside that is attached to an NP that denotes an activated entity in the immediately preceding sentence.
(14) GDGLƾLKLҌ=te i-koѶanolisten=COMP SUBJ-kingni-ERKHƾ.
LK-monkey‘Monke’s king listend.’ (I-timpunu bo i-boheng: line 54)(15) na-maѶo=tei-tou

koѶanonu-ERKHƾ

kasiҌ

AV.PST-announce=COMPSUBJ-PROking

LK-monkey

INT

pa-GDGLƾLKLҌ, ‘kiteҌVLƾND-maya-nie,ka-kanioҌbobagai.’

CAUS-listen SUBJ.1pl.EXC

one-all-AN

this

RED-small

and

big

‘The king of monkeys announced and let (them) llisten (to him), “We are one people, including small
ones and big ones.”’ (I-timpunu bo i-boheng: line 62)

46 Topic-Marking Constructions in Bantik(16) manuҌ

si-yopini-tekos-an.

chicken

LOC-Yoppy

PST-steal-GV

isie

na-moagaҌsi-sidema-na-nekosoҌ

SUBJ.3sg

AV.PST-beat

OBJ-PRO

MA-RED-steal‘A chicken at Yopi’s house was stolen. He beat the thieves.’ (Elicitation session)
To conclude, both the existential marker pai and the pronominal tou/side can mark an entity that
occurs for the first time in the discourse. The existential marker pai is used to introduce a brand newentity in the discourse whereas tou/side marks identifiable entities. To describe them in the cognitive
hierarchy terms, pai marks “type identifiable” entities and tou/side marks “referential” or “uniquely
identifiable" entities.
4. Cleft constructions
In this section, the cleft construction and its function will be discussed. The cleft construction in
Bantik places an NP in sentence-initial position, which is followed by the linker nu that introduces themain clause.

Cleft constructions in the below examples are placed in brackets, as shown in example(17).
A clefted NP denotes an entity that is contrasted with another entity, and it is already a given entity
in the discourse. In the cognitive hierarchy, a clefted NP mostly denotes “activated” or “familiar” entities
that are contrasted with another entity. Ene “that” in example (17) indicates the hot season that is
described in the immediately preceding clause. Here, ene is covertly contrasted with the other season in
the tropical area, i.e., the rainy season. This is an instance of a contrastive topic6 NP in a cleft position.
This cleft construction, as often is the case with other languages in the Philippines and Indonesia, isalso used in content questions as in example (18). Example (19) has the same construction but the linker
nu introduces a relative clause. “”(17) GXƾNXѶunu-enePDƾRѶoubosuaya

nu-Ѷou,before

LK-thathot.season

and

light

LK-day[ene=tenu

SDƾ-uѶiҌ ma-ihaҌ]

that=COMP

LK

APP-say ADJVZ-hot‘Back then, (it was in a) hot season, and the sunshine, that is the one that could be said to be hot’.
(Biou ni ToadaҌ bo i-Lumimuutu)(18) [isai nu
who LKna-mihei

doitiҌ

si-kau]AV.PST-givemoney

OBJ-2sg‘Who gave you the money?’ (Elicitation)(19) babaeheҌ6su-beo,isie

ma-ka-deaҌ

[apa

nu

I use the term “contrastive topic” as it appears in Lambrecht (1994 : 291). Topics, including “contrastive
topics” are outside the scope of negation.

Atsuko Utsumi 47

rewardLOC-wild.pig

ni-kann-toumata]PST-eat

LK-people

SUBJ.3pl

AV.NPST-POT-find what

LK

‘As the reward to the wild pig, he (=wild pig) can find what was eaten by people’
When more than two entities are compared and one of them is picked up, the cleft construction isused to mark the “contrastive focus”. A contrastive focus excludes the possibility of the other option.
The fronted NP, anaҌ “child” in (20), is previously mentioned, and was picked up in those sentences again
to be contrasted with iaҌ “I” in the previous sentence.

In this sentence, anaҌ are the ones who support the

speaker’s life, since iaҌ , the speaker herself, is not able to do so anymore.

The sentences in example (21)are taken from a free conversation between four people. They have been neighbors for a long time andshare knowledge of the village people. When they talk about a possible candidate for a folk-story teller,
several elderly people come to mind. The people who are compared become the contrastive foci of thelast two sentences. Words in angled brackets in the below examples are loanwords from Indonesian.
(20) <Ҋadi>

iaҌ

ie

JDJXGDƾ WH,

SUBJ.1sg

now

old=COMPthen<Ҋadi> <hidop>=ku

ie,

GRƾND

[anaҌ

nu

ma-miahaҌe]then life=LINK.1sg

this

then

child

LK

AV.NPST-feed

DP‘Then I got old, so my life is (like) this, and now it is my children that support (me).’ (Hidupan,monologue)(21)L: ada

isie

man-deaҌma-bioue,i-maҌ

SUBJ.3sg

AV.NPST-findMA-storyDP

SUBJ-motherif
ma-tihoҌ

ma-bioue.

AV.NPST-know

AV.NPST-storyDP‘If she is looking for storytelling, (your) mother knows how to tell stories.’
T: i-maҌ
SUBJ-mother
L: [i-maҌ
SUBJ-mother

aya=tema-kuaѶi.

not=COMP

AV.NPST-able

bun

nu

<musti> ma-tihoҌ

e].

Bun

LK

musti

DP

AV.NPST-know‘Mother Bun should know (telling the stories).’
E: [i-maҌ
SUBJ-mother

len

nu

<maksud>=nu]

Len

LK

goal=LK.2sg‘Mother Len is who you mean’.
In example (22), the timing of a marriage is a local discourse topic. A man and a woman finally got
married one day when the condition for the marriage was met, and the NP that denotes that day (Ѷou ene“that day”) becomes the contrastive focus.

It is the new piece of information that the storyteller wants to48 Topic-Marking Constructions in Bantik

convey to the hearer, and it cancels out the other possibilities.
(22) i-toadaҌ
SUB-Toadaboi-ѶumimuҌutuVLƾND-pahi-sabu

and

SUBJ-Lumimuutu once-RCP-meet

na-pahi-sasuka

nu

tikin

n-side.

AV.PST-RCP-measure

NU

stick

LK-3plside

dua

SUBJ.3pltwo‘When Toada and Lumimuutu met, they compared their sticks.’
s-in-eѶe-an

main-sidetikin

PST-see-GV

already

LK-3sg stickaya=tepada.

not=COMPsame‘It seemed their sticks were not the same (length) anymore.’
yo

[Ѷou

ene=te

nu

side

dua

na-NDELƾ]then daythat=COMP

LK

SUBJ.3sg

two

AV.PST-marrysunu-NDQWDƾ QH timbou

LOC top

LK-mountain=LK.3sg‘So that was the day when the two of them got married at the top of the mountain.’
5. Left-dislocation sentences
Left-dislocation in Bantik is defined as a construction where the left-dislocated NP is referred toagain by a pronoun in the main clause. A fronted NP functions as a sentential topic or a contrastive topic
in this construction, which is very commonly found in the naturalistic data.

It is predominantly an entity“in focus” that becomes a referent of the fronted NP.
For example, i-tuadiҌ=ne in example (24), which follows example (23), is referred to again in themain clause by =ne (third person pronoun, connected form7). In the previous context, the two brothers
were introduced as discourse topics and the elder brother has been explained, so i- tuadiҌ=ne in thissentence is clearly a contrastive topic. The left dislocated items are shown in the brackets [ ], andrepeated NPs are bold-faced in the following examples.
(23) su

Ѷou

pona

nu

ie

pai

side

dua

VLƾND-WXKDƾ

LOC day

before

LK

this

EXIST

SUBJ.3pltwo

one-sibling‘Days and days ago, there were two brothers.’ (Kokokuk, folk story)(24) [i-tuadiҌ=ne][SUBJ-younger.sibling=LINK=3sg]

aden=nei-gimonname=LINK.3sg

SUBJ-Gimon‘The younger brother, his name was Gimon’ (Kokokuk, folk story)
This construction is also used to introduce a discourse topic as in example (25). Here, the topic manuҌtaonan “taonan bird” is referred to again by a possessive pronoun =ne (third person pronoun, connected

7

A connected form of a pronoun is used to denote the possessor when it follows an NP, and the actor when it
follows a verb in undergoer voice.

Atsuko Utsumi 49form).

A similar construction is shown in examples (26) and (27).

(25) suKXDƾnu<dunia>,ni-ka-deaҌ-en

manuҌ

LOC

in

LK

world

PST-POT-find-GV bird

bo

manuҌ

bayan

and

bird

Bayan.

taonanTaon‘In the (ancient) world, Taonan bird and Bayan bird were found’.
[manuҌ taonan]aoҌ=nebagaibobombuѶu=ne

ma-LWXƾ

[bird Taon]body=LK.3sg

big

and

feather=LK.3sg

ADJVZ-black‘Taonan bird, its body was big and its feathers were black’ (Burung Taoun dan Burung Ngulngul)(26) [isie]
SUBJ.3sg

GXƾNXѶu.nu.ene,<mayat>=neni-GLƾDQ <kulurahan>VLƾNLO 

at.the.same.time

body=LK.3sg

PST-take region

Singkil‘As for him, at that time, his body was taken to Singkil’. (Memperbaiki Rumah)(27) bo[sapi]and cowanaҌ=nee

na-i-pahuҌsuchild=LK.3sg

DP

AV.PST-NVlt-coil LOC

p-in-a-ƾLNLҌ-an
PST-APP-tie-GV‘And the cow, its child was unintentionally coiled to the pole (to which it was tied).’Example (19), shown below as (28), also has a left-dislocated NP. An NP that is repeated can be placed at
the end of the clause as in example (29).
(28) [babaeheҌ

su-beo],isie

ma-ka-deaҌ

apa

nu

rewardLOC-wild.pig

SUBJ.3pl

AV.NPST-POT-find what

LK

ni-kann-toumataPST-eat

LK-people‘As the reward to the wild pig, he (=wild pig) can find what was eaten by people’(29) [anaҌ]

kadua=ne,i-IUDƾNLNXPDXQDƾ

ma-tuѶauchild

second=LK.3sg

SUBJ-Franky

Kumaunang

AV.NPST-live

su

buha,

isie

LOC

Buha

SUBJ.3sg‘The second child, Franky Kumaunang, he lives in Buha’.
5. Conclusion
In this paper, markers for discourse new entities and two constructions that show information
structure in Bantik were described. We looked at the two markers for NPs that show information status,
which are pai and tou/side. The existential marker pai is used for an entity that is entirely new to thediscourse, or a “type identifiable” entity.

For “uniquely identifiable” or “referential” entities which canbe assumed from the previous context or can be inferred from the non-linguistic context, tou/side is used tomark the NP.

50 Topic-Marking Constructions in Bantik

Contrastive topics and contrastive foci are shown by cleft construction, whereas discourse topics aremarked by left-dislocation. A cleft construction requires an NP that is “activated” or “familiar” to be
fronted. It is always the case that a clefted NP denotes an entity that is contrasted overtly or covertly withthe other entity/entities in the immediately preceding discourse. Although it is possible to find clefted
pronouns in the elicitation data, they are infrequently fronted in the naturalistic data.
Left dislocation is used when an NP denotes an entity “in focus”. It is a salient local topic, and isreferred to again by a pronoun in the main clause that follows it.
The correlation between the information status of NPs and these constructions should be studied in
more detail in the future.

Abbreviations
1sg

first person singular

1pl.EXC

first person plural exclusive

1pl.INC

first person plural inclusive

2sg

second person singular

2pl

second person plural

3sg

third person singular

3pl

third person plural-ANsuffix -an which has a function of nominalization, or of forming derivational verbs

AV.NPST-

prefix attached to verb base, indicating non-past tense and Actor Voice

AV.PST-prefix attached to verb base, indicating past tense and Actor Voice

CONT

enclitic =te that indicates continuative aspect

COMP

enclitic =ken that indicates completive aspectDP

discourse particle-GV

suffix attached to verb bases, which indicates goal voice

INT

interjection

LK-noun marker ni-/nu- that denotes genitive or actor in undergoer voice sentences, or linker
that connects two NPs

POT-potentive prefix ka- which attaches to verb bases

PROpronoun tou/side that forms an NP with a noun, an adjective, or a verb

REL

relativiser nu

SUBJ

nominative case marker attached to subject nominals

References
Gundel, Jeanette K., Nancy Hedberg, and Ron Zacharski. 1993. Cognitive Status and the Form ofReferring Expressions in Discourse. Language 69(2). 274-307.

Atsuko Utsumi 51

Hedberg, Nancy.

2013. Applying the Givenness Hierarchy Framework: Methodological Issues. In

this volume.
Lambrecht, Knud.

1994.

Information Structure and Sentence Form.

Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.
Lyons, Christopher.

1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Noorduyn, J. 1991. A critical Survey of Studies on the Languages of Sulawesi.

Leiden: KITLV Press.

Sneddon, James N. 1984. Proto-Sangiric and the Sangiric languages. [Pacific Linguistics Series B,
No.91] . Canberra: The Australian National University.
Utsumi, Atsuko.

2014a.

‘Daimeisi tou no youhou (Usages of the pronoun tou)’.

Journal of the

Department of Japanese Culture, Meisei University. Vol.20.
Utsumi, Atsuko. 2014b. ‘Newly introduced NPs and given NPs in the Bantik discourse’. Proceedingsof the International Workshop on Information Structure of Austronesian Languages. p.183-192

53

Focus and Drgument Lndexing in Makasar
Anthony JUKES
Centre for Research on Language Diversity
La Trobe University
Makasar and other languages of South Sulawesi share a grammatical pattern in which (inbasic examples) an NP can be ‘fronted’, and the fronted NP is then not indexed with apronominal clitic, unlike most core arguments. This pre-predicate position is analysed as
focus, and its interaction with the indexing system serves several of the functions typicallyfulfilled by a voice system in other West Austronesian languages. However this ‘basic’characterisation, especially with regard to focus, misses subtleties and irregularities incomplex sentences which also need to be accounted for.

1. Introduction
Makasar (also referred to as Makassar, Makassarese or Macassarese — the endonym isbasa Mangkásara') is one of the larger regional languages of eastern Indonesia, spoken
by the Makasar people in and around the city of Makassar in the province of South
Sulawesi. The number of speakers is estimated at about two million (Jukes 2006),
making Makasar the second largest ethnic group in Sulawesi — the largest being Bugis
with an estimated 3,600,000 (Pelras 1996:1). The language is still widely spoken,
though there has been a significant shift away from it in Makassar city itself.

Figure 1: Sulawesi and Makassar
Makasar is a member of the South Sulawesi language subgroup, within the (Western)
Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family (Blust 2009). Its closest
relatives are the nearby languages Konjo and Selayarese, sometimes thought of as
dialects of Makassar. More distantly related are the other languages of South Sulawesi
such as Bugis, Mandar, and Sa’dan Toraja. Adelaar (1994, 2005) has also shown thesubgrouping relationship between South Sulawesi languages and the Tamanic languages
in Borneo.

54

Focus and Argument Indexing in Makasar

2. Basic clause structure
Makasar is head-marking and morphologically ergative, with grammatical relations
being primarily signified by pronominal clitics on the predicate (‘argument indexes’ touse Haspelmath’s (2013) terminology). The pronominal clitic system is shown in Table
1, along with the associated free pronouns and possessive suffixes.1

1s
2 fam
2 pol/1pl inc.
1 pl exc.2
3

Free
Pronouninakkeikau
ikatteikambeia

Proclitic
(ERG)
ku=
nu=
ki=

na=

Enclitic
(ABS)
=a’
=ko
=ki’
=kang
=i

Possessive suffix(POSS)
-ku
-nu
-ta
-mang
-na

Table 1: Pronominal elements
2.1 Intransitive clauses

In intransitive clauses there will be an absolutive enclitic (=ABS) indexing the soleargument S, if S is definite or otherwise salient in the discourse, and not in focus (§5.2).
The ABS enclitic tends to attach to the first constituent and is thus a second-position or‘Wackernagel’ clitic.
Intransitive verbs are typically marked with a verb prefix, usually aC– as in (1), but asmall set of basic verbs such as tinro ‘sleep’ (2) does not require these.
(1)

A'jappai Balandayya
aC–
INTR–

jappa =ibalanda -awalk =3ABS Dutch -DEF

The Dutchman is walking(2)

Tinroi iAli
tinro =ii
Ali
sleep =3ABS PERS Ali

Ali is sleeping
Many other types of phrase may head intransitive clauses, for example adjectives (3),nominals (4) including pronouns (5), and prepositional phrases (6):(3)

Bambangi alloa
bambang =i
allo -ahot=3ABS day -DEF

The day is hot

1 The distinction between affixes and clitics can be drawn partly on phonological grounds — affixes arecounted as part of the word when stress is assigned, while clitics are not. However this phonologicaldiagnostic is only useful for enclitics, because stress is counted back from the right edge of the word.
2 The 1st person plural exclusive category lacks a proclitic form and is considered archaic.

Anthony Jukes 55(4)Jaranga'jarang =a'horse =1ABS

I am a horse(5)

Inakkeji
inakke =ja=i
1PRO = LIM =3ABS

It’s only me(6)

Ri balla'nairiPREPballa' -na=ihouse -3.POSS =3ABS

He’s at home
2.2 Transitive clauses

In transitive clauses both proclitic (A) and enclitic (P) are canonically indexed on theverb, and there is no verb prefix.
(7)

Nakokkoka' miongku
Na=kokko' =a'miong -ku
=1ABS cat
-1.POSS3ERG= bite

My cat bit me(8)

Lakuarengko Daeng Nakku'
La= ku=areng =ko Daeng nakku'
FUT= 1ERG= name =2 (title) yearning

I'll call you ‘Daeng Nakku'’
When both arguments are third person it can sometimes be unclear which clitic pronoun
indexes which argument, and the order of free NPs does not help to clarify this, as canbe seen in (9). In these situations context or pragmatics must resolve the ambiguity.
(9)

Naciniki tedongku i Ali
Na=cini' =itedong -kui
Ali
3ERG= see =3ABS buffalo -1.POSS PERS Ali

Ali sees my buffalo / my buffalo sees Ali
Exceptions to the normal transitive pattern occur for three main reasons:(1) eitherAorPmaybeinfocusposition(§5.2);
(2) thecliticsmayappearonseparatewordsifthereissomepreverbalelement(duetosecond-positionor‘Wackernagel’constraints);or(3) theclausemayhaveanindefiniteUndergoerargument.Examinationofthistypeof clause — labeled ‘semi-transitive’ — is the topic of the remainder of thispaper.
2.3 Semi-transitive clauses

The term semi-transitive refers to clauses which, although clearly describing events
involving two participants, only include a clitic pronoun indexing one of thoseparticipants — the Actor, as seen in (10) and (11). The clitic is from the absolutive set(S/P).

56

Focus and Argument Indexing in Makasar(10) ammallia' ballo'aN(N)– balli =a'ballo'
TR–buy =1ABS palm.wine

I buy palm wine(11) angnganrea' untiaN(N)– kanre =a'
unti
TR–
eat
=1ABS banana

I eat bananas
Thus, semi-transitive clauses contain verbs which are generally bivalent lexically, but
the Undergoer appears as a full NP and is not cross-indexed. The verb is marked with averb prefix, usually the nasal-substituting aN(N)– (see §3). The general rule is that
Undergoers must be definite to be cross–indexed — in other words referred to by nameor title, otherwise pragmatically salient such as first and second person, or marked withthe determiner –a or a possessive suffix. Compare the fully transitive parallel to (11):(12) kukanrei untiaku=kanre =iunti
-a=3ABS banana -DEF
1ERG= eat

I eat the bananas
In most instances semi-transitive clauses such as (10) and (11) require an overt
Undergoer NP and there is no possible intransitive interpretation, (cf *ammallia' ‘Ibuy’). With a few verbs, for example kanre ‘eat’ and inung ‘drink’, omission of theUndergoer is allowed and results in an intransitive clause which is quite well-formed,
though obviously it differs in meaning. This is because these verbs are ambitransitive,
equally allowing intransitive and transitive readings.3(13) angnganrea' taipaaN(N)– kanre =a'
taipa
TR–
eat
=1ABS mango

I eat a mango/mangoes(14) angnganrea'
aN(N)– kanre =a'
TR–
eat
=1ABS

I eat, I’m eating
The term semi-transitive for clauses with indefinite Undergoers was chosen because it
captures the fact that these clauses exhibit properties that fall in between those of
normal intransitive and transitive clauses. They differ from intransitive clauses becauseof the obvious fact that they contain Undergoers, both in their logical structure and intheir syntax. They differ from fully transitive clauses in that the Undergoer is notmarked with a clitic — signalling that it is not like an ordinary P, if it is a P at all.
Other labels which have been or could be used are actor focus, actor voice,antipassive, extended intransitive, or simply intransitive.
In the following sections I discuss overt marking of focus and topic, which are eachassociated with particular syntactic positions. The basic facts are not unlike those
3 An alternative analysis gives these verbs an inherent Undergoer, e.g. ‘eat (rice)’.

Anthony Jukes 57

described for Tukang Besi (South-East Sulawesi) by Donohue (2002), and are alsosimilar to those described for Mayan languages by Aissen (1992), which is that there isa clause-initial focus slot, and a clause-external (ie. left-dislocated) topic slot.4 However
the ‘basic’ characterisation, especially with regard to focus, misses subtleties andirregularities in complex sentences which also need to be accounted for.
3. Focus
In its most basic manifestation, focus involves an NP referring to a core argument being
placed in pre-predicate position. There is a prefix aN– which explicitly marks Actor
focus (appearing in the place of the ERG= proclitic), whereas Undergoer focus is marked
by the absence of an =ABS enclitic. (I use the macrorole labels here because both P and
PINDEF may be focused).
Thus, arguments which occur as full NPs directly preceding the predicate are not crossindexed — for example, compare 15 and 16:(15) TinroiiAli
tinro =i i
Ali
sleep =3 PERS AliAliisasleep(16) IAlitinroiAli tinro

PERS Ali sleepA liisasleep
This pre–predicate slot is a focus position,5 which performs a variety of pragmaticfunctions such as disambiguating, emphasizing, adding certainty or uncertainty. So
while 15 is just a statement of fact, 16 with S in focus can express such meanings as:‘Are you sure it’s Ali who is asleep?’, ‘I tell you that Ali is asleep’, ‘I’ve heard that Ali
is asleep’. It is also the answer to the question inai tinro? ‘who is asleep?’ (interrogative
pronouns are typically focused). Another example of how focus conveys extended
meanings is the following:(17) Ballakkukicini'
balla' ku
ki= cini'
house 1.POSS 2p= seeYouseemyhouse
This could be given as an answer to the question: what can you give as a guarantee for aloan? (The unmarked way of saying ‘you see my house’ is kiciniki ballakku <ki=cini'=iballa'ku | 2f=see=3 house1.POSS>).
In transitive clauses either A or P can be in focus. The following two sentences show A
focus and P focus respectively where both arguments are definite:

4SeealsoFiner’sworkonA'positionsinSelayarese(Finer1994).
5Specifically, it is a slot for marked argument focus (Van Valin 1999). As for the configuration, Finer(1994)hasanalysedthefocusposition(forSelayarese)asSpecofIP.

58

Focus and Argument Indexing in Makasar(18) Kongkongaambunoimionga
kongkong a aN– buno =i miong adog
def AF– kill =3 cat
DEF

Thed
d ogkilledthecat(19) Mionganabunokongkonga
miong a
na= buno kongkong a
DEF
cat
DEF 3= kill dogThedogkilledthecat
Thus, in 18 there is no proclitic indexing kongkonga (A), while in 19 mionga (P) lacks acorresponding enclitic.6 Also note that in 18 the verb is marked with the Actor Focus
prefix aN– (found in clauses where A is in focus and P is definite.
If P is indefinite (ie. if the corresponding non-focused clause is semi-transitive) either
argument may still be focused, so 20 shows A focus , while 21 shows PINDEF focus:(20) Inakkeangnganrejuku'
inakke aN(N)– kanre juku'eat fish
1PRO BV–I’meatingfish(21) Juku'kukanre
juku' ku= kanre
fish 1= eatI’meatingfishNote that in 20 the verb is marked as semi-transitive with the prefix aN(N)– (themissing clitic pronoun being 1st person =a'), but in 21 the verb hosts a proclitic,
identical to clauses with focused definite P such as 19 above. This suggests that focus
promotes PINDEF to P (ie. promotes it from a non-core to a core argument), withconcomitant promotion of SA to A.7
Sentences with indefinite A are marginal as a general rule, and examples 22 and 23 areno exception.
(22) ?Miongammunokongkong
miong aN(N)– buno kongkongBV–kill dogcatAcatkilledadog/catskilldogs(23) ?Kongkongnabunomiong
kongkong na= buno miongdog
3= kill catAcatkilledadog/catskilldogs
Note however, that to make it even marginally acceptable in 23 miong (A) has beencross-indexed with na= even though it is indefinite and indefinite arguments are not

6 When A is in Focus this has obvious similarities with the phenomenon of ‘ergative extraction’ as

described for Mayan languages (Aissen 1992)— except that there is a parallel ‘absolutive extraction’
whenOisinFocus.
7Basri&Finer(1987)haveadifferentanalysis,inwhichitisthetrace(leftbehindwhenPINDEFismoved)

that is definite and which triggers the ERG= marking of SA. I prefer an analysis in which focus itself
promotesanargumenttocorestatus.

Anthony Jukes 59

usually cross-indexed. This could again suggest that focusing PINDEF promotes it to P,
which further promotes AINDEF to A.
Complex sentences show focus phenomena which differ somewhat from simple
examples. For example, NPs may be be in standard (postverbal) position in one clause,and simultaneously occupy focus position (as can be seen by the use of the Actor focus
prefix aN–) in a subsequent clause. For example, 24 shows the S NP from one clause
serving as focused A in the following clause, and then as A in a third clause though the
NP is not present in the clause:(24) battu–tommikongkongaampasire'bokangi,angkanrei.
battu tong =mo =i kongkong a
aN– pa–
si–
re'bo'–ang =i
DEF AF– CAUS– MUT– squabble –BEN =3
come also =PFV =3 dogaN– kanre =i
=3

AF– eatthedogscame,foughtoverit,ateit(bembe:100)
Example 25 from the same story shows three clauses with typical focus morphology,
but only one in which an NP (bembea) actually occupies the focus slot. In the second
clause the 1st person (represented by the preposed clitic pronoun on the initial adverbial
modifier dikki'–dikki') is marked as focused A by the prefix aN– on ambuangi, after
which the unfocused P of the second clause becomes the focused (but ellipsed) P of thethird clause:(25) Bembea mange a'je'ne', kudikki'–dikki' mange ambuangi karungkunna naung ri
buttaya,napasire'bokangkongkong.
bembe amange aC– je'ne' ku= dikki'– dikki' mange aN– buang =i karungkung
MV– water 1= RDP– creep go
AF– fall=3 disguisegoat DEF gosi–
re'bo'–ang kongkongnanaung ri
butta a
na= pa–3.POSS go.down PREP land DEF 3= CAUS– MUT– squabble –BEN dogThegoatwenttobathe,Icrepttothrowherdisguisedowntotheground,itwas
tornapartbydogs(bembe:111)
In the preceding examples, although focus can be identified according to the structuralprinciples as noted for simple clauses, it is unclear what the pragmatic effects are. Thisrequires further investigation not only of focus but of clause integration phenomena.
Finally, 26 is a proverb with two parallel clauses.
(26) Tedonglompomateirawarisirinnanatenanaciniki,sama–samamaterisirinnatauananacini'
tedong lompo mate i
rawa
ri
siring nana tena na= cini' =ibuffalo big
death PREP beneath PREP cellar 3.POSS and NEG 3= see =3
sama– sama mate ri
siring natauana na= cini'
louse death PREP cellar 3.POSS person DEF and 3= seeRDP–Abigdeadbuffaloinhiscellarandhedoesn'tnoticeit,adeadlouseinsomeoneelse'scellarandthat,henoticesThis example is somewhat confusing because na has 3 separate functions: ERG, POSS
and the conjunction ‘and’. But it is clear that in the first part of the proverb the buffalo
is indexed with an ABS enclitic, and in the second the louse is not indexed, though theconstructions are otherwise exactly parallel. The difference is that the louse is receiving
contrastive focus (represented in English with the cleft construction). Which suggests

60

Focus and Argument Indexing in Makasar

that focus is marked not only by pre-predicate position, but also by lack of indexing,
reminiscent of Nikolaeva’s (1999) analysis of Northern Ostyak:
The object that does not trigger agreement bears the focus function, andsystematically corresponds to the focus position. (Nikolaeva 1999:331).
The extent to which lack of indexing marks focus requires future investigation.
3. Topicalisation
There is a further possibility for preposing elements in a clause, which is leftdislocation. In this (unlike with focus) a clear prosodic break occurs between the
preposed element and the remainder of the clause, and if the preposed element is a coreargument, cross–indexing does occur (again, unlike focus). This can be seen in both 27
and 28 — in the former A is topicalised and both arguments are cross–indexed, in thelatter A is topicalised, P is focused and thus only A is cross–indexed with a proclitic:(27) kongkonga,nabunoimionga
kongkong a
na= buno =i miong a
DEF
dog
DEF 3= kill =3 catthedog,itkilledthecat(28) kongkonga,mionganabuno
kongkong amiong a
na= buno
dog
DEF cat
DEF 3= killasforthedog,itwasthecatthatitkilled
Example 29 has two clauses illustrating the structural contrast between topic and focus— in the first clause P is topicalised and thus is cross-indexed with an enclitic, while inthe second P is in focus and is not cross-indexed:(29) Anjo bainea, nalantiki Karaeng ri Massere'; anjo bura'nea nalanti' Karaeng ri
Roong
anjo baine a
na= lanti'=i karaeng ri
Massere' anjo bura'ne a
DEFthat female DEF 3= inaugurate =3 karaeng PREP Massere' that manna= lanti'
karaeng ri
Roong
3= inaugurate karaeng PREP Roong

Thatgirl,hemadeherKaraengofMassere',thatboyhemadeKaraengofRoong.
(bembe:003)
Topicalisation differs functionally from focus as one would expect. Whereas marked
focus is generally used in a contrastive function, topicalisation is most often used whensetting a topic either for a whole text (as was the case in 29 as the story is basically
about Karaeng Massere'), or for switching between alternative topics. It also clearly
differs syntactically. Whereas a focused argument is an argument within the phrase (asindicated by omission of its corresponding clitic pronoun), a topicalised NP is external
to the phrase (as indicated by the presence of the clitic pronoun).

Anthony Jukes 61

AbbreviationsABSabsolutive
DEF
definite
FUT
futureLIMlimitative
PERS personal prefix
PREP preposition
PROH prohibitive
STV
stative

AF
ERG
INTR
NEG
POSS
PRO
SBJV
TR

actor focus
ergative
intransitive
negative
possessive
pronounsubjunctive
transitive

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65

A first take on information structure in Totoli –Reference management and its interrelation with voice selection
Sonja Riesberg
Universität zu Köln

1. Introduction1

Totoli is a Western Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in the northern part of Central
Sulawesi. Like many languages in this group, Totoli is a symmetrical voice language, i.e. it
displays more than one transitive constructions – an actor voice and two undergoer voices2 –that behave morphologically and syntactically symmetrical. Examples (1)a. and (2)a. below
illustrate two dynamic actor voice clauses with their respective undergoer voice constructionsin (1)b. and (2)b.
(1) a.

I
i

Rinto
Rinto

HON

PN

manaipmoN-taip
AV-peeltaipang.
taipang
mango‘Rinto is peeling a mango.’b.

Taipang
taipang
mango

taip
taip
peel:UV1ii

Rinto.
Rinto

HON

PN

‘Rinto is peeling a mango.’(2) a.

Ii

WinarnoWinarnoHON

PN

mongusutmoN-kusut
AV-look.for

kunji
kunji
key

motorna.
motor=nascooter=3s.GEN‘Winarno is looking for the keys for his scooter.’
b.

Kunji
kunji
key

itu
itu
DIST

kusutikusut-ilook.for-UV2iiWinarno.
WinarnoHON

PN‘Winarno is looking for the keys.’
The two morphologically distinct undergoer voices – here glosses as UV1 and UV2
respectively – are lexically determined and unlike in Philippine-type languages not
semantically distinct, i.e. in both cases a patient or a theme argument is linked to subject
position. In addition to the alternation between actor voice and undergoer voice, there is an
obligatory distinction between realis and non-realis mood, as shown in the two undergoer
voice examples below. Note that the different mood values are reflected in the English
translations by different tenses (past versus future or progressive forms). Table 1 summarises
the Totoli voice paradigm for dynamic verbs, including non-realis and realis forms.
1

I’m in debt to Katharina Haude, Nikolaus Himmelmann, and the participants of the second international
workshop on information structure of Austronesian languages 2014 for valuable critique and comments.
2
Totoli exhibits a third voice, the locative voice in which a location in linked to subject position. While fully
productive, locative constructions have a somewhat special status, as they are syntactically far more restricted
than actor voice and undergoer voice constructions. The locative voice is therefore not further considered in thispaper. For a detailed description see Himmelmann/Riesberg 2013.

1

66

A first take on information structure in Totoli(3) a.

Niug
niug
coconut

ana
ana
MED

kodoong
ko-doong
POT-want

botak
botak
split:UV

i
i

Jui
Jui

HON

PN

‘Jui is splitting a coconut.’
b.

Niug
niug
coconut

ana
ana
MED

tookamotooka=mofinish=CPL

nibotakni-botakRLS-split:UV

i
i

Jui
Jui

HON

PN

‘Jui split a coconut.’

NON-REALIS
AV

UV1
UV2

3

moNmogmoØ
-i

REALIS

noNnognonini- -anTable 1: Totoli voice paradigm, dynamic verbs

In addition to the paradigm shown in Table 1 there are two more verbal paradigms, the stative
paradigm and the potentive paradigm. Stative forms denote qualities or (emotional) states.
They are typically intransitive, taking an undergoer subject, but transitive uses are also
possible. These then always imply a notion of causativity. Potentive forms, which areformally identical with the stative paradigm, denote events which take place accidentally or
actions which are carried out with lack of control on the part of the acting participant. They
can also have an ability reading, denoting that something can principally be done or has
already been achieved.
The alternations in (1) and (2) two are symmetrical in that all voices are overtly marked4 by
voice morphology and in that – unlike in an active-passive alternation – the non-subject
arguments show the same behavioural properties (e.g. with respect to relativisation, control,
raising, word order restrictions etc.). While languages may differ in the degree to which their
voice systems are symmetrical, with certain subtle behavioural differences (as recently
established in Riesberg 2014), Totoli seems to be a particular prototypical instance of asymmetrical voice language: Totoli shows a nearly 100% symmetry in the behaviour of verbal
arguments (one exception being the different realisation of pronouns in actor voice andundergoer voices, see below). In particular, Totoli does not display the same kind of
definiteness restrictions known from many other western Austronesian languages, like for3

The distribution of the three actor voice prefixes is determined mostly by phonological factors: vowel-initialbases, almost all of which are non-derived, take mog-, consonant-initial lexical bases take moN-, and derived
stems mostly take the prefix mo-. There is a limited class of consonant-initial verbs which are lexicallysubcategorized for mo-.
4Note that in many Austronesian languages that display symmetrical voice, there is usually one slot in the verbal
paradigm that remains morphologically unmarked (here the non-realis form of UV1). However, language
inherent evidence as well as cross-linguistic comparison give reason to assume that the non-marked forms are ahistorical coincident rather than representing the “unmarked” voice (in the sense that the active represents the“unmarked” voice in the active-passive alternation). Thus, language-internally non-marked forms always standin paradigmatic opposition to marked ones. Cross-linguistically, the non-marked slots do not occur in the same
position in the paradigm. For a more detailed discussion on this issue see Riesberg 2014 (especially section
2.2.5).

2

Sonja Riesberg 67

example Tagalog. In Tagalog definite undergoer arguments usually have to become thesubject of the construction and actor voice constructions with definite non-subject undergoer
arguments are clearly dispreferred. This is illustrated in the Tagalog example in (4)a., where
the undergoer argument bahay has to receive an indefinite interpretation (i.e. ‘a house’). If thesame state of affairs needs to be expressed with a definite undergoer argument, the speakerhas to choose a patient voice construction as in (4)b. (though see Himmelmann 2005: 367 foran discussion of exceptions and counter examples to this rule of thumbs).
(4) a.

Sumira-um-sira-AV-destroy

siya
siya
3s.NOMngng
GENbahay.
bahayhouse‘(s)he destroyed a/*the house.’b.

Sinira-in-sira-PV-destroy

niya
niya
3s.GEN(Latrouite 2012: 96)

ang
ang
NOM

‘(s)he destroyed the house.’bahay.
bahay
house(Latrouite 2012: 96)

But this is clearly not what we find in Totoli (at least in elicited data); compare the Tagalog
data in (4)a. to the Totoli actor voice construction in (2)a., where the undergoer argument isrealised as a possessive phrase kunji motorna ‘the keys for his scooter’ and thus can/has to beinterpreted as definite.
This then brings us to the major research question of this paper: If the two major voice
constructions in Totoli are indeed symmetrical and syntactically equal, how do speakers
choose which voice to use? Even though we do not find the same strict definitenessrestrictions as in other western Austronesian languages, the hypothesis would be that
discourse pragmatic factors influence the choice of voice selection made by the speakers
during discourse. This paper will therefore investigate reference management in four spoken
Totoli narratives and look whether there is a interrelation between the information status ofreferential expressions and the voice construction. Before looking at the actual numbers andcounts from these texts in section 4, section 2 will give an introduction of the different ways
to refer to discourse participants in Totoli. Section 3 will introduce and explain the annotation
scheme used for the text analyses.

2. Referential expressions in Totoli

As in all languages, there is a wide range of possibilities to refer to discourse participants in
Totoli, ranging from zero forms to complex nominal expressions. This section introduces
these means of reference without going into detail as to in which information structuralcontexts they might occur.
2.1 Zero anaphora and bound- and free pronouns
Totoli has two series of personal pronouns; the nominative series consisting of free forms andthe genitive series consisting of clitics (cf. Table 2):3

68

A first take on information structure in Totoli

1SG
2SG
3SG
1PL EXCL
1PL INCL
2PL
3PL

NOMINATIVEGENITIVE

aku
kau
isia
kami
kita
kamu
sisia

=ku; ku=mu; =ta
=na
kami
=ta
=ta
sisia; (=na)

Table 2: Totoli pronouns

In actor voice constructions, nominative forms can function either as subjects or as nonsubject arguments (cf. (5)a.), in undergoer voice constructions nominative forms usually only
occur in subject position, while the non-subject argument is realised by the genitive form,
cliticised to the verb. If cliticised to nouns, genitive pronouns mark the possessor in apossessive construction. Note that =na is mostly only used for third person singular, whereas
the free form sisia is used for plural forms. In some instances, however, =na can also be found
to refer to third person plural actors.
(5) a.

Aku
aku
1s

nongiu’noN-iu’AV-call

kamu
kamu
2

kalangenakalangena
a:moment:ago

ia.
ia
PRX

‘I called you this morning.’b.

kalambotimu
ko-lambot-i=mu
POT-remember-UV2=2s.GEN[political_meeting.004]

aku
aku
1s

nokulia
no-kulia
AV.RLS-study‘you remember me study.’[farming_2.2037]

In spoken discourse, it is common to drop referential expressions if they have been introduced
before. This is very common for undergoer voice subjects, as illustrated in the sequence in(6), taken from a narrative. After a first mention of the undergoer subject (bungo sagin itu ‘thebanana fruits’), the following four predicates occur without overt subject expressions. The
actor argument, however, is still realised by the third singular pronominal clitic =na. This
seems to be a common phenomenon in Austronesian languages, see e.g. Himmelmann 1999
on the lack of zero anaphora in undergoer voice constructions in Tagalog. In actor voice
constructions, both subject and non-subject argument phrases are often omitted (cf. example(7) where no referring expression is used).
(6)

Njan
njan
like.thatnalapitna
no-lapit=na
POT.RLS-reach=3s.GEN

poopolut
RDP2-polut
RDP2-penetrate

bungo
bungo
fruit

niganutna
ni-ganut=na
RLS-pull.off:UV1=3s.GEN

nijjomoona.
ni-RDP1-jomoo=na
RLS-RDP1-devour=3s.GEN
4

sagin
sagin
banana
ai
ai
and

itu
itu
DIST

nikaanna
ni-kaan=na
RLS-eat:UV1=3s.GEN

Sonja Riesberg 69‘As he reached the banana fruits, he opened (them), ripped off (their peel),[monkey_turtle.245-249]
and ate (them). He gorged (them)’(7)

Ngadaannga daannousa
no-usaST-long

NEG EXIST

ana
ana
and

nangkaalamai.
noN-ko-ala=mo=ai
AV.RLS-ADA-get=CPL=VEN‘It didn’t take long and (they) got (it).’[monkey_turtle.110-111]

2.2 Demonstratives and demonstrative phrases
Totoli exhibits three demonstrative formatives, roughly marking three levels of distance fromthe speaker: ia signals closeness to the speaker (glossed here as proximative = PRX), ana
signals an intermediate distance from the speaker (glossed as medial = MED), and itu (glossed
as distal = DIST) which marks a distance furthest away from the speaker. Thesedemonstratives can function as free demonstrative pronouns, as in (8), as well as determiners
in demonstrative phrases, e.g. with nouns ((9)a.), pronouns ((9)b.), or prepositional phrases((9)c.).
(8) a.

Ia
ia
PRX

nollipa
no-RDP1-lipa
ST-RDP1-forget

nolobaanku
no-loba-an=ku
ST-inform-APPL1=1s.GEN

Nanong.
Nanong
PN‘This one has been forgotten, I told Nanong.’b.

Tongaita
tonga-i=ta
ask-UV2=1pi.GEN[conversation_4.711]

ana
ana
MED

‘We ask that.’(9) a.

Bali
bali
so

aku
aku
1s

[expl_celeb.197]

kode
kode
only

mmake
moN-pake
AV-use

leang
leang
leaf

sagin
sagin
banana‘So I just use these banana leafs.’
b.

geimo
geimo
not

kodoonganta
ko-doong-an=ta
ST-like-APPL2=1pi.GEN

Dei
dei
LOC

bale
bale
house

itu
itu
DIST

MED

[red_sugar.393]

aku
aku
1s

ia.
ia
PRX

‘You don’t like me.’
c.

ana
ana

[podok_langgat.186]

paapake
RDP2-pake
RDP2-wear

daster.
dasterhouse.dress‘In the house, (she) is wearing a house dress.’[conversation_4.663]

2.3 Nouns and complex noun phrases
As might have become clear from the given examples so far, Totoli has neither definite nor
indefinite articles. A bare noun can either receive a definite or an indefinite interpretation,
depending on the context. To stress the fact that a specific entity is meant, speakers can use
one of the demonstratives discussed in section 2.2 above, but this use is not obligatory for adefinite reading. Compare the two instances of the noun ondan ‘ladder’ in example (10): The5

70

A first take on information structure in Totoli

first instance is the first mention of the ladder in this conversation, and is thus is interpreted as
indefinite. In the second instance, however, the ladder is already known and thus receives adefinite reading.
(10)

pertamapertamafirstmonodokan
moN-todok-an
AV-stand-APPL1

koopatmo
ko-opat=mo
ADA-four=CPL

dannadaanna
then

(…)

ondan
ondan
ladderlimpatan
limpat-an
move-APPL1

ondan
ondan
ladder‘First, you have to put up a ladder (…) There are four (sides to pick).
[cloves.17&84]
Then, you have to move the ladder’
Another strategy for generating a definite reading is by adding the third person genitive
pronoun =na to the respective noun, which could either mark possession (and therefore single
out the entity as specific and definite), or, in some cases mark definiteness without possession.
This seems to be a common phenomenon in many Austronesian languages, e.g. also inIndonesian and Balinese, though only little work has been done on this topic (but see e.g.
Haiduck 2014 for Balinese). See, for example (11), where the NP bangunanna does not mean
‘his building(s)’ or ‘their buildings’ but rather denotes ‘the buildings’ in former times in thevillage of Bjugan.
(11)

Tempo
tempo
time

ia
ia

geiga
geiga

denniadennialike.this

NEG

PRX

sampe
sampe
until

sekarang
sekarangnow

Bayugan
BajuganPN

bangunanna
bangunan=na
building=3s.GEN‘In these times until now (in) Bajugan,
they weren’t like this, the buildings.’[bajugan.44-46]

Noun phrases can furthermore become more complex by being modified by other nouns (cf.
e.g. leang sagin ‘banana leaf’ in example (9)a.), by stative verbs (e.g. tampat melea ‘a large
place’), or by relative clauses, as in (12)a. Headless relative clauses can also function as either
subjects or non-subject arguments, as in (12)b.
(12) a.

tau
tau
person

moane
moane
man

anu
anu
REL

kodoong
ko-doong
POT-want

kabingkabingmarry‘the man who wants to get married’b.

Nokotiingnoko-tiing
POT.AV.RLS-hear

pokotinga
poko-tinga
POT-sayiiHON‘(he) heard what the monkey had said.’

6[wedding_expl_TTL.026]

olong.
olong
monkey[monkey_turtle.277]

Sonja Riesberg 71

2.4 Prepositional phrases
Prepositional phrases in Totoli are usually used to denote peripheral participants, most notably
locations and instruments. The preposition dei is by far the most frequent one, marking
locations, but also goals and recipients (cf. the three examples in (13)). Other prepositions areuli ‘from’, takin ‘with’ (instrumental), and lengan ‘with’ (comitative).
(13) a.

I
i

Lolio
Lolio

HON

PN

nemea
no-meaST.RLS-live

dei
dei
LOC

tangipatangipaother.side‘Lolio lived on the other side of the small lake’b.

Mallakomo-RDP1-lako
AV-RDP1-walk

dei
dei
LOC

boto
boto
small.lake[monkey_butterfly.061-062]

daami.
daami
abandoned.garden‘Walk to the recently abandoned garden.’c.

kodoong
ko-doong
POT-want

mangambuling
moN-kambuling
AV-return

dei
dei
LOC

[map_task_2b.407-409]

togu
togu
possession‘(it) wants to give the bracelet back to its owner.’

bitu
bitu
bracelet

ana
ana
MED

[chicken_eagle.170]

To conclude this section, Table 3 lists all Totoli referential expressions that have been
discusses in the previous sub-sections:
PRON

zero
free
bound
PRX

DEM
DP

MED
DIST
DPPr
DPM
DPD

N

NP

e.g. anak=ku ‘my child’e.g. tangayopan=mu ‘your plants’ (21)e.g. amang=na ‘his father’e.g. bakele kami ‘our grandmother’e.g. usat=ta ‘our sibling’e.g. tinga sisia ‘their language’e.g. mangana dedek ‘small child’PPe.g. dei daami ‘to the garden’ (13)b.

REL

e.g. tau moane anu kodoong kabing ‘the man who wants
to get married’ (12)a.

Nposs

N=ku
N=mu
N=na
N kami
N=ta
N sisiaØ (6)e.g. aku, kamu (5)a.
e.g. =ku, =mu, =ta, etc. (5)b.
ia (8)a.
ana (8)b.
itu
e.g.
e.g. leang sagin ana ‘these banana leafs’ (6)e.g. bale itu ‘that house’ (9)c.
e.g. ondan ‘a/the ladder’ (10)Table 3: Referential expression in Totoli

7

72

A first take on information structure in Totoli

3. Information status and the RefLex annotation scheme

This section introduces the annotation scheme used in this study. There are numerous
accounts on discourse analysis and on reference management in discourse. By now, it seems
to be established that at least three different activation statuses – given, activated, and new –should be distinguished (cf. Chafe 1976, Prince 1981). Other authors have proposed morefine-grained distinctions, such as in the well-known givenness hierarchy established by
Gundel, Hedburg and Zacharski 1993. This hierarchy consists of the six statuses given in (14)below. Each of these status is assumed to be “a necessary and sufficient condition for theappropriate use of a different form or forms” (Gundel et al. 1993: 275). As Gundel et al. show
in their comparative study on English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish, not all
statuses are relevant in all languages. However, for all languages the hierarchy predicts that agiven form is inappropriate if the respective status is not met.
(14) in focus > activated > familiar > uniquely identifiable > referential > type identifiable
While this is an very interesting and certainly insightful approach, I found it rather difficult toapply to my own data. When faced with the Totoli texts, I often struggled trying to determine
the correct status to a given form. I therefore decided to use the less complex annotation
scheme developed by Stefan Baumann and Arndt Riester (cf. Baumann/Riester 2012; 2013).
Baumann’s and Riester’s two-dimensional annotation scheme (called RefLex) has beendeveloped to investigate the relationship between information status and prosody. In
particular, it claims to enable even non-expert annotators to create consistent annotations andis therefore easier applicable than the six-status approach by Gundel et al. (even though it
does not consist of less categories).
The RefLex annotation scheme is two-dimensional in that it annotates the information statusof a given referential expression on two levels, i.e. on the referential as well as on the lexicallevel. Compare the three examples below to see the difference between these two levels (alltaken from Baumann/Riester 2013):(15)

a. After the holidays, John arrived in a new car, and also Harry
had bought a new car.
b. A car was waiting in front of the hotel. I could see a woman in the car.
c. Yesterday, a friend of mine prepared a lasagne for me. I found it hardto enjoy the tasteless stuff.

In both (15)a. and (15)b. there are two instances of the same referring expression (a new car
and a/the car respectively). In (15)a., the first instance of a new car is referentially new, as it
is an indefinite expression introducing a new referent. It is also lexically new, as the lexical
items have not been used before. The second instance is also referentially new, as it refers toanother car than the first mention. However, it is lexically given, as the same lexical material
has been used immediately before. In (15)b., again the second instance of the car is lexicallygiven, but this time it is also referentially given, as both instances refer to the same referent.
Finally, in (15)c. we find the reverse situation in which the tasteless stuff, though referentiallygiven as it refers to the same lasagne, is lexically new. The distinction between referential
givenness and lexical givenness is important for Baumann and Riester, as it offers, forexample, an explanation for the fact that (15)a. and (15)b. receive the same prosodic marking,i.e. deaccentuation of the second mention of the (new) car, even though in a. it is referentially
new and in b. it is given. For the main research question of this paper – the question whether
8Sonja Riesberg 73

there is a relationship between voice on the one hand, and information statuses of referential
expression on the other hand – I believe that the distinction of these two levels is notnecessary. I will therefore only apply the categories of the referential level proposed in
Bauman/Riester (2012; 2013). However, it should be noted that the study presented in thispaper is very preliminary. If it turns out that information status on the lexical level does play arole for voice selection, it can be easily added in further studies.
For the study presented in this paper, I used a simplified version of RefLex, as proposed in
Baumann/Riester (2013). This version contains five labels on the referential level,summarized and briefly explained in Table 4 (for the full, more complex scheme see
Baumann/Riester 2012). As mentioned in section 2, definiteness in Totoli is not necessarily
overtly marked. Nevertheless, depending on the information status of the respective discourse
referent, linguistic expressions receive definite or indefinite interpretations. It therefore seems
justified to keep the three-way distinction of definite, definite/indefinite, and indefinite as
proposed by Baumann/Riester 2013. In the following sub-sections, I will exemplify the
annotation labels, mainly using Totoli data from those texts that have been annotated for thepresent study.
Definiter-givenr-bridging

anaphor corefers with antecedent in previous discourse
anaphor can be resolved to non-coreferring antecedent orwithin a described scenario
discourse-new, non-anaphoric definite expression
referring to an item which is generally known or
identifiable from its own linguistic description

r-unused

Definite or Indefinite
r-genericIndefinite
r-new

abstract or generic item
specific or existential indefinite introducing a newreferent

Table 4: Labels for the annotation of discourse referents in the RefLex scheme (Baumann/Riester 2013)

3.1 Given versus new
The given versus new distinction has already been briefly illustrated with the English example
in (15)a. The Totoli example below consists of the first three intonation units of a story abouta monkey and a turtle, a folk story that is well known not only in the Tolitoli area, but also inother parts of Sulawesi and the Philippines. The three bare nouns in the first intonation unit,
bolong ‘a monkey’, pomponu ‘a turtle’, and guan ‘a garden’, introduce the most importantparticipants of the story. In intonation units two and three two of them, the monkey and theturtle, are taken up again, this time expressed by a zero form.
(16)

siritasiritastory

bolongbolongmonkey
new

ai
ai
and

pomponu
pomponu
turtlenew9

nogutuno-gutu
AV.RLS-make

gauan
gauan
gardennew

74

A first take on information structure in Totoli

pomoonapomoo=na
first=3s.GEN
njan
injan
then

Ø
Ø
Ø
given

molipidoan
moli--an pido
RCP
good

pombulina
pombuli=na
later=3s.GEN

nolidaisan
noli--an dais
RCP.RLS bad

Ø
Ø
Ø
given

‘(This is) the story about a monkey and a turtle making a garden.
First, they were friends, and then they hated each other’ [monkey_turtle.001-003]
A similar example has already been given in (10), where both, given and new information isexpressed by a bare noun (i.e. ondan ‘a/the ladder’). Note, however, that distance between the
newly introduced referent and its second mention in the two examples discussed differ
strongly: While in (16) we are dealing with consecutive intonation units, there are 64 units
between the first and the second mention of the ladder in (10). As I believe that the distance
between the occurrences of referents may play a role in voice selection (but also on therespective referring expression), I decided to use one more label that is missing from Table 4,
but which is part of the more complex scheme in Baumann/Riester 2012, namely the category
given-displaced. This label is used for exactly those cases as in (10), i.e. where there is acoreferring antecedent that has been mentioned at some point in the preceding discourse, but
not in the immediately preceding utterances (the fixed unit in Baumann/Riester 2012: 138 isfive intonation units or clauses, not counting smaller units, such as brief back channellingetc.).
3.2 Accessible
In addition to the three possibilities discussed in the previous section (i.e. given, givendisplaced, and new), it is sometimes the case that a referent is neither given, as defined above,
nor new, but still activated, or accessible. This is for example the case when an expression
denotes a part of an entity that has been mentioned before, as in the example below, again
taken form the story of the monkey and the turtle. Here, the stem, being a part of the banana
tree (which has been mentioned), is accessible, even though it has not been mentioned before.
(17)

sabab
sabab
because

ana
ana
if

sagin
sagin
bananagiven

mapanggat
mo-panggat
ST-highbatangnabatang=na
stem=3s.GEN
bridging‘because as for the banana (tree), its stem is high’[monkey_turtle.81-82]

Baumann and Riester use the term bridging rather than accessible (Chafe 1976) or inferable(Prince 1981), because it subsumes not only meronyms (as just illustrated in (17)), but also
other context-dependent expressions which do not possess a coreferential antecedent(Baumann/Riester 2013: 22), as, for example, in (18). This example is taken from the end of astory about a chicken and an eagle. The chicken borrows a bracelet from the eagle and thenloses it. This, so the story goes, is the reason why chickens always keep scraping, even if they
have enough food, and why eagles prey on chicks. The hearer, having heard the whole story,
can therefore access the expression utang ‘the debt’, though it has not been introduced in thepreceding discourse.
10

Sonja Riesberg 75(18)

pogitanapo
pog-ita=na=po
GER-search=3s.GEN=INCPL
given
Ø
Ø
Ø
given

tuju
tuju
bewitchturuusturuusalways

ana
ana
MED

given

kueangkueangeagle
given

menagimenagiAV:demand

utang
utang
debt
bridging‘It (the chicken) is still searching for it (the bracelet). It is bewitched[chicken_eagle.211-214]by the eagle, who demands his debt’
3.3 Discourse-new versus hearer-new
Finally, one more distinction needs to be discussed in more detail, namely the difference
between new and unused (see Table 4). This distinction pertains to the fact that certain
referents are known to the hearer, even though they have not been introduced into thediscourse before, i.e. even though they are discourse-new. Well known and often cited
examples are the president of the United States, or the moon, which are uniquely identifiable
and therefore in English are used with the definite article, even if they have not been
mentioned before. A similar case is illustrated by the Totoli example in (19). Both proper
nouns, Palu and KPUD, have not been mentioned in the discourse before. However, they are
known to the hearer: Palu is the capital of the province Sulawasi Tengah (Central Sulawesi),
the KPUD (= Komisi Pemilihan Umum Daerah) is the local commission for the generalelections.
(19)

tau
tau
person
given

tukka
tukka
older.sibling

nobalino-bali
AV.RLS-become

dei
dei

Palu
Palu

LOC

PN

tempona
tempo=natime=3s. GEN

ana
ana
MED

unusedanggotaanggotamember
new

KPUD
KPUD
PN

unused‘The oldest brother, who is in Palu now, became a member of the KPUD’[Nahre’s_life.093-096]

4. Preliminary results

For this very preliminary study discussed in this paper, 4 spoken Totoli narratives wereannotated (together 31:25 minutes of spoken speech). The texts were coded for four variables:First, the grammatical relation of the respective referring expression (i.e. whether it occurredin subject, non-subject, or oblique function); second, the voice of the constructions, as
introduced in section 1 (i.e. whether we are dealing with an actor voice, or an undergoer voice
construction (either dynamic, stative, or potentive)); third, the form of the referring
expression, as discussed in section 2 and summarized in Table 3; fourth, the information
status of the referent denoted by the referring expression, as discussed in section 3 andsummarized in Table 4. Altogether, 803 referring expressions where coded.
The annotations were used to address the following three research questions, which will be
discussed consecutively in the next three sub-sections:11

76

A first take on information structure in Totoli

1. Which forms can be/are used for which information status?
2. How is the distribution of form and grammatical relation in the different voices?
3. How is the distribution of status and grammatical relation in the different voices?
4.1 Form and information status
Looking at how different referring expressions are used in Totoli narratives, the distribution is
not particularly surprising. As one might expect, all three kinds of pronouns (zero, free, andbound forms) as well as demonstrative pronouns are only used when the referent is given, or
given-displaced. One exception is the occurrence of a first person singular inclusive boundpronoun that the speaker uses to refer to himself and the listener. Not having been used in the
discourse before but referring to the speech act participants, it has been classified as unused.
Likewise expectable is the distribution of bare nouns. As already mentioned in section 2.3 (cf.
e.g. the discussion of example (10)), bare nouns in Totoli can receive both a definite and an
indefinite interpretation. This is also reflected in the use of bare nouns in the narratives
investigated: While roughly two thirds of the occurrences denote referents that are given or
given-displaced, almost one third is used for newly introduced referents. In fact, bare nouns
make more than one third of the forms used for introducing new participants (31 of 79). A
fairly large amount of bridging instances is also realized by bare nouns, as well as bypossessive constructions (together 23 of 33). Especially the latter is, again, not surprising, as
most of the instances where bridging occurs consist of part-whole-relations, such as illustrated
in example (17). What might be a little less expected is the fact that demonstrative phrases, inaddition to their frequent use for denoting given (and given-displaced) referents, are also
fairly often used for introducing new participants. One of the most striking examples for thisis the following, which is the very first utterance in the story about a chicken and an eagle. It
is the first time the chicken is mentioned, yet it is expressed by the demonstrative phrase
manuk ana ‘that chicken’.
(20)

manuk
manuk
chicken

ana
ana
MED

masahabatan
mo--an sahabat
RCP
friendai
ai
with‘the chicken was friends with the/an eagle’

kueangkueangeagle[chicken_eagle.028-32]

Another unexpected instance found in the corpus is the occurrence of a zero form used to
introduce a new participant. The example is given in (21); it is part of a story about the sevendaughters of the king who run away from home. In the particular example, the undergoer
subject of the predicate aling ‘to remove’ is left unexpressed, even though the item that isremoved has not been mentioned before. In fact, it is neither mentioned in the following
discourse, so it seems that the information about what is taken away is not important for thefurther development of the story. The reason why it is mentioned in the first place is notentirely clear, and as this is the only example of such a use of a zero form, it might also be
possible that we are dealing with an error/lapsus linguea. Table 5 summarises the distributionof form and their respective information statuses in the four narratives investigated5.

5Note that this table does not contain all of the 803 instances of referring expressions mentioned above. In orderto keep things simple and more manageable, those cases that were classified as generic or abstract, as well as
items that refer to text-external context, are excluded from the summary in Table 5.

12

Sonja Riesberg 77(21) jaam
jam
clock

opat
opat
four

nangalai-ngo- no-lai-COLL- AV.RLS-run

ssaakansasaakanallpottuluanna
po-RDP1-tuli-an=na
GER-RDP1-sleep-NR=3s.GENØØØialingnako
i-aling=na=ko
RLS-remove=3s.GEN=AND‘At four o’clock they all ran from their beds. They took (something) away’[king_frog.119-123]

dem

DP6

N

Nposs

NP

PP

REL

sum

87
3
1
1
-

14
1
1

31
29
2
4
8

49
37
10
4
31

12
7
13
2
9

3
5
6

22
37
6
1
22

1
1
1
-

513
137
33
14
79

92

16

74

131

43

14

88

3

zero

free

bound

given
given-disbridging
unused
new

185
12
1
1

109
6
1

sum

199

116

Table 5: Forms and their statuses

4.2 Form, grammatical relation, and voice
This section will look at potential asymmetries between actor voice constructions andundergoer voice constructions with respect to the linguistic form of different grammatical
relations (primarily of subjects and non-subject arguments). One of these asymmetries havebeen mentioned before, namely the fact that non-subject pronouns in undergoer voice
constructions but not in actor voice constructions are cliticized to the verb. However, this kindof asymmetry originates in the morpho-syntactic system of the language. A more interestingquestion is thus, whether there are other asymmetries in the form of actor voice and undergoer
voice subjects and non-subject arguments that are due to information structural factors rather
than morpho-syntactic ones. This seems to be indeed the case (cf. Figures 1-4).
Note, first of all, that some of the different forms that have been introduced in section 2 andthat have been kept apart in Table 5, have been combined for the purpose of investigating
research questions 2 and 3: In the following, I will compare the use of zero forms, pronouns
and lexical nominal material in subject and non-subject argument function in the two voice
types. The category pronoun thus includes both, free forms (personal and demonstrative) andbound forms. The category ‘lexical nominal material’ should be understood as an umbrellaterm opposed to zero forms and pronouns. It includes bare nouns, determiner phrases,
possessive constructions, and modified nouns as described in section 2.3. Furthermore, thelabel actor voice subsumes both actor voice constructions with dynamic verbs, as well as
stative and potentive actor voice constructions. Likewise, undergoer voice, as used in thissection, includes the ‘ordinary’ dynamic undergoer voice constructions, and stative andpotentive constructions.

6

I use DP for determiner phrases and NP for complex noun phases, as introduced in sections 2.2 and 2.3.

13

78

A first take on information structure in Totoli

Looking at subjects first, the distribution of different forms between actor voice andundergoer voice is roughly equal, the difference mainly pertaining to the use of lexicalmaterial: Undergoer voice constructions make slightly more use of DPs, NPs and Ns (37% in
UV, 26% in AV). The difference between the use of zero forms and pronouns respectively isrelatively small (zero: 39% UV vs. 45% AV, pronouns: 24% UV vs. 29% AV).

  




















Figure 1: Forms of AV subjects

Figure 2: Forms of UV subjects

Looking at the forms of the non-subject argument phrases, the difference between actor voice
and undergoer voice is, however, striking. The most noticeable difference pertains to the useof pronouns: In undergoer voice constructions, 66% of all non-subject arguments are realisedas (bound) pronouns, whereas the corpus contains only five instances of pronominal nonsubjects in an actor voice construction7. On the other hand, in actor voice constructions, thevast majority of non-subject arguments (74%) are realised as bare nouns, possessive phrases,
complex nouns, or determiner phrases. In undergoer voice constructions, these make only
19% of all instances. The high number of pronominal non-subject arguments in undergoer
voice constructions can probably be explained by the high number of so called “rapid action
sequences” (Himmelmann 1999: 244) typical for Totoli narratives (and Austronesiannarratives in general). Typically, these sequences occur in the undergoer voice, where thesubject, after being initially mentioned in the first unit, is dropped for the rest of the sequence,
the actor, however, keeps being realized as a bound pronoun. An example of such a rapid
action sequence of this kind was given in example (6) (cf. also the above mentioned
observation by Himmelmann 1999 that western Austronesian language have a tendency not todrop actor arguments in undergoer voice constructions). Yet, as Figure 4 shows, zero forms
are possible in Totoli undergoer voice constructions (16% in the investigated corpus).
Whether these are in fact zero anaphora or whether these actor-less constructions can/must be
accounted for by other factors (as Himmelmann 1999: 255 does for Tagalog), is left for
further research.

7

Note, however, that the corpus is still very small. More data is certainly necessary to make more reliableclaims, especially with regard to non-subject arguments in actor voice constructions.

14

Sonja Riesberg 79

 

 















Figure 3: Forms of AV non-subject arguments

Figure 4: Forms of UV non-subject arguments

4.3 Status, grammatical relation, and voice
The previous section has given a first impression over asymmetries in the realisation ofreferential expressions in actor voice and undergoer voice constructions, and it has become
clear that these asymmetries mainly manifest in the realization of non-subject arguments. Thissection will now shift the perspective, not looking at the form but at the status of the referring
expressions.
Again, starting with the subjects, the difference between actor voice and undergoer voice isonly marginal. Lumping together given and given-displaced referents, these two categories
constitute the largest group in both voices (96% in AV, 86% in UV). New referents in subject
position are slightly more frequent in undergoer voice than in actor voice constructions.

 

   

Figure 5: Status of AV subjects

   

     



Figure 6: Status of UV subjects

Just as in the previous section, a more striking difference between actor voice and undergoer
voice can be seen when looking at the statuses of referents in non-subject function. Similar towhat we saw for referents in subject function, the group of given and given-displaced
referents in non-subject function is the largest one in both voices. However, the difference
between actor voice and undergoer voice is more pronounced when looking at non-subject
function than it is for referents in subject function (73% in AV, 96% in UV). The moststriking difference between actor voice and undergoer voice with respect to referents in non15

80

A first take on information structure in Totoli

subject function consists in the use of new referents, which is significantly higher in actor
voice constructions (21%) than in undergoer voice constructions (1%).





 

     

Figure 7: Status of AV non-subject arguments





      



Figure 8: Status of UV non-subject arguments

5. Discussion and summary
This paper has presented some preliminary results of a corpus study of four spoken Totoli
narratives. The major aim was to investigate referential expression, as well as the question
whether and how information structural factors influence the voice selection in discourse. It
should be clear that many important factors that would lead to a more complete picture ofreference management and its interaction with voice selection have not been taken into
account in this pilot study. These include, among others, distinguishing intransitive andtransitive clauses and keeping apart the different verbal paradigms (dynamic, stative, andpotentive). Problematic is certainly also the current treatment of zero-forms, where zero
anaphors are not separated from other uses of zero forms. Finally, note that due to its small
size, and probably also due to the nature of the selected texts, the corpus contains fairly few
instances in which new participants are introduced into the discourse (79 in total, out of which
the 22 prepositional phrase were not considered in the analyses in sections 4.2 and 4.3). A
larger corpus is thus necessary to make more reliable claims about reference management ingeneral and the introduction of new participants in particular.
Despite these deficiencies, some generalisations could be made as to which referential
expression are the preferred choice for a given information status, as summarised in Table 5.
Furthermore, it was shown that there are asymmetries in the realisation of subjects and nonsubject arguments when comparing actor voice constructions with undergoer voice
constructions. These are especially pronounced in the use of pronouns, particularly in nonsubject argument function. With respect to the status of referents, it was shown that there is astrong tendency to introduce new participants as undergoers: These are most often realized as
non-subject arguments of actor voice constructions, but new referents in subject function ofundergoer voice constructions are also fairly frequent (and quite more so than in subject
function of actor voice constructions or in non-subject function of undergoer voice
constructions).

16

Sonja Riesberg 81

References
Baumann, S. & Riester, A. 2013. Coreference, Lexical Givenness and Prosody in German. In
Lingua 136. 16-37.
Baumann, S. & Riester, A. 2012. Referential and Lexical Givenness: Semantic, Prosodic andCognitive Aspects. In Elordieta, Gorka & Pilar Prieto (Eds.). Prosody and Meaning, 119162. Berlin, New York: Mouton De Gruyter.
Chafe, W. 1976. Givenness, Contrastiveness, Definiteness, Subjects, Topics, and Point ofView. In Charles Li (ed.), Subject and Topiv, 25-56. New York: Academic Press.
Gundel, J. K., Hedberg, N. & Zacharski, R. 1993. Cognitive Status and the Form of Referring
Expressions in Discourse. In Language 69:2. 274-307
Haiduck, L. 2014. The Suffix –ne in Balinese. Köln: Universität zu Köln Master’s Thesis,
http://www.academia.edu/10241220/The_Suffix_-ne_in_Balinese.
Himmelmann, N. P. 2005. Tagalog. In Alexander Adelaar & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann (eds.),
The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar, 350-376. London & New York:
Routledge.
Himmelmann, N. P. 1999. The Lack of Zero Anaphora and Incipient Person Marking in
Tagalog. Oceanic Linguistics 38. 231-269.
Himmelmann, N. P. & Riesberg, S. 2013. Symmetrical Voice and Applicative Alternations:
Evidence from Totoli. Oceanic Linguistics 52. 396-422.
Latrouite, A. 2012. Differential Object Marking in Tagalog. In: Lauren Eby Clemens, Greg
Scontras, and Maria Polinski (eds.), Proceedings of the 18t Meeting of the AustronesianFormal Linguistics Association, 94-109. Harvard University, Cambridge.
Prince, E. F. 1981. Toward a Taxonomy of Given-New Information. In Peter Cole (ed.),Radical Pragmatics, 223-256. New York: Academic Press.
Riesberg, S. 2014. Symmetrical Voice and Linking in Western Austronesian Languages.
(Pacific Linguistics 646). Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

17

83

Person restriction on passive agents in Malay andgivenness∗
Hiroki Nomoto
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

1

Introduction

The agent of di- passives in Malay appears to be restricted to third person. In Nomoto andKartini (2014), we analysed this restriction as resulting from the inﬂuence of the givenness ofthe eventuality described by the passive verb phrase on that of the agent. Speciﬁcally, the low
givenness/salience (= high newness) of the former forces the latter to be also low. Since ﬁrst andsecond person agents are speech act participants (i.e. speakers and hearers) and highly given,
they are not suitable as a di- passive agent.
This paper elaborates on our previous analysis, with particular focus on the following twotheoretical issues: the givenness of implicit passive agents (analysed as pro) and givennessof eventualities. The notion of givenness is usually discussed of individual-denoting referential noun phrases (e.g. Chafe 1976; Prince 1992; Gundel et al. 1993). However, the notion is
also relevant to other constituent types such as verb phrases, and plays a role in information
structure-related linguistic phenomena (Schwarzschild 1999; Riester 2008). In discussing these
theoretical issues, this paper also makes a few modiﬁcations to our previous analysis of Malay
passives in Nomoto and Kartini (2014).
This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents the voice system of Malay assumed
in this paper, including diﬀerent passive subtypes in Malay and how their agents are expressed.
Section 3 introduces the person restriction on the agent in di- passives and the essence of Nomoto
and Kartini’s (2014) analysis of it in terms of information structure, particularly givenness.
The section thus contains a brief review of the notion of givenness. Sections 4 and 5 discuss
issues concerning givenness that arise from our analysis: the status of the implicit passive agent(section 4) and givenness of eventualities (section 5). Section 6 is the conclusion.

2

Passives in Malay

Malay has two types of passive(-like) constructions: morphological passives with the preﬁx di(1a) and bare passives (1b).1 They are so called based on their surface morphological characteristics. The verb bears the overt passive voice marker di- in the former whereas it bears no overt
voice marker in the latter.2 Besides this morphological diﬀerence, the two passives also diﬀer∗ The research reported here was supported in part by the JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)(#26770135). I thank the audience at the Second International Workshop on Information Structure of Austronesian
Languages for their comments and criticisms.
1 Non-standard abbreviations used (those not included in the Leipzig Glossing Rules): act: active; fam: familiar; part: particle; pol: polite.
2 Bare passives are referred to by various names in the literature: ‘object-preposing construction’ (Chung 1976;
Willett 1993), ‘Passive Type 2’ (Dardjowidjojo 1978; Sneddon et al. 2010), ‘pasif semu’ [pseudo-passive] (Asmah1

84

Person restriction on passive agents in Malay and givenness

in the status of the agent. The agent in di- passives appears to be optional whereas that in barepassives is obligatory and immediately precedes the verb. Note that I use the term ‘passive’ torefer to a construction type in which the theme argument does not occur as a direct object but
as a subject, regardless of the syntactic status of the agent (see below for further details).
(1)

a.

b.

Di- passive
Dokumen itu sudah di-semak oleh mereka.
document that already pass-check by them
‘The document has already been checked by them.’
Bare passive
Dokumen itu sudah *(mereka) semak.
document that already they
check
‘They have already checked the document.’

Di- passive agents are encoded in three ways, as shown in (2). In the ‘pro type’ (2a), no
overt agent occurs, though the presence of an agent is entailed. In the ‘oleh type’ (2b), the agent
is introduced by the preposition oleh ‘by’. Finally, in the ‘DP type’ (2c), the agent immediately
follows the verb, with no preposition.
(2)

a.

b.

c.

Pro type
Surat itu sudah di-poskan pro.
letter that already pass-post
Oleh type
Surat itu sudah di-poskan oleh kerani.
letter that already pass-post by clerk
DP type
Surat itu sudah di-poskan kerani.
letter that already pass-post clerk‘The letter was already posted (by the clerk).’

I propose the structures in (3) for the three di- passive subtypes and the bare passive. In dipassives, the verb moves from V to v to Voice, to supply the preﬁx di- with a verbal host to
attach to.3 Nomoto and Kartini (2014) analyse an implicit agent as a null unspeciﬁed pronoun(pro) rather than being absent altogether from the structure.4 This ensures that the presenceof an agent is entailed even if it is not explicitly expressed. The meaning of pro can be left
unspeciﬁed, but it can also be speciﬁed either overtly by an oleh ‘by’ phrase or covertly by thecontext outside of the passive clause. In other words, pro is involved in the oleh type as wellas the pro type. By contrast, the DP type di- passive and bare passive must have an overt agent
DP.52009), ‘object(ive) voice’ (Arka and Manning 1998; Cole, Hermon, and Yanti 2008), and so forth. See Nomoto(2006) for a summary of various existing terms.
3 I revised the structures proposed in Nomoto and Kartini (2014). In the latter paper, we posited the voice
markers di- and Ø in v. The verb movement in di- passives lacked a clear motivation in this analysis, unlike thecurrent one. Cole et al. (2008) also posit the voice-related preﬁxes di- and meN- in the Voice head distinct from v.
4 Alternatively, the agent argument can be existentially closed (cf. Legate 2010, 2012, 2014; Kartini and Nomoto2012).
5 One known problem with positing the agent of the DP type di- passive in Spec,vP is that it cannot bind areﬂexive in the subject position, unless it is a pronoun, as in (ia) (Arka and Manning 1998; Cole et al. 2008;
Kroeger 2014). Cole et al. (2008) thus posit the agent DP below the theme position as a V adjunct, as in (ib).

2

Hiroki Nomoto

(3)

a.

Pro type di- passive
VoicePVoice
di[gen]

b.

vP
DP
pro

v
v

VP

Oleh type di- passive
VoiceP

VoicePVoice
di[gen]

c.

PP
P
oleh

vP
DP
pro

v
v

DP
(overt agent)

VP

DP type di- passive
VoicePVoice
di[gen]

(i)

a.

b.

vP
DP
(overt agent)

v
v

VP

Diri-nya (sendiri) selalu di-utamakan -nya/*Amir.
self-3own
always pass-prioritize -3/Amir‘Himself was always given priority by him/*Amir.’
vP
v

e
v
di-

VP
DP
dirinya(theme)V
V
VutamakanDP
Amir(agent)

3

85

86

Person restriction on passive agents in Malay and givennessd.

Bare passive
VoiceP
Voice
Ø
[nom]

vP
DP
(overt agent)

v
v

VP

I assume that Voice licenses the agent DP introduced in Spec,vP through Case assignment.
In Malay, abstract Case is thought to be reﬂected on the type of clitics: di- with [gen(itive)]licenses enclitics whereas Ø with [nom(inative)] licenses proclitics.
At this point, I should clarify the relation between voice categories such as active and passive, and voice markers that I assume. My deﬁnition of voice categories is based solely on
whether and how an argument is licensed. The active-passive distinction (in my deﬁnition) is
concerned with how the functional head v licenses an internal argument, which is introduced
by a lexical verb (V).6 In short, the active-passive distinction is a property of v. The active v
licenses an internal argument by assigning accusative case to it whereas the passive v lacks thisability and cannot license it. The v head has another role; it introduces an external argument.
The external argument thus introduced needs to be licensed, and it is Voice that does this job.
Crucially, in my deﬁnition, how an external argument is licensed is a diﬀerent voice distinction
than the active-passive distinction and is orthogonal to the active-passive distinction. It enables
one to subclassify actives/passives.7
However, Voice is not totally irrelevant to the active-passive distinction. This is because
it has a selectional restriction on the type of vP it takes to its complement, though it does notdetermine the type. Di- selects for a passive vP, that is, a vP headed by the passive v. It is in thissense that di- is a passive voice marker. Similarly, the preﬁx meN- in the meN- morphologicalactive (4a) is an active voice marker in the sense that it selects for an active vP. The null Voicehead involved in the bare active (4b) and bare passive has no selectional restriction, that is, it
is compatible with either an active or a passive vP.8 Table 1 summarizes voice categories andvoice markers in Malay.
(4)a.

MeN- active
Mereka sudah meny-[s]emak dokumen itu.
they
already act-checkdocument that

6 From a typological perspective, it is more adequate to refer to what I call ‘passive’ as the undergoer voice. Thisis because the term ‘passive’ is normally used to refer to a construction in which the external rather than internalargument is suppressed (Keenan and Dryer 2007). My choice of the term ‘passive’ here is based on the norm in
Malay linguistics, whereby di- clauses are referred to as ‘passives’. It goes without saying that what is importantis not the name but the properties of the construction at issue.
7 While bare passives are a subtype of the passive in my deﬁnition of voice categories, they are seen as a thirdkind of voice, the so-called ‘object(ive) voice’, in a deﬁnition that conﬂates the two independent factors of Voiceand v (cf. symmetric(al) voice hypothesis). See also Table 1.
8 Many researchers make little of the bare active despite its frequent use in daily speech. It is either simply
ignored or seen as the meN- active whose meN- is omitted/deleted. In the present analysis, the bare active involves
the unmarked voice marker and no such omission/deletion takes place.

4

Hiroki Nomoto

Table 1: Voice markers and voice categories in Malay
Construction Voice (marker)
meN- active
di- passive
bare passive
bare activeb.

3

vP selection

Case by Voice

Case by v

Voice category

meNdi-

activepassive

nominative
genitiveØeithernominative

accusative
none
none
accusative

activepassivepassive
activeBare active
Mereka sudah semak dokumen itu.
they
already check document that
‘They have already checked the document.’

Person restriction on di- passive agents and givenness

Prescriptive grammars of Malay (and Indonesian) state that the agent in di- passives should bethird person and prohibit ﬁrst and second person agents. Researchers are not unanimous as
to whether this statement is descriptively accurate. In order to resolve this empirical unclarity,
Nomoto and Kartini (2014) examined various texts in Formal and Colloquial Malay, and showedthat the restriction exists as a strong tendency rather than an absolute syntactic rule. No similar
person restriction exists for the agent in bare passives.
How can we explain these facts? Since the restriction is not an absolute syntactic rule, aplain syntactic account will be too restrictive and face an undergeneration problem. Nomoto andKartini (2014) thus propose an account in terms of information structure, particularly givenness.
Before introducing our account more speciﬁcally, I would like to brieﬂy overview the notionof givenness. Givenness has to do with the speaker’s assessment of the addressee’s consciousness/attention state and knowledge with regard to a referent (e.g. Chafe 1976; Prince 1992;
Gundel et al. 1993; Lambrecht 1994). Initially, the notion was conceived as a binary distinction
between ‘given’ and ‘new’, where a given referent is already activated in the speaker’s consciousness at the time of utterance whereas a new referent is not and newly activated by therelevant utterance. However, it is nowadays common to identify multiple statuses with diﬀerent
degrees of givenness.
One of the popular theories of givenness is the Givenness Hierarchy of Gundel et al. (1993),
which has been adopted in studies of many languages including Austronesian languages such as
Bantik (North Sulawesi, Indonesia; Utsumi 2014) and Kalanguya (Northern Phillipines; Santiago 2014) (see Hedberg 2014 for a list of other languages). The Givenness Hierarchy andEnglish examples that represent each status are given in (5).
(5)

The Givenness Hierarchyinfocus >
itactivatedthat
this
this NP9>familiar >uniquely
identiﬁable >that NPthe NP

5

referential
indeﬁnite
this NP

type
identi> ﬁable
a NP

87

88

Person restriction on passive agents in Malay and givenness

What distinguishes the Givenness Hierarchy in (5) from other similar theories of givenness isthat the status categories form a hierarchy in such a way that a status entails all the statuses to
its right. Thus, if a referent is ‘in focus’, it is also ‘activated’, ‘familiar’, ‘uniquely identiﬁable’,‘referential’ and ‘type identiﬁable’. This feature elegantly captures the fact that one form canbe employed for multiple adjacent statuses. For example, ‘the NP’, categorized as ‘uniquely
identiﬁable’, can be used to refer to referents of higher statuses such as ‘familiar’ and ‘in focus’
as well. Furthermore, consisting of a single dimension, the Givenness Hierarchy also enables aneasy comparison between diﬀerent statuses with respect to degrees of givenness. The feature is
crucial for the account of the person restriction on passive agents in Malay proposed by Nomoto
and Kartini (2014).
Although studies of givenness usually centres around individual-denoting noun phrases, thenotion is not exclusively for individuals, but it also applies to other semantic types. Thus, theCoding Protocol for Statuses on the Givenness Hierarchy (Gundel et al. 2006) takes into consideration eventualities and propositions when discussing the usage of the italicized nominals
in (6) and (7).
(6)

John fell oﬀ his bike. This/it happened yesterday.

(7)

A:
B:

John fell oﬀ his bike.
That’s not true.

This/it in (6) refer to the event of John’s falling oﬀ his bike that is introduced into the discourseand consequently the addressee’s consciousness by the ﬁrst sentence. That in (7) refers to the
proposition associated with that same event.10 While Gundel et al.’s concern lies in the italicized nominal expressions, an adequate description of them presumes that their non-individual
antecedents have givenness statuses. For example, one should be able to say things like “theevent described by sentence S is ‘in focus’, ‘activated’, etc.”11
With this background, let us return to the issue of the person restriction on passive agents.
To recapitulate, there is a strong tendency that the agent in di- passives is third person whereas
no such tendency exists for the agent in bare passives. According to Nomoto and Kartini (2014),
ﬁrst and second person referents are rare in di- passives because di- passive agents are supposed
to be low in givenness/salience. First and second person agents are speech act participants andhighly given. Hence, they are not so suitable for di- passive agents. The lack of a similar person
restriction in bare passives means that bare passives impose no givenness speciﬁcation. Note
9 The DP hypothesis is assumed here, whereby the traditional noun phrases are analysed as determiner phrases
with a determiner head and an NP complement ([DP D NP]).
10 Similarly, German da can refer not only to individuals but also to eventualities and propositions associatedwith them (p.c. Arndt Riester). (i) is an example taken from Grosses Deutsch-Japanisches Wörterbuch (second
edition, Shogakukaku, 2000).

(i)

Er schenkte mir eine Brosche, und ich freute mich sehr dar-über.
he presented me a broach and I pleased myself very da-about‘He presented me a broach, and I was very pleased about it.’ [it: (i) his presenting me a broach, (ii) the
broach]11 It may sound worthless to think about diﬀerent givenness statuses for eventualities/verb phrases because theyalmost always introduce new events in typical narratives, as claimed by Nikolaus Himmelmann during the workshop. The latter fact deﬁnitely makes it much more diﬃcult to ﬁnd examples of diﬀerent givenness statuses foreventualities/verb phrases (if any) compared to individuals/noun phrases. However, I am uncertain whether it
serves to completely reject the initial hypothesis that the same theory of givenness applies to the two types.

6

Hiroki Nomotothat even though the restriction is directly relevant to the agent DP, one cannot just focus on theagent DP. This is because the restriction is not on the agent DP in general, but only on that in
di- passives.
One may wonder if the restriction is present only in di- passives but not in bare passives
because the agent is suppressed in di- passives. However, such an argument does not go through,because an overt agent is obligatory in the DP type of di- passives, as seen in section 2. Moreover,Nomoto and Kartini analyse the pro and oleh types as containing a null unspeciﬁed pronoun pro,that is to say, the agent is not suppressed in all types of di- passives. I will postpone discussing
pro to the next section, as its givenness status needs special attention.
Nomoto and Kartini do not state how low the relevant givenness status is. However, a sentence like (8) shows that the relevant givenness status is the lowest one, ‘type identiﬁable’. The
noun phrase dua hingga lima ekor burung betina ‘two to ﬁve female birds’ is only type identiﬁable.
(8)[Burung unta makan secara berkumpulan yang terdiri daripada enam hingga 10 ekor.]
Se-ekor burung jantan akan di-temani
oleh dua hingga lima ekor burung
one-clf bird male will pass-accompany by two to
ﬁve clf bird
betina.
female‘[Ostriches eat in a group of six to ten.] A male bird will be accompanied by two to threefemale birds.’(DBP Corpus)

Since a form associated with a status can be employed for higher statuses on the Givenness
Hierarchy, if di- passive agents must be only ‘type identiﬁable’, any form can occur as di- passive
agents. What is crucial, however, is that the Givenness Hierarchy predicts that not all forms areequally frequent; forms with a distant status becomes infrequent. This explains the fact thatﬁrst and second person agents do occur but much less frequently than the third person pronouns(cf. (1a)). Even though personal pronouns are generally very high in givenness (probably ‘infocus’), ﬁrst and second pronouns are more given than third person pronouns.12
Furthermore, if a status associated with a high status is expressed by a form associatedwith a lower (entailed) status, Gricean (1975) maxim of quantity gives rise to the implicaturethat the high status does not hold. In the present context, this means that if a ﬁrst or second
person referent is chosen as a di- passive agent, it is presented as if the speech act participant at
issue were a third person referent, making an otherwise subjective description objective. The
following example cited by Nomoto and Kartini (2014) as a “marked case” is a case in point.
The agent in this example involves coordination and refers to a ﬁrst person (exclusive) pluralreferent.
(9)

Malaysia di-wakili
oleh saya dan tiga orang lagi rakan.
Malaysia pass-represent by me and three clf more colleague‘Malaysia is represented by me and three other colleagues.’(DBP Corpus)

Nomoto and Kartini’s account predicts that if a referent can be referred to by either a third
person pronoun or an alternative form of a lower status, the latter is more likely to occur as a dipassive agent. In order to verify this prediction, it is necessary to identify the givenness statuses
for major referential expressions in Malay. This task is beyond the scope of this study, and I
leave it for future research.
Now, what determines the low givenness status of di- passive agents? Since the property is
12 I thank Novi Djenar for bringing my attention to this point.

7

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Person restriction on passive agents in Malay and givenness

concerned only with di- passives and is not shared by other voice types, it should be attributed
to an element that only di- passives have. The most likely source of the low givenness status, ofcourse, is the preﬁx di-. This is also a logical extension of the situation in the nominal domain
to the verbal domain. The givenness properties of noun phrases are usually regarded as lexicallyspeciﬁed. For example, determiners such as this, that, the and a in English encode as part of their
meanings diﬀerent degrees of givenness associated with the DP headed by them, as speciﬁed in
the Givenness Hierarchy. Although I know of no serious study that applies the Givenness Hierarchy to Malay, demonstratives such as itu ‘that’ and ini ‘this’ are thought to encode particulardegrees of givenness in addition to their deictic meanings. As seen above, the notion of givenness is not limited to noun phrases/individuals but also relevant to verb phrases/eventualities. If
so, there should be morphemes that encode givenness in verb phrases too. Moreover, a parallelism between the nominal and verbal domains suggests that such morphemes should encode
givenness on top of other meanings or functions. Di- is thought to be one such morpheme.
Speciﬁcally, it encodes a low level of givenness, besides its syntactic function as a passive voice
marker.
Two possibilities are conceivable as to how di- encodes a low givenness status. First, thepreﬁx di- encodes the givenness status of the agent directly. This option may sound reasonable,
but it is in fact not so straightforward. This is because under the current syntactic analysis(cf. section 2), the preﬁx di- takes a passive vP and licenses the agent argument in Spec,vP by
assigning it a genitive case. In other words, the only way for di- to access the agent directly is
by means of case assignment. One is thus forced to claim that genitive case is associated withlow givenness.
Another possibility is that the low givenness of a di- passive agent is a consequence of theproperty of the passive clause (vP) of which it is part. That is to say, a property that was initiallythought of as one of an argument (DP) is in fact a property of an eventuality (vP). This option
may sound counterintuitive at ﬁrst, but it is more compatible with the current syntactic analysis.
Given that di- takes a vP, it is possible that it speciﬁes the property of the vP it takes (including
the kind of v, i.e. passive v). Nomoto and Kartini (2014) adopt this second option, and claimthat the preﬁx di- selects for a vP describing an eventuality that is low in givenness and the low
givenness of the eventuality makes its agent also low in givenness. The givenness property ofthe passive preﬁx di- can be formulated as a selectional restriction, as in (10).
(10)

The preﬁx di- in Voice selects for a vP describing an eventuality that is low in givenness.
[VoiceP di- [vP[low givenness] ]]An alternative formulation would let di- mark the givenness of the phrase it heads, i.e.
VoiceP. Given that di- passives and bare passives share the same kind of vP (i.e. passive vP,
cf. Table 1) and no person restriction exists on the agent in bare passives, the givenness of passive vPs can be either high or low. Thus, the formulation as a selectional restriction in (10)rejects a vP describing a highly given eventuality whereas the alternative formulation alters thegivenness of such a vP to ﬁt its requirement.
It is diﬃcult to decide on which formulation is adequate based on empirical data. I opt for
the formulation in terms of a selectional restriction, because it operates in other areas of Malay
grammar (Nomoto 2013b). We have seen above that overt voice markers such as meN- and diselect for a vP of an appropriate type (see Table 1). Overt number marking by means of classiﬁers and reduplication restrict an otherwise unrestricted (i.e. number-neutral) noun denotation
to singularities and pluralities respectively (Nomoto 2013a). Soh and Nomoto (2011, 2015) propose that the active preﬁx meN- selects for an eventuality with stages in the sense of Landman(1992, 2008) to capture the aspectual contrast between sentences with and without meN-, as in8

Hiroki Nomoto(11). This selectional restriction can be formulated in a parallel fashion to that of the passive
marker di- above, as in (12).
(11)

a.

b.

(12)

Harga minyak turun selama/dalam tiga hari.
price oilfall for/in
three day
‘The oil price fell for/in three days.’
Harga minyak men-[t]urun selama/*dalam tiga hari.
price oil
act-fallfor/inthree day
‘The oil price was falling for three days.’(Soh and Nomoto 2015:151–152)

The preﬁx meN- in Voice selects for a vP describing an eventuality with stages.
*[VoiceP meN- [vP[−stages] ]]13

Soh and Nomoto’s ﬁnding about meN-’s aspectual meaning indirectly supports Nomoto andKartini’s (2014) claim that di- encodes givenness. Since the active voice marker is more than apurely syntactic formative, it is not surprising if the passive marker also has a semantic/pragmaticfunction. However, Nomoto and Kartini’s claim needs empirical support based on concrete data.
That said, it is not very easy to prove the low givenness of di- passive clauses for a few reasons.
I will discuss these issues in section 5.

4

Givenness of implicit passive agentsIn the previous section, I put aside the implicit agent pro involved in the pro type di- passive with
an implicit agent. The pro type is most frequently used amongst the three types of di- passives.
At ﬁrst brush, the prevalence of the pro type appears to run counter to our information-based
analysis of di- passive agents. This is because it is generally agreed upon in the literature of
information structure that the level of givenness inversely correlates with the amount of overt
material, i.e. the more given a denotation is, the less phonetic material the linguistic expression
associated with it contains. Gundel et al. (1993) thus identify “Ø (zero) NPs” as the form withthe highest givenness status “in focus” in Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. If
what is represented as pro above is the same entity as their “Ø NPs,” pro should be more given
than the overt ﬁrst and second person pronouns. Under Nomoto and Kartini’s analysis, whereby
the agent of di- passive is low in givenness, one would expect the pro type di- passive to be atleast as infrequent as di- passives with ﬁrst and second person agents, quite contrary to actual
fact.
Nomoto and Kartini argue that pro is not a kind of “Ø NP,” and that pro is low in givenness
due to its unspeciﬁed nature. If so, the prevalence of the pro type di- passive makes perfect sense.
Indeed, the interpretation of pro is not always clear. In many cases, it seems most appropriate to
analyse pro as “unspeciﬁed,” though its referent is obvious in some cases. Moreover, according
to Nomoto (to appear), the same null unspeciﬁed pronoun pro is employed in the following
anaphoric expressions: as a possessor argument of diri ‘(physical) self’ and with the intensiﬁer
sendiri ‘own, alone’, as shown in (13a) and (13b) respectively.
(13)

a.

diri pro ‘oneself’
diri-ku ‘myself’
diri-mu ‘yourself’
diri-nya ‘himself/herself’b.

kereta pro sendiri ‘one’s own car’
kereta-ku sendiri ‘my own car’
kereta-mu sendiri ‘your own car’
kereta-nya sendiri ‘his/her own car’

13 Soh and Nomoto assume that meN- occupies v rather than Voice.

slightly from the one presented here.

9

Hence, their original formulation diﬀers

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Person restriction on passive agents in Malay and givenness

Notice that pro occurs in the same position as enclitics do. The agent position of di- passives
also allows enclitics. Both positions are associated with genitive case. The relevant position is
not associated with accusative case, given that pro cannot occur as a preposition object position(e.g. *di-semak oleh pro [pass-check by]). Incidentally, Nomoto and Kartini claim that the agent
in bare passive is obligatory because the agent position in bare passives is not a genitive caseposition allowed for pro.14
While the unspeciﬁed nature of pro is suﬃciently reasonable, considering it as distinct fromØ causes proliferation of covert forms.15 I thus argue that, insofar as Malay is concerned, proand Ø capture diﬀerent stages of the same entity: pro/Ø is inherently low in givenness (in the lexicon, before interpretation) but can be understood as referring to highly given referents throughcontextual restriction (after interpretation).
The situation is comparable to the interpretation of pronouns. Suppose that John is talking
with Mary about their mutual friend Ali. In this situation, I refers to John, you to Mary and heto Ali. However, these are by no means the lexical meanings of I, you and he. The observed
meanings are the results of interpretation with respect to a particular context. For example, thelexical meaning of he is a singular individual who is not a speech act participant and is male.
The context restricts the set of its possible referents further until the set becomes a singletonconsisting only of Ali.
Pro in di- passives can be restricted in the same way. Although the referent of pro can be left
unspeciﬁed, when it undergoes contextual restriction, it can sometimes refer to a highly givenreferent such as ﬁrst and second person referents. In (14), the originally unspeciﬁed referent of
pro is restricted by the context to a ﬁrst person referent, i.e. the writer of the article in questionor ‘the media’ including the writer. The person who met beliau ‘him’ cannot be the reader(second person) or a third party excluding the writer/reader (third person). Likewise, in (15),the originally unspeciﬁed referent of pro is restricted to ﬁrst person referents, this time, overtlyby the agentive phrase oleh kita ‘by us’.
(14)

Beliau di-temui pro selepas merasmikan Seminar Pengurusan Sukan Institusi
hepass-meetafter oﬃciateseminar management sport institution
Pengajian Tinggi (IPT) 2010 di UiTM kampus Khazanah Alam Bandar Jengka di
study
high
2010 at UiTM campus Khazanah Alam Bandar Jengka at
sini.
here
‘He was met (by pro) after he had oﬃciated the 2010 Higher Academic Institution
Sports Management Seminar at UiTM, Khazanah Alam Bandar Jengka campus here.’(Utusan Malaysia, 01/01/2011)(15)

Usia tidak mengampunkan segala dosa yang di-buat pro oleh kita.
age not forgive
all
sin rel pass-do
by us‘Age does not forgive all the sins that were committed by (pro =) us.’

(DBP Corpus)

Classical Malay provides a case where an overt pronominal passive agent is restricted by anoleh ‘by’ phrase. Di- passives in Classical Malay have an additional subtype that is no longer
available in Modern Malay. I refer to this type as the ‘hybrid type’, as the agent is expressed
simultaneously by an oleh phrase as well as the third person enclitic -nya. It is situated between
14 This means that obligatory agent expression is not a deﬁning property of bare passives. Rather, it is a matterof licensing condition of pro. If so, it is predicted that the agent could be optional (i.e. allow pro) in comparable
constructions in other languages. Kroeger (2014) reports two candidates for such languages: Pangutaran andMualang.
15 I put aside instances of Ø that arise from ellipsis.

10

Hiroki Nomoto

the oleh type and the DP type.16 An example is given in (16). A direct translation of the clausethat reﬂects the compositional interpretation would be ‘. . . by a third person referent who ishim’.
maka lalu di-baca-nya oleh baginda surat itu.
and then pass-read-3 by him
letter that‘and then the letter was read by him.’(Hikayat Maharaja Marakarma: 139b)17(16)

Nomoto and Kartini (2014) report that ﬁrst and second person agents are found least frequently in the DP type. With the revised syntactic structures in (3), Nomoto and Kartini’s analysis oﬀers a possible explanation for this fact. Unlike the pro and oleh types, the agent in Spec,vP
is not further restricted by the context or an oleh phrase in the DP type. This suggests that thegivenness of the DP in Spec,vP is more important as a determinant of the well-formedness of dipassives than that of the ﬁnal referent after contextual restriction. If the ultimate source of thepressure against ﬁrst and second person agents is di- in Voice, its eﬀect applies to its c-commanddomain, i.e. vP. It is the agent DP in Spec,vP that is directly aﬀected by the givenness constraintof di-. In the pro and oleh types, the agent comes to refer to a ﬁrst and second person referent notbecause of pro in Spec,vP but because of the oleh phrase or context, which are added outside
the scope of di-. By contrast, the DP type cannot have a ﬁrst and second person referent unlessthe DP in Spec,vP itself is ﬁrst or second person.

5

Givenness of eventualities

In this section, I discuss issues related to Nomoto and Kartini’s (2014) claim that the eventuality
described by a di- passive verb phrase is low in givenness. Although this claim oﬀers a way tocapture the low givenness of the di- passive agent without stipulation, it is not so easy to proveits correctness. There are two main reasons for this. First, theories of givenness have developed
through studies of noun phrases, which typically denote individuals rather than eventualities.
Second, in Modern Malay, most passive clauses have a preverbal subject, unlike earlier stagesof the language and some regional Malay varieties. Consequently, the informational status of
the verb phrase gets obscured by that of the subject. It is known that the clause-initial nounphrase (i.e. subject) in Malay is highly topical, that is, it often sets the topic on which the rest of
the clause make comments (Alsagoﬀ 1992; Nomoto 2009). Before going into details, I should
qualify that due to these and other reasons, the rest of this section is rather preliminary in nature.
Its aim is more to share problems and their possible solutions than to solve them persuasively.
16 This construction is reminiscent of Legate’s (2012) analysis of Acehnese passives, whereby verbal preﬁxes inv restrict the agent, as shown in (i). Note that in terms of their semantic function, the verbal preﬁxes in Acehnese
correspond to the enclitic -nya in Malay rather than the passive preﬁx di-; Acehnese does not have an overt morpheme corresponding to di- in Malay. This supports the current analysis, where (Malay) di- occupies a head higher
than v.
(i)

a.

b.

Aneuk miet nyan di-kap(lé uleue nyan).
child small that 3fam-bite by snake that
‘The child was bitten (by the snake).’Aneuk miet nyan meu-/ neu-/ geu-tingkue lé kamoe/ droeneuh/ gopnyan.
child small that 1excl- 2pol- 3pol-carry by us
you
him/her‘The child is carried by us/you/him/her.’(Legate 2012:497)

17 Data obtained from the Malay Concordance Project of the Australian National University (http://mcp.

anu.edu.au).

11

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Person restriction on passive agents in Malay and givenness

5.1

Previous studies on the givenness of non-individuals

To my knowledge, it is Schwarzschild (1999) who ﬁrst provided an explicit deﬁnition of givenness for non-individuals. His basic idea is that while givenness of individuals is based on coreference, that of non-individuals is determined by entailment. Consider the example in (17).
Uppercase letters here and elsewhere indicate pitch accents.
(17)

NObody murdered JOHN although BOB WANted to kill him.
(adapted from (22) in Riester 2008:79)

Given the ﬁrst verb phrase murdered John, the event denoted by the second verb phrase kill him
counts as given in some sense. It is possible that the events described by the two verb phrases
are identical. That is to say, the killing in question is achieved by means of murder. But even if
not, a murdering event necessarily involves a killing event. So, the event of killing John is notcompletely new. Importantly, in this second case, givenness is not based on coreference but alexical relation; speciﬁcally murder is a hyponym of kill. As Baumann and Riester (2012) point
out, hyponymy like this is veriﬁed by entailment, as shown in (18). Schwarzschild developed
a procedure to make such veriﬁcation possible, including existential type-shifting, which turns
verb phrase meanings into propositions, as found in (18).
(18)∃x.murder(x, j)(someone murdering John)

entails∃x.kill(x, j)(someone killing John)

Baumann and Riester (2012) push this idea a step further and propose to diﬀerentiate twokinds of givenness, i.e. referential givenness and lexical givenness. These two kinds of givenness are respectively based on coreference and lexical relations such as identity, synonymy andhyponymy. The new notion of lexical givenness captures the fact that sometimes an expression
is treated as given due to the presence of a related expression rather than a coreferential entity.
For example, in (19), a big German Shepherd and Anna’s dog are not corerential. However,
the word dog, which heads the latter noun phrase, cannot be accented, which means that it istreated as given. This is because a big German Shepherd is a hyponym of dog. Similarly, in(20), the two occurrence of Italian are not coreferential, with the ﬁrst one denoting a language
and the second one a nationality. However, the second occurrence of Italian cannot be accented,
and hence is treated as given, because the language name Italian is closely related to Italian as
nationality.
(19)

On my way home, a big German Shepherd barked at me. It reminded me of ANna’s
dog.
(Baumann and Riester 2012:133)(20)(Why do you study Italian?) I’m MARried to an Italian.

(Büring 2007)

While Schwarzschild distinguishes between individual-denoting (type e) and non-individual
denoting (non-type e) expressions in his deﬁnition of a single notion of givenness, Baumann andRiester associate referential and lexical givenness with referential and non-referential expressions respectively. The borderlines coincide in the case of nominal expressions, but not in nonnominal expressions. For instance, in Schwarzschild’s deﬁnition, a referential event is given if
it is entailed by its antecedent. In Baumann and Riester’s theory, on the other hand, a referential
event is considered (referentially) given if it has a coreferential antecedent. Unfortunately, Baumann and Riester focus on nominal expressions and do not discuss non-nominal expressions.
Nevertheless, Baumann and Riester’s theory has a conceptual advantage over Schwarzschild’s.
It is not obvious in Schwarzschild’s theory why only individual-denoting referential expressions

12

Hiroki Nomoto

invoke coreference. See Appendix for further details on Baumann and Riester’s referential andlexical givenness, and their relation to the Givenness Hierarchy of Gundel et al. (1993).

5.2

Challenges

While the criteria developed for individuals can be extended to eventualities, an actual (referential) givenness identiﬁcation task is not so straightforward. The diﬃculty is due to diﬀerent
natures of individuals and eventualities. First, while it is common that an individual is repeatedly referred to in discourse, an eventuality is usually not repeated. Hence, criteria for givenness
statuses based on coreference are not helpful in many cases. In theory, an event is high in givenness if the same action involving the same participants has occurred in immediate discourse.
Thus, among the four continuations to (21) in (22) (temporal locations put aside), the event
described by sentence (22a) is higher in givenness than those described by the other three. In
actual discourse, however, such a repetition situation is rare.
(21)[The speaker and addressee are talking about their roommate John.]
John1 was eating your bread this morning.

(22)

a.
b.
c.
d.

He1 was eating your bread again.
(same action, same agent, same theme)
He1 was eating your eggs too.
(same action, same agent, diﬀerent theme)
Mary was eating your bread too.
(same action, diﬀerent agent, same theme)
Mary was watching TV.
(diﬀerent action, diﬀerent agent, diﬀerent theme)

Second, eventualities typically involve more than one individual. The same action can be
conducted by the same agent on a diﬀerent theme, as in (22b); it can also be conducted on thesame theme by a diﬀerent agent, as in (22c). Is there a diﬀerence in givenness between thesetwo cases? If so, which event is higher in givenness?
Relating to the second diﬀerence, assuming that the event argument of a verb is existentiallyclosed at vP (or VoiceP), a sentence involves at least two levels of referential givenness foreventualities, corresponding to diﬀerent syntactic nodes denoting eventualities: vP (or VoiceP)
and TP.18 Both vP and TP eventualities can serve as an antecedent for nominal expressions
indicating particular degrees of givenness such as (do) it, this and that (see (6) for an example
of a TP eventuality referred to by this/it). Although (22a) and (22c) have diﬀerent degrees ofgivenness at the TP level, they do not diﬀer at the vP level, as shown in (23).
(23)

a.
b.

[TP He1 was [vP eating your bread] (again)] (= (22a))[TP Mary was [vP eating your bread] (too)] (= (22c))

Moreover, at the vP level, voice alternation aﬀects givenness. Consider the passive counterpartof (23a).
(24)[TP Your bread was [vP eaten by him1 ] (again)]

While the sentence as a whole describes the same event as (23a), i.e. John’s eating the addressee’s bread, the events described at the vP level are diﬀerent between (23a) and (24), i.e.
someone’s eating the addressee’s bread and John’s eating something. The givenness statuses
associated with (23a) and (24) should also diﬀer accordingly.
18 I assume that the lexical verb (V) and its projection VP are assigned lexical givenness, in line with Baumann

and Riester’s (2012) treatment of the lexical noun (N) and its projection NP.

13

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Person restriction on passive agents in Malay and givenness

5.3“Foregrounding” in discourse as a low givenness indicator

Nomoto and Kartini (2014) do not address the issues pointed out above when they claim thatdi- passive verb phrases are low in givenness. Instead, they reinterpret Hopper’s (1983) notionof “foregrounding” as indicating low givenness.
Hopper studies discourse functions of three clause types in the Early Modern Malay text
Hikayat Abdullah: ‘active’, ‘passive’ and ‘ergative’. Hopper’s active construction is the sameas that in the present study. He argues that what is collectively refrerred to as the passive in thepresent study in fact consists of two distinct voices, though they share the same morphology (i.e.
di- and proclitics) and are sometimes indistinguishable. The two constructions are distinguishedby functional and formal criteria, of which he states the former is primary. In Hopper’s deﬁnition, the “passive” has the discourse function of backgrounding, and the theme precedes theverb, as in (25). By contrast, the “ergative” foregrounds events, and the theme follows the verb,
as in (26a). Clauses with a preverbal theme are not “passive” but “ergative” if (i) the theme isfollowed by the particle pun or semua-nya ‘all of them’, as in (26b), or (ii) it has a foregrounding
function (e.g. part of an event sequence), as in the ﬁrst clause of (26c).
(25)

(26)

Hopper’s “passive”
maka dua puncha kiri kanan itu di-matikan
then two ends left right the pass-knot‘and the two ends to the right and left are knotted’(Hopper 1983:71)

Hopper’s “ergative”
a.
di-champakkan-nya puntong cherutu itu ka-dalam kapal
pass-throw.away-3 stubcheroot that into
ship‘and they threw away the stubs into the boat’b.
Maka segala pengana itu pun di-bahagikan-lah
ka-pada segala
and allcakes the pun pass-distribute-part toallbudak-budak
boy.pl‘Then all the cakes were passed around to all the boys’c.
maka duit itu di-ambil oleh ibu-bapa-nya, di-belikan-nya
pengananthen money the pass-take by parents-his pass-use.to.buy-3 cakes
atau barang-barang makanan, di-makan-nya
or things
eatingpass-eat-3‘Then his parents take the money and use it to buy cakes or other things to eat,and they eat them.’(Hopper 1983:72–73)

He demonstrates the foregrounding and background diﬀerence between the two constructions by examining the Transitivity index of each of the 100 clauses (= 50 “ergative” + 50 “passive” clauses). Each clause is inspected as to whether it exhibits a positive (i.e. more Transitive)
or negative value for the ten Transitivity parameters proposed by Hopper and Thompson (1980).
The results show that that “ergative” clauses are more Transitive than “passive” clauses with respect to all Transitivity parameters, especially kinesis (action involving movement), punctuality(no discernible duration), aspect (telic) and agent potency (animate). Since high Transitivity
reﬂects foregrounding in discourse in Hopper and Thompson’s Transitivity Theory, the highTransitivity of the “ergative” justiﬁes Hopper’s deﬁnition of the construction as a foregrounding
construction.
It must be noted here that Hopper treated all clauses with a preverbal theme as “passive”
to guarantee the objectivity of the examination. Hence, Hopper’s “ergative” and “passive” data
14

Hiroki Nomotoroughly correspond to verb-initial and theme-initial passives in the term of the present study.
In short, verb-initial passives are more Transitive than theme-initial passives, and hence havea foregrounding function. I think that this statement about Early Modern Malay is also validin Modern Malay, though it is not as evident as in Early Modern Malay due to the generalscarcity of verb-initial passives.19 Although I do not ﬁnd Hopper’s functional deﬁnitions andidentiﬁcation of voice categories very useful,20 his characterizations of verb-initial passives areworth quoting. He writes that a verb-initial passive clause “focuses purely on the event—thechange—itself” and “narrates sequenced events which pertain to the main line of the discourse”(Hopper 1983:84). Verb-initial passive clauses are used in the same way in Modern Malay,
though they are limited to the literary genre and certain subordinate contexts.
Hopper states that the foregrounding function of verb-initial passive clauses is obliterated
by the positioning of a noun phrase before the verb, which he analyses as “a device for arresting
the ﬂow of the discourse and holding up the action by momentarily focusing attention awayfrom actions to participants” (87). This quote indicates that by “foreground” Hopper means“require or draw attention of the addressee.” In terms of givenness, it is a denotation which is
not already given enough in the address’s consciousness that requires his/her special attention.
Hence, in verb-initial passive clauses, the verb is low in givenness. The verb is arguably low in
givenness in theme-initial passive clauses too, but the low givenness of the verb does not cometo the fore because of the fronted theme.
If the reasoning above is justiﬁed, givenness of eventualities correlates with (or possiblyis) Transitivity. The second last sentence of Hopper and Thompson’s Transitivity article issuggestive of this connection:
While we claim that the discourse distinction between foregrounding and backgrounding provides the key to understanding the grammatical and semantic facts
we have been discussing, we also explicitly recognize that grounding itself reﬂects
a deeper set of principles—relating to decisions which speakers make, on the basisof their assessment of their hearers’ situation, about how to present what they haveto say. (Hopper and Thompson 1980:295)
It seems to me that the relevant “deeper set of principles” is in fact givenness.21 Givenness
has to do with the speaker’s assessment of the addressee’s consciousness/attention state andknowledge with regard to a referent, which can be eventualities as well as individuals. Basedon their assessment, speakers choose a form that encodes the most appropriate givenness status,
e.g. it over that (English DPs), di- over Ø (Malay VoicePs).

6

Conclusion

This paper has reviewed and elaborated on Nomoto and Kartini’s (2014) analysis of the person
restriction on the agent of di- passives in Malay. In doing so, I have made the following two
main claims. First, the implicit agent pro involved in di- passives is not distinct from “Ø NPs”
in the Givenness Hierarchy: pro/Ø is lexically low in givenness due to its unspeciﬁed natureand often interpreted as referring to a highly given referent, including speech act participants.
19 See Cumming (1991) and Djenar (2015) for descriptions of verb-initial passives in Modern Indonesian andhow they diﬀer from Classical Malay.
20 See Kroeger (2014) for a critical review of functional deﬁnitions of voice categories in Malay/Indonesian.
21 Reinhart (1984) expresses a diﬀerent view. She proposes that grounding in discourse is “a temporal extensionof the principle governing the spatial organization of the visual ﬁeld into ﬁgure and ground.”

15

97

98

Person restriction on passive agents in Malay and givenness

Second, morphemes exist that encode givenness not only for noun phrases/individuals but also
for verb phrases/eventualities. The paper has also discussed issues concerning givenness of
eventualities. The discussion is still premature. Especially, more empirical work is necessary,
to demonstrate the low givenness status of di- passive verb phrases in Modern Malay and theconnection between givenness and Transitivity cross-linguistically.

Appendix. Referential and lexical givenness statuses, and theGivenness Hierarchy
Baumann and Reister’s (2012) referential givenness statuses (cf. Table 2) basically correspondto one of the coding criteria for the Givenness Hierarchy (Gundel et al. 2006), and hence match
nicely with the Givenness Hierarchy, as shown in Figure 1 (Baumann and Riester 2012:143).22
This means that one can compare diﬀerent statuses with respect to the degree of givenness: one
status is more given than another.
Table 2: Referential givenness (Baumann and Riester 2012:138)r-givenr-given-sit

anaphor corefers with antecedent in previous discourse
referent is immediately present in text-external context (in particular
discourse participants)
r-unused-known
discourse-new item which is generally known
r-given-displaced
coreferring antecedent does not occur in previous 5 intonation phrases
or clauses
r-bridging
non-coreferring anaphor, dependent on previously introduced scenario
r-environment
refers to item in text-external context (conversational environment)r-bridging-contained bridging anaphor which is anchored to an embedded phrase
r-unused-unknown
discourse-new item which is identiﬁable from its linguistic description but not generally known
r-new
speciﬁc or existential indeﬁnite introducing a new referent
r-cataphor
item whose referent is established later on in the text

activated
r-givenr-given-sit>

familiar
r-unusedknown
r-givendisplaced>

uniquely identiﬁable
r-bridging
r-bridging-containedr-environment
r-unused-unknown>referential >type identiﬁable

r-cataphor

r-new

Figure 1: Referential givenness and the Givenness Hierarchy
Baumann and Reister’s lexical givenness statuses are summarized in Table 3.23 They discussneither the relative degrees of givenness for these lexical givenness statuses nor their cognitive
statuses, i.e. positions on the Givenness Hierarchy. However, it would be possible to rank these
22 I omitted ‘r-generic’. Baumann and Riester align their ‘r-new’ with ‘referential’ on the Givenness Hierarchy.

This is because they only discuss the middle four statuses available in the latter.
23 I substituted “expression” for “noun” in their article.

16

Hiroki Nomoto

categories to each other, because I see parallelisms between the categories of referential andlexical givenness. To begin, ‘l-given-same’ is obviously the lexical counterpart of ‘r-given’, and‘l-new’ is that of ‘r-new’. The abstract relationship among referents underlying bridging inference involved in ‘r-bridging(-contained)’ is arguably identical to that holding between linguistic
expressions (‘l-given-supr’, ‘l-accessible-sub’, ‘l-accessible-other’). Furthermore, ‘l-given-syn’
is comparable to ‘r-given-displaced’ in that both are pretty close to the highest givennnes but
do not quite reach it because they do not share the same phonetic form (sound) or attention
span (time) with the antecedent. The preliminary ranking resulting from these parallelisms is:
l-given-same > l-given-syn > l-given-supr, l-accessible-sub, l-accessible-other > l-new.
Table 3: Lexical givenness (Baumann and Riester 2012:144)l-given-samerecurrence of same expression
l-given-synrelation between expressions at the same hierarchical level (synonyms)
l-given-supr
expression is lexically superordinate to previous nounl-accessible-sub
expression is lexically subordinate to previous nounl-accessible-other two related expressions, whose hierarchical lexical relation cannot beclearly determinedl-new
expression not related to another expression within last 5 intonationphrases or clauses

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19

103

P ragmatic particles and information structure
in colloquial Indonesian dialogue
Yoshimi Miyake
Akita University
Abstract
In this paperfour pragmatic particles from Jakarta Indonesian, i.e. sih, kok, lho,

dong, will be examined. I will address these particles by examining them from theperspectives of new topic vs old topic, new information vs old information, certainty vsuncertainty, positive evaluation vs negative evaluation, and finally, strong command vssoft command.

The data comes from dialogues in two contemporary Indonesian films

depicting life in Jakarta.

1. Introduction
Linguists of Indonesian language have claimed that Indonesian pragmaticparticles have no significant referential semantic function, but rather they express
speaker mood or are used for “emphasis” (Sneddon 2006, Errington 1985).

However,these explanations do not answer an important question, namely ‘what are thedifferences between particles when the general meanings of them are the same?’Indonesian native speakers often equate these particles with full lexical items.
For example the particle deh denotes jadi ‘to be realized’, or sudah ‘already completed.’(Atmosumarto 1994).

The question then arises, why do the speakers choose to

substitute deh for jadi or sudah?
Based on the assumption that they reflect the speaker and hearers’ access to theinformation and knowledge that the speaker wishes to convey, this paper will attempt
to consider the functions of discourse particles as they are used in conversations
depicted in film. I will also argue that in addition to differences in access to information
the particles reflect the emotional condition of the interlocutors. That is, I hypothesizethat in informal or casual conversation, the particles play significant roles in linking theknowledge and information accessible to speakers and hearers to their emotional states.
I also argue that since many of the particles are polysemous, they require context
dependent analysis.
Bataone (n.d.) compares the particles to Indonesian verbs, nouns, adjectives,and adverbs.

He explains sih as a particle indicating inference or uncertainty, kok forsurprise, accusation, or negative feeling, deh for softening imperatives or leading tofinishing up certain tasks.

He explains lho as a particle which expresses surprise.

Based on the hypothesis that the Indonesian cultural value of solidarity is104 Pragmatic particles and information structure in colloquial Indonesian dialogue

marked by the use of particles Wouk ( 2001)) tried to place them along a scale ofsolidarity.

According to her, the tags kan and ya, for example, denote a certain level offamiliarity or informal relationship between the speaker and hearer .
Faizah ( 2007)) conducted extensive studies of ya and other particles, focusing on
contour variations. She classified the functions of the particles along three axes:
Coherence; focusing on speech act types such as statement, command and warning;
Topic, focusing on whether it is a new topic or old topic; and finally, politeness,
constructing and maintaining a desired level of solidarity.
In this study, I will mainly analyze the particles sih, lho, kok, and dong, although
brief discussion of another particle dong will be added when needed for making
comparisons.

1. sihSih is a phrase final or sentence final particle. (It can also be used in an independent
intonation unit.).

In the dialogues of three films, Ada apa dengan Cinta? ‘What’s up

with Cinta “love”?’. Arisan ‘Gathering’ and Arisan 2 ‘Gathering 2’, the most frequently
appearing particle is sih. Sih has the following functions:
Ironical question: Interrogative + sih

1.1.

Immediately following interrogative markers, sih shows a more ironical attitude of
the speaker as shown in (1) to (4):(1) (Observing the rude behavior of the addressee)

kamu itu apa, sih?
you DEM what, sih‘What are you, sih?’(2) (Referring to an instance of arrogant behavior by a man)(dia) laki-laki gimana, sih,

ya?

sih

yeah

He

man

how

‘What kind of man is he, sih,yeah?’(3) (noticing the suitcase is very heavy),

isinya

apa

aja

sih?

Content-DEF.

what

just

sih

‘What’s inside, sih?’Yoshimi Miyake 105(4)(Commenting on a strange hair-do)

rambut kamu ngapain, sih?
hair

you

do whatsih

What did you do with that hair, sih?
Sentence (5a) with sih shows that the questioner child is already tired, and he is not
happy that somebody else may be coming.

A lack of eagerness, fatigue, or irritation isdenoted by sih.
(5a) (A little child asks)om, siapa

lagi,

sih,

yang

datang?

uncle who

else

sih

RE.Pro. come‘Uncle, who else sih is coming?’(5b) without sih is a pure question sentence:(5a) om,
uncle

siapa

lagi

yang

dating?

who

else

RE.Pro. come‘Uncle, who else is coming?’

1 .2.

Com plaining

Sih added to a descriptive statement connotes a negative feeling or complaining.
primitive banget, sih,

airportnya.

simpleairport

(6)

very

sih

‘The airport is so primitive, sih.’(7) (A child is crying)kamu, sih,

buat

you

make crysih,nangis.

‘You sih are the one who made him/her cry.’
1.3.

Topic m arker, com paring and contrasting

Sih can be used as a topic marker for comparing or contrasting. In (8) and (9) eachof the speakers compares the current situation with past.

106 Pragmatic particles and information structure in colloquial Indonesian dialogue(8) tahun lalu, sih, mamanya minta tas Birkin special edition.
year

past sih mom-DEF. ask bag Birkin special edition‘(Compared with this year) last year, sih, my mom asked for a special edition Birkinbag.’(9) dulunyasih,datang ke

sini

cuma

main

saja.

before

sih,

come

here

only

play

just

to

‘(Compared with now) I used to come here only to have fun.’In (10), the speaker compares what he wants and the reality.
(10)

maunya sih, gitu,
desiresih, that way

tapi ntar aku

disangkaorang

but later I

be considered

person crazysamaorang-orang

Jakarta.

with/bypeople PL.

Jakarta

gila

lagi
again

‘(Differently from the reality), my desire is like that, but later I will beconsidered a crazy person again by Jakartan people.’
In (11) the speaker is comparing her own condition to the addressee:(11)(Hearing that the woman has cancer)

buat

saya,

sih,

berkah.

for

me,

sih,

blessing‘For me, it is a blessing

saya juga kanker….rahim.
me also cancer …..uterus‘I also have cancer, uterine cancer.’
1 .4.

Reasoning/justification

Sih connotes reasoning or justifying.
(12)(I don’t buy that)soalnya mahal, sih
because expensive sih‘Because it is expensive, sih.’Yoshimi Miyake 107

1 .5.

Idiom atic expression: masa sih?

Masa sih meaning ‘how come’ is an idiomatic expression.
(13)(being given a compliment for looking slimmer)

masa sih,ini

kayaknya

efek

baju,

lho.

how come, sih,thisapparently

effectoutfitlho‘How come, sih, it seems an effect of the outfit, lho.’(14)(Hearing that Sakti was afraid of telling Mei that he is a gay.)

Sakti, masa sih

gue

Sakti, how come sih, I

pikiransecepit

gitu?

think

that-narrow

like that‘Sakti, how come sih you thought that I am that narrow-minded?’

2. LhoLho can be located at the sentence initial position as an exclamation for surprise,
which I will discuss later.

Lho as a phrase-final or sentence final-particle can becompared or contrasted with sih discussed in Section I. I will start my discussion bycomparing them in sentence-final position.
2.1.

sih and lho

Inform ation and knowledge:

When used at the end of a phrase/sentence, both particles lho, and sih emphasize
the speaker’s emotion (Bataone n.d.).

More importantly, lho provides new

information while sih connotes a rather negative statement.

Compare (15a) and(15b).
(15a) itu (Sakti) orangnya

baik

banget, lho.

(15b) itu

baik

banget, sih.

thatorangnyapersonality-DEF. goodvery

lho/sih‘He is such a nice guy, lho/sih.’
The difference between (15a) and (15b) is only the use of lho rather than sih. In (15a),the speaker introduces a character called Sakti as a very nice person, on the other handin (15b), the speaker introduces Sakti as a very nice person but suggest that there may
be some problems in him. (15a) is new information, wheares (15b) could be a response
sentence to a certain statement such as “Sakti helped me”.
In (16a), a child speaker uses lho to provide new information about himself.

Then the108 Pragmatic particles and information structure in colloquial Indonesian dialogue

uncle confirms the information, praises him, by using sih in (16b),(16a)uncle, aku sekarang

udah

bisa

nulis

namakulho,

uncle.

uncle, Ialreadycanwrite name-mylho,uncle.

now‘Uncle, I can already write my name, lho, uncle.’
(16b)

eh,

pinterbanget, sih.

EXC.

smart

very,

sih

‘Wow, (you are) so smart, sih.’
2 .2.

Definiteness and em phasis

Lho connotes definiteness. In (17) the speaker boasts that she has joined five social
meetings, by adding lho.

(17) aku sebulanIevery monthikutarisan

lima

kali,

lho.

join

arisanfivetimes,

lho‘I join arisan (socialization meeting) five times a month, lho.’
2.3.

W arning

Lho warns or gives strong advice. Lho added to an imperative form connotes a bad
result if the hearer does not follow the command.
(18) tunggu, lho.
wait IMP, lho.
‘Wait, (otherwise…) lho.’(18a) without lho is a simple command form.
Cf. (18a)Tunggu,‘Wait.’(19) kamu makan dulu,
you

eat

nanti

before, later

lapar,

lho.

hungry lho.

‘You eat now, otherwise you will get hungry, lho.’(20) cepetan

bikin

appointment keburu,

penuh

lho,

nanti.

quicklymakeappointment hurry

full

lho

later

‘Hurry up and make an appointment, otherwise it will get full lho, later.’Yoshimi Miyake 109

3 . Dong
Above an imperative form which was added the particle lho was discussed. For
comparison with lho, two other end of sentence particles, namely deh, and dong will
be discussed.
Soft im perative

3.1.

After the imperative form of a verb, dong is added to soften the imperative as in(21).

Adding dong is often used for flirting purpose, especially when it is used bya woman as in (22). In both instances, the vowel for [o] is lengthened.
(21) tenang, dong.
calm, dong‘Calm down, dong.’(22) sayang, jangan pulang,
Darling, don’t

go home

dong,

ya?

dong

yeah

‘Darling, don’t go home, dong, yeah?’
3.2.

 Pleading/ interrogative

This dong is similar to 3.1. above, but it does not co-occur with an imperative.
(23) (Hearing that people know he is gay)kalau ga

ada

yang

bilangtrus

siapa yangbilang, dong?

If

exist

that

say

then

who thatsay

NEG‘If there is nobody who said (so), then who is the one?’(24) a.

kata

dokter, aku

nggak

bisa

punya

anak.

say

doctor I

NEG

can

have

child

‘The doctor said that I cannot have children.’b.

sayang, kamu

omong sesuatu,

dong.

darling you

say

dong.

something,‘Darling, you say something, dong.’
3.3.

Definiteness(25) a.

ya, kamu

dong

yang

cukongin.

yeah, you

dong

that

contribute110 Pragmatic particles and information structure in colloquial Indonesian dialogue‘You dong are the one who should pay.’
b.

masa

tamu

disuruhbayar, sih?

how come

guest

forcedto pay, sih‘How come that guests are forced to pay, sih?’
3 .4.

Cheering up(26) a.

kok

bisa,

dokter?

kok,

candoctor‘Kok, is it possible?’
b.

bisa

aja,

dong.

can

plain

dong

‘You can do that, dong’

4. KokKok is also a highly polysemous particle. Kok can be located sentence initially, a ointthat I will discuss later.

A sentence final particle kok connotes that the utteredsentence may well be against the expectation of the hearer.
4.1.

Unexpected statem ent(27) a. omong-omong,

Nino

ga

datang?

talking.about

Nino

NEG.

come

‘Talking about Nino, isn’t he coming?’b. Ninodatang kok.

Nino

come

kok

‘Nino is coming, kok.’(28) a. lo
younggak capek, nih?
NEG

tired, nih‘Aren’t you tired?’b. enggak,nogue enggak cape, kok.
I

NEG.

tired kok‘No, I am not tired, kok.’(29) a.ini
this

kenal

dulu,

Andien.

get.to.know before

Andien‘I am introducing (her) first, Andien.’Yoshimi Miyake 111

b. udahalready

kenal,

kok.

know

kok

‘We are already acquainted, kok.’
4 .2.

Statem ent of fact

Kok is added to a truthful statement to show the speaker’s assertion versus
presumed skepticism of the hearer.
(30) sebenarnya aku juga masih mau tinggal disini, kok .
actuallyIalso stillwant stay herekok

‘To tell the truth, I also want to still stay here, kok.’
4.3.

M itigating

In both (31) and (32), each of the speakers tries to show his/her caring attitude
toward the addressee.
(31) (Being asked if Bu Mei is tired)

Bu Meicuma

ngantuk, kok.

Bu Meionly

sleepykok‘I am just getting sleepy, kok.’(32) ikut juga tidak apa.apa, kok .
join also NEG

what kok‘We don’t mind you coming with us, kok.’
4.4.

Sentence initial particles kok and lho

Kok and lho are the only particles which can be located in the sentence initial position.
The difference between lho and kok seems subtle. There is a time delay in (34) where

lho is used. Also, lho seems stronger. For example, (34) was uttered by a psychiatrist
from whom a patient asked for a few more sleeping pills.
(33) kok, bisa
kok cangitu?
like that‘Kok, can it be like that?’(34) lho, saya
lho, Isudah

kasih.

already give

‘Lho, I already gave (that) to you.’112 Pragmatic particles and information structure in colloquial Indonesian dialogue

5 . Discussion
This paper examined the four particles sih, dong, lho, and kok.

There are manyother particles, such as nih, deh, tuh, kan, ya, gak, etc., whose use I have not yet studied.
The four particles that are discussed here fit my hypothesis that they connote thespeaker’s proximity or distance vis-à-vis the information they s/he provides. Even if
Indonesian speakers cannot articulate the similarities and differences among theseparticles in abstract terms, they are aware of the similarities and differences amongthem.

The functions of the particles are shown in Table 1.

               

  

 














Table 1.

 





    









The functions of particles

The four most frequent particles, sih, dong, lho, and kok, can be either
descriptive or evaluative. The emphatic particle dong has three of the five functions:questioning, command or request, and description or evaluation.
The most frequent particle sih has a descriptive/evaluative function, as well asan (ironically) questioning function. Unlike dong, lho, or kok, particle sih is used morefor expressing uncertainty or for soliciting listeners' agreement. Sih is ubiquitous: it canbe attached to a noun, adjective, verb, or adverb. It should also be noted that ‘sih’ can beused in monologs.
Moreover, the high frequency of sih reflects the fact that a number ofIndonesian colloquialisms are accompanied by tags, with which the interlocutors try toconfirm their knowledge, information, or even their feelings about each other.
Furthermore, the high frequency of sih furthermore shows that speakers tend to try tosolicit agreement from hearers by adding tags, although often the topic supplemented
with sih may connote rather negative sentiments.

Yoshimi Miyake 113

Wouk 1998, 2001 and Faizah 2007 tried to analyze the pragmatic particles
from a politeness point of view as well by having recourse to the idea of ‘solidarity’. The
particle dong can be discussed as an indicator of solidarity, but it should be noted that
other particles such as sih connote uncertainty or doubt, and may even express an
impolite attitude, while lho can connote assertiveness - linguistic behaviors far from‘solidarity’ or ‘politeness’.
Because of the polysemy of the particles, the study of them should becontext-dependent. If we try to analyze particles in isolated sentences, we willencounter apparently contradictory functions. Connotations of the particles can beproperly understood only by considering them in conversation sequences or pairs.
Finally, comparative or contrastive particles can be lodged only within thesame column as shown in Table 1. Contrasts of new vs. old information, certainty vs.
uncertainty, positive evaluation vs. negative evaluation, and stronger command vs.
softer command, can be described as shown in Table 2.
1. New information<>

Old information

lho

sih

2. Certainty<

lho

Uncertaintysih

3. Positive evaluation

<

dong

> Negative evaluationsih

4. Strong command<> Soft command(deh) ???

0
T able 2.

>

The functions of particles in contrastive pairs

References
Faizah S. (2007)

Pragmatic particles: A cross-linguistic discourse analysis ofinteraction. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Alabama.
Miyake, Y. (2014a) Mapping hedges and tags in colloquial Indonesian. Paper presented
at ISMIL, Procida, Italy, June.
Miyake, Y. (2014b) Reconsidering discourse particles in colloquial Indonesian, Paper
presented at Annual Meeting, Japan Society of Indonesian Studies. Kanda
International University. Chiba, November.
Sneddon, J. (2003). The Indonesian language: Its history and role in modern society.
Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.
Wolff, J., Oetomo, D., & Fietkiewicz, D. (1992). Beginning Indonesian through114 Pragmatic particles and information structure in colloquial Indonesian dialogue

self-instruction. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Wouk, F. (1998). Solidarity in Indonesian conversation: The discourse marker kan.

Multilingua, 17, 379-406.
Wouk, F. (1999a). Dialect contact and koineization in Jakarta, Indonesia. Language

Sciences, 21, 61-86.
Wouk, F. (1999b). Gender and the use of pragmatic particles in Indonesian. Journal of

Sociolinguistics, 3(2), 194-219.
Wouk, F. (2001). Solidarity in indonesian conversation: The discourse marker ya.

Journal of Pragmatics, 33, 171-191.
http://www.indonesia.co.jp/bataone/ruangbahasatop.html
http://www.bahasakita.com/emotive-particles-sih-deh-kok-dong-combination/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_slang

115

Information structure and discourse markers in Tok Pisin: differences in genres1
Masahiko NOSE (Shiga University)mnosema@gmail.com
Abstract:
This study describes the information structure of Tok Pisin, an English-based creole language,
spoken in Papua New Guinea. It has a rigid word order SVO, and does not have a grammaticalvoice. This study illustrates several cases of grammatical behavior related to the information
structure and clarifies grammatical means of Tok Pisin to deal with information flow. This study
utilizes the written texts of the New Testament and translated folk tales, as well as spoken datafrom radio news and chats in the field. Topic and comment in Tok Pisin are affected byemphasizing, topicalization (or fronting), and by using several discourse markers. Finally, I claimthat Tok Pisin has an extremely limited means of dealing with information structure in its grammar,
although we observed slight differences between the spoken and written data.
Keywords: information structure, topic, focus, discourse marker, Tok Pisin
1. Introduction
There are approximately 1000 native languages in the Melanesia area. They are classified mainly
as Austronesian and New-Guinea (or Papuan) languages. Moreover, some lingua franca2 languages
are spoken for communicating with each other (see Figure 1). The three main languages (Tok Pisin,
Solomon Pijin, and Bislama) are English-based creole languages and their lexifier is English.
This study describes the information structure in Tok Pisin and will pay special attention to bothspoken and written data. Crowley (2004) described the grammar of Bislama and wrote about some
aspects of its information flow. For this study, I conducted fieldwork in the Amele-speaking area in
Madang Province (Nose 2014) andgathered Tok Pisin data (Amele in
Figure 1).
Section 2 presents basic
information about Tok Pisin, andexplores several previous studies on
creole languages. Section 3 presents
examples of spoken and written
data of Tok Pisin; in particular, weobserve changing word orders andusage of discourse markers. Section
4 presents a discussion on
Figure 1: Amele and the three Melanesian Pidgin managing information flow and thedifferences in genres, and Section 5
is the conclusion of the study .

116

Information structure and discourse markers in Tok Pisin

2. The grammar of Tok Pisin and preliminary studies on information structureThis section introduces basic information about Tok Pisin and, subsequently, indicates how
previous studies have described the information structure of creole languages. This generally
concerns creole languages (McWhorter 2011, Veenstra & Besten 1994), Melanesian pidgins(Crowley 2004, Dutton 1985, Mihalic 1971), and information structure(Andersen 1983, Foley 2007).
2.1.
Introduction of Tok Pisin grammar
Tok Pisin is an English-based creole language and one of the official languages of Papua New
Guinea. Grammatically, Tok Pisin has an isolating tendency and little inflection on nouns and verbs.
It has a rigid SVO order and an adjective-noun and demonstrative-noun order.
(1) Mibin rid-im dispela nicepela buk long3
1sg past read thisnicebook prep“I read this nice book in my house”

haus bilong mi.
house prep
1sg

In (1), the subject mi appears at the beginning of the sentence and, in contrast, the object buk appears
later, while the verb ridim occupies the middle position between the subject and the object. The form
bin indicates the past tense marker, and the -im of the verb ridim is a transitive marker. There are two
prepositions in Tok Pisin; one is the multifunctional preposition long, and the other is thepossessive preposition bilong (Mihalic 1971: 38). Possessive formation is expressed in “object
bilong owner,” as haus bilong mi “my house” in (1). Tok Pisin has only one active voice and,
therefore, the sentence (1) cannot be passivized.
2.2.

Discourse markers of Tok Pisin
Mihalic (1971:40-41) described the usage of conjunctions in Tok Pisin as fulfilling discourse
markers. The most frequent marker is na, which means “and” and “nor.” Other significant markers
are olsem “in order to,” “and,” “then” and “as,” and tasol “but,” “however.” Moreover, we foundseveral kinds of discourse markers in (2) in the process of our translation (Nose and Tamo (2015forthcming)).
(2) Representative discourse markers in Tok Pisin:na “then”; tasol “but”; mi tok olsem “in fact, that is to say”; bikos “because, that’s why”;
long mi “for me, as for me”; kain olsem “for example”; long sampla kain tok “in other words”;
nambawan taim “firstly”; bihain orait “next, secondly”; bihain pasten “finally”;
kain samting olsem “how could I say, something like”
In (2), the forms long, olsem, and bihain are preferable and they function as connectives, in terms oftext organization and speaker-hearer interaction, and they influence the information structure, as well
(Schiffrin 1987, Heine 2013). In section 3 and 4 we discuss how several discourse markers influence
the information structure.

Masahiko Nose117

2.2 Some previous studies
This section describes the characteristics of creole languages in terms of several previous
studies (Crowley 2004, McWhorter 2011), and the definition and properties of information structure,
based on Kiss (2002), Veenstra & Besten (1994) and Sankoff (1983). As McWhorter (2011) argued,
creole languages tend to have simple grammar. According to Dutton (1985) and Mihalic (1971), Tok
Pisin does not have the complicated characteristics of grammar, and has no means to specify topic
and focus. However, Sankoff (1993) presented another perspective.
2.2.1 Creole has simple grammar
McWhorter (2011) indicated that creole languages are generally simple in phonology,
morphology, and syntax,and he explained the reasons for creole languages being at the infancy stage
and why they have not experienced much grammaticalization. Actually, the grammar of Tok Pisin is
simpler than that of the other native New-Guinea and Austronesian languages, and therefore, Tok
Pisin is easier to learn. Thus, it spread as a lingua franca throughout Papua New Guinea. For example,
verbs in Tok Pisin have few inflections and the words are rather isolated; moreover, word orders are
fixed in SVO. Crowley (2004) described the grammar of Bislama, but he did not point out whether
there is a topic/focus system in Bislama, although he enumerated several discourse markers relevantto the information structure. Moreover, Sankoff (1993) discussed topic and focus in Tok Pisin, andMeyerhoff (2011) described some discourse markers in Bislama.
2.2.2 Information structure from a typological perspective
Word order and information structure are related to each other, and they have been a popular
topic for studies since the Prague school and classical studies in word order typology (cf. Andersen1983). This study reviews the information structure and word order of Tok Pisin using Hungarian
sentence examples (Kiss 2002).
Hungarian is a language with free word order, but its orders are influenced by topic and focus.
In (3), the transitive sentence in Hungarian can be changed in (3a-d), in terms of information
structure.
(3) Hungarian:a. Péter el-olvassa
a köny-et
a bolt-ban.
Peter prev-read.3sg.pres the book-acc the store-in“Peter read through the book in the store.”b. A könyvet Péter elolvassa a boltban.
“As for the book, Peter reads it through in the store.”c. Péter a könyv-et olvassa el a boltban.
“It is the book that Peter reads through in the store.”d. A boltban a könyvet olvassa el Péter.
“In the store, it is the book that Peter reads it through.”118

Information structure and discourse markers in Tok Pisin

In (3), (3a) has a neutral order, SVO order, and the first element Péter is the subject and also
occupies the topic position. In (3b), the sentence-initial topic becomes the direct object a könyv, andin (3c), the topic is Péter, but a könyv occupies the focus at the preverbal position. Finally, in (3d), aboltban occupies the topic and a könyv occupies the focus, respectively4. Generally, topic comes atthe beginning of the sentence, and the focus position is near the verb, as shown in Hungarian(Andersen 1983:70-71, 74-75). However, unlike Hungarian, creole languages do not have adeveloped information structure in their grammar.
Veenstra & Besten (1994:303) suggested the concept of fronting instead of the topic and focus
system similar to Hungarian. Veenstra & Besten claimed that fronting is functioning as topicalization,
left-dislocation, and focusing. Fronting indicates moving an element to the initial position in thesentence. Fronting occurs in the following three conditions: in declarative contexts, interrogative
contexts, and relative clauses. Topicalization is applied in declarative contexts and this movement
also includes cleft, and focusing. Wh-movement is applied in interrogative contexts, and the third
one in relative clauses.
(4) Tok Pisin:a. Long ples mi lainim tok ples
Amele.
prep village 1sg learn native tongue Amele“At village, I will learn a native language Amele.”b. Husait em i
nicepela strait?
who
3sg cop nicevery
“Who is the fairest of us all?” (FT)c. Em kamap gutpela hap we
i gat haus i
stap.
3sg come up goodplace where cop get house cop be locatedShe came to a clearing where there was a small cottage. (FT)In (4a), the word long ples takes the initial position in the sentence. This fronting is topicalization.
Next (4b) is an example of wh-movement, and the interrogative pronoun husait (who) occupies theinitial position. The relative clause in (4c) is also a fronting movement. However, focusing in Tok
Pisin has another view (Sankoff 1993). Therefore, we observe another creole, Saramaccan (Veenstra& Besten 1994:306), as shown in (5).
(5) Saramaccan:
Di buku we mi bi lesi.
the book focus 1sg past read
“I read THE book.” we: focus marker
There is a focus marker, we, in Saramaccan. Sankoff (1993) claimed that there are postponed focus
particles in Tok Pisin; yet, tru, moa, tasol, and wanpela5. In the following paragraphs, this study
provides spoken and written data of Tok Pisin, and we examine how information structure works andMasahiko Nose119

we consider whether there is focus marker in Tok Pisin.
3. Information structure in different genres
This section investigates the information structure in Tok Pisin by observing several different
kinds of texts. Mainly, we examine fronting and other means of topicalization/focusing; moreover,
we observe the usages of discourse markers. This study classifies the texts of Table 1 according togenres; namely, spoken/written and city/ rural texts6.
City Tok Pisin
Spoken discourses
YM
Written texts
RA, NT
Table 1. Spoken and written Tok Pisin data in this study

Rural Tok Pisin
FTC, Bel
FT

3.1.

Spoken data
The spoken data are YM, FTC, and Bel, and there are several differences between city and rural
genres. Lexically speaking, YM has frequent usages of English words, and in contrast, FTC and Bel
maintain Tok Pisin vocabulary. Grammatically, not all discourses keep a strict word order, and we
can observe many discourse markers that are relevant to the information structure.
First, in (6), the fronting element puttim tan long is emphasized by stress. Therefore, adding
stress phonologically is a means of focusing in spoken Tok Pisin.
(6)FTC/ rural
puttim tanlong,. maus bilong em…. em em yet… em pinis a? em i go … long brik hausputtongue prep mouth prep 3sg
3sg 3sg yet 3sg perf intj 3sg cop go prep block house“put tongue on his mouth, (he licked his lips, as he went to the brick house)”(7)Bel/ ruralwankain olsem
samelike (DM)“It is the same like this.”Another means of focusing is to say only the necessary word, as in (7). In (7), the fragment words
wankain olsem are foregrounded in the discourse and other information is not specified, but they aresupplemented by the context. In (8), it is an example of fronting, but the word “Snow White” isrepeated in the following sentence and the element is emphasized by this repetition. Example (9) ispeculiar in that the 3rd person singular pronoun he (instead of em) is used. The speaker (newscasteron the radio) accidentally used the English word he. Needless to say, the specific name (HK) of thegovernor is operated by fronting.
(8)FTC/ rural
Snow White …. Snow white em pilim tait,
Snow WhiteSnow White 3sg feel tired

120

Information structure and discourse markers in Tok Pisin“Snow White feels tired”(9)YM/ city
Gabanaa Haveila Kaabo, he givim bikpela tenkyu bilong em i go long travel foundation
Governor3sg give big
thanks prep 3sg cop go prep travel foundation“Governor HK gives big thanks to the travel foundation.”(10)FTC/ ruralino ken writim pinis mi askim yu, yu writim pinis oo
cop no can write perf 1sg ask 2sg 2sg write perf intj
“You cannot write it up, and I am asking you, have you already written it?”In (10), the sentence does not have a subject and the verb comes first. It seems to be fragment
information, but this type is frequently observed in both spoken and written texts. In this case, focus
is considered to be on the negative action or verb phrase.
(11) YM/ city
na ting blong ol
na i tok olsem
DM think prep 3pl DM cop talk like (DM)“And their idea, they say like this”
In (11), the discourse marker na is used. This na means “and” and “then,” and this marker is apt toappear at the beginning of the sentence. The discourse marker na can connect the previous andpresent sentences; moreover, speakers can give additional information through the second na in (11).
In (11) and (12), the form olsem is used, which means “like, that, in this way.” This is also a
discourse marker and it connects the discourse or omits background information7.
(12)FTC/ rural
em mas meri mi ting wanpla tok olsem
3sg must girl 1sg think one
talk like (DM)“She must be a girl, and I think one says like this.”(13)FTC/ ruralNaumipla go long 42, 41 pinis
now (DM) 1pl
go prep page 42, 41 finish“Now we go to the page 42, the page 41 is finished.”
Finally, in (13), the form nau is naturally derived from the English “now”. It is also a discourse
marker (as pointed out by Sankoff 1993) and this marker can introduce a new topic at the beginningof the sentence.
3.2.

Written data
In this section, we examine written texts of Tok Pisin and examples of their behavior are
observed through fronting, discourse markers, and other means. Moreover, we try to find differences

Masahiko Nose

121

in genres. RA and NT are regarded as city Tok Pisin, and FT is a translation work of Nose and Tamo(2015 forthcoming).
(14)RA/ city
Long Madang Provins blong PNG, ol keis blong measles i
wok long go daun.
prep Madang Province prep PNG 3pl case prep measles cop work prep go down
“In Madang Province, PNG, all cases of measles are going down.”
In (14), the locative phrase with preposition long is moved to the initial position by fronting. The
fronting of locative phrases is frequently observed in Tok Pisin.
(15) NT/ city
Na em isalim sampela man igo long Betlehem na ol ples klostu long en,
DM 3sg cop send some man cop go prep Bethlehem DM 3pl place near prep it
na ol i kilim i dai olgeta pikinini man i
no winim tupela yia yet.
DM 3pl cop kill cop die all
child
man cop no suppress twoyear yet“and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its
districts, from two years old and under.”The discourse marker na is used frequently in written texts as well as in spoken texts. In particular, in(15), the three na markers connect discourses, each meaning “and.”(16)FT 5/ rural
SnowWhite ino save olsem em haus bilong ol sevenpla dwarf.
Snow White cop no know DM 3sg house prep 3pl seven
dwarf“What SnowWhite did not know was that the cottage belonged to seven dwarfs.”(17)FT 7/ rural
Olsem na em i go long tower na wokim apul long outsait
DM DM 3sg cop go prep tower DM work apple prep outside
luk olsem
apul tasol em pulap poison.
look like (DM) apple only 3sg fullpoison“So she went to her tower where she made an apple.”
The discourse marker olsem is frequently observed, as shown in (16) and (17). The form olsem has
several usages. First, in (16), this marker functions as a complementizer or for quoting (Meyerhoff
2011: 256). In contrast, in (17), olsem and na appear in sequence and their meaning is “so, then,”functioning as a conjunction.
(18)FT 4/ rural
so em i sleep insait long wanpla bilong ol dispela bed.
DM 3sg cop sleep inside prep one
prep 3pl this
bed

122

Information structure and discourse markers in Tok Pisin“and so she yawned and stretched and lay down to sleep in one of the beds.”
On the other hand, in (18), the English word “so” is used as a conjunction. The meaning of so isalmost the same as olsem or na.
(19)NT/ city
Nau Herot i save, ol saveman bilong hap sankamap
now Heod cop know 3pl wise man prep side of sun riseol i giamanim em, orait bel bilong em i
hat moa.
3pl cop deceive 3sg DM belly prep 3sg cop hard more
“Then, Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry”
In (19), there are two discourse markers, nau and orait. Nau functions by presenting a new topic orstory, and it is used preferably in spoken discourse, like in (13). In contrast, orait means “so” inEnglish. Both nau and orait play a role in expressing the speaker’s (or storyteller’s) confirmation (cf.
Schiffrin 1987: 230, “speaker progression”).
4. Discussion
This section summarizes the observations of the previous sections and discusses several usages.
The present study examined spoken and written texts and tried to find their differences and tosummarize several sentence types related to their information structure. Overall, the observed
grammatical means are summarized in (20). There are limited means expressing topic and focus in
Tok Pisin; moreover, only a few discourse markers are preferred for usage. Additionally, this section
discusses the differences in genres that were observed.
(20) Grammatical options regarding information structure in Tok Pisin
a. Fronting: topic and focus: repeating, cleft8b. Emphasizing (focusing)9: necessary word only, emphatic words (wanpla, tru, tasol:
Sankoff (1993)’s focus particles)c. Using discourse markers: connecting discourse, introducing, omission
c-1: conjunction: na, tasol, so, yet, olsem (like this, thus)c-2: demonstrative: ya, olsem (introducing quotation),c-3: confirmation: nau, orait; confirmation, new topic
d. others (verb-initial, yu tok): verb-focus, turn-taking10
Mainly, Tok Pisin utilizes emphasizing in spoken discourse, and prefers fronting in both genres.
Although we did not find a proper example in this study, cleft construction (see footnote 8) is also
possible as a fronting movement. Discourse markers have a function of introducing topics,
connecting sentences, and implying speaker’s confirmations, but these kinds are limited and only na
and olsem are commonly observed11. Other usages are considered, but this study does not discussthem.

Masahiko Nose123

Next, we try to clarify the differences in genres. Spoken discourse can depend on phonologicalclues (stress and pause); moreover, the speaker can choose to relay the important information only.
Instead, written data prefers using discourse markers; in particular, the discourse markers na andolsem are frequently used for coherence. Next, we consider the differences between city and rural
areas, but there is no significant difference in the information structure between them. Fronting isobserved in both genres, and some English words, so, he, etc. are preferred in the spoken/city texts.
Moreover, we discuss that discourse markers can become topic/focus markers. For example,
McWhorter underscored that the discourse marker n’, “then” in Saramaccan, has beengrammaticalized to a new information marker, as shown in (21).
(21) Saramaccan (McWhorter 2011:127-128)
A bu’nu. n’ mi o’ta’
ha’ika i.
it good DM I future imperfective listen you“Good. So I’ll be listening for you (waiting for your answer)”
Sankoff (1993) indicated that Tok Pisin has the focus marker yet, originally meaning “yet, still.”
Sankoff claimed that the form yet in (22) has been grammaticalized from intensifier to focus marker .
However, this study did not find such a usage, and the usage of yet is extremely limited in texts. This
study considers that yet is not a fully grammaticalized marker in Tok Pisin, and that it only has
fronting or emphasizing functions for focusing (the usage yet is included in (20b)).
(22) Tok Pisin: Sankoff (1993: 131)
Tok “Orait yu yet
kilim pikinini bilong mi.”say alright 2sg focus kill child
prep 1sg“(She) said, “Alright, you’re the one who killed my child””
We subsequently discuss the usages of discourse markers. The discourse marker na is frequently
observed in connecting sentences. In (23), these sentences are taken from FT and the parallel texts in
Tok Pisin, Amele, and English. Foley (2000:387) claimed that the New Guinea languages havecommon discourse characteristics. First, given and presupposed information is normally omitted, andsecond, only one piece of new information is introduced per clause. By contrasting the parallel textsin (23), these characteristics are applicable to Tok Pisin and also visible through language contact.
That is, the discourse markers na, olsem are used to form consistent discourse structures, as observedin New Guinea languages.
(23) Tok Pisin/ Amele: FT (cf. Nose 2014)
Na ol i kolim em Snow White.
DM they cop call
3sg Snow White
Odocobuqa ayansnow-white boin.
And then (DM) 3s name-poss snow white call-3s.past“and then she called snow white.”124

Information structure and discourse markers in Tok Pisin

Finally, this paper considers answers to why Tok Pisin has a limited number of managing
information structures, and explains the decisive differences between spoken and written texts. First,
Tok Pisin is a creole language and it still has the characteristics of a simple grammar in its
construction, which cannot yet fully grammaticalize topic/focus markers. As a result, it depends onfronting, emphasizing, and several discourse markers, as shown in (20). In spoken discourse,
speakers utilize stress, pause, emphasizing, and repeating, while, in contrast, discourse markers are
preferred in written texts. This study claims that discourse markers such as nau, orait, na, and olsem
function to introduce new information or focus to sentences (cf. Foley 2000: 386-387, Nose 2014).
5. Conclusion
We summarize the characteristics of topic and focus in Tok Pisin that this study has found.
First, fronting is the most frequent method of indicating topic/focus. Tok Pisin has fronting
movement through the indication of topicalization and partly through focusing; but focusing isrealized through other options, namely adding stress, emphasizing, and cleft constructions. In
particular, spoken discourses prefer adding stress, using emphasis, and repeating, while, in contrast,
several discourse markers are frequently observed in both genres, and they are effectively used toorganize foreground and background information in written texts. However, these discourse markers
have not yet been grammaticalized into topic or focus markers.
Notes:
1. I would like to thank Neret Tamo, Nelau Lagia and the villagers in Sein, Madang Province, Papua New
Guinea for their data and kindness. I claim sole responsibility for any errors.
2. The lingua franca in Melanesia are Indonesian in the Western part of New Guinea Island, Hiri Motu in theWestern Province and around Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, Tok Pisin in the other area of Papua
New Guinea, Solomon Pijin in Solomon Island, and Bislama in Vanuatu. Tok Pisin, Solomon Pijin and
Bislama are called Melanesian Pidgin.
3. Abbreviations: acc, accusative; cop, copula; DM, discourse marker; future, future tense; intj, interjection;sg, singular; past, past tense; perf, perfective; pl, plural; prep, preposition; prev, verbal prefix, pres,present tense; 1, 2, 3, first person, second person, third person respectively.
4. Thus, word order position and information structure in Hungarian are summarized in (i).
(i)

(Topic) X (Focus)-VERB X

Topic: Sentence initial position, Focus: Preverbal position and X: neutral position or supplementaryelement
5. There is no description of information structure in Tok Pisin and Bislama, as far as we checked Dutton(1985), Crowley (2004), and Mihalic (1971).
6. Tok Pisin is mainly a spoken language and there are few materials of written texts (mainly Christian texts).
This study collected both spoken and written discourses and they are shown in Texts section underneath.
7. Crowley (2004), Meyerhoff (2011) and Meyerhoff & Niedzielski (1998) discussed the usages of DM
olsem. Meyerhoff & Niedzielski (1998) claimed that the form olsem functions as complementizer, clausal
anaphor (thus, like this), attention shifter (rather anyway) and hedge.

Masahiko Nose

125

8. Tok Pisin has cleft constructions, although the texts that this study used were not found. These examples(ii) and (iii) are from my recording, September 6. 2014. Cleft construction has a focusing effect and it isincluded in fronting movement.
(ii)

food asdemipla kaikai

food yesterday 1pl

eat“The food we ate yesterday”(iii)

dispela haus hap youngpela boi bin wokin
thishouse there young

boy past build“This house there young boy built”
9. There are emphatic words for expressing importance in information: tru (very, really), tasol (only, just)
10. Nose (2014) claimed that Tok Pisin has a kind of turn-taking expression, yu tok/yu toktok “you say” andmi tok “I tell you.”
11. The options shown in (20) are realized in (iv).
(iv)

Mi kaikai yam. “I eat yam”
a. Fronting: Yam, mi kaikai/

Yam mi kaikai yam.

b. Emphasizing: Yam/ Mi kaikai yam tasol.
c. Using Discourse markers:
1. Na mi kakai yam/ Olsem mi kaikai yam.
2. Mi kaikai yam ya/ Mi kaikai (yam) olsem.
3. Nau mi kaikai yam/ Mi kaikai yam orait.
d. Others: Kaikai yam/ yu tok mi kaikai yam.

Texts:
1. Bel: Bel speaker interview, elicitation of Bel grammar, spoken in Tok Pisin (Recorded on September 1,
2012)
2. FT: Nose Masahiko & Neret, Tamo. 2015 forthcoming. Folk Tales from Around the World: Amele-Tok
Pisin-English multilingual book. Ms.
3. FTC: Recoded discourse in translating FT (Recorded on August 25, 29, 2014)
4. NT: Matthew 2:16-17 (Herot i tok na ol i kilim planti pikinini i dai) In: Nupela Testamen: bilong bikpela
Jisas Kraist. Canberra/Port Moresby: The British and Foreign Bible Society in Australia, 1969.
5. RA: Web news in Radio Australia; Ol toktok long sik measles long Solomon Islands na PNG (23, October,2014), Accessed on October 27, 2014 (http://shar.es/1HOaJ6)
6. YM: Yumi FM radio news (Recoded on September 3, 2013)

References
Andersen, Paul. K. 1983. Word order typology and comparative constructions. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John
Benjamins.
Crowley, Terry. 2004. Bislama reference grammar. Honolulu, Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication.
Dutton, Tom. 1985. A new course in Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin), Pacific Linguistics D-67, Canberra:
Australian National University.
Foley, William. A. 2000. The languages of New Guinea. Annual review of anthropology, 357-404.

126

Information structure and discourse markers in Tok Pisin

Heine, Bernd. 2013. On discourse markers: Grammaticalization, pragmaticalization, or something else?
Linguistics, 51(6), 1205-1247.
Kiss, Katalin. É. 2002. The syntax of Hungarian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McWhorter, John. H. 2011. Linguistic Simplicity and Complexity: Why Do Languages Undress? Berlin:
Walter de Gruyter.
Meyerhoff, Miriam. 2011. Introducing Sociolinguistics (2nd edition). London: Routledge.
Meyerhoff, Miriam, & Nancy. Niedzielski, 1998. The syntax and semantics of olsem in Bislama. Recent
Papers in Austronesian Linguistics. UCLA Occasional Papers in Linguistics, 20, 235-243.
Mihalic, Francis. 1971. The Jacaranda dictionary and grammar of Melanesian Pidgin. Hong Kong:
Jacaranda.
Nose, Masahiko. 2014. Information structure in Amele, Papua New Guinea. Proceedings of the International
Workshop on Information Structure of Austronesian Languages. Research Institute for Languages andCultures of Asia and Africa: 105-112
Sankoff, Gilian. 1993. Focus in Tok Pisin. In: Burne, Francis, & Donald Winford(eds.). Focus andgrammatical relations in creole languages. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 117-140.
Schiffrin, D. 1987. Discourse markers (No. 5). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Veenstra, Tonjes, & Hans den Besten. 1994. Fronting. In: Arends, Jacques, Muysken, Pieter, & Smith,
Norval(eds.). Pidgins and creoles: An introduction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 303-315.

127

The role of Bunun deixis in information structure:
An initial assessment
Rik De Busser
National Chengchi University

1. Introduction
This paper will discuss the role of deixis on information structure in the Takivatan dialect of
Bunun. For the sake of simplicity, the discussion will be restricted to topicality. We will
distinguish two types of topicality:(1) Clausal topicality: the expression of the topic in a clause, i.e. the grammatical orfunctional identification of the pragmatically most salient participant of that clause.
(2) Discourse topicality: the expression of the discursive text topic, i.e. the establishmentof discursive themes through the creation of strings of cohesion (cf. Halliday & Hasan
1976). A single text or discourse can have more than one discourse topic.
We will also restrict the discussion to deictic paradigms or elements whose primary functionis the expression of either spatial deixis (this, that) or anaphoric deixis (the aforementioned).
1.1. Takivatan Bunun
Takivatan is one of the five dialects of the Bunun language (ISO 639-3: bnn), an
Austronesian language mainly spoken in the central regions of Taiwan, mainly in villages inrelatively remote mountainous locations. There are no official figures on the actual number of
speakers; currently 56,004 people are officially registered as Bunun, but the actual number offluent speakers is certainly considerably lower (at most 60% of that number). The upper limit
for Takivatan speakers is certainly not higher than 1700 individuals.
The Takivatan dialect is largely agglutinating with a very strongly developed verbal
morphology. It has a Philippine-type argument alignment system (see De Busser 2011), witha basic contrast between actor, undergoer and locative alignment marked by suffixes on theverb, and has a very productive of valency-changing verbal affixes. Only non-third-person
pronouns make a case distinction.
1.2. Cross-linguistic functions of spatial deixis
As said before, the discussion here restricts itself to paradigms whose primary use is theexpression of spatial (and often by extension temporal) deixis. The discussion will exclude
person deixis, i.e. personal pronouns and other words used for indicating person contrasts,
and phenomena like TAM systems, which are dedicated to the grammaticalized expression of
temporal contrasts. We will discuss anaphoric markers and expressions of manner, because
they both have an anaphoric deictic function.
For the sake of simplicity, we will start start the discussion from the point-of-view of what
could be called ‘canonical’ deictic markers, demonstrative pronouns. Himmelmann(1996:218ff) divides the cross-linguistic functions of demonstratives in four major categories:

128 The role of Bunun deixis in information structure






Situational use: “reference to an entity present in the utterance situation”(Himmelmann 1996:219)
Discourse deixis: a metaphorical extension of spatial deixis that refers to the distanceof a referent in the current text or conversation.
Tracking use: the use of demonstratives for keeping track of textual referents. In
other words, the use of deictics for creating textual cohesion in the sense of Halliday& Hasan (1976)
Recognitional use: “[…] the intended referent is to be identified via specific, sharedknowledge rather than through situational clues or reference to preceding segments of
the ongoing discourse” (Himmelmann 1996:230).

What is quite striking about this classification is that only the first of these categories is
directly involved in the expression of spatio-temporal deixis. The primary function of theother three categories appears to be related to organizing information in texts andconversations. This is especially the case for the tracking use of demonstratives, in which
demonstrative reference is used for creating cohesive chains of reference in a text, thus
allowing the discourse participants to keep track throughout a text of the different entities
mentioned in that text.
It is important to realize that when Himmelmann talks about these different demonstrative
functions, he generally seems to assume that they are primary functions of demonstratives.
Thus, when he discusses the tracking use of Tagalog ito in example, the primary function ofthis form is not spatial deictic reference, but establishing an anaphoric link to the referent
isang manlalakbay in the previous clause.
(1)

may kasaysayan sa isang manlalakbay
may
ka-saysay-an
sa
isa-ng maN-CV-lakbay
EXIST ?-statement-LOC LOC one-LK IRR.ACT-RED-travelling‘(One incident) is told about a traveler;’
ang manlalakbay na ito ay si Pepito
ang
maN-CV-lakbay
na itoaysi Pepito
SPEC IRR.ACT-RED-travelling LK PROX PM PN P.
‘This traveller (his name) was Pepito.’ (from Himmelmann 1996:229)

Finally Himmelmann (1996:210) clearly distinguishes between definiteness markers anddemonstratives (although he mentions on p. 243 that the extensional use of demonstratives
for discourse reference and tracking is a step in the grammaticalization pathway leading to
the creation of definiteness markers or third person pronouns). This is a distinction that I will
not make such a clear distinction for Takivatan Bunun. The only grammatical forms thatconceivably could be analysed as markers of definiteness markers – the bound suffixes
discussed in 2.1.1 – do also encode a distance contrast. These bound markers clearly establisha referent or an event (see below) as definite or identifiable, while their spatial deictic
function is often more difficult to determine. They can be used for establishing what
Himmelmann (1996:210) calls “associative-anaphoric” links.

2. Bunun deixis and information structure
2.1. General overview
Most deictic paradigms discussed in this paper make a basic three-fold distance distinction
between the morphs -i ‘proximal’, -un ‘medial’ and -a ‘distal’ (see De Busser 2009, Chapter

Rik De Busser 129

9). This is the case for the bound definiteness markers, third person personal pronouns,
demonstrative paradigms, and the place words Ҍiti/Ҍitun/Ҍita (see 9.2, 9.3, and 9.4
respectively). Exceptions are the anaphoric marker sia and the manner word (m)aupa ‘thus’;
both express anaphoric deixis but express no distance contrast.
The prototypical function of deictic elements is marking distance contrasts, as in illustrated in
the example below for definiteness markers.
(2)

Asa pisihalun itu Kaliƾkuti, pisihalunti, na asa tunhan Nantuta
asa
pi-sihal-unituKaliƾku-ti
have.to CAUS.STAT-good-UF this.here K.-DEF.REF.PROX‘You have to put everything in order here in Kaliƾku, …’
pi-sihal-un-ti
CAUS.STAT-good-UF-DEF.REF.PROX‘… and when it is in order here,…’na
asa
tun-hanNantu-ta
CONS have.to
PERL-go N.-DEF.REF.DIST‘you have to go over there to Nantou.’ (TVN-012-002:49)

Apart from spatial deixis, Takivatan Bunun deictic markers have developed a number of
meaning extensions: temporal deixis, empathy, animacy, and endorsement. In fact, certain
deictic forms are primarily used for expressing non-spatial meanings. For instance, the boundmedial definiteness marker -kun, when it appears on nominal forms, almost exclusively
marks that the speaker has an emotional connection to the noun, usually a person, that ismarked by -kun; this is called empathy in De Busser (2009:422–425).
(3)

Muska [ma]limadia minsumina Linikun.
muska mali-madia
min-suma-in-a
Lini-kunbut
SUPERL-many INCH-return-PRV-LNK L.-DEF.SIT.MED‘But then, after a long time (my dear friend) Lini came back.’ (TVN-008-002:179)

Interestingly, while all the above-mentioned functions of deixis are discussed in De Busser(2009), no reference is made to the role of deictic markers in establishing contrasts in
information structure, except for the dedicated anaphoric function of the marker sia.
Curiously, this seems to suggest that deictic paradigms have no significant function in therealization of information structure. The sections below will explore to what extent this is avalid assumption. I will then investigate how different deictic paradigms are involved in therealization of sentence-level and discursive topics.
The following deictic paradigms relevant to the present discussion:






bound definiteness markers (2.1.1)
third person pronouns (2.1.2)
free demonstratives (2.1.3)
dedicated place and manner words (2.1.4)
the anaphoric marker sia (2.1.5)

2.1.1. Definiteness markers
Takivatan Bunun has a set of six bound markers that express a three-fold contrast in distance(proximal, medial, distal) and a two-fold contrast in what could be called ontological status(referential vs. situational).

130 The role of Bunun deixis in information structure

Table 1. Takivatan Bunun definiteness markers

ProximalMedialDistalReferential
-ti
-tun
-ta

Situational
-ki
-kun
-ka

In a number of ways, these bound definiteness markers are unusual. First of all, calling them
definiteness markers is somewhat controversial, given that (a) they encode a distance contrast
and (b) while the attachment of a definiteness marker causes the host referent to be definite,referents can be definite without one of these markers being present (in other words, they are
optional).
Secondly, these bound markers can occur on words in many word classes, including nouns,
verbs (!), the anaphoric marker sia, and the manner word maupa.1 Third, definiteness markers
distinguish between what has been called in De Busser (2009) referential and situational
forms. The former pertain to the material properties of a referent of an event, while the latterput more emphasis on the spatial and/or temporal properties of a referent or event. This
analysis has been elaborately supported by evidence in De Busser (2009:426–440).
Below is an example of a distal situational marker on a verbal host. The use of a situational
marker indicates that emphasis is placed on the distal location of the event, rather than onwhat actually happened.
(4)

Mukvaikuka vaƾlað.
mukvaiku-ka
vaƾlað
bend-DEF.SIT.DIST riverside‘The river makes a bend over there.’ (TVN-xx2-001:3)

Example (5) contains a proximal situational marker and a distal referential marker. The distalreferential -ta indicates that the referential properties, in this case the physical identity, of theperson marked are important.
(5)… la‫ݦ‬adusduki Qusunsubali sia Maiata tama.
la-adus-du-ki
Qusunsubali
COVER-carry-EMO-DEF.SIT.PROX Q.
sia
Maia-tatama
ANAPH M.-DEF.REF.DIST father‘[…] from here we went together to (that) Qusunsubali,
to the father of Maia.’ (TVN-008-002:69)

Definiteness markers are very common in narrative discourse; their frequency varies in
informal spoken language, but is generally lower there.
2.1.2. Third person pronouns
Personal pronouns do generally not express a distance contrast, with the exception of theparadigms for the third person singular and plural.2

1

But not on third person pronouns or demonstrative pronouns.
The main reason for not analyzing the forms in Table 2 as demonstrative forms is that they appear to behistorically related to the root -is, which in Isbukun Bunun has been analysed as a bound third person pronoun(e.g. in Zeitoun 2000) and occasionally occurs in Takivatan Bunun, mainly in fixed constructions.
2

Rik De Busser 131

Table 2. Third person personal pronouns

Singular
isti
istun
ista

ProximalMedialDistalPlural
inti
intun
inta

Third person pronouns usually refer to human or other higher animate referents.
(6)

Han‫ݦ‬ak daiða maluskun inta.
han-‫ݦ‬ak
daiða
ma-luskun
inta
be.at-1S.TOP over.there DYN-together 3P.DIST‘I am there with them together.’ (TVN-008-vxxx:1)

Unlike other pronominal numbers, the third person forms do not have distinguish between
different grammatical roles (agent, undergoer, location) and – in Takivatan Bunun – have nobound equivalent forms. Third person pronouns are relatively uncommon in comparison to
first and second person forms and free demonstrative forms.
2.1.3. Free demonstrative paradigms
Takivatan Bunun has a complex demonstrative paradigm, which encodes: (a) a two-way
visibility distinction; (b) a four-way plurality distinction; (c) and a three-way distancedimension:
Table 3. Demonstrative forms

Visibility
Ø- ‘VIS’n- ‘NVIS’

ROOT
ai-

Plurality-p- ‘singular’-ƾk- ‘vague plural’-nt- ‘paucal’-t- ‘inclusive generic’Distance-i ‘PROX’-un ‘MED’-a ‘DIST’-Ø ‘USPEC’Not all combinations of morphs have been attested in naturalistic language and there is great
variety in the frequency of use. For instance, in the paucal paradigm only the distal forms
ainta ‘DEM.VIS.PAUC.DIST’ and nainta ‘DEM.NVIS.PAUC.DIST’ have been attested.
Underspecific forms (forms without a distance marker) in general are relatively rare.
The most commonly occurring demonstratives by a large margin are singular and vague
plural forms. Below is an example of the visibility contrast expressed by the singular distal
demonstratives (n)aipa.
(7)

Na, ukin aipa ‫ݦ‬ita namudanin, musbai naipa maqmut
nauka-inaipa‫ݦ‬itaINTER NEG.have-PRV DEM.S.DIST.VIS there.DIST‘It [the deer, visible] wasn’t there anymore, …’
na-muda-in
IRR-walk-PRV‘… it had gone, …’
musbainaipa
maqmutrun.away DEM.S.DIST.NVIS night‘… it [non-visible] had run away during the night.’ (TVN-008-002:135)

132 The role of Bunun deixis in information structure

Inclusive generic forms refer to an indeterminate number of referents which always includes
the speaker.
(8)Haiða aitun ludun tikisuna, [...]
haiða aitun
ludun
tikis-un-ahave DEM.IG.MED.VIS mountain small-EMPH-SUBORD‘Our people had a small mountain, [where in the old days they would go hunting.]’ (TVN012-002:162)

2.1.4. Multi-categorial place and manner deictics
A dedicated set of words is used for expressing space, time and manner. These forms canoccur in adverbial and in verbal slots. The forms Ҍiti/Ҍitun/Ҍita typically express spatial and,somewhat less commonly, temporal distance. They make the typical three-fold distinction
between proximal, medial and distal.
Table 4. Manner words

PROX
MED
DIST

Ҍiti
Ҍitun
Ҍita

Spatial‘here’‘there (medial)’‘there (distal)’

Temporal‘at this moment’‘at that moment (medial)’‘at that moment (distal)’

An example of the proximal place word used as a verb:(9)I‫ݦ‬iti‫ݦ‬ak.
i-‫ݦ‬iti-‫ݦ‬ak
STAT-here-1S.F‘I am here.’ (BNN-N-002:52)

In the example below, the distal form occurs both in a verbal form and clause-finally in an
adverbial slot.
(10)

Mun‫ݦ‬ita madas pudaku atikisunaƾ ‫ݦ‬itamun-‫ݦ‬ita
ALL-there.DIST‘[The shaman] has to go there …’
madas pu-daku
tikis-un-aƾ‫ݦ‬itatakeplace-ritual.object little-EMPH-PROG there.DIST‘… and put a little bit of the ritual token over there.’ (TVN-012-001:44)

The form (m)aupa expresses manner and has a similar syntactic distribution as the placewords above. It can be translated as ‘thus’ or ‘in this/that manner’ and in expressing such ameaning often refers back anaphorically to a previous event in the text or discourse. As theexample below illustrates, it can be – and often is – modified by a bound definiteness marker,
most commonly the referential distal form -ta.
(11)

Maupata madaiƾ‫ݦ‬að tu m baðbaði Diqanin tu masihalaƾ kakaunun
maupa-tama-daiƾ‫ݦ‬að tubaðbað-i
Diqanin tu
thus-DEF.REF.DIST STAT-old COMPL have.conversation-PRT Heaven COMPL
ma-sihal-aƾ
ka-kaun-un
STAT-good-PROG things.to.eat‘And like that, the elders talked to Heaven in order to keep producing good crops.’ (TVN012-001:46)

Rik De Busser 133

2.1.5. The anaphoric marker
An extremely common marker that is exclusively used for anaphoric (or exophoric) referenceis sia. It refers to referents or events that were previously mentioned in a discourse or are
assumed to be commonly known to all discourse participants. Sia combines with bounddefiniteness markers and is used both in nominal (12) and verbal slots (13).
(12)

Ma, samantukandu siatun [...].
masamantuk-an-du sia-tun
INTER spy.on-LF-EMOT ANAPH-DEF.REF.MED‘[The deer… ] I kept a close watch on it [in order to shoot it]’ (TVN-008-002:184)(13)

Siata.
sia-taANAPH-DEF.REF.DIST‘[I will now explain how we Bunun in former days were, how our elders said: if you want togrow up, you have to live attentively, if you see a one-eyed man, if there is a cripple, you
cannot laugh, it is a taboo, you cannot make jokes about them.] It was like that.’ (TVN-013001:4)

Example (13) illustrates a common usage of sia in narrative prose as an end-of-story marker,
in which case its antecedent is an entire text rather than a single referent or event.
2.2. Austronesian definiteness and information structure
In the study of various Austronesian languages, a case has been made that topics (or topicalsubjects, or the like) must be definite. For instance, Schachter (1976:494) says of Tagalog:“Formally, the topic is marked either by the use of a topic pronoun form or by aprenominal topic marker. Notionally, the topic is always interpreted as definite.”In the same volume, Keenan (1976:252) states:“Surface subjects of Malagasy simplex Ss [sic] are necessarily definite.
Semantically this means there are always objects which the subject phrase refers
to, and further this referentiality is not lost when the sentence is negated orquestioned.”
Keenan examples that this requires that Malagasy subjects “either be proper names, definite
pronouns, or common nouns with demonstrative adjectives or definite articles.” (Keenan
1976:253).
The Takivatan corpus does not corroborate this necessary link between definiteness andtopicality. For instance, it is possible for the clausal topic of a sentence to be indefinite andnon-specific. The example below is the elicited answer to the question Did you plant many
yams.
(14)

Sauðunin ðaku.
suað-un-inðaku
sow-UF-PRV 1S.N
‘Many were planted by me.’ (TVN-xx2-003:39)

Since this is an undergoer construction (as indicated by the suffix -un), the topic of thissentence must be the implied subject ‘many’ and this undergoer topic is indefinite in thegiven context. In addition, all deictic elements involved in establishing definite referents canoccur in topic and non-topic positions and some, such as the definiteness markers and the134 The role of Bunun deixis in information structure

anaphoric marker sia, can even mark predicates rather than arguments (see e.g. (13)). Thismeans that there is no hard requirement for Takivatan subjects to be definite.
However, this does not mean that there is no correlation between definiteness and topicality
in a more general sense. On a conceptual level, it does make sense that pragmatically salient
elements in a clause or discourse are more commonly realized as definite entities. In fact, theAnimacy Hierarchy makes this connection explicit in that it “arranges entities in the order of
their INTRINSIC TOPICALITY, i.e. the degree to which they are likely to be definite andreferential” (Hopper & Thompson 1980:286). It is just that this correlation is not absolute.
All words in Takivatan that are associated with the explicit expression of definiteness have a
deictic function. It is therefore safe to assume that there will be a strong correlation, whateverits nature, between Takivatan deixis and topicality, or more generally the degree of
information salience.

3. The role of Takivatan deictics in information structureThis appears at odds with the following statement:“Many studies on spatial deixis put great stress on the use of deictic markers foranaphoric reference and discourse deixis […]. In Takivatan, the distancedimension in any of the deictic paradigms is rarely used unambiguously foranaphoric reference, most likely because of the existence of the anaphoric marker
sia […].” (De Busser 2009:425)
What does this mean? In 1.2, we saw that a number functions that have been commonly
associated with deixis (or more narrowly, demonstration) is related to the organization of
information structure. For instance, in many languages demonstratives have developed ananaphoric function and as such are important grammatical tools in establishing textual
cohesion. Among Takivatan deictic that have a tripartite distance distinction, I have so far
found not a single example where spatial deictic contrast has developed an unambiguously
anaphoric meaning extension. For instance, there are no instances in the corpus where theproximal definiteness marker -ti means ‘the one just mentioned’ and -ta ‘the one mentioned
longer ago’.
The absence of such metaphorical extensions of the spatial into the discursive domain in
Takivatan should not surprise us, because the language has a dedicated anaphoric marker sia
which is fulfils what Himmelmann calls a ‘tracking function’. Another word that has an
obvious textual function is maupa ‘thus’, which has a clear discourse-anaphoric function.
However, this does not mean that spatial deictic words and morphemes have no function in
the realization of Takivatan information structure. Although we established above that there
is no absolute correlation between deixis and clausal topicality in Takivatan, deictic forms
are, by the virtue of being definite and referential, involved in the realization of topicalprogression, i.e. they have a function in maintaining discursive topics.
To illustrate this, we will now look at a narrative sequence from a hunting story. A group of
hunters, which includes the speaker (VT) in his younger days, have gone into the mountains
to hunt for deer. One of the men has gone on a reconnaissance trip and has just arrived backin the hunters’ temporary camp.

Rik De Busser 135(15)[A] Aupa tuða... niaƾ tu nanu sanavan minsumina ... Tiaƾ, minaba‫ݦ‬av tupa naip tu:[A1] aupa
tuða ni-aƾtu
nanu sanavan min-suma-in-a
Tiaƾ
thus
real NEG-PROG COMPL really evening INCH-return-PRV-LNK T.
[A2] mina-ba‫ݦ‬av
tupa naiptu
ABL-high.location say DEM.S.NVIS COMPL‘But, when it wasn’t really evening yet, Tiang had returned, he had come back from themountain and told us:’
[B] Na, maqtu laqbiƾina, na‫ݦ‬asa dusa ta matiskun, malu‫ݦ‬umi han ba‫ݦ‬av daiðaki, pinkaunun
isian ba‫ݦ‬avta, ƾabul.
[B1] namaqtu
laqbiƾin-a
na-asadusa tama-tiskun
well be.possible tomorrow-LNK IRR-have.to two COMPL DYN-in.a.group[B2] malu‫ݦ‬um-i
han ba‫ݦ‬avdaiða-ki
disperse-PRT be.at high.location there-DEF.SIT.PROX[B3] pinkaun-un
i-sia-anba‫ݦ‬av-ta
ƾabul
go.up-NR.INSTR LOC-ANAPH-LF high.location-DEF.REF.DIST deer
‘Well, tomorrow is possible, two of us will have to go together, and disperse when we
get to this place, and we will climb upwards to the deer that is in that place above.’[C] A, namaqaisaq dauka, saqnutai du sia ‫ݦ‬ukai laqaiban.
[C1] ana-ma-qaisaq
dau-kaINTER IRR-DYN-in.that.direction EMO-DEF.SIT.DIST[C2] saqnut-ai-dusia‫ݦ‬uka-i
laqaibanget.stuck-PRT-EMO ANAPH NEG.have-PRT route‘A, if he will go in that direction, he will get stuck there, without a way out.’[D] Ansaisaƾa Atul Daiƾ tu “nis, matiƾmutin tamudana madav.”[D1] ansais-aƾ-aAtul daiƾ tu
forbid-PROG-ENUM
A.
large COMPL[D2] ni-is
ma-tiƾmut-in
ta-mu-dan-amað‫ݦ‬av
NEG-3S.F STAT-morning-PRV ?-ALL-road-LNK embarrassed‘But Big Atul forbade us: “no, when it has become morning, we will leave, it isembarrassing.’[E] Na... s… ‫ݦ‬ukin aipa ‫ݦ‬ita namudanin, musbai naipa maqmut.
[E1] na‫ݦ‬uka-in
aipa‫ݦ‬itana-mu-dan-inwell NEG.have-PRV DEM.S.DIST.VIS there.DIST IRR-ALL-go-PRV[E2] mu-isbai
naipa
maqmutALL-cause.to.move DEM.S.DIST.NVIS night.time‘Well, it will not be there anymore, it will be gone, it will have run away during thenight.’ (TVN-008-002:130-134)

Figure 1 provides a visual representation of the anaphoric and exophoric links that establish
discourse cohesion through the use of deictic words in this narrative segment. Discourse
participants are marked by a square; anaphoric or exophoric links established by deictics are
represented as arrows. Note that only explicit elements in the text are encoded; non-expressedarguments, even those that might be signalled by verbal morphology, are not taken into
account.3

3

Ellipsis (or better non-expression) is an important indicator of discursive prominence in many Austronesianlanguages, and in Takivatan Bunun argument ellipsis is extremely common.

136 The role of Bunun deixis in information structure

Figure 1. Active topic chains in example (15)Rik De Busser 137

The result is a schema that gives a rough impression of the topical chains established in the
textual sequence above, with different colours representing different chains. These topicalchains weave this sequence together into a coherently interpretable whole. From Figure 1 wecan deduce the following about textual coherence in Takivatan Bunun:






New discursive topics in a text are often established by common or proper nouns in
the case of entities, or by locative nouns or verbs in the case of locations.
Once established, entitities and locations are maintained by deictic elements, which
often have deictic reference as their primary function in discourse, i.e. they are notprimarily discourse-deictic markers. The relation between a referent and its anaphoric
antecedent is often one that Halliday & Hasan (1976:314) call CO-INTERPRETATION:
deictic elements link back to a previous reference in the text, but the anaphor and theanaphoric target do not necessarily refer to identical semiotic denotata. For instance,
aipa in (15) E1) and naipa in (15) E2) both refer to the same deer (ƾabul in B3), but in(E1) it is a visible deer, and in (E2) a non-visible deer that has already run away.
Similarly, in example (16) below, (B1) Ҍita ‘there.DIST’ refers back to the root quma
‘field’ in (16) A1), but the semantic target of both words is not identical: Ҍita refers toa location, whereas quma is part of a verb (namuqumaka) referring back to an event.
Important discursive topics can be reinforced by an occasional repetition of nominal
forms, e.g. ƾabul ‘deer’ in (B3). This is what Halliday & Hasan (1976:279) refer to as
REITERATION.
Highly salient topics do not need to be expressed; the topical arguments are simply
ellipted in subsequent sentences and not marked by any deictic element.

Below is a longer narrative segment by another narrator, followed by its analysis. In it, thenarrator (TM) explains how in traditional Bunun society the most important work on the field,in this case the harvest, could only be undertaken after consulting prophetic dreams.
(16)[A] Maqai maqabasi tupa tu madaiƾ‫ݦ‬aði namuqumaka taƾusaƾ matibahi.
[A1] maqai
ma-qabas-i
tupa tuif
DYN-in.former.times-PRT say COMPL
ma-daiƾ‫ݦ‬að-i
na-mu-quma-ka
STAT-old-PRT IRR-ALL-field-DEF.SIT.DIST[A2] taƾus-aƾ
mati-bahi
firstPROG-have.prophetic.dream‘If in the old days the elders said they wanted to work on the land, they interpreted aprophetic dream beforehand.’[B] Namaqun ‫ݦ‬ita maqai masihala bahia, tudip, na, sintupadu tu maqai ‫ݦ‬itun asa namasihal
kakaunun.
[B1] na-maqun‫ݦ‬itaIRR-cut.off there.DIST[B2] maqai ma-sihal-abahi-atudip
if
STAT-good-SUBORD prophetic.dream-SUBORD that.time[B3] na
sin-tupa-dutumaqai ‫ݦ‬itun
well
RES.OBJ-say-EMO COMPL if
there.MED[B4] asa
na-ma-sihal
ka-kaun-un
be.able IRR-STAT-goodCV-eat-UF‘And when they wanted to go there to harvest (lit: when they wanted to cut off things inthat place), if the dream was good, that meant in those days that if you were there, you
could eat very well.’138 The role of Bunun deixis in information structure[C] A maqai dipi madiqla bahia tupa tu asa ni ‫ݦ‬ituni nalauq, nitu na … masihala kakauna
sanasia maqai, amin tu maqai ‫ݦ‬itun namuqða kuðaki madiqla bahi, na haiða matað.
[C1] amaqai dip-i
ma-diqlabahi-aINTER ifthen-PRT STAT-bad
prophetic.dream-LNK[C2] tupatuasani‫ݦ‬itun-isay
COMPL have.to NEG there.MED-PRT[C3] nalauqnitunama-sihal-aka-kaun-aotherwise NEG COMPL well STAT-good-LNK CV-eat-LNK[C4] sana-sia
maqai
ACCORDING.TO-ANAPH
if[C5] amintumaqai ‫ݦ‬itun
na-muqða kuða-ki
all
COMPL ifthere.MED IRR-again work-DEF.SIT.PROX[C6] ma-diqlabahi
STAT-badprophetic.dream[C7] nahaiða matað
well have die‘And if the dream was bad, then they said that you must not go there, because otherwise
you would not eat well, if you followed the rule, but if anyone at all went back to thatplace to work, and there was a bad dream, people would die.’[D] A, maqai mataisaq … matataisaq a madadaiƾ‫ݦ‬að tu, … maqai mun‫ݦ‬ita‫ݦ‬a mavia mataisaq
tu sadu‫ݦ‬uki siatu, sinsusuað bunuað masmamua mavisqai, mavilasa tupaka madadaiƾ‫ݦ‬að
tu na maqtu munquma ista‫ݦ‬ai nakasihalain kakaunun namasihala bunun.
[D1] amaqai ma-taisaq
INTER if
DYN-dream[D2] ma-ta-taisaq
amadadaiƾ‫ݦ‬að tu
DYN-CV-dream
INTER elder
COMPL[D3] maqaimun-‫ݦ‬itaama-viama-taisaqtu
if
ALL-there.DIST HESIT
DYN-why DYN-dream COMPL[D4] sadu‫ݦ‬u-ki
siatu
see-DEF.SIT.PROX
ANAPH COMP
[D5] sin-su-suað
bunuað mas-ma-muav
ma-visqa-i
RES.OBJ-CV-sow
plum
BE-CV-excessive STAT-abundant.with.fruit-PRT[D6] mavilas-a
have.large.fruits-LNK[D7] tupa-ka
ma-da-daiƾ-‫ݦ‬að tu
tell-DEF.SIT.DIST elder
COMPL[D8] namaqtu
mun-quma ista-ai
well be.possible.to ALL-field
3S.DIST-PRT[D9] na-ka-sihal-in
ka-kaun-un
IRR-ASSOC.DYN-good-PRV CV-eat-UN[D10] na-ma-sihal-abunun
IRR-STAT-good-LNK people‘And if they dreamt… if the elders dreamt that, if they went over there, they suddenly
dreamt that they saw that the plum tree had grown so that it was full of fruits and hadlarge fruits, then the elders would say that it was permitted for them to the land to work,and they would produce good fruits, and the people would also be fine.’ (TVN-012001:38-41)

Rik De Busser 139

Figure 2. Active topic chains in example (16)

140 The role of Bunun deixis in information structure

Despite the fact that there is a relatively large difference in the deictic forms used in (15) and(16), it is clear that deictic expressions function very much in the same way: one the one hand,
they have a clear spatial deictic function; on the other they are used to maintain discursive
topics throughout the narrative segment.
What is interesting in (16) is that a repetition of nominal forms (e.g. bahi in A2, B2, C1, etc.)
appears to be used for indicating contrast, while deictic forms are employed to establish aconsistent, stable theme (e.g. the string maintaining the salience of quma ‘land’ throughout
the segment). Further research will indicate whether this is a peculiarity of this particularnarrator, or a general strategy in Takivatan Bunun.

4. Conclusion
The two examples above indicate that it is correct, as De Busser (2009:425) asserted, that in
actual text deictic forms that make a distance distinction are primarily involved in theexpression of spatial (or temporal) deixis. There is also no clear correlation between spatial
deictic forms and intra-sentential topicality: (1) deictics occur on both topical and non-topicalarguments, and on predicates and adverbials; and (2) topical arguments do not need to bemarked by deictics.
However, in narrative discourse deictic elements are important tools in the creation of textual
cohesion. Typically, discursive topics (as opposed to clausal topics) are established by fullnominal reference and are then subsequently maintained by a combination of deictic markers
and the ellipsis of topical arguments. The primary function of these deictic markers is in all
instances above still spatial deictic reference.
It is also clear from the examples that there are complex interactions between different deictic
paradigms. How these interactions exactly work will be the subject of future research.

Bibliography
Busser, Rik De. 2009. Towards a Grammar of Takivatan Bunun: Selected Topics. Melbourrne:
Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, La Trobe University PhD.
Busser, Rik De. 2011. Towards an analysis of argument alignment in Takivatan Bunun. Studies in
Language 35(3). 523–555. doi:10.1075/sl.35.3.02deb.
Halliday, M. A. K. & Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. (English Language Series). London:
Longman.
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 1996. Demonstratives in narrative discourse: A taxonomy of universal uses.
In Barbara Fox (ed.), Studies in Anaphora, 203–252. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Hopper, Paul J. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1980. Transitivity in grammar and discourse. Language
56(2). 251–299.
Keenan, Edward Louis. 1976. Remarkable subjects in Malagasy. In Charles N. Li (ed.), Subject andTopic, 247–302. New York: Academic Press.
Schachter, Paul. 1976. The subject in Philippine language: Topic, actor, actor-topic, or none of theabove. In Charles N. Li (ed.), Subject and Topic, 491–518. New York: Academic Press.
Zeitoun, Elizabeth. 2000. ѲၭᇟୖԵᇟ‫ݤ‬. ( 5). Taipei: YLib / ᇻࢬ.

141

The definite marker in Balinese
Asako Shiohara (ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
Ketut Artawa (Udayana University)

1 Introduction
The presence of the definite suffix -é (-né after vowel) is a distinctive feature that Balinese
exhibits among the languages in the Western Malayo-Polynesian languages spoken in Indonesia.
Most of the languages do not have a special marker for indicating definiteness, while somelanguages, such as colloquial Malay and Javanese, employs the third person genitive suffix(-nya in Malay, -(n)é in Javanese) as a definite marker, as a result of semantic extension.
Sentence (1) is an example of colloquial Malay. The third person genitive form nya in The NP
garam-nya ‘salt-3GEN’ may be interpreted as some third person that can be identified by the
speaker and the hearer or the definite marker, indicating the salt is identifiable from thelinguistic or non-linguistic context, for example, being present at the place of utterance.

(1)

ambilkan garam-nya
takesalt-3GEN“Take his salt.” or “Take the salt (e.g. on the table).”Sentence (2) and (3) are Balinese examples corresponding to example (1) above. In sentence (2)below, the NP with -é refers to the entity that is linguistically or non-linguistically identifiable.
Unlike Malay and Javanese, the form is distinguished from the third person genitive suffix -né,which occurs in example (3).

(2) jemakang
takesalt-É

uyah-é!
‘Take the salt (e.g., on the table).’(3) jemakang

uyah-né!

takesalt-3GEN‘Take his/ her/ its/ their salt.’

The suffix -é may occur when the head noun is modified by other constituent that shows thereferent is definite, such as a demonstrative, the first and second person pronoun, or a relative

142 The definite marker in Balineseclause.
(3) anak-é ento ‘that person’ (a demonstrative modifier)(4) pianak tiang-é (a pronominal modifier)(5) jelema-n-é
person-INS-É

anémalingdompetREL

steal

wallet‘The man who stole a wallet’ (relative clause)

The only exception is when the head noun is attached by the third person pronominal suffix –né
of low register, with which the suffix -é cannot co-occur.
*(6) *pianak-né-n-é
Balinese has several other third person pronoun distinguished according to the social status of
the hearer or the referent. (See Arka (2005: 174)) The other three third person forms are realized
as an independent pronoun, which occurs with the suffix -é.
(7) pianak ipun-é(8) oka-n-ida-n-éThis study aims to describe the semantic conditions in which the suffix -é occurs. Before
looking in to the point, the morpho-syntactic property of the suffix –é will be briefly seen within section 2. In section 3, we will give an attempt to describe semantic range that the suffix -édenotes by the elicited data. In section 4, we will examine the actual occurrence in narrativetext.

2 Morphophonological and morpho-syntactic property of -é
Balinese has a morphophonological rule that a sound n is inserted between a vowel final stem
and a vowel initial suffix (e.g., beli-n-ang (Íbeli ‘buy’+ -ang (applicative suffix)). The suffix –é also follow this rule, as shown in jelema-n-é (jelema ‘person’+the suffix –é, buku-n-é ‘book’ +the surrix –é).

The suffix -é is normally attached to the head noun.
(9) anak-é luh ‘the woman’ (an adjective modifier)(10) anak-é ento ‘that woman’ (a demonstrative modifier)(11)

marga-n-é diBali

Asako Shiohara & Ketut Artawa 143(12)road-ins-é in

Bali‘The roads in Bali’ (a PP modifier)jelema-n-é ané

malingdompetperson-ins-é

rel

steal

wallet‘The man who stole a wallet’ (relative clause)

The only exception is an NP in which the head noun is modified by a noun; in this structure, thesuffix -é is attached to the modified noun, as in montor jepang-é ‘the Japanese car’, sebun
kedis-é ‘the bird’s nest’; a personal pronoun exhibits features similar to a noun in thisenvironment, as seen in pianak tiang-é ‘my child (child 1SG-É)’, while a demonstrative pronoun
does not, as seen in anak-é ento ‘that woman’.

3 Semantic range the suffix -é covers
Like all the other grammatical categories, the semantic range ‘definite marker’ varies
cross-linguistically. To see the semantic features that ‘definite markers’ in many languages share,
we will start with introducing the use of the English definite article the, based on the discussionof Lyons (1999: 1-15) and Quirk et al. (1985: 265-268). Roughly speaking the definite article
indicates that the referent of the NP is identifiable to the addressee linguistically or
non-linguistically. Three main three categories of the use are shown below.

I. Situational use
The reference of the NP is identified by the extralinguistic situation that the speaker and thehearer share in examples (13)-(16).

(13) Just give the shelf a quick wipe will you, before I put this vase on it.

In example (13) the referent of the shelf is identifiable from the physical situation in which the
speaker and hearer are located.

(14) I hear the prime minister behaved outrageously again today.

In (14) the relevant situation is wider; it is most plausibly a country in which the speaker andhearer are located, and the referent of the prime minister is identifiable as the prime minister of144 The definite marker in Balinese

the country.

(15) The moon was very bright last night.
(16) The president of Ghana is visiting tomorrow.

Example (15) and (16) belong to the extreme type of situational use; the situation is the wholeworld here, in which ‘the larger situation is scarcely distinguishable from general knowledge’(Quirk et al. 1985: 266). In (15) and (16), the referent of the moon and the president of Ghana is
identifiable from the wider situation of the whole world, or general knowledge.

II. Anaphoric use
The referent of the NP with the definite article is identifiable from the linguistic information
given earlier in the discourse.

(17) An elegant, dark-haired woman, a well dressed man with dark glasses, and two children
entered the compartment. I immediately recognized the woman. The children also lookedvaguely familiar.

III. Associative use
This use can be thought of as a combination of the anaphoric and general knowledge types. The
referent of the driver in (18) is identifiable because it can be associable from the referent of acar, which is mentioned in the previous sentence.
(18) I had to get a taxi from the station. On the way the driver told me there was a bus strike.
(19) They’ve just got in from New York. The plane was five hours late.

I made an elicitation research as to how these situations expressed in (13)-(19) are expressed in
Balinese. Balinese speakers judged the suffix -é covers all the semantic types in the list above,
except (16) in the situational use. Balinese sentences corresponding (13)-(19) above will beshown below.

Situational Use
Example (20)-(23) are examples of situational use, which roughly corresponds to the English
example (13)-(16). In (20)-(22) the Balinese NP corresponding to the English definite NP

Asako Shiohara & Ketut Artawa 145

occurs with the suffix –é, while in (23) it is not.

(20)

Sap-sapin gen

rak-é

bedik,

wipe

just

shelf-Éa.little

setonden tiangngejang

pas-é

ené

duur-nébeforeao.putvase

thisabove-3GEN

1sg“Just give the shelf a quick wipe will you, before I put this vase on it.”

(21)

Icang

ningehbuin

presiden-é

I

hear

again

president-É

melaksana

sing

lung

jani

behave

not

good

today

“I heard the president behaves impolitely again today.”(22)

Bulan-é

galangmagladaranibipetengmoon-Ébrightvery

yesterday night“The moon was very bright last night.”(23)

Presiden Ghana-䃥 lakar

teka

mani

president Ghana

cometomorrow

will“The president of Ghana is visiting tomorrow”.

Anaphoric use
Examples (24) is an example of anaphoric use, which corresponds to example (16).
(24)

Anak

luh

jegeng

lan

anak

cenik

ajak

dadua

personwoman

elegant

andperson

small

with

two

luh

ento.

macelep ke kamar-é.
enter

to

room- know

Prajaniicing

nawanganak-e146 The definite marker in Balinese

immediately 1sg

know

person-É woman

that

Anak-é

cenik

ento

masi

cang

mase

nawang.

person-É

small

that

still

I

vaguelyknow“An elegant woman and two children entered the room. I immediately recognized the woman.
The children also looked vaguely familiar”.
Associative Use
Examples (25) and (26) are examples of associative use.
(25)

Icang

musti

numpang taksi

uli

penambangan.

1sg

need

ride

taxi

from

stationnyambatada

kecelakaan tunianexist

accident

Di jalan sopir-éat waydrive-E tellsuba.

a while ago already“I had to get a taxi from the station. On the way the driver told me there was an accident a few
hours ago”.

(26)

Ia ajaktetelu

mara

san

teka

uli

New York.

3 with

three

newly

just

come

from

New York

Kapal-é lambat limang jam
plane-

late

five

hour

“The three people have just got in from New York. The plane was five hours late”.

From what we have seen so far, we could say that the NP marked with suffix -é in Balinese
covers the semantic range that is quite similar to that of English definite NP, except the case inwhich the referent is clearly unfamiliar between the speaker and the hearer, as in (23).
Another difference between definite markers in Balinese and English is caused by the presenceof the third person genitive suffix -né in Balinese, which is a counterpart of -nya in Malay. Thispronominal suffix occurs instead of -é when the referent can be related to an already mentioned
entity, and is therefore definite. For instance, the pronominal suffix -né cannot be replaced by
the definite suffix -é in example (27).

Asako Shiohara & Ketut Artawa 147(27) Umah

icang-é

house 1SG-É

resem.

Kakus-né (*-é)

shabby. toilet-3GENuwug,raab-né (*-é)

broken, roof-3GENbolonghave a hole

‘My house is shabby. The (lit. its) toilet is broken and the (lit. its) roof has a hole.’
4. Condition in which the suffix -é occurs in narrative text
This study aims to describe the semantic conditions in which the suffix -é occurs. It plays
almost the same with the English definite article, in that it indicates that the referent is
identifiable from the addressee.

4.1 Data
We examined sentences included in short stories that appear in Balinese school textbooks forelementary school students in order to examine how the sufix -é actually occurs in discourse.
Table 4 shows the list of the stories examined.
Balinese has been taught for a long time in Bali province at least 50 years ago. I employed thethree types of textbook below as a source.

Series Title

published year

Sari

1972

Titi Basa Bali

1981

Kusmasari

1995

148 The definite marker in Balinese

token/ type1

Occurrence of -é

Title

genre

Series title

Masekolah ‘going to

essay

Sari

essay

Sari

folktaleSarihistory

Sari

essay

Sari

historySarifolktale

Sari

essay

Titi Basaschool’207/123

6

2

Nyakan ‘cooking rice’

232/ 126

18

3

Katak teken sampi ‘thefrogs and cow’4

255/134

9

Gajah Mada (A prime
minister of the Majapahit
Empire)5

146/899Galungan (one ofBalinese holidays ofcelebration)

6

199/113

19

Puputan Margarana (Abattle between Indonesia
and Holland)

7317/151

31

Kakap Emas (the golden
axe, or a honest woodcutter)8

224/117

Bali
essay

336/16124

14

Nguwangun Bale Banjar

Titi Basa
Bali

essay

Blabar (flood)

267/1541118

Lampu Kuning (theyellow light)

1040

Koperasi Sekolah(School Co-op)

9685/293

Titi Basa
Bali

essay

Kusmasarifolktale

Kusmasari(Building a meeting

12

place of the village)

58/36

Bulan Kuning (Yellow

209/107

moon, a folktale)

5

8

Asako Shiohara & Ketut Artawa 149

The number of the total words included are 3038. The suffix -é occurs in 201 NPs. We can see
the following points as to the formal property of the –é marked NP.
(1) -é always occur when an NP includes other modifying constituents that makes the referent
identifiable, such as personal pronoun except the third person pronoun -né, a proper noun, ademonstrative in an NP. (59 examples)(2) -é often occur when NP includes a relative clause 1. (17 examples)(3) -é always occur when the head NP denotes a positional relation of a entity, irrespective ofwhether the entity is linguistically or non-linguistically indefinable or not. (13 examples)e.g.

duur batu lémpéh-é ‘on the step stone’
selangan punyan jagung-é ‘between the corn tree’(4) Proper nouns exhibit various behavior as to the co-occurrence with -é.
(i) Personal names and kin terms are not marked by –é, but marked by the article I, which
precedes a male personal name (e.g. I Wayan ‘Mr. Wayan’), kin term (e.g. I Mémé ‘Mother’)and Ni, which precedes a female (e.g. Ni Sari ‘Ms.Sari’).
(ii) Some compound nouns indicating a place name do not occur with the suffix -é, while somedo. It depends on the head noun.
(a) Place names occurring without the suffix -é;Désa Marga ‘the Marga village’
Karajaan Majapait ‘the Majapahit Kingdome’(b) Place names occurring with the suffix -é;tukad Gangga-n-é ‘the Ganges River’kota Singaraja-n-é ‘Singaraja City’

As for the -é marked NPs that do not have the formal features shown above, most of the -é1

A relative clause does not necessarily compatible with the suffix -é, if the referent of the whole NP is not identifiablefrom the preceding discourse.
(27) …lantas masuah tur
nganggo baju
anékedas.
clean
then
comb
and
use
clothes REL“…, then combs and puts on clean clothes”(28) Désa-desa
villages
Banjar Bali,
Village Bali

ané
REL

palingmost

Kampung Anyar,
villageAnyarsangetastrongly

kena
affectedblabar,flood

luire:
that isKampung Kajanan…
village Kajanan…

“Villages that are most affected by the flood is; Banjar Bali, Kampung Anyar, Kampung Kajanan…”.

150 The definite marker in Balinese

marked NP can be interpreted as in one of the four usages listed in section 2. Definition of someusage is vague to some extent, and it is not necessarily easy to classifying each occurrence into
one usage category.

anaphoric use

54

associative use

18

situational use

50

We will first focus on only ‘anaphoric’ use of the suffix -é, as to which relatively objectiveclassification is possible by tracing referents expressed in the text, and then look for otherusages.

4.2 Anaphoric use of the suffix –éConsider example (28).
(28)(a)

(b)

(c)

Ni

Sari1

jumah

nulungin magarapan,

Ms.

Sari

at.home

AO.help house.works

nimba

yéh,

ngumbah piring

tekén

nyakan.

ao.takewater

ao.washdishandcook.rice

Di

paon

ia

nungguhangpangedangan 1

atkitchen

3

AO.takecooking.pot

isinin-ayéh2

atenga,tekepin-a

aji kekeb3,

put.in-3ACT

water

half

cover-3ACTwith lid,

tumulingendihang

api.

then

AO.make

fire

Suba

kéto

lantasianyemakbaas4

di pulu-n-é5

afterlike.thatthen

3

ao.takerice

at rice.chest-É

Asako Shiohara & Ketut Artawa 151

(d)

(e)

petangkobokan, ingsah-awadahin-a

pané.

four

cup

put-3ACT

bowl

wash-3ACTDi subané kedas

lantasemeh-a.

after

clean

then

leave-3ACT

Suba

panes

yéh-é2dipangedangan-é 1

after

hot

water-eatcooking.pot-É

baas-é 4

wadahin-a

kuskusan6

rice- É

put-3ACT

steamerlantasjang-aduur

pangedangan-é 1

thenput-3ACToncooking.pot-É

tur

tepukin-aaji

kekeb3.

andput-3ACT

with

lid

(a) Sari is at home and to help (parents) with the house works, drawing water, washing thedishes, and cooking rice.”(b) In the kitchen, she took a cooking pot, puts water a half, covers it with a lid, and then makes
fire.”(c) After that, she takes four cup of rice in the rice chest, wash it, and put it in ‘pane’.”(d) After that, she leaves the rice as it is.
(e) After the water in the pot becomes hot, she put the rice in the steamer, and put it on thecooking pot, and covers it with a lid.

Here we can see rough correspondence between previously mentioned referents and the NP
marked with the suffix -é; among five NPs occurring with the suffix -é, four refer previously
mentioned referent. We can, however, see the following disagreement between a ‘previously
mentioned referent’ and -é marked NP.
(i) Ni Sari ‘Sari’, the referent playing an actor throughout the example is never expressed by -émarked NP; it is expressed by either an independent pronoun or a pronominal clitic, or left

152 The definite marker in Balinese

unexpressed. This point can be explained by the Balinese referent marking system that exhibitsa strong tendency in which so-called “active” referent can not be expressed by a lexical NP. This
point will be dealt with in 4.2.1.
(ii) Not all the referents previously mentioned are expressed by –é marked NP. For example,
kekeb ‘a lid’ is expressed by a bare noun when it is mentioned for the second time.

4.3‘Active’ NP

Balinese exhibits strong tendency that a referent that is mentioned in the immediately precedingclause, and therefore “active” (Lambrecht 1999: 94) is not expressed by a lexical NP, but
expressed by a pronoun or left unexpressed (zero anaphora, hereafter), which are not compatible
with the suffix –é. We examined only one short articles (article number 2), and counted theoccurrence of zero anaphora, pronominal suffix –a, independent pronoun ia, and NP with orwithout the suffix –é there. The result is shown in table 1.

Table 1 occurrence count of zero anaphora, pronominal suffix –a, independent pronoun ia, andNP with or without the suffix –é.
This table shows the points (i) and (ii) below on ‘active NP’.
(i) The referent that is already mentioned in the same sentence normally occur as zero-anaphora,
or expressed by the pronominal suffix –a (-a 3ACT) in all the examples.
(ii) The referent mentioned in the immediately preceding sentence is mostly expressed by theAsako Shiohara & Ketut Artawa 153

pronominal suffix (-a 3ACT) or the independent pronoun (ia ‘3’).

et’s return to the example (28) above to examine the point (i) and (ii). The example consists offive sentences, which tells how a girl called Sari cooks rice. In (a), the actor Sari is introduced in
the form of personal name with the marker Ni for the first time, and then expressed by zero
anaphora. In (b)-(e), the same referent is expressed by (ii) the pronominal suffix –a or (iii) the
independent pronoun ia when it occurs for the first time in a sentence, and then expressed by the(i) zero anaphora or (ii) the pronominal suffix –a in the same sentence.

(29))=(28)(a)

ĳ1

Ni

Sari1

jumah

nulungin magarapan,

Ms.

Sari

at.home

AO.help house.works

nimba yéh,ĳ1

AO.graw water(b)

AO.wash.dish

and

ĳ1

nyakan.
AO.cook.rice

paon

ia1

nungguhangpangedangan2

atkitchen

3

AO.takecooking.pot

yéh

atenga,ȭ2 tekepin-a1

aji kekeb,

water

half

ȭ2 cover-3ACT 1

with lid,

tumuliȭ1 ngendihang

api.

then

AO.makefire

put.in-3ACT

(d)

tekén

Di

ȭ2 isinin-a1(c)ngumbah piring

Suba

kéto

lantasia1nyemakbaas

di pulu-n-é

afterlike.thatthen

3

ao.takerice

at rice.chest-É

petangkobokan, ingsah-a1

wadahin-a1

pané.

four

cup

wash-3ACT

put-3ACT?

kedas

lantasemeh-a1 .

clean

then

Di subané ȭ
afterleave-3ACT

154 The definite marker in Balinese

(e)

Suba

panes

yéh-é

di

pangedangan-é,

after

hot

water-eatcooking.pot-É

baas-é

wadahin-a1

kuskusanrice- É

put-3ACT

steamerlantasjang-a1duur

pangedangan-é,

thenput-3ACToncooking.pot-É

tur

tepukin-a1 aji

kekeb.

andput-3ACT

with

lid

(f) Sari is at home and to help (parents) with the house works, drawing water, washing thedishes, and cooking rice.”(g) In the kitchen, she took a cooking pot, puts water a half, covers it with a lid, and then makes
fire.”(h) After that, she takes four cup of rice in the rice chest, wash it, and put it in ‘pane’.”(i) After that, she leaves the rice as it is.
(j) After the water in the pot becomes hot, she put the rice in the steamer, and put it on thecooking pot, and covers it with a lid.

4.4 Associative use(30)

Sekolah-sekolah

dasar-é

di Bali,school-school

elementary-E

in Baliliunanjani

suba

ngelahkoperasi Sekolah.

many

now

alreadyAV.haveco-op

schoolKoperasi Sekolah-é ento

ka=laksanain

co-op

shool- E

pass=operatebaanmurid-murid-é

muah

guru-guru-n-é.

bystudents-E

andteacher-INS-E

that

Asako Shiohara & Ketut Artawa 155“As for the elementary schools in Bali, many of them already have the school co-op.
The School co-op is operated by the students and teachers.”

(31)

Dugas

dina

Buda

Pon

uku Sungsang,

time

day

Buda

Pon

calendar Sungsang

tanggal7

Januari

1981,

day

7

January

1981

di Buléléng

ada

blabargedé.

in Buleleng

exist

flood

big

Kota Singaraja-n-é

ancab-atekényéh-é.

city

flood-3actbywater-E

Singaraja-INS-E“On the day of Buda Pon, Sungsang, 7 January 1981, there was a big flood in
Buleleng, and the Singaraja city was flooded by the water”

4.5 Situational use and idiosyncratic of individual lexical word
The speaker and the addressee may be expressed by a lexical noun in Balinese, and they aremarked with the suffix –é.
(32)

“Nah

cerik-cerik-é

ajak makejang,wellchildren-E

all

nyen

bisa

nyautinpatakonwhen

can

av.answer

question father-ebapak-É ene ?
this“Well, all of you (lit. the children), who can answer this question of mine (lit.father)?

Balinese cultural or social things which are familiar to them are often expressed by -é marked
NP in its first mention, because the text dealt with in this research are targeted to Balinesechildren. This type of –é marked NP often occurs in the begeninng of the text or the paragraph,and announces the setting.

156 The definite marker in Balinese(33)

Anak-é

di

Bali

di

nuju

Galungan-é

people-e in

Bali

on

time

Galungan-e

makajang padangaturan bantendisanngah,

all

offer

at

family.temple

alloffering“At Galungan the people in Bali all offer the offerings to the family temples…”

(34)

Jani

margan-é diBalingancan ramépesan.

now

road-eBalitransport lively

very.muchin“Now, the traffic is very busy in roads at Bali”

Some lexical nouns marked with -é in its first mention in the text. Many of them express thenatural things and some of them express a specific place in the house.
natah ‘ground’
tegal ‘field’surya ‘sun’
punuk-pundukan ‘dike (between rice fields)’
bét-bét ‘bush’langit ‘sky’
tukad ‘river’bulan ‘moon’
angin aris ‘a gentle breeze’
pulu ‘rice keeper’
lebuh ‘gate of the house’

Most of them are familiar referents among the authors and the expected readers, and therefore
we could consider that the suffix –é occurs here because the referents are situationallyidentifiable. But we should note that the occurrence seems to be determined by the lexical
property that each individual word has.

Let’s return to example (28), which is dealt with in 4.2 above. Here, the lexical noun pulu ‘rice
keeper’ is marked with -é, while the noun paon ‘kitchen’ is not marked, although both of theAsako Shiohara & Ketut Artawa 157

word indicate a specific place in the house.
(35)(=(29)(a)

(b)

(c)

Ni

Sari1

jumah

nulungin magarapan,

Ms.

Sari

at.home

AO.help house.works

nimba

yéh,

ngumbah piring

tekén

nyakan.

ao.takewater

ao.washandcook.riceDi

paon-ȭ ia

nungguhangpangedanganatkitchen

3

AO.takecooking.pot

isinin-ayéh

atenga,tekepin-a

aji kekeb,

put.in-3ACT

water

half

cover-3ACTwith lid,dishtumulingendihang

api.

then

AO.make

fire

Suba

kéto

lantasianyemakbaas

di pulu-n-é

afterlike.thatthen

3

ao.takerice

at rice.chest-É

petangkobokan, ingsah-awadahin-a

pané.

four

cup

put-3ACT

bowl

wash-3ACT

Also consider the following example. This is a sentence occurs in the same text nyakan‘cooking rice’ after seven sentence’s interval after example (29) above. In this sentence, theaction of Sari putting a offering to several places in the house is expressed. Some places are
expressed by a –é marked noun, while other are not. We cannot explain the difference from thesemantic feature that each word has.

(36)

Di

suba-n-é lebeng

lantas

at

after

ready

then

Ni Sarinanding

banten

nasi

jotan

158 The definite marker in Balinese

Ni Sari

AV.makelantasmabanten di

tugu,

then

offer

templedi sanggah,offering

in

rice

?

di natah-é, di sémér, di paon,

in family.temple in yard-E

tekén

di lebuh-é.

andin gate.of.the.housein welldi pulu-n-é

in kitchen in place for keeping rice

“When everything is cooked, Sari prepare rice offering then place the offering at tugu 2, thefamily temple, in the yard, in the well, in the kichen, the pulu (‘place’ for keeping rice ) till at
the from gate of the house”.

5. Conclusion
In this paper we have seen that the semantic onditions in which the suffix -é occurs. From theelicited examples, we could see that the suffix -é Balinese exhibits almost the same semantic
range as English definite article does, in that it indicates that the referent of the NP is
linguistically or non-linguistically identifiable. From the Balinese translation from the English
examples in which the definite article occurs, we can see that the Balinese suffix –é exhibits thethree main use of English definite article, that is, the situational use, the anaphoric use, and theassociative use. Only the difference is that the –é suffixed NP in Balinese does not refer to areferent that is clearly unfamiliar to the addressee, even though the referent can be identifiablefrom the larger situation or general knowledge.
From the written data obtained from the elementary school textbook, we could see that theoccurrence or absence of the suffix -é is determined by the feature that the individual lexicalnoun has.

2

special temple buiding in the house for the spirit guarding the houseAsako Shiohara & Ketut Artawa 159

References
Arka, I Wayan 2005. Speech Levels, Social Predicates and Pragmatic Structure in Balinese: A Lexical
Approach. Pragmatics 15:2/3. pp. 169-203.
Lyons, Christoper: 2000. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge
Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, Jan Svartvik, 1985. Comprehensive Grammar of
the English Language. London: Longman.

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162 From Borneo to Bantu

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Alexander Adelaar 163









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168 From Borneo to Bantu


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Alexander Adelaar 169*2$'*/$1 MA$)6.+- (*)".0#$.+-/ . ' /$*)*!)/0')"0" .B /$.)*/ 2*-/#4/#/) $/# -''&$')"0" .)*-''')"0" .$)*) *-*) #1 - !' 3*!$/?*-$)./) <$/$.($..$)"$)2)$I&$')"0" J)#*)I')"0" $)*) JI#  -"QOOR>PTWJ? )*/# -
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(0./ 0 /*$!!0.$*)/#-*0"#*)//-/# -/#)/*$)# -$/) !-*(- (*/ +-*/*A./" ?# 4 '$ 1 /#/MA$)62.*-$"$)''4*--*2 $)/*2#$'$
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Alexander Adelaar 175/*/# . //' ( )/*!".-I)# ) (*./'$& '4$)*./'./!-$J<
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# *0-- ) *!MA$)6- ($).)0)- .*'1 +-*' ($))/0'$)"0$./$
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*2 1 -<!*-# /**( //#  )*!)*0)+#-. $.-/# -*0)/ -A$)/0$/$1 $))/0')"0" .<2#$#- *1 -2# '($)"'4# A$)$/$'?
'/#*0"#'".4'&.'*/$1 .0!!$3..0#<$/* .#1 R-+ -.*)" )$/$1 .0!!$3A)$I[ -'4'".4MA)I$J]<MA7]J2#$#(/# .MA$)6/*.$")$!$)/ 3/ )/I.4)#-*)$''4.2 ''.$#-*)$''4J?#  3/ ) 0. *!/#$..0!!$3$)'".4+-*1$ .' -*)/ 3/$)2#$#$/*0'#1  )- A$)/ -+- / .'*/$1 .0!!$34 Q.+ & -.$)')"0" *)//.$/0/$*)?
./*/# #$./*-$'*)$/$*).!*-) )*0)/ - /2 )0./-*) .$)
))/0.+ & -.*)/# ./!-$)($)')</#  1$ ) *!'4)
'".4'*)2*-.$)2#$'$' 1 .)**0//#/*)///**&+' ?0-/# -(*- <-  )/(0'/$$.$+'$)-4- . -#$)./!-$)".-#.+-*1$ )$)- .$)"'4' -*)/ 3/!*-.0#*)//? /$. .. )/$'/*&)*2' " /#$.$)*/#!-$))*0/#./.$)./0$ .?
3+'$)$)"MA$)6.)0'/$(/ '4)*)A)/0*--*2$)"($"#/# '+/*.*'1 .*( -0$'+-*' (.$)/# '..$!$/$*)*! ./ -)).*0/# -))/0')"0" .?-*1$ /#//#$..0!!$32.*-$"$)''4'*)(*-+# ( )/#/0-. ) $)) 0.#IPXXRJ- *-- /$)/# $-.. ..( )//#/2)$*) 
$.#- $/<$/($"#//0-)*0//* -$/$'!*-/#  ./'$.#( )/*!&$.'*2 -A*- -" ) /$.0"-*0+?*)1 -. '4<$/. '$($)/$*)!-*(/# $)1 )/*-4*!
$)# -$/ (*-+# ( .$)/# . *!')"0" .)')"0" .($"#/# '+/*
./'$.#!!$'$/$*).(*)"/# . ')"0" ./#/- " )0$) '4" ) /$?
0-/# -(*- </-$)")/0MA$)6/* -'4'".4MA)I$J]*-MA7]* .$)
!/)*/$.,0'$!4' 03D.+-*+*.$/$*)/#/$/ -$1 !-*(M$)6IC'$1 -DJ$)$/.
)*/$*)'( )$)"./#  )/- *!*) D.. ). .)! '$)".?#  +/) *!-'4'".4MA)I$J]*-MA7]$)/*2#$'$2.*) $1'4!$'$// 4/# .$($'-$/4$)!*-()( )$)"/#/ 3$./. /2 )/#$..0!!$3)&$M$)6?PX

PX )$)/''4<$)'".4/# '$1 -$.'.*/#  )/- *!/# . ). .)! '$)".<)$/..$")$!$ -$.'.*0. $)'*/$1 1 -$'*)./-0/$*)>+$C'$1 -D$)*($)/$*)2$/#/# '*/$1 +- +*.$/$*) A4$ '.7+$C$).$ D?176 From Borneo to Bantu

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179

Definiteness and specificity in Abui
František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada1

1. Introduction
This paper discusses referential properties of articles in Abui. Abui deictic system(from which the articles were grammaticalised) makes a three-way contrast andalternates the viewpoint between the speaker and the addressee/hearer.2 Discussionsof definiteness revolve around the role of familiarity, and its status as a defining
feature for definiteness and its relationship to uniqueness or identifiability (Gundel etal. 1993; Lyons 1999; Roehrs 2009, and many others).
Abui is a language with a deictic contrast in the definite articles (cf. Lyons 1999:5556). The deictic contrast indicates whether the referent is discourse-immediate or not.
Additional pragmatic functions, not unlike those in Bella Coola (Newman 1968;
Davis and Saunders 1975) are also available, mapping the location of the referent inother dimensions, primarily in time and stance.
Systems with hearer-oriented articles are cross-linguistically rare but indicate thatdefiniteness can be combined with other categories (Dryer 2014:241). Abui offerssome insights about how the category of ‘familiarity’ may be structured. While

1

Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Email: fkratochvil@ntu.edu.sg; BE0001DA@e.ntu.edu.sg. Delpada is a native speaker of Abui,
Kratochvíl has worked on Abui since 2003. The paper has benefited from the comments from anddiscussions with Boban Arsenijevi, Holger Diessel, Asako Shiohara, and Joanna Sio. We gratefully
acknowledge the hospitality of the Abui community, as well as research support from the following
institutions and funding agencies (in alphabetical order): Nanyang Technological University(Singapore), Singapore Ministry of Education (Tier 2 Grant MOE2013-T2-1-016), the Linguistic
Dynamics Science Project at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa,
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (funded by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology), and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities andSocial Sciences (NIAS, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences). The data presented in thispaper comes from the Abui corpus (roughly 200,000 words) compiled by the authors. Glosses follow
the Leipzig Glossing Conventions with the following additions: AD addressee-perspective, AGT
agentive pronoun, SPC specific determiner.
2

Languages with four or more deictic terms are rare, but if they occur, they typically involve the hearer

as one of the points of reference (Diessel 2014:123).

180 Definiteness and specificity in Abui

Gundel et al. (1993) rank familiarity above the plain definiteness in their Givenness
Hierarchy, in Abui, familiarity seems to run in parallel to definiteness and possibly
extends to specificity. Another noteworthy property of the Abui system is the threeway distinction in indefinites, where specificity is marked and allows the viewpoint
alternation as well.
Before presenting the Abui data, we first address the terminology here, in light of therecent discussion about the distinction between articles and demonstratives (Davis etal. 2014; Dryer 2014). We then present the most important points about definitenessand specificity debated in the literature. Section 1.2 places the Abui system in thecontext of the Timor-Alor-Pantar family, showing that complex systems are the norm
for this family. Section 2 describes the referential properties of Abui NPs in various
constructions discussed in connection to definiteness in the literature. We base our
discussion on naturally occurring sentences, but systematically manipulate the articles
to obtain full paradigms and to show the basic contrasts. The behavior of Abui articles
in natural discourse is not discussed here, but has been discussed briefly in Kratochvíl(2015) and will be elaborated on in a separate paper.

1.1. Terminology and tests
The line between demonstratives and articles is blurred and subject of vivid
discussion lately (Dryer 2013a-b, 2014; Davis et al. 2014). Taking these two positions
as representative of the range of views, Table 1 highlights the overlaps anddifferences. It should be noted that the defining criteria for articles in Dryer’s (2013ab, 2014) are looser than those listed in Davis et al. (2014).

František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 181

FEATURE

Dryer 2013a-b, 2014

Davis et al. 2014

MORPHOLOGY

free or bound formbound form

SYNTAX

obligatory or optional

obligatory

FAMILIARITY

familiarfamiliar

UNIQUENESS

uniqueuniqueDEMONSTRATIVES

included

excluded

CONTRASTS

anaphoric vs. shared knowledge

n.a.

SEMANTIC TESTS

n.a.

maximality(plurals and mass)

Table 1. Defining criteria for definite articles

If the definition by Davis et al. (2014) were followed here, the Abui forms could not
be considered articles, because they are not obligatory. It will be shown below, thatthe use of Abui articles interacts with case marking and agreement, both of which aresensitive to referential properties of the marked arguments.
The broader definition used by Dryer (2013a, b; 2014) accommodates for the situationin many languages where the spatial-deictic forms (accompanied by a pointing
gesture) are also used with nominals in contexts where English would use a definite
article, rather than a demonstrative (Dryer 2013a). The definition of indefinite articles
in Dryer (2013b) is also more flexible; it includes also the numeral ‘one’ marking NPs
to signal indefiniteness (referent not known to the hearer).
Although Dryer’s framework does not explicitly list semantic tests, the typology ofarticles is constructed with reference to both individual languages as well as literature
dealing with definiteness and specificity. We therefore examine the behavior of theAbui articles using the known tests (Partee 1972; Enç 1991; Gundel et al. 1993;
Matthewson 1998; Lyons 1999; Von Heusinger 2002; Abbot 2004; Levinson 2004;
Roehrs 2009, and others).
Definiteness is traditionally defined with reference to uniqueness and familiarity(Lyons 1999; Abbot 2004, and others). Noun phrases marked as definite (in English
with the) denote entities known to both speaker and hearer (Lyons 1999:3). In earlier
accounts of definiteness, such entities would be described as familiar, but the current
consensus seems to be to anchor definiteness in a more general notion ofidentifiability (Lyons 1999:5). Definite noun phrases denote entities, which the hearer

182 Definiteness and specificity in Abuican unambiguously identify. Since some definite noun phrases can refer to entities
that are not identifiable, the notion of uniqueness has been introduced.
The notion of uniqueness has seen a similar revision. Initially, uniqueness wasunderstood as the existence of one and only one entity matching a definite description(Abbot 2004:125). However, since Hawkins (1978), uniqueness has been replacedwith inclusiveness – reference to the totality of entities or matter to which thedescriptive content of the NP applies (Lyons 1999:11; Abbot 2004:126).
Certain syntactic environments have been shown to be sensitive to definiteness or
specificity. We will discuss some of those environments here and some whenpresenting the relevant Abui data. Lyons (1999:16-17) discusses possessives,
partitives, superlatives and existentials; in these constructions definite NPs pattern inthe same way as proper names, possessed NPs, pronouns and NPs with universal
quantifiers.
Definiteness is contrasted with indefiniteness and in some accounts also withspecificity (Enç 1991, von Heusinger 2002). There are different views of thecategorical status of specificity. Abbot (2004:144) considers specificity to be merely apragmatic effect, while the underlying distinction is one of definiteness andindefiniteness. Specific description is defined as one where the speaker has aparticular individual in mind (Abbott 2004:145). The classical example has tworeadings (from Partee 1972 via Abbott 2004:146).
(1)

John would like to marry a girl his parents don’t approve of.

In the wide-scope reading, John’s parents happen to dislike his girl. In the narrowscope reading, John has picked a girl to offend his parents. The first reading has amore specific reference than the second. The ambiguity remains also when the tense
and modality is manipulated:(2)

John succeeded in marrying a girl his parents don’t approve of.

(3)John married a girl his parents don’t approve of.

We will discuss the Abui equivalents of the above constructions in section 2.7. Von
Heusinger (2002:246) summarizes informal characterizations of specificity in theFrantišek Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 183

literature. The paper highlights speaker’s certainty about the identity of the referent
and the differences in identifiability between definite and specific descriptions (p.
249). Von Heusinger (2002:268) proposes that specific descriptions are referentiallyanchored to another object in the discourse. Further, specific NPs are not dependent
on the matrix predicate and operators such as modal verbs and combine with a certain(Von Heusinger 2002:272). Lyons (1999:59) converges with the above descriptions
and observes that marking of specificity is fairly widespread.

1.2. Demonstratives and articles in the TAP languages
In the Timor-Alor-Pantar family (TAP), the differences in ordering of NP constituentsare minimal (Schapper 2014a:14). Uniformly, the NP final slot is reserved for referent
tracking purposes by words labeled as demonstratives or articles. A prenominal
deictic slot seems to be unique to Abui, and is therefore possibly a recent innovation.
(1) proto-AP NP Template: Gen N Attr Num/Quant Dem
A number of features can be encoded by the Alor-Pantar demonstratives. In terms ofDiessel’s typology of demonstratives, features associated with deixis are the norm,
but features of quality (ontology, animacy, humanness, sex, number, etc.) are absent.
Visibility, knowledge, and viewpoint features embed perspectives of the speaker andhearer (Holton 2014:58; Schapper 2014b:310; and Kratochvíl 2014a:379).
language

DISTANCE

ELEVATIONVISIBILITYKNOWLEDGE

VIEWPOINT

sourceWestern Pantar+ (3-way)

+

+

-

-

Holton 2014:57-59

Teiwa+ (2-way)

-

-

-

-

Klamer 2010:130-138

Kaera+ (2-way)

?

?

?

?

Klamer 2014:117

Blagar+ (2-way)

+

+

-

+

Steinhauer 2014:181

Adang+ (2-way)

+

-

-

-

Robinson and Haan
2014:256-257

Abui+ (3-way)

+

-

-

+

Kratochvíl 2011

Klon

+ (2-way)

+

?

?

?

Baird 2008:58-61

Kamang+ (2-way)

-

-

+

-

Schapper 2014b:310

Sawila+ (2-way)

-

+

-

-

Kratochvíl 2014a:376-377

Wersing+ (2-way)

-

-

-

-

Schapper and Hendery
2014:469-470

Table 2. Features encoded by deictic words in Alor-Pantar languages

184 Definiteness and specificity in Abui

Western Pantar, Kamang, and Wersing have developed articles, transparently derived
from demonstratives, typically tracking the definite-indefinite distinction. Definite
and specific indefinite articles are known to originate in demonstratives (Diessel
1999:128; Heine and Kuteva 2002:109-111). 3 During the grammaticalisation, thegeneralization of meaning from spatial to discourse deixis often goes together withphonological reduction of the source form. The linear order however is universallypreserved (Moravscik 2011:81-82). Because of this diachronic change pattern I
conclude that the Abui prenominal spatial demonstratives are an innovation.

2. Referential properties of Abui Noun Phrases
In the context of complex systems of the Timor-Alor-Pantar family outlined above,
the Abui system appears of to be of moderate complexity. This section outlines thereferential properties of Abui Noun Phrases and marking of classic referential
distinctions discussed in the literature, including Givenness Hierarchy (Gundel et al.
1993:275), possessed NPs, partitives, and combinations with Abui case markers(agentive di) and verbal agreement (head-marking).
Abui NP contains two slots that can be filled with deictic words, as shown in (4).
Spatial-deictic forms occur in the prenominal slot (DEICT). Forms in the post-nominal
slot point in discourse and interact with hearer’s knowledge. A single NP may containboth DEICT and ART.4(4)

3

Abui NP Template: DEICT GEN N ATTR

NUM/QUANT ART

The rise of articles in some languages coincided with the disappearance of the case marking, but nodirect causal relation between the two seems to exist (Lyons 1999:324-325). In AP languages, casegenerally not marked on demonstratives, so this is not relevant.
4

The double-marked form is somewhat similar with the English ‘this X here’, except that the Abuiforms in both slots must come from the paradigms given in Tables 3 and 4 respectively, while English
uses the adverbial form here for the spatial deictic function. Abui possesses a separate paradigm ofadverbial demonstrative forms (ma ‘be.PROX’, ta ‘be. PROX.AD’, la ‘be.MD’, fa ‘be.MD.AD’, and ya‘be.DST’) which cannot occur in the DEICT slot of the NP.

František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 185

A three-way distinction is made (proximal, medial, distal) with an additional
dimension of viewpoint alternating between speaker and addressee (Kratochvíl
2007:162-163; Kratochvíl 2011:763-766; Dryer 2014:241). Elevation applies only tomedial and distal forms.

2.1. Spatial deixis
The prenominal slot encodes spatial location of referents (Kratochvíl 2007:163). The
inventory of deictic words that can occur in the prenominal position can be seen in
Table 3. These forms combine with pointing gestures accomplished with fingers,
hands, lips, eyebrows or chin (Levinson 1983:65-68; 2004:108). The shaded cells
contain forms, which also occur in the phrase-final slot and will be discussed in 2.2.5

VIEWPOINT (V)ELEVATIONDISTANCE

SPEAKERADDRESSEEPROXIMAL

do (PRX)to (PRX.AD)**MEDIALo, lo (MD)yo (MD.AD)

ò (MD.L)ó (MD.H)wò (DST.L)

wó (DST.H)DISTALoro (DST)

LOW

HIGH

Table 3: Abui prenominal deictic words

2.2. Articles
Abui articles are NP-final enclitics (in the current orthography, only the medial o iswritten together with the noun), which encode the referential status of the NP as either
definite, specific, or indefinite and non-specific.6 The articles are listed in Table 4.

5

Although split-viewpoint systems are cross-linguistically rare, they are an alternative to systems

conceptualizing space from egocentric perspective or from fixed coordinates of the environment (cf.
Diessel 2014). The egocentric frame is multiplied to include the frame of the hearer, and presupposes
therefore social cognition. The hearer frame is structured in the same way as the egocentric frame andcould be therefore thought of as secondary (Diessel 2014:129-130). It will be interesting to study how
the hearer frame is acquired by Abui children and affected in the ongoing language shift.
6

Articles may undergo lengthening when the NP expresses a topical or agentive argument. The

definite articles are grammaticalised from demonstratives; the specific articles from equative/similative
demonstratives similar to the English such or the Slavic kak ~ jak (Arsenijevi et al. 2014; Andersonand Morzycki 2015).

186 Definiteness and specificity in Abui

The definite articles preserve the deictic contrast between proximal and medial forms
inherited from the demonstrative forms from which they were grammaticalized. Suchsystems, although not very common, are known in the definiteness literature. Lyons(1999:55-56) notes that distinctions of distance from the speaker and association withdifferent person are occasionally found in simple definites, indicating the existence of[±PROX] feature independently of [±DEF]. Abui is a language where the same deictic
features appear both on demonstratives and on the definite articles (grammaticalised
from them).7
The addressee-based forms are part of the paradigm, but they no longer indicate thatthe deictic center is based in the addressee but rather familiarity, empathy, or
noteworthiness, which will be discussed in more detail later. The indefinite cardinal
article nuku originating in the numeral ‘one’ is also listed in the paradigm.8 In addition,
bare nouns can also have indefinite, non-specific reference. The definite and specificarticles have undergone grammaticalisation into markers of relative and absolute tense,
evidentiality and stance and became associated with the clause-final and sentencefinal position when marking those categories (Kratochvíl 2011).9
IDENTIFIABLE FOR:
DEFINITE

SPECIFIC

SPEAKERADDRESSEEdo (PROX)

to (PROX.AD)o (MD)yo (MD.AD)

nu (SPC)hu (SPC.AD)

NEITHERnuku

INDEFINITE

Table 4: Abui articles

7

Newman (1969:304-305) shows that the feature [±VISIBLE] is maintained in both the article anddemonstrative paradigms (weak and strong) of Bella Coola (also known as Nuxalk, Salishan, British
Columbia, Canada). Davis and Saunders (1975:850-851) show that in addition to visibility, the Bella
Coola contrast may encode deictic time.
8

The numeral nuku ‘one’ is a regular reflex of the Proto-Alor-Pantar form *nuk ‘one’ (Holton andRobinson 2014:75). The specific articles are related to the equative and simulative demonstrative
paradigm (ESD) n- ‘like.PROX’ ~ w- ‘like.MD’ ~ h- ‘like.DST’. The similarity between nuku and nu
seems coincidental.
9

Lyons (1999:60-62) discusses other languages that use definite articles to nominalize and to marksubordinated clauses. The grammaticalisation path from determiners to tense markers and higher
categories is common and well attested (see for example Yap et al. 2011 and papers therein).

František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 187

Demonstratives are considered definite, because their referent is identifiable (Lyons
1999:21). Their reference is not inclusive; it involves a contrast, clear or implied,
between the intended referent and the potential set (Lyons 1999:17). The Abuidefinite articles mark not only that their referent is accessible to the hearer in theimmediate or non-immediate context, but also whether or not the referent is familiar.
Lyons (1999:21) points out that interpreting demonstratives is easier than inferencing
simple definites because the speaker does the referent-identification for the hearer.
Familiar articles in Abui highlight that the speaker may choose to do the referentidentification work from hearer’s perspective. Familiarity, given a prominent role in
the early accounts of definiteness, is given a systematic treatment in Abui.
In principle, we understand the notion of familiarity in terms of Gundel et al.
(1993:278), as a special cognitive status, such that the hearer already has arepresentation in memory: in long-term memory if it has not been recently mentioned
or perceived, or in short memory if it has. Referents marked as familiar may be
previously mentioned by the hearer, or somehow associated with hearer’s perspective.
The interpretation is context-dependent and also interacts with the referential type(proper names vs. common nouns). The speaker may choose a familiar article to drawhearer’s attention to a referent so that the common ground is updated with thepresented information, or simply as an invitation to fill out the speaker’s meaning (asthe English you know).10 It should be noted that familiarity is not treated as a scalar
category in Abui, but the proximal and medial forms map the difference between
immediate and non-immediate (usually past) context. The range of discourse uses ofAbui familiar articles will be discussed in a separate publication.

10

Stubbe and Holmes (1995: 69) define the colloquial New Zealand English as a pragmatic device

with two broad interactive meanings, quite similar to the Abui uses, namely: (i) a marker expressing
speaker’s confidence that the hearer shares the relevant knowledge, or reassuring the hearer of thevalidity of the proposition, and (ii) a marker of uncertainty about hearer’s attitude or the linguistic
precision of the description. Macaulay (2002) in a follow-up study of Scottish English highlights thefact that the use of you know may be quite idiosyncratic, and perhaps attributed to a personal speechstyle and the rhythmic organization of utterances (p. 765). The same study also shows that the use of
you know does not appear to be primarily based on the assumption of shared knowledge (ibid.).

188 Definiteness and specificity in Abui

2.3. Referential properties of bare nouns, case marking and agreement
Referential properties of arguments and information flow are known to interact with
their grammatical expression and trigger alternations in voice, case, and agreement
marking (Hopper and Thompson 1980:253).11 In Abui, only the specific and definite
undergoer arguments (i.e. identifiable at least for the speaker) are indexed on the verb.
Because the person indexing is obligatorily, the specific or definite reference of anoun can be inferred from the marking on the verb, as shown in (5). On the other hand,bare nouns without indexing have generic reference.
(5)

Verbal agreement and definiteness

a.

maama

bataa

faaqdafather[wood

chop.IPFV]‘father chops wood OR father is chopping wood’
b.

maama

bataa

he-faaqda

father[wood

3.LOC-chop.IPFV]‘father is chopping the wood, (a certain/known quantity of wood)’c.

kaai diking

pee=ngmareei=ba

arui

dog fire.place near=SEE go.up.PFV=SIM [ashes

kafia
scrape.IPFV]‘the dog went up to the fireplace to scrape in ashes’d.

kaai diking

pee=ngmareei=ba

arui

dog fire.place near=SEE go.up.PFV=SIM [ashes

he-kafia
3.LOC-scrape.IPFV]‘the dog went up to the fireplace to scrape the ashes’

Undergoer arguments, which are possessed or contain a relative clause are interpreted
as definite and have to be indexed on the verb, as in (6). Note than in (b), thestructure is interpreted as a topic + comment sequence describing the settings of theprohibition expressed in the second clause. The leg is no longer an argument of theverb kafia ‘scratch’, although its reference remains definite.

11

Hopper and Thompson subsume definiteness and referentiality under their super-type of

Individuation which also includes other contrasts such as proper vs. common nouns, animate vs.
inanimate, concrete vs. abstract, singular vs. plural, and count vs. mass (1980:253).

František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 189(6)

Verbal agreement and N + Rela.

e-tokuba yokung[2SG.AL-leg

REL be.inflamed SPC ]nuhe-kafianaha!

3.LOC-scratch.IPFV not‘don’t scratch your inflamed leg!’b.

e-tokuba yokung

nu

kafia

2SG.AL-leg TOP be.inflamed SPCRT

naha!

scratch.IPFV not‘your leg is inflamed (so) don’t scratch (anywhere)!’The same holds for the agentive arguments. Only specific arguments are marked withthe agentive di (3AGT).12 The adnominal pronoun functions as a personal determiner(Lyons 1999:141-145) and is interpreted as definite, being readily identifiable to thehearer.13 The unmarked NP moku loku ‘children’ in (a) has a generic reading.
(7)

Distribution of the agentive pronoun di (N di)

a.

moku

loku kuul

sakolahe-sei[kid

PL]school

3.LOC-come.down.IPFV

must‘children must attend school’b.

moku loku di

B3.3.2kuul

sakolahe-sei

3AGT] mustschool

3.LOC-come.down.IPFV‘the children must attend school’B3.3.2[kid

PL

The primary function of the pronoun di (3AGT) is to mark arguments characterized byvolition and control, almost always animate. When these two conditions are not met,

12

The third person pronoun di is innovated in Abui. The reconstructed pAP form is *ga (Holton et al.

2012:115), whose regular reflex in Abui should be **ha. It is possible that di (and da in some dialects)
originates in the proximal demonstrative do.
13

Third person adnominal pronouns dia (SG) and dorang (PL) are also found in local Alor Malay,

calquing the structures of the local Papuan languages. Similar uses, although including also pronounsof first and second person are found also in Papuan Malay (Kluge 2014:333, 383).

190 Definiteness and specificity in Abuithe third person pronoun hedo, belonging to a ‘plain-case’ paradigm, can be usedinstead.14 Further, the pronoun di is not compatible with generic reference, as in (8).
(8)

Generic reference and the agentive pronoun di (N di)a.

war-tama maiye, kumal
dry.season when

tafuda[mosquito be.all]mong-edie.IPFV-PROG‘when it is dry season, mosquitoes will be dying’b.

tuntama do,

kumal

night

[mosquito 3AGT] 1SG.LOC-GIVE=bite.IPFV

PROX

di

B7.61.2

ne-l=takei‘last night, the mosquitoes were biting me’

B7.34.3

Topical, fronted NPs may combine with demonstratives, in addition to the topic
marker hel (3.TOP), but remain to be indexed on the verb.
(9)

Topical NPs marked with demonstratives
kawen do,aha-komangdi-anaha!

machete PROX 2SG.AGT 3.PAT-blunt.PFV-CONT not‘don’t you blunt the machete’

EVY.1114

These and other types of differential argument marking are described in detail in
Kratochvíl (2014c).

2.4. Possessives and partitives
Abui marks possessed nouns with a prefix indexing the person and number of thepossessor. Possessors marked in this way are animate or individuated and theconstruction has a definite reference. A juxtaposition of two nouns, shown in (a)below, has a similar meaning but is analyzed as a compound whose reference is not
restricted.

14

As the term ‘plain’ suggests, the CVdo pronominal paradigm is not marked for agentive case, and iscompatible with both A and U arguments. As A argument, it is followed by di (3AGT); as U argument,
it may be indexed on the verb with a person prefix.

František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 191(10)

Possessor marking

a.

fala

c.

ameengb. falahe-ameenghouse thatch

house 3.AL-thatch‘house thatches, roofing grass’‘the house roof, thatches (for the house)’

mok-fala he-cet
churchhe-t-adafì

3.AL-paint 3.LOC-DISTR.PAT-peel.off.PFV‘the paint on the church (in this village) is peeled off’

Other types of possessive constructions exist, which do not require the possessed
entity to be definite. The reference is inferred using the possessive marking andarticles. This is shown in (11), where the NP hemayol ‘their wifes’ in (a) is definite,
the NP seeng nu ‘money’ in (b) is indefinite and specific, and the NP seeng ‘money’in (c) is indefinite and non-specific.
(11)

Other possessive constructionsa.

Ne-naana

loku tafuda he-mayol ho-pa.

1SG.AL-older.sibling PL

be.all

3.AL-wife‘All my older brothers have their wives.’b.

Seeng nu

ne-imoney SPC

1SG.LOC-own.IPFV not

Seeng no-pa

D.HOPA1

naha.

‘(That certain) money is not mine.’c.

3.REC-have.IPFV

D.NEI.1

naha.

money 1SG.REC-have.IPFV not‘I do not have (any) money.’

D.NOPA1

Abui partitives consist of two juxtaposed phrases: the first is an NP defining the set,
the second one a quantifier phrase specifying the part to be taken. The set is always
definite, but the marking is variable. In principle, the article is optional in partitives
with possessive marking, but obligatory in the remaining cases. The Abui corpus
contains examples of partitives with both proximal and medial forms: the proximal
form is common with tafuda ‘all’. However, even the addressee-based medial form yo192 Definiteness and specificity in Abuican be used, as shown in (12), from which I conclude that this form marks
definiteness or at least is compatible with it, as we will discuss later.
(12)

Abui partitivesa.

nae-feelanuku hoo-k=siyeei

1SG.AGT [2SG.AL-friend]set one

3.GOAL-BRING=meet.PFV‘I met one of your friends.’b.

na

ne-feela

E15BDD5

loku yo

1SG.AGT [1SG.AL-friend PL

mingwaaha hoo-k=siyeei

MD.AD]set some

3.GOAL-BRING=meet.PFV‘I met several of my friends.’
c.

na

feela

loku yo

1SG.AGT [friend PL

MD.AD]set

E15BDD7

nuku hoo-k=siyeei
one

3.GOAL-BRING=meet.PFV‘I met one of the (those) friends.’

E15BDD9

2.5. Abui articles used with unique reference nouns
Nouns with unique reference in the given context (both situational and general) suchas tuong ‘priest’ or raha ‘chief, regent’ occur with and without articles. The referenceis established in the given context. While the addressee-based forms highlight thefamiliarity of the referent (immediate or established in the past), the forms nu and hu
force indefinite readings and presuppose a set containing other types. The form hu
indicates, that the type is familiar, implying, that the hearer is familiar with thecomposition of the larger presupposed set.
(13)

Yaal do na mook heesiyeei naha. ‘I didn’t go to the church today.’

a.

Tuong

ha-riik-e.

priest3.PAT-ill-PROG‘The priest is ill.’b.

E15BDD55

Tuong doha-riik-e.

priest3.PAT-ill-PROG

PROX‘The priest is ill.’

E15BDD56

František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 193

c.

Tuong toha-riik-e.

priest3.PAT-ill-PROG

PROX.AD‘The priest (familiar) is ill.’d.

Tuong=oha-riik-e.

priest=MD

3.PAT-ill-PROG‘That priest (discourse-old) is ill.’e.

Tuong yoha-riik-e.

priest3.PAT-ill-PROG

MD.AD‘That priest (familiar, discourse-old) is ill.’f.

Tuong nu

ha-riik-e.

priest3.PAT-ill-PROG

SPC‘A priest (among other people responsible for the service) is ill.’g.

Tuong huha-riik-e.

priest3.PAT-ill-PROG

SPC.AD‘The only priest (familiar type) is ill.’

E15BDD57

E15BDD58

E15BDD59

E15BDD60

E15BDD61

The same contrasts are found with other unique reference nouns such as raha ‘king,chief, regent’.

2.6. Abui articles used with proper names
Abui definite and specific articles can be used with proper names. For specific articles
we have to assume that they are underspecified for definiteness given theircompatibility with proper names, and should not be analyzed as true indefinite articles(cf. Lyons 1999:51). In (14) we give an example of a question where the article
following the proper name is systematically manipulated and we indicate theconsequences for the context in the translation line. The hearer-oriented articles
indicate familiarity with the person and could also be translated as our Fani. Anotherpossible context is one in which the person has just been mentioned. The specificarticles force a set interpretation, where Fani is a member of a group and is coming.

194 Definiteness and specificity in Abui

(14)

Abui articles with proper names - questionsa.

Ma, Fani do

yaalPART PN

today FUT 3.AGT come.down.IPFV

PROX

ko di

sei?

‘By the way, will Fani come down today?’b.

Ma, Fani do

yaal

PROX.ADPART PN

ko di

EVY.1310

sei?

today FUT 3.AGT come.down.IPFV‘By the way, will (our) Fani come down today?’c.

Ma, Fani=o yaal
PART PN=MD

ko di

sei?

today FUT 3.AGT come.down.IPFV‘By the way, will Fani (we talked about) come down today?’d.

Ma, Fani yo
PART PN

yaal

MD.AD

ko di

today FUT 3.AGT come.down.IPFVMa, Fani nu yaal
PART PN

SPC

ko di

today FUT 3.AGT come.down.IPFVMa, Fani hu
PART PN

EVY.1310C

sei?

‘By the way, will Fani (among others) come down today?’f.

EVY.1310B

sei?

‘By the way, will Fani (we know) come down today?’e.

EVY.1310A

SPC.AD

yaal

ko di

EVY.1310D

sei?

today FUT 3.AGT come.down.IPFV‘By the way, will Fani (and no one else) come down today?’

EVY.1310E

Another example of a proper names combined with articles can be seen in thecomparative construction in (15). We find similar effects as above. In this context, theproximal articles may be also used in the situation where Maifan is physically present
when the comparison is made, or that the speaker has some special connection with
Maifan. Both specific articles presuppose a set of other children to which Maifan
belongs.
(15)

Abui articles with proper names - comparativesa.

Lema moku fila,
PN

kid

Maifan do

be.young PN

fing.

PROX be.eldest‘Lema is older than (our - exclusive) Maifan.’

EVY.700AFrantišek Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 195

b.

Lema moku fila,
PN

kid

Maifan tobe.young PN

fing.

PROX.AD be.eldest‘Lema is older than (our - inclusive) Maifan.’c.

Lema moku fila,
PN

kid

EVY.700B

Maifan=o fing.

be.young PN=MD

be.eldest‘Lema is older than Maifan (earlier mentioned or less well-acquainted).’EVY.700Cd.

Lema moku fila,
PN

kid

Maifan yo

be.young PN

fing.

MD.AD

be.eldest‘Lema is older than Maifan (less well-acquainted to us).’e.

Lema moku fila,
PN

kid

Maifan nu fing.

be.young PN

SPC

be.eldest‘Lema is older than Maifan (among other kids).’f.

Lema moku fila,
PN

kid

EVY.700D

EVY.700E

Maifan hu fing.

be.young PN

SPC

be.eldest‘Lema is older than only Maifan (among other kids).’

EVY.700F

We conclude that the proper names show similar effects with specific articles asnouns with unique reference discussed in section 2.5. The combinatory properties ofcommon nouns with articles will be discussed in detail in section 2.8.

2.7. Indefiniteness and specificity
As discussed in section 1.1, indefinite and specific referents are both not identifiable
to the hearer. Lyons (1999:49-51) claims that languages that only mark definitenessare the most common. Marking of indefiniteness only, or of both indefiniteness anddefiniteness is also a frequent pattern. Markers of indefiniteness are commonly
derived from the numeral ‘one’ and encode cardinality. In case of the English sm(reduction of some), vague number is encoded, in addition to indefiniteness (Lyons
1999:50).

196 Definiteness and specificity in Abui

In Abui, indefinite non-specific referents are expressed either as bare nouns, or with
the indefinite article nuku. Indefinite specific referents take nu or hu.15 An example ofthe bare noun expression contrasted with one with specific reference can be seen in(16). In both cases the speaker is looking for a taangwaala ‘mediator’ whose role in
the Abui traditional legal system is similar to that of an attorney. In the first example,
the speaker has no particular mediator in mind, any will do (narrow scope). In thesecond case, the speaker knows precisely which mediator, but does not expect theaddressee to know (wide scope).
(16)

Indefinite reference of bare nounsa.

Nataangwaala tahai.

1SG.AGT mediatorNadara nuku h-iengsearch.IPFV 1SG.AGT stillone

3.PAT-find.IPFV not‘I am looking for a mediator. I have not found any yet.’b.

Nataangwaala nu hee-l=tahai.

1SG.AGT mediatorh-ieng

SPC

naha.

Na

E15BDD77

dara

3.BEN-GIVE=search.IPFV 1SG.AGT stillnaha.

3.PAT-find.IPFV not‘I am looking for a mediator. I have not found him yet.’

E15BDD76

Another set of examples (paraphrases of Partee’s examples 1972), illustrating thedifference in marking of specific and indefinite referents in Abui is given in (17). The
indefinite referent of Flores mayool ‘Flores girl’ is marked with the indefinite article
nuku which originates in the numeral nuku ‘one’, matching a common cross-linguistic
pattern, pointed out by Lyons (1999:50). Where the speaker has a specific referent in
mind, the specific nu is used. Despite its superficial similarity with nuku, this form
has a different source, and is related to the demonstrative root n- with a meaningsimilar to the English ‘certain, such’.

15

In the literature, the two types of indefinites are sometimes referred to as narrow-scope vs. wide

scope indefinites. We present equivalents of the scope contrasts discussed in Matthewson (1999:88-92),
showing that the Abui articles encode a similar contrast.

František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 197(17)

Indefinite reference with nukua.

Ne-noo-mi=ng

maraangna

Flores mayool nuku

1SG.AL-1SG.GOAL-be.inside=SEE come.up.IPFV 1SG.AGT place

hee-l=mia.

Nadara nuku kaang baai

3.BEN-GIVE=marry.IPFV 1SG.AGT still

hoo-k=seiwoman INDEF

one

be.good alsonaha.

3.GOAL-BRING-meet.IPFV not‘I want to marry a girl from Flores. I haven’t met one yet.’b.

Ne-noo-mi=ng

maraangna

E15BDD83

Flores mayool nu

1SG.AL-1SG.GOAL-be.inside=SEE come.up.IPFV 1SG.AGT place

hee-l=mia.

Nidote-feelawan

woman SPC

tuung yeekna.

3.BEN-GIVE=marry.IPFV 1PL.EXCL.FOC DISTR.AL-friend already year

be.five.IPFV‘I want to marry a girl from Flores. We have been friends for five years.’
E15BDD84

Definite and specific referents differ in whether or not the speaker is certain about theidentity of the referent. Similarly to the definites, specifics are linked to previously
established discourse referents, but indefinites and non-specifics are not (Enç 1991:9).
Further, specificity entails existence, which is why in some languages, such as
Turkish, specific referents are incompatible with negative existentials (Enç 1991:1416). Abui specific articles may occur in negative existentials but they always
presuppose a set and are therefore similar to the Turkish determiners such as birkaç‘some’ and hiçbir ‘any’ (Enç 1991:15). We interpret these constructions as partitives,
where the article follows the set-defining phrase and is followed by an empty
quantifier, which can be made overt.
(18)

Negative existentials and specific articlesa.

Faring wiil

ha-du

many

3.PAT-have.PRF not

child

naha.

‘Many (people) did not have (any) child(ren).’b.

Faring wiil loku

ha-du

many

3.PAT-have.PRF notchild PLSULTAN59

naha.

‘Many (people) did not have (any) children.’

SULTAN59A

198 Definiteness and specificity in Abuic.

Faring wiil
many

nu

Ø

[child SPC]SET

hadu

naha.

3.pat-have.prf

not‘Many (people) did not have (such) children.’d.

Faring wiil
many

hu

Ø ha-du[child SPC.AD]SETSULTAN59B

naha.

3.PAT-have.PRF not‘Many (people) just did not have children (had other things).’e.

Faring wiil
many

nu

nuku wala[child SPC.AD]SET one

only

ha-du

SULTAN59C

naha.

3.PAT-have.PRF not‘Many (people) just did not have a single one of such children.’

SULTAN59D

Contextually identifiable referents (cf. Lyons 1999:3-6) are marked in Abui also withthe specific article nu, as in (19). English uses in these contexts the definite article
although the referents are not familiar to the hearer, but the physical situation makes
them identifiable.
(19)

Situational uses of the specific articlea.

Tila nu latukoi

ming-fikda

naha, dirope SPC very.much APPL-tighten.IPFV not

3.AGT snap-PFV=PROH

Don’t tie the rope too tightly, don’t let it snap!
b.

Lukai-isi

sik-i=he!
EVY.689nu he-bakon-te!

pepper-fruit SPC 3.LOC-pluck.off.PFV-PRIOR‘Pluck those peppers!’

EVY.707

We have shown in section 2.3, that generic reference is encoded by bare noun phrases
in Abui. Non-specific and specific indefinites are systematically distinguished bynu/hu vs. nuku. Situationally identifiable referents (definite in English) are marked as
specific in Abui.

2.8. Givenness hierarchy
Gundel et al. (1993) consider familiarity and uniqueness to be distinct cognitive
statuses, which are part of Givenness Hierarchy. The cognitive status of typicaldefinite NPs is lower than that of activated information (marked with demonstratives)

František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 199

and information in focus (marked with pronouns). The hierarchy is reproduced inTable 5.

COGNITIVE STATUS

EnglishDefinition

IN FOCUS

it

the referent is in short-term memory and at the current
center of attention

ACTIVATED

that, this, this N

the referent is represented in current short-term memory

FAMILIAR

that N

the hearer already has a representation in memory (in longterm memory if it has not been recently mentioned or
perceived, or in short memory if it has)

UNIQUELY

the N

the hearer can identify the intended object on the basis of
the nominal alone, but the identifiability does not have to

IDENTIFIABLE

be based on previous familiarity
REFERENTIAL

indefinite this N

the speaker intends to refer to a particular object; the hearer
has or is able to construct a representation

TYPE IDENTIFIABLE

aN

the hearer is able to access a representation of object
described

Table 5: Givenness Hierarchy (Gundel et al. (1993:275-280)

The contrasting sentences in (20) show the Abui equivalents of the dog-sentencesfrom Gundel et al. (1993) exemplifying the Givenness Hierarchy. The sentences are
modified to explore all possible contrasts in Abui. We start at the bottom of thehierarchy, with the examples of non-uniquely identifiable objects. Indefinite reference
is marked with the article nuku. Specific referents (known to the speaker only) aremarked with the articles nu and hu. The addressee-based form hu indicates that thehearer is able to identify the type and that the type is in some way noteworthy. This
contrasts with the function of the specific articles with proper names and with nouns
with unique reference, where the specific articles presupposed a set. With
‘noteworthiness’ I mean a category similar to the Slavic ‘dative of empathy’ (DE),related to the ‘ethical dative’ and ‘dative of interest’ in some Indo-European
languages (Fried 2011).16 The category has an interpersonal function and highlights to

16

Dative of empathy (DE) is a special type of dative, resembling ungoverned datives (Dative ofInterest), which ‘always mark human referents with some interest in the reported event’ (Fried 2011: 4).
DEs ‘serve a discourse-deictic function in speaker-hearer relations’ (Fried 2011: 5), but unlike the Abuiaddressee-based forms, DEs are speaker-oriented.

200 Definiteness and specificity in Abuithe hearer what the speaker deems to be worth of hearer’s interest, eliciting hearer’s
empathy and attention. The information in (e) below has a flavor of surprise on theside of the hearer and puzzlement about what happened and invites the hearer toreason about the event.
(20)

El tuntama na taa beeka. ‘Last night I couldn’t sleep.’ (indefinite)a.

Kaai fala baleekna

miapanen=ban-ieng

moopi

naha.

[dog house surround.IPFV be.in]RC make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye sleepy.PFV not‘A dog (next door) kept me awake.’b.

E15BDD15

Kaai (nuku)

panen=ba[dogmake.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV

INDEF]NPn-iengariidi.

‘A dog kept me awake.’c.

E15BDD16

Heelkaai (nuku) (do)panen=ba

[3TOP

dog

make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV

onePROX]NPn-iengariidi.

‘This dog (next door) kept me awake.’d.

Kaai nu[dog(di)SPC]NP 3.AGT

panen=ban-ieng

E15BDD18-9

ariidi.

make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV‘A certain dog kept me awake.’e.

Kaai hu[dog(di)SPC]NP 3.AGT

panen=ba

E15BDD24

n-iengariidi.

make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV‘(Imagine) a dog kept me awake.’

E15BDD25

As shown above, the definite NPs encode two different cognitive statuses: uniquely
identifiable and familiar. Abui data shows that a further division is possible. The
proximal forms seem to mark representations available in the ‘immediate context’, beit short-term memory or general knowledge. Medial forms portray the uniquely
identifiable object as not being in the immediate context. The familiarity distinction isavailable to both.

František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 201(21)

El tuntama na taa beeka. ‘Last night I couldn’t sleep.’ (definite)a.

Kaai do[dog(di)panen=ba

PROX]NP 3.AGT

n-iengariidi.

make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV‘The dog kept me awake.’b.

E15BDD20

Kaai=o(di)panen=ban-iengariidi.

[dog=MD]NP

3.AGT

make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV‘That dog (previously mentioned) kept me awake.’c.

Kaai to[dog(di)PROX.AD]NP 3.AGT

panen=ba

E15BDD22

n-iengariidi.

make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV‘The (familiar) dog kept me awake.’d.

E15BDD21

Kaai yo(di)panen=ba

[dog

3.AGT

make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV

MD.AD]NPn-iengariidi.

‘That (familiar) dog kept me awake.’

E15BDD23

The notions of ‘immediate’ vs. ‘non-immediate context’ appealed to above will be
discussed in a separate publication focusing on natural discourse, and were sketchedin Kratochvíl (2015). At this stage it will suffice to say that representations in ‘nonimmediate context’ may also be created by accommodation of presupposition
associated with the ‘familiar’ forms. 17
Forms indicating activated cognitive status are shown in (22). One possibility is to use
any of the deictic pronouns, discussed in section 2.1, providing the dog is visible, asin (a). The other option involves using a headless relative clause consisting of theclassificatory posture verb it ‘be (for non-humans)’ followed by an article.18 With
proximal and medial articles, the dog is visible. With the specific article, the dog isabsent, but the speaker is nodding towards dog’s location in the night, when it wasbarking. Finally, the agentive pronoun di can fully replace the NP, as in the English
equivalent.
17‘If at time t something is said that requires presupposition P to be acceptable, and if P is notpresupposed just before t, then – ceteris paribus and within certain limits – presupposition P comes
into existence at t.’ (Lewis 1979:340, via Abbott 2004:134)
18

Many Papuan languages use posture verbs to classify nouns in context where English would use

simply the verb ‘to be’ as in there is a dog… A recent summary of the known systems can be found in
Rumsey (2002). The Abui facts are briefly outlined in Kratochvíl (2007:10).

202 Definiteness and specificity in Abui

(22)

El tuntama na taa beeka. ‘Last night I couldn’t sleep.’ (activated)a.

Dopanen=ba

PROX

make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV

n-iengariidi.

‘This (pointing at the proximate dog) kept me awake.’b.

n-ieng

E15BDD26Ittodi panen=ba

ariidi.

NON.HUM

PROX.AD

3.AGT make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV‘This (animal) (you know) kept me awake.’c.

Itnu di panen=ba

NON.HUM

SPC

n-ieng

E15BDD28

ariidi.

3.AGT make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV‘That (animal) (wherever it is now) kept me awake.’d.

Dipanen=ban-ieng3.AGT

make.PFV=SIM 1SG.INAL-eye open.up.PFV‘It (the dog) kept me awake.’

E15BDD30

ariidi.
E15BDD26

The Abui forms exemplified above are arranged in a customized Givenness Hierarchyin Table 6.19 For Abui, uniquely identifiable objects can be marked as familiar withthe addressee-based forms. For specific reference (lower end of the same hierarchy),
addressee-based form mark a form of familiarity which we term here as‘noteworthiness’.

19

The shorthand CLV stands for classificatory verbs (it ‘be put flat’, mihi ‘be put upright’, taa ‘lie’, mit‘sit’, natet ‘stand’ and tili ‘hang’).

František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 203

COGNITIVE STATUS

IN FOCUS

Abui

Abui

[speaker-[addressee-

viewpoint]

viewpoint]diModified definition

the referent is in short-term memory and at thecurrent center of attention

ACTIVATEDdo, lo/o, ò, ó,[DEMONSTRATIVE]

wò, wó, oro

ACTIVATED

CLV do,

CLV to,the referent is represented in current short-term[RELATIVE CLAUSE]

CLV=o,

CLV yo,memory and visible or invisible

CLV nu

CLV huN do

N to

UNIQUELY

to, yothe referent is represented in current short-term
memory and visible

the hearer can identify the intended object on the

IDENTIFIABLE

basis of the nominal alone, but the identifiability(IMMEDIATE)

does not have to be based on previous familiarity;
the intended object is located within theimmediate context (including general knowledge)

UNIQUELYNo

N yo

the hearer can identify the intended object on the

IDENTIFIABLE

basis of the nominal alone, but the identifiability(NON-IMMEDIATE)

does not have to be based on previous familiarity;
the intended object is located outside theimmediate context (but within the generalknowledge)

REFERENTIAL

N nu

N hu

the speaker intends to refer to a particular object

heel N doheel N toand can indicate where it is located in the context;

heel N oheel N yo

the hearer has or is able to construct aheel N nu

heel N hu

representation which can be marked as
noteworthy

TYPE IDENTIFIABLE

N (nuku)

the hearer is able to access a representation of
object described

Table 6: Givenness Hierarchy (Gundel et al. 1993) for Abui

Arkoh and Matthewson (2013) discuss the uses of the familiar article n in Akan. In
Akan, the familiarity is only compatible with the definite reference, and incompatible
with indefinites, where a dedicated article bí ‘a certain’ is used (p. 7). There is also a
dedicated definite article nó covering the ‘uniquely identifiable’ category in theGivenness Hierarchy (Akhoh and Matthewson 2013:7). Unaware of another languagewith a similar split in the specific category, we use the label ‘noteworthiness’ rather
than ‘familiarity’, which is traditionally understood as being restricted to uniquely
identifiable referents.

204 Definiteness and specificity in Abui

3. Discussion
This paper mapped the uses of the Abui demonstratives and articles. The article
paradigm encodes in a systematic manner definiteness, indefiniteness, and specificity.
For definite reference, proximal and medial forms distinguish two degrees of distancein the ‘immediate context’. In addition, familiarity and noteworthiness are marked byhearer-oriented articles. Abui articles may co-occur with proper nouns and with somepronouns. The hearer-oriented forms have a variety of interesting discourse uses,
often related to stance, which will be discussed in a separate paper.
The Abui system offers an insight into the category of familiarity, which is often
taken to be another dimension of definiteness (Lyons 1999:6). Familiarity seems to bea separate category possibly also available for specific reference, allowing the speaker
to express confidence that the hearer shares the relevant knowledge, or to reassure thehearer that he can do so. While in Akan, the familiar article n introduces apresupposition that the relevant discourse referent is present in the common groundbetween speaker and hearer (Arkoh and Matthewson 2013), the Abui familiar articles
have a greater range of functions. As pointed out by Stubbe and Holmes (1995) and
Macaulay (2002) the English hearer-oriented ‘you know’ sometimes marks speaker’s
uncertainty about hearer’s attitude, or about the precision of the description and theiruse could be quite idiosyncratic and dependent on personal speech styles. The same
seems to be true for the Abui familiar forms.
Finally, Abui makes a three-way contrast in indefinites distinguishing formallyindefinite non-specific referents (a.k.a. narrow scope indefinites, marked with nuku)from specific indefinites (wide-scope indefinites, marked with nu or hu).

František Kratochvíl and Benidiktus Delpada 205

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