Language Ambiguity

In today's post, I would like to take your attention to the principle of diversity of meaning in the Dusun language or specifically termed as language ambiguity within the language itself.

According to Cecilia Quiroga-Clare, something is ambiguous when it can be understood in two or more possible senses or ways. If the ambiguity is in a single word it is called lexical ambiguity. In a sentence or clause, structural ambiguity.

Examples of lexical ambiguity are everywhere. In fact, almost any word has more than one meaning. "Note" = "A musical tone" or "A short written record." "Lie" = "Statement that you know it is not true" or "present tense of lay: to be or put yourself in a flat position."

Kara (monkey)

Dusun Lexical Ambiguity

1. Kara (monkey)

• Mintundok po ih kara hilod tuntuh timadang. (The monkey is jumping on top of the timadang tree)

• Pointimpak ilo kara id tansar mingkid-kingkid do luong. (The "monkey" is sitting on the fence munching maize). The noun kara here is to refer to an individual (usually a naughty boy).

Tanak oikum-ikum (A shy boy)

2. Nipon (teeth)

• Kasadu, karatu om kotipu nipon dau. (He slipped, fell and broke his teeth)

• Notipu nipon diti ragus ku. (The chisel of my plough is broken)

Tansar (A traditional fence made of bamboo and rattan)

Ambiguity tends to increase with frequency of usage. Some examples of structural ambiguity: "John enjoys painting his models nude." Who is nude? "Visiting relatives can be so boring." Who is doing the visiting? It is either John who is nude while painting or the models that he is painting are in the nude. In the second sentence, it could be that the writer is visiting relatives or he/she is being visited by relatives

Dusun Structural Ambiguity

• Yadaai di Korimput sawo dau moi pogiboboros dit komolohingan. (Korimput left his wife to talk to the elders)
• There could be two possible meanings of this sentence, either Korimput left his wife to talk to the elders (his wife is the agent of the talking)
• or He left his wife and talked to the elders himself (Korimput is the agent)

My next post would be on the discussion of the Syntactic and Paradigmatic Relations of the Dusun Language.

(source)

Adjective and Adverb Inflections

Adjective Inflection

Normally in English, only one and two syllables words are inflected in the comparative and superlatives modes.

One syllable words

• small - smaller
• kill - killer
• big - bigger

Two syllable words

• heavy - heavier
• busy - busier
• clumsy - clumsier

Adjectives with two or more syllables do not accept inflectional morpheme; for them, the entire words rather than morphological suffixes, are used to indicate the comparative and superlative.

• more beautiful - most beautiful
• more reluctant - most reluctant

Adverb Inflection

Comparative and superlative inflections do appear in adverbs. They too can be compared or made superlative by using more and most.

• He ran faster than his dad.
• He ran the fastest of the three.
• She held the baby more securely.
• How are verbs used most effectively in a sentence?

Dusun Adjective Inflection

Comparative and Superlative

Root:-

• okoro (small)
• agayo (big)

• it poinkoro-koro / poingkoro-koro - smaller 
• it tokoro kopio, tokoro tomod, it totos tokoro, it poingkoro kopio - smallest
• it poingayo-gayo - bigger
• it tagayo kopio / tomod, or it totos tagayo

Poingayo-gayo ti kakanan dau ko ih dogo

(His jar is bigger than mine)

Photo courtesy of beritutuan.blogspot.com

Poingumu-gumu gia diolo pusas

(They have more pusas or food)

Photo courtesy of ijonghairie.blogspot.com

Note that there are an inflection and a reduplication in the comparative mode - (prefix poin / poing and reduplication of koro) however, no inflection or reduplication in the superlative mode. Kopio, tomod and totos are the superlative adjectives functioning similar to "most" in the English language.

Dusun Adverb Infelection

Comparative and Superlative

Root:-

• osiau (fast)
• ogirot (secure)

Poinlumis-lumis tirak dilo sumandak id pointanga-tanga.

(The girl in the centre smiles more sweetly)

• Manangkus isio poinsiau-siau ko tapa dau.(He ran faster than his dad)
• Manangkus isio poinsiau kopio / tomod ko mantad ilo tolu. (He ran the fastest of the three)
• Poingirot-girot pongingigit disio ilo tanak. (She held the child more securely.)
• Poingirot tomod pongingigit disio ilo tanak. (She held the child most securely.)

poinpoit-poit pondo ih tumpung ku ko ih disio

(My rice wine is better than his)

Note that both inflection and reduplication are used in the transformation of the roots osiau and ogirot into the comparative mode.Prefix p and infix in are commonly used with a reduplication on the root to indicate comparison. On the second root word - ogirot, the same rules apply to form the comparative - a prefix p, an infix in and a reduplication of the root..Thus, it is evident that the comparative mode of the Dusun adverbs follow a simple rule - affixes p and in and a reduplication of the root word such as poinlumis-lumis pongingirak dau, poinkolit-kolit kowowoyoon dau and so on.

Dusun adverbs as in its adjectives make use of the superlatives such as kopio, tomod or totos used similar to most in the English Language.

Note: The adjective pointalib can also be used to denote comparative in both adjectives and adverbs.

Root:-

talib (pass through) as in talib oku po. (May I pass through?)

• Pointalib-talib o kokoroon dau ko yoku. (adjective) - He is smaller than me.
• Pointalib-talib pananangkus dau ko isio. (adverb) - He ran faster than me.

But it cannot be used in the inflected form alone without the reduplication.

• Pointalib oh pomusarahan disio. (He is over thinking - signifying a very proud person or snobbish)
• Pointalib oh  pananangkus dau. (He is making up his style of running to get attention)

End of lesson.........Ba kanou moi poginum tumpung. Umbayaan tokou momolositik it kakang di Kong, wonsoion tokou pusas.

Noun and Verb Inflection??

Finally, the long awaited second post is here!

Something that I wanted to write today is probably out of the ordinary. While socialising with family and friends during a cool and beautiful afternoon, one of my niece who is in Form Three asked me if there is an equivalent of the Dusun Language structure corresponding to the plural form in English.

Socializing :)

She was brought up in a Dusun family but her first language wasn't Dusun. Her parents talked to all their children in Tambunan Malay - a term I invented to refer to the kind of Malay language spoken by Dusuns in Tambunan. The accent of the Tambunan Malay is of course much akin to the Dusun one.

Here are some examples:

• Dusun: Moi oku hiiiilo. [I am going there/to that place] (an extended stressing of the "hi" syllable, particularly the vowel "i" is to show the longer distance to the place he is traveling, a shorter stress denotes a short distance)

• Dusun Malay: Saya mau pigi saaana. (the stressing is almost identical)

• Dusun: Moi oku hilo. (No extended stress indicating a short distance.)

• Dusun Malay: Saya mau pigi sana.

Nieces

Now, coming back to the question of noun inflection in Dusun, I responded to her that there is no similar or equivalent noun inflections in the Dusun language, or does it?

English noun inflections:

• Plural forms are usually indicated by adding "s" or "es" to the base/stem - maps, matches, pads, boys, glasses.
• Noun possessive morphemes also have the same addition to the stem - the boss's mistress, the table's end.

Now, let me examine the Dusun noun inflections, but first what is the definition of the term inflections? Basically, they are inflectional morphemes which signal grammatical information such as number (plural), tense, possession and so forth. They are thus often called bound grammatical morphemes and exhibit no change of meaning after inflection.

Examples:

• walk vs. walks
• toy vs. toys

They never change the syntactic category of the words or morpheme which they are attached.

Examples:

• walk vs. walked or walks (V--> V)
• boy vs. boys (N --> N)
• eat vs. eating (progressive) (V-->V)

Plural Form

Example:

• Kitut and Gimbuar took the girls home.
• Nowit di Kitut om ih Gimbuar minuli ih kosumandakan / tongondu / tanganak. (Root: sumandak, circumfix - ko and an - girls, no change in meaning so this is an inflectional morpheme)
• The children were in the hut.
• Hilo(d) suang sulap it tanganak. (root: tanak, infix - nga - children,no change in meaning so this is an inflectional morpheme)

The Dusun language does have the equivalent plurals but they are formed through affixation of bound morphemes - suffix, infix, prefix and perhaps circumfix. It will a bit awkward to add "s" or "es" to the base of Dusun words such as sumandaks (girls) and kusais (boys). LOL!

Another niece

Root: tanak (child)

• tanganak - children (Inflectional morpheme - noun plural, no change in meaning)
• sanganak - the mother or father (Derivational morpheme - noun singular, changed in meaning)
• kotanak-tanak - being childish (Derivational, partial reduplication - adjective, changed in meaning)

Root: tondu (girl/woman)

• konduan - women (Inflectional - noun plural, no changed in meaning)
• tongondu - women (Inflectional - noun plural, no changed in meaning)
• kotondu-tondu - being feminish (especially to a male) - (Derivational, partial reduplication - adjective, changed in meaning)
• mintondu-tondu - (purposely) acting like a girl - Derivational, partial reduplication - adverb, changed in meaning as in "Mintondu-tondu ih Gamanuk mamanau".

Possessive Morpheme

• It's hers.
• Disio lo. (disio = hers or his, Dusun has no genitives)
• The base form of disio is isio or dau.
• An inflected disio but not in dau as in dau bo lo.
• This is my dad's car.
• Korita tapa ku ti. (tapa - dad, no inflection)

family members

Verb Inflection

Normally in English, verb inflections occur on the present tense morphemes when the subjects are in the third person singular. Similar inflections also occur on the past tense and the past participle morphemes of both regular and irregular verbs.

Root: poibok - drive

• Gutuk drives a car.
• Popoibok isio korita. (Inflection, prefix "po", drive - no change in meaning))
• Gutuk drove a car yesterday.
• Pinopoibok ih Gutuk korita konihab/koniab. (Inflection, prefix "pino", drove - no change in meaning)
• Gutuk has driven the car.
• Nokopoibok no ih Gutuk dilo korita. (Inflection, prefix "noko", - driven, no change in meaning)

Root: takad - climb (the hill, mountain)

• She Climbs the mountain everyday.
• Takad isio lo nuluhon tikid tadau. (No inflection)
• She climbed the mountain last Sunday.
• Tinumakad isio lo nuluhon dit Hari Minggu. (Inflection, infix "inum", - climbed, no change in meaning)
• She has climbed the mountain.
• Nakatakad no isio lo nuluhon. (Inflection, prefix "naka", - has climbed, no change in meaning)

Alright, clearly from the examples above, Dusun verb inflections do occur within the past tense and past participle structures, however they can never be inflected in the present tense.

Our next discussion will be on the inflections of adverbs and adjectives. Feeling bored anybody? :)

Dusun Derivational Morphemes

Let's start with the most basics of the Dusun Language word structure - the morphemes. We will first attempt to look into the English Derivational morphemes and later try to compare that to the equivalent Dusun structure.

English Derivational Morphemes

• Derivational morphemes derive a new word by being attached to root morphemes or stems. They can be both suffixes and prefixes in English.

• Examples: beautiful (beauty), exactly (exact), unhappy (happy), impossible (possible), recover (cover).

• Change of Meaning
• Examples:

• un+ tie (the opposite meaning of ‘tie’)
• walk+ er ( deriving a new word with the meaning of a person who walks).

• Change of the syntactic category (optionally)
• i) Change of category

Early Dusun Settlement

• Noun to Adjective
• boy (noun) + ish ----> boyish (adj.)

• Victoria (noun) + an ----> Victorian (adj.)
• Affection (noun) + ate ---->affectionate (adj.)

• Verb to Noun
• walk (Verb) + er ----> walker (noun)
• predict (Verb) + ion ----> prediction (noun)

• Adjective to Adverb
• exact (adj) + ly ----> exactly (adv)
• quiet (adj) + ly ----> quietly (adv.)

A beautiful Dusun maiden

• Noun to Verb
• moral (noun) + ize ----> moralize (verb)

• Adjective to Noun
• specific (Adj.) + ity ---->specificity (noun)

• ii) No change of category

• friend+ship (Noun --> Noun)
• pink+ish (Adjective --> Adjective)
• re+print (Verb --> Verb)

Dusun men

Dusun Derivational Morpheme

• Change of Meaning
• Examples:

• gam + panau
• (Prefix "gam" + root "panau" - walk)
• Gampanau - (Adj) A person who likes to wander about a lot.
• in + koilo
• (Prefix in + root koilo - know)
• inkoilo (Adj) - I don't know, the opposite of koilo.

Autronesian phonology

• Change of the syntactic category
• i) Change of category

• Noun to Adjective
• Stem: kusai (boy) - Noun
• kusaion (a girl who has a lot of boyfriends) - Adjective
• Suffix - on

• Verb to Noun
• Stem: tolop (dive) - Verb
• tinolopon (the place where a person dives) - Noun
• Infix - in and Suffix - on

• Adjective to Adverb
• Stem: otopot (true) - Adjective
• totopot (truthfully) - Adverb as in minimboros isio dit totopot ( He said it truthfully)
• Prefix - t

• Noun to Verb
• Stem: walai (house) - Noun
• walaian (build a house to a person) - Verb as in walaian gia isio hiti. (Build a house for him here)
• Suffix - an

• Adjective to Noun
• Stem: gayo (big) - Adjective
• kinogayoon ( a place where a person grew up) - Noun as in hiti no kinogayaon ku.
• Circumfix: kino - on

• ii) No change of category

• Stem: tambalut (friend) - Noun
• piombolutan (friendship) - Noun as in gompio no ti piombolutan to.
• Circumfix: piom - an (note the spelling change of the stem)

• It is evident that the Dusun Language has a rich Derivational morphemes surpassing the English Language in term of infixes. Dusun as was discussed earlier had a variety of infixes - prefix, infix, circumfix and suffix as in the following:

• Stem:panau
• pinanau (Infix in) - journey (Noun)
• gampanau (Prefix gam) - A person who loves to wander about (Noun)
• panahon (Suffix hon) - journey (Noun)
• sampanau-panau (Prefix sam and reduplication of stem panau) - walking (verb -ing form)
• mamanau (Prefix mam) - walk (Verb)
• pamanauon / pamanahon (Infix ma and Suffix on) - verb (let him walk / go), noun - as in osodu po pamanauon dagai ti. (Our journey is far ahead)
• pimpanau (Prefix pim) - verb (walk around) as in pimpanau pogi. (You may walk anywhere you like)

RTAEM8DW3HQ9