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)
