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)

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