Koho sre affixation thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the masters degree in linguistics

Linguists andanthropologists have long classified the Koho as belonging to the lattergroup in terms of customs, language, and physica l appearance.. Some Koho groups such as thecil retre

s ub m itted in partial fulfillm ent

of the requirements for th e Ma.~ter ·s degree 1/1 Linguistics

by

NGUV(N • VAN· HOAN

CV ""," GkSo khoa Anh • ln

Born on Moy 204 , 1950

1973

•

Y EA R 1 973

UNIVERSITY OF SAIGON

I •.'

."

No

,

" r ~ · , : ~ll ~ ~ / ' " ~ - ",-

KO'HO· SRE AFFIXATION

NGUYEN - VAN - HOAN

Cv nhan G icio· knc o A nh 'W'on

197 3

" - -.- _ : ~ ~ :

TRUONG flAI-HOC VAN-KHOA SAI-GON .

khong tan thanh va eung khong phc1.n r16'.<. nht1ng if lUen phci:t b-i.e1 tJr.ong ban ueu tu?-n Nhi1ng y-lUen ito do tc!.e g;2 hoan tom eh-{-u tJr.deh-nJU.~.

I am i n debt ed to Dr Dav id T homas , my aca demic

prof essor-adv isor, who has provided th e most help fu l

in s t r uction s an d s ugges t ions t hroughou t the en t i r e p ro

-c ess o f co l l ect i ng d ata ,organiz in g , a n d cor r ect i ng the wri tin g o f th e t hes i s Hi s ex per tl y kn owl e dge of the

Vi e tnames e H ighland l an gua ge s and l inguistic sc ience

a re th e most enco ur agin g fac tors i n prov i d ing i mpet us

f or my study.

I am d e e pl y grat eful to Pro f R i c hard Wa tson,

w ho ha s k i ndl y ta ken o v er th e sponso r s h i p f rom D r

Thomas whe n th e l a tter lef t V i e t n am, a nd c ont in ued t o

gu ide m e t owar d the end of my study.

I wou ld l ike t o ta k e th i s o pportun i ty t o s~n ­

c ere ly t hank Pro f B8- Khinh H oan , c ha i rman of the D

e-partment of Engl ish, who has whole-heart edly ad vised

m e on t he w r i t i ng o f t he t hesis,and ma de n ecessary a

r-r an gements f or th e examina t ion.

Pa rt icu lar than ks shou ld go to K'Bro i, my formant, w hos e i n t e l l i genc e , exper i ence, and ki n dnes s are un f or get t ab l e W i tho ut hi s ass istance thi s study wou ld b e a total fa i lure at i t s very b e g i nnin g

in-F or sp ir itual co nsola t io n, I w o uld like to d e

-d i c ate t h is t he s i s to my father an d mot her, w hos e

sa-cr ifice and love have a lways freed me f rom the

occa-s ional feel ing o f f rustrat ion and d ismay.

1.1 - Geograp hical sett ing

1 2 - Br ief h istor ical notes

1 4 - Cu1 tu ra1 patterns

1.5 - E c onomic o rgan izat ion

Chapt eJt 11 - TRANSCRIPTIONAL SYSTEMS

I

I 2

33

2 3 - E va ns a n d Bo wen's sys tem 9

2 4 - The syst em used i n th is stu dy I I

3 5 - pos it ion o f S r e among Hi ghl an d di al e c t s 18

4 2 - D escr ipt ion of a f f i xes 2 I

4 3 - Caus at ive p r e f i x {Tcrn -} 21

4 4 - S upe r n a t ur al-c a us a t i v e prefix · {Gcrtcrn - } 32 '

4 5 - Nomina1 izing infix · { - crn - } 34

4 6 - Pas sive p r e f i x {Gcr - } 40

4 7 - un in t en t ion al p re fix · { Gcr-} 42

4 8 - Verb al izing pref ix · Isc-) 44

4.10 - Pref ix { h cr - } 'ad v erb o f l ocat ion ' 47

4 11- P r e f i x { N - } , p la ce p ronoun' 48

C hap.:t~ V - SRE AFFIXATION AS COMPARED

WITH OTHER RELATED LANGUAGES

7 4

79

82

8 4

Chapter- I

INTRODUCTION

C HAPTER I

KOHO INTRODUCTION

1.1 - GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING

The mountainous areas of South Vietnam are occupied by two main

ethnic groups : the Malayo-Polynesian and the Mon-Khmer Linguists andanthropologists have long classified the Koho as belonging to the lattergroup in terms of customs, language, and physica l appearance The Kohoinhabit a large mountainous region extending from Saigon in the south toDalat in the north They are found in many provinces of Region II: mostpopulated at Tuyen-fh1'c, Quang-DtIc, and Uim-ilBng provinces'; more scatter-

ed at Ninh-Thu~n, Long-Kh~nh, and Blnh-Tuy provinces

No complete population census has ever been conducted in theHighlands of Vietnam There are now three unofficial figures to accountfor the population of the Koho : Special Commission puts it at 67,770;Fulro estimates 100,000; SIL, Hickey, and missionaries record as much as100,0001• While awaiting an official survey, we assume from those figu-res an estimated 100,000 indigenous Koho inhabiting the Highlands

1.2 - BRIEF HISTORICAL NOTES

Despite its prox~m~ty to major cit ies of Vi e t nam as Saigon andDalat, information concerning the KOho is very scanty The origin ofthe Koho is chiefly explained through legends, and these people mostlyilliterate would believe in legends and would not bother asking a fac-tual question about their genesis

From unrecorded time in history, probably centuries ago,the Khmer peoples are believed to have originated in the upper Mekong vall-eys, whence they migrated through Indochina The Koho are descendants

Mon-IGerald C Hickey, The Highland Peo ple of South Vietnam : Social andEconomic Developmen t (Cal i f ornia : the Rand Corporation , 1967 ) , p.25

2

-of these early immigrants For many centuries, more highly organizedpeoples gradually pushed the KOho out of the coastal areas into themoutainous areas where they now occupy Some Koho groups such as thecil retreated into the high mountain to preserve the traditional in-dependence; the Sre, on the other hand, live more close to the coas-tal people, intermingle, intermarry, trade, and learn more of the

coastal civilization As a result, they are more advanced than themore conservative Cil

1.3 - CLAN GROUPS

Koho is a generic term used to refer to a number of tribalgroups which have very closely related dialects, such as the Cil, theLat, the Nop: the Tring, the Sre, the Ma

1 3.1 - THE CIL

The Cil are also called Kil or Chilo They number about 10,500,inhabiting an area northeast of Dalat, between the Lat and northernRoglai groups A small number (46) are found as far to the coast asNinh-Thu¥n

lar-mostly in Tuyen-Ddc, Lam-D~ng, and Ninh-Thu~n provinces Due to ximity, the Sre tend to be more civilized and easily adapted to thecivilization of the ethnic Vietnamese) though not to the point of as-similation.

pro-1.3.6 - THE MA

The Ma is sometimes called Cau Ma, sometimes Maa This isthe largest Koho group, approximately 26,000 The Ma inhabit mostlythe Lam-D~ng area; some of them are also found in Tuyen-flac and QuangBU~ provinces Some linguists have considered the Ma as a separateethnic group This is because the Ma social structure diverges fromthe mainstream of the Koho life; while the Ma social structure is pa-trilineal, other Koho groups follow matrilineal pattern

1.4 - CULTURAL PATTERNS

Geographical distribution of different KdTIo groups has tributed to the degree of complexity of Koho organization The moreadvanced Sre have a more compact, well-organized social structure withdistinction of classes; while the less advanced Cil lead a nomadiclife, and therefore have no formal organization In general, Koho so-ciety is matrilineal and matrilocal with the extended family and thevillage as the two most important social units This is generallymore common to Malayo-Polynesian groups than to Mon-Khmer, who tend to

con-be more patrilineal As in any matrilineal society, the Koho woman isthe head of the family She owns and inherits all properties Thewoman initiates marriage and transmits the family name Polygamy ispermitted but rare and is usually limited to the most wealthy and no-bles

1.5 - ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION

The Koho economy is based on rice cultivation and secondarily

on the home production of baskets, pottery, cloth Except the Srewho grow both dry and wet rice on permanent irrigated paddies,the Kohouse the slash"-and-burn technique of cultivation The technique invol-ves clearing the forest areas, burning the vegetation during the drywinter season, raising dry rice in the field until the soil nutrientsare depleted, then moving to a new area

4

-1.6 - RELIGION

Like most other minority groups, the Koho rel igion is tic, involving absolute faith in many sp~r~ts. Spirits are a part ofculture The Koho hold the belief that evil spirits cause illness,sowhen a person is sick the proper spirit should be invoked and neces-sary sacrifices be provided to restore health This constitutes theimportant position of the sorcerer in Koho community, who is respon-sible for determining the right spirit to be invoked The sorcerer

animis-is highly respected and holds special privileges as village chief orhousehold head

1.7 - LINGUISTIC AFFILIATION

Koho is a gerneric term used to refer to the language of agroup of minority peoples sharing similar physical appearance andmutually intelligible dialects According to David Thomas' classifi-cationl , Koho belongs to the South Bahnaric of Bahnaric in the Mon-Khmer family Although the Ma have a different social structure, the

Ma dialect is very much similar to other Koho dialects, so it belongs

Viet-1David Thomas , '.'Mon-Khmer' Subgr oupings i n Viet nam, "

· S t ud ie s· ~· Compara t i v e· A u stroas i at i c L in gui stic s

Vol V Ed by Norman Z iae (The Hague: Mouton &C o ,1966 ), p 197

TRANSCRIPTIONAL SYSTEMS

transcrip-2.1 - THE FIRST SYSTEM

Since ]935 the Sre have been familiar with the first tion This system was based on the Qu~ c-ng~. Jean Cassaigne had thefollowing observation of the Sre dialect, "La langue Mo i n' a pas d'ac-cents, cependant il y a des breves qui sont indiquees par Ie signe ~

transcrip-plactsur la voyelle, l'eau : da, par exampl e"!

The first transcription inc l ude s these letters

Consonants :

Vowels

b

k r

t

g

n y

a o

Cassaigne added that letters c, f, q, ~, ~, and z do not exist

in Sre; letters c and q are replaced by k Thi s transcription was used

in his two books-: PetIt Manue l de Conversation Courante en Langue Moiand Lexique Moi-Franxais-Annamit~

lJean Cassaigne, Petit Ma nue l de Conversat io n Couran t e en La ngue Moi(Saigon, 1930) , p.3

Apart from being incomplete on the phonemic level, this trans

-cription is very conf us i ng, e g voiced pa l a t a l j is often confusedwith cli Fran~ois Martini commented on the old transcription namelyCassaigne's :

L'a noienne t r aY/s or ip t i on u t i l is e e pour l e Sre oontenait l es de ux

gr av es d efau ts s i gnales o i-dessus Ma l gre l 'apparenoe de p r

eoi-sion que l ui don nerai ent ses s ignes diao ri tiques ~ elle et ait i xaot e et in oompl ete E l le r eprJs entai t seu l ement l e s s o ns qu e s on

ne-in venteur a vait en tendu ou oru e ntendre De s p honemes e s sentiels

to ut p arti ou l ierement o ar ao t er is t iques sont o mis; p ar e xamp le : l e s

pr eglo tta lises ~ l 'o oousion g l otta le~ l a qu ant i t e des v oy e l les 1

Martini gave some examples to point out the advance at le a s t ,

that Jacques Dournes' transcription (1949) had over Cassaigne's

Cassaigne Dournes

'bag'

'male''granary'

bb and dd are symbols for preglottalized band d It can be seen thatCassaigne did not distinguish minimally dIfferent words Furthermore,

gl o t ta l stop was not indicated in Cassaigne's system:

Cassaigne

gogosymbol for glottal stop

IFran90 i s Martini "De latranscription du Sre (Kah o) "

Bulletin de 1a Societe des Etud e s Indochinoises

(Tome xxv II.iN° 1, 1952 ~pp 102-103

7

-2.2 - JACQUES DOURNES ; SYSTEM

In 1949 Jacques Dournes compiled a dictionary of the Sre lect using the transcription with special signs to describe it Tohis dismay he could not have the work printed, as there were no

dia-printing presses which could reproduce these signs His problem was

br ough t to the attention of a Commission, which soon met in Dalat tofix an official transcription for the Sre dialect The old transcrip-tion, to the participants at the meeting, was not only inconvenientfor reproduction but also to the word of La savant Compagnie, " unsysteme d'une complication aussie absurde qu'inutile, et assurementinexacte"l The Commission has reached the following principles inestablishing a new transcription :

- The transcription should make it easy for the printing press

to edit books; in this way diacritic marks must be replaced by letters

or diagrams

- The opening and quality of vowels should be indicated eachtime they help distinguish meanings of words whi ch differ in eitherthe degree of opening or length of vowels

The Commission had agreed to the following transcription

IF ran ~ois Martini, "De la trans cript i on du Sre (Koho ), "

Bulletin de la Soc i et e des Etudes Indo chinoises

(Tome xxv I: N° 1, 1952)~ 16 9

- glottal stop is indicated in the orthography

(1950) and Lexique Polyglotte (1953) The latter work was an vation over the first The corrections were results of what Dournestermed, " l 'usage continu de la langue et particulierement etude

y-glotte include :

- Omission of signs of closure on the vowels, since to him

a vowel pronounced cl os e or open is only an accidental realization ofthe same vowel That is , phoneti c difference of vowel ~uality is notphonemic and should not be marked down, e.g., tom, written in the

1950 Dictionnaire with an 0, rhymes with rom -rt is therefore the

sam; phoneme in two words,-hence written tom

- The transcription is more consistent, particularly the

short and long vowels : a / aa; e / ee

- More emphasis was put on the use of the glottal stoP.Dournessaid :

Gilbert Bochet and Jacques Dournes Lexique Pol yg lotte :

Kaho Frangais Viet na mi e n Ra glai (Sai gon , 1953) p.xvi

- 9

-Il es t u ne pa rtiaularite de aes dialeates Monta gnards~ t ota lement etran geres au Franqais aomme au Vi e tnami e n ~ a/est l a r ea l isati on

d e voyel les o u diphtongues ~ breves ou l ongu e ~ t erminees sur une

o aalusion g lotta le. 1

In 1955 after hav i ng concluded a study of the Sre diale ct

hims el f Will i am Sma lley commented on the work of Dourne s as "h is

phonemics is not ~rofound enough to kee p him fr om inconsi s t enc ie s andserious mistakes" Smalley pointed out some of Dournes' mistakes toprove that the la t t e r ' s phonemic notions wer e somewhat limited For

ins t anc e in the ]950 Dict ionna ir e Dour ne s only rec ord ed the gl o tta l

stop when it dist inguis hes minimal l y different words, but i t will not

be marked if he does not f ind such minimally different pairs So to

Smalley, " • it is impossible to read the text wit hou t knowi ng thelanguage": Another point of Dourne siwe akne s s is that he tri ed to re-

cord all possible sounds; thus ran out of symbols In fact he shou l d

have ordered non-contrastive sounds in t o defined cl a s s e s an symbol ized

those classes rather than phones only

The Lexique Pol yglotte removed some of the di f f i cu l t ies but

not all Dournes did not dist i ngu is h between i and 1; con tras t can be

found wi t h these two sounds : compare oh mi ~ oTd er brother' and m1

'you mascul ine' Dournes grouped these-t;Q sounds into one thus

ignoring a very important phonemic pr inc ip le tha t no two differen t

sounds should be classed in t o one, unless occurence is predicta b l e

2.3 - E VANS A ND BO WEN ;S S YSTEM

In 1955 William Smalley prepared a description of Sre phon

e-mes ~. basing on his own study and eliminating the dif f icult ies tha t

Dour ne s had In 1963 He l en Evan s and Peggy Bowen of the Chri sti anand Mis s i on a r y All i anc e in Dal at pub lis he d the ir Ka ho Langua ge Cour s e ,obviously reflecting much of Smalley's study The transcript io n is asfollows

lGilbert Boch e t and Jacques Dourne s, Lexi que Polyg lot te :

K aho , Fr an9a is, Viet nami en,'Ragl ai (Sai gon, 1953 ), p.xvi

2Will iam Smalley, "Revi ew of les Pemsiens, Nri, and Lexique Pol yg lotte, "

Bul let in de l ' Ecole Frangais d'Extreme-Orient (Tome XVI I , Sai gon 1955)

p, 656

3I bid.

~William Smalley, "Sr e phoneme s and syllables, " Journal of the Ameri ca nOriental Society ( Vol. 74, N0 4, Oc t-Dec 1955) pp 217- 222

The symbols used for consonants are very similar to those used

by Dournes (See p 8) except for the following changes:

- ~ d and n replace bb dd and ~

- glottal stop is not indicated in the orthography

Vowels

unrounded unrounded rounded

symbol for long vowel

symbo l for short vowel

Aside from the wr~t~ng of i and i as different vowels and the

use of diacriti c marks to represent length instead of letters this

is noted that this transcription resembles the first one in that itmakes use of many symbo l s of the Qu~c-ng~.

In the four-volume Dictionnaire Fransais Montagnard Drouin

used the same system as that of Evans and Bowen wi t h some variat ions

in the use of symbo l s For example e is used in place of i; ~ in

plac e of ~

lIn his study Smal ley cons i dered this as an al lophone of a; however ,

with the speec h of the inf or mant this is a unique phoneme

- II

-2.4 - THE SYSTEM USED IN THIS STUDY

The transcription used in this study is a reconciliation betweenDrouin's system and that of Evans and Bowen Concerni ng the consonants

there is no change between the two systems so no descript ion is neededhere However the vowels are somewhat different therefore a new chart

is pr e s en ted :

THE SRE DIALECT

It has been agreed that no Highland languages of South Vietnam

3.1 - SRE PHO NEMES

1 William Small ey , "Review of les Pemsi ens , Nri , and Lexique Po l yglotte,11

Bul letin de l'Ecole Fr an s ai s d'Extreme-Orient (Tome XLXII , Fas 2,

Saigon : 1950), p.658

unr ounded unrounded rounded

3.2 - SRE WORD PATTERNS

A word consists of a main syllable , which may be preceded byone or two presyllable s

3.2 J. - MAIN SYLLABLES

A ma i n syllable can be defined as

associated tone length, with one, two, or

with or without one following consonantl.

patterns occur in Sre :

consisting of one vowel andthree preceding cons onant s ,The following main syllable

eeve blang 'f i e l d'

lIn the i r study, both Smal ley and Manley mentioned post voc alic consnant clusters in Sr e, which consis t of three patterns -w?, -y? ,

o-and · ~ y h ? In this st udy, the fi rs t two cl us t ers are treated as

complex-lln i que pho ne mes rather than gl i de s prece ding glottal stop ,because wor d- fi nal pos i t ion can o ly fil led by single consonant s Thelast cluster can be considered as an al lophone of s in final position

(e.g klas [klayh] ' escape') The inf orma nt pre s ents an int er estin gpoint that during his few months l iving among the eil of the Dalatarea, -~ is clearl y heard in many words endin g in ~ in Sr e (e.g.nuih[nuyh] 'he ar t' , in Sre i is ~)

- 14

-3.2.2 - PRESYLLABLES

Presyllables consist of these patterns

- ?a- glottal plus ~ (e.g ~ [?alar]l 'pluralizer')

- ca- any consonant except aspirated and implosive plus a

- CaL- any consonant plus a and r or 1 (excluding the combination

rar CaNrar any consonant plus a and a nasal Since N- can be

inter-preted phonetically-as [?aN] when it occurs alone N- will

be treated as a presyllable pf the type CaN- Also.-whenoccuring alone N- assimilates to the point of articula-tion of the follQ;ing consonant (e.g mblang2 'expecta-tion' nggui 'to sit' nteng 'where')

Presyllables are especially relevant to the study of affixesbecause some presyllables are also prefixes on the morphological level

From the above descriptions we can sketch the following chartwhich accounts for the general word patterns in Sre

- In general any presyllable 2 can combine with any main able to form disyllabic words

syll-lIn Sre word beginning with a vowel is phonetically begun with a

- The present data shows that presy11ab1e I is only of the

3.3 - VARIATIONS IN THE PRONUNCIATION OF SRE PRESYLLABLES

In Sre, many presy11ab1es vary noticeably from village to

presy11ab1e initial consonant and presy11ab1e vowel

3.3.1 PRESYLLABLE INITIAL CONSONANT

- Dental consonants t and d are heard non-contrastively on thesame word

and b

3.3.2 - PRESYLLABLE VOWEL

The articulation of the presy11ab1e vowel is the more differentfrom village to village, again attesting to the fact that presy11ab1es

element of a presy11ab1e, it is never subject to distinction of accent,length or tone, it is somehow different from the rest of the vocalicsystem."l

University of Hawaii

- 16

-In many places a and i 'are heard non-contrastively in the

following words :

jatrei / jitrei 's ci s s or s'drinan / dranan 'mirador'

- Many examples can be cited to ind i ca t e that a often varies

to~, entailing no semantic change

pangarhadang

3.4 - LOANWORDS 'IN SRE

/ pangar/ hadang

'a board'

'above'

Language is never an isolated entity in itself It always

gives and/or takes something depending on the culture it is in contactwith Since intercourse among peoples is a need for many centuries,

there is no doubt that languages never cease to influence one another.This is particularly true of Sre Aside from being a very mobile group,which prompts the Sre people to learn the dialects of other groups tofacilitate trading, its geographical location also plays an importantrole in history , which helps indicate that Sre received influences frommany sources

It fut le t heatre de gra nds m ouvements de popu lati ons et le li eu d e passage cont inu p our l es Pemsiens du Nord-Ouest se rendant p eriodi - quement a l a cote Vietnamie nne Ce r ole n'est p lus j oue actuel le-

me nt~ ma is i l a marque c ette t r ibu et n 'a pas peu c ontribue a f air e connaitre des autres1•

Thanks to its geographical location, Sra ~s inf l uenc ed by twolanguage families : Malayo-Polynesian and Mon-Khmer, with their respec-tive representatives : Cham and Khmer In Sre vocabulary, we often comeacross many Cham terms in some places and some Khmer terms in other pla-ces Careful study reveals that many synonyms in Sre are loanwords fromCham and Khmer, and are equally used by the Sre in their daily conversa-tion It would require a lot of work on the part of comparative lin-guists should we want to elaborate on these influences Particularly,the study of the inter influence of languages belonging to the same family

IJacques Dournes D i ctionnair~ Sre (Kaho )- Fran9a is

(Saigon 1950), p.vi

as Khmer and Sre will be very difficult, since words deemed borrowingsmight be simply variants of the same forms coming down from a commonsource This is outside the scope of the present study No t wi t hs t and-ing, two more obvious influences namely Vietnamese and French cannot escape our attention and deserve a few lines here.

The ethnic Vietnamese have always considered the Highland

peoples as moi 'savage', and therefore seem unwilling to receive fluences from-these inferior groups The influence follows heavily onedirection: being a culturally dominant groups, the Vietnamese wouldexert a remarkable -influence on the Sre without being influenced bythem The same is true of the French influence During the French co-lonization, little contact between the Vietnamese and the Highland peo-ples was permitted; therefore not many Sre reaching maturity couldspeak Vietnamese, though some could speak French Since the writtenlanguage was first developed for them by the French missionaries, manyFrench terms found their way into Sre contexts Many Sre studied inFrench schools and could speak French fluently; no doubt French culturemade an impression on these Sre, hence on their culture The influencethat Vietnamese and French have on Sre is characteristic of what Sapirsaid

ano-the~ i s the b o~~owing of wo~ds. When the~e is cu lt~al bo~~owing the~e is a lways the li kelihood t hat th e assoc iated w o~ds may al s o

h~m

kho

Hnhkie~a

thu~c

English gloss'bag'

'container''salute the flag''coffin'

'to roast fish''soldier'

'identification'

'meter',

lEdwar d Sapir, Language : ~ Introduction ~ ~ Study of Speech

(New York: Harcourt, Brace and World Compa ny , 1949), p.193

- 18

Kam- nong camion 'mi l i t a r y truck'

The borrowing from French into Sre may be direct or by way ofVietnamese For example, both Vietnamese and Sre have the same form for

a shirt: sO mi, sami, whi ch come from French chemise Similarly, xu

(Vietnamese) and ~Sre) from sou (French) "coin' As can be

seen-from above examples, the borrowed forms have often undergone phoneticadaptation in Sre Since the phonetic habits of the native Sre woul d bedifferent from those of the borrowed tongue, phonetic modification is aneed so as not to do violence to the former

3.5 - POSITION OF SRE AMONG HIGHLAND DIALECTS

Except Sre and Ma, there is very scanty, if any written rials whether short or long on other Koho dialects The language calledKoho is chiefly known through Sre1• Mos t of the studies done up to thistime by anthropologists, missionaries, and linguists are based on Sreand Ma It is qu i t e easy to unde r st and this trend of research, sincethe Sre and the Ma are the most populated groups, and are considered moreadvanced as compared with the more scattered and less civilized eil andNop No t wi t hs t and i ng , there is no communicative difficulty among Kohogroups Dialectal differences are not so serious as to hinder communica-

mate-tion The reason for this mutual intelligibility is that being a verymobile people, each Koho group will learn and acquire the languages ofother groups and of neighboring tribes This can be seen from the follow-ing description :

lW~ often see the terms Koho and Sre as intercha ngeable This is notproper, since Koho is a generic term and ha s a Chami c origin, wh i l e

Sre is more preferred as it means 'rice paddy', characterized by the

practice of wet rice by the Sre

T he K il, liv ing w ithin commu nities o f ot her Kcr ho gr oups, m ay be

Dia~eots o f s ome Kcrho gr oups are a ~so unders t ood b y n ei ghboring

dia-lects Jacques Dournes wrote:

i-~ egiee; i ~ es t u n ~i eu ~i nguis tique de r enoontre e t d' equili bre des

inf~uenaes, oe qu i est d 'ai ~ ~eurs en o orrelation ave o ~ e l ieu

•

linguists who first attempt to study the Kcrho language

Chapter IV

SRE AFFIXATION

CHAPTER IV

SRE AFFIXATION

4.1 - PREVIOUS STUDIES

Jacques Dournes wrote :

Le dial eatie Bre, ma Zgroe Le nombre important de mots d 'une syLZabe qui Ze composent~ n'est pas une langue monosylZabique; pres de Za

mo itie du vocabuZaire est bisyZZabique; iZ est des mots de trois

et de quatre syZZabes La pZupart de ces mots ainsi articu les

diaZectes Pem8iens~ fait part ie d es Zangues agg Zutinantes A tir d'une racine~ on-construit d'au tres mots en ajou tant des parti- cuZes; ce procede pourrait permettre la creation de mots noUVeaux

par-a introduire dans Ze vocabuZaire Sre pour le preciser et l'enrichir (natasment: dans l.e domaine scientifique)1.

Dournes also presented a somewhat general sketch of the affixes that

inade-quate

The second book that mentioned affixes is that of Evans and

was not sufficient to even state a logical distribution of the allomorphs

of the causative prefix on a phonological basis

(Saigon 1950, p.xvi ii

(Dalat 1963), p.71

21

-The latest discussion of affixes in Sre comes from Timo t hy Manl eyl

in what can be considered the fullest treatment of Sre grammar However,since affixes are not the author's main concern when studying Sre struc-ture, only a short l ist of several verb roots and their deri ved formswith causative and nominaliz ing affixes is presented Apart from this nophonological distribution of the allomorphs is discussed

4 2 - DESCRIPTION OF AFFIXES

Some-times, disyllabic roots can combine with a prefix to form three-syllablederivatives Howeve r , most three-syllab le forms are cases of two prefi-xes affixed to the same roots (see p, 32) It is also found that a pre-fix often replaces the presyllable of a disyllabic root to form a disyl-labic derivat ive Except for the nominaliz ing infix -on- and the eli tic-tom 'ownership', affixes in Sre are all prefixes As-prefixes they

wrtr become presyllables of disyllabic derivat ives; this aga i n stresses

the relevance of presyllables discussed previously to the study of pref xes As will be seen later, many for ms deemed prefixes will be treated

i-as enclitics since they do not comply wit h the general patterns of syllables in Sre

pre-4 3 - CAUSATIVE PREFIX { Ton- }

Ton- is the most productive prefix in Sre It is found that can occur with a great number of verb roots, though not all TOn- com-bines with monosyllabic verb roots or replaces presyllables of disyllabicverb roots to create disyllabic derivatives A complete checking of the

tOn-dictionar ies of Dournes and Drouin, with the confirmation of th ~ inf or mant, shows that tOn- does not occur with three-syllable verb roots

-The derived forms with the causative

causing someone or something to do something

to happen to someon ~~ _~~~ ~ h i~g~

' T. "Ir " ~ " ' : " : ,.: I ' ' / , - , IVr

' " l :" ': ,- ~ ' ':""" ; ~ " • i

J · L; r~ · C,~.02 ; 5~, - I

Timo t hy Manley , Ou ( ~ :~; ~ ;":s:t ;j t ure

(Hawaii : University of Hawaii Press, 1972>,

prefix have the meaning of

10 all or to make

pp 41-4 7

talt pf al ,to cause to fall to the ground'

23

.tonie.l 't o cause to melt, to dissolve'

do ' t o wear on hand or arm'

Jtoh it o lose'

4.3.1 - ALLOMORPHS OF TON- (tam ta- -tang- -tar pan-)

Tan- causative prefix has several allomorphs wi t h which somephonological trends can be recognized

4 • 3.1.1 -

Tam-A few verb roots beginning with voiced bilabial b and imp l osiv e

b can occur non-contrast ively with tan- or tam-

ltanle is among ve r y few examples whe r e the cluster nl is permitted,

made at dental, alveolar, and alveo-palata l poi nts of art iculat ion )

See Ti mot hy Manl ey , Outlin e of Sre Structure {p 28) for more disc

us-sion of thi s

ba.ll tanba.u / tomba.ll bll

tanbll / tambll bo

tanbo · / tombo blte ·

, to get married''to make to get married', to get drown'

'to cause to get drown''to smell'

, to make to smell ''to fetch'

'to make to fetch'

combines with verb roots beginning with

'to go down''to cause to go down, to lower''to enter, to go in'

'to make to enter''to wear on head''to make to wear on head''to be frightened'

'to cause to be frightened''to lift the head up'

'to make to lift the head up'

lIn Sre no nasal consonant clusters of any kind are permitted.This is why n of tan- is lost before nasals

'to cause to go out'

.tdYlgkah go tdYlgglf

gang :tdYlggang

4.3.1.4 -

Tar-'to cause to remember'

'to cause to see'

'to cause to accumulate''to erect'

' t o drink '

movement

'to fold up the trousers'

deh

.:tCfJtcleh

.:tdJtkue

'to make to fold up the trousers'

'to cause to be bent'

'to cause to turn left'

- 27

The allomorph pan- occurs with a few verb roots sometimes infree variation with tan- No fixed pattern or condition has yet beendetermined

.wndb / pandb ' to make to wear bracelet'

jo b- 'to give an electric shock'

f)Jnjab- ' to cause to give an electric shock'

pdnduml 'to bathe the other'

Tan- and its variant pcrn- can occur with some adj ec t i ve s toform causative verbs Following are examples found in Sre

paneang 'to illuminate'pandiang 'to make comfortable'

lIn Sre morphemes beginning with vowels are considered to beginphonetically-with glottal stops, i.e ~ phonetically becomes

[?Um] Historically, ~ is found to occur with words beginningwith glottal stops and for some reason the cluster n? becomes na.This explains the presence of d in the affixed forms Other exam-ples are :

ang 'to be bright'

iang 'comfortable'

.tcfnduh 'to heat'

'to compare'

4.3.3 - STRUCTURAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE CAUSATIVE VERB

When a causative verb is used in a clause the object slot must

verb root and an intransitive causative verb is formed from an sitive verb root

variation with tanr

29

-a)- Intransitive causative verb :

The elements filling the object slot may consist of a noun only

obj ec t of the affixed verb •

with that man'

3 5 4

c.au. ne

married2

khaJ: · bau rna

khcU tdnggu.h oh khcU

c.au do de.h ha Yle.

bJ- Tran s itiv e causative verb :

In the transform, either preposit ion in ' t o , for' or prep

o-sition te' 'in, at, ' is acquired Ie precedes the actor and !n fol l ows

it in the object slot No explanation is found to account for the sence of such prepositions Semantically, the y are unnecessary as their

pre-meanings can not be incorporated into an Engli sh translati on of th e

transform