Normal constituent order Clausal constituents and their variation

2

1. Clausal constituents and their variation

Lumun word order is SVO 1.1. Change in word order can highlight the constituent that is displaced or can give contrastive focus 1.2. The language commonly uses situational points of departure to switch to a new context 1.3 and uses tail-head linkage for renewal points of departure to renew a previous context 1.4. Adjuncts are common, may consist of various types of phrases and clauses, and may encode a variety of descriptions for the action of the clause 1.5.

1.1 Normal constituent order

Lumun is SVO, taking up to two objects, where adverbs and adjuncts follow the objects. When there are two objects, the object immediately following the verb is animate an indirect object. 1 A-Lotti ullukkat arupu worua kicce F-Loti closed the animals well ‘Loti locked up the animals.’ B8 2 a-Lotti okenekat purit p-en no karan F-Loti showed young.man C-that in place ‘Loti showed the young man the spot where he had seen the leopard.’ B29 As expected in this SVO language, adjectives follow nouns in noun phrases. However, prepositional phrases, verb phrases, and relative clauses may function as modifiers. In 3, the object of the transitive verb –imakat ‘saw’ is a noun phrase which includes a prepositional phrase and two verb phrases. The prepositional phrase i-kathar ‘in-road, the verb p-otheret ‘C-spotted, and the verb phrase p-ungkot papokira ‘C-looks.like thing.of.trees’ all function as adjectives describing the head noun paperek ‘something. In 4, the prepositional phrase no murol ‘ on stones’ and the verb phrase a-l-icat cik ‘F-C-laying down’ both function as modifiers describing the head noun licok ‘goats. 3 a-kw-immakat [paperek i-kathar p-otheret ana p-ungkot F-3S-saw something in-road C-spotted and C-looks.like papokira] OBJ NP thing.of.trees ‘He saw something coloured in the road that looked like a leopard.’ B14-15 4 a-kin othiat [licok no murol a-l-icat cik] OBJ NP F-they found goats on stones F-C-laying down ‘They found goats lying down on stones.’ B30 The prepositional phrase i-kathar of 3 could be analyzed as an adjunct of location for the verb ‘saw. However, as such it would be out of place and inserted in the middle of the object noun phrase. Since it is old information repeated from the previous sentence, it could be listed first after the object to allow the new information describing the creature to be listed last in the clause. Although plausible and common in other languages Levinsohn, there is not enough data to determine if Lumun consistently places new information last in clauses. In 4, both the phrase no murol ‘on stones’ and a-l-icat cik ‘it-lying down’ are new information and neither of them is out of order. So for now, i-kathar is analyzed as functioning as a modifier. 3

1.2 Emphatic and contrastive focus