The verb Word classes

2.3.1 The general typology of the clause

In broad typological terms, Olo can be characterized as an SVO Subject, Verb, Object language A. McGregor 1983; Staley 1994b. Examples showing this ordering are given in 5 and 6. The simple declarative unmarked ordering is SVO. The occurrence of a third-person object infix marked by an un- derline as in 5, versus a suffix, as in 6, is a function of verb class. A discussion of verb classes in Olo can be found in the next section as well as Staley 1990 ms, 1994b, 1994c. There is a prefix on the verb which marks the subject of the verb, and provides information about the person, number, and gender 2 of the subject. Objects are marked as well with the person, number, and gender information occurring as either a suffix or infix. S V O 5 Ales l-olto luom Alex 3m-dip.3m sago Alex dips sago. S V O 6 Martin l-osi-ene Rita Martin 3m-attack-3f Rita Martin attacked Rita. While the normal, unmarked order in Olo is SVO, that is not the only order. The object can be fronted to initial position, as in 7. It is also possible for the subject to remain a free noun phrase when the object is fronted, as in 8. 7 ki l-irpei-ki I 3m-speak-1s Me, he spoke to me 8 ki Kowi l-irpei-ki I Kowi 3m-speak-1s It was me Kowi spoke to. Examples 7 and 8 show the type of construction that functions similarly to the passive in English. It could be translated “I was spoken to by Kowi”. Neither of the translations exactly reflects the con- struction in Olo. Olo has no morphosyntactic passive, nor is the fronting of the object to a topic posi- tion a type of the “It was X…” cleft construction in English. Before examining the clausal relations, both semantic and grammatical, let us turn to the grammati- cal structures that make up the clause. Doing this will provide information that is needed to support the analysis of the different relations involving clausal arguments.

2.3.2 Word classes

The large open word classes in Olo are verbs and nouns. Adjectives make up the third largest class. The minor classes consist of numerals, pronouns, demonstratives, adverbs, prepositions and subordinators, and conjunctions and discourse particles.

2.3.2.1 The verb

The verb is the central element in the clause. Often the clause is only composed of a single verb with no free standing arguments. 2.3 Grammatical Characterization 9 2 The gender is only reflected in the third person and only then in the singular and dual forms. 9 a. k-e b. l-ifei c. n-aplo-pe 1s-go 3m-sit 3f-pierce-3m I go. He sits. She pierces them. Depending on their class, verbs can take up to four different affixes. They can take a subject prefix, an object infix, an object suffix, and can reduplicate part of the verb root to mark continuous aspect. The discussion of the continuous aspect will be handled under the section dealing with aspect and mood. Subject prefix The subject prefixes distinguish person: first, second, and third; number: singular, dual, and plural; and gender in third person. The Olo genders are masculine and feminine. Table 2.3 gives the subject prefixes. Table 2.3. Olo subject prefixes k- first-person singular ‘I’ w- first-person dual ‘we two’ m- first-person plural ‘we’ Ø - second-person singular ‘you’ y- second-person plural ‘you’ l- third-person singular masculine ‘he’ n- third-person singular feminine ‘she’ t- third-person dual masculine ‘they two’ m- third-person dual feminine ‘they two’ 3 p- third-person plural ‘they’ The following examples show the subject prefix on both intransitive 10 and transitive 11 verbs. 10 Wamnei n-a Wamnei 3f-die Wamnei dies. 11 Kowi l-etesi-ne Ros Kowi k 3m k -hit-3f r Roser Kowi hit Rose. Not all verbs take the subject prefix for phonological reasons. Vowel-initial verbs take the prefix. The only consonant-initial verbs that can take prefixes are those that start with r and l; they can take some of the verbal prefixes, specifically: k, p, t, m, as in 12–14. These are more common in writing than in speech. Some speakers never use them, other speakers will only use them in slow and deliberate speech. No speaker has been observed using them all the time. Speakers who use them in slow and deliberate speech will consistently use them in writing. This use I believe reflects that they are morphologically “present” but deleted because of phonological constraints. 12 a. Kowi na-iye b. pe na-iye Kowi call-2s they call-2s Kowi calls you. They call you. 10 The Olo Language 3 The feminine gender is used for any mixed, male and female, subjects. 13 a. ki k-ratei b. le ratei c. le l-ratei I 1s-live he live he 3m-live I live. He lives 14 a. pe p-retai b. ne retai c. ne n-retai they 3p-know she know she 3f-know They know. She knows. With one verb, lolpo ‘fight’, the prefix is optional. This may be in part due to the semantic constraint that the subject of this verb must be plural. A fight, lolpo, must involve more than two people. This optionality is only for this verb, so the semantic explanation is the most likely. 15 a. mete p-lolpo b. mete lolpo men 3p-fight men fight The men fight. The men fight. Object infixes There are thirty-four verbs in the Somoro dialect which use an infix to refer to third-person objects. All these verbs require the object to be marked. The infix normally occurs following the vowel of the first syllable. The object infixes are given in table 2.4. They are underlined throughout this work. Table 2.4. Olo object infixes -l- ‘him’ -n- ‘her’ -ut- ‘two males’ -m- ‘two females’ -p- ‘them’ Example 16 shows the verb kali ‘get him’, inflected with the different third-person infixes. 16 ne kali 4 ‘She gets him.’ she get.3m ne kauti ‘She gets two males.’ she get.3md le kani ‘He gets her.’ he get.3f le kami ‘He gets two females.’ he get.3fd le kapi ‘He gets them.’ he get.3p That these are clearly infixes can be shown from comparing 16 with 17. The parts of the word that remain constant are the outer edges, which are obviously distinct in the different examples. 2.3 Grammatical Characterization 11 4 The initial k is part of the root and not a first-person singular prefix. 17 reltapo ‘put him on it’ put.3m on something else routapo 5 ‘put the two of them m. on it’ put.3md on something else rentapo ‘put her on it’ put.3f on something else remtapo ‘put the two of them f. on it’ put.3fd on something else reptapo ‘put them on it’ put.3p on something else Object suffixes Olo uses suffixes to mark all first and second-person objects. Third-person objects are marked for some verbs by suffixes and for other verbs by infixes. First and second person First- and second-person objects are realized by suffixes. This pattern applies to all transitive verbs including the thirty-four verbs which take third-person object infixes. The suffixes which realize first and second-person objects are given in table 2.5. Table 2.5. Olo first- and second-person suffixes -iki first-person singular ‘I’ -uku first-person plural ‘us’ -ye second-person singular ‘you’ -ise second-person plural ‘you’ If one of the object-infix-taking roots is inflected for first or second person, the root can undergo rather drastic but regular alternation. If the vowel in the first syllable is either a or e, the first sylla- ble of the root becomes an ei. This form is also used for the reciprocal, as will be discussed below. 18 kali ‘get him’ get.3m keiye-iki ‘get me’ get-1s keiyo-uku ‘get us’ get-1p keiye-iye ‘get you’ get-2s keiye-ise ‘get you.pl’ get.2p 12 The Olo Language 5 This data shows vowel harmony. More information on vowel harmony in Olo verbs can be found in Staley 1990. 19 a. p-alfo p-eifo-iki 3p-put.inside.3m 3p-put.inside-1s They put him inside something. They put me inside something. b. l-anei l-eiye-iki 3m-eat.3f 3m-eat-1s He eats her. He eats me. c. p-alpo p-eipo-iki 3p-shoot.3m 3p-shoot-1s They shoot him. They shoot me. d. l-eptei l-eite-iki 3m-put.3p 3m-put-1s He puts them. He puts me. First- and second-person suffixes do not distinguish gender and only make a singularplural distinc- tion, as in 20a. If a speaker desires to distinguish a dual from a plural for a first- or second-person ref- erent, a free pronoun must be used in addition to the suffix, as in 21. 20 a. l-eila-iki b. l-eila-uku c. l-eila-iye d. l-eila-ise 3m-lift-1s 3m-lift-1p 3m-lift-2s 3m-lift-2p He lifts me. He lifts us. He lifts you. He lifts you p. 21 a. l-eila-uku ronge b. l-eila-ise rom 3m-lift-1p md 3m-lift-2p fd He lifts us two men. He lifts you two women. Third person The Somoro dialect of Olo has two main suffix sets to mark third-person objects. There are two dis- tinguishing features of the suffix sets. The first is that the third-person masculine suffix is -o or -wo in set 1 and Ø in set 2. 6 The other difference is that the other set 1 suffixes have an initial e, which does not occur with the second suffix set. Examples of set 1 are given in 22, 23, and of set 2 in 24. The two suffix sets are given in table 2.6. Table 2.6. Olo third-person object suffixes set 1 set 2 -wo Ø - third singular masculine ‘him’ -ene -ne third singular feminine ‘her’ -enge -nge third dual masculine ‘them’ -eme -me third dual feminine ‘them’ -epe -pe third plural ‘them’ Set 1 22 esi-o ‘hold him’ hold-3 2.3 Grammatical Characterization 13 6 These sets correspond to classes 3a and 3b, respectively in Staley 1994b. esi-ene ‘hold her’ hold-3f esi-enge ‘hold them two masculine’ hold-3md esi-eme ‘hold them two feminine’ hold-3fd esi-epe ‘hold them’ hold-3p 23 ku kulta-wo 7 ‘We arouse him.’ we arouse-3m le kulta-ene ‘He arouses her.’ he arouse-3f ne kulta-enge ‘She arouses them two masculine.’ we arouse-3md ku kulta-eme ‘We arouse them two feminine.’ we arouse-3fd ku kulta-epe ‘We arouse them.’ we arouse-3p Set 2 24 etesi-Ø ‘hit him’ hit-3m etesi-ne ‘hit her’ hit-3f etesi-nge ‘hit them two masculine’ hit-3md etesi-me ‘hit them two feminine’ hit-3fd etesi-pe ‘hit them’ hit-3p The distinction between the -o and -wo in set 1 is phonological. The -o only occurs following the high front vowel, 8 i, and -wo occurs in all other environments. A few words that end in i can actually take ei- ther form. For some speakers the final vowel is lax, and lax vowels match with the -wo. In all cases a high front lax vowel when followed by a morpheme beginning with either a u or w will harmonize and become backed. This explains the change in the root of 25b from kani to kano. For more information on this phenomena see Staley 1990. 14 The Olo Language 7 The initial k is part of the root and not a first-person singular prefix as shown by the first-person plural lexical Agent. If this was a case of agreement then the prefix would need to be w- or m-. 8 The high front vowel must be the only vowel in the syllable and not an offglide. 25 a. kani-o b. kano-wo help-3m help-3m Help him. Help him. The preceding examples have been of prototypical transitive events with Agents and Patients. Not all verbs in Olo mark the Patient as an object by using a suffix. Verbs in Olo that have three inherent se- mantic roles do not mark the Patient on the verb; rather they mark the BeneficiaryRecipient with an object suffix. In 26 the third-person feminine suffix corresponds to Wamnei ‘a woman’s name’ and not the Patient, ila ‘knife’, a masculine noun. 26 a. ki wat-ene Wamnei ila le-iki b. le wat-ene I give-3f Wamnei knife m-1s he give-3f I gave Wamnei my knife. He gave her something.

2.3.2.2 Nouns