Hypocoristic phrases (in Chinuk-wawa?)...was...Re: Fun with grammar

[Dave Robertson]

LhaXayEm,

Qhata mEsayka?  Nadja, lhush pus nanich uk ma munk t'sEm:  Good to see the note from you.  Alta nayka thElay pus munk kEmtEks mayka tEnEs ikta...I'll try to explain a little something...

The hypocoristic phrase "Chrissy prezzies", if it were spelled like this, would be easier to recognize as a shortening of the phrase "Christmas presents".

For an actual definition of the linguistic term, though, I'll defer to any really large dictionary that you can find.  Maybe Alan will cover this angle.

Parts of speech in Chinuk-wawa is an issue that's never been resolved, nor to my knowledge much addressed.  Here are a few brief observations:

In the study of contact languages (pidgins, creoles, and so on), there's now a common term, "TMA markers", which is an abbreviation for "tense, mood, and aspect".  Were we to construct such a category for Chinuk-wawa, we would find lumped into it words like /alhqi, anqati/ (seen as having more or less abstract values like "FUTURE, PAST"), /hay(u/a)/ ("PROGRESSIVE" or something like that), and /munk, chaku/ ("CAUSATIVE, PASSIVE").  Note that many or all of these words might, in an alternate and also popular view, be termed "Adverbs", for example.

In the same sort of approach as the former, we might find a separate category of "Verbs", being the words that can be given more specific meanings by the use of the TMA markers.  There would also probably be "Nouns" and "Adjectives" (or "Stative Verbs" or some such).  I say
'probably' because this is a Northwest language, and in this region of the world the point has been hotly debated as to whether all languages actually have a Noun/Verb distinction, or whether alternatively any root-form can be employed freely as either.  Nuu-chah-nulth languages (Nootkan) have been the subject of particularly energetic discussion in this light.

Categories of words that are easy to defend in Chinuk-wawa are "Interjections", "Pronouns", and "Prepositions".  The latter category, incidentally, includes more words than the "ahnkuttie" popular accounts of Chinook Jargon would have us believe--aside from /khapa/ (kopa), for example, it seems clear to me that /pus/ "for" is one of many other PREP's in this language.

Other thoughts on the question of parts-of-speech in Chinuk-wawa would be welcomed by me.  This is just a quick, casual answer to Nadja's question from me.

Alta nayka lhatwa,
Dave

Nadja Adolf <nadja at NODE.COM> wrote:
>
> Well, I bought Yule's linguistics book yesterday and have made it through
> Chapter 10.
>
> I don't have a clue on the hypercoric (sp?) phrase "Chrissy Pressies" meaning.
>
> I also have some questions about Chinook grammar, now that I understand the
> meaning of some of those SVO and otherwise phrases.
>
> So, can someone here give me the parts of speech allowed in Chinook Wawa?
> And how they're made?
>
> It might help me sound more "correct."
>
> I intend to order "The Language Files" once our gateway machine (and web
> service) is restored.
>
> This has been a very strange period of time - the hard drive on the gateway
> failed, so we're down to uucp mail over phone lines with no other net
> access until we replace the gateway harddrive.
>
> nadja
>

----------
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape Webmail account today at http://home.netscape.com/webmail/