<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">
<span></span>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">
Hi Pun Ho,</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><br>
</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">In Horokoi (Wasembo,
[gsp]), a language of Morobe Province, Trans-New Guinea > Madang > Rai Coast, there are a few cases
where a verb root is realized as zero.</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><br>
</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">Case 1: <i>Ø</i>-
'hit, kill, negatively affect'. When the object is 3sg, the verb stem
is <i>a-</i> (3sg object is otherwise zero in Horokoi). Otherwise,
the verb stem consists only of the object marker.</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><br>
</p>
<ol><li><p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;break-before:auto;break-after:avoid;background:transparent">
<i>Ø-Ya-komu.</i></p>
</li></ol>
<p style="font-style:normal;line-height:100%;margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0in;break-before:auto;break-after:avoid;background:transparent">
<span style="background:transparent">hit-<span style="font-variant:small-caps">1sg.obj-3sg.fut</span></span></p>
<p style="font-style:normal;line-height:100%;margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">
<span style="background:transparent">'That person will hit/kill me.'</span></p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><br>
</p>
<ol start="2"><li><p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;break-before:auto;break-after:avoid;background:transparent">
<i>Ø-Noka-Ø! (cf. noka)</i></p>
</li></ol>
<p style="font-style:normal;line-height:100%;margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0in;break-before:auto;break-after:avoid;background:transparent">
<span style="background:transparent">hit-<span style="font-variant:small-caps">3pl.obj-imp 3pl</span></span></p>
<p style="font-style:normal;line-height:100%;margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">
<span style="background:transparent">'Kill them!' (cf. basic pronoun
'they')</span></p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><br>
</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">Case 2: Reduction of
light verbs <i>e-</i><span style="font-style:normal"> 'do, take' and
</span><i>i-</i><span style="font-style:normal"> 'do, become'.</span><span style="font-style:normal">
Here I use underscore rather than zero to indicate where a vowel has
been deleted.</span><span style="font-style:normal"> </span><span style="font-style:normal">NB:
</span><span style="font-style:normal">There</span><span style="font-style:normal">
is a very common process in Horokoi where a word-final vowel is
deleted before another word in the same intonation unit (moko >
mok_). That is not the process I mean here. I mean when the light
verb stem itself is deleted</span><span style="font-style:normal">
(e-, i- > zero)</span><span style="font-style:normal">.</span><span style="font-style:normal">
In fact, both can happen together.</span></p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><br>
</p>
<ol start="3"><li><p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;break-before:auto;break-after:avoid;background:transparent">
<i>Moko e-ma-re. ~ Moko _-ma-re. ~ Mok_ e-ma-re. ~ Mok_ _-ma-re.</i></p>
</li></ol>
<p style="font-style:normal;line-height:100%;margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0in;break-before:auto;break-after:avoid;background:transparent">
<span style="background:transparent">speech do-<span style="font-variant:small-caps">cont-3sg.</span><span style="font-variant:small-caps">imm</span></span></p>
<p style="font-style:normal;line-height:100%;margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">
<span style="background:transparent">'That person is talking.'</span></p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><br>
</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><span style="font-style:normal">So
Case 2 is more of a phonological effect of a light verb construction
in the process of fusing together, rather than a zero verb stem
proper.</span></p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><br>
</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><span style="font-style:normal">Case
3: Reduction of verb </span><i>i-</i><span style="font-style:normal">
'eat' in the completive. This happens because of allomorphy in which
suffixes beginning with </span><i>k</i><span style="font-style:normal">
change it to </span><i>t</i><span style="font-style:normal">
following a stem-final </span><i>i</i><span style="font-style:normal">.
I reconstruct the historical form </span><i>i-tape-</i><span style="font-style:normal">
for the completive of this verb, 'eat completely'. But now, since it
is the only verb with this form (ignoring the homophonous light verb
</span><i>i-</i><span style="font-style:normal">, which you can
distinguish from 'eat' based on what the object/adjunct is), the </span><i>i</i><span style="font-style:normal">
has been lost with no introduced ambiguity.</span></p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><br>
</p>
<ol start="4"><li><p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;break-before:auto;break-after:avoid;background:transparent">
<i>Opopo Ø-tapo-ra. < *Opopo i-tapE-ra.</i></p>
</li></ol>
<p style="font-style:normal;line-height:100%;margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0in;break-before:auto;break-after:avoid;background:transparent">
<span style="background:transparent">food eat-<span style="font-variant:small-caps">compl-1sg.</span><span style="font-variant:small-caps">imm</span></span></p>
<p style="font-style:normal;line-height:100%;margin-left:0.5in;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">
<span style="background:transparent">'I finished the food.'</span></p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><br></p><p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">I believe several other Rai Coast languages have zero roots for the 'give' verbs, if one analyzes them in that way as I have done in Case 1 here. Those 'give' verbs then have zero plus an object suffix indicating the recipient. Horokoi is not one of these languages because, while most of the 'give' verbs are clearly derived from the basic pronouns, there is a stem-final vowel change in all of them, making it more straightforward to analyze them as a separate 'give' stem unique to each recipient.<br>
</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">Hope this is helpful
and interesting to others!</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent"><br>
</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">Best,</p>
<p style="line-height:100%;margin-bottom:0in;background:transparent">Wesley Kuhron Jones</p>
</div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Feb 24, 2024 at 6:07 AM Pun Ho Lui <<a href="mailto:luiph001@gmail.com">luiph001@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>Dear All,<div><br></div><div>Recently I am interested in the “zero verb root” in Papuan languages, that is, the meaning of the verb(s) are indicated by a root that has no phonological expression (Comrie and Zamponi 2019), as in (1).</div><div><br></div><div>(1) Selepet (McElhanon 1973)</div><div>Ø-nek-sap</div><div>see-1sGO-3SGS.IMMPST </div><div>'He saw me’</div><div><br></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">The Papuan languages (potentially) with zero verb root I have collected so far are: Abau, Abun, Coastal Marine, Edolo, Kalamang, Main, Nimboran, Amele, Yeri, Yima, Whitehead, Awe,Siroi, Gahuku, Bukiyip, Anêm, Kâte and Selepe.</span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)">I am wondering do you know of other Papuan languages with this feature.</span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></span></div><div><font color="#000000"><span>Thank you.</span></font></div><div><font color="#000000"><span><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#000000"><span>Warmest,</span></font></div><div><font color="#000000"><span>Pun Ho Lui Joe</span></font></div><div><font color="#000000"><span><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#000000"><span>References: </span></font></div><div><div title="Page 48" style="color:rgb(0,0,0)"><div style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman">Bernard Comrie and Raoul Zamponi. 2019. Verb Root Ellipsis. In Matthew Baerman, Oliver Bond, Andrew Hippisley (eds.): <span style="font-style:italic">Morphological perspectives: Papers in honour of Greville G. Corbett</span>, 233–280. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.</font></p><div title="Page 49"><div><div><p><font face="Times New Roman">McElhanon, Kenneth A. 1972. <span style="font-style:italic">Selepet Grammar. Part </span><span style="font-style:italic">1: </span><span style="font-style:italic">From Root to Phrase. </span>Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.</font></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>_______________________________________________<br>
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