[Lingtyp] Query: Habitual serial verb constructions

Thu Apr 20 12:22:44 UTC 2023

Dear Sune,

I've been following this thread with interest, piqued by the claim that 
Papuan Malay uses /taw/ 'know' to mark habituals, which seemed to be at 
odds with my own experience with the language.So I did some looking into 
this, and it turned out (to my surprise) that your Papuan Malay source, 
Angela Kluge, was right.But the situation is actually considerably more 
complicated, with a substantial amount of variation across 
Malay/Indonesian dialects.In a nutshell: there seem to be (at least) 
three dialects (or perhaps idiolects) with regards to the possible 
interpretations of /taw/tau/tahu/:

(a) literal 'know how to'

(b) experiential 'have ever' (like Mandarin /guo/)

(c) habitual

I have appended below some additional discussion, for those of you who 
may be interested in more details.

Best,

David

**********

As a white person in Indonesia, I am frequently asked whether I /tahu 
/eat rice.At first, interpreting /tahu/ literally as 'know how to', my 
response was Yeah, put it I my mouth, chew, and swallow; however, I was 
obviously missing something here.But what?

So, prompted by Sune's query, I posted my own query, on the "Malay 
Dialects" facebook group, asking what people mean when they ask whether 
I 'know how to eat rice'.The ensuing thread is freely accessible at

https://www.facebook.com/groups/531708060493604/posts/2078927959104932

though it's mostly in Malay/Indonesian.Two qualifications:most of the 
correspondents are not professional linguists, and it's usually not 
clear which dialects of Malay or Indonesian they represent.But having 
said that, the discussion on the thread can be roughly summarized as 
follows:

1. 10 respondents interpreted the question literally, as meaning 'Do you 
know how to eat rice?'.

2. 4 respondents interpreted it as having an experiential meaning, 'Have 
you ever eaten rice?'.It was further claimed that this interpretation 
comes from the cognate form in Javanese.One of the respondents 
generously provided copious references to this, which I have appended below.

3. 7 respondents interpreted it a having a habitual meaning.In 
particular, one of them, a native of Ternate (Northern Maluku), 
suggested that this was typical of eastern varieties of Malay, which of 
course include Papuan Malay.

In summary, it seems like dialectal variation within Malay/Indonesian 
may offer a fruitful source of evidence for possible paths of 
grammaticalization of verbs meaning 'know', if anybody wishes to pursue 
this particular avenue.

**********

References on Javanese:

tau : 1. KW. Ml. weten (zva. wêruh), en iets weten te doen. N. of nau, 
Wk. tate, en gew. nate, K. niet vreemd zijn iets te doen, ... (Gericke 
en Roorda 1901)

tau : N., tate, K., gewoonte, hebbelijkheid. -K. nate, gewoon zijn, 
plegen; gewoon, gewend. ora tau, N., botên nate, K., niet gewend zijn, 
ongewoon. durung ... (Gericke en Roorda 1847)

tau : ng, nate kr 1 ever, at some time. Apa kowe wis [x] wêruh gambar 
iki? Have you ever seen this picture? Aku durung [x] wêruh sêgara. I've 
never seen the ... (Horne 1974)

tau-rasa : excl of satisfaction at smn's similar discomfiture. Tau-rasa, 
saiki kowe ngêrti dhewe piye rasane wong disiksa. Now you see what it 
feels like to be ... (Horne 1974)

tau : N. tate, N. [Red. K] habitude, coutume, usage. nau, Kw. connaître, 
savoir. tau, N. nate, K. être habitué, avoir coutume, (L'Abbé P. Favre 1870)

tahu : tahu; bisa; ahli; berpengalaman; tahu-tahu sangat berpengalaman. 
(Wojowasito 1977)

tahu : to know; common, usual; expert; experienced; tahu-tahu very 
experienced. (Wojowasito 1980)

tahu [Ind] : 1 wêruh, sumurup; 2 ngêrti, bisa; 3 tau, kulina; tidak tahu 
menahu: padhadene êmoh wêruh; bertahu-tahu: kumintêr (ambêk ngrêti 
apa-apa); diketahui: ... (Purwadarminta c. 1939)

tahu : (C) kn. ar. lêlawuhan sing digawe dhêle putih digiling. 
(Poerwadarminta 1939)

tahu : sumêrêp, waspaos. (Wintêr 1928)

On 17/04/2023 11:20, Sune Gregersen wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues,
>
> In connection with an investigation of habitual markers, we are 
> looking for information on languages which use serial verb 
> constructions (SVCs) to express habitual meaning, i.e. for customarily 
> or typically recurring situations. An example of this is seen in (1), 
> from Papuan Malay [ISO 639-3: pmy], where the verb /taw/ can be 
> combined with another verb to express a habitual situation. Outside of 
> this construction, the verb /taw/ means 'know', as in (2):
>
> (1) Papuan Malay (Kluge 2023: 8)
> /dong *taw* maing foli/
> 3PL know play volleyball
> 'they habitually play volleyball'
>
> (2) Papuan Malay (Kluge 2023: 7)
> /mama de blum *taw* tempat itu/
> mother 3SG not.yet know place DISTAL.DEM
> 'mother doesn’t yet know that place'
>
> We adhere to the definition of SVC offered by Haspelmath (2016: 296): 
> "a monoclausal construction consisting of multiple independent verbs 
> with no element linking them and with no predicate–argument relation 
> between the verbs".
>
> That the verbs must be "independent" means that they must be able to 
> occur on their own in a non-elliptical utterance (see Haspelmath 
> [2016: 302–304] for details). This does not exclude the possibility 
> that the verbs in a SVC are pronounced as a single phonological word. 
> Hence the definition also covers some constructions which may be 
> termed differently in grammars, e.g. "verb incorporation", "verbal 
> compounds", or "secondary verbs". An example of such a SVC is seen in 
> (3) from Northern Paiute [pao]. The combination of 'kill' 
> with///čakwi/, literally 'carry', gives the habitual meaning 'would 
> kill'. However, 'carry' may also be used as an independent verb, as 
> shown in (4):
>
> (3) Northern Paiute (Thornes 2003: 266)
> /nɨnmi kammɨ koi-*čakwi */
> 1.EXCL jackrabbit kill.PL-carry
> 'We would kill jackrabbits.'
>
> (4) Northern Paiute (Snapp et al. 1982: 68)
> /baa-huu-na i gunna pa-to-*ǰakwi*-kɨ-kwɨnai-hu/
> water-flow-SUBORD my wood water-shoulder-carry-APPLIC-away-PUNCTUAL
> 'The flood carried away my wood.'
>
> Apart from Papuan Malay and Northern Paiute, we have examples from the 
> following languages so far: Anamuxra [imi], Dumo [vam], Kwomtari 
> [kwo], Lao [lao], Sezo [sze], Tariana [tae], and Yace [ekr]. We would 
> be most grateful for any information on other habitual serial verb 
> constructions, including verbal compounds, in any language of the world.
>
> With all best wishes,
> Eva van Lier (Amsterdam) and Sune Gregersen (Kiel)
>
>
> REFERENCES
>
> Haspelmath, Martin. 2016. The serial verb construction: Comparative 
> concept and cross-linguistic generalizations. Language and Linguistics 
> 17(3). 291–319. https://doi.org/10.1177/2397002215626895
>
> Kluge, Angela. 2023. Serial verb constructions in Papuan Malay: Forms, 
> functions and indeterminacy. Journal of the Southeast Asian 
> Linguistics Society 16(1). 1–36. http://hdl.handle.net/10524/52507
>
> Snapp, Allen, John Anderson & Joy Anderson. 1982. Northern Paiute. In 
> Ronald W. Langacker (ed.), Studies in Uto-Aztecan grammar 3: 
> Uto-Aztecan grammatical sketches, 1-92. Dallas: Summer Institute of 
> Linguistics. https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/8593
>
> Thornes, Timothy Jon. 2003. A Northern Paiute grammar and texts. 
> Doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon.
>
>
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-- 
David Gil

Senior Scientist (Associate)
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany

Email:gil at shh.mpg.de
Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-082113720302
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