[Lingtyp] Zero verb root in Papuan languages

[Wesley Kuhron Jones]

Hi Pun Ho,


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.


Case 1: *Ø*- 'hit, kill, negatively affect'. When the object is 3sg, the
verb stem is *a-* (3sg object is otherwise zero in Horokoi). Otherwise, the
verb stem consists only of the object marker.



   1.

   *Ø-Ya-komu.*

hit-1sg.obj-3sg.fut

'That person will hit/kill me.'



   1.

   *Ø-Noka-Ø! (cf. noka)*

hit-3pl.obj-imp 3pl

'Kill them!' (cf. basic pronoun 'they')


Case 2: Reduction of light verbs *e-* 'do, take' and *i-* 'do, become'.
Here I use underscore rather than zero to indicate where a vowel has been
deleted. NB: There 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 (e-, i- > zero). In fact, both can happen together.



   1.

   *Moko e-ma-re. ~ Moko _-ma-re. ~ Mok_ e-ma-re. ~ Mok_ _-ma-re.*

speech do-cont-3sg.imm

'That person is talking.'


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.


Case 3: Reduction of verb *i-* 'eat' in the completive. This happens
because of allomorphy in which suffixes beginning with *k* change it to *t*
following a stem-final *i*. I reconstruct the historical form *i-tape-* for
the completive of this verb, 'eat completely'. But now, since it is the
only verb with this form (ignoring the homophonous light verb *i-*, which
you can distinguish from 'eat' based on what the object/adjunct is), the *i*
has been lost with no introduced ambiguity.



   1.

   *Opopo Ø-tapo-ra. < *Opopo i-tapE-ra.*

food eat-compl-1sg.imm

'I finished the food.'


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.

Hope this is helpful and interesting to others!


Best,

Wesley Kuhron Jones

On Sat, Feb 24, 2024 at 6:07 AM Pun Ho Lui <luiph001 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> 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).
>
> (1) Selepet (McElhanon 1973)
> Ø-nek-sap
> see-1sGO-3SGS.IMMPST
> 'He saw me’
>
> 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.
>
> I am wondering do you know of other Papuan languages with this feature.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Warmest,
> Pun Ho Lui Joe
>
> References:
>
> Bernard Comrie and Raoul Zamponi. 2019. Verb Root Ellipsis. In Matthew
> Baerman, Oliver Bond, Andrew Hippisley (eds.): Morphological
> perspectives: Papers in honour of Greville G. Corbett, 233–280.
> Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
>
> McElhanon, Kenneth A. 1972. Selepet Grammar. Part 1: From Root to Phrase. Canberra:
> Pacific Linguistics.
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