[Papuanlanguages] 'make' 'say'

[Piet Lincoln]

Rotokas’s neighbor to the south, Banoni has similar overlap between 
‘make/cause’ and ‘say’

Banoni /va/ [wa] can mean
1. ‘say’: / nna ke va "geroo-ma/ ‘3.s’ + ‘completive aspect.3.s’ + ‘say’ 
+ ‘return’ + ‘hither’

=> he said “come back here”

2. ‘language’ : /va na birikoi/ ‘say’+ ‘human plural’+ ‘steel ax’

=> English [the language of the steel ax people]

3. ‘make, cause’ : /va-mate-a/ ‘cause’ + ‘die’ + ‘3.s’

=> kill
/va-daame/ ‘cause’ + ‘good’
=> well

4. ‘like’ / ‘similar’ : /va-tope-na-borogho/ ‘like’ + ‘head’ ‘3.s’ ‘pig’

=> a growth stage of coconut not yet meaty, not ready for drinking [like 
a pig's head]

Banoni is an Austronesian indeed Oceanic language. /va/ reflects Proto 
Oceanic *pa(ka) ‘cause’

Much the same range of meanings is found in the Fijian reflex /vaka/ ( 
see The Fijian language. Albert J. Schütz. Honolulu : University of 
Hawaii Press, 1985.)

Piet Lincoln



Stuart Robinson wrote:
> In relation to Alex Francois' post from a few months ago, I wanted to ask
> about another type of 'colexification'/polysemy--namely, between 'say' and
> 'make/do'. I have found that in Rotokas (East Papuan, Bougainville) there
> is a single verb stem (pura) which means either 'to say' when it is
> intransitive or 'to make' or 'to do' when it is transitive. I am wondering
> how common this sort of things is in the region. Can people steer me to
> some examples of other languages in the region that also have a single
> term covering both meaning?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Stuart Robinson
>
>   
>> I am an Austronesianist/Oceanist specializing in the Oceanic languages
>> of north Vanuatu -- as well as the languages of Vanikoro, spoken in the
>> easternmost Papuan-speaking area (Temotu/ Santa Cruz, Solomons).  The
>> languages I have data on (full list here) all distinguish 'eat'
>> (generally a reflex of POc *kani) from 'drink' (generally <POc *inum),
>> as well as 'hungry' from 'thirsty', or 'eat' from 'smoke'.
>>
>> However, it is common for them to lexify in the same way 'eat' and
>> 'burn', the latter always with 'fire' as its subject -- e.g. "My house
>> has been burnt" will be Lit. 'My house, fire has eaten it'
>>         "He died in a fire"  => Lit. 'A fire ate him dead'
>>
>> In this case, 'eat' may be either transitive (the fire consumes s.th. or
>> s.o.) or intransitive ("the fire's eating" = it is lighted). However,
>> unlike Ku Waru, 'eat' cannot be used with other subjects than the fire,
>> to translate the causative/agentive meanings of Eng. 'burn' (e.g. They
>> burnt my house)
>>
>> As far as I can remember, I found the same polysemy in Teanu, spoken on
>> Vanikoro. [a language supposedly Austronesian, but which might be in
>> fact Papuan (?)]
>>
>> If this case of "colexification" (as I call it) of 'eat' and 'burn' is
>> common in PNG and in north Vanuatu, of course it would be interesting to
>> know if this is also the case in the area in-between (i.e., Eastern PNG
>> + Solomons) -- in which case this would be a nice case of a lexical
>> isogloss encompassing a large area of the Pacific.
>>     
>
>
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