[Papuanlanguages] 'Eating water' and elsewhere: a summary

[Alexandra Aikhenvald]

Dear John

Many thanks!

If 'manec' is a borrowing, what would the source be?

Best

Sasha


Professor Alexandra Aikhenvald, PhD, DLitt, FAHA
Associate Director and Postgraduate Coordinator
Research Centre for Linguistic Typology
La Trobe University
Victoria 3086
Tel: 61-(0)3-9479 6402
Fax: 61-(0)3-9467 3053
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt/StaffPages/aikhenvald.htm 
-----Original Message-----
From: papuanlanguages-bounces at anu.edu.au
[mailto:papuanlanguages-bounces at anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of John Roberts
Sent: Thursday, 14 September 2006 6:58 PM
To: Papuan languages discussion list
Subject: Re: [Papuanlanguages] 'Eating water' and elsewhere: a summary

Sasha Aikhenvald asked:

Is the same verb used for 'burning'? (in Amele)

My response is maybe, maybe not. The "consume" verb is *jec*, where *j*
is a postalveolar fricative and *c* is the glottal stop. *j* is the verb
stem and
*-ec* is the infinitive marker.

Amele has two verbs for "burn", *manec* 'to roast/cook/burn' and *cijec*
'to roast/cook/burn'. Both would translate into Tok Pisin with *kukim*.
*manec* seems to be the more widely used for talking about cooking food
and *cijec* seems to be used more for expressing 'to burn, to roast, to
char'. In Z'graggen's comparative word lists, however, I notice that
these verbs are listed the other way around. *manec* is listed under
"burn (tr)" and many of the other Mabuso languages have the same
cognate. *cijec* is listed under "cooked" and this form appears to be
restricted to the Gum family.

The maybe response comes from the fact that *jec* and *cijec* have
similar stem forms. Both stems contain *j*.

I also suspect that *cijec* is the older word in the language. While
*manec* only has a literal usage. It always means 'to roast/cook/burn',
*cijec* has a number of extensions of meaning. E.g. *biso cijec* 'to be
afraid (lit. for the back of his head to burn)', *deweg cijec* 'to be
ashamed (lit. for the body to burn)', *gemag cijec* 'to have heartburn
(lit. for the liver to burn)', *sibeg cijec* 'to make someone cry (lit.
to burn his chin)'.

Both *manec* and *cijec* can have transitive forms with an object
marker. 
These are *manudec* and *cijidoc* respectively. But interestingly while
*manudec* means 'to roast/cook/burn something', *cijidoc* means 'to burn
something'.

On the basis of all this I would say the original word for "burn" in
Amele is *cijec* and *manec* is a later borrowing. There is also the
possibility that *jec* and *cijec* are related etymologically but I
don't have access to the history of these words in Amele.

John

***********************************
John R Roberts
SIL International Linguistics Consultant dr_john_roberts at sil.org
***********************************

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