Absolutive |
Kashaya Grammar |
Oswalt uses the term absolutive to describe the most common verb suffix in Kashaya. This word has various uses for different languages, and the Kashaya suffix is not especially similar to those other uses, except perhaps as a default morphological category. There are several common uses of the absolutive, including as an infinitive (to talk), a noun or adjective (talking), and a perfective verb (talked). In some related Pomoan languages, researchers have used the more specific label Perfective (Mithun for Central Pomo and Walker for Southern Pomo), as well as the more generally descriptive Default Verb Suffix (Walker in other work).
In addition to its many meanings that will be discussed below, the absolutive has three different allomorphs, depending on the final consonant of the stem to which this suffix is attached. The simplest is that /-u/ is added after /d/, whether it is part of the root or one of the many suffixes ending in this sound. For these verbs, the singular imperative with /-i/ is pronounced exactly the same.
Also relatively simple is that the Absolutive is /-w/ after any vowel, whether long or short.
A long vowel becomes short when the Absolutive suffix is added. One allomorph of the Factual also occurs as /w/ after a vowel, but does not shorten the preceding vowel.
In all other contexts – that is, after any consonant except for /d/ – the Absolutive has the underlying form /-ʔ/. This has various outcomes depending on the specifics, although any long vowel will consistently shorten. After a sonorant /m n l y/ the two fuse together to make a glottalized sonorant, but this is written as a sequence so the two sounds are spelled as if no change has happened. After the aspirated sonorants /nh lh/ the glottalization replaces the aspiration to make /nʔ lʔ/.
After a fricative /s š/ the Absolutive /ʔ/ is simply deleted, just as other instances of /ʔ/ would be deleted following fricatives.
After any stop or affricate /p t ṭ c k q/, including glottalized consonants such as the common /cʼ/, the end result is that the /ʔ/ is pronounced rather than the stop. This of course makes it impossible to know what the basic form of that consonant is from the Absolutive form.
The underlying form of the final consonant can be identified if a vowel-initial suffix follows, as well as some other circumstances depending on the consonant.
The Absolutive is often equivalent to the English infinitive. One important similarity is that this is the citation form of a word, the basic form that is used in identifying a word that can appear with many different suffixes. For instance, if you ask a speaker how do you say "run away", you'll most likely get the response /moʔbiʔ/.
But in more grammatically significant similarity, the Absolutive can serve as the complement to a verb in ways similar to English.
This is not always the same as English, however. For instance, be afraid to do (something) is translated using the Intentive suffix /-ti/.
The infinitive functions in some ways like a noun, but the Absolutive can also be used as the equivalent of more ordinary nouns. The following pairs illustrate a verbal use of a root, plus a nominal use of the Absolutive form.
Another non-verbal use of the Absolutive is as a modifier of an noun (an adjective) or a verb (an adverb). These sentences have two uses of /šula·m-/ as a verb "be sick, get sick", and two as an adjective "sick".
Here /mihsac-/ is used as the verb "be heavy", and as the adjective "heavy" (its most typical realization).
The adjective meaning might be somewhat unpredictable from the original verb. Notice that these adjectives do not mean simply "frightening".
Oswalt gives these examples to illustrate that more than one interpretation of the Absolutive might make sense, depending on the context.
The most common use of the Absolutive is a verb expressing perfective aspect. This term means that the event is viewed as a simple unit, without attention to its internal composition. This differs from imperfective aspect where the event is seen as an ongoing activity, perhaps to indicate that something else happened in the middle of that event. Very often this receives a past tense translation in English.
In addition to the expected past tense translation for a perfective meaning, the Absolutive verb can also have a present-tense translation in English. Both can be seen in these sentences with "know".
The same can be observed in these sentences with "see, look".
The most important point seems to be that these present tense uses are not imperfective: they do not describe an ongoing action interrupted by another. As Mithun (2000) discusses for Central Pomo, a state can be compatible with perfective meaning if all that matters is the lack of attention to its internal structure. In some languages, perfective marking requires that the event be bounded by a beginning and an end, but this does not appear to be the case in Central Pomo, or in Kashaya.
At the same time, the English present tense may in some cases reflect a subtlety of interpretation: a sentence rendered as is sick might more precisely mean has become sick, or the verb might be functioning as an adjective. Notice the translation of the second sentence, which has a clear verb with a durative suffix and is also an Absolutive.
Another important verb form that often has a present tense translation is the Factual, which does pattern as imperfective.