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The structure of Rarotongan nominal, negative, and conjunctival pieces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

J. E. Buse
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Extract

The term ‘nominal piece’ is applied here to any utterance stretch denned initially by the presence of any or all of Nominal Classes 1,2, and 3 set up below, and finally either by sentence-closing intonation or a marker indicating the onset of another piece. The terms ‘negative piece’ and ‘conjunctival piece’ are applied to utterance stretches which lie outside the confines of both the nominal piece (as defined above) and the verbal piece (as defined in BSOAS, XXVI, 1, 1962, 152, para. 1). Any Rarotongan utterance is divisible without residue into one or more of these four pieces.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , June 1963 , pp. 393 - 419
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1963

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References

page 393 note 1 1 op. cit., paras. 3,4. Words were there defined as minimal free forms capable of sole occupation of Verbal Position 2 and/or Nominal Position 4; all other minimal free forms were classed as particles. Words were assigned to one of three classes (A, B, C) on the following basis:

(A) words incapable of sole occupation of Verbal Position 2, i.e. words which can stand alone as nominals, but not as verbals;

(B) words capable of sole occupation of Verbal Position 2, but incapable of passive suffixation;

(C) words capable of sole occupation of Verbal Position 2, and capable also of passive suffixation.

This classification reflects the ability of nearly all Class B and C words to appear also as nominals (i.e. in Nominal Position 4). A very few Class B words which do not have this ability could be accommodated in a fourth word class (cf. Biggs, B., ‘The Structure of N.Z. Maaori’, Anthropological Linguistics, III, 3, 1961, para. 2.8, esp. 2.8.2Google Scholar); but are here regarded as Class B words defective in scatter, cf. C. E. Bazell, Linguistic typology, 7.

page 394 note 1 See 7.8 below for the use of determinatival complexes in Position 4.

page 395 note 1 See Buse, J. E., ‘Rarotongan personal pronouns’, BSOAS, XXIII, 1, 1960, 130–2Google Scholar.

page 396 note 1 cf. Mei ’ea mai koe? ‘Where have you come from ?’

page 397 note 1 la ‘that one’ (person or thing) is normally preceded by ’o when used as a substitute for a person's name: a-ia ‘he, she’. Strictly, therefore, it should be classified with the personal forms and not with the pronominals. However, it is clearly a substitute, and it fills what would otherwise be a blank at third person singular in the pronominal paradigm, so it is here classed with the pronouns.

page 391 note 1 There are two exceptions. For the first, see the preceding footnote. The second occurs in echoes or replies to the question: ‘Who 1’, e.g:

[]? [? ’ Who? Me?

who

page 398 note 1 For the distribution of the allomorphs, see BS0AS, XXIII, 1, 1960, 124.

page 399 note 1 Strict enforcement of the Sabbath by the early missionaries meant that Sunday's food had to be cooked the day before.

page 400 note 1 Hockett, C. F., A course in modern linguistics, 259.Google Scholar

page 401 note 1 Subject only to the downgrading in determinatival complexes discussed in 5.1.2 above.