Taba language

Taba is, predominantly, a head-marking language which adheres to a basic AVO word order. However, there is a reasonable degree of flexibility.[9]

(1)	yak	k=ha-lekat	pakakas	ne
	1SG	1SG=CAUS-broken	tool	PROX
	"I broke this tool."

Taba has both prepositions and postpositions.

In Taba, pronouns constitute an independent, closed set. Syntactically, Taba pronouns can be used in any context where a full noun phrase is applicable. However, independent pronouns are only used in reference to animate entities, unless pronominal reference to inanimate Patients is required in reflexive clauses.[11]

As mentioned, independent pronouns are generally used for animate reference. However, there are two exceptions to this generalisation. In some circumstances an inanimate is considered a 'higher inanimate' which accords syntactic status similar to animates.[11] This is represented as in English where inanimates such as cars or ships, for example, can be ascribed a gender. This is illustrated below in a response to the question 'Why did the Taba Jaya (name of a boat) stop coming to Makian?':[11]

The Taba Jaya, a boat significant enough to be given a name, is accorded pronoun status similar to animates. The other exception occurs in reflexive clauses where a pronominal copy of a reflexive Patient is required, as shown below:[11]

Non-human animates and inanimates are always grammatically singular, regardless of how many referents are involved. In Taba, pronouns and noun phrases are marked by Person and Number.

Taba distinguishes three Persons in the pronominal and cross-referencing systems.[11] Person is marked on both pronouns and on cross-referencing proclitics attached to verb phrases.[12] The actor cross-referencing proclitics are outlined in the following table.[13] In the first Person plural, a clusivity distinction is made, 'inclusive' (including the addressee) and 'exclusive' (excluding the addressee), as is common to most Austronesian languages.[13]

The following are examples of simple Actor intransitive clauses showing each of the proclitic prefixes. This is an example of first Person singular (inclusive);[12]

second Person singular;[12]

third Person singular;[12]

first Person plural (inclusive);[12]

first Person plural (exclusive);[12]

second Person plural; and[12]

third Person plural;[12]

The alternation between proclitic markers indicates Number, where in (3) k= denotes the arrival of a singular Actor, while in (7) a= indicates the arrival of first Person plural Actors, exclusionary of the addressee, and is replicated in the change of prefix in the additional examples.

Number is marked on noun phrases and pronouns. Taba distinguishes grammatically between singular and plural categories, as shown in (3) to (9) above. Plural marking is obligatory for humans and is used for all noun phrases which refer to multiple individuals. Plurality is also used to indicate respect in the second and third Person when addressing or speaking of an individual who is older than the speaker.[4] The rules for marking Number on noun phrases are summarised in the table below:[4]

The enclitic =si marks Number in noun phrases. =si below (10), indicates that there is more than one child playing on the beach and, in (11), the enclitic indicates that the noun phase mama lo baba, translated as 'mother and father,' is plural.[4]

Plural Number is used as a marker of respect not only for second Person addressees, but for third Person referents as seen in (12).[4] In Taba, it has been observed that many adults use deictic shifts towards the perspective of addressee children regarding the use of plural markers. Example (13) is typical of an utterance of an older person than those they are referring to, indicative of respect that should be accorded to the referent by the addressee.[4]

All Taba verbs having Actor arguments carry affixes which cross-reference the Number and Person of the Actor, examples of proclitics are shown above. In Taba, there are valence-changing affixes which deal with patterns of cross-referencing with three distinct patterns. The dominant pattern is used with all verbs having an Actor argument. The other two patterns are confined to a small number of verbs: one for the possessive verb, the other for a few verbs of excretion. This is discussed further in Possession below.

Taba does not, as such, have possessive pronouns. Rather, the possessor noun and the possessed entity are linked by a possessive ligature. The Taba ligatures are shown below:

Adnominal possession involves the introduction of an inflected possessive particle between the possessor and the possessed entity; this inflected possessive, formally categorised as a ‘ligature’, is cross-referenced with the number and person of the possessor. This ligature indicates a possessive relationship between a modifier noun and its head-noun. In Taba, adnominal possession is distinguished by reverse genitive ordering, in which the possessor noun precedes the noun referring to the possessed entity.[14]

In many contexts the possessor will not be overtly referenced.

Example of reverse genitive ordering in Taba:

(12)	ni	mtu
	3SG.POSS	child
	"His/her child."

In Taba, alienable and inalienable possession is not obligatorily marked by the use of different forms, though this is common in many related languages. However, there are a number of seemingly inalienable entities which cannot be referred to without referencing a possessor.[15]

For example:

(13)	meja	ni	wwe
	table	3SG.POSS	leg
	"The leg (of the table)."

Verbal possession in Taba is generally indicated through the attaching of the causative prefix ha- to the adnominal possessive forms. The possessor then becomes actor of the clause, and the possessed entity becomes the undergoer.[16] This method of forming a possessive verb is very unusual, typologically, and is found in almost no other languages.[17]

(14)	kabin	da	yak	k=ha-nik
	goat	DIST	1SG	1SG=CAUS-1SG.POSS
	"That goat, I own it."

Like other Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages spoken in the Maluku Islands, Taba uses different particles to negate declarative and imperative clauses;[18] declaratives are negated using te, while imperatives are negated using oik.[19] In both cases the negative particles are clause-final, a placement which is posited to be the result of contact with non-Austronesian Papuan languages.[20]

Declarative clauses are negated using the particle te, which follows all other elements of the clause except for modal and aspectual particles (these are discussed below).[21] Examples (15a) and (15b) show negation of an Actor intransitive clause, while (16a) and (16b) give negation of a non-Actor bivalent clause (i.e. a clause with two Undergoer arguments); te has the same clause-final placement regardless of the clause structure.

Negation of complex sentences can be ambiguous — see example (17), where te can operate on either just the complement clause khan 'I'm going' or to the whole clause complex kalusa khan 'I said I'm going':[22]

Negative existential clauses[22]

te can serve as the predicator of a negative existential clause, with no verb required. It can occur immediately following the noun phrase that refers to whatever is being asserted as non-existent, as in (18):

However, a discourse marker is generally interposed between the noun phrase and te. This marker expresses something about how the non-existence of the noun phrase's referent relates to the discourse context, or alternatively indicates the speaker's attitude towards the proposition.[22] In (19), the discourse marker mai (glossed as 'but') is used to indicate that the non-existence of tea, sugar and coffee in the household described by the speaker is counter to one's expectations that a normal household would have these items:

Complex negative modal / aspectual particles[23]

Taba has three complex negative particles which, in addition to negation, express mood or aspect; these are formed by the modal and aspectual particles attaching onto te as clitics. The three particles are tedo (realis negative), tehu (continuative negative), and tesu (potential negative).

tedo (realis negative)[24]

tedo is a compound of te and the realis mood marker do, and expresses a more emphatic negation than plain te. In (20), it is used to emphasize the absolute nature of the prohibition against making alcohol in the Muslim community of the speaker:

tehu (continuative negative)[25]

tehu is a compound of te and the continuous aspect marker hu, and can be roughly translated as 'not up to the relevant point in time': this may be either the time of utterance (i.e. 'not yet', 'still not'), or some other time relevant to the context of the utterance, as in (21). Unlike the potential negative tesu, tehu does not express any expectations about the likelihood of the negated event or state occurring in the future.

tehu also often appears at the end of the first clause in a sequence of clauses, indicating whatever is referred to by the first clause has not still occurred by the time of the event(s) or state(s) referred to by the following clauses.

tesu (potential negative)[26]

tesu is formed by suffixing -su, expressing the potential mood, to te. Although tesu is similar to tehu in that it encodes the meaning 'not up to the relevant point in time', it also expresses an expectation that the event referred to will occur in the future: this expectation is made explicit in the free translation of (23).

tesu shares with tehu the ability to be used at the end of the first clause in a sequence of clauses, and also carries a similar meaning of incompletion; in addition, it encodes the expectation that the event referred to by the first clause should have happened by the event(s) of the following clauses. This expectation does not need to have actually been fulfilled; the breakfast that was expected to be cooked in the first clause of (24) was, in reality, never cooked due to the ensuing eruption.

Unlike the modal and aspectual markers which are used to form the other complex negative particles, su is not attested as a free morpheme elsewhere; however, it is likely related to the optional final -s of the modal verb -ahate(s) 'to be unable', which appears to be derived historically from te having fused onto the verb -ahan 'to be able'.[27] When used with a final -s, as in (25b) compared with (25a), this modal verb encodes the same meanings expressed by tesu:

Imperative clauses are negated using the admonitive particle oik. This particle appears to be derived from a verb oik 'to leave something behind'; however, this verb requires Actor cross-referencing, whereas the particle is never cross-referenced.[28] Bowden (2001) posits that the imperative use of oik has developed from the use of the independent verb in serial verb constructions, with the morphological elements being lost in the process of grammaticalization.[29] The particle is shown in (26), while the verbal use (with cross-referencing) is shown in (27):

Yes-no (polar) questions can be posed with either positive or negative polarity; positive polarity questions operate in much the same way as in English, while negative polarity questions, which are formed using forms of the negative marker te as question tags, work in a different manner.[30] An example of a positive polarity question is given below in (28a), while (28b) shows a negative polarity question:

The answers to the positive polarity may be either Jou/Ole (Yes, I do smoke) or Te (No, I don't smoke); when responding to the negative polarity question, the answers are either Jou/Ole (Yes, I do not smoke), Te (No, I do smoke).[30]