Wandering Words

I've been thinking more about "separable prefixes," a truly bizarre phenomenon of German, Dutch, Afrikaans, and Hungarian (the last probably acquired the feature from German). The linguistics literati prefer the term "separable particle," which is more apt, since a prefix which wanders to the end of the clause would be a strange prefix indeed. This thing which is not a prefix could not be a clitic, either; a clitic could wander to the end of the clause, but a clitic must hang on some other word, and that is not required of the "separable prefix." Such confusion is not uncommon: the Greeks used the term "tmesis", "a cutting," to indicate a prefix which in certain cases could separate from the verb and go elsewhere in the line of poetry. In that case, however, the Greeks were looking backwards; since tmesis only occurs in forms of the language that tend towards archaism, the separation is actually a conjunction! English has adverbs and prepositions, but the use in a particular verbal phrase must be one or the other. Every grammar of a language is a snapshot, and therefore has features in transition; in the case of German, these features are the "separable prefixes" and a case system on the verge of collapse.

The Tahoe Tongue: Phonology and Orthography

I wrote this post about half a year ago, so my knowledge of the Washo language and its current state was considerably less, but the sentiments expressed herein remain authentic.

Several years ago, on one of my many visits to the Watson Cabin in Tahoe City, I bought a slim book labeled Beginning Washo, the language of the indigenous tribe which used to camp in summer around Lake Tahoe (in those days, only white people would be crazy enough to live there in winter). I went through the exercises, although too hastily to absorb them. I am afraid that is a common fault of mine, and one of the reason I discuss Washoe here is to pace myself.

More recently, I decided to redo the exercises (there are only twenty-two, after all) slowly and thoroughly, so that I would know the native language of the basin where I spend so much time. My conscience is rather severe about white men learning Native American tongues, especially when the tribe is still extant (as several members of  my favored fraternity know), but all the data I could find on Washo indicated that it was a moribund language. "Moribund" in linguistics, means that a language will soon lack native speakers (the tribe itself still exists). The only website I could find on the Washo language did mention a training camp for the youngsters of the tribe, but it dates from 2000, and the precedents for attempted language revival are extremely depressing. I would rather know something about the language really spoken at Lake Tahoe rather than pretend it never existed.

Another reason I want to learn some Washo properly has to do with the mythology of the Tahoe basin. When I was a child, I was under the impression that there were no native people of the basin, since the Washo, and the same-named lake were clearly in Nevada, and they had only come up in summer. Some of this perception was perhaps due to my custom of spending summers there and winters in San Francisco. The lack of a native mythology bothered me, so I composed some myths about the origins of crawdads and minnows based on the landscape of my summer home. I found the alleged native stories from the mid-20th century Tahoe City World un-credible as authentic stories, as well as patronizing.

When I was quite a bit older, I learned of some of the genuine traditional tales of the Washo, which I appreciated greatly, but I did not become inspired until I found Beginning Washo. My Classical training has taught me about the tight connection of language and culture, and I would not have received a Classics degree if I were not fascinated with language structure.

Lesson 15: Mai, Aku, La, Nei

The completion of Lesson 15 yielded no interesting grammatical gems (or even semantic), so rather than complain about the high level of ambiguity in Hawaiian particles (what can you expect from a language which has so few phonemes?), so I'll take the opportunity to explain a feature of Hawaiian unfamiliar to most English speakers: deictic particles. What is a deictic particle? It is simply an "adverbial" word that indicates direction. The old English words "where, whither, whence" illustrate a pronominal use of directionality, since the meanings are "at which place, to which place, from which place". Greek has a "deictic iota" or "deictic i" in its dramatic register. The abundant use of the deictic iota arises from the lack of stage directions (or even  indications of change of speaker!) in Greek drama. The absence of stage directions as we know them does not mean that the plays were not blocked - Greek tragedy does derive from a choral performance, after all. So where could the dramatist put the directions? He incorporated them into the text. In some cases, the direction was explicit, if one of the characters already on stage announced he could see the king approaching, but in other cases, the dramatist tacked the deictic iota onto the noun of his choice. The addition of the deictic iota indicated a "hey pay attention to this" response to the part of the players and the audience.

So far, the most striking Hawaiian deictic particles are mai, aku, la, and nei. The particle mai indicates movement away from the speaker; thus, whether the topic of discussion is coming or going does not determine the use of mai. The particle aku is the counterpart of mai, and can indicate temporal distinctions as well as physical ones - but I have not progressed far enough to say any more on the temporal uses. The particle la is a general indicator, and seems to be some sort of pan-Pacific, pan-East Asian deictic, since it is found in that use from China to Ni'ihau. In Hawaiian, la appears to be the antithesis of nei, a particle which is used quite vigorously in Hawaiian, but seems to indicate a high degree of immediacy, intimacy, and affection. I suspect that the intimate aspect of nei explains not only the use of nei as part of the present tense (what could be more relevant than what you are doing right now?) and the past with aku (only slightly less relevant than the present), and its absence when aku is used to indicate future time (irrelevant if you're an Australian Prime Minister and have just been eaten by a shark). This overlap of temporal and spatial terms is typical of natural human languages, although I am unsure what that indicates about human perception. These four deictic particle (there are others) provide additional information to allow the addressee (2nd person) to place the topic of discussion (3rd person) within a physical framework.

Lesson 14: Interrogative Pronouns

 As the angels say unto men, "Do not fear!", for I have not abandoned my Hawaiian project. Lesson 14 is the interrogative pronouns. An interrogative pronouns is not one which strings you up for the bastinado, although the sorts who would do that do use a lot of interrogative pronouns; an interrogative pronoun is simply one that asks a question. Some of the "pronouns" in Judd strike me more as adverbs than pronouns, especially in a language with such a tenuous case system, but let us not quibble. The most striking feature of the pronouns in this lesson is the predominance of the element hea. This element is the latter component of a compound of which the former is a preposition or functioning prepositionally. The word heaha "what?" appears to display the inverse situation, but alas this is an illusion, and heaha is composed of he aha, in which he is the indefinite pronoun, and aha indicates "why?what?". The use of the indefinite here contrasts with the use of the definite ke in another interrogative, no ke aha, "why?", which is literally "for the what?", a phrase which corresponds in form and meaning with the archaic English interrogative "wherefore", whereof I have an inordinate fondness.

Another intriguing feature of the interrogative pronouns is the incorporation of time into the forms of the question "when?". Hawaiian does not depend on the tense of the verb to indicate the time of the question, but rather uses ahea for future time and inahea for past time; the present form has yet to appear. Although placing the burden of temporality on the interrogative pronoun may seem peculiar to the native English speaker, this placement is the most logical: the question is about time, after all, and without a doubt the existence of the future and past interrogatives allow a greater semantic load on the basic pronoun.

Now here's the proof 

Lesson 14
1. Hola ehia keia? How many hours is this?
2. E hele ana oe ihea i keia kakahiaka? Where (Whither) are you walking this morning?
3. Ua hiki mai lakou i Waikiki i keia awakea. They have arrived (towards the speaker)  in Waikiki this afternoon. (Still no sign of any past parfect ua ... e!)
4. Mahea oe i hele aku i keia ahiahi? Where are you running (away from the speaker) this evening?
5. Auhea oukou, e na ho[a]aloha o ka pono? Where are you-all, o friends of righteousness?
6. Mai hea mai oukou i keia auina la? From what place (whence, towards the speaker) are you-all this afternoon? (la here is "sun", not the deictic particle)
7. Pehea oe i keia wanaao maikai loa? How are you this very beautiful dawn?
8. He kakahiaka ino loa keia. This is a very bad morning.
9. Heaha keia mau mea iloko o keia mau pahu? What are these things inside my boxes?
10. No ke aha la oe e hana nei i keia mea? Why are you doing this thing (away from the speaker).

A Puni, Maluna, Malalo, Me Ma!

(Sorry about the delay - I was traveling most of yesterday)

Lesson 12 in Judd's grammar introduces the complex prepositions, those which contain multiple words, similar to the English prepositon in front of. The majority of the English prepositions are composed this way, although the attrition of language has disguised the etymology of many English words. The preposition above, for instance, which appears to the diachronically blind as a straightforward two-syllable preposition of uncertain parentage, has a long history of prepositional accretion and linguistic erosion. The original core preposition was uf, the Anglo-Saxon form of up. Some speakers felt that uf alone was insufficient to express the up-ness they desired, and therefore attached an "on" to form ufan, "up on" Eventually that was deemed too weak, and be "by" prefixed itself to ufan to produce bufan "by up on". After the users of bufan had forgotten the intial suffixation of an to uf, they prefixed another an, creating anbufan "on by up on", which attrition wore down to the two-syllable word we use today.

The structure of all but two of the prepositions introduced in this lesson follow this analysis: ma- or i- prefixed to the core word, usually followed by the inalienable preposition o. The core word can be adverbial, such lalo "downwards", or a fully realized noun, such as uka "interior". Although the prepositions shown in the lesson all bear the prefix ma-, the choice between ma- and i- reflects the difference between the accusative and the ablative. In Latin, certain prepositions, such as sub "under", take the accusative or the ablative depending on whether the intent is to indicate motion or location; the same distinction applies to the Hawaiian prefixes. The inalienable preposition o is the usual third component; presumably one can replace o with a when appropriate. I must confess that the sources I have consulted on the o-a distinction have further perplexed me.

As for the exercise, the first appearance of the Hawaiian dog ('ilio) is notable. Hawaiian dogs were hairless and non-barking and bred for food rather than to chase game. The muteness of the breed was such a defining characteristic that the mythical dogs of Barking Sands recieved the "gift" of making noise from a god. I can relate to the chickens in Sentence 8, since on my recent trip to Kauai, I crept down a steep trail to a lovely waterfall (Kilahiwai Falls, or Wailele Kilahiwai). On the other side of the pool which lay at the base of the waterfall a family of chickens lived under a log (although it may not have been gray - it was covered in foliage). Kauai has been infested with chickens ever since a storm in the nineties, when the farmers let loose many chickens to ride out the storm and some never came back. There are no large predators on Kauai (which might explain the lack of hunting dogs), so the chickens multiplied.

(In case anybody was wondering, the post title was referring to this)


Lesson 12
1. Ke ike nei au i ka lio eleele.  I know the black horse.
2. Ke noho nei ke kanaka iloko o ka hale ulaula. The man sits within the red house.
3. Ua ike makou i kekahi mau manu keokeo. We have seen some (kekahi mau) white birds.
4. Ke ku nei ka ilio haeleele mawaho o ka hale keokeo. The brown dog stands outside the red house.
5. Ke paani nei na keiki mawaho o ka hale oma'oma'o. The children play outside the green house.
6. Ke holo nei ka puaa ulaula ikai. The red pig runs toward the sea. (Gadarene swine?)
7. Heaha ka inoa o kou lio huapala. What is the name of his chestnut horse?
8. Ke noho nei na moa ulaula malalo o ke kumulaau ahinahina. The red chickens live underneath the gray tree trunk.

He Buys Kona Coffee, He Makes Kana Coffee

I have decided to talk about only one lesson in this post because the distinction which it introduces is one to which I have referred several times before, namely the o-a distinction. Hawaiian is far removed from the vowel-based grammatical content of the Semitic languages (since the consonants bear the semantic load) and even the ablaut grades of Classical Greek, but in this instance, the contrast between prepositions and pronouns with o or a is the key to a semantic distinction not made in English. Its expressed absence in English, of course, does not mean that English speakers cannot perceive the distinction. The contrast can be expressed most effectively by the Christmas wreath (ka lei kalikimaka)  I bought from the youth group at church Sunday morning. The important fact here is that I bought the wreath, therefore it would be ko'u lei kalikimaka (my Christmas wreath, the one which I bought). If I had made the wreath myself rather than supporting the youth group mission trip, the wreath would be ka'u lei kalikimaka (my Christmas wreath, the one which I made). Thus the forms with a are more intimate than those with o; the detailed classification is more complicated than this simple description, but presumably no more baffling to native speakers of Hawaiian than the "cities and small islands" rule of the Latin locative.

On other matters, I have decided that Monday will be the regular posting dating for this most unlikely of columns, which still lacks a catchy overall name. Any suggestions in this matter are welcome.


Lesson 11
1. Ke ike nei oukou i ka wai maemae. You will see the clean water.
2. Ke kali nei lakou ma ka hale kahiko. They waited by the old house.
3. E pii kakou i ka hale loihi. We shall climb to the tall house.
4. Ua ai makou i ka uala kahiki a me ka i'a maloo. We have eaten the Irish potato with the dried fish.
5. Ke waiho nei oia i ka eke ko paa ma ka papahele. She puts her secure bag (purse?) on the floor. (Note that ko indicates she did not make the bag.)
6. Ke ike nei au i kona papale maemae  ma ka pakaukau. I see his clean hat (which he bought) on the table.
7. He kanaka naauao a kaulana loa ke kanaka mai Kahiki mai. The man from Kahiki is a very educated man.
8. He wahi maemae loa keia, aka, he wahi paumaele loa kela wahi. This place is very clean, but that place is very dirty.

Test Cases

Since I have read Judd's Lessons 9 & 10, I'll concede that Hawaiian does indeed have cases to a greater extent than English, although not to a much greater extent. You may protest that English does not have cases, and you would be wrong. English has cases, but is not a case language. A case language has a systematic declensional system used for virtually all nouns (even Latin has some defective declensions, such as nihil), but a language which possesses cases need only possess them in a few words. The refuge of moribund cases is often the conservative arena of pronouns, relative and pronominal, and thus it stands with English. Although there have been rumors of the death of whom, the English cases (nominative, genitive, and accusative) still reside most strongly in the personal pronouns (I, my/mine, me; you, your/yours, you; he, his, him; she, her/hers, her; we, our/ours, us; they, their/theirs, them; who, whose, whom). It is not surprising, therefore, that the best evidence of cases in Hawaiian comes from that language's personal pronouns. The legitimate cases for Hawaiian appear to be: nominative, genitive, possessive, dative, and accusative. The genitive-possessive case distinction, incidently, does not seem to be the same as the o-a distinction. Judd claims that there is also an ablative case, but I am not convinced. Even if he had called it a prepositional case, such as exists vestigially in Russian, there is too much variation in the markers (ma, mai, me, e) for it to constitute a legitimate case. Judd not only undermines his own system of presentation, but even descends into grammatical gibberish in Lesson 10 when he says that the first two forms of the ablative (ma, mai) take the genitive case, whereas the latter two (me, e) take the nominative case. What Judd is describing is various prepositions plus the appropriate case for the object of the preposition, rather than a separate case.

Prepositions taking the nominative case seem a little strange, so let us examine more closely why me and e would take the nominative case. The preposition me means "with", which indeed would take the ablative in Latin; the concepts of "with" and "and", however, are closely connected, and sometimes the latter is derived from the former. If the underlying concept of me is conjunction ("and") rather than accompaniment ("with"), the use of the nominative would be appropriate. The other preposition which takes the nominative, e, indicates the agent of a "passive" verb (although, per usual, Judd neglects to provide an example). Since the object of the preposition performs the action, this use of the nominative makes sense as a contextual practice, even though the recipient of the action (the contextual direct object) is the grammatical subject, and therefore is in the nominative case.

So Hawaiian has five cases in the personal pronouns, whereas  English has either three or four, depending on whether my and mine are separate English case forms.

Lesson 9
1. Ke waiho nei au i ka o ma ka pakaukau. I place the fork on the table.
2. Ke hiamoe nei ia ma kahi moe. He sleeps in the sleeping place.
3. Ke kolo nei oia ma ka papahele. He crawls on the floor.
4. Ke pii nei lakou. They climb.
5. Ke kali nei oia no makou. They wait for us.
6. Ua hana lakou i ke kukui. They have made the torch.
7. E hakaka lakou. They will fight.
8. Ua holo lakou mai ka hale pohaku aku. They have run away from the stone house (bonitos can't run).
9. Ke ku nei laua ma ka puka aniani. They two stand at the window.
10. Ua ike makou i ka wahie. We have seen the firewood.

Lesson 10
1. Ke waiho nei oia i ka barena ma ka pahu. I place the bread in the box.
2. Ke inu nei ia i ka waiu. He drinks milk.
3. Ua ai oia i ka eke laiki. He has eaten the rice bag.
4. Ua ai lakou i ka uhapuaa. They have eaten the ham.
5. Ke komo nei oia i ka hale laau. He enters the frame house.
6. Ua ike makou i ka alani, ka ipu pu a me ka ipu haole. We have seen the present for the chief (or god), a squash, and a watermelon.
7. Ua waiho lakou i ka pahu huamoa ma ka papa aina. They have placed the box of hen's eggs on the ground
8. Ke hele nei makou i ka lanai.We walk to the porch.
9. Ua nalo na lanahu o ke ahi. The coals of the fire have vanished.
10. Ua nana makou i ka pakaukau. We have gazed at the table.