Download the font SILDoulos IPA93

Verb Complex in Great Andamanese

Verbs in Great Andamanese, belong to different classes based on the nature of the initial consonant of the verbal ending, each identified by a specific but different consonant followed by a vowel that represents aspect or mood, which itself is followed by tense marker. Verb roots, thus, could have any of the following type of Consonant representations.

–b or –l or –k or –r or -pH or, -m

Thus, a verb may belong to a b class, or a l class or to a k class etc.

The tense marker is designated by the presence or absence of a final consonant. The language makes past/non past distinction. Thus zero marking represents past and /-m/ represents non past. The verb schema could be as given below. No other Indian language has even a slight resemblance to such verb structures. See recently published paper Is Great Andamanese genealogically and typologically distinct from Onge and Jarawa? by Anvita Abbi in Language Sciences.

Verb root + Cons Class + Vowel + Consonant/zero

                                   [Aspect/Mood]           [Tense]          

1.         aka      mimi                vεsεrε-b-o-m
            his        mother              hits-cl–ind-prs
            ‘(child’s) mother hits’

2.     EkHu-l-E

lift-cl-imp

Lift up in lap

The various class-marking consonant seems to have been derived from some semantic classification which has either been lost in the present Great Andamanese or appears as converged set of semantic fields from ten varieties once spoken in the islands. For instance, verbs marked by –l class seems to be directional in nature. For instance,

3.         ÿhirbe-l-om      ‘he sweeps’

4.         εfi-l-              ‘he threw it’

It is not very clear what kinds of verbs are marked by a –b or a –k class. However, a speculation can be made that verbs which are inherently non durative are marked by –b and those which are not inherently non durative, i.e. have the potentiality of being continued over a period of time are marked by –k class. A more recent development has been observed about the indiscriminate use of consonant by some speakers as well as the dropping of the consonant class altogether. Thus iji-k-om can be rendered as iji-om ‘he eats’ in present speech of Great Andamanese. It would not be a surprise if this consonant class marking is lost in future eliminating a strong evidence of unique structure of Great Andamanese.

Though the language follows SOV pattern, word order is comparatively free. Consider the following examples of adverbial clauses.

5.   tεkHamu            o-kotHu-o-m

right now          3sg- come/return-ind-non past

            ‘He will come right now’           [temporal adverb]

6.   ÿHu        εrÿko              inl

1sg       go in slow         water                                       

OR

6.1 ÿhu       inl-e                εrÿko

1sg       water-acc         go in slow

‘I go into the water slowly’        [manner adverb]

Locational

7.   ÿHu        širo       -kot      pHolo-kak         ÿro-buroNo-kak         ÿoa-be              εnne

1sg       sea       GEN         side-dir         sand-beach-dir                     shells-acc      search

‘I search for shells by the side of the sea in the sand’

Locational adverb can follow the verb too.

8.   bo        lɛc-ik         kac-il     o     lɛc     it-cɔŋ-O                mino-təra cɛʈʰul

and arrow-acc make-pst        3sg arrow  obj.clt-find-pst  potato-under roots

‘Having made more arrows [he went to search for more of the shot arrows] he found the arrow in the root of a potato plant’.

Negation

The negative marker in Great Andamanese is /-pHo ~ pH/. The negative marker is suffixed immediately after the verb root before all other Tam markings.

9-BSL9

10-BSL104

11-BSL212

The negative element can be prefixed to the verb root in a conditional phrase.

12-BSL22

Reflexive

The reflexive morpheme /tun~tum~un~um~em/ in Great Andamanese is also prefixed to the verb root as is exemplified below:

13-BSL96

It follows the pronominal clitic whenever it occurs in the verb phrase e.g.

The reflexive precedes the transitivizer (TR) if both come together in the verb phrase.

Note

The documentation of sentences is undertaken in the format given above, i.e.

GA       Great Andamanese

MB      Morphemic Break

Gl         Gloss

EGl      English translation

Src       Source

Rem     Remarks

The category Src [Source] in the interlinear translated sentences given above refers to following information in linear order.

The First entry refers to the name of the informant. The second entry refers to the date of recording. The third entry refers to the audio data: Mini Disc Number, Group Number/Name and the Track Number/Name The fourth refers to the field notebook number and the page from where the data has been taken, e.g.

means

Genitives

The language offers a wide variety of genitives unlike any other languages of India . The distinctions in various forms do not depend upon the simple binarity of alienability/inalienability but on various diverse ethno-semantic categories defining the relation between the possessor and the possessed nouns. Not surprisingly, then, one finds prototypical inalienable categories found in other Indian languages being reclassified in Great Andamanese, each by a distinct genitive suffix [GEN]. Factors such as part-whole relationship, intimate-non intimate relations, independent household of the possessum, and the notion of possessum being part of the possessor, all play an important role in deciding the appropriate genitive suffix [GEN]. The former, i.e. the suffixation process takes care of a large body of the relation existing between the possessor–possessum. The genitive suffix, in turn, is attached to the possessor pronoun/noun. The entire unit may be termed as personal prefix [PP]. This entails that the PP in the language is constituted of two parts, pronominal clitic [PC] indicating the possessor and the specific [body part classifying] genitive affix, which serves as a host to the clitic. The possessed noun follows the PP.