84 A further tense suffix cognate pair may be pNucBin *-e ‘present tense’ (see Table 4.1) and Guhu-Samane -bi—i ‘present tense' (Richert 1975:786).
*-ari ‘nominaliser’ -re ‘infinitive’
(pBin) (ER75:787)
* ere ‘imperfective’ -ra ‘continuative’
(pSBin) (ER75:790)
*-man V ‘kinship plural' -mane ‘kinship plural'
(pBin) (ER75:782)
*-da ‘locative’ -ta ‘locative'
(pBin) (ER75:779)
*-se ‘simultaneous same-subject aspect’ -su—so ‘simultaneous augmentation’
(pBin) (ERnd:9)
*-wo ‘polite plural' -o ‘polite imperative’
(pBin) (ER75:787)
Examples of these cognate affixes are demonstrated below.
Past tense
Guhu-Samane
No-i tuu-ma - ta.
he-subject.enclitic go-denotative-past.tense ‘He went.’
(Richert 1975:786)
Binandere
Deguta gisi i-to aro ambe sigi - tara. week before 2S-GEN wife sago transport-YP.3S.IND ‘Last week your wife carried sago.'
(Wilson 2002:24)
Infmitive/nominaliser
Guhu-Samane
Nana tuu-ma - re. we go-denotative-infinitive ‘Let’s go.’
(Richert 1975:787)
Binandere
Blakey ainda atopat-ari g - ira Blakey that.GEN teach-NOMS see-TP.3S.IND ‘Blakey saw his teacher.’
Continuative/imperfective
Guhu-Samane
Ana baura ee-to - ra - koi.
I work do-operative-continuative-future.tense ‘I will continue doing my work.’
(Richert 1975:790)
Korafe
Didymus = mo nu usu ere-if-ira
Didymus = T/F 3S coconuts IPF-knock.down.II-PRES.3S.FN 'Regarding Didymus, he’s knocking down coconuts.’
(Farr 1999:46)
Kinship plural
Guhu-Sa/nane
Qeseba mai - mane - i tuume - ni.
dear father-kinship.noun.plural - subject.enclitic went - descriptive.enclitic 'The dear fathers went.’
(Richert 1975:783) Orokaiva
jape ’aunt’, jape-mane 'aunts’ (Larsen 1977b:30)
Locative
Guhu-Samane
No naga-ta oorai.
he house-locative.enclitic is ‘He is at the house.’
(Richert 1975:798) Notu
sasaka demonda river alongside ‘by the river'
(Parrington and Parrington 1974b:33)
Simultaneous aspect
Guhu-Samane
Baura oko noi eesumi ana nameke eesubi. ‘While he is doing his work I am doing mine.’ (Richert nd:9)
Notu
giruma ewamei i-se at-ira
school good do-SIM stay-PRES.3S.IND ‘He is doing well at school.’
(Parrington and Parrington 1974b:47)
Polite imperative
Guhu-Samane
Nii tuu - mo - o.
you go - operative-polite.imperative ‘You may go.'
(Richert 1975:787)
Binandere
Ava = ra isi-vo!
that.FOC = COP remain.IMP-2P.STEN ‘Alright, you all stay!’
(Wilson 2002:34)
In contrast, some functionally equivalent affixes in Guhu-Samane and Binanderean which are not cognate are shown below.
The Guhu-Samane summary (i.e. abrupt) imperative verb suffix -a contrasts in form with the functionally equivalent Proto Binandere suffix * -0 , i.e. the bare verb stem, for singular, and *-(w)u, i.e. the zero-marked imperative combined with the plural suffix (see §4.2.9).
Guhu-Samane abrupt imperative
Nii tuu-ma-a !
You go-denotative-summary.imperative ‘Go!’
(Richert 1975:787)
Suena abrupt imperative
poti ‘put’ (abrupt imperative singular) potiu ‘put’ (abrupt imperative plural) (Wilson 1974:71)
The Guhu-Samane future tense suffix -koi is not cognate with the Proto Binandere future tense suffix *-ari (see Table 4.1):
Guhu-Samane future tense suffix
Nii tuu-ma-koi
you go-denotative-future ‘You will go.’
(Richert 1975:786)
Zia future tense suffix pug-ari-ne-na
‘I will put’ (Wilson 1980a:40)
The same is true of the Guhu-Samane suprasegmental expression of indicative mood compared with the Proto Binandere indicative mood suffix *-a (see Table 4.3):
Guhu-Samane indicative m ood final mid-low intonation
Quu taate (2-1)
rain fell mid-low.intonation ‘It was raining.’
(Richert 1975:776)
Binandere indicative m ood suffix
embo boroko mamb-ira
man now go-TP.3S.IND
‘The man (just) now went.’ (Wilson 2002:21)
Similarly, the Guhu-Samane interrogative mood particle mae (spoken with elevated-low intonation) is not cognate with the Proto Binandere interrogative mood suffix *-/ (see Table 4.3):
Guhu-Samane interrogative m ood particle and elevated-low intonation
Nii tuume mae ? (3-1)
you went eh interrogative.mood ‘Did you go?’
(Richert 1975:777)
Binandere interrogative m ood suffix
embo ouua iji nonde mamb-iri man that.FOC day when go-TP.3S.Q ‘When did that man over there go?’ (Wilson 2002:21)
There are other discrepancies between Guhu-Samane and Binanderean bound morphology. Firstly, while the Guhu-Samane polite imperative verb suffix is apparently cognate with those in Binanderean languages, its summary (i.e. abrupt) imperative verb suffix is not: Proto Binandere * -0 does not correspond to Guhu-Samane -a (Richert 1975:787). Secondly, core argument alignment seems to vary between Guhu-Samane and the other languages. Guhu-Samane appears to have a nominative-accusative system, e.g.
Intransitive subject: -i
qcseba mai-mane-i tuume-ni
dear father-kinship.plural-subject.enclitic went-descriptive.enclitic ‘The dear fathers went.’
(Richert 1975:783)
Transitive subject (Agent): -i
erabo-i Khabo-ke buribaro-ke85
Erabo-subject.enclitic Khabo-oblique.enclitic adverbial.noun-oblique.enclitic ‘Erabo struck Khabo roundly.’
tee-te-ta.
strike-denotative-past.tense (Richert 1975:809,812)
Object: -ke
no hoo-ke koo-ma teete
he pig-oblique.enclitic spear-coocurrent.enclitic struck ‘He killed the pig with a spear.’
(Richert 1975:798)
Note that -ke is called an oblique enclitic, but this category is apparently one which encompasses the direct object, and in Richert (nd:23) it is in fact labelled the objective enclitic. (A suffix labelled the accusative in Richert (1975) does not appear to mark the direct object as its name might suggest, and it occurs in the author’s exemplifying sentences mostly on verbs.)
The Binanderean languages, in contrast to Guhu-Samane, have what may be described as an ergative-absolutive system (though this is not straightforward; see §4.3.1.). For example, from Binandere (Wilson 1996:39-40) we have the following:86
85 buribaro‘wheel’ (Richert and Hoopusu 2002:52).
86 This is, however, part of a split case system, since the verb agreement suffixes are nominative-accusative (Wilson 1996:40). Such a situation is fully expected: the ergative-absolutive case-marking system is not attested among Papuan languages as an arrangement of the verbal case-marking for core relations (Foley 1986:106).
Transitive subject (Agent): -mi pu jianda-mi kandoro-0 inj-isina
pig malc-ERG rat eat-RP.3S.IND
‘...the male pig ate the rat.
Intransitive subject: - 0
em b o-0 gupu-sina
man come-RP.3S.lND
‘(A) man came.’
Object: - 0
pu jianda-mi kandoro-0 inj-isina
pig male-ERG rat eat-RP.3S.lND
‘...the male pig ate the rat.
We see, therefore, a difference between Guhu-Samane and the other languages in both typological structure and inherited reflexes.
The Guhu-Samane MS’ free-form pronoun, ana, is aberrant (see below). And finally, Guhu-Samane differs from Binanderean in that it does not mark person-number by subject suffixes (Richert 1975) (see Table 4.2).
None of these morphological discrepancies points to likely innovation on the part of Proto Binandere. Given that zero-marking for the imperative singular is cross- Unguistically ubiquitous, it might be inferred that the divergence in this case has occurred rather in Guhu-Samane (though a shift from a marked to the typologically unmarked imperative may perhaps seem at least as likely). In the case of core argument alignment the direction of the change is not obvious, but given that nominal case-marking along an ergative pattern is rather common among Papuan languages (Foley 1986:106), it is perhaps tempting to hypothesise that the change was in the direction of the nominative- accusative pattern of Guhu-Samane. Of the MS’ free pronoun forms, ana in Guhu-Samane and na in Binanderean (see Table 4.22), comparison with Proto Trans New Guinea *na
‘IS’ (see Chapter 6) would seem to show up Guhu-Samane as the aberrant language of the group once more; but since Binanderean pronouns do not otherwise reflect pTNG forms and given the possibility of *na ‘IS’ arising independently (Ross 2005b:51-52), this is at best very weak evidence. Lastly, failure to mark person-number by subject suffixes, as is the case in Guhu-Samane, is atypical of Trans New Guinea languages (see Suter 1997; Pawley 2000b, 2005:89-91) and suggests Guhu-Samane as the innovator in this
In Korafe the suffix -/denotes the ergative on nouns and -imi the ergative on demonstratives (Farr 1999:86-87). If the
latter suffix has derived from -/ + -mi, it may be that Korafe -/ is cognate with the Guhu-Samane nominative suffix -i
If this is valid, the form -mi could be seen as a possible innovation o f Proto Binandere.
case. (Another argument for Guhu-Samane innovation may be the use of -ke as an object marker, especially if it can be derived etymologically from an oblique case marker; see above, this section.)
The case for the separation of Guhu-Samane as a sister of Proto Binandere, rather than as an aberrant daughter, would be more solid if there were evidence of morphological innovation which was securely traceable to Proto Binandere. However, whether Guhu- Samane is placed as a separate branch under Proto Greater Binandere or alternatively as a member of Binanderean, one would be led to the same basic result in reconstruction, since Guhu-Samane would be outnumbered by the other nodes in the trutination of conflicting forms or segments. Guhu-Samane is therefore treated as a separate branch from Binanderean throughout the present work.
5.4 Conclusion
Guhu-Samane does indeed look like ‘the odd one out’ of the language group under study, and on lexical grounds it has been general practice in the past to treat it as an outlier. I have likewise chosen to separate Guhu-Samane and in the present chapter have shown my basis for this by comparison of lexicon, phonology, and morphology. Guhu-Samane is clearly genetically related to Binanderean, but the haphazard nature of the sound correspondences suggests a separation of considerable time-depth. Given that Guhu- Samane is the sole member of its branch in the bifurcating tree, the task of reconstructing Proto Greater Binandere is a difficult one and only tentative speculations about its phonology have herein been made.