Other major taxa are o f symbolic rather than practical importance. The chief of these are the birds:
ini, ineu, inei.
The birds provide the people of W est Central Papua generally with a special vocabulary that functions to encode intertribal (interethnic) as well as intratribal relations. Every Mekeo clan had its totem bird that stood in a certain relationship to other bird totems.1 The system of bird totems united the Mekeo with the Roro and the Kuni and even the mountain people (the Goilala). These relations were expressed and debated in the form of myths. They were also expressed by means of special dances. Like other cultural emblems(gagagaga, kagakaga)
the totems could be bought and sold as societies formed or reformed their allegiances and/or alliances.There is also a preoccupation with the snake taxon:
paeßo, paibo, faibo,
kaapa.
There are many named varieties in the Mekeo area. Many of these arepoisonous, and loss of life to snake-bite is not uncommon. There are also seemingly mythical snakes. Trees,
au,
have many named varieties, as do all the chief vegetable food crops.1 The word for totem is iauafagai according to Seligman (1910, Chapter XXVII). See Section 2 .1.1.1 where I discuss the terms auaf againa and a u - a u - a g a - a i - n - a ("praise"?).
2 .1 .1 .2 .2 HYPONYMS
In this section some specific terms from certain key domains of language and culture will be illustrated.1
Below, for example, is a selection of EMek names for different kinds/species o f birds:
ini, ineu. inei "bird(s)"
op o o g o ise fo i paili e'ego, ego lainapa uga?a lainema paguako tsio lele i'ilo alaga ageage "Bird-of-Paradise" "Kookaburra"2 "Eagle" "Sea Eagle" "White Cockatoo"
"Hombill" (ainaba in the other dialects) "Goura pigeon"
"Water hen" (ainema in the other dialects) "noisy banana parrots around village" (kovau) "has very long tail feathers" (WMek biolele) "swarms of small birds that eat the rice" "red parrot"
"green parrot"
(The last two are, respectively, male and female of the same species.)
vagama, efoa, aala, kago-kago are all m ound-builders
eu (all dialects) is the term for "mound"
This particular list could easily be expanded to many times the present length, but the above birds all have important places in the symbolic coding of clans and tribes and in the discourse of what might be called ethno-sociology. Note that these names are
unmotivated except for pagua-ko "village-??".
1 This corresponds to the bottom or 'subordinate level’ of Rosch et al. (1976). Their 'basic level' is somewhere in between.
2 This is a kind of kingfisher important in myth. Ogoi is "wild breadfruit", probably the starch staple for some clans in the past. The Mekeo seem to have once lived in tree-houses in the branches of these trees. The introduced breadfruit is unu (not ugu!) in all dialects.
Taro is a staple food though not the main staple in any area. The EMek have at least the following terms for different kinds of taro:
?o?ou
"native taro"an£-
"Chinese taro'pao-la?a
age
ipauma
olue
age
augama
ufafa-faoga
age
gufa
vei ?o*ou-ga
age
fua
afi
age
lafa
uko
okoa
me?o
maofa
avata
What is interesting here is the fact that the species names for the kinds of taro are transparently motivated in a way that the names of the birds are for the most part not.
Vei V o ii-g a
is simply "water taro"(vei
is "water").Afi
normally signifies the Death Adder, and this term is used for a variety of taro in the same way asaugama,
the term for the Papuan Black snake, is used to describe a variety of Chinese taro (which I believe has 'black' - i.e. darkish - flesh) . 1 The names of the varieties often refer to a dish that can be made from that particular kind of taro or to some salient attribute like colour or texture.Paola?a
incidentally is a yellow variety (the word is also used of the yolk o f an egg) and it belongs to the chief. The names of the varieties of Chinese taro show overtly that they are members of a class.1 The snake names represent the basic meanings of these terms, which are used descriptively in other contexts.
2 .1 .1 .2 .3 DEFINITENESS AND SPECIFICITY
A common noun occurring as the topic of a predication usually has definite reference. This is merely the unmarked case, and the context of situation and/or discourse is the ultimate determinant of definiteness. Thus the following has two possible readings:
(189) Papie e-fau gai-n -a. (EMek)
woman 3SG-persist-TH-3SG "He is pestering the woman." "He pesters women."
But, normally, if reference is indefinite (or numerable) one should say so: EMek: ?uma arja'o "a pig"1 - *uma gua "two pigs" - Tuma oiso "a few pigs" WMek: kuma alaka "a pig" - kuma autsina "two pigs" - kuma oido "a few pigs"2
The demonstrative pronouns function to express definiteness, or contrastiveness and definiteness. The following examples are both from EMek:
egai?i-na tum a(-ga) "That/the pig" - non-restricted reference, definite
(There is only one pig and I mean that one.)
?uina ega*i-na "That/the pig" - restricted reference, contrastive
(There are several pigs, but I mean that one.) With non-restricted reference, the nominal usually takes a determining suffix that agrees with the marking on the demonstrative pronoun, especially after rankshift.
EMek demonstratives always carry a determining suffix, even when no topic nominal has previously been mentioned with which this marking might agree. Such demonstratives can signal plural number as well as definiteness. Thus, from EMek:
ina?i-na "this" this-3SG eija^i-na "that" this-3SG inae-ti "these" this-3PL eijai-^i "those" this-3PL
1 tuma ajjao, kuma alaka "one pig"(lit. "pig one") can also mean "another pig". In the same way, koi)a agao, goi)a alaka (lit. "coconut one") can mean "one coconut" or "another coconut" (as in "Give me another coconut").
3PL-marking on a noun standing alone signifies that a demonstrative pronoun topic (to which that number properly refers) has undergone ellipsis, and that the noun in question is definite, i.e. determinate in relation to that topic pronoun:1
(190)
A u -li
ke-mue
ke-m ai.
(EMek)man-3PL 3PL-tum.back 3PL-come "The men returned."
(191)
Ibiao-lsi
ai-d-a-idoga-i-tsi.
(WMek)girl-3PL N EG -B -lSG -see-PF-3PL "I did not see ihs. girls."
The NPs contained in the last two examples are, I suggest, short for
egai-?i au-'i
andgae-tsi ibiao-tsi,
respectively.Specificational reference involves a kind of relative construction (in Chapter 8 this will be called the co-relative construction) where one specifies which of several referents is meant. It is accomplished by the use of a postposed pronoun
au-ga
(which can when required take plural number marking). Specificational reference thus entails determination (by means of the determining suffix onau-ga),
i.e. definiteness.(192)
?uma,
fai
lo-isa
au-ga
(EMek)pig yesterday 2SG-see(.3SG) one-3SG "the pig that you saw yesterday."
(193)
?uma,
fai
lo-isa-?i2
au-*i
pig yesterday 2SG-see-3PL one-3PL "the pigs that you saw yesterday."
(EMek)
It is also possible to topicalise a nominal, which tends to imply definitess:
(194)
Kuma
auga,
(WMek)pig TOP
"As for the(a) pig,"
If the nominal has already been definitised by means a demonstrative pronoun, topicalisation represents a double definiteness:
(WMek)
(195) Egaea
kuma
auga,
agani
o-ida
au-ga
ma?
that pig TOP yesterday 2SG-see one-3SG INT "As for that/the pig, is that the one you saw yesterday?"
1 Typically determinate nouns are treated extensively in the next section.
2 .1 .2 DETERMINATE NOMINALS
Determinate nouns are, in general, the names of culturally predicated relations between people, between people and things, or between people and things and their parts or aspects, uses or roles. They represent contingent concepts. However, they always appear as definite nouns, being obligatorily marked as determinate in relation to non contingent referential nominals/pronominals. In themselves they name conceptual features of entities rather than the entities themselves, but they can stand fo r people or things. In that way they come to represent discourse m a n ip u la te participants. 1 which is to say potential topics.
Some relational nouns can never be topics, in as much as they are too general in meaning ever to become identified with the entities related. Two classes of such terms, nouns of measurement and classifier nouns, are dealt with in Sections 2.1.2.1.2 and 2.1.2.1.3. Adjectival nouns (Section 2.1.2.3) are similarly constrained by their semantics and rarely function as topics.
2.1.2.1 RELATIONAL NOUNS
2.1.2.1.1 RELATIONAL TOPIC NOUNS
Relational topic nouns are the type-class of determinate nouns, differing from subclasses (such as the adjectival nouns and locative-relational postpositions) only in being less specialised, or less grammaticalised. Relational nouns may be predicative, that is they may function as argument-taking predicates:
TOPIC PREDICATE
(196)
Isa,
ama-u.
(EMek)he father-1SG
"He is my father."
TOPIC TOPIC PREDICATE
(197)
Isa,
lau
ama-u.
(EMek)he I father-1 SG
"He is my father."