The present study represents the first step in attempting to unravel the synchronic complexities and diachronic origins of the systems of negation seen in the Munda languages based on a large data set collected by the authors and their colleagues between 2005-2017 under the auspices of their research institute’s major scholarly undertaking, the Munda Languages Initiative.3 It begins with a discussion of complex
1 Thanks to National Endowment for the Humanities for grant PD50025-13 “Documentation of Hill Gtaʔ, an endangered Munda language of India”, the National Science Foundation for award 1500092 “Documentation ofGutob, an endangered Munda language of India” and award 0853877 “Documentation of Remo (Bonda)”, the Genographic Legacy Fund grant for the “Ho Talking Dictionary”, and to Ironbound Films for in part making work possible on Sora, Remo, Juang, Santali, and Ho during filming of The Linguists. Other work on the following Munda languages was made possible under occasional funding to Living Tongues’ Munda Languages Initiative: Bhumij, Birhor, Gorum, Juray, Sora, Korku, Santali, Kharia, Juang, Keraʔ Mundari and Tamaɽia Mundari. Particular thanks must be offered to Mr. Opino Gomango for assistance in the Munda Languages Initiative as field worker extraordinaire and to Dr. Anna Pucilowksi for assistance on Ho. Key consultants and language teachers for the languages include non-exhaustively Budra Raspeda, Loikong Raspeda, Lachmu Raspeda, Angra Raspeda and Parboti Raspeda (Gtaʔ), Tankhadhar Sisa, Kamla Sisa and Bondu Kirsani (Gutob), Sania Dangada-Maji and Sukari Dangada-Maji (Remo), Kameshwar Birhor and Madhuri Birhor (Birhor), Palo Purty, Rinky Purty, KC Naik Biruli, Chandra Mohan Haibru (Ho) and Kartal Sardar and Gaytri Sardar (Bhumij), just to name a few for a selection of the languages. Without their patient assistance, none of this work would have been possible.
2 Abbreviations in examples represent the following: ABL ablative, ACC accusative, ACT active, ADJVZR adjectivalizer, ADS adessive, ALL allative, APPL applicative, ASP aspect, AUX auxiliary, BEN benefactive, CAP capabilitive, CAUS causative, CLSSFR classifier, COND conditional, COP copula, DAT dative, DECL declarative, DEF definite, DESID desiderative, DIR directional, DL dual, DS differentsubject, EMPH emphatic, EVID evidential, EXCL exclusive, OBL oblique, PFV perfective, PHB prohibitive, PL plural, PROG progressive, PRON pronoun, PRS present, PST past, PSV passive, PURP purposive, QUOT quotative, RDPL reduplication, OBJ object[ive], RECIP reciprocal, REF referential, RFLXV reflexive, RLS realis, SG singular, SUBJ subject, TAM tense-aspect-mood, TR transitive, 1 1stperson, 2 2ndperson, 3 3rdperson.
3 Depending on the locale and language, languages used in the elicitation process by various field researchers include Hindi, Oḍia, Sadri/Sadani, Desia, and even English, as well as specific Munda languages as well, e.g., Remo, GtaɁ, Gutob, Sora, Santali, Mundari and Ho. Some of the data presented here is in archival deposits at PARADISEC for Gutob (http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/GA2) and GtaɁ (http://catalog.paradisec.org.au/collections/GA1). We have been preparing the other materials for archival deposit, but this is very time consuming and it is also very
interdependencies of negation with TAM marking and person indexing attested in various conjugations and constructions, as seen in the languages of the Kherwarian group of North Munda, and their parallels in Korku, with an eye to determining the characteristics of the system of negation and its interaction with other verbal inflectional domains, and offers preliminary reconstructions of these systems and interdependent dynamics in the Proto-Kherwarian and Proto-North Munda languages, refining and adding to some proposals by Pinnow (1966).4 We then turn to presenting some data on constructional vs. combinatorial semantics in
negative conjugations in various Munda languages of Odisha not belonging to North Munda, all also reflecting complex interdependencies.
Based on our comparative Kherwarian data set, some intriguing features that we can likely project back into the Proto-Kherwarian or Proto-North Munda stages have come to light, in particular, complex interdependencies between negation, TAM-marking and person indexing. In a few cases, such interdependencies even appear to project back to the Proto-Munda stage. Section 2 presents an overview of the structure of positive and negative conjugations in these languages. Section 3 examines interdependencies of negation with subject and object indexing in North Munda languages and how these interactions are further impacted by tense-aspect-mood indexing, offering some thoughts on what aspects of the synchronic variation attested in these languages can be projected back to the various historical reconstructed proto- languages, viz., Kherwarian and Proto-North Munda. Section 4 discusses some interesting interdependencies of this sort in copular formations in possessive functions, specifically how possessa are variably encoded as subjects or objects in different tense formations under negation. Section 5 presents some negation/TAM interactions that do not also involve person marking.
We then turn in Section 6 to data from the other subgroups of Munda, traditionally known as South Munda, but as of yet lacking any defining innovations that justify such a classification, here simply referred to as non-North Munda. There are at least five sub-groups of such languages, three occupied by single languages Juang, Kharia and Gtaʔ, and two by sets of more closely related languages, Sora-Juray-Gorum and Gutob-Remo. Here a range of group and language-specific quirks are identified, but some features are found both across various subgroups of these languages and in some instances shared with Proto-North Munda as well. Therefore, we also cautiously make some preliminary suggestions about the possible nature of negation- and TAM-interdependencies in Proto-Munda.5
Of course all these languages have at least some previous documentation. While the vast majority of forms we cite below come from the field notes of the Munda Languages Initiative, we have consulted almost all published resources on these as languages (and many unpublished ones as well), but it is not our intention here to do a side-by-side comparison of our sources and published data on these same languages, a topic which merits its own full-length investigation. Because the database is collected by the same core group of researchers and using the same data collection techniques regardless of the medium of communication involved, the data represent a largely comparable and semi-controlled corpus that allows for the detection of meaningful micro-variation across, for example, closely related Kherwarian varieties, or to detail trends across the family as a whole. We feel our approach in this pilot study is therefore valid and defensible.6
costly to have materials ingested by the archive and so unfortunately we must await adequate dedicated funding before all the materials collected to date under the Munda Languages Initiative will be available.
4 We are not going to give a point-by-point comparison with Pinnow since i) we have not attempted a systematic reconstruction yet but rather here offer only preliminary and broad stroke-type reconstructions. Indeed, all such reconstructions offered here should be approached therefore with extreme caution, as not all varieties of all languages have been surveyed yet and we have barely begun the process of systematic cross-language analysis for most categories.
5 These should be taken for what they are, very preliminary observations suggestive of future research objectives. Pinnow (1966) is the only comprehensive attempt to reconstruct the verbal system of Proto-Munda. Pinnow’s interpretation is heavily skewed towards assigning all Kherwarian structures into the proto-language, but does not include all relevant variation in the Kherwarian data.
6 Moreover, in addition to being heavily Kherwarian in its feel, Pinnow’s Proto-Munda reconstructions did not have recourse to any data from GtaɁ–a language unknown to science in 1960 when Pinnow’s (1966) manuscript was written. So this is the first attempt at a pan-Munda data synthesis that acknowledges rather considerable intra- Kherwarian variation as well as takes into consideration all known Munda languages insofar as possible. Also, since we have not fully researched the functional domains of all of the TAM markers in the various Munda languages as they appear in their naturally occurring text contexts in all the varied uses and permutations found, including