Up to now, I have described the Abu' world-view and outlined the
community's folk-taxonomy to provide the basis for the
remarks that I will make about the underlying -facWs assumed to play a role in the determination of the noun classes. The position that has
hitherto been adopted is that phonology is the major feature
determining the classification of nouns in the various noun classes
( e.g. Nekitel 1977). What we are not too sure of is whether or not
some of these classes are determined by semantics > ori^it-scxA v<r\<^ vr\ the Abu' world-view as portrayed in the community's folk-taxonomy. Therefore, the rest of the chapter will re-examine the noun class system (cf. c h a p t . 3 , p. 6 5) and will try especially to find out if there are semantic principles underlying the Abu' categorization of things into the different noun classes the language has.
Although it is not possible to specify all the factors that might
have influenced the Abu' to categorize nouns into classes, some
general remarks can be made. These are discussed below. The numbering of the noun classes are arbitrarily made up to facilitate reference. Classes 1 and 2 will be discussed together. The rest of the classes will be discussed individually.
4.3*0.1 Classes 1 and 2
Class one subsumes both loanwords (e.g. TP pater 'priest', dokta
'doctor', tisa (<TP tisa) 'male ' teacher', , God', Yesus 'Jesus', Spiritu
Santu 'Holy Spirit', Angelo 'Angel') and indigenous words (e.g.
Nailiah, Nekitel, So'osin (all male human names), K a 'atuman 'creative
deity' from above, Ufu'al Imara 'spirit Imara', mauran 'ghost') humans
and spirits that are or thought of as belonging to the category r+male]. Member lexemes of this category, although they differ in
their endings, are together by the fact that they assume the
same singular and plural cross reference markers, namely, |n| and jmj, which function as preverbal markers in verb phrases (VPs) and nominal
(male) concord affixes in noun phrases (NPs) and in the objective slots in clauses.
The same can be said of all the loan (e.g. TP sista
'sister/nun', tisa 'female teacher', dokta 'female doctor', TP Santu
Maria 'Saint Mary', Santu Katarina 'Saint Catherine') and indigenous
(e.g. Awo'an, Kundiwata, (all female personal names) and ufu'elu'
Bafiteis '(female spirit) Bafita', maurenu' 'female ghost') female
human and spirit nouns. Although they differ phonologically, they
are classified together by the cross referencing female gender
r W "I
affix — Ik It might be queried why nouns imply masculine
and feminine genders in their meanings subsume the categories [+male] and [+female] and are subsequently subject to the rules of grammar that
govern both genders. An obvious and probably the most plausible reason
is that both classes are marked. Consequently, a noun that
implies a masculine or a feminine gender in its meaning assumes whichever the appropriate morphological elements (NCE) that signal
its membership to one or the other of the classes (irrespective of
no sharp dichotomy between the human and the spirit worlds, and that the human and the spirit belong, as it were, to the category ^♦anthropomorphic1 , it is highly likely that this view is encapsulated in the Abu' language structure.
The assignment of nouns such as the ’cassowary' unaru' to the female class is rather precarious as regards underlying motive(s). Its inclusion under the female class and its adoption of the feminine gender cross reference marker might have been motivated either by phonology, or by reasons derived from the Abu' folklore that regard the cassowary as belonging to the category f e m a l e . ^
Let us not overlook the fact that some of the nouns assigned to class two that do not seem to reflect any clearly defined semantic domain are probably determined by phonology. The 'puli' of the noun terminal ['] must have been in operation. Consider the examples presented in the following table.
Table 4-1: Some examples of Class 2 nouns determined by phonology 18. nikilo'>nikilowa 'earth-worm'
19* dihihiru'>dihihiruwa 'aquatic snake'
^ T h e cassowary, according to a myth, is a female which lives under the guise of cassowary 'feathers' ahuwalub. A myth has it that one day a bachelor went hunting and, coming to a river pool, heard some noises coming from the opposite direction. He immediately climbed a tree and hid himself, and lo and behold, there was a group of cassowaries making their way to the pool. On arriving they sloughed their skins and turned into beautiful women and started swimming. The man had a good look at them and chose the most beautiful among them and told an ant to go and fetch her skin and take it up to him. As soon as he got the skin from the ant, he hid it.
Having done that, he distracted them by throwing a couple of fruits from that tree into the centre of the pool. When the cassowary women sensed that there was a person around, they got out of the pool, adorned their cassowary skins and made for the forest leaving behind the most beautiful one. Realising that her cassowary skin was missing, the abandoned cassowary woman started crying. In the meantime the real man ascended from the tree and took her home to be his wife. After some time she with the aid of the eldest child found her skin, wore it and turned back into a cassowary and fled to join her own kind in the forest. Since then cassowaries are always seen as females. Similar versions were also recorded of the Muhiang by Laycock 1975, and Buki by Narakobi 1979, and Kalam (Bulmer, 1965) and also the Iatmul and Abelam.
20. mu t u '>mutuwa 21. waiu'>waiwa 22. a ba’>abawa 23« woba'>wobawa 24. nalibo'>nalibowa 25. alu'>aluwa 26. tamio'>tamiawa 27* kanu'>kanuwa 28. patu'>patuwa 'n o s e ' 'hole, pit'
'k.o.tree' (its white sap is used as medicinal cure for headaches and swollen limbs.)
'spear', 'k.o. palm' (from which spears are m a d e .)
'Hibiscus manihot' (<TP aibika) 'k.o.bat'
'steel axe' F<TP tamiok] 'canoe' [<TP kanul 'duck' r<TP pa tu"' 4.3*1 Noun Class 3-10
Regarding the rest of the noun classes (viz. 3-10), these are determined principally by phonology and I noticed only a slight semantic pattern developing in some of them. Their assv^^mcv-rV to their respective noun classes might, therefore, be attributed to both phonology and semantics, thus reflecting, as it were, the influence of the Abu' world-view on the community's language.
I will first describe the class that contain nouns that seem to me to associate themselves with alahuta 'home' or 'village' and whose grouping I thought might have been influenced by such a view.
4-3.1•1 Class 3
Nouns assuming the singular affix _t and the plural marker kw - are grouped under this class. There is evidence to suggest that many of the nouns may well be represented taxonomically under the feature [♦domicile1 and thus suggest a direct or indirect semantic connection of referents with the "sememe" (Crystal, 1980:317) |_t| which is derived from the semantic domain alahuta 'home, 'village', 'homestead' or 'camp'. Consider for example:
29. nubat >nubakw 'dog'
30. awata >awatakw 'hen, 'rooster' or 'chicken' 31. abita >abitokw 'rat', 'mouse'
32. sibu'ata >sibu’atakw) ’k .0.brownish bird' (usually domicile) 33. kwafita>kwasitokw 'spoon'
34. selita > selitokw 'masher'
35* berita > beritokw 'bed', 'scaffold'
36. wamuta > wamutokw 'slitgong; 'hard-wood tree' (Afzela bijuga) (from which slit-gong is made)