Complex loanwords and morphological transfer in Ibatan

Presentation Date: 

Saturday, June 15, 2019

Location: 

Leiden, The Netherlands
The 11th International Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference
Paper presentation
Leiden University
13-15 June 2019
 
Abstract
This study traces the history and current status of some borrowed affixes in Ibatan, an Austronesian (Batanic, Malayo-Polynesian) language spoken on the island of Babuyan Claro, Philippines. The community is multilingual, with speakers also proficient in Ilokano, the regional lingua franca, and Filipino, the national language of the Philippines. The intensity of contact between Ibatan and Ilokano in particular, has resulted in contact-induced language change in Ibatan, which can be seen not only in the lexicon but also in more structured aspects of the language such as phonology and morphology.
 
(1a) Native reduplication (CV-stem)
(1b) Borrowed reduplication (CVC-stem)
 
siraw
3pl
ka~kaanakan
pl=nephew
sa=aw
3pl=a
ni
det
Pidel
Pidel
myan
ext
asa poho
ten
a
lkr
bab~balasang
pl~woman
‘Those nephews of Pidel…’
‘There are ten women…’
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
As a general rule in Ibatan, non-native affixes appear with non-native stems (1b), in contrast with (1a) which follows the native Batanic pluralization of human nouns. While it is acknowledged that the transfer of structural materials is typically dispreferred (Matras and Sakel 2007, Gardani et al. 2015), suggesting that the borrowed reduplication in (1b) was transferred alongside the stem (forming complex loanwords) rather than an authentic transfer of morphological material, there are also cases in which borrowed affixes occur with native stems, in addition to native affixes occurring with borrowed stems, as in the voice affixes may-/mag- (2).
 
(2a) Native affix may- with borrowed stem:
(2b) Borrowed affix mag- with native stem:
may-bilag
av-dry.under.the.sun
so
det
benyebeh
banana
mag-bwang
av-bald
si
det
maraan
uncle
‘to dry the banana under the sun’
‘Uncle is going bald.’
 
 
 
 
 
 
Finally, there are also cases in which both native and borrowed affixes can occur with a similar stem, as in the ordinal number prefixes cha- and maika- (3):
 
(3a) Native (Batanic)
(3b) Borrowed (Ilokano)
cha-dadwa
ord-two
‘second’
maika-dadwa
ord -two
‘second’
The examples in (2) and (3) illustrate competing forms in Ibatan, suggesting the possibility of morphological transfer in progress. Whether or not these are cases of complex loanwords or actual morphological transfers can be determined by looking at standardized as well as actual usage both by dominant and non-dominant speakers of Ibatan. Moreover, we argue that the transfer of otherwise highly structured materials such as morphology can be promoted given certain conditions, such as high typological similarity between the two languages in contact as well as the speaker’s linguistic dominance (van Coetsem 2000). Exploring such questions contributes to a better understanding of the different mechanisms governing language contact.
 
References:
Gardani, Francesco, Peter Arkadiev and Nino Amiridze (eds.) 2015. Borrowed morphology (Language Contact and Bilingualism 8). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Maree, Rundell. 2007. Ibatan: A grammatical sketch of the language of Babuyan Claro Island. Manila: Linguistic Society of the Philippines.
Matras, Yaron and Jeanette Sakel (eds.) 2007. Grammatical borrowing in cross-linguistic perspective. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Van Coetsem, Frans. 2000. A general and unified theory of the transmission process in language contact. Heidelberg: Winter.