Tepa Incorporation [was: Re: Nakiltipkaspimak]

On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Marcus Smith wrote:

> Patrick Dunn wrote:
>
> >   And,
> >finally, something that always puzzles me . . . how can one tell if the
> >noun is incorporated or if it's a separate word?
>
> The quick dirty answer is: you can't always. In languages where the
> incorporated noun occurs between the verb stem and agreement, it is pretty
> straightforward -- it is visually and audibly part of the verb.
Tepa illustrates a phonological reflex in incorporation. Here are two
forms of a common Tepa idiom:

a.      [pai kunde nehunasea]
        0- pai kunte  ne- huna =sea
        3- dig badger 3-  den  =out

        'digging a badger out of his hole'

b.      [paiGunde]
        pai + kunte
        dig + badger

        'badger-digging'

The sense of the idiom is like the English expression "Pyrrhic victory",
or something won at such a great cost that it may as well not have been
attempted. Badgers are very nasty when cornered, hence the origin of the
idiom.

In (a), the phonetic transcription has [pai kunde]; the word for
'badger' has an initial voiceless velar stop. However, in (b) 'badger'
appears with a voiced velar fricative: [paiGunde]. In (b), 'badger' is
an example of an incorporated object. As such, it is part of the same
word with the verb, and so the lenition process relating underlying
/k/ to surface [G] applies.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu