Erromangan Verb Phrases

Crowley, T. (1998). An Erromangan (Sye) grammar. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications 27: 189 –
195.

While noun phrases and prepositional phrases in Erromangan can be easily delimited, it is rather
more difficult to justify setting up a separate category of verb phrase. However, there are certain
phenomena which are indicative of a close grammatical relationship between a verb and a restricted set of
following constituents, which it will be convenient to describe in this chapter as verb phrases. It should be
noted, however, that the verb phrase as it is described in Erromangan does not correspond to what is often
referred to in the same way in grammars of other languages.

1.0 Verb-Object Sequences

The grammatical sequence of VERB + object is an especially close one, in that there can be no other
lexical constituent intervening between a verb and its object.

With the subset of unsuffixed transitive verbs, which receive no morphological marking for the
pronominal category of the object, nominal and pronominal objects are simply expressed by means of
immediately following nouns or independent pronouns. Thus:

Yi-sompat stowa.
3SG:DISTPAST-close store
'(S)he closed the store.'

When no bound morpheme intervenes between an unsuffixed transitive verb and a following
pronominal object, monosyllabic pronouns are attached to the preceding verb as clitics, with the entire
unit of verb plus pronoun being stressed as a single word. This process of clitic attachment does not take
place with the disyllabic pronouns kimi '2PL' and iror '3PL'. Thus:

Y-etipe-kik. Y-etipe iror.

3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:appoint-2SG 3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:appoint 3PL
'(S)he appointed you.' '(S)he appointed them.'

If there is any morpheme intervening between a verb and a monosyllabic pronominal object, the
independent pronoun retains its phonologically independent status. Thus:

Y-etipe-su kik.
3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:appoint-PERF 2SG
'(S)he already appointed you.'

When the object of such a verb is a third person singular pronoun, this is normally expressed by
zero, that is:

Y-etipe Ø.
3SG:DISTPAST-BR:appoint 3SG
'(S)he appointed him/her.'

Occasionally, however, especially when the object has human rather than non-human reference, it
is possible for the third person singular pronoun iyi to be used. Thus, the example just presented could
appear also as follows, with no change of meaning:

Y-etipe iyi.
3SG:DISTPAST-BR:appoint 3SG
'(S)he appointed him/her.'

With the verb sompat 'close', for which an inanimate noun phrase is the only pragmatically likely
object, a third person singular pronominal object is almost exclusively expressed as zero, as in the
following:

Yi-sompat Ø.
3SG:DISTPAST-close 3SG
'(S)he closed it.'

When a suffixed transitive verb is associated with an object, the verb appears with a suffix that is
identical in shape with the third person singular pronominal marker - referred to as the construct form -
when the object is a noun. With the greatest number of suffixed verbs, the construct suffix is -i, while
with that small number of verbs referred to as possessive verbs, the construct suffix is -n. Thus:

Ovrog-i ovonyan. Atovni-n

ovonyan.
2SG:lMP-BR:call-CONST PL:child 2SG:IMP-BR:NAME-CONST PL:child
'Call the children!' 'Name the children!'

While no lexical material can appear between a construct suffix on a verb and the following
object, the post-object suffixes can appear in this environment. Thus:

Konisu (<ko-en-i-su) nvag?

2SG:RECPAST-BR:eat-CONST-PERF food
'Have you had something to eat?'

While the construct suffix is uniformly present when there is a following noun object with the
vast majority of speakers, the textual corpus includes a scattering of instances in which the final -i of plain
suffixed verbs is not present. We therefore find:

Yi-tour-i ovon kuri.

3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:lead-CONST PL dog
'He went hunting (lit. "lead the dogs").'

alternating occasionally with:

Yi-tour ovon kuri.
3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:lead PL dog
'He went hunting (lit. "lead the dogs").'

Such constructions are almost exclusively restricted to the speech of people in their seventies (or
older), though younger speakers occasionally produce random instances of such constructions. Younger
people judge such constructions prescriptively as "better" than those in which the construct suffix is
present, despite the rarity of such forms in their own speech. These facts suggest that the construct suffix
on verbs may be a relatively recent innovation in Erromangan. If this is the case, however, it certainly
became established very rapidly.

When the construct suffix is absent, the preceding verb root behaves as if the following noun
were morphologically bound to it. We therefore find the following kinds of alternations:

(i) When the verb root ends in ok-, og- or ogk-, these sequences become oc before any segment other than
a velar consonant when there is no construct suffix. We therefore find alternations of the following kinds:

Y-oryok-i nitni. Yoryoc nitni.

3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:pick.up-CONST child:3SG 3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:pick.up child:3SG
'(S)he picked up his/her child.'

Y-ovog-i ovoteme. Yovoc

ovoteme.
3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:give-CONST PL:person 3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:give PL:person
'(S)he gave it to the people.'

(ii) Underlying schwa is realized as either o (or, very occasionally, e) or zero. Thus:

Yochi (<yi-ocQh-i) ovoteme. Yoch (<yi-ocQh)

ovoteme.
3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:see-CONST PL:person 3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:see PL:person
'(S)he saw the people.'

Yochi (<yi-ocdh-i) ndinme. Yocoh (<yi-ocdh)

ndinme.
3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:see-CONST mother:3SG 3SG:DlSTPAST-BR:see mother:3SG
'(S)he saw his/her mother.'

2.0 Dummy Verb Construction

The only verbs of Bislama origin in Sye that can be directly preceded by inflectional prefixes are
suwit 'sweet' (for which the indigenous equivalent ompu is now obsolescent), tanis 'perform modern style
of dance' (which alternates with empcu, referring to both modern and traditional dancing), and traim 'try'
(which is more frequently expressed by the indigenous form tapmi). All other verbs of Bislama origin
must be expressed phrasally by means of the initial inflected verb ompi 'do, make', which is followed by
the borrowed item as a separate lexical item. We therefore find examples such as the following:

Yoco-nompi stori gi nemetagi.

lSG:FUT-MR:do tell.story about cyclone
'I will tell a story about the cyclone.'

Y-ompi slaik wocon.

3SG:DISTPAST-BR:do tired very
'(S)he was very tired.'

3.0 Causative

There is a causative construction in which the action that is brought about by an external agent is
expressed by placing the caused action by placing the uninflected basic root of the verb as a separate
word after the inflected causative verb om-, with the subject of the caused verb being expressed as the
pronominal object of the causative verb. The caused verb can be either stative or active, as illustrated by
the following:

C-am-kor omurep. Y-ov-yau etehep.

3sg:fut-mr:caus-3pl BR:alive 3sg:distpast-br:caus-1sg BR:sit
'(S)he will bring them to life.' '(S)he sat me down.'

The verb appearing after the causative verb can be either intransitive, as in the examples just
presented, or it can be a transitive verb with an object, for example:

Yac-am-kik omonki nu.

1sg:fut-mr:caus-2sg BR:drink water
'I will make you drink water.'

This construction has a defective paradigm in that it cannot be used with either a noun as the
subject of the caused verb, or a third person singular pronoun. Thus, in order to express meanings such as
'I will bring the people to life' or 'I will bring him/her to life' a second causative construction must be
used.

4.0 Verbal Postmodifiers

There is a small number of verbal postmodifiers which have in common the fact that they are
obligatorily associated with a pronoun that agrees with the pronominal category of the subject of the verb.

(i) Pe- 'regardless, in spite of everything'

Pe- has the same paradigm as the pronominal postmodifier and it indicates that the subject of the
verb will perform the action in spite of adverse circumstances. This form appears with the same
pronominal marking as the verbal subject, for example:
Kamli-ve pe-kam.
lPL.EXCL:DlSTPAST-BR:go regardless-1 PL .EXCL
'We went regardless.'

(ii) Sinvango 'naked'

The form sinvango 'naked' behaves in the same way as an unsuffixed transitive verb in that it is
obligatorily followed by an independent pronoun, or, in the case of a third person singular pronominal
object, by zero. However, sinvango is clearly not a verb itself because it accepts no verbal prefixation of
any kind. Thus:

Kaml-oruc sinvango kam.

lPL.EXCL:DiSTPAST-MR:bathe naked 1PL.EXCL
'We all bathed naked.'

Cam-naleipo sinvango Ø.
3SG:PRES-MR:sleep naked 3SG
'(S)he sleeps naked.'

(iii) Kinta- 'backwards'

This modifier accepts pronominal suffixes that are identical with those that express possession on
bound nouns. These suffixes express the same pronominal category as the subject of the verb. Thus:

Avan m-torilki kinta-m!

2SG:lMP-BR:walk SG:ES-BR:return backwards-2SG
'Walk backwards!'

Yam-avan m-torilki kinta-g.

lSG:DlSTPAST-BR:walk SG:ES-BR:return backwards-lSG
'I walked backwards.'

(iv) No-.. .-go 'barefoot'

The form no- is a bound noun meaning 'foot', though it can also function as a verbal postmodifier,
in which case it carries a pronominal possessive suffix that agrees with the pronominal category of the
subject, as well as the restrictive suffix -go 'only'. As a verb modifier, no-.. .-go indicates that the action is
performed barefoot, for example:

Ndw-avan no-nd-go.
3PL:DISTPAST-BR:walk foot-3PL-REST
'They walked barefoot.'

Yam-avan nogo (<no-g-go).

1SG:DISTPAST-BR:walk foot-1SG-REST
'I walked barefoot.'

(v) Hai eni 'by oneself’

The indefinite premodifier hai can be followed by a possessive pronoun, with the possessive
pronoun marking the same pronominal category as that which is expressed in the subject, to express the
idea of 'by oneself or 'on one's own', for example:

Yac-antur hai enyau.

1SG:FUT-MR:stand INDEF POSS:1SG
'I will stand by myself.'

When both an object and any of the verbal postmodifiers just described is present, the object
immediately follows the verb, and the modifier follows the object, as in:

Yoco-nta-i nompcahi pe-yau.

1SG:FUT-MR:kill-C0NST pig regardless-1SG
'I will still kill the pig (even though I have been told not to).'

Yac-ahpi netai sinvango yau.

lSG:FUT-MR:read book naked lSG
'I will read the book naked.'

There is one additional verbal postmodifier whose appearance is not dependent on the inflectional
categories marked on the verb, and that is the negative constituent tawi. This is described as a marker of
negation in non-verbal clauses. However, it can also appear after a verb phrase that itself contains
inflectional marking in order to express emphatic negation. Thus:

Kotwaghi (<ko-etu-agkoh-i) nokimpat tawi.

2SG:NEG:FUT-MR:see-CONST kind.of.palm NEG
'You won't see any nokimpat palms at all.'