A Preliminary Report on the Grammar of Arta

Yukinori Kimoto* Kyoto University

This paper is concerned with a grammatical description of Arta, an under-described

language of the Northern Luzon subgroup of Austronesian. Based on my field research

conducted in 2012–2013, some basic structures of the language concerning phonology

and morphosyntax are described. First I provide an analysis of the phonology,

including segmental phonology and syllable structure, and then a detailed description

is provided of the morphosyntactic structures and their functions. After basic

observations regarding typological characterizations, major word classes, and the case

marking system (here we argue for the validity of an ergative-absolutive analysis), the

structure of the pronoun and determiner systems is described. Finally an analysis is

provided of the structures of predicates, clause, and complex sentences, where the

relationship between morphological coding of voice and argument alignments is

argued.

1 Introduction This paper is primarily concerned with a description of some of the grammatical structures in an

endangered language, Arta, an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines. The speakers of Arta

belong to a larger group called Negrito, who are characterized by their shorter height, curled hair, and

darker skin. They are considered to be descendants of the people who had first settled in the Philippine

archipelago over 20,000 years ago, before the speakers of an Austronesian language migrated into the

islands; however, since the languages of Negritos have switched to Austronesian languages, the

current language that the Arta people speak clearly belongs to the Austronesian family.

The description of Arta is of significance and worth pursuing for the following three reasons. First,

Arta is a severely endangered language; there are only 11 fluent speakers, most of whom are over fifty,

another 35–45 people can understand conversations spoken in Arta but cannot use it properly,

preferring to use either Nagtipunan Agta (a neighboring Negrito group) or Ilokano (a major

non-Negrito group in the northern Luzon area and whose language is a lingua franca in that area).

Recently Arta speakers have merged into multi-ethnolinguistic speech communities which consist of

Nagtipunan Agta, Ilokano, as well as Arta. All speakers are thus multilingual: all the speakers whom I

met speak Ilokano and Nagtipunan Agta, and in some cases Tagalog (or Filipino, the national

language of the Philippines). In daily conversation, they commonly use Ilokano or Nagtipunan Agta,

and thus many children can hardly understand the Arta language. The locations of the communities are

mainly in the Barangays of Disimungal, San Ramos, Pongo, and Sangbay in the Municipality of

Nagtipunan; in Disimungal, there are several Arta communities in Purok Kalbo, Pulang Lupa, and

Tilitilan.

The second reason is that the language is an under-described language, whose previous study is

limited to Reid (1989). Since his study is primarily concerned with diachronic aspects such as an

analysis of phonological changes and the subgrouping of Arta, a much more synchronic description

has been expected. This includes nominal structures, voice system, and complex sentences, as well as

refinements of the description of sociolinguistic aspects and synchronic phonology, all of which are

our concerns here. Finally, as Reid reveals, Arta is not genetically close to any other dialect or

language, with the language being a first order subgroup of the Northern Luzon subgroup (Reid 1989:

58), and thus there is no mutually intelligible language with Arta. Thus the language has been

expected to have unique characteristics both phonologically and grammatically; the analysis of the

language has a potential to reveal some of the unknown historical developments of the Northern

Luzon subgroup.

The analysis of the language in this paper is based on my fieldwork (of 13 months) conducted in

2012-13, with 1000 vocabulary items and several texts recorded and supplementary grammatical

elicitation examined. After the brief discussion of Arta phonology in §2, I provide analyses of some

morphosyntactic phenomena, including major word classes and the case marking system in §3, nouns

and other nominals in §4, verbal, clausal structure, and complex sentences in §5. Since most of the

descriptions presented below are new, I will not extensively refer to or compare the analyses given in

Reid (1989), except when the same facts have been mentioned in the literature.

2 Phonology 2.1 Segments Arta has sixteen consonant phonemes: seven stops: /p, b, t, d, k, g, ʔ/, three nasals /m, n, ŋ/, two

fricatives: /s, h/, two liquids: /l, r/, and two glides: /y, w/. Stops are unreleased in the syllable-final

position such as igit [igit̚] ‘eel,’ and voiceless stops are invariably unaspirated.

There are six short vowel phonemes /i/, /e/, /a/, /u/, /o/ and /#/ and their long counterparts.1

Phonetically, /#/ has variants [#, ɨ, ɯ].2 Arta distinguishes vowel length phonemically. Four short

vowels /i/, /e/, /a/, /u/ and /o/ have long counterparts /i:/, /e:/, /a:/, /u:/ and /o:/, respectively, as seen in

bil!g ‘speed, fastness,’ vs. bi:l!g ‘necklace.’ The mid-central vowel /#/, however, has no long

counterpart; if some morphophonemic operation requires vowel lengthening, /#/ remains the same or

changes into /a/ 3 (See also Note 7).

2.2 Syllable Structure In Arta the general structure of syllables is (C)(C)V(C), but there are some constraints in terms of the

occurrence of consonants. The second consonant of the onset cluster is limited to glides and liquids;

but liquids in the second onset are limited to several borrowings as in trak ‘car,’ traba:hu ‘work.’ If an

onset cluster consists of /t, d/ or /y/, the sounds undergo palatalization, being realized as [tʃ] and [dʒ],

respectively, as seen in tyan [tʃan] ‘belly,’ tyad [tʃad] ‘ankle’ or dya [dʒa] ‘to him/her.’ Syllables

appear to have a quantity-sensitive constraint: a long vowel + consonant, or diphthong (short vowel +

glide) + consonant is rarely found. This syllabic pattern is best understood in terms of a mora

constraint that a syllable should be composed of one or two mora. All of the vocabulary items

excluding kabba:t ‘like, want’ and manga:sa:sbiw ‘yawn’ have a legitimate syllable structure in terms

of this constraint. The accent system remains unclear, but it appears that there is no clear pitch or

stress accent in Arta.

3 Morphosyntax: Overview Since Arta belongs to the Northern Luzon branch of Malayo-Polynesian languages, it shares a large

number of grammatical characteristics with other Northern Luzon languages. Arta shares the

following characteristics with other Northern Luzon languages: (i) VAO/VS constituent order, (ii) the

extensive use of enclitics, and (iii) the use of determiners as case markers. Consider the sentence

below:

(1) Alap-an=mu=nen=d!n i mabaw=i. ‘Please get the rice for me.’ get-LV=2SG.ERG=please=1SG.OBL SG.ABS.DEF cooked.rice=SPC

First, The liner order of constituents in Arta is typically right branching, with phrasal heads

occurring in the initial position in the construction. In canonical sentences, the predicate appears first,

with the NPs and other modifiers of the predicate following it; and if the clause has more than one

full-fledged nominal, a transitive subject A precedes a transitive object O (terminology here follows

Dixon 1994). In (1), the predicate alap-an is followed by the O argument i mabaw=i. And in turn the

argument is introduced by its determiner, here i, which precedes the noun mabaw. Second, Arta makes

extensive use of enclitics to provide grammatical and semantic information. In this example, there are

two pronominals, (the second singular ergative pronoun =mu, and the first singular oblique pronoun

=d!n) , a specificity marker (=i), and a pragmatic marker (=nen ‘please’). Finally, NPs are introduced

by a determiner which provides information on case, number, and definiteness of NPs. In this example,

the determiner i indicates that the nominal is singular (vs. plural), absolutive case (vs. ergative,

oblique), and definite (vs. personal, indefinite).

3.1 Major Word Classes As already mentioned in Reid (1989), Arta has three major word classes – noun, adjective, and verb –

and the verb class has two subclasses, stative and dynamic verbs.4 Noun and adjective classes differ in

adnominal modification and morphological coding. Adjectives modify nouns with intervening a (the

form that Austronesianists call a LIGATURE) between the head noun and the adjective, such as bunbun

a mellawa (house LIG large) ‘large house,’ whereas nouns modify another noun by using genitive

marking na/ni between the two as in bunbun na bubuy (house GEN pig) ‘pig house’.5 Most adjectives

have a prefix meC- as in meb-buyu ‘bad smelling,’ med-digs!n ‘strong, powerful,’ mek-kagtut ‘kind,’

mel-lagip ‘noisy,’ meg-gir!k ‘dirty, mess’. Stative verbs, which are formed by adding prefix ma- or

maka-, denote stative aspect such as ability, potential, and desire as in me:d!m (< ma-id!m) ‘sleepy,’

makay!by!b ‘want to urinate, be about to urinate,’ maka-ratan ‘purchasable, available.’ Stative verbs

differ morphologically from adjectives in that the stative prefixes ma- and maka- have past inflection

forms na- and naka-, respectively. Dynamic verbs are the second verb class, and are characterized by

non-stative aspect. They are formed by several different affixes, each different in their aspect

(continuous vs. perfective), tense (past vs. non-past), valence (intransitive vs. transitive), and voice

(which is traditionally called focus: actor voice, patient voice, locative voice, and so on). We

characterize each class in greater detail in §5.

3.2 Case Marking System The most complicated problem with Philippine languages is probably the case marking system. There

has been extensive discussion in the literature concerning the nature of case in Philippine languages,

i.e. whether they have a nominative-accusative alignment, ergative-absolutive alignment, or unique

(see Liao 2004 for a detailed survey); but it seems to come from the confusion between case marking

and voice system. These two grammatical categories differ in the category to which they apply. Case

marking refers to the coding system of nominals: the morphological differentiation between S, A, and

O arguments which is most clearly manifested in describing prototypical one-participant (intransitive)

and two-participant (transitive) event (see Hopper and Thompson 1980 for the semantic prototype of

high transitivity and Dixon 1994:113ff); whereas a voice system is typically involved in the verbal

morphology as a strategy for changing the mapping relation between semantic roles and their syntactic

functions, to deal with various event types that deviate from the prototypical intransitive/transitive

event types. This difference is a basis for determining the case marking system of a language as

discussed in Dixon (1994); and Liao (2004) for Formosan and Philippine languages.

From this point of view, Arta is analyzed as having a morphologically ergative-absolutive

alignment. Compare the forms of the first singular bound pronouns used in prototypical intransitive

and transitive clauses shown in (2) and (3,4), respectively:

(2) Um-aŋay=t!n[S] ta Madde:la. ‘I’ll go to Maddela.’ AV-into=SG.ABS SG.OBL Maddela

(3) Adu:p-a:ŋ-u[A] i arta=y. (4) Adu:p-an=muyu=t!n[O]. help-LV-1SG.ERG SG.ABS person=SPC help-LV=2PL.ERG=1SG.ABS � � ‘I’ll help the person.’ ‘Help me.’

The examples show that the first singular pronoun =t!n is used as S in an intransitive clause in (2) and

as O in transitive clause as in (4), while the A argument in an transitive clause is coded by a different

form -u as in (3). This distribution can be observed regardless of whether it is a pronoun or a full NP.

The following sentences exhibit the case marking on full NPs in canonical intransitive and transitive

sentences:

(5) Man-di:madima i agani:[S]. ‘The Ilokano person is walking.’ AV-walk SG.ABS.DEF person

(6) In-arat ni lappul=i[A] i kusay=i[O]. ‘The dog kicked the cat.’ PST.PV-bite SG.ERG.DEF dog=SPC SG.ABS.DEF cat=SPC

Here the S argument in the intransitive clause in (5), and the O argument in the transitive clause in (6)

take one determiner, here i, but the A argument in the transitive clause in (6) is introduced by a

different determiner ni. Considering these case-marking phenomena, Arta clearly has

ergative-absolutive alignment. The difference between many Philippine languages and other ergative

languages does not reside in its basic case marking system, but their uniqueness comes from its voice

system, that is, the morphology of verbs: there is no unmarked–marked voice opposition such as

English active-passive voice, but every voice must have certain derivational markers, as discussed in

§5.2.

4 Nominal Structure 4.1 Pronouns Arta pronouns are given in Table 1; the paradigm has 8 distinctions for person and number (shown in

the left-hand column) and 4 distinctions for cases (shown in the uppermost row):

As shown in the table, absolutive and ergative/

genitive pronouns are bound forms and differ in

their phonological and grammatical dependencies:

some forms are CLITICS (represented as =X), i.e.,

prosodically dependent on the preceding word;

while others are more suffix-like (represented as

-X) in that the pronouns and the host word are

bound more tightly, to the extent that the host

word undergoes morphophonemic changes.7 If

both A and O arguments are pronominal such as ‘You (singular/plural) help me,’ an ergative pronoun

precedes an absolutive pronoun, such as adu:pan=muyuA=t!nO ‘You (plural) help me.’ Unlike some

Philippine languages (and many other languages in the world), Arta does not use fused or portmanteau

forms in such cases. But if a first singular ergative -ku and a second singular absolutive =taw/-a occur

together, instead of the expected forms -kutaw or -kua, an irregular form =tataw must be used, as in

Aŋutan=tataw ‘I’ll kiss you (singular).’

Ergative forms also function as genitives, i.e., the form indicates the possessor of a referent, (e.g.

=muyu ‘2PL’) can be used to mark a possessor (e.g. bunbun=muyu ‘your (plural) house,’ lagip=muyu

‘your voice/language’), as well as the A function in a transitive clause (adu:pan=muyuA=t!n. ‘You

Table 1 Arta Pronouns TOPICAL ABS ERG/GEN OBL 1SG t!n =t!n -ku d!n 1PL.EX tami -ami =mi dami 1SG2SG6 tita -ita =ta dita 1PL.INC titam -itam =tam ditam 2SG taw =taw/-a =mu daw 2PL tam -am =muyu dam 3SG siya =Ø =na dya 3PL tidi =tid =di did

help me.’). Topical pronouns are the forms that are placed before the predicate to introduce a

contrastive, topical referent.

Pronouns may be omitted if the information is retrievable from the context. They may function as

cross-reference forms, where the referent is coreferential to that of a full nominal within the same

clause, but they are by no means obligatory (for further discussion on pronouns and their internal

reconstruction refer to Reid 1989, and see Kimoto 2013).

4.2 Nouns and Other Nominals In Arta, nouns do not inflect for any grammatical categories, but determiners and enclitics provide

grammatical information on nominals, such as number, case, definiteness, and specificity.8 The

paradigm of determiners is set out in Table 2. The leftmost column shows number and definiteness.

First, singular has at most three forms differing according to the definiteness of referents. The singular

absolutive and oblique forms vary depending on whether the noun is a personal name (or kinship term),

a definite common noun, or an indefinite common noun. The singular ergative/genitive form has two

varieties, definite and indefinite, where the difference between personal name and definite common

noun is neutralized. The plural forms have only one category, and, further, the case differentiation

between ergative/genitive and oblique is also neutralized (Compare masakbatan didi a:na:-ku=y

(future GEN child-my=SPC) ‘the future of my children,’ and Numangay=ten didi daddu:pu:=i (went=

SPC old.men=SPC) ‘I went to the old men’).

In addition to determiners, some enclitics

also provide the semantic information

involved in the nominal. Although there

remain many points to be investigated, the

following points can be made about =i

(and its allomorph =y after a short vowel).

This enclitic may be used to code the specificity of the referent, by means of which the nominal

denotes a referent that is known to the speaker, as shown in (7), where the house is considered to be

known to the speaker, but not to the hearer. (See also the nominal baruwasi=ku=y in (16); here also

‘my clothes’ are considered to be identifiable for the speaker but not for the hearer, so the nominal

takes specificity marking but no definite determiner).

(7) Atti:=t!n ti ayti bunbun=i ni Mam Saure. exist=1SG.ABS SG.OBL here house=SPC GEN Ma’am Saure ‘I’m here in Mom Saure’s house.’

(8) Awan=di ta buŋur=ø. (9) Ay lappul=ti, p‹in›a-pati=d. no=now SG.OBL mosquito TOP dog=PSPC ‹PST›CAUS-die=now ‘There is no mosquito now.’ ‘The dog was killed.’

However, if the referent is construed both as being specific and as not already existing or being about

Table 2 Arta Determiner System ABS ERG/GEN OBL

SG PERSONAL NAME ti

ni ni

COMMON DEFINITE i ti

INDEFINITE Ø na ta PL (PERSONAL/COMMON) tidi didi

to disappear in the present time of speech, another enclitic =ti appears to be used, as in (9), where I

gloss it as PSPC (Past Specific). In my data, nominals with the enclitic =ti include past time lexemes

(yesterday, last night), or dead person/animal, the thing to be vanishing (such a context as ‘The house

is burning!’), or what is stolen, given, or lent to someone, if the referent is construed as specific.

5 Verbs and Clausal Structure 5.1 Dynamic Verbs As discussed in §3.2, the case-marking system in Arta is formally ergative-absolutive; but what makes

Arta (and other Philippine languages) different is their voice system. In many of the world’s languages,

the morphological complexity is sensitive to semantic deviation from the prototypical transitive or

intransitive situation type: for a prototypical one-/two-participant event, unmarked verbal forms are

likely to be used, but for an event type that deviates from the canonical situation, marked verbal forms

are likely to be used (e.g. passive, antipassive, and middle). In English, for example, a typical

two-participant event is expressed by a morphologically unmarked active voice, while a

two-participant event with agent defocused is expressed by a more complex form, passive voice be -ed.

What is characteristic of Arta and other Philippine languages is, however, that this isomorphic

correlation does not appear: in every case, the verb should be marked by some affix, regardless of

whether the situation type is canonical or non-canonical.

The voice system, as a strategy for expressing various situation types, is syntactically realized by

assigning a case to each semantic role; thus every mapping of a semantic role onto a surface case

needs to be indicated by an overt verbal marking. This is shown in Table 3, where I list labels for each

of the voice affixes the verb takes, tense-aspect (non-past, past, progressive), transitivity, and case

mappings:9

Table 3 Arta Voices

Voice Non-past Past Progressive Transitivity Cases in NPs Actor maN- (mi)naN- paC- Intransitive ABS: Agent OBL: others maC- (mi)naC-

‹um› ‹in›‹um› Patient -!n ‹in› paC- -!n Transitive ABS: Patient ERG: Agent OBL: others Locational -an ‹in› -an paC- -an ABS: Location ERG: Agent OBL: others Theme i- (i)ni- paC- ABS: Theme ERG: Agent OBL: others

For example, in order to mark absolutive case on the Agent of an event, the predicate must take one of

the prefixes maN- or maC- or the infix ‹um›. In order to cast the Patient as absolutive, a verb should be

marked with -!n. It should be noted, however, that although this process is highly productive, this

voice alternation is derivational. Many verbs lack several voices and the frequency of each voice

differs according to the verb.

5.1.1. Actor Voices

As described in Reid (1989), there are three types of Actor voice in Arta, that is, maN-, maC-, and

‹um›. They derive intransitive constructions, with Actor role (i.e. Agent or Experiencer role in a

clause) being mapped onto the absolutive case, and others onto the oblique case. Consider the

examples in (10, 11). In each sentence, the arguments are marked with absolutive case, here =t!n and i

NP, and oblique case ti in (10).

(10) Mal-lagip=t!n ti Arta. (11) S‹in›‹um›iya:=di i kanakannak=i. AV-language=1SG.ABS SG.OBL Arta ‹PST›‹AV›cry=now SG.ABS.DEF child=SPC ‘I’ll speak Arta’ ‘The child has begun to cry.’

Although the difference between these three affixes needs to be investigated, it is obvious that they

differ in aspect: the maN- prefix marks continuous aspect, maC- durative aspect, and ‹um› punctual

aspect. Since maN- has the most state-like aspect, the non-past form is likely to be used in a present

situation, as already shown in (5), while if maC- is used as the non-past form, as in (10), the clause

denotes a future event. The ‹um› infix denotes a punctual event such as ‘stand up,’ ‘sit down,’ ‘jump,’

and ‘ride on’; although if the meaning of the root is durative, such as ‘cry,’ ‘rain,’ and ‘be big,’ the

composite form expresses an inceptive, e.g. ‘begin to cry / rain’, or inchoative aspect, e.g. ‘getting

bigger’, as shown in (11).10

5.1.2. Non-Actor Voices

Unlike actor voice, patient voice and others mentioned here form transitive clauses, with Agent/Causer

coded by ergative case, and the thematic role coded by absolutive cases. Here, I describe three voices,

i.e., patient, locative, and circumstantial voices. In patient voice, the directly-affected patient is

mapped onto absolutive case, whereas in locative voice, the indirectly-affected patient or the location

in which the event develops, is mapped onto absolutive case. Whether the absolutive referent is a

directly or indirectly affected patient is somewhat conventional, however if adi:ni ‘where’ is used, the

locative voice should be used as shown in (13).

(12) Pab-bambal-!n=na i barowa:si=ku=y. PROG-wash-PV=3SG.ERG SG.ABS.DEF clothes=1SG.GEN=SPC ‘S/he is washing my clothes’

(13) Adi:ni n-arapu-an=mu? where PST-come.from-LV=2SG.ERG ‘Where did you come from?’

Circumstantial voice is used to describe a caused-motion event, where a verb takes the i- prefix to

form a transitive clause, where agent is coded by ergative case, and a transferred figure conveyed

somewhere by a caused-motion is mapped onto absolutive case, and a recipient or goal is coded by

oblique case, as in (14). Although this example shows a literal caused-motion, there are many cases in

which metaphorical transferring actions are recognized such as ‘teach’ and ‘tell.’

(14) I-at!d=u=daw ø baruwasi=ku=y. ‘I’ll give you my clothes.’ CV-give-1SG.ERG=2SG.OBL SG.ABS.INDF clothes=1SG.GEN=SPC

There is no space for discussing the rationale of the multiple voice system in Arta and other

Philippine languages, but the high topicality (Mithun 1994) and privileged syntactic status of

absolutive case may motivate the multiple voice alternation. Specifically, in the relativization and

nominalization of an argument (e.g. the story which I said or what I said), the argument which

undergoes such syntactic operations should be absolutive, nor ergative/oblique. For an agent to be

relativized, for example, actor voice should be used to serve the argument as absolutive, whereas, for a

location to be relativized, locative voice should be used to serve it as absolutive. The voice is thus used

in part to “feed” an absolutive case to be able to relativize various arguments.

5.2 Stative Verbs There is another verbal category called stative, which describes the state of the absolutive argument.

The form is ma- / maka- or ma- / maka- -an, which are derived forms from the actor voice and the

locative voice, respectively. As is shown in the label, in non-past tense, they describe a potential,

future-oriented event, which can be translated as ‘can be,’ ‘is about to,’ ‘is able to,’ or ‘want’; and in

the past tense (na- / naka- or na- / naka- -an), it depicts a resultant state of caused actions.

(15) Maka-rata:ŋ-a ta uru. (16) Na-bukkat-an i mabaw=i. STV-buy-2SG.ABS SG.OBL medicine STV-uncover-LV SG.ABS.DEF cooked.rice=SPC ‘You can buy medicines.’ ‘The rice is (being) uncovered.

In (15), the Agent of some activity is represented by the absolutive case, which depicts the potential

for the event to occur (e.g. makaʔaŋay ‘can/may go’), as well as ability (e.g. maka:naŋoy ‘can swim’

makansyon ‘can sing,’ mapdit ‘cannot see/blind,’ makaʔaŋ!s ‘can breathe’), desire (e.g. makatim

‘want to drink something’), and immediate inclination towards an action (e.g. make:d!m ‘sleepy,’

makaʔu:ta ‘is about to vomit’), all of which are interrelated in actual contexts of speaking. In (16), the

absolutive case is given to the nominal which refers to the Patient ‘cooked rice’ of the uncovering, and

in this derivation, the Agent cannot appear even in oblique case, which is reminiscent of the function

of a passive, whose Agents are often omitted.

5.3 Complex Sentences Finally I mention briefly complex sentence structures in Arta. In addition to auxiliary verbs followed

by a predicate, sequential verb constructions are often used in the language, where two verbs are

combined to form a complex sentence without any conjunction like go see him in English. Below are

presented examples of verb + verb and auxiliary verb + verb:

(17) M-aŋay=t!n ma-rataŋ ta Madde:la. (18) Awa:ŋ-u tataw. AV-go=1SG.ABS AV-buy SG.OBL Maddela NEG-1SG.ERG know ‘I’ll go shopping in Maddela.’ ‘I don’t know (it).’

In (17), the verb maŋay (a reduced form of um-aŋay) is directly followed by another verb without any

conjunction like ligature a (see §3.1); similarly the sentence (18) consists of the auxiliary verb awan

‘not, there is no’ and a transitive predicate tataw (tataw is an irregular transitive verb, which occurs

without a voice affix), without any intervening element. This is also true in the case of

complementation; complement clauses are likely to be subordinated directly to another verb in the

main clause, as in Tataw=na mam-bugay (know=3SG.ERG AV-hunt) ‘He knows how to hunt,’ where

mam-bugay ‘(someone) hunts’ is subordinated by tataw=na. In some cases such as mabalin ‘finish,’

ligature a is used; but others are more likely to subordinate another clause without any

complementizer, as with tataw ‘know,’ no:no:t!n ‘think,’ karga:tan/titt!l!k ‘wish,’ asaʔan ‘hope’ and

so on.

6 Concluding remarks This paper has discussed some of the basic grammatical facts of Arta, an Austronesian language

spoken in Quirino Province in the Philippines. After a brief analysis of phonology, several

morphosyntactic phenomena are discussed, including major word classes, the case-marking system,

nouns and other nominals, verbs, clause structure, and complex sentences. More detailed studies on

each topic and other topics are needed, such as a sociolinguistic description, verbal morphology,

lexical semantics, discourse structure, and the genetic relationships with neighboring languages.

* Special Thanks go to Gumabon Lando, Bueno Delia, and Pantalion Arseño for teaching me Arta. I am

indebted to Lawrence A. Reid and Kazumi Taniguchi, for insightful discussion. Abbreviations: 1: first person, 2: second person, 3: third person, ABS: absolutive, AV: actor voice, DEF: definite,

DIST: distal, ERG: ergative, EX: exclusive, GEN: genitive, INC: inclusive, INDF: indefinite, LIG: ligature, LV: locative voice, OBL: oblique, PL: plural, PROG: progressive, PROX: proximal, PSPC: past specific, PST: past tense, PV: patient voice, SG: singular, SPC: specific, STV: stative verb TV: theme voice

Notes 1. Although Reid (1989) suggests the possibility of there being another phoneme /ʌ/, here I argue that Arta has

six vowel phonemes /a, i, e, u, o, #/. In my corpus which includes over 1000 lexical items, there is no minimal pair or other evidence to validate seven vowel differentiation.

2. Further analysis is needed to determine whether the phonetic variations mentioned here are conditioned change or free variations.

3. There are other phenomena to suggest unique characteristics of /#/: in some utterances, /#/ is realized an a variant of /a/; and if a root contains /#/, when it takes the suffix -an (Locative voice affix), /#/ is deleted, as in /gap!t/ ‘string’ > /gapt-an/ ‘to tie.’

4. For this classification of word classes in Philippine languages, see Reid and Liao (2004). 5. Numerals are treated as a subcategory of adjective in terms of this criterion (e.g. si:pang a lappul ‘one

dog.’) The cardinal numbers are: si:pang ‘one,’ tallip ‘two,’taʔlu ‘three’ appat ‘four,’ lima ‘five,’ !nn!m ‘six,’ pitu ‘seven,’ walu ‘eight,’ syam ‘nine,’ ta:hulu ‘ten,’ ta:gatu ‘hundred,’ ta:hulu aydi si:pang (10 and 1) ‘eleven,’ tallip a ta:hulu aydi si:pang (2 LIG 10 and 1) ‘twenty-one’ and so on.

6. The pronoun glossed as 1SG2SG denotes two speech act participants, a speaker and an addressee. 7. Absolutive forms -ami, -ita, -itam, -a and -am change the word form to which they attach: if the word-final

segment is n, then the word undergoes a compensatory lengthening and velarization of the nasal, to yield

V:ŋ as in mamaŋan ‘eat’+ =itam (1PL.INC) > mamanga:ŋitam ‘Let’s eat.’ ergative -ku (first singular), if the base word ends with a consonant, triggers other morphophonemic changes for the base word. When the base word ends with a vowel, the suffix is added to the base word, as in mata > mataku ‘my eyes.’ If the word-final segment is n, the segment undergoes velarization, and the preceding vowel lengthens, such as awan + -ku > awa:ŋu ‘I don’t,’ whereas if the word-final segment is a consonant other than n, the preceding vowel lengthens, e.g. dapar > dapa:ru ‘my forehead.’ Note, however, that as mentioned in §2, /#/ has no long vowel counterpart. In this case, the vowel remains the same or changes into /a/, as in gamit!n > gamit!ŋu or gamitaŋu ‘I use it.’

8. Some nouns contrast singular and plural forms: arta : ʔarʔarta ‘Negrito person’ kanakannak : kakka:nak ‘child’ ana: : a:na: ‘(someone’s) child,’ talun : talutalun ‘mountain,’ gilaŋan : gillaŋan ‘male’ buka:gan : bukka:gan ‘female.’

9. The homorganic nasal (represented as N) assimilates to the first consonant of a base, and if the following root begins with a vowel, the nasal realizes as velar /ŋ/; whereas C represents a geminate of the first consonant of a base as in pal-lagip ‘be speaking.’

10. Since ‹um› infix has a punctual aspect, if the motion verb takes the infix, it behaves like an Achievement verb, with the oblique case indicating the Goal rather than Path. Compare: Bum!bber ta Manila. ‘It will fly to Manila’ vs. Mabb!bb!r ta Manila ‘It will fly in Manila.’

References Dixon, R. M. W. (1994). Ergativity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Hopper, Paul J. and Sandra A. Thompson (1980). Transitivity in Grammar and Discourse. Language

56(2), 251–299.

Liao, Hsiu-chuan (2004). Transitivity and Ergativity in Formosan and Philippine Languages. Ph.D.

dissertation, University of Hawai‘i.

Mithun, Marianna (1994). The Implications of Ergativity for a Philippine Voice System. In Fox, B and

P. Hopper (eds.), Voice: Its Form and Function, 247-277. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.

Reid, Lawrence A. (1989). Arta, Another Philippine Negrito Language. Oceanic Linguistics 28(1),

47–74.

Reid, Lawrence A. and Hsiu-Chan Liao (2002). A Brief Syntactic Typology of Philippine Languages.

Language and Linguistics 5(2), 433–490.

Kimoto, Yukinori (2013). Arta-go no meisi meisiku kozo no syoso [Structure of Nouns and Nominals

in Arta]. Papers in Linguistic Science, 51–76. Kyoto University.

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