Feature GB099: Can verb stems alter according to the person of a core participant?

Patrons: Alena Witzlack-Makarevich

Description ⇫

Summary

Do some verbs have two or more suppletive allomorphs whose distribution is conditioned by the person of an S, A, or P argument? Suppletive allomorphs are allomorphs which are not similar in pronunciation, i.e. they cannot be related to each other by morpho-phonological rules. This question covers strong suppletion, weak suppletion, and ablaut. There must be at least three such verbs to code 1 for this feature.

Procedure

  1. Code 1 if at least three verb stems vary according to the person of S, A, and/or P arguments.
  2. Code 1 if the grammar does not list the verbs but says that there are some/a few/several/couple of them.
  3. Code 0 if only one or two examples are provided. Add a comment.

Examples

Tainae (ISO 639-3: ago, Glottolog: tain1253)

Tainae is coded 1.

Carlson (1991: 92) provides a non-exhaustive list of seven verbs which have suppletive forms depending on the person of the P argument:

Gloss Root 1SG 2SG 3SG/SU/PL
‘blow magic at’ nɨ ninɨtɨyate ntɨsɨtɨyate nɨptɨtɨyate
‘desire’ nɨ ninɨtɨyate ntɨsinɨtɨyate nɨwinɨate
‘eat’ nɨ nɨnɨmtɨ ntɨnɨmtɨ nɨmtɨ
‘cook’ to numtɨ ntomtɨ tomtɨ
‘kill’ nau numtɨ nomtɨ namtɨ
‘hit’ nae ninemtɨ ntisemtɨ naemtɨ
‘give’ mɨnɨ (ni)nampɨmtɨ ntisapimtɨ mɨnɨptɨmtɨ

Further reading

Haspelmath, Martin & Andrea D. Sims. 2010. Understanding morphology (Understanding Language Series). Second edition. London: Hodder Education. Chapter 2 has a discussion of suppletion.

Veselinova, Ljuba N. 2006. Suppletion in verb paradigms: Bits and pieces of the puzzle. (Typological Studies in Language 67). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

References

Carlson, Terry. 1991. Tainae grammar essentials. Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea: Unpublished typescript, The Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Features on suppletion: * GB109 Is there verb suppletion for participant number? * GB110 Is there verb suppletion for tense or aspect? * GB300 Does the verb for ‘give’ have suppletive verb forms? * GB402 Does the verb for ‘see’ have suppletive verb forms? * GB403 Does the verb for ‘come’ have suppletive verb forms?

Features GB089-GB090 coding indexing patterns:


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0 absent 1796
1 present 147
? Not known 408
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Values ⇫

Name Glottocode Family Macroarea Contributor Value Source Comment