Minor (verbal) forms of present temporal reference in the corpus

The analysis that occupies the rest of this chapter will concentrate on the three verb forms already introduced: V, Ving and Vbat. Several other verb forms associated with the expression of present temporal reference appear in the data, though not in large enough numbers to allow for a quantitative analysis. In this section I make a brief digression to discuss these minor and potentially emerging forms.

Table 5-3: Overall counts of the minor formal (verbal) expressions of present temporal reference, per

HOME, SCHOOL and excluded contexts

V-s Aly V-na V-ing-bat VV VV-Aly Total

Home 1 11 1 - 5 1 19

School 7 - 3 1 - 1 12

[excl.] 68 8 2 2 - 1 81

Total 76 19 6 3 5 3 112

Table 5-3 shows the distribution of minor verb forms that appear in the corpus of present temporal reference clauses, presented by context: both HOME and SCHOOL basic

contexts, and an aggregated sum of excluded contexts (discussed in §4.5.1 above). I will now discuss each of these forms. First, there is a substantial body of research into the acquisition of verbal -s, as demonstrated in example (20)

(20) Zero plus one equals one. [SJD-039-B:158 Tiffany SCHOOL]

Briefly, key findings for first language speakers of English are that the morpheme emerges in children’s speech around the age of 2 (or when a child has MLU of 2-2.5) and is not used consistently in obligatory contexts until around age 4. Comprehension studies suggest that the component functions of the morpheme, as a number, person and tense marker are learned incrementally, and not completely until around 7 years of age (Beyer & Hudson Kam 2009; Johnson, de Villiers and Seymour 2005). Similarly for second language learners, verbal -s is a later acquired morpheme per the morpheme order studies (Krashen (1977), Pienemann (2005)). The tendency for verbal -s to be marked first on stative verbs has also been documented in various studies of the emergence of tense and aspect in second language learners (e.g. Bardovi-Harlig & Reynolds 1995; Bardovi-Harlig & Bergstrom 1996; Robison 1995; Rohde 1996).

Verbal -s is not produced at all in the Ipmangker child corpus prior to the age of 6;0 in this study, and from this age onwards there are in fact very few tokens [N=76] in the total data set. Most tokens occur in the specific (excluded) sub-context of reading aloud a story book in class [N=49], so there is the added interaction of reading skills here. When we consider only the ‘basic contexts’ (which are both spontaneous, spoken contexts) the incidence is further reduced: N=7 in the SCHOOL context and N=1 in the HOME context. There are 177 clauses produced in the SCHOOL context which contain a

3sg subject (and either a V, V-s or Ving verb). Of these, 39 clauses are ungrammatical (from an SAE perspective) because of the absence of verb-final marking (for example, clauses like “The grey mouse see the dog” [SJD-039-A:1928]; “It start with ‘f’” [SJD-039- B:199]). However, these clauses could also be sites for Ving marking (i.e. the learner’s ‘target’ for these clauses could conceivably have been semantically progressive ‘is seeing’ and ‘is starting’). So it is not possible to know if these are cases of zero -s or zero -ing. Hence it is not possible to calculate with certainty a rate of -s marking.

In the SCHOOL basic context, all of the instances of V-s production occur with 3sg

verbal -s in the HOME basic context occurs with ‘him’ as the subject. When we look at

the other HOME (HS2) and SCHOOL (SB1, SB2, SB3, SB5) sub-contexts, 61/68 instances of

verbal -s marking occurs with 3sg subjects. The remaining 7 instances demonstrate overuse of the verbal -s marker (with subjects ‘you’, ‘I’, ‘we’, and ‘these’). All of these instances of overuse occur in the sub-context of the child articulating a toy character in the HOME play sessions (SB5)8_.

The Aspect Hypothesis, which asserts that verb morphology first expresses aspectual rather than tense distinctions in the speech of language learners, predicts that verbal -s should emerge first on lexically stative verbs. Indeed, Rohde (2002:210) concludes that “it can be regarded as a specific feature of the Aspect Hypothesis for English”. This relationship is not borne out in the current data set. The majority of verbal -s marking occurs with activity verbs (41%), then stative (30%), accomplishment (18%) and achievement (11%) verbs. However, it must be recalled that the majority of tokens occurred in the context of reading aloud story books, which make use of the simple present in ways that are different to its use in everyday conversation. In fact, when these tokens are excluded from analysis, verbal -s occurs most frequently on stative verbs (52%), which would appear to support the predictions made by the Aspect Hypothesis, followed by activity verbs (33%) then equally accomplishment and achievement (7%) verbs. (The Aspect Hypothesis is discussed further in Chapter 6 §6.6.)

The V-na form (example (21)) is possibly a main verb with the subordinate infinitival ‘to’ incorporated (e.g. ‘gonna’). An alternative analysis is that these forms have become auxiliary verbs with modal functions in Alyawarr English. There are only 6 tokens9_{, and}

they occur in both HOME and SCHOOL basic contexts. Because of the small number of

tokens this form has not been pursued in further detail.

(21) Im traina shudim thet men indi [SJD-039-C:291 Lenora SCHOOL]

im traina shud-im thet men indi

3SG.SBJ trying_to shoot-TR DET man TAG

‘He’s trying to shoot that man, isn’t he?’

8 _{Sometimes these toys have demonstrably Anglo appearance and sometimes not. The children also play toy knights}

which are wearing black or silver armour, or animals. There does not seem to be a pattern based on the perceivable race of the toy.

There is a small number of tokens [N=19] with Alyawarr endings appearing on present temporal reference verbs. These take the following combinations:

Transitive + emphatic ending (note that Alyawarr transitive marking always doubles up on the -im transitive marking) [N=7]:

(22) Thisan iya tap bidimelew. [SJD-007:545 Deanna HOME]

Thisan iya tap bid-im-el-ew This_one here top beat-TR-TR-EMPH

‘This one here, on the top, beats (it).’ Intransitive + Alyawarr present marking [N=4]:

(23) Tharray am siimbat na, waiterreyel. [SJD-049-B:80 Deanna EXCL]

tharray am si-im-bat na, wait-err-eyel over_there 1sg.sbj see-TR-BAT NA white-INTR-PRES

‘That way, I’m seeing (it) now, being white.’ (Note: looking at clouds in the sky)

Intransitive + Alyawarr emphatic ending [N=3]:

(24) Wimab silip-et-ew na. [SJD-040:697 Lenora HOME]

wimab silip-et-ew na 1PL.SBJ sleep-INTR-EMPH NA

‘We all sleep now.’

Note that in sentences (23) and (24) above there is variation in the pronunciation of the intransitive suffix between -err and -et. It is unclear if this variation also forms part of adult speech (and if so what parameters govern the variation), or if this is confined to children’s speech and is perhaps part of their phonological development.

Root form of the verb + EY [N=6]:

(25) Im ngan-ey theya. [SJD-053:116]

Im ngan-ey theya 3SG.SBJ climb-EY there

‘He’s climbing there.’

In Alyawarr, the -ey morpheme is a hortative main clause verb suffix, as well as being used in the formation of various “sequenced motion compounds” (Moore 2012:98), in which the morpheme is used to join two verbs (one denoting motion and one denoting an associated activity). In the limited Alyawarr English adult data, there use of the -ey inflection occurs in similar ‘motion + action’ complex verb phrases (per (26)), as well as subordinate verbs (27) and (28) below. This is contrasted with nganeyel as a main verb in (29). The children, however, appear to use this form as the basic lexeme, without such

distributional restrictions (there are tokens of nganey ‘climb’, rakey ‘grab’ and angey ‘speak).

(26) Dediwan trai go nganey na. [SJD-055]

dedi-wan trai go ngan-ey na daddy-one AUX go climb-EY NA

‘The daddy is going to try to climb up now.’

(27) This arengk wantim ngan-ey gen anamerl. [SJD-055] this arengk wantim ngan-ey gen anamerl

DET dog want-TR climb-EY again quickly

‘This dog wants to climb up again, quickly.’

(28) Thei bin telim tha awey na ngan-ey, reken. [SJD-055] thei bin tel-im tha awey na ngan-ey reken

3PL.SBJ PAST tell-TR DET boy NA climb-EY reckon

‘They told that boy to climb up, I reckon.’

(29) Im ngan-eyel theya. [SJD-055]

im ngan-eyel theya 3SG.SBJ climb-PRES there

‘He is climbing there.’

The small number of tokens suggests that these forms are a marginal and perhaps still emerging form in the present temporal reference system of the children. In both child and adult data sets it remains unclear (due to paucity of production rates and sampling respectively) just what role these Alyawarr endings play in completing this system. The scarcity of tokens in this data set means these question cannot be pursued in the current study, but the question of how Alyawarr morphemes are incorporated into the HOME

language system, and how these might develop over time (within and between speakers), will be an important area for future research.

Three final interesting forms with minimal attestations are the doubled up Ving-bat form (30), reduplicated verbs (31), and reduplicated plus Alyawarr ending verbs (32). The double and reduplicated forms are noted in Kriol (Sandefur, 1979) where they have aspectual readings, but they are not attested in the small adult Alyawarr English

language sample, and are clearly marginal here. So it remains unclear whether and how they form part of the system of present temporal reference here. They will not be pursued further.

(30) Ah, big fat one sittingbat [SJD-035:369 Deanna SCHOOL]

(31) I go jeisim jeisim im [SJD-011:763 Shamus HOME]

I go jeis-im jeis-im im 3SG.SBJ chase-TR chase-TR 3SG.OBJ

‘He goes chasing chasing him.’

(32) Eni thaniya kilim kilimelew [SJD-007:349 Simon HOME]

eni thaniya kil-im kil-im-el-ew only DEM kil-TR kil-TR-TR-EMPH

‘Only this one here kills and kills him.’