Complement Clause Types in Soqotri
Khaled Awadh Bin Mukhashin (Hadhramout University, Yemen)
Munir Shuib
(Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia)
Abstract：Within the perspective of Dixon’s Basic Linguistic Theory and Functional Typology, this article describes the complement clause in Soqotri, one of the least studied Semitic languages. It begins with providing a brief geographical and genetic background of Soqotri and a brief description of its major grammatical features. This is then followed by a descriptive discussion focusing on the different types of the complement clause in this language and their salient features. The illustrative examples used in the article were collected during a 10-month fieldwork conducted in Soqotra Island.
Keywords: Soqotri, endangerment, complement, clause
1. Introduction
Soqotri is one of six pre-Islamic languages that form a group called Modern South Arabian Languages (MSAL). This group which includes Soqotri, Mehri, Jibbali, Bathari, Harsusi and Hobyot, is spoken in parts of Oman particularly in Dhofar and south east of Yemen in Mahrah Governorate and Soqotra Island. Modern South Arabian Languages belong to the southern branch of the western Semitic languages. The other Semitic languages which are grouped in this branch are the Semitic languages of Ethiopia and the already dead Inscription Languages: Sabaean, Qatabanian, Minaean and Hadramitic which are also called Epigraphic Old South Arabian Languages.
Soqotri is spoken in the Island of Soqotra which is located in the east of Aden Gulf about 300 KM south of the Arabian Peninsula. It is also spoken in two small nearby islands called the island of Abdul kuri and the island of Samha. The number of the Soqotri speakers is estimated to be over 50000.The island inhabitants depend on fishing, growing palm dates
Dr. Khaled Awadh Bin Mukhashin: Assistant Professor, School of Arts, Hadhramout University, Mukalla P. O. Box 50512 Hadhramot, Yemen. Areas of Specialisation: Syntax and morphology, Semitic linguistics, Modern South Arabian languages. E-mail: [email protected]; K_binmukhashin@ yahoo.com.
Dr. Munir Shuib: Assistant Professor, School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia. Areas of Specialisation: Grammar, English for Specific Purposes, Applied Linguistics.
E-mail: [email protected].
trees or rearing camels, cows and goats (Naumkin, 1993; Simeone-Senelle, 1997).
The Soqotri language and culture are facing endangerment, which may eventually lead to their death (Naumkin, 1998; Simeone-Senelle, 2003).This endangerment is caused by a demographic submersion and a political and economic pressure. Many Arabic-speaking Yemenis have come to the Soqotri community territory and settled there permanently.
Arabic has become the official language in the island. It is used in the Soqotri schools as medium of instruction and taught for the Soqotri students who are prohibited from using their mother tongue while they are at school. Mastering Arabic is a must for any Soqotran who wants to have a job. The young Soqotrans are now fluent in Arabic, preferring it to their mother tongue and learning the obsolescing language imperfectly. They borrow from Arabic and code-switch with it; they do not remember or understand any piece of Soqotri oral literature.
Despite this threat of endangerment, very little work has been done to document the grammatical features of this language. This paper aims to report a part of a larger scale study on Soqotri grammatical features. The focus of this paper is on complement clauses.
2. Methodology
The data in this paper were collected during a 10-month fieldwork conducted in Soqotra Island in 2007.The researcher used direct elicitation (interviews and Bouquiax and Thomas’ 1992 questionnaire), participant observation, collection of texts (oral literature) and previously published materials. The theoretical background upon which the descriptive analysis has been based is Dixon’s Basic Linguistic Theory and Functional Typology.
3. Grammatical profile
Phonologically speaking, the consonantal system of Soqotri and the other MSAL is the closest, among modern Semitic languages, to the consonantal system of Proto-Semitic (Simeone-Senelle, 1997). The Soqotri consonantal system includes sounds that have already been lost in many Semitic languages such as the ejective sounds /’/, /’/ and /’/, in addition to the lateral fricative sounds // and / /.
Soqotri is a fusional synthetic language. The Soqotri nouns, adjectives and verbs contain many morphemes. For example, -’ (2SG.M.IMP-go, ‘(you) go/will go’) contains four morphemes: person morpheme, number morpheme, gender morpheme and tense morpheme. Consider also the Soqotri noun - ‘woman-DU.F’ and the adjective - ‘red-PL.F’. The last suffix in the previous noun and adjective represents two morphological meanings (gender and number). However, Soqotri is much more analytic than Arabic. Whereas the Arabic phrase for ‘my father’ is:
(1) -ı´
Father- 1SG.POSS.PRO
‘my father’
The same phrase in Soqotri is:
(2)
‘1SG.POSS.PRO. my father’
‘my father’
The Semitic construct phrase in which two nouns are combined, the first being modified or possessed by the second without the use of any particle, is common in Arabic. In Soqotri, this feature is not productive. It can be found only in a few archaic constructions. Compare the Arabic construct-phrase -. ‘mother GEN DEF- boy’ with the more analytic Soqotri phrase:
(3)
mother POSS.PRO child
‘mother of the child’, i.e. ‘the child’s mother’
Soqotri has a nominative/accusative system. It treats the transitive subject A and the intransitive subject S morpho-syntactically alike but it treats the object O differently.
Soqotri has no morphological case marking except on pronouns. So in addition to the nominative/accusative morphological case marking on personal pronouns, it also manifests nominative/accusative systems in person, number and gender marking on verbs and in constituent order. It manifests a nominative/accusative system on the verb inflections to distinguish the transitive subject from the object. The verb agrees in person, number and gender with the transitive subject A and the intransitive subject S not with the object O.
When the subject and the object have the same person, number and gender, Soqotri manifests a nominative/accusative system on the word order, the transitive subject A and the intransitive subject S usually precede, the object O. Soqotri has two basic constituent orders VAO (E) / VS and AVO (E) / SV.
3.1 Nouns
Soqotri nouns show singular, dual and plural numbers. They also show feminine and masculine genders. In some nouns, these numbers and genders are marked externally through portmanteau suffix morphemes, and in some other nouns these inflections are marked internally through stem vowel modification.
The suffix - marks dual masculine nouns, while the suffix - marks dual feminine nouns. The suffixes - / - mark the plural feminine nouns, and the suffixes - / - mark the plural masculine nouns. Some plural nouns and some feminine nouns are marked internally through the stem vowel modification (apophony). Soqotri has also replacive and subtractive plural forms. Like nouns, adjectives have three numbers and two
genders formed by the same affixes and vowel modification operations employed to form the noun numbers and genders. Adjectives agree in number and gender with the nouns they modify.Personal pronouns in Soqotri have two case forms. They have nominative forms and accusative forms, ‘he’ (nominative) and - ‘him’ (accusative).
3.2 Verbs
Similar to Arabic, Soqotri has only a perfect/imperfect tense distinction. In the perfect and imperfect, the verbal forms differ according to gender (feminine/masculine), number (singular/dual/plural) and person (first, second and third). As in Arabic, these inflections are represented in the imperfect form through prefixation and in the perfect form through suffixation. Verbs are transitive, intransitive or extended transitive. In addition to these tensed and richly inflected verbal forms (perfect and imperfect), Soqotri has a tenseless verbal form, which is always referred to, in the Semitic linguistics as the subjunctive form.
It performs the functions performed by the infinitive in English, but unlike the infinitive, it inflects for person, number and gender, as shown in these examples: -’
‘3SG.M.SUB to go’, ’ ‘3SG.F.SUB.to go’.
3.3 Clauses
Soqotri has two main clauses. It has nominal clauses and verbal clauses. The nominal clause consists of a subject and a nominal predicate juxtaposed to the subject without the use of a copula verb.
(4) -
She COP ill-SG.F
‘She is ill.’
The verbal clause consists of an optional subject and a verbal (main verb or copula) predicate as shown in these two examples:
(5) () ’-
she go- 3SG.F.PER
‘She went.’
(6) ()
I be-COP.PER ill
‘I was ill.’
Regarding the subordinate clauses, Soqotri has adverbial clauses, relative clauses and complement clauses. It has adverbial clauses denoting time, place, condition, concession, reason, result, goal, state, and comparison. Its relative clauses are either attributive modifying a head or non-attributive without a head to modify. The types of the complement clause and their functions will be described in the following sections.
4. Types of complement clauses in Soqotri
Dixon (2006) defines the complement clause (COMP.CL) as a clause that functions as an argument of a higher clause indicating that a constituent is recognized as a complement clause when it satisfies four criteria. Firstly, it should have the constituent structure of a clause (S/A, O). Secondly, it should function as a core argument of a higher clause such as being S, A, O or E argument of that higher clause. Thirdly, it should describe a proposition such as fact and activity. Fourthly, it should function as a direct object argument O or an extended transitive argument E for verbs such as, ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘know’, ‘believe’ and ‘like’
(ibid). Noonan (2007) divides complements into six types: indicative complement, subjunctive complement, paratactic complement, infinitive complement, nominalization complement and participle complement clause.
Soqotri has almost all these types of complement clause except the infinitive and paratactic clauses. The complement clause in Soqotri can occur in the slots of the intransitive subject (S), the transitive subject (A), the nominal clause subject (NS), the transitive verb object (O) and direct object of an extended transitive verb. Therefore, it performs the functions of these core arguments bearing no case marking but inflects for number and gender.
4.1 Indicative complement clauses
Indicative complement clauses in Soqotri have forms similar to the forms of the declarative main clauses; they take all the inflectional properties of the main declarative clause. They include interrogative complement clauses (if- complement clause and wh- complement clause) and that- clause.
4.1.1 ‘If’’ interrogative complement clause
This clause begins with the complementizer . It functions as a direct object O for both transitive and extended transitive verbs as shown in examples (7) and (8) respectively:
(7) - O [ - ] not 1SG.IMP-know if rain-3SG.F.PER
‘I do not know if it rained.’
(8) A O [COMP.CL - ’’ ] he ask-3SG.MPER her if go-3SG.F.PER Soqotra Island
‘He asked her if she went to Soqotra Island.’
In some clauses, the complementizer is preceded by the affirmative form of a verb and followed by the negative form of that verb. Such complement clauses have a meaning similar to that of “whether- complement clause” in English. These clauses occur only in the S slot.
(9) NS [ ’ - ’ ] C - -
go 3SG.M.PER or- not go\
COP thing not know-1SG.M.PER- it
‘Whether he went or not is a matter I did not know.’
The complementizer in these sentence can be replaced by ‘or’:
(10) S [ ] C --
Kill\3SG.M.PASS or not Kill-3SG.M.PASS COP thing not know-1SG.M.PER- it
‘Whether he was killed or not is a matter I do not know.’
4.1.2 Wh- interrogative complement clause
Indirect questions beginning with wh-question words are used in Soqotri as interrogative complement clauses. The word orders of the direct question and the indirect one are similar to that of the declarative statement. This clause functions as a nominal clause subject NSas shown in the following example:
(11) NS [ ’ ] -
Who go 3SG.M.PER and who stay.3SG.M.PER COP matter not
-
know1SG.M.IMP- it
‘Who went and who stayed is a matter which I do not know.’
This interrogative complement clause is also widely used as an object (O) when the verb in the matrix clause is transitive belonging to certain semantic categories such as verbs of saying “say, tell, inform” and verbs that indicate perception and cognitive actions such as
“know”, and “understand”.
(12) A( - O [COMP.CL ] I not know-1SG.M.PER who break\3SG.M.PER. door
‘I did not know who broke the door.’
(13) - O [COMP.CL - ] 2SG.M.IMP-listen what 1SG.M-say
‘Listen to what I say.’
Furthermore, the wh- complement clause in Soqotri can function as a direct object O for the extended transitive verbs such as ‘said, told’, ‘asked’, etc.
(14) E O [COMP.CL - ] tell me when 2.SG.M.IMP-come
‘Tell me when you will come?’
(15) A - E O [COMP.CL ’- ] she ask-3SG.F.PER him why not go-3SG..M.PER
‘She asked him why he did not go.’
The wh- complement clause in Arabic resembles the Soqotri wh- complement clause in that it can occur in the three slots of nominal clause subject NS, transitive subject A and direct object O (Dickins & Watson, 1999; Borsley, 1999).
4.1.3 - ‘that’ complement clause
This is the most common complement clause in Soqotri. It is often used as a fact complement clause but it is also used for activity and potential meanings. Dixon (2006) states that certain matrix clause verbs that assert facts or denote perception or cognitive actions such as “see, hear, know, believe, think, tell, want” take a that-clause, instead of a noun phrase as a core argument transitive object O. This is true for Soqotri in which this type of indicative complement clause is widely used as an object O for the transitive verb in the main clause. This clause starts with the complementizer ‘that’.
(16) S ’- O [COMP.CL - ] I know-1SG.M.PER that 3SG.M.IMP-come ‘I knew that he will come.’
(17) - O [COMP.CL ]
think-1SG.M.PER that marry3SG.M.PER
‘I think that he got married.’
Though the verbs (’-, - and -) are used in their perfect forms, they express an imperfect or present meaning. That-clause in Soqotri can also be used as a direct object O for extended transitive verbs as shown in the following example:
(18) - E O [COMP.CL -]
tell-3SG.F.PER me 3SG.F.IMP- come
‘She told me that she will come.’
The complementizer is usually followed by a covert subject indicated by the verb inflections but it can be also followed by an overt subject as shown in examples (19) and (20) respectively.
(19) S - [ -]
he 3SG.M.IMP-say that 3SG.M.IMP-come
‘He says that he will come.’
(20) S - O [ ] he 3SG.M.IMP-say that he ill
‘He says that he is ill.’
As in Arabic, some that-clauses in Soqotri can be used without the complementizer .
(21) - O [ - ’ ] she 3SG.F.IMP-think her man 3SG.M.IMP-come tomorrow
‘She thinks that her husband will come tomorrow.’
Some complementizers in Soqotri have other grammatical functions. For example, the complementizer can also be used as an auxiliary and the complementizer can also be used as a preposition meaning ‘with’. Thus Soqotri provides yet evidence that supports Dixon’s (2006) statement about the homogeneity of complementizers with some other
grammatical forms.
4.2 Subjunctive complement clause
Despite the fact that the subjunctive clause in Soqotri is functionally similar to the non-finite infinitive clause in English, this clause can not be called an infinitive clause. The infinitive form is not limited by number, gender or tense. It does not bear any syntactic relation to its notional subject (Noonan, 2007). The subjunctive form in Soqotri as well as in the other Semitic languages does not refer to a specific tense but it does agree with its subject in number, person and gender. It is a finite verb form used only in subordinate clauses. The subjunctive has a distinctive form different from those of the perfect and imperfect. There is also a similarity between the subjunctive complement clause in Soqotri and the so called paratactic clause. Both of them have verb phrases that lack overt subject NPs and both of them can inflect for subject agreement. But they differ in that the paratactic complement clause is not syntactically subordinate while the subjunctive clause in the Soqotri is subordinate (Noonan, 2007; Kruspe, 2004).The subjunctive clause in Soqotri has no complementizer. It can function as a nominal clause subject (NS) as in examples (22) and (23), a transitive verb object O as in examples (25) and (26) and a direct object for an extended transitive verb as in example (27).
(22) NS [ - ] NC
1SG.M.SUB-be doctor COP not easy ‘To be a doctor is not easy for me.’
(23) NS [ ’ ] NC
steal\2SG.M.SUB. goats of people COP bad ‘To steal people goats is bad for you.’
It is also possible for the noun or adjective in the complement to be fronted thus the subjunctive clause functions as an extraposed subject.
(24) [’ ]
bad steal \2SG.M.SUB goats of people
‘It is bad to steal the goats of people.’
(25) A O [COMP.CL -’ ] he 3SG.M.PER-know 3SG.M.SUB-read
‘He knows how to read.’
(26) A O [ - ]
I want 1SG.IMP 1SG.M.SUB.-marry
‘I want to marry.’
(27) A - E / O [COMP.CL - ] she 3SG.F.IMP-want Ali / him 3SG.M.SUB.-marry her
‘She wants Ali / him to marry her.’
in the above sentence has both the object argument function O of the main clause and the subject argument function A of the subordinate clause. It is true that when is replaced by a pronoun, the object form of the pronoun ‘him’ is used rather than the subject form ‘he’, but according to Dixon (2006) this is simply a matter of surface realization not affecting the fact that / has two functions simultaneously.
4.3 Nominalized complement clause
Nominalized complement clauses are predications that have the internal structure of the noun phrase. When the predicate is nominalized, it takes a verbal noun form and functions as a head for the noun phrase (Dixon, 2006; Noonan, 2007). Nominalized clauses are known for their typical use as nominal (verbless) clause subject NS, copula clause subject CS and copula complement CC (Dixon, 2004). In Soqotri this clause functions as a nominal clause subject NS as in examples (28) and (29) and as transitive verb object O as in examples (30).
(28) NS [COMP.CL -- -’ ]
NZR- walk-NZR in morning COP good
‘Walking in the morning is good.’
The arguments of this clause may have associative genitival relations with the predicate.
(29) NS [COMP.CL ]
weep\ NZR of men no good
‘Men’s weeping is not good.’
(30) - O [ ] not 1SG.M-like weep\ NZR of man \PL
‘I do not like men’s weeping.’
4.4 Participle complement clause
Noonan (2007) states that the role of participles in complementation is limited because they are not heads of constructions or core arguments, they only modify the head nouns.
They are used in complements to immediate perception predicates, which contain verbs such as ‘see’, ‘hear’, etc. The object O of these verbs is a head noun or argument and the participle clause is only a qualifying clause for that object (ibid).
The structure of the participle form in Soqotri is different from that of English. In English, there is only one form of the participle used with any subject or object regardless of their person, gender and number, but in Soqotri, the participle form agrees with the dropped subject or object in person, number and gender. The complement participle clause in Soqotri is used after verbs of sense such as ‘see’, ‘hear’, etc.
(31) - / [COMP.CL - ]
See-1SG.M.PER Ali him 3SG.M.IMP- play football ‘I saw Ali / him playing football.’
(32) - / [COMP.CL -]
hear-1SG.MPER Nadia / her 3SG.F.IMP- weep ‘I heard Nadia / her weeping.’
5. Some salient features of complement clause in Soqotri
This section deals with some salient features of the complement clause in Soqotri such as equi-deletion, tense sequence and interrogative rising.
5.1 Equi-deletion in the complement clauses
Some complement clauses in Soqotri such as the indicative that-clause, wh-clause and if-clause are sentence-like clauses i.e. clauses that, without their complementizers, have roughly the same syntactic forms as main clauses. However, some other complement clauses in Soqotri are reduced in a way that certain components usually found in the main clause are absent from them. For example, the subject in the subjunctive complement clause is deleted when it is co-referential with some arguments in the main clause; this process is called equi-deletion (Noonan, 2007).
(33) -
Ali 3SG.M.IMP-want 3SG.M.SUB-go ‘Ali wants to go.’
In the above example the subject of the complement clause has been equi-deleted under identity with the subject in the main clause. The direct objects can also condition equi-deletion for example the subject of the subjunctive clause is equi-deleted under identity with the direct object of ‘tell’.
(34) - -
I tell-1SG.PER Ali 3SG.M.SUB -come ‘I told Ali to come.’
5.2 Sequence of tense in the complement clauses
Some languages such as English restrict the tenses or require a certain sequence of tenses in the complement clause. In such languages tense categories are copied onto the complement clause from the main clause so as to mould the complement clause to the subjective view point of the speaker (Noonan, 2007). An example of such tense sequence can be found in the reported speech in English:
(35) He says, ‘I will go.’
He says that he will go.
(36) He said, ‘I will go.’
He said that he would go.
Soqotri has no such tense copying in the reported speech. These sentences are expressed in the tense in which the statement was originally made regardless of the tense in the main
clause as illustrated in these examples and their literal translations.
(37) - -
he 3SG.M.IMP-say that 3SG.M.IMP- come ‘He says that he will come.’
(38) -
he 3SG.M.IMP-say that 3SG.M.PER- come ‘He says that he came.’
(39) -
he 3SG.M.PER-say that 3SG.M.IMP- come
‘He said that he would come.’
5.3 Negative rising in the complement clauses
The negative marker in Soqotri usually occurs in the complement clause, but it can also be removed from the complement clause with which it is logically associated and raised to the position for negative within the main clause. This process is called negative raising (Noonan, 2007).
(40) -
he 3SG.M.PER-say that not 3SG.M.IMP- come ‘He said that he would not come.’
(41) -
he not 3SG.M.PER-say that 3SG.M.IMP- come
‘He did not say that he would come.’
6. Conclusion
Soqotri has four complement clauses and does not require complement strategies. It can use indirect speech and nominalization. Soqotri complementizers have some other grammatical functions. Thus, Soqotri provides another confirmation of Dixon’s (1995) statement that the complementizers are homonymous with some other grammatical forms in the majority of languages. Soqotri does not restrict the tenses or require a certain sequence of tenses in the complement clause. Complement clauses are expressed in the tense in which the statement was originally made regardless of the tense in the main clause.
Symbols and Abbreviations
1 first person
2 second person
3 third person
[ ] phrase, clause or sentences boundary
√ root
\ formed internally SG singular
DU dual
PL plural
F feminine GEN genitive
M masculine
IMP imperfect PER perfect SUB subjunctive
A transitive verb subject COMP.CL complement clause COP copula verb
E extended argument (indirect object)
O object
POSS possessive
S intransitive verb subject
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