Cover not available
Part of
Austronesian Undressed: How and why languages become isolating
Edited by David Gil and Antoinette Schapper
[Typological Studies in Language 129] 2020
► pp. 369–390

Chapter 8
Double agent, double cross?

Or how a suffix changes nature in an isolating language: dór in Tetun Dili

| Dili Institute of Technology
| University of Melbourne
In East Timor, there have been centuries of contact between the strongly isolating Austronesian language Tetun Dili and the morphologically-rich Romance language Portuguese. In all this time, only one derivational morpheme has been borrowed into Tetun Dili for use with native lexicon. This is -dor, a transparent agentive suffix which neatly fits the word order and stress patterns of existing Tetun Dili agentive compounds. Tetun Dili has borrowed numerous nouns with this suffix. However when in combination with native roots, it has shifted in terms of its semantics, word class of the root and derivation, and even word status, bringing it more in line with pre-existing native agentive morphemes. In other words, Tetun’s strongly isolating nature has won, at least for now.
Keywords: language contact, isolating language, Tetun Dili, Portuguese, Austronesian contact, morphological borrowing
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Historical background
  • 3.Portuguese nominal loans with dór
  • 4. Door with single Tetun roots
  • 5.Three-unit sequences
  • 6.Use and creativity
  • 7.Alternative strategies for agentive terms
  • 8.Word class
  • 9.Word status
    • Phonology
    • Spelling
    • A lexeme door?
  • 10.Borrowability of door
  • 11.The double life of Portuguese dor in Tetun
  • 12.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.129.08kli
References (24)
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2007. Typological distinctions in word-formation. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. III: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 1–65. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baxter, Alan N. 1990. Notes on the Creole Portuguese of Bidau. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 5(1): 1–38. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1996. Portuguese and Creole Portuguese in the Pacific and Western Pacific rim. In Atlas of Language of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas, Stephen A. Wurm, Peter Mühlhäusler & Darrell T. Tryon (eds), 299–338. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chamoreau, Claudine. 2012. Spanish diminutive markers -ito/-ita in Mesoamerican languages: A challenge for acceptance of gender distinction. In Morphologies in Contact [Studia Typologica 10], Martine Vanhove, Thomas Stolz, Aina Urdze & Hitomi Otsuka (eds), 71–91. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Grimes, Barbara F. (ed.). 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 18th edn. Dallas TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics.Google Scholar
Hajek, John & Williams-van Klinken, Catharina. 2003. Um sufixo românico numa língua austronésia: -dor em Tetum (A Romance suffix in an Austronesian language: -dor in Tetun). Revue de Linguistique Romane 67: 55–65.Google Scholar
Hull, Geoffrey. 2001. A morphological overview of the Timoric Sprachbund. Estudos de Línguas e Culturas de Timor-Leste / Studies in the Languages and Cultures of East Timor 4: 98–205.Google Scholar
. 2002a. The languages of East Timor: Some basic facts. Dili: Instituto Nacional de Linguística, Universidade Nacional Timor Lorosa’e.Google Scholar
. 2002b. Standard Tetum-English Dictionary, 3rd edn. Winston Hills: Sebastião Aparício da Silva Project in association with Instituto Nacional de Linguística.Google Scholar
Hull, Geoffrey & Eccles, Lance. 2001. Tetum Reference Grammar. Winston Hills: Sebastião Aparício da Silva Project, in conjunction with Dili: Instituto Nacional de Linguística, Universidade Nacional de Timor Lorosa’e.Google Scholar
Hull, Geoffrey Stephen & Guterres Correia, Adérito José. 2005. Kursu gramátika Tetun ba profesór, tradutór, jornalista no estudante universidade sira (Tetun Grammar Course for Teachers, Translators, Journalists and University Students). Dili: Instituto Nacional de Linguística.Google Scholar
Instituto Nacional de Linguística. 2002. Matadalan ortográfiku ba Tetun-Prasa (Spelling Guide for Tetun Prasa). Dili: Instituto Nacional de Linguística, Universidade Nacional Timor Lorosa’e.Google Scholar
Janda, Richard D. 1995. From agreement affix to subject “clitic”– and bound root: -mos > -nos vs. (-)nos(-) and nos-otros in New Mexican and other regional Spanish dialects. In CLS 31: Papers From the 31st Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Vol. II: The Parasession on Clitics, Audra Dainora, Rachel Hemphill, Barbara Luka, Barbara Need & Sheri Pargman (eds), 118–139. Chicago IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Morris, Cliff. 1984. Tetun – English Dictionary. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
National Statistics Directorate. 2006. Timor-Leste Census of Population of Housing 2004: Atlas. Dili.Google Scholar
Schulte Nordholt, Herman G. 1971. The Political System of the Atoni of Timor. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah Grey & Kaufman, Terrence. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Thomaz, Luis Filipe F. R. 1981. The formation of Tetun-Praça, vehicular language of East Timor. In Papers on Indonesian Languages and Literatures, Nigel Phillips & Anwar Khaidir (eds), 54–83. Paris: Cahier d’Archipel 13.Google Scholar
Thomaz, Luís Filipe F. R. 2002. Babel Loro Sa’e: O Problema Linguístico de Timor-Leste (Babel of the East: The Linguistic Problem of East Timor). Lisboa: Instituto Camões.Google Scholar
van Klinken, Catharina. 1999. A Grammar of the Fehan Dialect of Tetun, an Austronesian Language of West Timor. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Williams-van Klinken, Catharina, Hajek, John & Nordlinger, Rachel. 2002. Tetun Dili: A Grammar of an East Timorese Language. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Hajek, John, & Williams-van Klinken, Catharina. 2019. Language Contact and Gender in Tetun Dili: What Happens When Austronesian Meets Romance? Oceanic Linguistics, 58 (1), 59–91. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Williams-van Klinken, Catharina, Robert Williams & Helio Brites da Silva. 2016. Tetun Dili laos Dili nian ona: Tetun nudar lian inan tuir dadus sensus nian (Tetun Dili no longer belongs to Dili: Tetun as mother tongue according to census data). In Timor-Leste: The Local, the Regional and the Global, Sarah Smith, Antero B. da Silva, Nuno Canas Mendes, Alarico da Costa Ximenes, Clinton Fernandes & Michael Leach (eds), 65–71. Dili, Timor Leste: Timor Leste Studies Association.Google Scholar
Winford, Donald. 2003. An Introduction to Contact Linguistics. Malden MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar