The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal
morpheme1
Hugo C. Cardoso
Universidade de Lisboa
This study explores the use of a particular causal morpheme, derived from a
protoform that may be reconstructed as *[V/B]IDA, in the Portuguese-lexified
creoles of Asia. A survey of the various formal means employed by the AsianPortuguese creoles to establish relationships of cause, reason, and purpose
demonstrates that only three may be said with certainty to use or have used a
*[V/B]IDA-related morpheme, viz. those of the Malabar (South India), Sri Lanka,
and Batavia/Tugu (Java, Indonesia) – a geographical distribution which, it is
argued, calls for an assessment of the exact role of South Asian populations in the
formation of Batavia/Tugu creole, in addition to other pieces of linguistic and
ethnographic evidence. In order to determine the etymology and synchronic
transformations of these causal morphemes, this study also explores several
diachronic and dialectal corpora of Portuguese, which reveals that the Portuguese
expression por via de ‘by way of’ is a more likely source than another proposed
alternative, por vida de ‘by the life of’.
Keywords: Asia, Asian-Portuguese creoles, cause, reason, purpose, etymology.
1. Introduction
The Asian-Portuguese creoles were once spoken across coastal Asia, from India
to Timor, although they are now much reduced in number. A consequence of
such a wide geographical dispersion is the fact that there is significant diversity
in terms of the substrate and adstrate languages which have contributed to their
formation and development, and the sociohistorical conditions which have
1
I am indebted to several colleagues and consultants who have taken the trouble to provide me
with relevant data and/or access to particular corpora: Alan Baxter, Catarina Magro, Chiara
Truppi, Clancy Clements, Clifford Netto, Mahesh Radhakrishnan, Patrícia Costa, Tjerk
Hagemeijer, and Vanessa Köbke. I am also thankful to two reviewers and to the participants in
the 2017 Annual Meeting of the ACBLPE (Stockholm University) for insightful and helpful
suggestions. Any shortcomings remain my own responsibility. The research necessary for this
study was funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) under the Investigador
FCT programme (IF/01009/2012).
Journal of Ibero-Romance Creoles 9.1 (2019), 27-54
ISSN 2184-5360 © Journal of Ibero-Romance Creoles
Hugo C. Cardoso
presided over these processes. As a result, the Asian-Portuguese creoles are
characterised by considerable variation, but also, interestingly, significant
continuities (Ferraz 1987). Since, after a period of some scholarly neglect, there
are now descriptions and edited sources for all of the creoles currently spoken
(and a few of the extinct varieties), comparative studies aimed at determining
and explaining the degree of divergence or similarity between them have
become common (see e.g. Clements 2000; also the contributions in Cardoso &
Ansaldo 2009, and in Cardoso, Baxter & Nunes 2012).
This article is very much part of that tradition and operates on the
premise that establishing synchronic (or recent) continuities between discrete
Asian-Portuguese creoles can shed light on their historical relationships and, as
a result, on the history of the populations that spoke – and, in some cases,
continue to speak – them. In this case, I will explore the distribution and use of
a range of causal morphemes which appear to stem from a protoform tentatively
reconstructed as *[V/B]IDA. As we will see, among the Asian-Portuguese
creoles, such causal morphemes are geographically widespread but by no means
universal, as only a few of them use it (either at present or historically), and this
lends support to the necessity of fully establishing the historical and linguistic
links between creole-speaking communities of two distinct Asian regions:
Southern South Asia (i.e. South India and Sri Lanka) and Java (in Indonesia).
The demonstration of the geographical and diachronic distribution of these
causal morphemes among the Asian-Portuguese creoles will be the object of
section 2 below.
More than just establish the current and/or past use of a *[V/B]IDArelated morpheme, however, I am also interested in advancing an etymological
scenario to account for these forms. To that end, I will explore diachronic and
dialectal corpora of European Portuguese in search of two distinct proposed
etymological sources – the expressions por via de ‘by way of’ and por vida de
‘by [the] life of’ – and survey other Portuguese-based creoles for cognate forms
that may shed light on the issue. The results of this research are reported and
discussed in section 3.
Finally, in section 4, I will consider the diachronic implications of the
data presented here for our understanding of the development and historical
relationships between the Asian-Portuguese creoles, both living and extinct.
28
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
2. Distribution in Asia
This section will survey the various Portuguese-lexified creoles of Asia to
ascertain the distribution of *[V/B]IDA-related causal morphemes, in modern as
well as historical sources, adding, for clarity, the alternative forms used with
comparable values in each one.
2.1. South Asia
Our knowledge of the Malabar Indo-Portuguese [henceforth MIP] creoles is
based on two rather different sets of data: a) a short 19th-century corpus
composed of language samples collected by several different collaborators for
Hugo Schuchardt (in Cannanore, Mahé, and Cochin) and published in his
articles on the subject (Schuchardt 1882; 1889); and b) a modern oral corpus
collected by myself (in Cannanore, Vypeen, and Calicut) since 2006 (Cardoso
2006-2015; 2007-2010; 2015; 2018). The modern MIP corpora provide plenty
of instances of a causal morpheme suydɐ, occurring at the right edge of a
subordinate clause, very frequently in adverbial clauses of cause (1a), reason
(1b)2 and, more rarely, in purpose clauses (1c):
(1)
a.
[Cannanore Creole, elicited data]
[chuva jə-vi-suydɐ],
rain
tudu-kə molæsti jə-vi
PST-come-CAUS all-OBL sickness PST-come
‘Because it rained, everyone got sick.’
b.
[Cannanore Creole, elicited data; Cardoso 2006-2015]
bombə chuyvə
tini-suydɐ,
iskɔla ja-ficha
much rain
EXS.PST-REAS
school PST-close
‘Because there was so much rain, the school was closed.’
2
In this article, following Croft (1991) and Luraghi (2005), the distinction between Cause and
Reason is based on intentionality: whereas the states of affairs given in Reason clauses motivate
an action which implies the intention of an agent (as is also the case with Purpose clauses),
those expressed in Cause clauses have effects that require no intentionality on the part of an
agent.
29
Hugo C. Cardoso
c.
[Cannanore Creole, elicited data; Cardoso 2006-2015]
Michael [pə-ræza-suyda]
igreja tə-vay
Michael INF-pray-PURP
church IPFV-go
‘Michael goes to church to pray.’
The use of -suydɐ with NPs is unattested in the unconstrained speech sections
of the corpus, and even elicitation does not clarify this possibility, as the request
to translate phrases of the ‘because of NP’ type usually produces full clauses.
However, there is a very frequent combination with the demonstrative akə
which, as a whole, establishes a result nexus between two clauses, as in (2):
(2)
[Cannanore Creole, elicited data; Cardoso 2006-2015]
æli-pərɐ unga bicycle kerɐ, [akə-suydɐ
yo lo-pidi
da]
3s.m-OBL one bicycle want DEM-CAUS 1s IRR-buy give
‘He wants/needs a bicycle, therefore [i.e., because of that] I’ll buy him
one.’
Although there is currently no evidence that this form is multimorphemic, it is
very likely that, at least in diachronic terms, it was so. In fact, -suydɐ can be
interpreted as being composed of the genitive case-marker –sə plus a causal
morpheme *–(w)ydɐ, on the basis that, in MIP, several (but not all) postpositions
select a genitive NP. As a result, –sə functions as a linking morpheme between
the NP and the postpositions, optionally in the case of dæ̃trə ‘in’, but
obligatorily with many others (e.g. bayxi ‘under’, dyãti ‘in front’, lɔ̃ji ‘far’, rivɐ
‘above’, etc.).
In addition to -suydɐ, more focused elicitation conducted for this
particular study has revealed another equivalent postposition in modern MIP. In
(3), kawsu (from Ptg. causa ‘cause’) is seen to select a genitive-marked nominal,
in this case, in a reason context:3
3
Determining the distributional properties of kawsu beyond the specific syntactic context
provided in (3) requires further investigation.
30
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
(3)
[Cannanore Creole, elicited data]
olotə Kanur
3p
jə-vi
Kannur PST-come
[minha
kawsu].
1s.GEN
REAS
‘They have come to Kannur because of me.’
In contrast with the abundance of tokens of causal -suydɐ in the modern MIP
corpora, the 19th-century data – which are relatively scarce and, in part, of
questionable descriptive reliability (see Cardoso 2014: 94-100) – provide no
instances of a *[V/B]IDA-type causal morpheme, resorting instead to other
forms. The very few cause/reason clauses which do occur in the 19th-century
corpus use a subordinator derived from standard Portuguese por causa
‘because’ (related to the modern postposition kawsu mentioned above) +
complementiser que ‘that’, or por razão ‘by reason’ + complementiser que.4
In comparison with MIP, we have an abundance of sources for Sri Lanka
Portuguese [henceforth SLP]. Not only was there a substantial written
production in the 19th and early 20th century (see Cardoso, Hagemeijer &
Alexandre 2015; Smith 2016), the language has also been the object of
documentation and grammatical description in recent times, especially in the
work of Ian Smith (e.g. Smith 1977, 1979, 1984, 2013a) and, even more
recently, as part of the project Documentation of Sri Lanka Portuguese
[henceforth DSLP] developed at the University of Lisbon (data available in
Cardoso 2017). The use of a cognate causal morpheme in modern SLP is, in
some ways, similar to what has been described for MIP. In this creole, the
corresponding form is wi:də/viida,5 (i.e., excluding the genitive linker which
can be recognised in the MIP form) and also occurs at the right edge of the
clause or phrase. It occurs mostly in adverbial clauses of cause (4a), reason (4b),
and purpose (4c):
4
Some examples from the Cochin corpus: não por causa que sou pela natureza melhor que
outros, mas somente por rezão que eu tamou lugar de um culpado peccador diante de Deos...
‘not because I am by nature better than others but only because I have taken the place of a guilty
sinner before God’ (Schuchardt 1882: 806-807).
5
The orthographical variation observed in the modern Sri Lankan data reflects the source of the
materials transcribed, since Ian Smith and the DSLP team use slightly different orthographies.
In the case of this pair of optional spellings, wi:də is Smith’s variant, and viida is the one used
in the DSLP transcriptions.
31
Hugo C. Cardoso
(4)
a.
[Batticaloa Creole; unconstrained; Cardoso 2017: slp046_1]
[áklóóra málváár papiyáá viida],
etus
málváár
then
Tamil
3p.HON
Tamil
mee
papiyáá papiyáá
ya-ka-kustumáá.
EMPH
speak
PST-PFV-practice
speak
CAUS
speak
‘Because they spoke Tamil then [i.e., growing up], they [i.e.,
youngsters] have gotten used to speaking in Tamil.’
b.
[Batticaloa Creole; Smith 1977: 163]
[ja:-fəla: wi:də me:]
ja:-wi:
PST-tell REAS EMPH PST-come
istɔ:ndə
this.way
‘It is precisely because he told me that [I] came over here.’
c.
[Batticaloa Creole; unconstrained; Cardoso 2017: slp038_1]
[elispa
reskatáá
viida mee]
3p-OBL rescue
nóóspa luumi triiya…
PURP EMPH 1p-OBL light bring
‘In order to rescue them, we [would have to] bring a light…’
In addition to clauses, wi:də / viida can also be used with NPs (5a), and, as in
MIP, there is a very frequent combination with the demonstrative áka
introducing a result (5b):
(5)
a.
[Trincomalee Creole; unconstrained; Cardoso 2017: slp014_1
[áka
istóóri viida] saylááv, isi
DEM
history REAS Ceilão, DEM place-OBL
fala-ntu
mee
garáá
speak-PFV FOC keep
luváára-pa
saylááv
Ceilão
voo.
Q
‘Because of that history, [we should] keep the name Ceilão for this
land, right?’
32
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
b.
[Batticaloa Creole; Smith 1977: 150]
[əkə
wi:də etus
DEM
CAUS 3p.HON shyness-LOC
wærñə-ntu
na:-pəpiya:]
NEG.FUT-talk
‘Therefore, in shyness, they won't talk.’
Modern SLP admits alternatives to wi:də / viida. The DSLP corpus contains
many instances of a causal/reason marker dáála (also, occasionally, daláá),
which has not been recorded in earlier descriptions of the language.
Interestingly, dáála occurs overwhelmingly in speech collected in Trincomalee,
with a single speaker in Batticaloa producing it. Therefore, it appears to be a
regional variant,6 even though Trincomalee speakers also use wi:də / viida
abundantly. The distribution of the two causal/reason markers seems to be
equivalent, as dáála occurs in adverbial clauses of cause (6a) and reason (6b) –
but is unattested in clauses of purpose –, with pronouns (6c), and with
demonstratives in result contexts (6d):
(6)
a.
[Trincomalee Creole; unconstrained; Cardoso 2017: slp063_1]
[…] [kilááy áka
how
nósa
DEM
tudu ya-ka-fikáá
dáála],
all
CAUS
PST-PFV-become
“music” pooku tráás ya-ka-fikáá
1p.GEN music
little
behind PST-PFV-become
avóóra.
now
‘[…] because of how all that has become, our music has now fallen
behind a little.’
b.
[Trincomalee Creole; unconstrained; Cardoso 2017: slp056_3]
mesta-juvisáá,
[óóras nunteem
OBLIG-evaluate time NEG.have
dáála], seem.
REAS yes
‘I need to check, because I have no time, yes.’
This fact may explain why dáála went unrecorded in Ian Smith’s corpus, since it focused
heavily on data collected in Batticaloa. The etymology of dáála is unclear.
6
33
Hugo C. Cardoso
c. [Trincomalee Creole; unconstrained; Cardoso 2017: slp063_5]
[osiir
daláá], osiir
tinha
3s.HON CAUS 3s.HON
viida mee,
áka
EXS.PST CAUS EMPH DEM
isi
“recording”
loov
DEM
recording
immediately can
pooy
faya=ley tinha.
do=like be.PST
‘Because of him, because he was [here], [we] could do that
recording straight away.’
d.
[Trincomalee Creole; unconstrained; Cardoso 2017: slp056_3]
[…] senáá [áka
so
dáála kááza-ntu
etrus
DEM CAUS house-LOC 3p
prenda
ta-faya] […]
learn
PRS-do
málváár mee
Tamil
EMPH
‘So, because of that, at home they learn Tamil.’
In addition to constructions with postposed wi:də / viida and dáála, clauses of
cause and reason may also be introduced by a complex connector composed of
kiipa ‘why/what for’7 and a conditional subordinator (kiipa see or kiipa
kamfaláá; see also Smith 2016: 240). Purpose clauses, on the other hand, are
most often flagged simply with a verbal affix pa ‘INF/PURP’ (Smith 2013a:
116, 118).
When it comes to early sources, once again, SLP is much more richly
recorded than MIP. As a result, the written corpora of the 19th and early 20th
century contain many instances of causal morphemes cognate with modern
wi:də / viida. It occurs in those texts with the forms vide/vidè or videque/vide
que (the latter integrating what appears to be the Ptg. complementiser que ‘that’)
but, instead of the right edge of the clause/phrase, it precedes it (which is
consistent with the well-established opposition between these early SLP sources
and the modern oral creole in terms of word order, as explored and discussed
e.g. by Smith 1984, 2016; Iken 2000; Bakker 2006). The nexus it establishes is
7
Smith (e.g. 2013b: 41-28) interprets this form as being transparently composed of Q-word kii
‘what’ + oblique suffix –pa; in the DSLP corpus, the form is treated as a single Q-word meaning
‘why’.
34
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
always that of cause or reason. With respect to syntactic distribution, it is a
strong generalisation that vide/vidè precedes NPs, pronouns or demonstratives
(7a), whereas videque/vide que introduces adverbial clauses (7b) (see also Smith
2016: 240); occasionally, however, the corpus contradicts this (7c,d):
(7)
a.
[Tavares de Mello 1998[1908]: 106; ‘Oração’]
nós pôde contá nós mesmo digno per suffrí
[vidè
tua
CAUS your
santa
nome].
holy
name
‘We can count ourselves worthy of suffering because of your holy
name.’
b.
[Newstead 1852: Matthew 3: 2]
E fallando, Arrepende vossotros, [videque
REAS
ceos
tem chegado
perto].
heaven.p
be arrive.PTCP
close
o
reyno
de
ART kingdom of
‘And saying: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is drawing near”.’
c.
[Tavares de Mello 1998[1910-1913]: 152]
O prendido femes de este tempo não confiá ne amor, [vide ellotros
CAUS 3p
tem assi prendido
que
ellotros te
be thus learn.PTCP
COMP 3p
grande
dodice per obedecê per
big
folly INF obey
lembrá tem hum
PRS think
sua
OBL GEN
be one
maridos].
husband.p
‘Learned women of this time do not trust love, because they have
learnt that they find it a great folly to obey their husbands.’
35
Hugo C. Cardoso
d.
[Tavares de Mello 1998[1908]: 108; ‘Oitavel Estação’]
[…] Jesus sabendo o cousas que tinha per susdê sobre Jerusalem,
[vidèque de rejectação de elle] […]
CAUS
of rejection
of 3sm
‘Jesus, knowing the things that would happen to Jerusalem because
of [its] rejection of him’
In addition, a form videaquel (rarely also aquelvide or vide este), consisting of
the causal morpheme and a demonstrative, is very frequent in result contexts:
(8)
[Newstead 1852; Acts 16: 36]
[…] O capitaõs ja manda orde per larga per vossotros,
[videaquel
parte agora, e
CAUS.DEM leave now
anda ne
and
go
paz].
LOC peace
‘The captains have sent orders to let you go, therefore, leave now, and
go in peace.’
All these forms were recorded in early descriptive works of SLP (then known
as Ceylon Portuguese), including Berrenger’s 1811 grammar of the language
and William Buckley Fox’s 1819 trilingual Ceylon Portuguese-Sinhala-English
dictionary. In one of his dictionaries, John Callaway (1820: 31) even makes an
explicit distinction between videaquel (translated as ‘therefore’), videque
(translated as ‘because’), and vide X (translated as ‘on account of X’).
The prevalence of *[V/B]IDA-type causal morphemes in MIP and SLP
has no parallel in the other extant Indo-Portuguese creoles, which have derived
etymologically distinct forms for the same functions. In the cases of Diu Creole
and Daman Creole, which are linguistically (as well as geographically and
historically) close, the terms used for establishing a causal nexus are quite
similar to the most common terms in modern Portuguese. In the creole of Diu,
recent documentation has recorded pərki/purki (from Ptg. porque ‘because’)
with adverbial clauses of reason or cause (Cardoso 2009: 135ff), and pə/pu
(from Ptg. por ‘by’ or para ‘for’) with purpose clauses (Cardoso 2009: 155);
kawz or pukawz (from Ptg. (por) causa ‘because [Lit. ‘by cause]’) is a causal
morpheme which may precede a nominal, if mediated by a genitive preposition
36
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
də, or a clause of cause/reason, if mediated by the complementiser ki (Cardoso
2009: 185ff); as for result clauses, they typically use the connector pures (from
Ptg. por isso ‘therefore [Lit. ‘by that’]’) (Cardoso 2009: 135ff, 185ff, 240).
Similarly, for Daman, Clements records the causal subordinator purkə/purki
with clauses of cause and reason (2012: 37; 2014: 135), pə with purpose clauses
(2014: 137), and puris to indicate a result nexus (2014: 154); Clements and
Koontz-Garboden (2002: 224) further note a complex causal preposition pur
kawz də, similar to the one observed in Diu.
Korlai creole is, in this domain, rather different from either Daman and
Diu, to the north, or MIP and SLP, to the south. Clements notes that, in Korlai,
NPs interpreted as expressing reason/cause or purpose are treated as a genitive
phrase, with the use of the postposition -su (from Ptg. sua ‘his/her [f.]’)
(Clements 1996: 140-141), and there is also a cause/reason preposition
rhəpəd/rhəspəd (from Ptg. (a) respeito de ‘with respect to’) – also used, in
combination with a demonstrative (resulting in rhəpədəkə; Clements p.c.) to
introduce result clauses (Clements 1996: 162). Elsewhere, in a multi-language
wordlist focusing on the Indo-Portuguese creoles, Clements also includes the
form karən as a translation of ‘because’ in Korlai (2012: 37). This form
corresponds to one of the conjunctive particles which introduce adverbial
clauses of cause in Marathi (see Dhongde & Wali 2009: 228-229) and occurs at
te left edge of a cause/reason clause (Clements p.c.). Finally, as for purpose
clauses, examples provided by Clements (2013: exs. 40-16, 40-124) indicate
that they are treated very much like complement clauses, with the use of the
complementiser (also relativiser) ki.
2.2. (South)east Asia
Among the Portuguese-lexified creoles of Southeast and East Asia, the only one
which can be said to have made use of a *[V/B]IDA-type causal morpheme is
the extinct creole of Batavia and Tugu, known to us through the corpus
published by Schuchardt in 1890 and a few other sources, which have been
collated and studied by Maurer (2011). According to Maurer’s study, the formal
means employed in these sources to express causality include the prepositions
di (from Ptg. de ‘of, from’, a multifunctional preposition in the Tugu and
Batavia corpora, meaning ‘of, from, out of, by’; see Maurer 2011: 6, 224) and
perbida (Maurer 2011: 87), and conjunctions dibida di, and perbida, in addition
to the Indonesian subordinator sebab ‘because’ (Maurer 2011: 109). Of these,
dibida and perbida appear to contain a *[V/B]IDA-type root, added either to the
already mentioned preposition di, or to per (also par/por) ‘for, in order to’ (see
37
Hugo C. Cardoso
Maurer 2011: 278). In the sources, perbida introduces both clauses of cause8
(9a) – very often with an explicative function (9b) – and NPs (9c), whereas
dibida di only occurs once, introducing a causal explicative clause (9d):
(9)
a.
[Tugu Creole; Schuchardt 1890: 47; see Maurer 2011: 152]
Noos fadji sirbis grósoe, noengsabe fadji sirbis finjoe,
[perbida noos
djèntih serah].
CAUS
people countryside
1p
‘We do rough work, [we] don’t know how to do delicate work,
because we [are] countryside people.’
b.
[Tugu Creole; Schuchardt 1890: 44; see Maurer 2011: 147-148]
Ingoewal toedoe nasèdoe nasèdoe na těra Djawa, thing alber neli
ki koeměsoe [perbida toedoe pobes
CAUS all
kiä-tja
diake
people
těra Djawa
koemi aros
land Java
eat
rice
froeta alber neli].
REL-get from.DEM
fruit
plant rice
‘Among all that grows on the land of Java, rice is the earliest,
because all the Java people eat the rice they get from the rice plant.’
c.
[Tugu Creole; Schuchardt 1890: 43; Maurer 2011: 146]
ki
thing noentè
inggoeäl
koe
oter
REL
COP
NEG.COP
same
as
other
djenti djenti
kampong
naäli
[perbida
soeä
person~person
village
LOC-there
CAUS
POSS
modoe ò
redjang].
manner and
language
‘those who are there are not the same as the other people of the
village because of their customs and their language.’
8
Only one sentence in these sources contains what may be unequivocally classified as a clause
of reason, and it is introduced by sebab (Schuchardt 1890: 64).
38
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
d.
[Tugu Creole; Schuchardt 1890: 43; Maurer 2011: 146]
Djenti Toegoe atja tantoe bondadi disïoe Gobernemen [dibida
CAUS
disïoe Gobernemen
dja
da
koe
nos
oenga
of.man government
PST
give
OBJ
1p
one
gredja per conserta
doti
prindèsoe (…)]
church for exert
?
religion
‘The people of Tugu have received much favour from the
Government people, because the Government people have given us
a church to practice our religion (…)’
Furthermore, an anonymous 1937 manuscript containing words and a few
sentences in Dutch, Indonesian, and Tugu Portuguese, attributed to a Dutch
priest (see Maurer 2011: 2), translates Dutch omdat ‘because’ as aka bida in
Tugu Portuguese, though no example sentence is provided. However,
considering that, in Dutch, omdat only introduces clauses and that aka bida
consists of a demonstrative plus the causal morpheme, it is likely that it would
also be used with clauses, rather than nominals.
This is the extent of the information found in sources that can
unequivocally be seen to record the Portuguese-based creole spoken on the
island of Java. However, a manuscript collection of pantoons in Malay and
Creole Portuguese,9 which belonged to Hugo Schuchardt and was passed on to
Leite de Vasconcelos, contains a relevant causal form, in the verses transcribed
in (10):
(10)
Soo per wia wos: / qiú
penna agora / mostra rijaldadie /
only by cause 2s
suffer now
COMPL.1s
Ô
dossie senhora.
Oh
sweet lady
show toughness
‘It is because of you / that I suffer now. / (You) demonstrate toughness,
/ oh sweet lady.’
9
Panton Malaijoe dan Portugees, currently preserved in the library of the Museu Nacional de
Arqueologia, Lisbon. The manuscript was located and brought to my attention by Prof. Ivo
Castro.
39
Hugo C. Cardoso
The exact geographical origin of the manuscript is not known, but the
Indonesian archipelago is a likely candidate; nor is the date of the text clear,
although it was definitely composed no later (and probably much earlier) than
the 1880s. The *[V/B]IDA-related form recorded there is highly significant, not
only given the dearth of attestations from the Southeast Asian region but also
because of its particular form: wia (see section 3 below).
What makes these data from Batavia and Tugu (plus the anonymous
manuscript) especially interesting is that the other (South)east Asian regions
that host or have hosted a Portuguese-based creole provide no evidence of
similar *[V/B]IDA-type causal morphemes. In the case of the modern creole of
Malacca, which has been documented and studied in depth, the form of the most
frequent causal morpheme is kauzu (from Ptg. causa ‘cause’). Kauzu, or a
reduced form kau, can introduce causal nominals – either mediated by a relator
di (postposed; see Baxter 1988: 162) or genitive sa (preposed; see Baxter 1988:
207; Baxter & de Silva 2004: 31) – and clauses – either bare or followed by (di)
ki (see Baxter 1988: 13, 203-204; 2013: 127-128). Akeh kauzu or isti kauzu, the
Malacca variant of the familiar combination of a demonstrative and a causal
operator, is used to establish a result nexus between two assertions (Baxter &
de Silva 2004: 13, 31, 98). In addition, kifoi (from Ptg. que ‘what’ + foi
‘be/go.PST’), elsewhere used as a Q-word ‘why’, may also introduce clauses of
cause (Baxter 1988: 203-204). Baxter & de Silva (2004: 50) further record a
causal conjunction porkih (from Ptg. porque ‘because’), which, however, they
classify as archaic.10
Still in Southeast Asia, the few records of Timorese creole contain no
instances relevant for our study (Baxter 1990; Baxter & Cardoso 2017).
In the case of the creole of Macau, recent (20th-century) investigations
reveal a range of causal operators which are not dissimilar form those found in
Malacca. Ferreira (1990[1978]: 249) records the causal conjunctions qui and po
qui (presumably from Ptg. porque ‘because’). Arana-Ward’s research of the
Macanese community in Hong Kong also registers the form porke but indicates
an interesting alternative bikozo, which is clearly an English loan (Arana-Ward
1977: 150). In his corpus of Macau creole as spoken among the Macanese
diaspora in Canada and the United States of America, Pinharanda Nunes (2010)
encounters not only the causal subordinator porqu, but also pocósa (from Ptg.
In fact, in a partial 19th-c. translation of the Gospels identified as being “escripto no crioulo
de Malacca” (‘written in the creole of Malacca’), the causal subordinator parqui can be found.
However, as Baxter (2018: 264) points out, it is important to take this evidence with a grain of
salt, since it has been established that missions in Malacca made use of Indo-Portuguese
translations produced in South Asia.
10
40
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
por causa ‘because [Lit. ‘by cause’]’) and promódi (from Ptg. por modo de or,
possibly, por meio de ‘by way of’), and records both po isso (from Ptg. por isso
‘for that/therefore’) and so (an English loan) introducing result clauses. Earlier
written records of Macau creole also contain several of these forms and add a
few more. 19th-century texts (collated in Barreiros 1943-4) provide plentiful
instances of porque, but also use qui fui/foi (from Ptg. que ‘what’ + foi
‘be/go.PST’; cognate with Malacca kifoi; see Barreiros 1943-4: 31) to introduce
causal clauses, and porisso (que/qui) (from Ptg. por isso + que ‘that’; see
Barreiros 1943-4: 252-254, 350, 353, 360) with result clauses. With causal
nominals, the early texts in Barreiros (1943-4: 254) record pro cosu di (from
Ptg. por causa de ‘because of [Lit. ‘by cause of’]’).
3. Etymology
Having established the geographical distribution of *[V/B]IDA-type causal
morphemes in Asia, we will now explore their etymology. Commenting on the
Tugu Creole forms perbida and dibida di, Maurer proposes an etymological
derivation from Ptg. para ‘for’ + vida ‘life’ (2011: 282), in the first case, and de
‘of’ + vida + de (Maurer 2011: 225), in the second. If correct, Maurer’s
etymological proposal could, of course, be extended to MIP and SLP, though
with the suppression of the Ptg. preposition por or para which accounts for part
of the causal form from Java.
The identification of ‘life’ as one of the components of these causal
operators finds some support in the fact that, in the creoles seen to have used a
*[V/B]IDA-type morpheme, the corresponding word for ‘life’, derived from Ptg.
vida ‘life’, is very similar (bida/vida in Tugu, viida in SLP, unattested in MIP).
However, I suggest a different etymology here, viz. a derivation from Ptg. por
via (de) ‘by way of’. One reason for this is that this expression, unlike por vida
de, features more or less robustly in diachronic and dialectal corpora of
European Portuguese with causal readings (among others). To explore the
history of both expressions in Portuguese, I surveyed several diachronic corpora
of Portuguese, with the following three yielding relevant results:
- Corpus Eletrónico do CELGA – Português do Período Clássico (CECPPC) – 16th-17th centuries;
- Corpus P.S. Post Scriptum (CLUL 2014), an archive of private letters
– 16th-20th centuries;
- Corpus Tycho Brahe (Galves et al. 2017) – 15th-20th centuries.
41
Hugo C. Cardoso
Even though written corpora of Portuguese are somewhat limited for the period
preceding the 16th century, they do attest a wide range of values for por via (de)
in different periods, including cause. Since we are interested in ascertaining
whether it occurs at a time that is consistent with the formation of the AsianPortuguese creoles, I first restricted the search for attestations to the period
between the early 15th century (when Portuguese expansion took off) and the
mid-17th century (when Portuguese decline in Asia intensified). For that period,
we find this expression, with the forms por via + genitive nominal
(NP/pronoun), or por + pronoun + via, introducing constituents which carry the
values of Path (11a), Means (11b), Manner (11c), or – significantly for our
purposes – Cause (11d) and Reason (11e):
(11)
a.
[1542; Diogo do Couto, Décadas; Tycho Brahe]
Ruy Lopes de Villa-Lobos vendo que arribara o São Joanilho,
determinou de mandar recado a Hespanha [por via da Índia], e
pera isto se falou com um Gaspar Melio e lhe deo instruções.
‘Seeing as the São Joanilho had arrived, Ruy Lopes de Villa-Lobos
decided to send a message to Spain by way of India, and to do so
spoke to a certain Gaspar Melio with instructions.’
b.
[1502; Pêro Magalhães de Gandavo, História da Província de Santa
Cruz; Tycho Brahe]
E a maneira de como isto se veio a denunciar e ter por coisa
averiguada, foi [por via dos Índios da terra].
‘And the manner by which this came to be known and verified was
through the Indians of the land.’
c. [1502; D. João III, Cartas de D. João III; Tycho Brahe]
Agora que o concerto é feito, hei por meu serviço que não faleis
nisto [por via de descontentamento], senão mui amigavelmente […]
‘No that the agreement is made, I consider it to be in my interest
that you talk about this not in displeasure, but rather in a very
friendly way’
42
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
d.
[1556; Frei Luís de Sousa, A Vida de Frei Bertolameu dos Mártires;
Tycho Brahe]
[…] por isso muito torno a pedir a Vossa Reverência que se
esforce muito e creça seu zelo em apagar o fogo da luxúria por esse
arcebispado e de nenhuma cousa tenha tanto escrúpulo como de ser
remisso nisso e por nenhuma outra cousa tema tanto o juízo de
Deus, e preze-se muito de ganhar enemigos [por esta via] e excitar
línguas contra si, porque padecer isto é sinal da eterna
predestinação.
‘therefore I once again ask Your Reverence to make great efforts
and that your zeal in extinguishing the fire of lust in that archdiocese
may grow, and that you do not concern yourself as much with
anything else as with being remiss in this, and that you do not fear
the judgement of God as much for anything else, and that you take
pride in making enemies because of this and exciting tongues
against you, because suffering this is a sign of eternal
predestination.’
e. [1502; D. João III, Cartas de D. João III; Tycho Brahe]
E porque me parece, segundo o que dizeis em vossa carta, que os
dez mil cruzados que prometeste ao Almirante não são [por via do
concerto], mas que vós lhe os prometestes por vos parecer que era
assim muito meu serviço […]
‘And since it seems to me, according to what you say in your letter,
that the ten thousand cruzados you have promised the Admiral were
not due to the agreement but because you have promised them to
him as you thought this was in my interest’
If we expand the temporal width of the search, we notice that, for later periods,
the corpora – especially P.S. Post Scriptum, the one that collects non-official
documents, including much more informal and colloquial written productions,
and mostly in the 19th century – yield the same type of data but also feature the
expression (por via de or por via que) introducing clauses with the values of
Reason (12a) and Purpose (12b):
(12)
a.
[1827; ‘Carta de Pedro Fernandes, boleeiro, para José Matias
Monteiro, soldado’; P.S. Post Scriptum]
Agora o eu Retirarme da sua Caza foi [por via de eu Saber o seu
genio e Vmce não atender a Rezão]
‘Now, the reason for me to retire from your home was because I am
aware of your temper and [because] you do not listen to reason’
43
Hugo C. Cardoso
b.
[1822; ‘Carta assinada sob nome falso, Pedro Leal, para destinatário
não identificado’; P.S. Post Scriptum]
entregarlhe este dinheiro embrolhado em huma coisa q paressa
huma emcomenda e q seja em Ouro ou em Papel, [por via q os mais
prezos não persebam o que he]
‘To deliver this money to him wrapped in something that looks like
a parcel and that it be in gold or paper, so that the other prisoners do
not realise what it is’
In both periods, the combination with a demonstrative (por esta via or por via
disso), which anaphorically recuperates a previous predication, also occurs in
what appear to be result contexts, as in (13); however, the occurrences are few
and the contexts somewhat unclear:
(13)
[1502; D. João III, Cartas de D. João III; Tycho Brahe]
Gaspar Vaz me escreveu, que Afonso de Sevilha lhe dissera, que a minha
armada metera no fundo uma nao em que ele tinha parte, e mandara
secretamente um correio a essa cidade, e que lhe o negara, e que [por
esta via se tem lá todos os avisos das minhas armadas].
‘Gaspar Vaz wrote to me that Afonso de Sevilha told him that my
armada had sunk a vessel of which he was a partner, and that [he] had
secretly sent a message to that city, and that [he] had denied it, and that,
therefore, everyone in those parts is wary of my armadas.’
To complement the diachronic study, I also surveyed the use of por via (de) in
a synchronic corpus of dialectal European Portuguese, CORDIAL-SIN (Martins
2000-), which contains interviews collected in several regions of the country.
While the use of the expression is not particularly frequent, it occurs, in this
corpus, exclusively to introduce clauses of Cause (14a) and Purpose (14b), in
productions from the districts of Horta (Azores), Bragança, Vila Real, Viana do
Castelo (Northern Portugal), and Setúbal (Central Portugal):
(14)
a.
[Larinho (Bragança); CORDIAL SIN, LAR07-C]
Os estrumos perto dos animais não estão bem. Estão melhor no
campo. Porque aparecem muitas doenças é [por via de os estrumos
estarem perto dos palheiros].
‘Manure placed near the animals is not right. It is better in the fields.
The reason why many diseases appear is because manure is close to
the barns.’
44
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
b.
[Fajãzinha (Horta); CORDIAL-SIN, FLF50-C]
E do 'rabisco' pega duas tiras que vai pregada à sela, que é [por via
de a sela não caminhar para a frente].
‘And from the rear-piece depart two straps that attach to the saddle,
which is so that the saddle doesn’t move forward.’
Por vida de, the alternative etymology, is much less frequent in the corpora with
values that are consistent with those of *[V/B]IDA in the Asian-Portuguese
creoles. The diachronic corpora only reveal one instance of por vida de in which
it can be said to introduce a cause NP:
(15)
[1653; ‘Carta não autógrafa de Francisco Gomes Henriques para
Jerónimo Nunes’; P.S. Post Scriptum]
Ao amigo, e amigos minhas lembranças e que mto deveras me
encomenden a ds e a nossa andrada, do que fico certo [por vida de nossa
amizade] […]
‘My regards to my friend [i.e. the addressee] and my friends, and may
you commend me much to God and to our Andrada, of which I am
certain on account of our friendship’
Other than this, por vida de is frequent in the corpus, but only as a rhetorical
formula when entreating someone (16a) or as contingent in a promise (16b), and
only with nominals:
(16)
a.
[1672; ‘Carta de Abigail de Brito, [dona de roça], para Francisco
de Medina’; P.S. Post Scriptum]
6 culheres de prata que devo a 2 annos a hũa ingreca tenho
mandado em mtas pedir a Vm agora o torno a fazer [por vida de
Vm] sendo posivel me faca esta mce […]
‘6 silver spoons which I have owed an Englishwoman for 2 years, I
have asked you for it many [times, and] now I do it again, that, upon
your life, if it is possible, you do me this favour’
b.
[1672; ‘Carta de Abigail de Brito, [dona de roça], para Francisco de
Medina’; P.S. Post Scriptum]
[…] que lhe juro a Vm [por vida de todos os meos filhos] avera sinco
meces perecemos e não somos nos sos se não em geral […]
‘that I swear to you on all my children’s lives that we have been
perishing for some five months now, and not just us but [everyone]
in general’
45
Hugo C. Cardoso
It should be noted that, in any of its functions, por vida de never introduces
clauses in the corpora, unlike por via de (though only attested for a later period).
If we combine this fact with the demonstrated functional range of both
expressions in the corpora, it is safe to say that the diachronic and dialectal
research supports por via de as a more likely ancestor of the *[V/B]IDA-type
Asian-Portuguese morphemes than por vida de, despite the fact that, formally,
vida appears to be closer to the Asian-Portuguese morphemes (with the
exception of per wia, given in example (10) above). However, it is a significant
fact that most West African Portuguese-based creoles, as well as Papiamentu,
have causal conjunctions/adpositions whose forms are much more clearly
reflective of por via (de) (see Jacobs 2012: 111-113 for an overview):
a) in Forro/Santome: plôvya (di) (Araújo & Hagemeijer 2013: 76) is
overwhelmingly a preposition occurring with NPs but there are also rare
attestations introducing a clause (Hagemeijer, p.c.), even though, as a causal
operator, it is secondary to the alternative form punda;
b) in Principense: pôvya is defined as a conjunction ‘because’, although
there are other causal subordinators – modi, pidi¸ pôkê (Maurer 2009: 168, 233);
c) in Cape Verdean Creole: pabia / pabiâ / pa biâ (di) is a causal
operator, though seen as dialectal and archaic (Brüser et al. 2002: 529; Jacobs
2012: 111), therefore not the dominant form at present;
d) in Guinea-Bissau Creole, or Kriyol: pabia (di) is a regular causal
conjunction, alongside other forms such as purke (Doneux & Rougé 1988: 56;
Scantamburlo 1999: 184);
e) in Casamancese Creole: pabiya or parbiya is used as a causal
connector with clauses and NPs, and also as a Q-word ‘why’ (Biagui 2012:
272ff; Biagui & Quint 2013: exs. 34-20, 34-68);
f) in Papiamentu: Jacobs (2012: 111) identifies causal pa via / pa bia
(plus di with nominals, plus ku with clauses) but considers it archaic, having
been replaced with alternative expressions in this language.
Since the formation of the West African creoles predates that of the Asian
creoles, these African causal morphemes provide evidence that causal por via
(de) was available in oral Early Modern Portuguese even before it reached Asian
shores, and sufficiently salient to be retained in the developing creoles as a
functional element, lending support to the proposed derivation of *[V/B]IDA.
The only remaining issue to resolve in this scenario, therefore, is that of
the particular transformation of the Portuguese expression into *[V/B]IDA in
Asia. One possibility is that, at some point of the creoles’ history (either at the
46
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
formative stage or later), the morphological boundaries of the Portuguese
complex via de were reanalysed to incorporate both via and the preposition de
into a single form. The absence of a morphological boundary is clear in the
current stage of MIP and SLP, in which suydɐ and viida are postposed to the
NP/clause and de/da/dɐ no longer correspond to any adposition – which, in the
case of MIP, has resulted in the necessity to add another linker morpheme -sə,
alien to the etymological construction but, as mentioned earlier, required by
several of this language’s postpositions.
As for the earlier corpus of SLP (Ceylon Portuguese), the issue of the
morphological unity of vide/vidè/videque is a little less clear. There, the causal
operator is preposed to the NP or clause, and de does occur in other contexts as
a genitive/ablative preposition. This means that, in theory, it is possible that de
was (still) a linker preposition and interpreted as such. One argument against
this is that, even though de was available as an independent preposition to the
writers of these texts, they never apply an orthographic boundary between *vi
and de, nor is *vi ever recorded as an entry in the coeval dictionaries or given
as such in the grammars of Ceylon Portuguese.
In both MIP and SLP, the preposition por, which is an integral part of
the Portuguese expression, has left no trace, unlike in the case of the West
African creoles. In the case of Tugu, it can be recognised in the first section of
perbida. However, it is not clear whether this form was interpreted as
monomorphemic, not only because per is a productive preposition elsewhere in
these texts, but also because it is replaced with a different Tugu Creole
preposition in the attested form dibida.11
4. Discussion
This survey of causal morphemes in the Asian-Portuguese creoles has revealed
a range of alternative forms, most of which are derived from Portuguese. One
of these consists of or integrates a sequence cognate with *[V/B]IDA, which has
been the main object of this study, with the available linguistic sources
providing evidence of cognate operators in the Portuguese-lexified creoles of
the Malabar (currently), Sri Lanka (currently and in the past), and Tugu (in the
past).
An alternative etymological derivation for dibida could be Ptg. devido (a) ‘due to’. This does
not seem likely, however, because a Batavia/Tugu-internal development is plausible from the
attested morphological elements – and that too with resort to a linker (di) which is indeed
associated with causal relations in this creole.
11
47
Hugo C. Cardoso
Of two proposed etymologies – por vida de and por via de –, research
in diachronic and dialectal corpora of European Portuguese revealed that por
via de is the most likely candidate, as it is shown to have (had) functions and a
syntactic distribution (with both NPs and clauses) that are consistent with those
of the cognate forms in the Asian creoles. In addition, the West African
Portuguese-lexified creoles have also retained forms derived from por via de to
express a nexus of causality. In formal terms, however, this scenario requires a
morphological reinterpretation to conflate the via and the de elements of the
Portuguese expression, an instance of change which is not unlikely but also not
evident (as demonstrated by the fact that it was not effected in the case of the
West African Portuguese-lexified creoles). This has a few interesting
implications for our understanding of the diachrony and relationship between
the various Asian-Portuguese creoles.
On the one hand, the coincidence of lexical resources between MIP and
SLP is not unexpected, and has been highlighted before in support of a certain
historical relatedness, resulting from either retention of an initial form of contact
Portuguese, or diffusion dynamics linking Southern India and Sri Lanka
(Cardoso 2013). The fact that the Portuguese presence in both these regions
decreased significantly after the mid-17th century, as the result of a Dutch
colonial takeover, indicates that the cooption of Ptg. por via de for causal
functions and even the morphological reinterpretation which has resulted in a
*[V/B]IDA-type root must have taken place before that, although, in truth, the
scope for cultural and linguistic circulation between the Luso-Asian
communities of both regions in later periods (under Dutch and British rule) has
not yet been properly assessed.
The presence of a cognate morpheme on Java, on the other hand,
requires a channel for this form to diffuse no earlier than the 17th-century, when
Portuguese(-creole)-speaking populations began to converge on the region of
Batavia from various parts of Asia under Dutch rule – including the Malabar
and Ceylon (Maurer 2011: 3-5). In order to approach the issue of where this
particular form may have travelled to Java from, it is important to realise that
the non-attestation of similar forms in the corpora of other Asian-Portuguese
creoles (Diu, Daman, Korlai, Malacca, Macau, and Bidau) does not necessarily
mean they were never used in those varieties. As such, we cannot be certain that
it was the incoming populations from either the Malabar or Ceylon who brought
along this form, even though we have evidence of that particular migration.
Nonetheless, the distribution we can observe does lend credence to the
hypothesis of a South Asian origin. As a matter of fact, there are a few other
lexemes in the Batavia/Tugu corpus (see the wordlist in Maurer 2011: 199ff)
48
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
which are reminiscent of the southern Indo-Portuguese varieties (especially
SLP) but appear have no discernible equivalent in the Southeast Asian creoles,
including:
- Batavia/Tugu alung, alunga ‘some’ [from Ptg. algum(a) ‘some’]; in
MIP aluŋɐ ‘some’, in SLP álung ‘some’;
- Batavia ascroea/askoera ‘hulled rice’ [from Ptg. arroz ‘rice’ + cru(a)
‘raw']; in SLP áskruuva ‘raw rice’;12
- Tugu beenvetoe ‘well’ [from Ptg. bem-feito ‘well-done’]; in MIP befet,
in SLP befeentu;13
- Batavia kadora ‘always’ [from Ptg. cada ‘each’ + hora ‘time’]; in SLP
kadóóra ‘always’;
- Batavia/Tugu kaaudoe/kawdu ‘tortoise’ [from Ptg. cágado ‘tortoise’];
in SLP kávdu ‘tortoise’;
- Batavia werdoera ‘vegetables’ [from Ptg. verdura ‘greenness;
vegetables’]; in SLP verduura ‘vegetables’, in MIP værdurɐ ‘vegetables’.
Other lexemes in the Batavia/Tugu corpus may have close equivalent forms in
Southeast Asian creoles (especially Malacca) but nonetheless display certain
formal characteristics which establish a closer connection with cognates found
in the southern Indo-Portuguese varieties; e.g.:
- Tugu matjika ‘to tread’ [from Ptg. machucar? ‘to crush, to pound, to
hurt’], with a high front vowel /i/ in the first syllable; in SLP machikáá ‘to press,
to crush’; in Malacca Creole machukah ‘to crush’ (Baxter & de Silva 2004: 38);
- Tugu metay/météj ‘half’ [from Ptg. metade ‘half’], having dropped the
intervocalic /d/ of the Portuguese etymon; in SLP metááy ‘half’; in Malacca
Creole metadi (Silva & de Silva 2004: 42);
- Batavia/Tugu palmiang ‘morning’ [from Ptg. pela manhã ‘in the
morning’], with a lateral consonant /l/ in the coda of the first syllable; in SLP
pálmiyaam ‘morning’; in Malacca Creole pamiang ‘morning’ (Baxter & de
Silva 2004: 46);
- Batavia/Tugu saaudoe/saoedoe ‘saturday’ [from Ptg. sábado
‘saturday’], with the transformation of the plosive /b/ of the Portuguese etymon;
12
In Malacca Creole, the expression that contains both etymological components of these forms,
aros krua, means ‘acne’ (Baxter & de Silva 2004: 5).
13
Bemfetu in Malacca means ‘beautiful, handsome’ (Baxter & de Silva 2004: 63), therefore an
adverbial use similar to that found in Tugu and SLP would only be possible as a metaphor.
49
Hugo C. Cardoso
in SLP sáávdu ‘saturday’, in MIP sawdi ‘Saturday’ [from Ptg. sábado + dia
‘day’]; in Malacca Creole sabdu ‘Saturday’ (Baxter & de Silva 2004: 53);
- Batavia soesti ‘to happen’ [from Ptg. suceder ‘to happen’], with a
voiceless plosive /t/ in the final syllable; in SLP susta ‘to happen’; in Malacca
Creole susudeh or sudeh ‘to happen’.
However, the lexicon is not the only domain to reveal potential links between
South and Southeast Asia, when it comes to characteristics associated with
Asian-Portuguese communities. In the domain of oral and musical traditions
too, there is also a significant parallel between the two regions, namely in the
preservation of musical and dance genres known by terms cognate with
cafrinha. To this day, the Portuguese Burghers of Sri Lanka cultivate a highly
distinctive music-dance tradition known as Káfriinha, while Tugu musicians
perform the Kafrinyu/Cafrinho as part of the Keroncong Tugu musical heritage
– both traditionally sung in Creole Portuguese; according to Tan (2016: 146),
however, a musical connection between the two traditions has not been clearly
shown. Interestingly, this term recurs elsewhere in insular Southeast Asia,
including in Sumatra – where the Sikambang kapri genre and the Kaparinyo
song can be found (Kartomi 2012: 221ff, 406) – as well as the Moluccas and
Timor – which saw the establishment of the Kafrínu or Kafrinia genres,
respectively (Dalgado 1919: 474).
In conclusion, while these regional links may be tentative at this stage,
they do conspire with the evidence unearthed with respect to the use of
*[V/B]IDA-derived causal morphemes to call for a systematic assessment of the
South Asian – especially Sri Lankan – contribution to the extinct creole of
Batavia and Tugu.
Abbreviations
ART=Article; CAUS=Cause marker; COMP=Comparative marker; COMPL=Complementiser; COP=Copula; DEM=Demonstrative; DSLP=Documentation of Sri Lanka
Portuguese; EMPH=Emphatic marker; EXS=Existential; FOC=Focus marker; FUT=Future;
GEN=Genitive;
HON=Honorific;
INF=Infinitive;
IPFV=Imperfective;
IRR=Irrealis;
LOC=Locative; M=Masculine; MIP=Malabar Indo-Portuguese; NEG=Negator; NP=Noun
phrase; OBJ=Object marker; OBL=Oblique; OBLIG=Obligative; p=Plural; PFV=Perfective;
POSS=Possessive;
PRS=Present;
PST=Past;
PTCP=Participle;
Ptg.=Portuguese;
PURP=Purpose marker; Q=Question particle; REAS=Reason marker; REL=Relative particle;
s=Singular; SLP=Sri Lanka Portuguese
50
The synchrony and diachrony of an Asian-Portuguese causal morpheme
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