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Is there verb suppletion for participant person?

Summary

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

Procedure

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

Examples

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

Tainae is coded 1.

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

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

Further reading

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

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

References

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 Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea: Unpublished typescript, The Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Related Features

Features on suppletion:

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

Features GB089-GB090 coding indexing patterns:

• GB089 Can the S argument be indexed by a suffix/enclitic on the verb in the simple independent clause?
• GB090 Can the S argument be indexed by a prefix/proclitic on the verb in the simple independent clause?
• GB091 Can the A argument be indexed by a suffix/enclitic on the verb in the simple independent clause?
• GB092 Can the A argument be indexed by a prefix/proclitic on the verb in the simple independent clause?
• GB093 Can the P argument be indexed by a suffix/enclitic on the verb in the simple independent clause?
• GB094 Can the P argument be indexed by a prefix/proclitic on the verb in the simple independent clause?

Patron

Alena Witzlack-Makarevich