You may be asking, “What is an intransitive verb?” It is a verb that has no object, such as to die, to sleep or to go. Shilluk has a single word for concepts that require a phrase in English, such as run with quick steps, to sprout after being cut down, to shout once loud and long then be quiet, and the sound a fish makes coming to surface to gulp air. Collecting these verbs was a challenge, but analyzing them has been painful.
My colleague and I started working on this 13 years ago. We thought we had the right answer and were about to publish the article when we discovered that we didn’t have the right answer. Another colleague wanted us to publish what we had, and then he could criticize it. That didn’t sit well with us, so since then, I’ve been trying to find the time to work on these verbs. In fact, I had to retire from my job to have adequate time to work on this project. Unfortunately, I got involved in a number of activities as soon as I retired, and am only now catching up with myself and meeting my obligations.
So, what am I doing to these verbs? First, I had to get them recorded by a mother-tongue speaker. I did that in one computer program, and then had to transfer those files to another program that would allow me to see the sound waves and the pitch of the voice.
“And WHY are you going to all this trouble?” you may ask. Well, we believe that there are classes of intransitive verbs, and those classes are defined by the tone patterns in different forms of the verb – like past or future tense. We are looking at Past Tense, Perfect Aspect, Imperfect Aspect (like is going) and Future Tense. You may still be asking why I’m doing this, but let’s face it, that’s what descriptive linguists do.
Having carefully looked at what the vowel in each word is doing, I now find that I need to look at the tone on the whole syllable. That may change my findings somewhat, but we’ll see. As It looked like I was nearing the end of my quest, I now find, I’m back at the beginning. Well, at least I can take comfort in the fact that at this rate, I will never be without something to do.