Invitational round | 10 points | 0.00% | Problem statement | Official solution | Tags: MorphologySemantics
We could have counted the morphemes like we did in I, but the problem here is that we don't know for sure the Maonan morphemes that correspond to each word, so we have to take the traditional route of finding a starting point and cracking it down word by word.
Here, we aren't given any clues in the problem statement. However, one of the translations is "Maonan person". Proper nouns are a good way to start because they are often phonetically translated. Here there's only one word that looks similar: 19 "ʔai.naːn", so this means "Maonan person". (There are also "nam", "ɲaːm", and "laːn", but remarkably, all of these are 3-morpheme words where the other two don't look like "mao", so they can't be it.) Worth remarking that Maonan people also have the endonym "maːu.naːn" which aligns with the Chinese name "Maonan".
If "ʔai.naːn" = "Maonan people" and "ʔai" doesn't look like "Mao", then it has to be "people". Therefore 20 "ʔai.nda.laːn" = "jealous person", where "nda.laːn" = "jealous". We need two morphemes for "jealous". Here's a trick that not everyone knows: abstract mental activities, including emotions, personalities, thoughts, etc., are often expressed using body parts. Here we have two body parts mentioned: "teeth" (in "good teeth" and "molar") and "eye" (in "tear"; "eye water" should immediately come to mind). Both seem reasonable for "jealous" (like "gritting the back teeth" and "green-eyed jealousy"). However both "nda" and "laːn" only appeared 1 other time, while "teeth" appeared 2 other times, so either "nda" or "laːn" has to be "eye". "nda" appears again in "nam.nda", while "laːn" appears again in "nɔk.ʔɛp laːn". "Eye water" is two-morpheme, so "nda" has to be "eye", while "laːn" is something else.
Now we know that 12 "nam.nda" = "tear" (eye water), so "nam" is "water". That makes 4 "dat.put.nam" be "water sprayer". So "dat.put" is "sprayer", which can be decomposed into "spray + NOM" (nominalizer). "put" only appeared 1 other time while "dat" appeared 2 other times, and "spray" only appeared 1 other time, so "put" is "spray" and "dat" is the nominalizer. The other case of "put", 18 "put.pɔk", is therefore "to spray resolutely". Now we know that "pɔk" is "resolutely", we should be able to match "to eat resolutely". Unfortunately there's no other word with "pɔk" in it. Let's leave that aside.
Since "dat" is the nominalizer, we look for other words that are perhaps nominalized verbs. We quickly find "clothing" (wear thing) and "food" (eat thing), so they match to 2 "dat.na" and 3 "dat.tan". "na" occurred 2 other times while "tan" didn't occur again. "Eat" occurred again in "to eat resolutely" and "delicious" (presumably "eating good", as it is in Chinese), so "na" = "eat" and "tan" = "wear", and 2 "dat.na" = "food" and 3 "dat.tan" = "clothing".
This means that between 1 "daːi.na" and 11 "na.nɔk", one is "to eat resolutely" and the other is "delicious". Notice how "nɔk" looks like "pɔk"—so this has to be "resolutely". Therefore 1 "daːi.na" = "delicious", 11 "na.nɔk" = "to eat resolutely", and "daːi" is "good". How does "pɔk" become "nɔk"? Notice that the two words are "put.pɔk" and "na.nɔk", so a reasonable hypothesis is that the initial consonant of "resolutely" assimilates with the verb. Indeed, this explains why in M2 we have "tan.tɔk" where "tɔk" appears nowhere else.
If "daːi" is "good", then its other occurrence, 9 "kjɔŋ.hiːu daːi", must be "good teeth". So "kjɔŋ.hiːu" = "teeth". "Teeth" can be decomposed into "tooth + PL" (plural). If "hiːu" is PL, then 9 "hiːu.gwi" is "hens". However the problem explicitly tells us that "hens" = female + chicken + PL, which is 3-morpheme, so "kjɔŋ" needs to be PL instead. Therefore "hiːu" = "tooth", 8 "hiːu.gwi" = "molar", 10 "kjɔŋ.kaːi.ni" = "hens".
"kaːi.ni" is female + chicken. The other phrases involving "chicken" are: "bad chicken", "pheasant" (explicitly said to be related to chickens). The only other phrase involving "female" is "sow (a female pig)". "kaːi" appeared 2 other times while "ni" appeared once in suffix position (7) and 3 times in prefix position (13–15). Since "kaːi.ni" has "ni" in suffix position, "kaːi" = "chicken" and "ni" = "female". This gives us 7 "dɔ.mu.ni" = "female pig" and (6 "dɔ.kaːi ɲaːm", 16 "nɔk.kaːi") = ("bad chicken", "pheasant") in some order. We don't know what "ni" means in prefix position yet.
Notice that in 6 "dɔ.kaːi ɲaːm", there's a space before "ɲaːm", suggesting that this phrase is a compound, so this is "bad chicken" (with "ɲaːm" meaning "bad"), while "nɔk.kaːi" = "pheasant". (Another clue is that if "chicken" and "pheasant" are both species of birds, then they should have the same number of morphemes, so "bad chicken" should be 3-morpheme.)
Now we know that "dɔ.kaːi" = "chicken" where "kaːi" is also "chicken", and "dɔ.mu" = "pig", it's natural to assume that "mu" is also "pig". We also have "big pig", which therefore matches to 15 "ni.mu". The "dɔ" is likely a noun class that means "domestic animal". We have another domestic animal, "dog", which is therefore 5 "dɔ.ma".
Just like "dɔ.kaːi" is "domestic chicken", "nɔk.kaːi" is therefore "wild chicken" (pheasant). 17 "nɔk.ʔɛp laːn" is therefore also some wild animal. The remaining animals are "bull (a male buffalo)", "elephant", "red mallard". However, "nɔk.ʔɛp laːn" is again a compound, so it has to be "red mallard" (we already know that the gender morpheme "ni" is not separated by spaces). Indeed, mallards are closer in appearance to chickens than elephants or buffaloes, and they are literally called "wild ducks" in Chinese. This means "ʔɛp" = "duck" and "laːn" = "red". This solves the remaining question from the start: in "nda.laːn" = "jealous", "laːn" is "red", so the phrase literally means "red-eyed".
"ni.mu" is "big pig" where "mu" means "pig", so "ni" in prefix position needs to be "big". "big" is indeed a related concept to "female"—"mother" universally has the meaning of "main"/"principal"/"origin" due to its reproductive role, and "female", "mother", "main" are all "母" in Chinese (I don't know Kra-Dai languages, but it may be related). This leaves the other two "ni"-prefixed words, 13 "ni.dzjaːŋ" and 14 "ni.gwi.dak", as "bull (a male buffalo)" and "elephant" in some order. "ni.gwi.dak" is 3-morpheme, so it's "male buffalo" where "dak" means "male" and "gwi" means "buffalo" (this means that "molar" in this language is "buffalo tooth", probably related to its strength), while "dzjaːŋ" is "elephant" (it also resembles the Chinese word "xiang" for "elephant"). Now we've completely matched all words.
Solutions for M1:
For M2:
For M3:
For M4: "dɔ" are domestic animals, "nɔk" are wild animals. To be safe we should probably pick a bird because all "nɔk" things we see are birds, so for example: wild goose (another really common bird with wild/domestic distinction in China).
As for the word formation rules: