Invitational round | 15 points | 31.48% | Problem statement | Official solution | Tags: Semantics
We look at each language one by one. Waray has 4 demonstratives: adtu, adi, itu, ini. Obviously, they are all two-part: ad-tu, ad-(n)i, i-tu, i-ni. We can list out all scenarios of each demonstrative. I use the notation "X→Y: Z" to mean "the speaker is at X, the listener is at Y, and the object is Z".
| ad- | i- | |
|---|---|---|
| -tu | A→L: E a standing man D→J: H a boy sitting in a chair J→C: L some cloth G→L: A a wooden bench D→H: C a black ladder E→B: C a sleeping boy A→G: C a woman lying in a bed L→C: K a green hose D→G: B a blue shirt F→G: I a black shoe E→D: K a man sitting on the floor B→K: D a tree stump | L→E: F a standing girl L→H: I a red skirt H→J: K a stick lying on the ground |
| -ni | B→K: B a blue boat E→L: F a black widow spider | H→I: H a red ball E→F: F a tortilla |
Notice how all cells except the "adtu" are very few in number, so we want to find some commonalities in the "i-" and "-ni" column/row, and treat the "adtu" cell as the "otherwise" condition. In the "i-" column, the listener and the object can only be one of the three pairs: (E, F), (H, I), (J, K). These pairs are all extremely close on the map. Indeed, these three pairs never appear in the "ad-" column, so "i-" is used for something close to the listener, while "ad-" is used for something far from the listener. Inspired by that, when we look at the "-ni" row, we see that the speaker and object can only be (E, F) or identical—so again, "-ni" is used for something close to the speaker, while "-tu" is used for something far from the speaker. This explains why there are so many "adtu": most objects are far from both the speaker and the listener. "Close" is defined as either at the same point or the EF, HI, JK pairs only.
a. C→A: D; D not close to either. adtu
d. D→L: G; G not close to either. adtu
i. D→E: F; F close to listener. itu
l. K→H: K; K close to speaker. adi
n. G→G: G; G close to both. ini
Buru has 6 demonstratives: aki, lawe, naa, pao, dae, saka.
| aki | dae | lawe | naa | pao | saka |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A→L: E a standing man L→H: I a red skirt G→L: A a wooden bench H→J: K a stick lying on the ground D→E: F a black pot | L→E: F a standing girl D→H: C a black ladder E→B: C a sleeping boy | D→J: H a boy sitting in a chair F→G: I a black shoe | B→K: B a blue boat H→I: H a red ball E→F: F a tortilla K→H: K a tree | J→C: L some cloth A→G: C a woman lying in a bed B→K: D a tree stump | L→C: K a green hose D→G: B a blue shirt |
By O2, we know that "Only one property is encoded by both Waray and Buru", so we look for a demonstrative that encodes distance to the speaker or listener. This is "naa", for which all objects are close to the speaker. So "naa" is used for something close to the speaker, and the other five are used for something far from the speaker.
O2: distance of object to speaker
Now we focus on the other 5 demonstratives. They don't seem to have commonalities in their distance to the listener, neither do they have commonalities in the nature of the objects. But Buru being spoken in Indonesia naturally makes us think there's something to do with the river. In the map, we have 5 points: A, B, G, J, K off the river, and 7 points: C, E, F, D, H, I, L along the river, in that order. We have A, B, C, D, H, I on the right bank and E, F, G, J, K, L on the left bank. Below, I use ⬅️ and ➡️ to indicate the side of the river, and ✅ and ❌ to indicate along/off the river.
| aki | dae | lawe | pao | saka |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A❌➡️→L✅⬅️: E✅⬅️ L✅⬅️→H✅➡️: I✅➡️ G❌⬅️→L✅⬅️: A❌➡️ H✅➡️→J❌⬅️: K❌⬅️ D✅➡️→E✅⬅️: F✅⬅️ | L✅⬅️→E✅⬅️: F✅⬅️ D✅➡️→H✅➡️: C✅➡️ E✅⬅️→B❌➡️: C✅➡️ | D✅➡️→J❌⬅️: H✅➡️ F✅⬅️→G❌⬅️: I✅➡️ | J❌⬅️→C✅➡️: L✅⬅️ A❌➡️→G❌⬅️: C✅➡️ B❌➡️→K❌⬅️: D✅➡️ | L✅⬅️→C✅➡️: K❌⬅️ D✅➡️→G❌⬅️: B❌➡️ |
The speaker is always on the bank for "dae", "lawe", and "saka", and always off river for "pao". The listener is always off river for "lawe". The object is always on the bank for "dae", "lawe", and "pao", and always off river for "saka". There's a clear distinction based on speaker and object positions, while the effect of the listener's position is less clear. Remember that off-river positions are higher than the riverbank due to the mountains, so "pao" and "saka" are used for "down" and "up" respectively (object relative to the speaker).
However, we also have "A❌➡️→L✅⬅️: E✅⬅️" and "H✅➡️→J❌⬅️: K❌⬅️" for which "aki" is used instead of either "pao" or "saka". Looking closer, in "pao" and "saka", the object is always on the same side of the river as the speaker, so the mountain is the only relevant landmark, while in "aki", the object is on the opposite side of the river as the speaker, so the river is the relevant landmark instead. The same holds for the other three "aki" cases: the speaker is on the opposite side of the river as the object. Therefore, "aki" means "across the river", and is picked in priority to the up/down rule.
However, we have "E✅⬅️→B❌➡️: C✅➡️" that uses "dae" and "F✅⬅️→G❌⬅️: I✅➡️" that uses "lawe", even though the object is on the opposite side. Notice in both cases, the listener is away from the river. Therefore, the only account I've come up for this is that when the listener is away from the river but the speaker and object are both near the river, one stops using "aki". I'm almost sure this isn't correct, though. Maybe it's a problem bug. It doesn't affect filling the blanks though. Anyway, for "dae" and "lawe", notice that in "dae" the object is always upstream from the speaker, while in "lawe" the object is always downstream from the speaker. So "dae" and "lawe" are used for "upstream" and "downstream" respectively. To recap, pick demonstratives in the following priority order:
b. C✅➡️→A❌➡️: D✅➡️; D downstream from C. lawe
e. D✅➡️→L✅⬅️: G❌⬅️; G across from D. aki
h. E✅⬅️→L✅⬅️: F✅⬅️; F close to E. naa
k. E✅⬅️→D✅➡️: K❌⬅️; K upward from E. saka
o. G❌⬅️→G❌⬅️: G❌⬅️; G close to G. aki
Therefore, for O3, if one sails downstream to reach "far away", then "far away" is the "downstream" demonstrative: lawe.
This solution has been verified by Section 10.1 of The Buru language of eastern Indonesia (Grimes 1991), including O3.
Finally for Seri. It has 12 demonstratives:
Obviously, we can break them down into 2 parts: him-/hip-/ti- and -com/-cop/-quih/-quij. Then, himquihtim = him + quih, hizquih = hip + quih, taquih = ti + quih. Now we do the same as Waray.
| him- | hip- | ti- | |
|---|---|---|---|
| -com | G→L: A a wooden bench E→B: C a sleeping boy A→G: C a woman lying in a bed | B→K: B a blue boat | H→J: K a stick lying on the ground |
| -cop | A→L: E a standing man D→H: C a black ladder | G→G: G a green lamppost | L→E: F a standing girl G→G: G a green lamppost |
| -quih | J→C: L some cloth L→C: K a green hose C→A: D a piece of paper | E→F: F a tortilla | L→H: I a red skirt E→F: F a tortilla |
| -quij | D→J: H a boy sitting in a chair E→D: K a man sitting on the floor B→K: D a tree stump | H→I: H a red ball E→L: F a black widow spider | H→I: H a red ball |
First notice that all the "close to speaker" cases are in the "hip-" column. However, 3 out of 5 of these can also take "ti-". Then, notice that these 3 cases also have the listener close to the object, and so do the other cases of "ti-". So "ti-" is used for something close to the listener. When both the speaker and the listener are close to the object, one can use either. "him-" is therefore used for something far from both the speaker and the listener.
Now look at the rows. If the prefixes already encode distance to the speaker/listener, then the suffixes have to encode something else about the object itself. Notice we have instances of "lying" in "-com", "standing" in "-cop", and "sitting" in "-quij", so it may have something to do with posture. Indeed, "bench" and "boat" are both horizontally extending things; "ladder" and "lamppost" are both vertically extending things; "stump", "widow spider", and "ball" are round and do not have a clear orientation. The remaining group "-quih" contains "cloth", "hose", "paper", "tortilla", and "skirt", which are all flat things that extend in two dimensions.
c. D→G: B a blue shirt; B is far from both, shirt is flat. himquihtim
f. D→L: G a candlestick; G is far from both, candlestick is vertically extending. himcop
g. F→G: I a black shoe; I is far from both, shoe is horizontally extending. himcom
j. D→E: F a black pot; F is close to listener, pot is round. tiquij
m. K→H: K a tree; K is close to speaker, tree is vertically extending. hipcop
As for O4: hipquij for a sitting person close to the speaker, ticom for a person lying on the ground close to the listener, and himcop for a standing person far from both.