Semantic Analysis of Rice Terms in Mpur Language
Keywords:
Rice, Mpur Language, Bird’s Head Language, Lexical Semantics, Componential AnalysisAbstract
The study focuses on describing the meanings of rice terms in Mpur, an isolated language of West Papuan language group of the Bird’s Head of Papua. The data used in the paper were collected from two fluent native speakers of Mpur language by using elicitation technique with an elicitation tool. The tool is designed in the form of a question list to extract the meanings of rice terms from the native speakers’ mind. In analyzing the data, componential analysis and lexical semantic analysis supporting by morpho-phonological approach were used. Componential analysis and lexical semantics were used to reveal the meaning of each rice term and the components of meaning they have. Meanwhile, morpho-phonological approach was used to describe how the terms (words) for rice were formed. The result shows that the term is derived Austronesian languages spoken around the Bird’s Head area. Historically, Mpur people had a contact with Austronesian groups of people in the past. Morpho-phonologically, the general term for rice in Mpur is constructed through compounding morphological process with epenthesis and elision phonological adaptions. The study also found that there are four types of rice in Mpur. They are kamerkan, jasrik, jakun and waranda. The names for the types undergo three morphological processes of word formation, namely compounding, borrowing, and blending. Semantically, the naming systems are given based on the shape, color, size and feature of the grains. In short, the rice terms in Mpur had undergone some morpho-phonological processes to obtain their meanings as they are now.
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