A grammar and vocabulary of the Dusun language
A.L. Gossens published this descriptive grammar and English-to-Dusun (Kadazan) vocabulary in 1924 in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, providing one of the earliest systematic linguistic accounts of the language spoken by the Kadazan people of the interior of British North Borneo. The work combines a concise morphological and syntactic outline with an extensive alphabetical lexicon, reflecting the colonial-era practice of documenting indigenous languages for administrative and missionary purposes.
Summary
The grammar section, occupying roughly the first ten pages of the article, lays out the phonological, nominal, and verbal systems of what Gossens terms “Kadazan” (also called Dusun). He notes the absence of a definite or indefinite article, the derivation of nouns from adjectives through the prefix ka/ko and suffix -an, and the formation of agentive and locative nouns from verb roots via reduplication or modification of the perfect tense. The verbal system is the most elaborately treated: Gossens distinguishes active, passive, and deponent voices, with the passive noted as more frequently used in practice. Tenses are marked morphologically—the past by the infix -in- after the first letter or syllable, the future by the particle may, and the perfect by the prefix noko before the imperative stem. The imperative is formed by replacing the initial m with p and adding the suffix -o or -no. A conjunctive mood, marked by the particle da, expresses conditional or optative meaning, while the prefix mingko with syllable reduplication conveys desire or inclination.
The remainder of the article—approximately 120 pages—is an English-to-Dusun dictionary arranged alphabetically from A to Z. It covers the full range of everyday vocabulary: kinship terms, body parts, flora and fauna, agricultural practices, domestic objects, trade and commerce, religion (including Christian terminology such as evangelio, Ecclesia, and Christus Pongopuhi), and colonial administrative concepts (e.g., magistrate, custom-house, police). The lexicon reveals a language in active contact with Malay, Arabic, and English, with numerous loanwords integrated into the vocabulary. Gossens occasionally notes dialectal variation, particularly between hill and lowland speakers, as in his remark that hill people pronounce r more strongly and insert it where lowland speakers (at Papar) do not (p. 94).
The work is notable for its attention to the productive derivational morphology of Kadazan, particularly the way locative nouns are formed from verbs by replacing -an with -o (e.g., kapatazo ‘place of death’ from matay ‘die’), and the distinction between prospective and retrospective locatives marked by the infix -in- (e.g., kinosusuvan ‘place where somebody has been born’ versus kosusuvo ‘place of birth’).
Key Findings
- The language has no article; specificity is marked by the demonstratives iti (‘this’), eno (‘that’), and the relative pronoun e (‘which’), while the honorific prefix zi precedes personal names and titles of respect (p. 88).
- Gender is not inflected but indicated lexically by the words kusay (male) and ondu (female), with additional terms for full-grown animals: sangahan (bull), ontohuan (boar), tandaha (cock), maganak (hen) (p. 89).
- The past tense is formed by the infix -in- after the first letter or syllable of the verb root: tumanud → tuminanud (‘I followed’); mongoy → minongoy (‘I fetched’) (p. 91).
- The perfect tense is constructed by placing noko before the imperative stem and dropping the imperative suffix: manganu → panganu → noko panganu ouno (‘I have taken’) (p. 92).
- The passive voice is more commonly used than the active; most verbs take the suffix -on, with euphonic changes such as a → o before the suffix (e.g., tumanud → tonudon) and final -ay/-oy changing -y to -z (e.g., sumakay → sakazon) (pp. 94–95).
- The vocabulary section contains approximately 4,000–5,000 headwords, documenting a language with substantial Malay, Arabic, and English lexical borrowing, particularly in domains of religion, administration, and material culture (pp. 96–220).
Conclusion
Gossens’ grammar and vocabulary stands as a foundational reference for Kadazan linguistics, capturing the language at a moment of intensifying colonial contact in British North Borneo. Its principal historical value lies in documenting the morphological productivity of Kadazan verb and noun derivation, the structural asymmetry between active and passive voices, and the extent of lexical borrowing from Malay and European languages—evidence of the sociolinguistic pressures the language was already undergoing by the 1920s.
Context
- Gossens was a Dutch national serving in British North Borneo, likely in an administrative or missionary capacity; his choice to publish in the MBRAS journal and his inclusion of Christian and colonial administrative terminology in the vocabulary reflect the institutional context of colonial language documentation.
- The work draws on direct field observation in the Papar district and surrounding areas of the Kadazan heartland, with occasional comparative notes on hill-dialect pronunciation, making it one of the earliest texts to acknowledge internal dialectal variation within Kadazan.