THE PUNCTUAL AND SEGMENTATIVE ASPECTS OF VERBS IN HOPI LANGUAGE

“Language is a guide to social reality”- Sapir (1949)
 Benjamin Lee Whorf, a great scholar to the new science of linguistics marked the inter-relationship between human thinking and human language. Thus, a new concept “Linguistic Relativity and Linguistic Determinism” known as “Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis” was introduced based on the principle of relativity which states that every individual experiences the world based on the language structure which they use. Whorf’s interest rests on the fact about language being the vehicle of meaning. For him linguistics is the fundamental theory of thinking.

The Greeks’ thought of language to be universal, where an expression could be conveyed in any language without the loss of meaning was challenged by Whorf. He said that a language determines our appreciation of the Cosmos. Edmund S. Glenn of the State Department did an experiment to check the concept difference due to language change and concluded that the basic concept of the thought is lost with every language change. It is not surprising to note that people speaking a variety of Indo European languages may have a much wide variety of words among them like Hopi Indian language and English. Here the concept of linguistic relativity lies.
The Hopi unlike English uses the term “slosh” instead of “wave” which is similar to the English word “Splatter” having a connection to the wave motion in physics meaning movement of the mass. The Hopi thought about events included both time and space without getting along with the tense for verbs and permits to think in terms of space-time.
Hopi language is rich in verbs for its expressive development of voices and verbal aspects. There are total nine voices and nine aspects in Hopi Language, but I will focus only on two- “The punctual and segmentative aspects”. Hopi does not contrast between completion and incompletion of actions rather its aspects formalize varieties between point-locus and extent-locus of phenomenon indifferently in time or space or both. The verbs belong to seven conjugations having a bit different inflectional system. The simplex of class-1 verb is a root of the form CVCV, in the third person singular intransitive voice, punctual aspect and present-past tense. The segmentative aspect is made by final reduplication of this root along with the durative suffix “-fa” which changes the meaning of the character. The event which the root means a point in the punctual aspect becomes a series of continual interrelated segments of a large phenomenon whose extension is usually in one dimension. Examples for the nature of such change- (ref.)

• ha'rl- “it is bent in rounded angle” hari 'rita- “making successive rounded angle”
• ho" ci- “it forms a sharp acute angle” hoci’cita-“it is zigzag”
• pa" ci- “it is notched” paci’cita- ‘it is serrated”
• ca'mi-“it is slashed inward from the edge” cami'mita- “it is fringed”

The phenomenon in these examples is such that they require a rigid or semi rigid substance for its manifestation. The punctual intransitive has the character of a passive and the segmentative shows the event multiplied along one dimension of space.
Certain phenomenon are capable of demonstrating in both rigid and mobile substance, defined in terms of a type of contour like ta’ho meaning “one wave like curve” whereas taho’hota, a mobile substance meaning “forming wave pattern”.
If the phenomenon referred by the stem is one occurring from a type of force in physics known as torque (propensity to create rotation) showing that the substance needs at least a minimum degree of rigidity and still capable of certain motions relative to other bodies a single displacement referred as punctual will be a single oscillation based on the rate of freedom applied in the root meaning while when this effect continues it becomes a series of oscillation and may or may not involve an advance through space at that time, becoming the segmentative meaning. Examples- (ref.)
wa'ya- makes a waving shake
ro'ya- makes a turn or twist
ri 'ya- makes aquick spin
ta'ya- makes a racking shake
It is noted that most of these movements are referred by the stem with “-ya” finally which corresponds to English durative denoting rotative motion like waya'yata-“it is shaking”, roya'yata- “it is rotating”.
Another phenomenon is which marks a sudden disturbance particularly momentary in nature related to an oscillated phenomenon occurring in the natural world as a swift series of such disturbances. Hopi employs the punctual and segmentative of the same stem unlike English. Examples of such phenomenon from inanimate and animate nature are – (ref.)

•  ‘ti 'li’: “it receives a slight jar” ‘tili 'lita’: “it is vibrating
• ‘wi 'wa’: “he trips over something” ‘wiwa wata’: “he is stumbling along” 
• ‘hἐro’: “he gives out a sudden hollow gurgle from within” ‘hἐro’rota’: “he is snoring” 

Such verbs are also used for rhythmical movement of body parts - (ref.)
‘w'i" ki’: “he takes a step without moving from place” ‘wἲkἴkἴta’: “he is doing steps”
‘yo" ko’: “he nods his head once” ‘yoko 'kota’: “he is nodding”
The phenomenon where at a point the disturbances in a subtle medium are scientifically grouped as gaseous gives little or no evidence of motion or space extension and the segmentative denotes only time pulsation.
‘rἳ’pi’: “it gives a flash” ‘rἴpi’pita’: “it is ” (ref.)
‘ˀἴwi’: “it flames out” ‘ˀἴwi’wita’: “it is flaming” (ref.)
Finally there is a group of events where segmentative is not applied- “mental”, “emotional” or “psychological experience”. It is concerned only with the world of external observations.

Here, we see how language changes ones view of the world. Language is thought as a means of expression and not as the arrangement of sensory experience which leads to a particular word order, a segment which is expressible by a symbolic means which that language uses. We see that Hopi is the language which can scientifically express all sorts of versatile events of the nature. The Hopi aspect contrasts upon their verb forms forces the language to notice the vibratory events and encourages them to find names and identify phenomenon. Therefore every language has their own way of looking at the world which is unique in their own way.