Erlewine, Michael Yoshitaka, accepted with revisions.
“Toba Batak manang: Notes on its uses and form.”
Studies in Language.
This paper offers a description of the multifunctional morpheme manang in Toba Batak (Austronesian; Sumatra) — as the disjunctor, the interrogative complementizer, and a particle forming wh-based polarity items — contextualized within the broader semantic and typological literatures on such meaning expressions. I then highlight a puzzle regarding its form: the form manang diverges substantially from its functional equivalent, barang, as described in H. N. Van der Tuuk’s pioneering grammar of Toba Batak (Van der Tuuk 1864–1867). I argue that consideration of this historical change supports the analysis of these various uses of manang as a case of functional polysemy, reflecting a common conceptual core.