Bilua
| Bilua | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Solomon Islands | |
| speaker | 8,000 to 9,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
||
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
- |
|
| ISO 639 -2 |
paa |
|
| ISO 639-3 | ||
Bilua is a Papuan language spoken by approximately 8,000 to 9,000 people on the island of Vella La Vella ( Solomon Islands ). The ethnic group is also called Bilua (also Mbilua) , a place Biloa .
classification
Along with Baniata , Lavukaleve and Savosavo , Bilua is one of four Papuan languages in the Solomon Islands. Together they form the Central Solomonic family , which belongs to the branch of the Yele-Solomonic languages . The other languages of the Solomon Islands that surround Bilua are to be assigned to the Austronesian languages .
Phonology
Consonantism
| bilabial | alveolar | palato-alveolar | palatal | velar | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | |
| Plosives | p | b | t | d | k | G | ||||
| Affricates | ʤ | |||||||||
| Nasals | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||
| Fricatives | β | s | z | |||||||
| Vibrants | r | |||||||||
| lateral approximants | l | |||||||||
The voiced plosives and affricates have allophones - they are prenasalized when they occur within a word between vowels . For example: / d / → [ⁿd] / V_V
The voiceless plosives and fricatives are mined when they are in front of a diphthong in the second syllable .
The allophones of / β / - [β] and [w] - occur in free variation.
Vocalism
| front | central | back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| closed | i | u | ||||
| medium | e | O | ||||
| open | a | |||||
All vowel combinations occur as diphthongs, with the second vowel being implemented as its respective allophonic variant ([ɪ], [ɛ], [ɔ] or [ʊ]).
Phonotactics
Words can consist of one to seven syllables, with the first syllable in the form (C) V and the other syllables in the form CV. If a word is monosyllabic , it must consist of one CV syllable.
Examples:
| Syllable structure | Example word |
|---|---|
| CV | lea 'tomorrow' |
| V.CV.CV | ariku 'four' |
| CV.CV.CV | inainaeko 'prepare' |
| CV.CV.CV.CV.CV.CV.CV | Kolokologanisi (male first name ) |
(Where: C = consonant , V = vowel or diphthong,. = Syllable boundary)
Only / au / and / ae / are possible as word-initial diphthongs, while inside words all except / oa / are permitted. All diphthongs are allowed in the final word.
No phonological word in Bilua can end in a consonant. Most verbs and nouns appear together with vowel-final clitics, so that this is guaranteed, otherwise the vowel [i] is inserted .
Emphasis
The first syllable of a phonological word is stressed . If the phonological and grammatical words do not match, the second syllable of the phonological word is stressed.
Reduplication
Reduplication can apply to nouns , verb stems , adjectives and numerals in the bilua and in some cases change the part of speech .
The reduplicated form is formed by repeating the first two syllables of the base and then consists of two phonological words (the reduplicated part and the base) that together make up a grammatical word. Since the reduplicate consists of two phonological words, the first syllable is stressed in both parts.
Example:
| Non-duplicated form | Reduplicated shape |
|---|---|
| [# ˈ to.ru.ru ] (egg, noun) | [# ˈ to.ru ## ˈ to.ru.ru #] (round, adjective) |
Where # = phonological word limit . = Syllable boundary and = main accent.
Reduplication can increase the valence of a verb.
intonation
There are special intonation patterns for declarative clauses and interrogative clauses as well as for imperatives .
Declarative clauses typically have a falling intonation. However, if a movement is coordinated from several movements , all parts have a rising or constant and the last part a falling intonation line. The boundary between individual movements is often blurred, so that two movements are intoned as one.
Questions have a rising intonation and imperatives a constant intonation.
The three types of sentences have the same grammatical form and must be differentiated, among other things, by the intonation pattern.
Morphology and syntax
Bilua has a low preference for suffixes in inflection morphology (for example, tense markers suffixing).
The relative word order of subject and predicate (or verb) is not strictly regulated, but the relative word order of verb and object is always VO. The word order in genitive , numeral and adjective- noun constructions is Gen-N, Num-N and Adj-N, respectively.
Parts of speech
Bilua has a number of parts of speech :
- Nouns
- Verbs
- Adjectives
- pronoun
- Adverbs
- Quantifier
- Conjunctions
- and some more particles .
Nouns
Most of the nouns in Bilua do not have a grammatically marked number or gender . Words that denote relationships and names have a gender that follows their natural gender ( sex ).
They can be divided into two groups: locative and non-locative nouns. Locative nouns inherently carry the locative and noun phrases whose head (see phrase ) they are can appear as locative adjuncts without a locative post position . Non-locative noun phrases, on the other hand, require such a post position if they are to be adjoint.
The nouns can be divided further: lokativische nouns form three subgroups - place names, relational nouns and the word koi 'place' - non-lokativische nouns also form three subgroups - personal names, kinship terms and important for everyday nouns ( common nouns ) , such as pade 'house' or baerebaere 'friend'. The words paint 'marriage' and ngavi 'self' form their own group within the nouns.
Common nouns
Common nouns are the largest group within nouns. They can be divided into temporal and non-temporal and differ in that temporal common nouns can act as temporal adjuncts.
| Temporal common nouns | Non-temporal common nouns |
|---|---|
| pesio 'language' | taku 'time' |
| peuru 'village, home' | sabere 'year' |
| kana 'war' | vikal 'morning' |
Kinship terms
There are again two groups - one with an inherent gender and one without. The following table lists all related terms of the Bilua:
| word | meaning |
|---|---|
| niania | Mother, sister of one parent, sister of the wife |
| mummy | Father, husband's brother, father's brother |
| father | Mother's brother |
| tanala | husband |
| tanama | wife |
| word | meaning |
|---|---|
| taite | Grandmother or grandfather |
| apakora | Brother's child |
| mabuzu | Grandchild |
| meqora | Child, sister's child, husband's brother, wife's sister |
| mani | Wife's brother, husband's sister |
| ravaza | other member of the in-laws (different from mani ) |
| kaka | older sister or older brother |
| visi | younger sister or younger brother |
The word buabua 'hemorrhoids' can also be used as a kinship term - it means last born child.
Kaka and visi can be used as modifiers, they simply mean 'older' and 'younger'.
The terms without inherent gender are defined more precisely by the adjectives reko 'feminine' and lasive 'masculine'.
Verbs
The verbs of the Bilua are divided into intransitive and transitive . They differ in their ability to consume an object critique; this is not possible for intarnative verbs, while it is mandatory for transitive verbs.
Most verbs have an intransitive and a transitive variant that share a sound sequence and are marked by the suffixes -t (intransitive) and -e (transitive). This is just a tendency, there are also some verbs that don't follow this pattern, it's not a derivative morphology . The intransitive / transitive forms have historically developed from the same root , but are now fully lexicalized independently of one another .
Adjectives
In the bilua, adjectives do not directly modify the head of the phrase ; H. the noun, but instead form a modifier phrase with a pronominal enclitic, which then functions as a modifier of the noun phrase .
The noun koi ′ place ′ can be modified directly.
Differences and Similarities with the Oceanic Languages
Bilua differs from the Oceanic languages by the following criteria:
- a masculine-feminine distinction in the 3rd person singular in pronouns ,
- Tense and mode are marked by clitics , while oceanic languages generally mark this by free morphemes ,
- in possessive constructions the owner precedes the possessed.
However, there are also similarities:
- inclusive-exclusive distinction
- Reduplication
- Bilua, like Oceanic languages typically, follows an accusative alignment in most respects .
Others
Bilua has five dialects spoken in the different regions of the island of Vella La Vella. However, the dialect of the Bilua region is considered to be the standard variety and thus gives the language its name.
The Roviana language used to be the lingua franca in the region, so many older people also speak Roviana. Today Solomon Islands Pidgin has taken on this role: It is used, for example, at church services or in school lessons. Marriages are often mixed in the sense that the partners come from different islands (and thus speak different (mother) languages ). These factors strongly influence Bilua and it can be considered threatened .
literature
- M. Haspelmath, MS Dryer, D. Gil, B. Comrie, H.-J. Bibiko (Ed.): The World Atlas of Language Structures. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005, ISBN 0-19-925591-1 .
- Kazuko Obata: A grammar of Bilua. Pacific Linguistics, Canberra 2003, ISBN 0-85883-531-2 .
- ethnologue.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ joshuaproject.net
- ↑ Kazuko Obata: A grammar of Bilua. Pacific Linguistics, Canberra 2003, p. 36.