Kuot
| Kuot | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
New Ireland | |
| speaker | 2,400 (as of 2002) | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Official status | ||
| Official language in | - | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-3 |
account |
|
Kuot is the only non-Austronesian language spoken by around 1,500 speakers on the island of New Ireland , Papua New Guinea . Kuot is nowhere an official language.
classification
Kuot is an isolated language with primarily agglutinating morphology. Similar to Irish or Welsh , the syntax has a VSO position . Classification in a language family is difficult because there are no real similarities to other languages. The name "Kuot" itself no longer has any meaning for the speakers, it used to be a kind of exclamation that expressed surprise. "Kuot" was first used as a language name by Edgar Walden around 1911.
Geographical distribution
The language area for Kuot is limited to about 10 villages on the east-west coast of the island of New Ireland in north-central Papua New Guinea. With a population of around 2,400, around 1,500 speakers are fluent in Kuot (as of 2002).
Dialects and sociolects
All Kuot speakers grow up bilingual and also speak Tok Pisin . On the east coast, Kuot sometimes mixes with the languages Nalik and Nochi in the neighboring villages. The Madak language area borders in the south.
Tok Pisin is spoken a lot, but there are some speakers who only speak Kuot within the village. Tok Pisin's influence is growing. As a language, Kuot is potentially threatened with extinction. The language is still actively used and has fully developed. It is used by institutions that do not only concern the village and the community context.
There are different phonetic realizations between North and South Kuot, which can be seen for example with / t / and / r / depending on their position in the syllable structure. It can therefore also speak of a northern and southern dialect of the Kuot.
Phonetics and Phonology
Kuot has 13 consonants and 6 vowels .
Consonants
The allophones for the respective consonants are in the brackets directly behind.
| labial | dental / alveolar | velar | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | stl. | sth. | |
| Plosives | p (~ v / β ) | b (~ mb) | t (~ r ) | d (~ nd) | k (~ ɣ ) | g (~ ŋ g) |
| Nasals | m | n ( l ) | ŋ | |||
| Trill | r | |||||
| Fricatives | f | s | ||||
| Lateral | l | |||||
Basically, it can be said that older speakers generally have an increased prenasal pronunciation, especially in the initial sounds. The intervowel occurrence of / p / and / k / leads to lenization (consonant softening) and voicing . However, this does not apply to the formation of double consonants due to syntax. The lenization rule occurs universally for all word boundaries, except for child-directed speech: [rais] (Tok Pisin) → [tais]) and for some verb stems, as well as CV reduplications at the beginning of the syllable.
The voiceless stops are unaspirated and are not finalized. They can be in all positions, / t / is an exception and is implemented at the end of the syllable like / r / → [n], pronounced as [r] within the syllable. However, / t / and / r / do not have allophone status.
The voiced stops can optionally be prenasalized (usually in the intervocalic position) and generally do not appear at the end of the syllable.
Nasals can appear in any position. / n /, / l / and / r / are not differentiated in all contexts. This applies, for example, to intervowels in the middle of a syllable for / l / and / n /.
The fricatives are voiceless in all positions and supposedly did not belong to the phoneme inventory of the early Kuot. They can become Bilabailen . / f / and / s / apparently came into the Kuot language later through loan words from Tok Pisin. This is evidenced, for example, by Swadesh's Words List. It is noticeable that there are very few words with / f / and / s / in Kuot. They only occur in open classes and not in closed classes, such as verb class II. Both phonemes are not involved in the formation of grammatical morphemes .
Laterals are never palatized or velarized and always retain the same quality, such as [n] at the end of a syllable. The trill, on the other hand, never occurs at the beginning of a syllable.
Vowels
| front | central | back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| closed |
i |
u |
||||
| medium |
e |
ə |
o |
|||
| open |
a |
|||||
Source:
The Schwa sound / ə / can appear as an allophone of / a /, / e / and / o /. For example, / a / becomes the Schwa sound / ɐ / in unstressed syllables. Syllables with the phoneme / ə / are mostly stressed, whereby the position in the syllable is not decisive.
/ i / and / u / together with another vowel become a sliding vowel . There are very few minimal pairs in which the vowel length is meaningful.
In the Kuot, people also speak of “on and off glide vowels”. These are not diphthongs or a combination of a vowel and a floating vowel. Usually there are no more than three vowels per syllable. In Kuot there is a combination of diphthong and vowel, these are stressed depending on the syllable. Diphthongs are articulated like a sound.
Stress and tone system
The longest stem of a word in Kuot can contain up to six syllables, there are many possible syllable combinations. The standard combinations are V, CV, VC and CVC. (V = vowel; C = consonant).
Kuot is lexically determined and there are no fixed rules of accentuation. The pitch is mainly used to intonation to show and is not a difference in meaning. The emphasis on the other hand differs in the duration of the pronunciation. The pitch plays a role, for example, for negation sentences, at the end of a sentence and for yes-no questions.
particularities
The bilabial trill is also used to express “no” or “I don't know”. In contrast, the ingressive pulmonary air flow for a "yes". To correct parts of sentences or words, a glottal stop followed by "again" expressions is sometimes used. When an adult speaks to children (child-directed speech), the first syllable of the verb is often left out. Morphologically, this position mostly marks the person (Sg / Pl). All the phonemes needed for Kuot are also available in Tok Pisin.
grammar
Kuot is a VSO language with an agglutinating character. The sentence is left-headed in the Kuot. In the NP ( noun phrase ) the noun is the head and is usually right-centered. In predicate phrases, the verb is the head, with the verb stem usually forming the last constituent.
Kuot is head-marked on the sentence level. The grammatical roles are marked with a congruence affix ( cross-referencing ) on the verb. The word order is crucial in order to indicate grammatical roles when two NPs are present. There are no case markings for nouns. Prepositions mostly match the following noun. Prepositional phrases are also considered head marking.
The dependent in the NP is marked by an "agreement". In the singular, the gender is only shown on the dependent and not on the noun itself. In the case of non-singular, the number is explicitly marked on the noun.
Word classes
In Kuot there are only two open word classes: the nouns and the verb class I. In addition, Kuot can be divided into four lexical classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Agreement , indexing and cross-referencing always refer to the same categories based on person, gender and number marking. Agreement is used for the relationships within the NP, so that, for example, a demonstrative in the attribute position uses a match marker with the head noun. The indexing is used for cases in which the word does not show the category syntactically within the range of the noun. For prepositions and possessives , for example, the category of the noun is indexed. Cross-referencing is used for pronominal markers on the predicate (verb or adjective), which thus references the congruence for a noun in the argument role.
Verbs
In Kuot there are three intransitive verb classes (I, II and III), which can be combined with the verbs of the four transitive classes (I, IIa, Iib and III). Many tribes can be either transitive or intransitive. With ambitransitive verbs, the types S = O (subject = object) and S = A (subject = agent ) can occur in all verb classes.
Verbs in Kuot are characterized by the very different use of cross-referencing ( congruence ) affixes and clitics on the verb. Some verbs require subject affixes or enclitics and object affixes, which can occur in different orders.
| Intransitive | Transitive | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| I. | Subject enclitics
Object prefix |
pasei = oŋ
talk = 3mS 'he talks' |
a-pasei = oŋ
3mO-talk = 3mS 'he talks of him / it (m)' or 'he tells him' |
| IIa. | Subject prefix
Object prefix in the 3rd person |
u-libǝ
3mS-cry 'he cries' |
u-alibǝ-o
3mS-cry.for-3fO 'he cries for it (f) / her [mourns]' |
| Object prefix in the 1st / 2nd person |
to-u-alibǝ
1sO-3mS-cry.for 'he cries for me' |
||
| IIb. | Subject prefix
Object prefix |
u-lo
3mS talk 'he talks' |
au-lo
3mO-3mS talk 'he tells him' |
| III. | Subject infix
Object prefix |
uan-u-lǝ
wait-3mS-stm 2 'he waits' |
a-uan-u-lǝ
3mO-wait-3mS-stm 2 'he waits for him (/it.m)' |
| adj. | Subject suffix in the 3rd person |
kan-i
big-3m 'he (it.m) is big' |
- |
| Subject prefix in the 1st / 2nd person |
to-kan-i 1s-big-sg
'I (m / f) am big' |
- |
noun
The noun typically forms the head of the NP, but it can also be added to a limited extent. The gender / number category of the noun determines the agreement within the NP. The person, on the other hand, indicates in possessives and prepositions. There are also forms of congruence morphemes on verbs and adjectives.
More word classes
The same form of marking applies to adjectives as to verbs, with the difference that the future tense is marked with the extra morpheme 'ba' . The formation takes place as with other non-verbal predicates.
Adverbs appear preferably in the position after the first constituent sentence or phrase, but are generally relatively free. Adverbs of time, locative and directional sentence constituents are often topicalized .
Personal pronouns usually also form an NP, but sometimes also in appended constructions. They cannot be complements or additions to most prepositions. Very rarely do personal pronouns appear in the subject or object position. They are typically topicalized.
In a possessive phrase, the possessive NP comes first, followed by a possessive marker, which in turn is followed by a possessive NP. The NPs are not marked in any other way. The marker has a pronominalizing effect if there is no Possessor NP. This applies mainly to first and second person possessives .
syntax
The minimal sentence in Kuot consists of at least one verb (or adjective) with cross-referencing morphology . Sentences with two full NPs are rather rare. The unmarked order of constituents is the predicate at the beginning of the sentence followed by optional NPs for the core arguments: V (S) (O). The congruence of subject and object is expressed by affix or clitica on the verb. Words or parts of words that are added to the end of another word often lose part of their phonetic substance and are unstressed.
o-ikat = oŋ Adam [muabari aŋ]
3fO-check = 3mS A. sun / clock (f) 3m.PossII.s
'Adam checked his watch'
[nǝmo ou-uluan] [i-tie non kuraima] nirobu
want 3fO-3mS-follow 3m-there 'some' bush.spirit (m) coconut.palm (f)
'this bush spirit wanted to follow the coconut palm (up)'
NPs that appear co-referently with congruence morphemes can appear alone as a sentence and thus provide the function of a core argument. A co-reference exists when two different linguistic expressions refer to the same thing in an utterance.
All other grammatical roles of the NP must be marked with prepositions or possessives. The core argument is identified by the presence of congruence and the absence of prepositions and possessives with co-referent NPs. The subject of a non-verbal and non-adjectival predicate has a kind of faulty subject behavior: It stands alone as a sentence and there is no possibility for congruence formation.
[kuraibun] [u-sik makabun].
spirit.woman 3f- THE woman
'that woman (was) a spirit woman.'
Another form of sentence formation is topicalization by placing in front. Either the subject or the object NP can be prefixed, but not both. The construction is marked by 'lə' (RELR = Relator) or by 'ga' (“and”). In the following example, the subject of an intransitive verb is topicalized:
Samǝtmǝrun lǝ tǝle [u-me ubi].
S. RELR NEG 3mS- HAB work = Ø.
'Samǝtmǝrun didn't use to work.'
Adverbs , but above all temporal adverbs, are usually topicalized and can (but do not have to) be marked with the relator. If an argument-NP and an adverbial are prepended, the adverbial comes first and the argument comes before the predicate. The example shows a temporal adverb and a topicalized object in one sentence.
Na tǝrǝ tinan, [u-to gas] lǝ [mǝn pa-me-lo] [eia-p pam].
in time before 3f-here story (f) RELR CONT 1pxO-3pS-tell grand.relation-nsg 1px.PossII.pl
'Before, our forefathers were telling us this story.'
Relative clauses
Relative clauses follow the head of the phrase and are also marked with the relator 'lə' . Relative clauses can modify the possessor in a complex object NP.
oi-op [u-sik sǝgǝr aŋ i-sik lǝmot [lǝ u-abu-o]].
3fO-3fS-find 3f- DEM egg (f) 3m.PossII.s 3m- DEM python (m) RELR 3mS-put-3fO
'she found this egg of this python (who) had put (= laid) it.'
Relative clauses are also similar to the constructions of topicalization and attribute constructions. It differs from topicalization in that there is another sentence that can be identified as the main sentence. The relative clause is only understood as a modification of a nominal constituent. The difference to the attribute construction, however, is that the relator has the person prefix in the last place.
Nominals can appear in different grammatical roles: as transitive or intransitive subjects, objects, possessors or alternatively marked with a possessive mark and as NP outside of prepositional phrases.
Interrogative clauses
| who | 'aka' | Noun (noun) |
| What | 'mani' | Noun (noun) |
| What to do | '-amani' | Verbs (Class II) |
| Whose | 'auan' etc. | Possessive |
| Where | 'lakum' | adverb |
| Where to be | 'lak' | adjective |
| When / how much | 'namuk' | adverb |
| How | 'are mani' | "like what?" |
| Why | 'me mani' | "for what?" |
The interrogative 'mani' (what) has the form 'man' when it is used with a noun. The interrogative pronouns for 'who' and 'what' can be topicalized or prefixed. In contrast to other types of sentences, sentences with interrogative pronouns have their own intonation. Interrogative pronouns are also marked with the relator 'lə' .
Tense and unrealis
The only continuously marked tense distinction in Kuot is future vs. Not future tense. This phenomenon can also be interpreted as an unrealis , although problematic distinctions are made.
The future tense marker 'e (ba)' is considered a particle or verb morphology. The change of the future morphology is also the only way to mark the imperative and expressions for the immediate future using ('e') . This morpheme can optionally be used after an auxiliary verb ( copula ) '-ga' ("to want", "to deal with something"). The future tense marking 'eba' can appear in different contexts: As a simple future tense , as a process sequence, in sentence complements of the preposition 'me' , in sentence components with the verb 'puo' (“to be able to do something”) and optionally in if -Then constructions. It is not used with some types of negation (there is the future negator 'tela' ), such as the prohibitive (exclusion marker ) 'buat' and the apprehensive (concern marker) 'bun' .
U-tie, tubiat = bǝt ga pa-bulǝ-o me laurup ga eba i-lamiŋ = arǝ laurup ga i-ot.
3f-there later = now and 1pxS-cut-3fO to down and FUT 3fS-fall.fut = ASP down and 3fS-lie
Ga eba pa-airǝ-ŋ, me eba lal-uo ba.
and FUT 1pxS-leave-3sO for FUT dry-3f FUT 2
Eba lal-uo ba u-tie ubi, ga u-tie, tubiat = bǝt, lǝ e = bǝt pa-la o-rǝlǝkit = paŋ.
FUT dry-3f FUT 2 3f-there garden (f) and 3f-there later = now RELR IMM. FUT = now 1pxS-go 3fO-chop.up = 1pxS
'Alright, then we cut it [the trees] down and it will fall down and lie. And we'll leave it, so that it will dry. This garden will dry, and alright, then, we'll go and cut it [the trees] into little pieces. '
literature
- Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea . Ed .: Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University. Stockholm 2002 ( online [PDF]).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Ethnologue. Retrieved October 26, 2016 .
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, pp. 30-37.
- ^ Edgar Walden: The ethnographic and linguistic conditions in the northern part of New Mecklenburg and on the surrounding islands. In: Correspondence sheet of the German Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory , Volume 42, 1911, pp. 28–31.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, pp. 16-18.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, p. 77.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, pp. 85-127.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, pp. 86-99.
- ^ Kuot Swadesh 100-Word List. In: www2.ling.su.se. Retrieved October 26, 2016 .
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, pp. 99-110.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, pp. 111-117.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, p. 123.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, pp. 134-145.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, p. 129.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, p. 130.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, p. 130.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, pp. 129-134.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, pp. 10-13.
- ↑ All object language examples in this article are taken from the Kuot grammar by Eva Lindström (2002).
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, p. 13.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, pp. 13-14.
- ^ Eva Lindström: Topics in the Grammar of Kuot - a non-Austronesian language of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea. Stockholm 2002, p. 14.