Araki language
Encyclopedia
Araki is a nearly extinct language spoken in the small island of Araki
(locally known as [ˈɾaki]), south of Espiritu Santo Island in Vanuatu
. Araki is gradually being replaced
by Tangoa
, a language from a neighbouring island.
. The rest of the island's population have a passive knowledge of Araki language, which allows them to understand it, and even make whole phrases and sentences. Nevertheless, a large portion of the Araki vocabulary, as well as idiosyncratic syntactic and phonetic phenomena of the language have been forgotten. Speakers of Araki can also speak the English-based pidgin
Bislama; but this lingua franca
is mainly used in the two towns of the country, Port-Vila and Luganville
, and seldom in rural areas.
Araki was described in 2002 by the linguist Alexandre François.
; more precisely, to the group ‘North and Central Vanuatu languages’.
phoneme
s and 5 vowel
s, which are shown in the following two tables:
Only fluent speakers of Araki are able to distinguish between the flap [ɾ] and the trill [r]; and only they can pronounce - or even hear properly - the linguolabial consonant
s. 'Passive' users of the language replace these consonants either with bilabial consonant
s or with alveolar consonant
s. Although many younger people claim to be able to speak Araki, they are usually in fact these ‘passive’ users of the language, and cannot produce linguolabial/apicolabial consonants.
phonemes are:
Araki does not possess phonemic long vowels. Also, the language does not have phonemic diphthong
s. However, strings of consecutive vowels are possible - indeed prevalent - in the language. In these cases, each vowel builds a separate syllable
.
s in Araki are open (CV). Diachronic effects of word stress
have led to the irregular loss of some syllables, and the creation of new phonotactic patterns of CVC and CCV, with many word-final consonants. Although a cluster of more than two consonants is impossible within a word, longer consonant cluster
s may appear in longer linguistic sequences.
Word stress
in Araki normally falls on the penultimate syllable, at least when the last syllable of the word is of the form -(C)V. A secondary stress may be heard on every second syllable toward the left of the word. Stress is assigned only after the lexeme
has received all its affix
es to form the whole phonological word
. A process of final high vowel deletion
(which is common in Vanuatu languages) does not affect the stress rule.
s, including noun
s, adjective
s, verb
s, adjuncts, adverb
s, numeral
s and demonstrative
s; and a closed set of morpheme
s, which are often monosyllabic clitic
s or affix
es.
s but also noun
s (as well as other syntactic categories) are predicative in Araki. Nouns differ from verbs in being directly predicative, which means that they do not have to be preceded by a subject clitic. Also, only nouns are able to refer directly to entities of the world, and make them arguments entering into larger sentence structures.
Syntactically speaking, a noun can be either the subject of a sentence, the object of a transitive verb or the object of a preposition, all syntactic slots which are forbidden to verbs or adjectives. Proper names - place names and personal names - can be said to belong to the global category of nouns in Araki.
A Noun Phrase must have a head - this can be a noun, an independent pronoun
or certain demonstrative
s. an adjective
cannot be a NP-head, but needs the support of the empty head mada. All other elements are optional. A maximal NP should follow the following order of constituents, most of which are optional:
(1) an article: plural dai, partitive re, definite va;
(2) a noun or the empty head mada, or a 'possessive bundle', formed by;
(3) an adjective;
(4) the anaphoric marker di
(5) a demonstrative word
(6) a numeral preceded by a subject clitic (usually mo), similar to a clause;
(7) a relative clause;
(8) a prepositional phrase.
It is rare to meet more than three or four elements in one NP.
Several devices are available - though always optional - in Araki to help track the reference of a particular NP. These are the clitic
s va, di, mada, dai, re, mo hese, which appear as shown in the above list.
The pro-clitic va and the post-clitic di both mark anaphoric relations
. va is placed immediately before the noun, and codes for discourse-internal anaphora (that is, reference to a term that has already been introduced in the earlier context). di immediately follows the noun, and seems to refer to the immediate context preceding it (comparable with the English anaphoric use of 'this').
The construction does not exist. This indicates that the two clitics must have different uses.
The empty head mada can be found at the beginnings of NPs. It never occurs alone, but is always followed by an adjective
or a place name. Its role is to refer to a set of human individuals defined by the next word, in a similar way to English 'one' in the small one(s). mada can be described as a personal nominalizer
. It does not involve definiteness or number.
The plural marker dai makes explicit the plurality of the NP, which is otherwise never coded for, but often left implicit. As all other markers mentioned in this section, it too is optional.
The specific indefinite mo hese, a numeral quantifier meaning 'one', is very commonly, if not obligatorily, used when a referent
is introduced for the first time into the discourse. mo hese may be used as a numerical predicate, contrasting with other numbers, but it is most frequently used as a kind of article following the NP in order to mark it as being indefinite, that is, newly introduced into the discourse.
The partitive-indefinite pro-clitic re is used when the NP refers to a new, non-specific instance of a notion. In order to understand this concept, compare the English sentences 'I ate a banana ' with 'I want to eat a banana '. Besides being indefinite in both cases, in the first sentence a banana is specific, because it refers to a specific banana; in the second sentence a banana is non-specific, because it can refer to any banana, not one in particular. Although this semantic difference is not grammaticalized in English, it is in Araki, using re as a marker for non-specific indefinite reference.
The function of the aforementioned reference-tracking devices can be summarized as follows:
s are predicative words, which are preceded by subject clitics. Unlike nouns, they cannot form a direct predicate (that is, without a clitic), and cannot refer to an entity, nor form the subject of a sentence. They cannot directly modify a noun by just following it. From the semantic point of view, verbs refer to actions, events or states. Each verb in Araki must be marked with either Realis or Irrealis mood.
The only obligatory elements of a Verb Phrase are the head and the subject clitic. This can be extended not only to phrases headed by a verb, but also to phrases headed by an adjective or a numeral. Under certain conditions, a noun can also be the head of a so-called 'VP', provided that it is endowed with mood-aspectual properties, such as negation.
From a syntactic point of view, Araki contrasts intransitive with transitive verbs.
s never take either object NPs or transitive suffixes.
They are morphologically unvarying (that is, receive no morphological markings).
s take object arguments, as NPs and/or as object suffixes. Most transitive (or transitivised) verbs, though not all of them, can be morphologically marked as such. This usually implies the presence of a transitivity suffix -i and/or of an object personal suffix.
Some verbs can be described as having oblique transitivity, since they are usually followed by an oblique (generally, prepositional) complement.
Araki does not normally allow for ditransitive verb
s. Where English would have two direct objects, as in I'll give you some money, Araki would have one complement as a direct object, while the other would be assigned the oblique case. Therefore, one complement appears inside the VP and the other outside it.
of Patient or Agent.
(1) M̼arasala (2) mo (3) ede
(1) door (2) 3rd Person:Realis (3) open
'The door opened/is open'
(1) Nam (2) ede (3) m̼arasala
(1) 1stPersonSg:Realis (2) open (3) door
'I opened the door'
However, this phenomenon is more limited in Araki than it is in English.
1, V2>; usually no more than two verbs can appear at a time. This series of two verbs share one mood-subject clitic and the same aspect markers. This does not imply that they semantically have the same subject. No object or other complement can insert between these two verbs. The transitivity suffix -i, as well as the object suffix, appear on the right of the second verbd, provided this is authorized by the morphology of V2 and by the syntactic context.
Verb serialization
is much rarer in Araki than in many other Oceanic languages. It seems to be productive only when either of the two verbs is a movement verb. Another less seldom pattern, is when the second element is a stative verb or an adjective: V2 indicates the manner of V1.
A much more frequent strategy in Araki, is that of clause-chaining.
: first, second, third, and in the case of non-singular first person, there is an inclusive/exclusive
distinction.
: realis and irrealis.
Subject clitics and personal markers for realis mood:
Subject clitic personal markers for irrealis mood:
Whether the mood is coded as realis or irrealis depends on the modality of the verb phrase.
s behave syntactically like (intransitive) verbs, and could be argued to form a subset of verbal lexemes. They must always be introduced by a subject clitic, which is sensitive to person and modality (Realis/Irrealis).
(1) Naru-ku (2) mo (3) dua
(1) child-1stPerson-Sg. (2) 3rd Person:Realis (3) two
'I have two children' (lit. my child is/are two).
The number 'one' has a suppletive form mudu 'first'.
The ordinal forms are used especially with the word dan(i), to form the days of the weeks:
s, Araki does have a set of lexemes which can be named this way. The lexical category of adjectives is defined by two basic principles:
Adjectives always follow the noun they modify, and come before numerals.
(1) p̼ira (2) hetehete (3) mo (4) hese
(1) woman (2) small (3) 3rd Person:Realis (4) one
'a young woman'
(1) Na (2) pa (3) nak (4) taha (5) m̼are-ko!
(1) 1stPerson-Sg.:Irrealis (2) Sequence marker (3) hit (4) Result marker (5) dead-2ndPerson-Sg.
'I am going to kill you' (lit. to-hit-become-dead-you).
s never are. They can appear either at the beginning or at the end of a clause. The unmarked position of a (non-typical) adverb is after the verb–object bundle, where prepositional phrases are too. The category of adverbs includes all words which form directly - that is, without a preposition - an oblique complement.
(1) V̼apa (2) di (3) mo (4) roho (5) ro (6) saha-ni (7) kaura
(1) cave (2) anaphoric marker (3) 3rd Person:Realis (4) stay (5) Progressive marker (6) up-Demonstrative:2ndPerson (7) above
'The cave is located up there, above'.
s are associated either to nouns for reference tracking, or have the whole clause as their scope. Although they syntactically behave partially like locational adverbs, demonstrative words form a specific paradigm, which is easily identified morphologically.
in order to present a notion as intense, multiple or plural in one way or another. Semantically, verbal reduplication triggers features such as non-referentiality/genericity of the object, and thus is generally associated with noun incorporation. Reduplication is also the main device, if not the only one, which allows a word to change its syntactic category. Reduplication occurs:
Structurally, Araki has three types of reduplication
naru → nanaru ('son' , 'sons')
lokudo → lolokudo ('angry')
levosai → lelevosai ('intelligent')
m̼arahu → m̼aram̼arahu ('fear' , 'be afraid')
veculu → vecuveculu ('colour')
hudara → hudahudara ('dirt' , 'small particles of dirt')
dev̼e → dev̼edev̼e ('pull')
alo → aloalo ('sun' , 'to be sunny')
sodo → sodosodo ('talk' , 'speech, message, language')
take Irrealis modality, by definition, since they refer to virtual events. The verb must be preceded by its subject clitic.
(1) O (2) ruen-i-a!
(1) 2ndPersonSg:Irrealis (2) help-Transitive-3rdPersonSg
'help me'
Thus, except for prosody, all imperative sentences are formally identical with sentences expressing an intent or a near future (for example, 'you should help me' or ' you are going to help me').
A negative order does not used the usual negation marker ce, but the modal clitic kan 'Prohibitive':
(1) Na (2) kan (3) sa (4) lo (5) ima-na
(1) 1ndPersonSg:Irrealis (2) Prohibitive (3) go.up (4) Location marker (5) house-3rdPerson
'I should not go / I am not supposed to go to his house'.
can take either Realis or Irrealis modality.
Yes/No questions are similar to the corresponding question, except for prosody.
Quite often, the interrogative is marked by a final tag ... vo mo-ce-re ... 'or not?'.
In WH-questions, the interrogative words take the same slot as the word they replace (that is, they remain in-situ.
Arakian Interrogative words include sa 'what', se 'who', v̼e 'where', gisa 'when', and visa 'how many'. The interrogative article ('what X, which') is sava, a longer form of sa. It comes before a noun, for example sava hina 'what thing'. Two interrogative words are derived from sa 'what': sohe sa 'like what → how' and m̼ara sa 'because of what → why'.
marker is a single morpheme ce, which is used in all negative sentences except imperative. It always comes at the beginning of the predicate phrase, following the subject clitic. It can be combined to Realis or Irrealis mood.
The negation ce combines with other elements, for example aspect markers, to build complex negative morphemes. For example,
The combination, has the frequent effect of implying the non-existence of this object. The construction has been grammaticalised
into a complect predicate ce re, meaning 'do not exist, not to be'.
Affirmative existential sentences never use re, but have to employ other strategies. These include the use of the predicate mo hese 'one', or a locative phrase.
The most frequent coordinator is pani ~ pan 'and, but', which usually carries an adversive meaning:
(1) cam (2) ce (3) levse (4) lesi-a, (5) pani (6) nia (7) mo (8) roho (9) ro
(1)1stPersonInclusive:Realis (2) Negation (3) know (4) see-3rdPersonsg (5) but (6) 3rdPerson (7) 3rdPerson:Realis (8) stay (9) Progressive marker
'We are not able to see him [ghost], yet he is around'.
The word for 'or' is voni ~ von ~ vo.
M̼ara 'because' can be said to have coordinating effects.
Frequent use is made of the Bislama coordinator ale (derived from the French allez). Possible meanings are 'OK; then; now; so; finally'.
NP coordination 'X and Y' can be translated into Araki in three different ways:
Co de 'suppose, let us say that → if' is the only marker that is incompatible with Realis modality. It can refer to a possible situation in the future, or it can present a counter-factual hypothesis about the present.
Aru appears only with Realis modality in the conditional clause (the main clause may bear Realis or Irrealis marking). It can refer either to a possible hypothesis about the future, or to a counter-factual situation in the past.
Vada is a common subordinator in Araki, probably deriving etymologically from the root vadai 'say, tell'. When used in a topic clause, vada is most often associated to Realis mood. It can refer either to a single event in the past (English 'when'), to a generic event in the global situation (English 'whenever'), or to a possible event in the future (English 'when', 'if', 'in case').
(1) Racu (2) mo (3) vari-a (4) sule (5) mo (6) plan-i-a (7) mo (8) sa (9) mo (10) covi (11) mo (12) sivo
(1) man (2) 3rdPerson:Realis (3) hold-3rdPersonSg (4) stone (5) 3rdPerson:Realis (6) throw-transitive marker-3rdPersonSg (7) 3rdPerson:Realis (8) go.up (9) 3rdPerson:Realis (10) fall (11) 3rdPerson:Realis (12)go.down
'A man takes a stone and throws it (so that it goes) up and falls down (again)'.
Notice the ambiguity of the sentence: it is only the context that makes clear that what falls down is actually the stone, not the man. The high frequency of clause chaining constructions makes the clitic mo (Third person Realis, singular or plural) by far the most frequent word encountered in actual discourse.
Clause chaining can be used to describe a wide variety of situations:
s.
Araki lacks a row of voiced stops, as well as prenasalised stop
s, both of which are prevalent in the Oceanic language group.
Araki has an unusually high number of phonemic differentiation on the alveolar point of articulation. Most marked is the existence of the trill
consonant beside the flap
one.
announced its intention to focus on preserving the Araki language. This language is cited as an example, among many others, of the situation of language endangerment which the Chirac Foundation aims at addressing, especially through its programme “Sorosoro: Pour que vivent les langues du monde”. Sorosoro is itself an Araki word, meaning “breath, speech, language”.
Araki Island
Araki Island is a small rocky island with an area of 2.5 km², located 3 miles off the southern shores of Espiritu Santo, which is the largest island in the nation of Vanuatu. It belongs to the archipelago of the New Hebrides in the Pacific region of Melanesia...
(locally known as [ˈɾaki]), south of Espiritu Santo Island in Vanuatu
Vanuatu
Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.Vanuatu was...
. Araki is gradually being replaced
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
by Tangoa
Tangoa language
Tangoa is an Oceanic language spoken on Tangoa Island, south of Espiritu Santo Island in Vanuatu.-Characteristics:Tangoa is one of the few languages of Vanuatu, and indeed of the world, possessing a set of linguolabial consonants.-External links:*...
, a language from a neighbouring island.
The language
Araki is spoken today by about 8 native speakers; it is progressively being replaced by the neighbouring language of TangoaTangoa language
Tangoa is an Oceanic language spoken on Tangoa Island, south of Espiritu Santo Island in Vanuatu.-Characteristics:Tangoa is one of the few languages of Vanuatu, and indeed of the world, possessing a set of linguolabial consonants.-External links:*...
. The rest of the island's population have a passive knowledge of Araki language, which allows them to understand it, and even make whole phrases and sentences. Nevertheless, a large portion of the Araki vocabulary, as well as idiosyncratic syntactic and phonetic phenomena of the language have been forgotten. Speakers of Araki can also speak the English-based pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
Bislama; but this lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
is mainly used in the two towns of the country, Port-Vila and Luganville
Luganville
Luganville, called "Santo" by people from Vanuatu's northern islands who use Luganville as their big city, and called "Kanal" by rural residents of the large island of Espiritu Santo, is the second largest city in Vanuatu. The population is .Luganville is one of Vanuatu's busiest ports,...
, and seldom in rural areas.
Araki was described in 2002 by the linguist Alexandre François.
Classification
Araki belongs to the Oceanic branch of Austronesian languagesAustronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
; more precisely, to the group ‘North and Central Vanuatu languages’.
Phonology
Araki has a phonological inventory of 16 consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s and 5 vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
s, which are shown in the following two tables:
Consonants
Araki has 16 consonants which generally appear at the beginning of a syllable, with some exceptions.| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Linguolabial Linguolabial consonant Linguolabials or apicolabials are consonants articulated by placing the tongue tip or blade against the upper lip, which is drawn downward to meet the tongue. They represent one extreme of a coronal articulatory continuum which extends from linguolabial to subapical palatal places of articulation... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... |
p | t̼ | t | k | |
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... |
t͡ʃ | ||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... |
s | h | |||
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
β | ð̼ | ||||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n̼ | n | ŋ | ||
| Flap Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:... |
ɾ | |||||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r | |||||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l | |||||
Only fluent speakers of Araki are able to distinguish between the flap [ɾ] and the trill [r]; and only they can pronounce - or even hear properly - the linguolabial consonant
Linguolabial consonant
Linguolabials or apicolabials are consonants articulated by placing the tongue tip or blade against the upper lip, which is drawn downward to meet the tongue. They represent one extreme of a coronal articulatory continuum which extends from linguolabial to subapical palatal places of articulation...
s. 'Passive' users of the language replace these consonants either with bilabial consonant
Bilabial consonant
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...
s or with alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
s. Although many younger people claim to be able to speak Araki, they are usually in fact these ‘passive’ users of the language, and cannot produce linguolabial/apicolabial consonants.
Vowels
The vowelVowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
phonemes are:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Low | a |
Araki does not possess phonemic long vowels. Also, the language does not have phonemic diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
s. However, strings of consecutive vowels are possible - indeed prevalent - in the language. In these cases, each vowel builds a separate syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
.
Syllable Structure and Stress Pattern
Most syllableSyllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s in Araki are open (CV). Diachronic effects of word stress
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
have led to the irregular loss of some syllables, and the creation of new phonotactic patterns of CVC and CCV, with many word-final consonants. Although a cluster of more than two consonants is impossible within a word, longer consonant cluster
Consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s may appear in longer linguistic sequences.
Word stress
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
in Araki normally falls on the penultimate syllable, at least when the last syllable of the word is of the form -(C)V. A secondary stress may be heard on every second syllable toward the left of the word. Stress is assigned only after the lexeme
Lexeme
A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
has received all its affix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es to form the whole phonological word
Phonological word
The phonological word or prosodic word is a constituent in the phonological hierarchy higher than the syllable and the foot but lower than intonational phrase and the phonological phrase...
. A process of final high vowel deletion
Deletion (linguistics)
In linguistics, deletion is the removal of a sound from a word, often for easier pronunciation. For instance, the word infrared is often pronounced [ɪnfərɛd].Like dissimilation or assimilation, deletion makes a word easier to pronounce....
(which is common in Vanuatu languages) does not affect the stress rule.
Grammar
Arakian syntax can be divided into an open set of lexemeLexeme
A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
s, including noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s, adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s, verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s, adjuncts, adverb
Adverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s, numeral
Number names
In linguistics, number names are specific words in a natural language that represent numbers.In writing, numerals are symbols also representing numbers...
s and demonstrative
Demonstrative
In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
s; and a closed set of morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
s, which are often monosyllabic clitic
Clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
s or affix
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
es.
Word Order
The constituent order in Araki is strictly subject–verb–object (SVO). There is a clear formal boundary between the direct object - always internal to the predicate phrase, whether incorporated or not - and the oblique arguments: adverbs, prepositional phrases and indirect objects, which always appear outside the Verb Phrase.Nouns
As in many Oceanic languages, not only verbVerb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s but also noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s (as well as other syntactic categories) are predicative in Araki. Nouns differ from verbs in being directly predicative, which means that they do not have to be preceded by a subject clitic. Also, only nouns are able to refer directly to entities of the world, and make them arguments entering into larger sentence structures.
Syntactically speaking, a noun can be either the subject of a sentence, the object of a transitive verb or the object of a preposition, all syntactic slots which are forbidden to verbs or adjectives. Proper names - place names and personal names - can be said to belong to the global category of nouns in Araki.
Noun Phrase structure
Contrary to many languages of Vanuatu, Araki did not retain the noun article *na of Proto Oceanic, nor any other obligatory noun determiner. As a consequence, a noun root on its own can form a valid NP in a sentence.A Noun Phrase must have a head - this can be a noun, an independent pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
or certain demonstrative
Demonstrative
In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
s. an adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
cannot be a NP-head, but needs the support of the empty head mada. All other elements are optional. A maximal NP should follow the following order of constituents, most of which are optional:
(1) an article: plural dai, partitive re, definite va;
(2) a noun or the empty head mada, or a 'possessive bundle', formed by
(3) an adjective;
(4) the anaphoric marker di
(5) a demonstrative word
(6) a numeral preceded by a subject clitic (usually mo), similar to a clause;
(7) a relative clause;
(8) a prepositional phrase.
It is rare to meet more than three or four elements in one NP.
Articles and Reference-Tracking Devices
Semantically speaking, a noun without an article can be specific as well as non-specific, and definite as well as indefinite. Moreover, not only is there no gender-distinction, but even number is most of the time under-specified; only the context, and partly the personal marker on the verb, help distinguish between singular and plural reference.Several devices are available - though always optional - in Araki to help track the reference of a particular NP. These are the clitic
Clitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
s va, di, mada, dai, re, mo hese, which appear as shown in the above list.
The pro-clitic va and the post-clitic di both mark anaphoric relations
Anaphora (linguistics)
In linguistics, anaphora is an instance of an expression referring to another. Usually, an anaphoric expression is represented by a pro-form or some other kind of deictic--for instance, a pronoun referring to its antecedent...
. va is placed immediately before the noun, and codes for discourse-internal anaphora (that is, reference to a term that has already been introduced in the earlier context). di immediately follows the noun, and seems to refer to the immediate context preceding it (comparable with the English anaphoric use of 'this').
The construction
The empty head mada can be found at the beginnings of NPs. It never occurs alone, but is always followed by an adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
or a place name. Its role is to refer to a set of human individuals defined by the next word, in a similar way to English 'one' in the small one(s). mada can be described as a personal nominalizer
Nominalization
In linguistics, nominalization or nominalisation is the use of a verb, an adjective, or an adverb as the head of a noun phrase, with or without morphological transformation...
. It does not involve definiteness or number.
The plural marker dai makes explicit the plurality of the NP, which is otherwise never coded for, but often left implicit. As all other markers mentioned in this section, it too is optional.
The specific indefinite mo hese, a numeral quantifier meaning 'one', is very commonly, if not obligatorily, used when a referent
Reference
Reference is derived from Middle English referren, from Middle French rèférer, from Latin referre, "to carry back", formed from the prefix re- and ferre, "to bear"...
is introduced for the first time into the discourse. mo hese may be used as a numerical predicate, contrasting with other numbers, but it is most frequently used as a kind of article following the NP in order to mark it as being indefinite, that is, newly introduced into the discourse.
The partitive-indefinite pro-clitic re is used when the NP refers to a new, non-specific instance of a notion. In order to understand this concept, compare the English sentences 'I ate a banana ' with 'I want to eat a banana '. Besides being indefinite in both cases, in the first sentence a banana is specific, because it refers to a specific banana; in the second sentence a banana is non-specific, because it can refer to any banana, not one in particular. Although this semantic difference is not grammaticalized in English, it is in Araki, using re as a marker for non-specific indefinite reference.
The function of the aforementioned reference-tracking devices can be summarized as follows:
| Definite | Indefinite | |
|---|---|---|
| Specific | N // va N // N di 'The cake is ready' |
N // N mo hese 'I ate the cake' |
| Non-Specific | N 'I like cake' |
N // re N 'I want to eat a cake' |
Verbs
VerbVerb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s are predicative words, which are preceded by subject clitics. Unlike nouns, they cannot form a direct predicate (that is, without a clitic), and cannot refer to an entity, nor form the subject of a sentence. They cannot directly modify a noun by just following it. From the semantic point of view, verbs refer to actions, events or states. Each verb in Araki must be marked with either Realis or Irrealis mood.
The only obligatory elements of a Verb Phrase are the head and the subject clitic. This can be extended not only to phrases headed by a verb, but also to phrases headed by an adjective or a numeral. Under certain conditions, a noun can also be the head of a so-called 'VP', provided that it is endowed with mood-aspectual properties, such as negation.
From a syntactic point of view, Araki contrasts intransitive with transitive verbs.
Intransitive Verbs
Intransitive verbIntransitive verb
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. This differs from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. Both classes of verb are related to the concept of the transitivity of a verb....
s never take either object NPs or transitive suffixes.
They are morphologically unvarying (that is, receive no morphological markings).
Transitive Verbs
Transitive verbTransitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
s take object arguments, as NPs and/or as object suffixes. Most transitive (or transitivised) verbs, though not all of them, can be morphologically marked as such. This usually implies the presence of a transitivity suffix -i and/or of an object personal suffix.
Some verbs can be described as having oblique transitivity, since they are usually followed by an oblique (generally, prepositional) complement.
Araki does not normally allow for ditransitive verb
Ditransitive verb
In grammar, a ditransitive verb is a verb which takes a subject and two objects which refer to a recipient and a theme. According to certain linguistics considerations, these objects may be called direct and indirect, or primary and secondary...
s. Where English would have two direct objects, as in I'll give you some money, Araki would have one complement as a direct object, while the other would be assigned the oblique case. Therefore, one complement appears inside the VP and the other outside it.
Symmetrical Verbs
Some verbs in Araki allow its syntactic subject to be marked with either the case roleCase role
In linguistic semantics, a case role is any of the spatially-distinguished parts of a process.In the sentence, "The dog ate food", the subject "dog" has the case role of "agent" and the object "food" has the case role of "theme"....
of Patient or Agent.
(1) M̼arasala (2) mo (3) ede
(1) door (2) 3rd Person:Realis (3) open
'The door opened/is open'
(1) Nam (2) ede (3) m̼arasala
(1) 1stPersonSg:Realis (2) open (3) door
'I opened the door'
However, this phenomenon is more limited in Araki than it is in English.
Verb Serialization
Araki allows two verb roots to appear in one single Verb Phrase, thus forming a sort of complex verbVerb serialization
Serial verb construction
The serial verb construction, also known as serialization, is a syntactic phenomenon common to many African, Asian and New Guinean languages...
is much rarer in Araki than in many other Oceanic languages. It seems to be productive only when either of the two verbs is a movement verb. Another less seldom pattern, is when the second element is a stative verb or an adjective: V2 indicates the manner of V1.
A much more frequent strategy in Araki, is that of clause-chaining.
Personal Markers
In the case of Araki, it is more appropriate to discuss ‘personal markers’ (rather than ‘pronouns’). There are seven morphosyntactic person markingsGrammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
: first, second, third, and in the case of non-singular first person, there is an inclusive/exclusive
Clusivity
In linguistics, clusivity is a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called inclusive "we" and exclusive "we"...
distinction.
Independent Pronouns
| Person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns... | | Number | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1INC | nica | |
| 1EXCL | na | kam̈am |
| 2 | n(i)ko | kam̈im |
| 3 | nia | n(i)da |
Subject Clitics and Person Markers
The following two tables show the clitics that provide ordinary marking of subjects in verbal sentences. They express two moodsGrammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
: realis and irrealis.
Subject clitics and personal markers for realis mood:
| Person | | Number | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1INC | cam | |
| 1EXCL | nam | kam |
| 2 | om | ham |
| 3 | mo | mo |
Subject clitic personal markers for irrealis mood:
| Person | | Number | |
|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1INC | co | |
| 1EXCL | na | kam̈a |
| 2 | o | ha |
| 3 | co | ha |
Whether the mood is coded as realis or irrealis depends on the modality of the verb phrase.
Numerals
NumeralNumber names
In linguistics, number names are specific words in a natural language that represent numbers.In writing, numerals are symbols also representing numbers...
s behave syntactically like (intransitive) verbs, and could be argued to form a subset of verbal lexemes. They must always be introduced by a subject clitic, which is sensitive to person and modality (Realis/Irrealis).
(1) Naru-ku (2) mo (3) dua
(1) child-1stPerson-Sg. (2) 3rd Person:Realis (3) two
'I have two children' (lit. my child is/are two).
Cardinal Numbers
Numerals are listed in the following table:| Araki | English |
|---|---|
| mo hese | 'one' |
| mo dua | 'two' |
| mo rolu | 'three' |
| mo v̼ari | 'four' |
| mo lim̼a | 'five' |
| mo haion(o) | 'six' |
| mo haip̼iru | 'seven' |
| mo haualu | 'eight' |
| mo haisua | 'nine' |
| mo sagavul(u) | 'ten' |
| mo sagavul comana mo hese | 'evelen' |
| mo sagavul comana mo dua | 'twelve' |
| mo gavul dua | 'twenty' |
| mo gavul dua mo hese | 'twenty one' |
| mo gavul rolu | 'thirty' |
| mo gavul haip̼iru | 'seventy' |
| mo gavul sagavulu | 'one hundred' |
| mo gavul sagavulu mo sagavulu | 'one hundred and ten' |
| mo gavul sagavulu dua | 'two hundred' |
| mo gavul sagavulu sagavulu | 'one thousand' |
Ordinal Numbers
Ordinal numbers are formed with the prefix ha-, at least for the numbers 2-5. Greater numbers have already integrated this - or a similar - prefix ha- to their radical.The number 'one' has a suppletive form mudu 'first'.
The ordinal forms are used especially with the word dan(i), to form the days of the weeks:
| Araki | English |
|---|---|
| dan mudu | 'Monday' |
| ha-dua dan | 'Tuesday' |
| ha-rolu dan | 'Wednesday' |
| ha-v̼ari dan | 'Thursday' |
| ha-lim̼a dan | 'Friday' |
| haiono dan | 'Saturday' |
| haip̼iru dan' | 'Sunday' |
Adjectives
Contrary to many languages which lack a distinct category of adjectiveAdjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s, Araki does have a set of lexemes which can be named this way. The lexical category of adjectives is defined by two basic principles:
- adjectives can be predicates, and in this case must be preceded by a subject clitic, like numerals or verbs;
- adjectives can modify directly a noun in a Noun Phrase, without a subject clitic (opp. numerals) or a relative structure (opp. verbs).
Adjectives always follow the noun they modify, and come before numerals.
(1) p̼ira (2) hetehete (3) mo (4) hese
(1) woman (2) small (3) 3rd Person:Realis (4) one
'a young woman'
Adjuncts
Adjuncts form quite a small category of lexical items, whose syntactic position is to follow immediately the verb radical, though still within the Verb Phrase. When the verb is transitive, adjuncts are inserted between the verb radical and the transitiviser suffix and/or the object suffixes, as though they were incorporated:(1) Na (2) pa (3) nak (4) taha (5) m̼are-ko!
(1) 1stPerson-Sg.:Irrealis (2) Sequence marker (3) hit (4) Result marker (5) dead-2ndPerson-Sg.
'I am going to kill you' (lit. to-hit-become-dead-you).
Adverbs
Contrary to adjuncts, which are always incorporated into the verb phrase, adverbAdverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s never are. They can appear either at the beginning or at the end of a clause. The unmarked position of a (non-typical) adverb is after the verb–object bundle, where prepositional phrases are too. The category of adverbs includes all words which form directly - that is, without a preposition - an oblique complement.
(1) V̼apa (2) di (3) mo (4) roho (5) ro (6) saha-ni (7) kaura
(1) cave (2) anaphoric marker (3) 3rd Person:Realis (4) stay (5) Progressive marker (6) up-Demonstrative:2ndPerson (7) above
'The cave is located up there, above'.
Demonstratives
DemonstrativeDemonstrative
In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
s are associated either to nouns for reference tracking, or have the whole clause as their scope. Although they syntactically behave partially like locational adverbs, demonstrative words form a specific paradigm, which is easily identified morphologically.
Reduplication
Araki uses reduplicationReduplication
Reduplication in linguistics is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word is repeated exactly or with a slight change....
in order to present a notion as intense, multiple or plural in one way or another. Semantically, verbal reduplication triggers features such as non-referentiality/genericity of the object, and thus is generally associated with noun incorporation. Reduplication is also the main device, if not the only one, which allows a word to change its syntactic category. Reduplication occurs:
- From noun to noun (indicating plurality, and sometimes a diminutive capacity ('Many Ns, 'small Ns').
For example: naru 'son' → nanaru 'sons', hudara 'dirt' → hudahudara 'small particles of dirt' - From noun to verb or adjective (referring not to an of the world, but to a process/state which is normally caused by it).
For example alo 'sun' → aloalo 'to be sunny' - From verb to verb (deriving one of the following: an intensified meaning, plurality, reflexivity, distributivity, imperfectivity, detransitivity).
For example, v̼ano 'walk' → v̼anov̼ano 'race' - From verb to noun (referring to the very notion of the verb, in general terms).
For example, sodo 'talk; → sodosodo 'speech, message, language'.
Structurally, Araki has three types of reduplication
CV-Reduplication
The first syllable of the word is reduplicated.naru → nanaru ('son' , 'sons')
lokudo → lolokudo ('angry')
levosai → lelevosai ('intelligent')
CVCV-Reduplication
The first two syllables of the word are reduplicated.m̼arahu → m̼aram̼arahu ('fear' , 'be afraid')
veculu → vecuveculu ('colour')
hudara → hudahudara ('dirt' , 'small particles of dirt')
Root-Reduplication
The entire root of the word is reduplicated.dev̼e → dev̼edev̼e ('pull')
alo → aloalo ('sun' , 'to be sunny')
sodo → sodosodo ('talk' , 'speech, message, language')
Clause Structure
As mentioned above, Araki is a strict SVO language. This means that different sentence types, such as assertives, imperatives and interrogatives do not involve a change in word order. This, contrary to what occurs in European languages. These sentence types may differ in other ways.Imperatives
All imperative sentencesImperative mood
The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
take Irrealis modality, by definition, since they refer to virtual events. The verb must be preceded by its subject clitic.
(1) O (2) ruen-i-a!
(1) 2ndPersonSg:Irrealis (2) help-Transitive-3rdPersonSg
'help me'
Thus, except for prosody, all imperative sentences are formally identical with sentences expressing an intent or a near future (for example, 'you should help me' or ' you are going to help me').
A negative order does not used the usual negation marker ce, but the modal clitic kan 'Prohibitive':
(1) Na (2) kan (3) sa (4) lo (5) ima-na
(1) 1ndPersonSg:Irrealis (2) Prohibitive (3) go.up (4) Location marker (5) house-3rdPerson
'I should not go / I am not supposed to go to his house'.
Interrogatives
Interrogative sentencesInterrogative mood
In linguistics and grammar, the interrogative mood is an epistemic grammatical mood used for asking questions by inflecting the main verb...
can take either Realis or Irrealis modality.
Yes/No questions are similar to the corresponding question, except for prosody.
Quite often, the interrogative is marked by a final tag ... vo mo-ce-re ... 'or not?'.
In WH-questions, the interrogative words take the same slot as the word they replace (that is, they remain in-situ.
Arakian Interrogative words include sa 'what', se 'who', v̼e 'where', gisa 'when', and visa 'how many'. The interrogative article ('what X, which') is sava, a longer form of sa. It comes before a noun, for example sava hina 'what thing'. Two interrogative words are derived from sa 'what': sohe sa 'like what → how' and m̼ara sa 'because of what → why'.
Negation
The general negationNegation
In logic and mathematics, negation, also called logical complement, is an operation on propositions, truth values, or semantic values more generally. Intuitively, the negation of a proposition is true when that proposition is false, and vice versa. In classical logic negation is normally identified...
marker is a single morpheme ce, which is used in all negative sentences except imperative. It always comes at the beginning of the predicate phrase, following the subject clitic. It can be combined to Realis or Irrealis mood.
The negation ce combines with other elements, for example aspect markers, to build complex negative morphemes. For example,
- Negation ce + aspect le 'again' → 'no longer'
- Negation ce + aspect m̼isi 'still' → 'not yet'
- Negation ce + partitive re 'some' → 'not any'
- Negation ce + NP re hina 'some thing' → 'nothing'
- Negation ce + adverb n-re-dan 'on some day' → 'never'
The combination
Grammaticalisation
In linguistics, grammaticalization is a process by which words representing objects and actions transform through sound change and language migration to become grammatical objects...
into a complect predicate ce re, meaning 'do not exist, not to be'.
Existential Sentences
Since the combination ce re has generalized to form a negative existential predicate, one could expect that, in a second stage of evolution, affirmative existential sentences (that is, 'there is N') would simply use the same predicate re without the negation. In fact, this is normally impossible.Affirmative existential sentences never use re, but have to employ other strategies. These include the use of the predicate mo hese 'one', or a locative phrase.
Coordination
Coordination as a clause-linker is far from being widespread in Araki: clause-chaining is by far the preferred strategy. Nevertheless, some coordinators exist, whose meaning is more precise than just 'and'.The most frequent coordinator is pani ~ pan 'and, but', which usually carries an adversive meaning:
(1) cam (2) ce (3) levse (4) lesi-a, (5) pani (6) nia (7) mo (8) roho (9) ro
(1)1stPersonInclusive:Realis (2) Negation (3) know (4) see-3rdPersonsg (5) but (6) 3rdPerson (7) 3rdPerson:Realis (8) stay (9) Progressive marker
'We are not able to see him [ghost], yet he is around'.
The word for 'or' is voni ~ von ~ vo.
M̼ara 'because' can be said to have coordinating effects.
Frequent use is made of the Bislama coordinator ale (derived from the French allez). Possible meanings are 'OK; then; now; so; finally'.
NP coordination 'X and Y' can be translated into Araki in three different ways:
- the noun-like preposition nida- 'with';
- the comitative suffix -n(i), only with free pronouns;
- the numeral rolu 'three → and', with personal pronouns.
Conditional Systems
Araki has three markers corresponding to English 'if': vada, aru, code. Surprisigly, two of these three markers are compatible with Realis modality.Co de 'suppose, let us say that → if' is the only marker that is incompatible with Realis modality. It can refer to a possible situation in the future, or it can present a counter-factual hypothesis about the present.
Aru appears only with Realis modality in the conditional clause (the main clause may bear Realis or Irrealis marking). It can refer either to a possible hypothesis about the future, or to a counter-factual situation in the past.
Vada is a common subordinator in Araki, probably deriving etymologically from the root vadai 'say, tell'. When used in a topic clause, vada is most often associated to Realis mood. It can refer either to a single event in the past (English 'when'), to a generic event in the global situation (English 'whenever'), or to a possible event in the future (English 'when', 'if', 'in case').
Clause Chaining
Clause chaining is the combination of at least two clauses (C1 and C2), without any coordinator, subordinator or any other kind of overt link between them. On prosodic criteria, no pause is audible at their boundary, at least no such pause as between two autonomous sentences. Contrary to verb serialization, every verb must be preceded by its own subject clitic, whether or not it refers to the same subject as the preceding verb. A sentence like the following is perfectly common in Araki:(1) Racu (2) mo (3) vari-a (4) sule (5) mo (6) plan-i-a (7) mo (8) sa (9) mo (10) covi (11) mo (12) sivo
(1) man (2) 3rdPerson:Realis (3) hold-3rdPersonSg (4) stone (5) 3rdPerson:Realis (6) throw-transitive marker-3rdPersonSg (7) 3rdPerson:Realis (8) go.up (9) 3rdPerson:Realis (10) fall (11) 3rdPerson:Realis (12)go.down
'A man takes a stone and throws it (so that it goes) up and falls down (again)'.
Notice the ambiguity of the sentence: it is only the context that makes clear that what falls down is actually the stone, not the man. The high frequency of clause chaining constructions makes the clitic mo (Third person Realis, singular or plural) by far the most frequent word encountered in actual discourse.
Clause chaining can be used to describe a wide variety of situations:
- Time succession and consequence;
- Two phases of a single complex action;
- Simultaneity of two events;
- Commenting on an action;
- Spatial dynamics;
- Temporal dynamics;
- Sentential objects;
- Relative clauses;
- Numeral phrases.
Unusual Characteristics
Araki is one of the few languages of Vanuatu, and indeed of the world, possessing a set of linguolabial consonantLinguolabial consonant
Linguolabials or apicolabials are consonants articulated by placing the tongue tip or blade against the upper lip, which is drawn downward to meet the tongue. They represent one extreme of a coronal articulatory continuum which extends from linguolabial to subapical palatal places of articulation...
s.
Araki lacks a row of voiced stops, as well as prenasalised stop
Prenasalized consonant
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent that behave phonologically like single consonants. The reasons for considering these sequences to be single consonants is in their behavior, not in their actual composition...
s, both of which are prevalent in the Oceanic language group.
Araki has an unusually high number of phonemic differentiation on the alveolar point of articulation. Most marked is the existence of the trill
Trill consonant
In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....
consonant beside the flap
Flap consonant
In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...
one.
Language preservation
In June 2008, the Jacques Chirac Foundation for Sustainable Development and Cultural DialogueJacques Chirac Foundation for Sustainable Development and Cultural Dialogue
The Jacques Chirac Foundation for Sustainable Development and Cultural Dialogue was founded by former French President Jacques Chirac...
announced its intention to focus on preserving the Araki language. This language is cited as an example, among many others, of the situation of language endangerment which the Chirac Foundation aims at addressing, especially through its programme “Sorosoro: Pour que vivent les langues du monde”. Sorosoro is itself an Araki word, meaning “breath, speech, language”.
External links
- Ethnologue page.
- Linguistic documentation on Araki, including bilingual stories that can be read and listened to (homepage of LACITOLACITOLACITO is a primarily Francophone multidisciplinary research organisation, created in 1976...
-CNRS). - A trilingual Araki – English – French online dictionary.
- Araki wordlist at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database.