Arapesh languages
Encyclopedia
The Arapesh languages are several closely related Torricelli languages
of the 32,000 Arapesh people of Papua New Guinea
.
They are among the better-studied of Papuan languages and are most distinctive in their gender systems, which contain up to thirteen genders (noun class
es) with noun-phrase concordance.
inventory is the use of labialization as a contrastive device.
Arapesh syllables have the structure (C)V(V)(C), though in monosyllables there is a requirement that the coda be filled.
Normally either of the higher central vowels (ɨ, ə) is inserted to break up consonant clusters in the middle of words.
al order. Most modifiers usually precede the noun, though as a result of changes in word order genitives and nouns do not have a fixed order.
The language's unique gender system is largely based on the ending of the noun. There are cognate pairings of each gender for singular and plural numbers. The whole gender system, unlike most of comparable complexity in Niger–Congo languages
is sex-based: Gender IV is for all female beings and Gender VII for male ones. Arapesh culture forbids the use of personal names, so that kinship nouns are used extensively to address even intimate relatives.
Arapesh languages also have a system of verbal nouns: there by default belong to gender VIII.
Gender agreement, along with that for person and number, occurs with all adjective
s, numeral
s and interrogative pronouns and the subject and object of verb
s. Verbs in Arapesh languages are inflected by means of prefix
es. The basic template for this inflection is the order SUBJECT-MOOD-ROOT.
Torricelli languages
The Torricelli languages are a language family of about fifty languages of the northern Papua New Guinea coast, spoken by only about 80,000 people. Named after Torricelli Mountains. The most populous and best known Torricelli languages are the Arapesh, with about 30,000 speakers.The most promising...
of the 32,000 Arapesh people of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
.
They are among the better-studied of Papuan languages and are most distinctive in their gender systems, which contain up to thirteen genders (noun class
Noun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
es) with noun-phrase concordance.
Phonology
The most notable feature of the Arapesh phonemePhoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
inventory is the use of labialization as a contrastive device.
Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lateral | plain | labial | plain | labial | ||||
| Stop | voiceless | [t] | [k] | [kʷ] | |||||
| voiced | [d] | [ɡ] | [ɡʷ] | ||||||
| Affricate | voiceless | [tʃ] | |||||||
| voiced | [dʒ] | ||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | [s] | [h] | [hʷ] | |||||
| Nasal | [m] | [n] | [ɳ] | ||||||
| Tap | [ɾ] | ||||||||
| Approximant | [l] | ||||||||
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | [i] | [ɨ] | [u] |
| Mid | [e] | [ə] | [o] |
| Low | [a] |
Arapesh syllables have the structure (C)V(V)(C), though in monosyllables there is a requirement that the coda be filled.
Normally either of the higher central vowels (ɨ, ə) is inserted to break up consonant clusters in the middle of words.
Grammar
Recent shifts have moved Arapesh languages from the typical Papuan SOV to a SVO order, along with a corresponding shift in adpositionAdposition
Prepositions are a grammatically distinct class of words whose most central members characteristically express spatial relations or serve to mark various syntactic functions and semantic roles...
al order. Most modifiers usually precede the noun, though as a result of changes in word order genitives and nouns do not have a fixed order.
The language's unique gender system is largely based on the ending of the noun. There are cognate pairings of each gender for singular and plural numbers. The whole gender system, unlike most of comparable complexity in Niger–Congo languages
Niger–Congo languages
The Niger–Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...
is sex-based: Gender IV is for all female beings and Gender VII for male ones. Arapesh culture forbids the use of personal names, so that kinship nouns are used extensively to address even intimate relatives.
Arapesh languages also have a system of verbal nouns: there by default belong to gender VIII.
Gender agreement, along with that for person and number, occurs with all 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, 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 interrogative pronouns and the subject and object of 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. Verbs in Arapesh languages are inflected by means of prefix
Prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the root of a word. Particularly in the study of languages,a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the words to which it is affixed.Examples of prefixes:...
es. The basic template for this inflection is the order SUBJECT-MOOD-ROOT.