Iwal is an Austronesian language

Austronesian 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...

 spoken by about 1,900 people from nine villages in Morobe Province

Morobe Province

Morobe Province is a province on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital, and largest city, is Lae. The province covers 34,500 km², including 719 km² maritime area, with a population of 539,725...

, 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...

 (Cobb & Wroge 1990). Although it appears most closely related to the South Huon Gulf languages

South Huon Gulf languages

The family of South Huon Gulf languages is a subgroup of the Huon Gulf languages of Papua New Guinea. It consists of 13 languages.-Components:*Hote–Buang languages**Buang languages**Hote languages*Iwal-External links:*...

, it is the most conservative

Conservative (language)

In linguistics, a conservative form, variety, or modality is one that has changed relatively little over its history, or which is relatively resistant to change...

 member of its subgroup.

Phonology

Iwal distinguishes 5 vowels and 16 consonants. Unlike most of its neighboring languages, it distinguishes the lateral /l/ from the trill /r/, the latter derived from earlier *s, as in aru from Proto-Oceanic (POc) *qasu 'smoke', ruru- from POc *susu 'breast', and ur from POc *qusan 'rain'. Otherwise it appears to be the most phonologically conservative language in the South Huon Gulf chain (see Ross 1988:154–160). It has retained POc *t as /t/ (not /l/ or /y/) and POc *mw as /mw/ (not /my/ or /ny/), as in mwat 'snake' from POc *mwata.

Vowels (orthographic)

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
High	i		u
Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...	e		o
Low		a

Consonants (orthographic)

	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:...	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...	Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	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...
Voiceless stop	p	t		k
Voiced stop	b	d		g
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	n		ng
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...	v	s			-h-
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
Rhotic Rhotic consonant In phonetics, rhotic consonants, also called tremulants or "R-like" sounds, are liquid consonants that are traditionally represented orthographically by symbols derived from the Greek letter rho, including "R, r" from the Roman alphabet and "Р, p" from the Cyrillic alphabet...		r
Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...	w		y

Free 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...	Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Plural Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Dual Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Paucal Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
1st person inclusive		eitit	tutlu	totol
1st person exclusive	ayeu ~ au	amei	eilu	eitol
2nd 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...	mie	yem	yemlu	yemtol
3rd 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...	ei	eisir	sulu	sotol

Genitive 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...	Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Plural Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
1st person inclusive		a-nd
1st person exclusive	a-ngg	a-meimei
2nd 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...	a-m	a-im
3rd 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...	a-ne	a-s

Possessive suffixes

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...	Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....	Plural Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
1st person inclusive		-(a)nd
1st person exclusive	-(a)ngg	-(a)nggamei
2nd 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...	-m (-am > -em)	-(a)nggaim
3rd 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...	-Ø (-a > -e)	-s

Deictics

Iwal deictics correlate with first, second, and third person, each of which has a long and a short form. The latter appear to be anaphoric

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...

 in usage. Deictics also serve to bracket relative clause

Relative clause

A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...

s: ete/ebe ... ok/nok/nik. By far the most common brackets are ebe ... ok, but if the information in the clause is associated with either speaker or addressee, the brackets are likely to be ete ... nik or ete ... nok. Deictics may occur either in place of nouns or postposed to nouns, as in nalk etok 'that earth/soil'.

• ete(n)ik, nik 'near speaker'
• ete(n)ok, nok 'near addressee'
• et(e)ok/eb(e)ok, ok 'away from speaker or addressee'

Numerals

Traditional Iwal counting practices started with the digits of the left hand, then continued on the right hand, and then the feet to reach '20', which translates as 'one person'. Higher numbers are multiples of 'one person'. Nowadays, most counting above '5' is done in Tok Pisin; in the Iwal New Testament, all numbers above '5'—except bage isgabu '10'—are written with Arabic numerals and most likely read in Tok Pisin.

Numeral Numeral system A numeral system is a writing system for expressing numbers, that is a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using graphemes or symbols in a consistent manner....	Term	Gloss
1	dongke/ti	'one'
2	ailu	'two'
3	aitol	'three'
4	aivat	'four'
5	bage tavlu	'hands half/part'
6	bage tavlu ano dongke	'hands half right one'
7	bage tavlu ano ailu	'hands half right two'
8	bage tavlu ano aitol	'hands half right three'
9	bage tavlu ano aivat	'hands half right four'
10	bage isgabu	'hands both/pair'
15	bage isgabu be va tavlu	'hands both and feet half'
20	buni amol ti	'[?] person one'
100	buni amol bage tavlu	'[?] person hands half [= '5']'

Bioclassifying prefixes

One unusual feature of Iwal is a small set of bioclassifying prefixes: ei- (POc *kayu) for trees, wer- for edible greens, man(k)- (POc *manuk) for birds, ih- (POc *ikan) for fish.

• eivovo 'canoe, canoe tree'
• eiweiwei 'mango tree' (POc *waiwai)
• weru 'two-leaf (Tok Pisin tulip), Gnetum gnemon, a tree with paired edible leaves'
• weryambum 'cabbage'
• mankbubu 'pigeon' (POc *bune)
• mankaruel 'cassowary' (POc *kasuari)
• ihtangir 'Spanish mackerel' (Tok Pisin tangir)

Word order

The basic word order

Word order

In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...

 in Iwal is SVO, with (mostly) prepositions, preposed genitives, postposed adjectives and relative clauses. Relative clauses are marked at both ends, and so are some prepositional phrases. Negatives come at the ends of the clauses they negate. There is also a class of deverbal resultatives that follow the main verb (and its object, if any).

	ei	ni-	tle	eivovo	butu
	3SG	FUT3SG	chop	canoe	down

'He'll chop down the canoe tree.'

	wakas	gi-	sov	nalk	aplo	gi-	le	ite
	root	3SG	descend	earth	inside	3SG	go	not

'The roots did not go deep into the ground.'

	in-	di	gen	ete	ayeu	ga-	lgum	nik
	3PL	see	thing	DEM	1SG	1SG	do	DEM

'They'll see the things I have done.'

Verb serialization

Verb serialization is very common in Iwal. Within a serial verb construction, all verbs must agree in tense

Grammatical tense

A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...

 and the perfective marker is itself a serialized verb. Negatives come at the ends of the clauses they negate.

	ei	ni-	tle	butu	ni-	le	ni-	tak	ni-	kwai
	3SG	FUT3SG	chop	down	FUT3SG	go	FUT3SG	stay	FUT3SG	finish

'He'll chop it down and it'll go and lie there.'

	atob	ei	ni-	mbweg	ni-	wei	nalk	ite
	then	3SG	FUT3SG	stay	FUT3SG	be.on	earth	not

'Then he won't sit on the ground.'

	gi-	dugdug	gi-	sov	gi-	le	gi-	tak
	3SG	roll	3SG	descend	3SG	go	3SG	stay

'It rolled on down until it stopped.'

Note

The primary source for this article is Bradshaw (2001), whose copyright holder is Joel Bradshaw, whose contributions here are licensed under the GFDL.