Aneityum language

Glottal Stop

The moderately phonemic glottal stop is an allophone of /h/ when it occurs before a consonant.^{[gr 5]} It also occurs as an allophone before vowels that occur in the word initial position.^{[gr 5]}

Voicing

Stops and affricates in Anejom̃ change in voicing depending where they occur between segments as described and illustrated below.^{[gr 7]}

• Between vowels labial stops become voiced. Other stops (and affricates) are partially voiced.^{[gr 7]}
• Between voiced segments all stops are variably voiced. The affricate /tʃ/ is variably voiced between voiced segments too. However, when it occurs before a nasal segment it becomes [c].^{[gr 7]}
• When these stops occur word initially, they are always slightly aspirated. The affricate /tʃ/ on the other hand is not aspirated but often takes on variable voicing.^{[gr 7]}
• When these stops and affricates don't occur between vowels or voiced segments they stay as their underlying form. For example, /p/ becomes [p] and /k/ becomes [k].^{[gr 7]}
• When these stops occur in final position, the phonemes don't change. However, the affricate /tʃ/ becomes [c].^{[gr 7]}

Personal Pronouns

Anejom̃ "personal pronouns distinguish (a) three persons, with a further distinction of inclusive and exclusive in first person non-singular; (b) four numbers (singular, dual, trial and plural); and (c) three cases (focal, object and possessive)."^{[gr 1]} The table below shows all of the personal pronouns.^{[gr 8]}

Interrogative Pronouns

There are two interrogative pronouns in Anejom̃: di ('who') and panid and its less widely used alternate, panida ('which').^{[gr 10]}

Et adel a di?

3SG.AR fart S who

'Who farted?'

However, 'di' is "inherently singular" and requires a coordinate phrase with im, as seen in the example here, to express plurality.^{[gr 10][gr 11]}

Era apam di im di?

3PL.AR come who and who

'Who (PL) came?"

Panid and Panida can only be used to refer to inanimate objects.^{[gr 11]}

'Le naifi enai aak!'

take.SG knife DEM2.SG you.SG

'Panid?'

which.one

Demonstrative Pronouns

Demonstrative Pronouns also have singular, dual, trial and plural forms like personal pronouns (see below).^{[gr 11]}

In Anejom̃, demonstrative pronouns can also take the suffix -sak which denotes that the speaker is "pointing at or in some other way indicating the location of the thing referred to."^{[gr 12]}

Alp̃a-i ñak jeknaa-sak aak.

give-TR me this2.PL-INDIC you.SG

'Give me those ones there (that I'm pointing at).'

Temporal Nouns

Examples of common temporal nouns can be seen below.^{[gr 14]}

Locative Nouns

Locative nouns in Anejom̃ do not need the case marker "a" to occur in front of it as shown in the example below.^{[gr 15]}

Et m̃an apan aan Isia

3SG.AR PF go (s)he Isia.

'He went to Isia.'

Locative nouns also include the following words:^{[gr 15]}

Personal Nouns

Personal Nouns include kinship terms as well as names of people.^{[gr 15]}

Obligatorily Possessed Nouns

These nouns must "be marked as being possessed by some other noun or pronoun", which tends to be marked by suffixation.^{[gr 16]} Most of the obligatorily possessed nouns are kinship terms.^{[gr 16]}

An example of direct suffixation can be seen in the examples below.^{[gr 16]}

etma-n

father-his/her

'his/her father'

etma-ra

father-their.PL

'their father'

There are some nouns that do not take direct suffixation but rather use possessive markers such as the word for "child", "nephew", "niece", and "sister," to name a few.^{[gr 16]}

Optionally Possessed Nouns

Unlike obligatorily possessed nouns, these nouns do not, or do not have to, take possession markers.

N-/in- Prefix

The n-/in- prefix is a frequently used as well as frequently occurring underlying morpheme: it accounts for around 85% of Anejom̃ nouns.^{[gr 19]} The other approximate 15% of nouns that don't use this prefix tend to be highly specific groups of nouns.^{[gr 19]}

Collective Prefixes

Anejom̃ also has a different set of prefixes that are referred to as collective prefixes as they refer to large groups of things:^{[gr 20]}

Direct Possession

In Anejom̃, the possessive form of personal pronouns are attached directly to the noun when "the possessor is a personal pronoun".^{[gr 21]}

nijma-k

hand-my

'my hand'

Indirect Possession

For all other nouns that cannot be directly possessed, a "possessive or construct suffix is added to a possessive marker" as seen below. ^{[gr 22]}

intal inca-i di?

taro POSS.F-CS who

'whose taro?'

The Verbs 'yek' and 'isp̃a'

Both of these verbs are unusual in that they do not follow the regular pattern.

Inflectional Prefixes

^{[gr 26]} The vowel (i) is only added if it occurs before a consonant.^{[gr 27]}

Reduplication

Anejom̃ does have reduplication although it is not used very often. It most commonly occurs as complete reduplication as seen below.^{[gr 28]}

Object Suffixes for Transitive Verbs

Not including the verbs which take possessive suffixes, there are three main types of ways in which transitive verbs are marked. The types of verbs are: 1) unmarked verbs, 2) "verbs that take the transitive suffix "-i" with all objects", 3) verbs that only take "-i" with animate objects and "-ñ" with inanimate objects.^{[gr 29]}

Directional and Locational Verb Suffixes

These suffixes attach to the end of the verb and will come after a transitive suffix if one occurs.^{[gr 27]}

Distance suffixes have to combine with horizontal or vertical suffixes; they cannot be alone.^{[gr 27]} The ordering of these suffixes are as follows: 1) VERTICAL, 2) HORIZONTAL, 3) DISTANCE.^{[gr 27]}

Subject-Tense Marking

In a verb phrase, a subject marking morpheme tends to occur first (except if it is an imperative, optionally conjoined, or subordinate clause).^{[gr 30]} In Anejom̃, subject-tense-aspect marking is undergoing radical change.^{[gr 30]}

There seems to be a lot of change in present day subject-tense marking, especially in the plural subject-tense marking category by younger speakers. Here are all the (competing) subject-tense markers used in modern Anejom̃.^{[gr 31]}

Mood, Aspect, Tense Markers

Anejom̃ has several markers (different than the subject-markers) which indicate a variety of mood, aspect and tense.^{[gr 32]}

Unmarked Phrases

Unmarked temporal phrases take a temporal noun and unmarked locative phrases take either a locative noun or a locative demonstrative.^{[gr 36]} There are two types of local demonstratives: the first type is the one seen in the table below and the second is formed adding locative suffixes (see table earlier on page) to the root 'au'.^{[gr 36]}

Locative Demonstratives that are formed by adding the locative suffixes to the root au- must follow a specific order:^{[gr 36]}

au- VERTICAL - DISTANCE

au- HORIZONTAL - DISTANCE

au - VERTICAL - HORIZONTAL - DISTANCE

Marked Phrases

Marked temporal phrases and place phrases (that don't have a non-personal noun at the head), take the case marker 'a'.^{[gr 37]} For non-personal place phrases, the case marker 'u' is used instead.^{[gr 37]} When a place phrase uses a personal noun or pronoun, ehele- is used instead of either 'a' or 'u'.^{[gr 37]}

Yes/No Questions

Yes/no questions can be asked in two ways. One way to indicate a question is by ending a phrase on a raised intonation. The second way is to add the word 'ka a'o' (which means 'or no') to the end of a sentence.^{[gr 38]}

Simple Clause Chaining

In simple clause chaining, no conjunctions are markings are used to link two separate clauses together. Simple clause chaining can be used either for clauses of the same or different subject and for both verbal and verbless clauses.^{[gr 40]}

[Ekrau edou ajamrau], [ek ap̃ahni añak era-i iji-teptag asga].

1EXC.DL.AR roam we.EXC.DL 1SG.AR go.everywhere I LOC-CS COL-nakamal all

'We wandered around and I went to every single nakamal.'

Conjunctions

There are three conjunctions that combine clauses in Anejom̃: 'ka', 'jai', and 'jam' which are the equivalents of 'or', 'but' and 'but' respectively.^{[gr 41]}

'Ka'

[Et m̃an ecohos nagesga] ka [a'o]?

3SG.AR PF appear sun or no

'Has the sun risen (or not)?

'Jai' and 'Jam' have the same meaning, however 'jai' is used when the subjects of the two combining clauses are different and 'jam' is used when the two combining subjects are the same.^{[gr 41]} 'Jai' is also used when a subject-tense marker occurs at the beginning of the clause following it, regardless of the subject.^{[gr 41]}

'Jai'^{[gr 41]}

[Eris akrou m-alp̃a-i cama], jai [is p̃ar han]...

3PL.AR share ES-give-TR us.EXC.PL.O but 3SG.P SEQ enough

'They shared it out to us, but there was enough..."

'Jam'^{[gr 41]}

[Eris ago kava lum̃a-n aara] jam [ago is erou].

3PL.P make kava POSS.D-his they.PL but.SS make 3SG.P two

'They made his kava, but they made two (bowls).'

Am̃ and p̃ar

Am̃ and p̃ar are also conjunctions that respectively mean 'and' and 'and then, so'. However, they don't function like normal conjunctions but rather aspect markers as seen below.^{[gr 41]}

[Ekris lecse-i u-rau aarau], [isam̃ atpu tah aarau].

3DL.P take.PL-TR POSS-3DL they.DL 3SG.P and hide one they.DL

'The two of them took their, and one of them hid.'

M-

M- is attached "to the first word in the verb phrase of a non-initial clause which has the same subject as the preceding clause".^{[gr 42]} It can also denote continuous aspect.^{[gr 42]}

[Ekris apan aarau] [m-ago nup̃ut] [m-ago ihnii].

3DL.P go they.DL ES-make k.o.laplap ES-make finish

'They two went and made nup̃ut and finished making it.'

Verb Serialization

While verb serialization does not occur much in Anejom̃ in comparison to other Western Oceanic Languages, it occurs more commonly than in its closest related languages.^{[gr 42]} Most of the verb-serializations in Anejom̃ contain directional motion verbs in the non-initial clause as seen below:^{[gr 42]}

[Is 'm̃an lep rectidai aataj'] [apan a-nlii-i niom̃]

P PF again get.up they.TL go LOC-inside-CS house

'They three got up again and went inside the house.'