Ughele language

Distinguished by place of articulation

/veke/ and /veko/ - 'flying fox’ and ‘bald’ /ɣami/ and /ɣamu/ - ‘we/us’ and ‘you’

Distinguished by level of stricture

/patu/ and /petu/ - ‘stone’ and ‘mangrove’ /tina/ and /tini/ - ‘thousand ‘ and ‘body’ /neka/ and /nika/ - ‘slippery cabbage’ and ‘fire’ /kopi/ and /kupi/ - ‘lake’ and ‘to pick’

Stops

Ughele contains bilabial, alveolar and velar stops. These are /b + p/ , /d + t/ and /g + k/ respectively. As well as voiced and unvoiced pairs for all plosives. - /ba/ and /pa/ /made/ and /mate/ (four and die/dead) /poga/ and /poka/ (to make pudding/pudding and nail) All voiced stops are pre-nasalised, however the degree of this varies between speakers. Pronunciation of this runs from barely audible nasalisation to almost fully nasalised segments. E.g. /b/ → /b̃/, /d/ → /d̃/, /g/ → /g̃/

• Nasal and oral pairs for all voiced stops . E.g. /b/ → /m/, /d/ → /n/, /g/ → /ŋ/
• Voiced bilabial nasals and non-nasals E.g. /ma/ and /ba/, /na/ and /da/
• Voiced velar nasals and non-nasals E.g. /mamaŋa/ open → /mamaga/ a fish species
• Voiced bilabial, alveolar and velar stops E.g. /mabo/ tired → /mado/ happy → /mago/ spirit, devil
• Unvoiced stops /ka/ (negation indicator), /pa/ (location phrase indicator), /ta/ (possession indicator)
• Voiced bilabial/alveolar/velar nasals E.g. /madi/ obey, /nadi/ sagopalm pudding, /ŋadi/ sharp, long

Alveolar Trill

There is only one found in Ughele, this is in the lexeme /arozo/ (rope)

Fricatives

• Labiodental, alveolar, velar and glottal /v/, /s/, /z/, /ɣ/ and /h/
• Labiodental /v/ and velar /ɣ/ are voiced and → /ɣoi/ you and /voi/ to put
• Glottal fricatives are unvoiced /puha/ to wipe and /pusa/ to tie
• Voiced and unvoiced alveolars /soi/ hot drink and /zoi/ penis

The Affricate d͡ʒ

This post-alveolar affricate is sometimes realised as a palatal nasal stop /ɲ/ , although this is relatively rare in spoken language and therefore is speaker-dependent. /d͡ʒ/ → /ɲ/ ~ /d͡ʒ/ Thus ‘ngajiri’ (angry) may be pronounced /ŋad͡ʒiri/ or /ŋapiri/

Approximants

Ughele contains one alveolar lateral approximant /l/ and one labial velar /w/. However /w/ only occurs in a small set of loanwords from English and Roviana (another Solomon Island language originally developed for trade) Window - /wida/ Week - /wiki/ Win - /wini/ ‘Vaseni’ Year - /waseni/

Minimal Pairs Based on Manner of Articulation

Voiced alveolar plosive /mada/ ‘to let’, and fricative, /maza/ ‘flesh’ Unvoiced alveolar plosive /tabu/ ‘holy’, and fricative /sabu/ ‘hunt’ Voiced velar plosive ' /gu/ ‘1st/p possessive’, and fricative /ɣu/ ‘just’

Independent pronouns

Independent pronouns may act as the head of a noun phrase, taking on the forms of subject, direct object, or indirect object as a complement to prepositions (Frostad, 2012, p. 81). They may also appear in possessive constructions.

Above is an example of the 3rd person plural pronoun rie and 1st person plural exclusive pronoun ghita in noun phrases headed by pronouns. The numeral modifier ka ru follows the pronoun head, whereas it would typically precede a noun head (Frostad, 2012, p. 82).

Ughele has object marking clitics and two different sets of subject markers, and these occur in specific fixed positions relative to the verb (Frostad, 2012, 169).

Object clitics

Object clitics are pronominal forms, which only occur with verb stems and only mark direct object (Frostad, 2012, 85).

Transitive verbs rarely occur without object marking clitics (Frostad, 2012, p. 169), and are either attached directly to the verb stem (2), or follow the transitive suffix, either –i (3) or –ni (4).

1st person singular exclusive object clitic –(a)u attached to verb stem:

3rd person singular object clitic –a attached to transitive suffix –i:

3rd person singular object clitic –a attached to transitive suffix –ni:

Object clitics may be the only referent to the object in the clause (5) or they may occur with a coreferential noun phrase (6) (Frostad, 2012, p. 85).

2nd person singular –(a)gho:

2nd person singular object clitic –(a)gho with coreferential noun phrase 2nd person singular independent pronoun

–ghoi:

Preverbal subject partial clitics

Preverbal subject marking pronouns in Ughele can appear in the form of partial clitics. These clitics precede the verb complex, but only in very specific constructions (Frostad, p. 82). They cliticize to two particles, the homophonous imperative mood marker ma (7), and conjunction ma ‘then’ (8), and they occur as independent forms indicating pivots in complex clauses (9) (Frostad, 2012, p. 171). This aspect of Ughele’s grammar bears resemblance to that of three of its nearest neighbouring languages, Hoava, Roviana and Marovo, with that of Marovo being the most similar (Frostad, 2012, p. 171).

1st person plural inclusive preverbal subject clitic –da attached to mood marker ma:

2nd person singular preverbal subject clitic –mu attached to conjunction ma:

3rd person plural preverbal subject independent form di:

Postverbal subject pronouns

In Ughele, postverbal subject pronouns overlap completely with preposed possessive pronouns (Frostad, 2012, p. 84). Postverbal subject pronouns mark various types of foci, where the pronouns would refer to the focused constituent (Frostad, 2012, p. 85). Below is an example of the 3rd person plural postverbal subject pronoun used in a sentence.

Preposed possessive pronouns

Preposed possessive pronouns make up one of the three indirect possessive marking strategies in Ughele (Frostad, p. 86). It may occur in constructions which has a noun phrase expressing the possessor (11) or not, as in (12).

Attributive suffixes

Attributive suffixes are what are often labeled as possessive suffixes in most other Oceanic languages (Frostad, 2012, p. 87), but in Ughele, they also have other functions (Frostad, 2012, p. 87).

In direct possessive constructions, attributive suffixes may either agree with the possessor noun (13) or be the only expression of the possessor (14).

Attributive suffixes are also used to derive nominal attributive modifiers from adjectival verbs, indicating the number and person of the referent of the head noun (15) (Frostad, 2012, p. 87).