Kunimaipa language

Kunimaipa is a Papuan language of New Guinea. The varieties are divergent, on the verge of being distinct languages, and have separate literary traditions.

Kunimaipa
RegionPapua New Guinea
Ethnicityincl. Biangai
Native speakers
(14,000 cited 1978–2000)[1]
Papuan
  • Trans-New Guinea
Language codes
ISO 639-3Variously:
kup – Kunimaipa
wer – Weri + Amam
big – Biangai
Glottologkuni1267  Kunimaipa[2]
weri1254  Weric[3]
bian1252  Biangai[4]

Phonemes [5]

Consonants

Below is a chart of Kunimaipa consonants.

Table of consonant phonemes of Kunimaipa
Labial Coronal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive p b t d k g
Fricative v s h
Lateral approximant l
Trill r

Vowels
  • “ i, e, a, o, and u”

Morphophonemics [6]

Each stem that ends with a has three kinds of allomorphs: a, o, and e. Allomorphs end with a in a word finally or before a syllable with a. It is the most common ending. O ending appears before syllables with o, u, or ai. E ending appears before syllable with e or i. All of above holds true, except the ending syllable before -ma. In the general morphophonemic rule, ending a appears before syllable with a. In the case of -ma, o appears before the syllable with a. For example, the sentence so-ma, meaning ‘I will go.’

Words [7]

Non-suffixed

Word classes that are usually not suffixed are responses, exclamations, attention particles, vocative particles, conjunctions, names, and particles. Responses are short replies on a conversation; such as, kara 'okay', ee 'yes', gu 'yes', ev 'no'. Exclamations is usually occurs on sentence boundary; such as, auma 'surprise', au 'mistake', maize 'regret', and aip 'dislike'. Attention particles are only used on reported speech; such as, gui 'call to come', ae 'attention getter', and siu 'attention getter -close'. Vocative particles are beginning of addresses in sentence boundary; such as, engarim 'hey, woman', erom 'hey, man', engarohol 'hey, children', and guai 'uncle'. Conjunctions are links in "phrases, clauses, and sentences"; such as, mete 'and, but, then', ma 'or, and', povoza 'therefore', and ong 'but, then'. Names label person, place, days, and months; such as, made-ta-ka, 'on Monday', and pode-ta-ka, 'on Thursday'. Lastly, one particles that is used in introducing a quote is never suffixed, pata meaning 'reply'.

Suffixed or non-suffixed

Word classes including adjectives, pronouns, interrogative words, nouns, and verbs can be suffixed or non-suffixed depending on the meaning and usage. Some example of adjectives in Kunimaipa are tina 'good', goe 'small', and hori 'bad'. The Kunimaipa language has 7 pronouns, including ne, ni, pi, rei, rari, aru, and paru. Example of od interrogative words are taira and tai meaning 'what'. Noun is a large word class including words such as abana 'men', abanaro 'young men', no nai nai 'everything', and mapo 'all'.

Not Classified According to suffixation

The word classes that cannot be classified by suffixation are locations, temporals, adverbs, and auxiliaries.

gollark: Just configure your linter or TS or whatever to disallow some stuff.
gollark: You can just mostly ignore the bad parts, though, like `this`.
gollark: I kind of dislike JS as a language, although I do find it very nice to work with for some things (with a typechecker).
gollark: There are, generally, other options.
gollark: Hmm, I thought I had this working but my parser appears to eat ] sometimes.

References
  1. Kunimaipa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Weri + Amam at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Biangai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Kunimaipa". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Weric". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  4. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Biangai". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  5. Geary, Elaine (1977). Kunimaipa grammar: morphonemics to discourse. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  6. Geary, Elaine (1977). Kunimaipa grammar: morphonemics to discourse. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  7. Geary, Elaine (1977). Kunimaipa grammar: morphonemics to discourse. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Further reading
  • Aki, Mambu; Pennington, Ryan (2013). "Tentative Grammar Description". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Boxwel, Maurice (1992). "Organised Phonology Data" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-07-23. Retrieved 2018-07-23. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • Dobrin, Lisa. n.d. Noun classification in Weri. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.