A Grammar of South Efate

Contents

Contents List of Tables and Figures xii Preface xv Acknowledgments xvi Abbreviations xix Conventions xxi Symbols used xxii Maps xxiii Pictures xxv 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Methodology 1 1.2. The corpus 5 1.3. Language documentation and the South Efate corpus 6 1.4. Audio-linkage 9 1.5. Overview of the present study 10 2. South Efate, place, people, and language 12 2.1. South Efate, the place 12 2.2. History and social organization of South Efate 14 2.2.1. Archaeology 14 2.2.2. Population 16 2.2.3. Kastom 18 2.2.4. Social organization 20 2.2.5. Economic base of South Efate society 25 2.2.6. Outside contact and settlement. 26 2.3. The language of South Efate 30 2.3.1. Writing South Efate 33 2.3.2. Previous work on the language 33 2.3.3. Codrington and Ray 35 2.3.4. Recent work 35 2.3.5. Publications in South Efate 38 2.3.6. Sources on neighboring languages 40 2.3.7. The linguistic situation in Vanuatu, vernaculars, Bislama, and metropolitan languages 40 2.3.8. The future for Vanuatu's vernaculars 42 2.3.9. The current state of the South Efate language 43 3. Phonology 45 3.1. Current orthography 46 3.2. Consonants 46 3.2.1. Stops Ip, t, k, pl 47 3.2.2. Fricatives If, sl 50 3.2.3. Nasals 1m, m, n, g, nr/ 50 v Contents 3.2.4. Liquids II, rl 52 3.2.5. Semivowels Iw, yl 52 3.2.6. Non-phonemic glottal stop 53 3.3. Vowels 54 3.4. Proto Oceanic and South Efate correspondences 55 3.5. Phonotactics 57 3.5.1. The syllable 57 3.5.2. Consonant distribution 59 3.5.3. Vowel distribution 64 3.5.4. Stress 65 3.6. Morphophonemic processes 67 3.6.1. Medial vowel reduction (MVR) 67 3.6.1.1. Iii to [aJ vowel centralization 67 3.6.1.2. Medial vowel deletion (MVD) 68 3.6.2. Nasal assimilation 70 3.6.3. Degemination 71 3.7. Whispering and ingressive voice 73 4. Word classes 74 4.1. Zero conversion and word class 74 4.2. Nominals 74 4.3. Conjunctions and subordinators 76 4.4. Numerals 76 4.5. Verbs 78 4.6. Prepositions 79 4.7. Adjectives 81 4.8. Adverbs 88 4.8.1. Pre-modifiers 92 4.9. Interrogatives 94 4.10. Quantifiers 95 4.11. Interjections 96 4.11.1. Lexical interjections 96 4.11.1.1. Greetings, leavetakings 99 4.11.1.2. Hesitation markers l 00 4.11.2. Non-lexical interjections l 00 5. Nominals and the noun phrase 103 5.1. Pronouns l03 5.1. 1. Focal pronouns l04 5.1.2. Oblique free pronouns 106 5.1.2.1. nakte 'my', 'lsgPOS' 106 5.1.3. Bound pronouns 107 5.1.3.1. Number agreement l 07 vi Contents 5.1.3.2. Bound subject pronouns (proclitics) 109 5.1.3.2.1. Realis/irrealis pronominals l 09 5.1.3.2.2. Perfect pronominals 110 5.1.3.2.3. kai echo-subject marker 111 5.1.3.3. Bound object pronouns 115 5.1.3.3.1. The object suffix paradigm 115 5.1.3.3.1.1. The problem of 3sg0, zero marking, and the 'distant' clitic 117 5.1.3.3.2. The OBL object paradigm 119 5.1.3.4. Inclusory construction 120 5.1.3.5. Impersonal reference 120 5.1.3.6. Bound direct possession pronouns 121 5.2. Nouns 123 5.2.1. Kinship nouns 124 5.2.2. Placenames and the locative affix e- 125 5.2.3. Temporal nouns · 126 5.3. Possession 127 5.3.1. Indirect or general possession 127 5.3.1.1. Possession marked by a possessive pronoun 128 5.3.1.2. ni possession 128 5.3.1.3. men ('of it') 129 5.3.2. Direct possession 129 5.3.2.1. Dyadic kintenn construction 131 5.4. Nominalization 132 5.4.1. na- nominalization 132 5.4.2. Nominalization of verbs using na- -wen/ien/-an 133 5.4.3. te nominalization 137 5.5. The noun phrase 140 5.5.1. Noun modification, premodifiers 141 5.5.2. Noun modification, postmodifers 141 5.5.2.1. Adjectives and stative verbs...