Mono-Alu language
| Mono | |
|---|---|
| Mono-Alu | |
| Region | Solomon Islands |
Native speakers | (2,900 cited 1999)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mte |
| Glottolog | mono1273 |
| ELP | Mono (Solomon Islands) |
Mono, or Alu, is an Oceanic language of the Solomon Islands, reportedly spoken by 660 people on Treasury Island (Mono proper), 2,270 on Shortland Island (Alu dialect), and 14 on Fauro Island in 1999.[1]
The Mono-Alu language has been studied extensively by Joel L. Fagan,[2] a researcher for the Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University. His publication, "A Grammatical Analysis of Mono-Alu (Bougainville Straits, Solomon Islands),"[3] is one of the first and only, translations and analyses of the Mono-Alu language.
Phonology
[edit]The Alu alphabet
[edit]- The Alu alphabet has 19 letters: A, B, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, and V.
- Of these letters, D was seldom used instead of R for euphony's sake but is used now in new foreign words or names introduced in the language. It is also used to represent the allophonic variant [d] of the phoneme /ɾ/.
- The letter V is used to represent the allophonic variant [v] of the phoneme /b/.
- H can sometimes be replaced by F.
- Length distinctions of vowels and nasals are not represented in the current orthography.
- Although not being in the alphabet, the letters J and Z can be used to represent the marginal phonemes /d͡ʒ/ and /z/ respectively, which only occur in loanwords and appear to be phonologically integrated.
Consonants
[edit]There are 13 phonemic consonants in Mono-Alu.
| Labial | Coronal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ ⟨ng⟩ | |
| Plosive | p b | t | k g | ʔ |
| Fricative | s | h | ||
| Tap | ɾ ⟨r⟩ | |||
| Approximant | (w) ⟨u⟩ | l | (j) ⟨i⟩ |
- /b/ can also be heard as fricatives [β, v] under certain conditions.
- /ɡ/ can be heard as [ɣ] in free variation.
- /ɾ/ can also be heard as [d] in free variation within word-initial position, or as [dɾ] when following a nasal.
- /u, i/ are heard as glides [w, j] within vowel environments.[4][3]
- Other sounds /z/ and /d͡ʒ/ only occur in loanwords.[4]
Vowels
[edit]The Mono-Alu vowel system consists of five phonemic monophthongs and three long vowels.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u, uː | |
| Mid | ɛ ⟨e⟩ | ɔ, ɔː ⟨o⟩ | |
| Low | ɐ, ɐː ⟨a⟩ |
- /i/ has the allophone [iʲ] and it occurs before other vowels (e.g. [sɐpɐiʲɐ] ‘tuber species’, [mɐniʲɔkɔ] ‘papaya’).
- /u/ can occur as [ʊ] in casual speech when the vowel is short and it does not occur in word-final open syllables. The allophone [uʷ] occurs before /i/ and /ɛ/ (e.g. [kuʷisɐ] ‘basket’, [suʷɛlɛ] ‘sleep’).
- /ɔ/ has the allophonic variant [ɔʷ] and it occurs in the exclamation [kɔʷɛ] and is the only instance where this allophone is attested. Elsewhere it is pronounced as [ɔ].
- /ɐ/ and /ɛ/ do not have allophones.
Syllable Structure
[edit]The syllable structure can be either (C)V1(V2)(N) or (ʔ)N, where C can be any consonant (including nasals), V can be any vowel, and N can be either /n/ or /ŋ/. The sequence V1V2 represents a long vowel if both V's are the same phoneme, or a diphthong if they are different. In the syllable pattern (ʔ)N, N is a nasal syllabic nucleus (e.g. [ŋ̩.kɐ] ‘mother’, [ŋ̩.kɔ.tɔ] ‘take, hold’).
Both in coda and nucleic position, N is always realized as velar [ŋ] before /k/, /g/ /ʔ/, and /h/.[4]
Numerals
[edit]The number system of Mono-Alu is very similar to other Austronesian languages.[5] For example, Mono-Alu shares the numbers 'two' (elua) and 'five' (lima) with the Hawaiian language. A number for 'zero' was available in the language, but it was under the same use as the word 'nothing.' Fagan identified numbers from one to ten thousand in Mono-Alu.
| Cardinal | English |
|---|---|
| Menna | nothing |
| Kala (or elea) | one |
| Elua | two |
| Episa | three |
| Ehati | four |
| Lima | five |
| Onomo | six |
| Hitu | seven |
| Alu | eight |
| Ulia | nine |
| Lafulu | ten |
| Lafulu rohona elea | eleven |
| Lafulu rohona elua | twelve |
| Lafulu rohona episa | thirteen |
| Lafulu rohona efati | fourteen |
| Lafulu rohona lima | fifteen |
| Lafulu rohona onomo | sixteen |
| Lafulu rohona hitu | seventeen |
| Lafulu rohona alu | eighteen |
| Lafulu rohona ulia | nineteen |
| Elua lafulu (or Tanaoge) | twenty |
| Episa lafulu (or Pisafulu) | thirty |
| Efati lafulu (or Fatiafulu) | forty |
| Lima lafulu (or limafulu) | fifty |
| Onomo lafulu | sixty |
| Fitu lafulu | seventy |
| Alu lafulu | eighty |
| Ulia lafulu (or Siafulu) | ninety |
| Ea latuu | one-hundred |
| Elua latuu | two-hundred |
| Ea kokolei | one-thousand |
| Elua kokolei | two-thousand |
| Lafulu kokolei | ten-thousand |
Mono-Alu also made[clarification needed] use of ordinal numbers. However, only 'first' (famma) is an actual word, where as all other successive numbers are a grammatical construct.
| Ordinal | English |
|---|---|
| famma | first |
| Fa-elua-naang | second |
| Fa-epis-naana | third |
| Fa-ehati-naana | fourth |
| Fa-lima-naana | fifth |
| Fa-onomo-naana | sixth |
| Fa-hitu-naana | seventh |
| Fa-alu-naana | eighth |
| Fa-ulia-naana | ninth |
| Fa-lafulu-naana | tenth |
Grammar
[edit]Pronouns
[edit]Mono-Alu, like many other Austronesian languages, uses two separate pronouns for the first-person plural in order to express clusivity - that is, one first person plural pronoun is inclusive (including the listener), and the other is exclusive (not including the listener). Mono-Alu does not have third person pronouns. Fagan translated pronouns and their possessives.
| Pronoun | Obj | Suffix | Other | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person |
singular | mafa | -afa | -gu | sagu | |
| plural | exclusive | mani | -ami | -mang, -ma | samang/sama | |
| inclusive | maita | -ita | -ra | sara | ||
| 2nd person |
singular | maito | -o | -ng | sang | |
| plural | maang | -ang | -mia | samia | ||
| 3rd person |
singular | --- | -i, -ng | -na | sana | |
| plural | --- | -ri, -iri | -ria | saria | ||
Affixes
[edit]Mono-Alu is very specific regarding adverbs and other verb affixes. Verbs can be altered with a prefix, infix, and a suffix.
| Prefixes | Infixes | Suffixes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ang | relative prefix, alternate forms an, ai, a'nta | fa | infix denoting completion | ai | there, away |
| fa | causative prefix, fa becomes f before a, alternate form ha | fang | one another (reciprocal infix), alternate form fan | ma | hither, thither, alternate form ama |
| ta | infix or prefix showing action or state. | fero | elsewhere, to somewhere else | ||
| isa | together, at the same time, alternate sa | ||||
| male | again (also occurs independently) | ||||
| mea | makes a plural | ||||
| meka | till[spelling?] tired, for a very long time, alternate form meko |
| a | place where or whither,[clarification needed] alternate form ang occurs after a |
| ng | added to the first of two names gives the meaning 'and', alternate form m |
| ua | denotes addition, 'and', 'with' |
| -a | 'of', especially before -ang, alternate forms an, ang, aan |
| afa- | 'what?' |
| -ata | often found after verbs and other words, alternate forms eta, ita, ota, uta |
| ga | particle, most often after the first word in a sentence, untranslatable; 'so, therefore' at the beginning of a sentence, also used with pronoun forms to emphasise them: gafa, gami, gai, gaina, gang, etc. |
| -nana | equivalent to copula, alternate form nina |
| -titi | strengthens the idea of repetition or duration |
Grammatical gender
[edit]There are two ways of indicating differences of grammatical gender:
- By different words: - e.g.
- Tiong 'man' – Betafa 'woman'
- Fanua 'men' – Talaiva 'women'
- Lalaafa 'headman' – Mamaefa 'headwoman'
- Tua-na 'his grandfather' – Tete-na 'his grandmother'
- Kanega 'old man' (husband) – Magota 'old woman' (wife)
- By using an ord[spelling?] indicative of sex: – e.g.
- Kui manuale 'baby' (male) – Kui batafa 'baby' (female)
- Boo sule 'boar' – Boo tuaru 'sow' (sule and tuaru are used for animals only)
In other cases, there is no distinction between masculine, feminine, and neuter.
Adverbs
[edit]Some exceptions within the rules of Mono-Alu have been discovered.[6]
Two adverbs of place, instead of being written with a double consonant, are written with only one accentuated.
- e.g. Nai (instead of NNai) – 'here'
- 'Nao (instead of NNao) – 'there'
Instead of the aspirate h, the letter f can be used:
- in verbs preceded by the causative ha (or fa)
- e.g. fasoku (or hasoku) – 'let come'
- in verbs preceded by the prefix han (or fan), meaning reciprocity or duality
Articles
[edit]There is no definite article in Alu. The number elea ('one') is used as an indefinite article.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Mono at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ A Short grammar of the Alu language.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Fagan, Joel (1986). A Grammatical Analysis of Mono-Alu (Bougainville Straits, Solomon Islands). Canberra, Australia: The Australian National University. doi:10.15144/PL-B96. hdl:1885/145402. ISBN 0-85883-339-5.
- ^ a b c Meier, Sabrina C. (2020). Topics in the Grammar of Mono-Alu (Oceanic). University of Newcastle.
- ^ Lincoln, Forster, Peter, Hilary (2001). Letters written in Mono-Alu language of Western District, Solomon Islands to Hilary Forster of N.Z.; Mono-Alu word list by Hilary Forster of N.Z. and a teacher from Shortland Islands, Solomon Islands. Shortlands, Solomon Islands.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Stolz, Thomas (1996). Some Instruments Are Really Good Companions - Some Are Not. On Syncretism and the Typology of Instrumentals and Comitatives. pp. Theoretical Linguistics 23. 113–200.