Mono-Alu language
| Mono | |
|---|---|
| Mono-Alu | |
| Region | Solomon Islands |
| Ethnicity | Mono-Alu |
Native speakers | (2,900 cited 1999)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mte |
| Glottolog | mono1273 |
| ELP | Mono (Solomon Islands) |
Mono, also known as Alu, is an Oceanic language of the Solomon Islands, reportedly spoken by a total of 2,944 people with 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 documented by Joel L. Fagan,[2] a researcher at 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 the first and only translation and analysis of the Mono-Alu language.
Orthography
The Alu alphabet
- 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/.
- The letter H is sometimes replaced by F.
- Length distinctions of vowels and nasals are not represented in the current orthography.
- Although not 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.
Phonology
Consonants
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
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
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
The number system of Mono-Alu is very similar to other Austronesian languages.[5] For example, Mono-Alu shares the words for the numbers 'two' (elua) and 'five' (lima) with the Hawaiian language. A number for 'zero' exists in the language but is under the same use as the word 'nothing.' Fagan identified numbers from one to ten thousand in Mono-Alu.
| Cardinal | English |
|---|---|
| Menna | zero |
| 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 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
Pronouns
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
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 | until tired, for a very long time, alternate form meko |
| a | place where or whether, 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
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 ordinal 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
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
- e.g. fanua (or hanua) - 'mon'
- mafa (or maha) - 'I, no'[3]
Articles
There is no definite article in Alu. The number elea ('one') is used as an indefinite article.[3]
References
- ^ 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.