Phonology
Consonants
Neverver contains a total of 27Vowels
Neverver contains a total of eightSyllable structure
Neverver allows forStress
Pronoun and person markers
Neverver uses different pronominal and nominal forms. There are three main noun classes: common, personal, and local nouns. There is also another fourth pronominal-noun category which blends features of the Neverver pronominal system with properties of the three major noun classes. There are three pronoun paradigms in Neverver: independent personal pronouns, possessive determiners, and possessive pronouns. Like most Austronesian languages, in Neverver the inclusive/exclusive distinction only applies to the 1st person plural category. Personal nouns in Neverver include personal proper names as well as personal kin terms.Pronoun paradigms
Independent personal pronouns
Independent personal pronouns encode basic person and number contrasts. This includes the optionally articulated ''i-'', which can indicate either a subject or object. Although this initial ''i-'' is optional with the pronouns, it is obligatory with the personal interrogative. For example, ''i-sikh'' means 'who'. Independent personal pronouns usually refer to animate entities, unless in some particular circumstances such as reflexive constructions. Below is a table showing the independent pronoun paradigm:= Subject/mood
= Furthermore, all subjects, both nominal and pronominal, are cross-referenced with a subject/mood prefix which is attached to the verb stem in realis tense. These subject/mood prefixes differ from independent personal pronouns because there is a further dual distinction in addition to the singular and plural distinction. Subject/mood prefixes are also obligatory in all verbal constructions, unlike independent pronouns. Below is a table showing the subject/mood paradigm: The table shows that the 3rd person form is irregular.= Gender
= In Neverver there are gendered pronominal nouns, with ''vinang'' expressing a female and ''mang'' expressing a male. These can be obligatory modified with a demonstrative or a relative clause. Gender can also be expressed using third person singular pronouns. In Neverver, when there are two human participants involved of different genders, one is expressed with a gender-coded form and the other can be coded with an optional gender-neutral ''ei.'' The gender-coded form to express a female participant as the grammatical subject of the first clause, is encoded in the subject/mood prefix ''i-''. If the male becomes the grammatical subject in the next clause, this is distinguished with the male pronominal-noun ''mang''. For example: In the above example there is a male and female participant involved. The subject/mood prefix ''i-'' encodes that the female is the subject of the first clause. When the subject shifts to the male, the pronominal-noun ''mang'' is used to show this shift. To show that the female has become the object again, the 3rd person pronoun ''ei'' expresses this.Possessive determiners
Prefixes derive possessive determiners in Neverver. Most of these begin with the possessive prefix ''t-''. In Neverver, possessive determiners refer exclusively to human possessors, and a different construction is used to express non-human possessors. Below is a table showing the possessive determiners paradigm:3. Possessive pronouns
Prefixes also derive possessive pronouns in Neverver. Possessive pronouns are made up of a nominalising prefix ''at-'' and the possessive prefix ''t-'', which are both attached to the base pronominal morpheme (the independent pronoun). Furthermore, when the nominalising prefix is attached, the possessive pronoun can become the head of the noun phrase by itself. Below is a table showing the possessive pronoun paradigm: As the table shows, the 3rd person form uses the suppleted ''titi'' morpheme rather than the independent personal pronoun form. For example, ''at-t-na'' means 'mine' and ''at-titi-dr'' means 'theirs'.Personal nouns
In Neverver, personal nouns are one of the three main noun classes, along with common nouns and local nouns. These personal nouns can include personal proper names and personal kin terms. Many of the women's personal proper names are traditionally marked with the morphemes ''le-'' or ''li''; however, there is no morpheme associated with men's traditional personal proper names. Neverver also has a small set of kin terms that can express family relations as well as other name avoidance strategies.Syntax
Basic word order
The basicPossession
In Neverver, there are a numerous ways to describe possession. The correlation between an object and what matter it is made up of can make a difference in describing possession. There are seven main types of possession in the language of Neverver. This includes: # Human Possession # Inherent possessions without nominal modifier # Associative possession with nominal modifier # Relative clause without nominal modifier # Relative clause with nominal modifier # Number relative clause without nominal modifier # Number relative clause with nominal modifier Some examples of possession from Barbour are: * Human possession: nida (mother) t-na "my mother" * Associative possession with nominal modifier: wido (window) an (nmod) nakhmal (house) ang (the) "The window of the house" * Number relative clause with nominal modifier: nimokhmokh-tro (female old) an (nmod) i-ru (two) ang (the) "the two old women/wives"Reduplication
Reduplication of words occur in the language of Neverver. They occur in conjunction with verbs in this language. Words are reduplicated by reproducing and repeating the entire word or partially of it. For example, the word 'tukh' of Neverver means strike, when duplicated to 'tukh tukh' it produces the word for beat. Reduplication Constraint One is used within Neverver. This is when a word's prefix being reduplicated follows the constant-verb format. The table below shows examples of this: The most useful process of Reduplication in Neverver is to acquire a stative verb from a verb encoding action. Some examples of this can be seen in the table below. There are irregular reduplications within Neverver that do not follow the constant-verb format. According to Julie Barbour, the word , which means "come", does not follow this format. It would be implied that the reduplication of this word would ve-vlem. Julie Barbour uses the example sentence "Ari vle-vle-vle-vlem" which translates into "They came closer and closer."Negation
Negation is a grammatical construction that semantically expresses a contradiction to a part of or an entire sentence. In Lingarak, negatives typically contradict verb constructions.Forming negations
Verb clauses in Lingarak are negated using the negative particle ''si''. This negative particle always occurs after the verb. Thus, the particle is typically called a post-verbal negative particle. It can be used to negate the following constructions: * Declarative clause - clauses that are typically used to express statements. * Imperative clauses - clauses that are typically used to give commands. This can be observed in example 15 below. * Realis mood - a mood of language, where the proposition is strongly asserted to be true and apparent, and can be readily backed up with evidence. Realis verb forms typically involve the past tense. * Irrealis mood - a mood of language, where the proposition is weakly asserted to be true, and not readily backed up with evidence. Irrealis verb forms typically involve certain modals. In example 1 below, a declarative clause in the realis mood has been negated. The verb ''i-vu'' meaning 'go' in third person singular realis mood is negated using the post-verbal negative particle ''si''. Similar to example 1 above, the post-verbal negative particle ''si'' is also used to negate the first person singular ''nibi-kkan'' meaning 'eat' in example 2 below. However, the following should be noted: * The post-verbal negative particle ''si'' directly follows the verbal construction that it is negating. In this case ''nibi-kkan.'' This is important in this example because there are two verbs involved. Since ''si'' directly follows ''nibi-kkan'', it only negates ''nibi-kkan'' and not ''i-ver''. * It is also important to notice that the verb that is being negated ''nibi-kkan'', directly precedes ''si'', and that ''si'' directly precedes the reduced exclamatory particle ''in''. Any part of a sentence that is being negated and occurs after the negated verb construction will occur after ''si'' in the negated construction. There are however certain exceptions for this as shown in examples 6 to 9 where ''si'' affixes to form new aspect markers, and also in examples 10 to 13 where ''si'' occurs with serial verb constructions. Example 3 below shows another example of negation using the post-verbal negative particle ''si''. However, in this example it is important to observe that any words (that can take a mood) after ''si'' in example 3 is written in the irrealis mood. This is another characteristic of negation in Lingarak. When something in the realis mood is negated in Lingarak, then elements following the ''si'' particle will be written in irrealis mood.Existential negation
In Lingarak, verb constructions that express the meaning of existence, also known as existential constructions, are treated like other common verbs when being negated. Thus, to negate the verb ''tokh'' in Lingarak which means ‘to exist’, only a ''si'' particle is required to follow it as shown in example 4 below. This is atypical of Oceanic languages since Oceanic languages typically have special negative existential verbs as shown below in example 5. This example is in Tokelauan which is spoken in Polynesia. In contrast to the Lingarak, Tokelauan uses a verb in the negative form for 'exist' instead of a post-verbal negative particle.Affixing ''si'' with aspect markers
In Lingarak, the aspect of continuity is expressed with ''mo''. When a verb that is occurring continuously is negated, the ''si'' particle is used as an affix and is connected to the end of ''mo''. Thus, creating a new particle ''mosi'' which means ‘no longer’. This is demonstrated in example 6 below. Similar to examples 1 and 2 above, the negative particle ''si'' occurs after the verbal construction. (In this case ''Nimt-uv-uv'', meaning 'go'.) In order to express the continuous aspect of the verb ''Nimt-uv-uv'', ''si'' is affixed into the end of the aspect marker ''mo'' to form ''mosi''. This now gives the negation the meaning of 'no longer' as shown in the free translation of example 6. It should also be noted that the affixes ''mo-'' and ''-si'' in example 6 above are interchangeable in terms of affix order. This is demonstrated in example 7 below. In contrast to ''mosi'' in example 6 above, ''si'' precedes the continuous aspect marker ''mo'' to form the continuous negation particle ''simo.'' Similar to the particle ''mosi'' in example 6, ''simo'' also has the meaning of 'no longer' as shown in the free translation of example 7. Similar to the aspect of continuation, the aspect of ‘not yet’ can also be expressed by the particle ''vas'' which is short for ''vasi''. This particle is formed by reducing the affixation of ''si'' onto the particle ''va''. Unlike ''mo'', ''va'' in Lingarak is not a free morpheme. Thus, it is inseparable from ''si''. Example 8 presented below demonstrates an instances of ''vasi''. A sentence using the reduced form of ''vasi'' which is ''vas'' as discussed above, is presented in example 9 below.Negating serial verb constructions
In Lingarak, verbs can be strung together to form a single complex nucleus. This is process of compounding two verbs can be analysed as an instance of serialisation. These instances of verb constructions are typically referred to as serialised verb constructions and also typically behave like a single verb. In this way, they can only have one subject argument, and one ''si'' particle for negation. An example of negating one of these serialised verbs is demonstrated in example 10 below. As seen in example 10 above, the serialised verb construction ''ib-lav-bir'', is negated with the post verbal particle ''si'' like all other typical scenarios of verb clause negation in Lingarak. This is because this serialised verb construction behaves like a single verb. However, the placement of the ''si'' particle begins to change when the second verb in the construction begins to play a more prepositional role (rather than verbal) as discussed below. The form ''delivs'' in Lingarak means 'go around'. However, this verb never occurs independently, but instead will serialise on the end of other verbs to form serial verb constructions. The serial constructions are presented in the table below. However, it is important to note that these serialisations only occur for verbs that have meaning of motion or posture. Despite the prepositional like meaning of ''delvis'', when serialised with other verbs, the serialised verb construction behaves like ''ib-lav-bir'' when being negated by the post-verbal negative particle ''si'' since it is inherently a verb meaning 'go around'. This behaviour is illustrated in example 11 below. In addition to ''delvis'', the form ''sur'' in Lingarak means 'near', 'along', in some other cases it also means 'by'. When compounded with verbs to create a compound verb construction, the placement of ''si'' begins to vary when negating these compounded constructions. Like ''sav delvis'' in example 11, example 12 is also negated using a post-verbal negative particle after a word with a prepositional like meaning ''sur''. In contrast to example 12 above, example 13 below places the negative particle between ''i-vlem'' 'come' and ''sur''. Thus, as stated above, ''si'' has broken a compound verb construction. The placement of the ''si'' particle has changed when negating verb constructions which have ''sur'' in the position of the second verb of a serialised verb construction. Thus as discussed above, the placement of ''si'' begins to change when the second verb in the construction begins to play a more prepositional role. It is possible that this inconsistent nature of ''sur'' is occurring because ''sur'' is currently undergoing re-analysis from verb to preposition.Negative verbs
There is also a repertoire of negative verbs in Lingarak. These are presented in the table below. These negative verbs are used like other verbs in Lingarak to express negative meaning and do not require ''si'' for negation of the negative counterparts are used. This can be shown in example 14 below.Functions of negations when used in conjunction with reduplication
Forming prohibitions
When the post-verbal negative particle ''si'' is used alongside reduplication, negative imperatives and prohibitions can be formed. This is demonstrated in example 15 below.Expressing inability using ''mosi''
The inability to perform an action can also be expressed by using ''mosi'' to negate action. This is illustrated in example 16 below. In example 16, the function of ''mosi'' is expresses the 'loss of an ability' to perform an action.Negative condition
Negative 'if' conditions can be constructed using the post-verbal negative particle ''si'' in conjunction with reduplication and ''besi'' (meaning 'if) as shown in example 17 below.Numbering System
Numbers one through nine follow a quinary pattern. It can either possess realis or irrelias mood and polarity of a main clause. Below is a table showing the numerals, one through nine. A key characteristic of Neververs numbering system is associated with definiteness. Numbers in the form of ten or greater take on the form of a noun rather than a verb, as shown in the table below: Clear cut numbers greater than ten contain the term 'nangavul nidruman':References
Bibliography
* * {{Austronesian languages Malekula languages Languages of Vanuatu