Longgu (Logu) is a Southeast Solomonic language of Guadalcanal, but originally from Malaita.
Phonology Phonology is concerned with the ways in which languages make use of sounds to distinguish words from each other. In Longgu, there are both consonants and vowels which make up its alphabet. Altogether, it has five distinct vowel articulations and nineteen consonant phonemes. According to the usual custom in the languages of Guadalcanal, the vowels are sounded out separately.
Consonants In Longgu, the consonant phonemes include: LabialDentalVelarGlottal Plain LabializedPlosiveVoicelessVoicedFricativesVoicelessVoicedNasalLateralTrillGlide In Longgu, there are four voiceless stops including glottal stops. All of Longgu's voiceless stops are not aspirated, while its three voiced stops are pre-nasalised. Prenasalization of voiced stops is also recurrent in Longgu, whereby it is more audible intervocalically. Furthermore, the labial stop /bʷ/ is also recognised as a voiced stop /b/. For example:
Babasu and Bwabwasu (name of a town) are both acceptable.
In this language, there are four fricatives, but in particular we can look at the dental fricative /z/ which has been recorded. Additionally, a voiceless interdental has been previously recorded for Longgu. An example of this is θae, meaning ‘liver' in English. Furthermore, when the consonants /s/ and /z/ are produced, the tip of the tongue is touching the back of the bottom teeth, with the blade touching the palate. Below shows a minimal pair which demonstrates these two different consonants:
bisi "place to go to the toilet" bizi "so (as in se bizi "not so (much)")
In addition to consonants for Longgu, the labial consonants /bʷ/ and /mʷ/ are portrayed as individual phonemes as opposed to two separate phonemes, such as /b/ and /w/ or /m/ and /w/ as there are no other transformations of a consonant that is followed by a glide (i.e. */dw/ and */gw/). Therefore, it has been found that there are no consonant clusters in Longgu, hence an analysis of two separate phonemes rather than a unit phoneme is required.
Vowels The vowel phonemes in Longgu are: FrontBackHighiuMideoLowa In Longgu, any pair of vowels may occur in a vowel sequence. Vowel sequences are treated as two separate vowels based on their behaviour in terms of stress rules and reduplication. Below are two examples of minimal pairs which demonstrate a contrast in vowel sequences: (1)ae-aiae'faeces'aiai'cassava' (2)ae-auhaehae'cockatoo'hauhau'small container'
The high back vowel, which is in this case /u/ is interpreted as a glide[w] before /i/ or /a/. Furthermore, there appears to be no long vowels in Longgu, however all of its vowels may produce vowel sequences. In Longgu, a vowel sequence cannot be broken for the purposes of reduplication.
Phonotactics The overall syllable structure of Longgu is (C)V(V), which means that the order of sentence structure will be; consonant, verb and then vowel. All of its consonants either occur before the word or in the middle, however a few of these consonants are known to occur in particular environments. For example, /z/ will tend to occur only before /a/ and /u/. This syllable structure does not apply to two independent pronouns, such as; ngaia 3rd person singular, and gaoa 1st person dual inclusive. The stress on both of these pronouns is on the first syllable (nga-ia and ga-oa). Furthermore, voiced stops may only occur in the same morpheme as another voiced stop if both are identical or made at the same place of articulation. For example:
dede-a ‘fill it’ gege ‘beside’
This rule does not necessarily apply across all morphemic boundaries as, for example, a possessive suffix that is attached to a noun may include a voiced stop that is made at a different place of articulation. For example:
gege-da ‘beside them’
Reduplication Any vowel, including a geminate vowel (a reduplicated vowel which emphasises the meaning) can occur with any other vowel within the same syllable. In terms of consonants, labial consonants /pw/, /bw/ and /mw/ only occur before non-rounded vowels. See the examples below:
bwabwa ‘hole, cave’ mwatawa ‘ocean’ pwakepwake ‘boar’
There is both partial and full reduplication that is present in Longgu. In terms of partial reduplication, the first syllable of a word containing two syllables is reduplicated:
la-loto ‘swimming’ zua-zuala ‘standing’ mau-mauru ‘sleeping’
Words of two or more syllables are always partially reduplicated through the reduplication of the first two syllables:
tavurake ‘to leave’ tavu-tavurake ‘leaving’
Stress Stress occurs when a level of emphasis or prominence is given to a phonological word. Primary stress will be on the main syllable, whilst the secondary stress will be on every alternate preceding syllable. Stress in most oceanic languages will indeed fall on this penultimate syllable. A phonological word can consist of a base word, such as a noun or verb, and all of its affixes. For instance, the word zato "sunny" tends to be nominalised through a singular noun phrase clitic:
záto "sunny" záto-i "sun"
Orthography In Longgu, certain orthographic conventions can be used. It is important to realise that the labialised bilabial phonemes in Longgu can essentially be written as pw, bw and mw, the bilabial fricative / β/ as v, the glottal stop /ʔ/ as /’/ and the velar nasal /ŋ/ as digraph /ng/. Apart from these exceptions, all the other consonants are written in their phoneme form.
Pronouns and Person Markers
There are four pronominal forms in Longgu:
independent pronouns subject pronouns possessive suffixes object suffixes
Independent pronouns and subject pronouns in Longgu are closed word classes. Possessive suffixes are attached to nouns to form inalienable possessive constructions, and object suffixes are attached to transitive verbs. Four numbers are distinguished in pronominal forms: singular, dual, paucal, and plural, and non-singular first person pronouns are either inclusive (INCL) or exclusive (EXCL).
Independent pronouns
Independent pronouns can act as subject pronouns for 1st and 2nd person non-singular. They also mark agreement between the verbs and its object for 2nd and 3rd person non-singular object suffixes. When an independent pronoun functions as the head of a noun phrase, the noun phrase may consist of the head alone (example 1), may include the pronominal article (example 2), the cardinal or ordinal numeral expressing "one", a post head modifier, or a noun phrase clitic. All third person pronouns can function as determiners, but the 3rd person plural pronoun gira and 3rd person singular pronoun ngaia are the ones that are most commonly used to fulfill this function.
+Table 1. Independent pronouns Singular Dual Paucal Plural 1st person exclusive nau/na amerua golu gia inclusive gaoa/ ga amelu ami 2nd person oe amurua amolu amu 3rd person ngaia girua/ girarua giraolu gira
The first person dual inclusive pronoun gaoa has the reduced form ga. The first person singular pronoun na is used instead of nau when placed before the irrealis particle ho.
Independent pronouns have three functions: Nominal argument of a clause
Possessor in an alienable possessive construction
Determiner in a noun phrase
Subject pronouns
The subject pronoun is also the first constituent of a verb phrase, and is used to cross-reference the number and person of the subject noun phrase. Lonngu does not have any 1st and 2nd person non-singular subject pronouns, as can be seen in Table 2. Third person non singular subject noun phrases are either fully cross-referenced for person and number by the subject pronoun (example 6), or by the 3rd person plural subject pronoun (example 7).
Using the 3rd person plural subject pronoun to cross-reference dual and paucal subject noun phrases is thought to be a simplifying device, and used when the number of the subject has already been established either by a subject noun phrase, an independent pronoun (example 7), or a subject pronoun in a previous clause (example 8). The third person plural subject pronoun can be used to cross reference both inanimate and animate subjects.
The use of 3rd person plural subject pronoun as a cross-referencing device is often associated with the repetition of an event as seen in example 8.
Subject pronouns are given in Table 2, with independent pronouns functioning as subject pronouns placed in brackets.
+Table 2. Subject pronouns Singular Dual Paucal Plural 1st person nu (gaoa amerua) (golu amelu) (gia ami) 2nd person o (amorua) (amolu) (amu) 3rd person e arua/ ararua aralu ara
Possessive suffixes Possessive suffixes are bound morphemes that are either attached to nouns or to the nominal preposition ta-,.
+Table 3. Possessive suffix Singular Dual Pascal Plural 1st person exclusive -gu -mamerua -mamelu -mami inclusive -garua -gaolu -ga 2nd person -mu -miurua -miolu -miu 3rd person -na -darua -daolu -da
Possessive suffixes have five functions:
To signify the whole of a part/ whole relationship
To express the relationship between a local noun and the dependent common/ place noun
To signify the possessor in an inalienable possessive construction
To signify the object of a nominal or dative preposition
To refer to the object of a small class of verbs
Object suffixes
Object suffixes are attached to transitive verbs to cross-reference person and number of the object pronoun phrase argument in transitive clauses. The person and number of object noun phrases with animate references are fully marked by the object suffix on the verbs (example 14). Object suffixes in Longgu make distinctions between inanimate and animate objects, as well as distinguishing between objects which are highly individuated, and those that have no special importance.
A list of object suffixes are shown in Table 3, and independent pronouns functioning as object suffixes are placed in brackets.
+Table 4. Object suffixes1st2nd3rdSingular -u -o -aDual(gaoa amerua)(amorua) -raruaPascal(golu amelu)(amolu) -raoluPlural(gia ami)(amu) -ra -i For third person plural object suffixes, inanimate objects can be referred to using both -ra and -i, but animate objects are referred to using only the object suffix -ra.
Singular objects are marked by 3rd person singular suffix -a.
Non-singular objects can be marked by the 3rd person singular suffix -a, as well as the 3rd person plural suffix -ra and the 3rd person plural inanimate suffix -i. However, the 3rd person singular suffix can only be used when the object is not highly individuated (example 16). The taro tops in example 16 refers to taro tops in general, not a specific group that the speaker had in mind.
The 3rd person plural inanimate suffix -i cross references dual, paucal, or plural inanimate objects which are highly individuated. In example 17, the head noun is quantified, and food objects are also cross-referenced by the 3rd person plural inanimate suffix.
Possession Possession in grammar is a construction which expresses a relationship between a possessor and a possessum [what is possessed]. There are two key syntactic constructions for possession: alienable and inalienable. Inalienable possession refers to the relationship between a person/being and its inherent properties or parts, and which cannot be removed. In contrast, alienable possession refers to a relationship of possession where the possessum (thing being possessed) can be given away or lost by the possessor. Both types of possessive construction may express kin relationships, part/whole relationships (body and its parts), objects, location and ownership but to varying degrees and with certain allowances and limitations.
NB: All examples in Possession are taken from Longgu Grammar by Deborah Hill, 2011 unless otherwise stated.
Inalienable Possession