Neverver (Nevwervwer), also known as Lingarak, is an Oceanic language. Neverver is spoken in Malampa Province, in central Malekula, Vanuatu. The names of the villages on Malekula Island where Neverver is spoken are Lingarakh and Limap.
Neverver is a threatened language, and native languages are protected and secured by the local government that is in charge. Sixty percent of the children are able to speak this language. However, the dominant languages in the community, such as Bislama, English, and French are pushed to be used within these language communities. Bislama is the most widely used language within this region. English and French are the two most distinguished languages within this region because they are connected with the schooling system. In the Malampa Province, English and French are the primary languages taught for education. English is used for business transactions within this region and helps generate revenue within the region. This is due to the fact that before this province gained its independence in 1980 they were governed by the joint French-English colonial rule. Overall, there are only 550 native speakers of Neverver.
Neverver falls under the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian language family (based on comparison of cognates, morphology, phonology and other evidence markers), which is the second largest language family in the world. There are two dialects of the Neverver language; Mindu and Wuli.
Phonology Consonants Neverver contains a total of 27 consonant phonemes in five distinct places of articulation and six distinct manners of articulation. A notable feature of Neverver is that some voiced consonants appear only in its prenasalized form. Another feature of Neverver's consonants is that some have a contrastive geminate counterpart: /pː/, /tː/, /kː/, /mː/, /nː/, /lː/, /rː/, and /sː/. The consonant phonemes are given in the table below using the International Phonemic Alphabet (IPA).
Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Nasals Plosives/Affricates plain prenasalized Fricatives Trills plain prenasalized Approximants
Voiced obstruents, including the fricatives and , and the prenasalized trills and are devoiced in word-final position in rapid speech. Among younger speakers, the prenasalized plosives become simple nasals in word-final position.
The plosive becomes a voiceless trill before the vowel .
Vowels Neverver contains a total of eight vowel phonemes, five regular vowels and three diphthongs. However, there is evidence that /y/ and /ø/ are contrastive among older speakers, bringing the total number of vowels to ten for some speakers. The vowel phonemes are given in the table on the left IPA. A list of diphthongs are also provided in the table on the right along with examples.+Vowel Phonemes Front Central Back High () Mid () Low +DiphthongsIPAExampleEnglish Translationau/naut/"place"ei/mei/"May"ai/aijem/"home, dwelling"
Syllable structure Neverver allows for syllables with up to one consonant in the onset and in the coda, including syllables with only a nucleus. This means the structure of syllables is . An example of the possible syllable structures is given in the table below where the corresponding syllables are in bold:
TemplateInstantiationEnglish TranslationV/ei/"he"CV/nau/"cane"VC/i.βu.ŋis.il/"he made smile"CVC/tox/"exist"
Stress Stress in Neverver is regular and not contrastive. It generally falls on the singular syllable of monosyllabic words and on the penultimate syllable of multisyllabic words. In compounds, each stem is treated separately so stress is assigned to each following the general stress pattern. Examples of the assignment of stress in common words are given in the table below.
+Stress in Common WordsExampleEnglish Translation['naus]"rain"['naɣ.len]"water"[ni.'te.rix]"child"
Verbs follow a stress pattern that is different from the general stress pattern. In verbs, stress falls on the first syllable of the verb stem, disregarding the obligatory prefix; however, in imperative statements, stress is placed on the subject/mood prefix and on the first syllable of the verb stem. During reduplication, primary stress is assigned to the first instance of the reduplication. Examples of the assignment of stress in verbs, instances of reduplication, and imperative statements are given in the table below.
+Stress in VerbsExampleEnglish Translation[is.'ɣam]"one"[im.'ʙu.lem]"(s)he will come"[na.mbit.'liŋ.liŋ]"we will leave (her)"[nit.'mal.ma.lu]"we dispersed"['kam.'tuɸ]"go away!"['kum.'ʙu.lem]"come!"
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:
Singular Plural 1st person Inclusive (i-)na (i-)git Exclusive (i-)nam ~ (gu)mam 2nd person (i-)okh (i-)gam 3rd person ei adr
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:
Singular Dual Plural 1st person Inclusive ni- nir(i)- nit(i)- Exclusive nar(i)- nat(i)- 2nd person ku- kar(i)- kat(i)- 3rd person i- ar(i)- at(i)-
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:
Singular Non-singular 1st person Inclusive (t-)na (t-)git Exclusive (t-)nam ~ (t-)mam 2nd person (t-)ox (t-)gam 3rd person titi ~ ei titi-dr ~ adr
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:
Singular Non-singular 1st person Inclusive at-t-na at-t-git Exclusive at-t-nam 2nd person at-t-okh at-t-gam 3rd person at-titi at-titi-dr
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 basic word order of Neverver is SVO, including intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive verbs. Examples of sentences with intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive verbs are given below.
Possession 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: Simple StemReduplicated StemCVte 'hit'CV-CVtete 'fight'CVCtas 'scratch'CVC-CVCtas-tas 'sharpen'CVCVmalu 'leave'CVC-CVCVmal-malu 'disperse'CCVtnga 'search'CV-CCVta-tnga 'search' (duration)CCVCsber 'reach'CV-CCVCse-sber 'touch'
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. BaseReduplicanttur 'stand up'turtur 'stand'ngot 'break'ngotngot 'be broken'jing 'lie down'jingjing 'be lying down'
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