Saliba is an Oceanic language spoken on the islets off the southeastern tip of Papua New Guinea. There are approximately 2,500 speakers of Saliba. Significant documentation of the language was undertaken by the Saliba-Logea documentation project, and hundreds of audio-video resources can be found in the project archive.Saliba-Logea. The Language Archive: http://dobes.mpi.nl/projects/saliba
Culture The most common occupation for the Saliba people is fishing. The four major villages are Sidudu, Sawasawaga, Logeakai and Logeapwata.
Endangerment The Saliba language is currently endangered. Currently there are only elders that speak it and a few young children who have learned in the early years of their life. Most of the people speak English because it is seen as the more prestigious language. This only further makes Saliba the minority language in the land.
Phonology The consonants of Saliba are , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and . The vowels of Saliba are , , , and . The and are debatable if they are different phonemes because they are in complementary distribution with the sounds and respectively.
Consonant BilabialLabializedAlveolarVelarLabialized velarGlottal Plosive, , , , , Nasal Fricative Approximant()()
Vowels Front Central Back High Mid Low
Listed above are the consonants for Saliba in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).
Orthography In its orthography, Saliba uses Latin alphabets. The letters can also be upper case or lower case. All of Saliba's orthography is in the table below. PhonemeOrthographyiieeaaoouupppwpwbbbwbwttddkkkwkwgggwgwʔ'sshhllwwjy
Syllables The syllables in Saliba have three possible structures. They are V, CV, or CVN (CVN being a heavy syllable). All syllables in Saliba are enunciated the same. There is occasionally a slight stress on the syllable just before the last syllable. For example, in the word , meaning 'hear', the syllable in the middle would be slightly stressed. In Saliba, all nouns, verbs, adjectives, and some adverbs are composed of at least two light syllables or one heavy syllable. On the other hand, words used mostly for grammatical functions, such as conjunctions, pronouns, particles, etc. can be made up of only a CV or just a V.
Grammar
Verbs All verbs in Saliba can be classified as either transitive or intransitive verbs on formal grounds. To convert from transitive to intransitive verbs the suffix or a suffix that looks like is used, C being any consonant depending on the verb. The suffix can also be used to turn some nouns into transitive verbs. For example, , 'knife', becomes , 'cut with a knife'. Another important formational affix for verbs is the causative prefix , e.g. , 'see' becomes , 'show', or, 'cause to see'. Something special about the verbs in Saliba is that the stems of two lexical verbs can combine to form one inflected verb. For example, in the verb phrase , which means 'he jumped down', the verb is made up of ('jump') and ('go down'). The two stems have combined to form one complex verb.
Tense and aspect Tense is not marked in Saliba verb phrases, but aspect is. When absolute time reference is needed, Saliba uses time words like , 'yesterday', , 'tomorrow', or oblique phrases like , 'in the morning'.
Reduplication Saliba uses reduplication for a few things. One function of reduplication is to convert certain action verbs into noun. For example, the word means 'to sweep'. If is reduplicated to it becomes 'broom'. Another example could be meaning 'go'. If that word is reduplicated to it now means 'method' or 'way'. Another reason a verb would be reduplicated is the verb is being used as an attributive verb. An example of this would be in the sentence . That sentence means 'good food'. Notice , meaning 'good', is reduplicated since it is a verb that is being used like an adjective. The last reason a verb would get reduplicated is in the imperfective aspect of an action verb. The reduplication is used to mark this occurrence in the sentence. Imperfective aspect is used to show habitual or progressive events. For example, in the sentence which means '(they) did not work in the garden'. The ('work') is reduplicated to mark that this is probably a habitual behavior.
Adjectives As far as adjectives go, in Saliba there appears to be no difference between verbs and adjectives. The only rule is, with the exception of some verbs, all verbs are duplicated when they are going to be used as adjectives.
Nouns Nouns in Saliba have four kinds of affixes that can be attached to them. The first one is a suffix that is used for possession. The next one is the plural suffix which is (, , , or ) on nouns that refer to humans. Another affix is the locative suffix (). The last affix is called a determiner.
Noun phrases Noun phrases are everything in a sentence that is not the verb. Noun phrases can be subjects, objects, predicates and parts of prepositional and post-positional phrases. In its simplest form, a noun phrase can be made out of just a noun and a determiner. For example, , which in Saliba means 'eel', is a simple noun phrase. A noun phrase is typically broken up into two parts, the nucleus and possibly multiple modifiers. Modifiers can include things like possessors and demonstratives (words that give location), which would go before the head noun. The other types of modifiers, such as verbal modifiers and quantifiers, would go after the head noun.
One of the most important modifiers is the determiner. This modifier is usually attached to the last part of the noun phrase and gives a reference to the head noun in the noun phrase with regard to the rest of the sentence. However, noun phrases used as prepositional phrases do not have determiners.
Quantifiers such as cardinal numerals can go either before or after the adjective in a sentence. Ordinal numerals on the other hand, such as first, second, etc. behave like adjectives and go after the noun in Saliba.
Pronouns Person/ClusivityindependentsubjectobjectpossessiveFirst person, singular Second person, singular , , , Third person, singular First person inclusive First person, exclusive Second person, plural Third person, plural The table holds all the different pronouns in Saliba. There are different rules for using each of them though. Starting with independent pronouns, when using these pronouns in a sentence they can and will most likely form noun phrases and will have a determiner. An example of a sentence using an independent pronoun could go as follows: , which means 'We were scared'. In the next column are subject pronouns, these pronouns are used as the subject in a sentence hence their name. To be more precise one could say they are the subject of verbal clauses. According to linguists who have studied Saliba, object pronouns are only put on certain objects. One example using both types of pronouns could be , which means 'Wake up the children'. Note the particle marking the subject and the particle marking possession. Another example could be , meaning 'My mother and my father woke us up'. Again the two possessive pronouns to mark 'my father and my mother' and also the and used to mark the subject and object respectively. Additionally, the subject pronouns and are only used mostly for imperatives or events where the verb expressing it is not realized: for example, which means 'go!'. In the last column, possessions, the rules for using the suffixes in a sentence are split up into alienable possessions and inalienable possessions. For alienable possessions, the possessive pronoun goes after one of the two possessive classifiers as shown in the table below. English English my house my pig your house your pig his/her house his/her pig our house (inclusive) our pig (inclusive) our house (exclusive) our pig (exclusive) your house your pig their house their pig For inalienable possessions the possessive classifiers and are not used. Instead, the possessive pronoun suffix goes after the possessed noun. If the inalienable noun is plural then the plural suffix will just go directly after the possessive suffix, as shown in the table below. SingularEnglishPluralEnglish my child my children your child your children his/her child his/her children our child (inclusive) our children (inclusive) our child (exclusive) our children (exclusive) your child your children their child their children
Demonstratives A demonstrative is a type of pronoun that points out a noun. In Saliba demonstratives, with the exception of , go before the head noun. is the only one that goes after a head noun and its determiner. Saliba's demonstrative pronouns are as follows: DemonstrativeEnglish this (very close to speaker) that (close to the person being spoken to) that this (as in 'this day')
Interrogative and indefinite pronouns In Saliba most of the interrogative pronouns also function as indefinite pronouns. Interrogative pronouns are pronouns used when asking a question. Indefinite pronouns are pronouns used to mention any sort of general person, place, or thing. The interrogative/indefinite pronouns for Saliba are listed below. InterrogativeEnglish where, anywhere how many, some who, somebody, anybody when what, something, anything which one how why All of the pronouns in this list except the last two are nouns. The last two happen to be verbs. An example of using one of these in a sentence would be meaning 'where did you go?'.
Possession As mentioned previously, Saliba has different rules for possessions depending on if they are alienable possessions or inalienable possessions. If a possession is inalienable, then the possessed noun is written with the correct possessive suffix directly following it, such as , meaning 'my mother'. would be the possessive suffix. However, if it is an alienable possession then the possessive suffix directly follows one of the two possessive classifiers, or , such as in , 'my house', or , 'my food'. In a sentence the person who possesses the possessed noun is treated as the subject and possessed noun is then the head of the predicate. They are written in such a way that there is nothing separating the subject from the head of the predicate. To negate the predicate, such as saying someone does not have something, the negation particle would be added before the predicate phrase like so: , meaning 'I don't have a child'. The following table lists things the people of Saliba find inalienable, alienable constructions, and alienable constructions. InalienableAlienable ()Alienable ()body partsfood that is going to be eatensomething that is ownedparts of a thingclothesagent of intransitive and transitive actionsspatial relationillnesseskinshipcontainer and contentinvoluntary events and those affected by themquantity and quantified itemskinshiptransitive actions and their patientskinship Depending on the context, almost any noun can appear as alienable or inalienable. For example, one could say , meaning 'her egg' (hen's egg), , meaning 'his/her egg' (egg that he/she is going to eat), or , meaning 'his/her egg' (egg that he/she owns).
The category of body parts refers to things like hands, feet, etc. Parts of inanimate objects includes things such as the root of a coconut or the core of an apple. Spatial relation refers to space, such as the inside of a house. Container and content can mean things like a cup of water or a bowl of food. Quantity and quantified items are not referring to objects, but are rather more figurative, referring to age and time.