Semelai language
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Semelai is an Austroasiatic language spoken in the Malay Peninsula by Semelai people. It belongs to the Southern branch of the Aslian language subgrouping. The Semelai people reside predominantly around the Bera, Serting and associated river systems in the states of Pahang, Negeri Sembilan and Johor.
Semelai is a split ergative language motivated by semantics and word order shift.Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found.
Phonology
Semelai has 32 consonants and 20 vowels.[2]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | cʰ | kʰ | ||
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | s ~ ɕ | h | ||||
| Nasal | voiceless | m̥ | n̥ | ŋ̊ | ||
| voiced | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| preglottal | Script error: No such module "IPA". | Script error: No such module "IPA". | Script error: No such module "IPA". | |||
| Approximant | plain | l | j | w | ||
| preglottal | Script error: No such module "IPA". | Script error: No such module "IPA". | ||||
| Trill | plain | r | ||||
| preglottal | Script error: No such module "IPA". | |||||
- Stops Script error: No such module "IPA". are heard as Script error: No such module "IPA". word-final position.
- Palatal sounds Script error: No such module "IPA". are slightly affricated as Script error: No such module "IPA". when in word-initial position.
- Script error: No such module "IPA". may occur as Script error: No such module "IPA". or Script error: No such module "IPA". within free variation.
- Nasals Script error: No such module "IPA". can occur as prestopped Script error: No such module "IPA". when in word-final position.
- Script error: No such module "IPA". can be heard as Script error: No such module "IPA". when in word-final position. When preceded by a nasal Script error: No such module "IPA". it is heard as Script error: No such module "IPA"..
- Script error: No such module "IPA". are heard as off-glides Script error: No such module "IPA". when in word-final position. After nasal vowels, they are then heard as nasalized Script error: No such module "IPA"..
Vowels are also distinguished with nasal counterparts:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i ĩ | ʉ ʉ̃ | u ũ |
| Close-mid | e ẽ | ə ə̃ | o õ |
| Open-mid | ɛ ɛ̃ | ɔ ɔ̃ | |
| Open | a ã | ɒ ɒ̃ |
- Script error: No such module "IPA". is phonetically noted as Script error: No such module "IPA"..
- Script error: No such module "IPA". can be heard as Script error: No such module "IPA". in closed syllables
- /ə/ can be heard as Script error: No such module "IPA". in stressed word-final syllables
Morphosyntax
Semelai has many inchoative verbs such as rmɔl "to be male", hitam "be black", which at the first glance may hint a flexible language like nearby Austronesian languages. However, the vast majority of Semelai lemmas can be identified unproblematically to a particular word category. Verbs and nouns must undergo derivation via infixation or prefixation in order to function as other lexical categories, eg. rlmɔl "male" → rmɔl "to be male", yɔk "take" → nk-yɔk "taking INF". Loan words from Austronesian are mostly precategorial, eg. tuŋkɒt "a stick, to prop up".Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found. The language recognizes several distinct parts of speech that are morphologically and syntactically distinguished: the superclass nominal (which includes nouns as an open word class); verb; expressive; preposition; adverb; auxiliary; existential and ascriptive predicators; negator; connective; interjection.Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found.
Nominal morphology
Free pronouns
| Minimal familiar | Minimal | Augmented | Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | ʔəɲ | yɛ | yɛʔen | |||
| 2nd person | kɒ | ji | jɛʔen | |||
| 1st & 2nd | hɛ | hɛʔen | ||||
| 3rd person | kəh | deh | ||||
| 3rd Subject | kəhn | dehn | ||||
Pronominal clitics
These pronominal clitics are used to mark agreement with the ergative argument of transitive verbs and highly volitional argument of intransitive, human activity-denoting verbs.
| Minimal familiar | Minimal | Augmented | Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | ʔəɲ= | yɛ= | hɛ= | |||
| 2nd person | kɒ= | ji= | ||||
| 3rd person | ki= | de= | ||||
| 3rd Unidentified | ko= | |||||
Notes
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- ^ a b Semelai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Template:Harvp
References
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- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Hoe, Ban Seng (2001). Baer, Adela S.; Gianno, Rosemary (eds.). Semelai Communities at Tasek Bera: A Study of the Structure of an Orang Asli Society. Subang Jaya, Malaysia: Centre for Orang Asli Concerns. ISBN 983-40042-3-0.
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Kruspe, Nicole (2004a). A Grammar of Semelai. Cambridge Grammatical Descriptions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81497-9.
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Kruspe, Nicole (2004b). "Adjectives in Semelai". In Dixon, R. M. W.; A. Y. Aikhenvald (eds.). Adjective Classes: a cross-linguistic typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 283–305.
External links
- http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)
- http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-66E3-8@view Semelai in RWAAI Digital Archive
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