Kalamang language
Kalamang, sometimes also called Karas, is a divergent Trans–New Guinea language spoken on the biggest of the Karas Islands off the Bomberai Peninsula, that is part of the West Bomberai family. It is spoken in Antalisa and Mas villages on Karas Island.
Phonology
- The consonants /f/ and /h/ are uncommon, with f mostly appearing in loanwords. The palatal plosives, /c/ and /ɟ/, also appear mostly in loans, though some come from a historically palatalised /t/ or /d/.
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- The vowels /a e i/ are reduced to in unstressed syllables in fast or casual speech.
Pronouns
Cowan records the following pronouns for Karas.Visser records the following pronouns for Karas of Maas village:
The free possessives and possessive suffixes can occur together.
Grammar
Nouns and the noun phrase
Nouns
s take suffixes marking their possessors. Nouns can be reduplicated, either fully or partially, often resulting in a plural interpretation, though this may alter the meaning of the noun in some other way, such as intensifying, or it may derive a verb, as in mun "flea", munmun "search for fleas." A subset of kinship terms can mark plurality with a suffix of the form -mur/-mumur, but this is not found on other nouns. Some noun roots cannot appear alone, and must take a possessive suffix or some other marker, one group of these being some kinship terms which are required to have possessive suffixes, such as nam- "husband", or tara- "grandparent, grandchild". Nouns can be compounds, either the first or second component may be the head, with the other being the modifier. In compounds where the second element is the head, it may be optionally possessive marked, but this is lexicalised, as the form of the possessive marker is fixed '' chicken egg-".Pronouns
s have distinct roots for each person in the singular and plural, along with making a clusivity distinction in the first person plural, and from the plural stems, a dual pronoun can be formed by suffixing -ier. The first-person plural inclusive pronoun pi, may be used as a generic or impersonal reference. The third person singular pronoun ma refers to inanimate referents of any number, the other third person forms are not used for inanimates. Suffixes -utak and tain attach to the pronoun roots, both meaning "only", though -tain serves more to emphasise or single out a referent from a larger group, while -utak primarily quantifies. -gan, -ninggan, on duals or plural pronouns respectively, expresses "both, all". Possessive pronouns are formed by a suffix -gon on the first-person singular and plural-exclusive, and -in on other roots, and may either modify a head noun, or stand alone ".Noun phrase structure
The order of elements in the noun phrase is thus: A possessor noun phrase or pronoun may precede the head noun, and these are the only elements that may do so. After the head noun are in order, quantifiers, possessive pronouns, attributive modifiers, and demonstratives.Possession
is usually marked by a possessive suffix on the possessed noun, optionally accompanied by a noun phrase referring to the possessor preceding the head, or less commonly, a pronoun. A possessive pronoun may follow the head noun, which may be either marked or unmarked with a possessive suffix, though possessive pronouns much more commonly occur alone, rather than modifying a head noun. The nouns esa, ema "mother, father" often use this construction, as they may only take a possessive suffix to form a teknonym, a very common way of addressing someone, where they are referred to as the parent of their eldest child. It is also found with compound nouns that obligatorily take a fossilised possessive suffix, since the suffix slot cannot be used to indicate possession on these compounds.Quantifiers
include both numeral, and non-numeral quantifiers. Reduplication on numerals is distributive, though Kon "one", when reduplicated, can mean "a few", or "not any/nothing" in a negated clause. Reduplication on the non-numeral quantifier bolon "little", intensifies the meaning.There are numeral classifiers, which are prefixes that attach to a numeral, or the content interrogative puraman "how many", expressing some feature of the noun being quantified, such as kis- for long, thin objects, or nar- for small, round ones. Not all nouns have a classifier assigned to them, for example, human nouns do not, but for those which do, the use of a classifier with a numeral is obligatory. Many classifiers also function as nouns referring to parts of wholes, like tak- "leaf, page, flat object", or ar- "stem", and are possessed in this context. When functioning as classifiers, a single noun referring to a kind of plant may occur with different classifiers, depending on which part of it is being discussed, like the plant as a whole, its fruits, its seeds, etc. When a quantifier is the only post-head modifier object noun, in addition to the noun taking the object marker =at, the quantifier receives the object quantifier suffix -i. If there is another post-noun modifier however, object status is marked only by the object marker attaching to the final element of the noun phrase.
Modifiers of other word classes
The marker =ten attaches to predicates placed after the noun within the noun phrase, turning them into modifiers. Its use is not required on stative verbs, which fill the role of adjectives, in this function. Constructions using =ten can be considered relative clauses. The associative marker =kin appears on a modifying noun, to mark meanings including possession, purpose or location, like nika war=kin line fish-kin "fishing line."Demonstratives
Kalamang has a number of different demonstrative roots, with different syntactic behaviour. Wa, me "this, that" exhibit the full range of possibilities, they can follow a noun in a noun phrase, be an argument or predicate of a non-verbal clause, and they are also the only ones that can be used as pronouns. These forms can also take suffix -ndi, meaning "like many, big, far". Me is also often used in forms expressing a change of setting or time in a narrative. Other forms include the far distal owa, which is often used for nonvisible referents, and yawe and osa, which mark elevation rather than distance, "up" and "down" respectively. These demonstratives can be used as modifiers to a head noun, and identificationally, but cannot be used as pronouns, and are often used adverbially as well when marked for the locative or lative. The anaphoric demonstrative, opa is only used as a modifier, referring to already mentioned or accessible referents. When demonstratives have the object marker attached, it takes a reduced form with them -t, while the locative =ko and lative =ka are augmented to -t=ko and -n=ka.Postpositions
are clitics, because they are not bound to the head of the noun phrase, but always attach to the last element, like English 's The postposition =at marks objects, both direct and some indirect objects, depending on the verb, whether animate or inanimate. The only situation where it doesn't surface is if the object is marked as topic with me. The object marker co-occurs with the object quantifier suffix if there is no other following modifier.The marker =ki has two functions, as an instrumental marker, and as a benefactive marker in the "give" construction. The similative is marked by =kap. Comitative =bon marks either animate or inanimate accompaniment. Unlike other postpositions, it may co-occur with =at, since it also functions as a coordinator, and it may stand alone with an omitted head if the accompanying referent is obvious from context.
The locative =ko, konggo, which marks location, and the lative =ka, =kongga, which marks the source or goal of a movement, each have two forms depending on whether the referent they mark is inanimate or animate, respectively. The animate lative and locative may also mark the indirect objects of some verbs. To show more specific locational meanings, there are locational nouns, such as keit- "top" or kol- "outside". They cannot appear alone, and must be either used in locative or lative marked noun phrases, be either marked as possessed, or take a suffix of the form -pis, -kadok "-side".
Coordination
Noun phrases can be coordinated via juxtaposition, or through the use of the comitative postposition =bon, which follows each coordinated referent. Ye "or" following the coordinands is used for disjunctive coordination.Verbs and complex predicates
Verbs
s most often function as the predicate of a clause. Often, multiple verbs will do so in a complex predicate. Verbs can be either active or stative; stative verbs covering meanings that English generally uses adjectives for, as adjectives are not a distinct word class from verbs in Kalamang. Verbs take the attributive marker =ten to modify a noun within a noun phrase; this marker is used much less often with stative verbs. Verbs can be nominalised with -un, resulting in an abstract noun, such as deriving ririn-un "length" from ririn "long", or konenen-un "memory" from konenen "remember". Reduplication on active verbs has a range of possible meanings, including durative, distributive, and habitual, with a diminutive reading also possible for some verbs. Reduplication of stative verbs intensifies the meaning, which is done alongside attaching the intensification clitic =tun for most.Most verbs are regular, but there are some irregular verbs which display variation between ending with a vowel, or attaching a final n or t before some inflectional clitics. Most follow the same pattern of which clitic triggers each ending, but some do not. When not followed by a clitic, irregular verbs may end either in a vowel, or in n, though bo "go" surfaces as bot when it is the only verb in a predicate, or when following a locative or lative marked noun phrase in a complex predicate, but bo when occurring with other verbs in a complex predicate. Directional verbs are a set of irregular verbs with unique behavior, they precede locative marked noun phrases rather than following them as other verbs do, take a unique imperative ending -ei, and can be causativised by the marker di=. There are also many irregular verbs to do with cutting or breaking that all end in ma, and many of these have intransitive counterparts where the ma is replaced with cie, and/or a related noun ", sanggoyie " be broken".