Nen language (Papuan)

Nen is a Yam language spoken in the Bimadbn village in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, with 250 speakers as of a 2002 SIL survey. It is situated between the speech communities of Nambu and Idi.
Nen has unusual lexicalization patterns in its verbs. It has very few intransitive verbs, and where some verbs would be intransitive in most other languages, Nen has a class of morphologically "middle" verbs in their place. Many of the few intransitive verbs that Nen does have are positional verbs, which refer to spatial positions and postures.

Phonology

The Nen phonemic inventory includes 22 consonants:

/h/ occurs rarely in a few interactional and deictic words.

;Vowels:

	Front	Central	Back
Close
Near-close
Mid
Near-open
Open

/ã, ẽ/ occur rarely in a few interactional and deictic words.
Morphology

Number

The realization of different grammatical meanings of Number in the noun depends on the syntactic function and case marking. The noun in the dative overtly differentiates 4 grammatical meaning of number: singular, dual, paucal and plural; the noun in the oblique shows singular ~ dual ~ paucal/plural opposition, while the ergative − singular ~ dual/paucal ~ plural, and the noun in absolutive cannot be distinguished according to number.

Direction

The verb expresses three grammatical meaning of motion: neutral − /Ø-/, towards speaker /n-/, and away from speaker /ng-/: n-Ø-armbte 'he is ascending' ~ n-n-armbte 'he is coming up ~ n-ng-armbte 'he is going up.

Syntax

The constituent order in clause is SOV. Case marking shows ergative/absolutive alignment.

Argument structure and valency

According to indexing, the verbs can be either prefixing or ambifixing. In the transitive predicate, a verbal prefix expresses patient and a verbal suffix − actor. There are several types of valency pattern in Nen:
1. Basically monovalent pattern

Basic intransitive − NP_abs U-V
Intrinsic middle − NP_abs M-V-A
Middle with cognate object − NP_abs + NP_abs M-V-A

2. Basically divalent pattern

Basic transitive − NP_erg + NP_abs U-V-A
Experiencer object construction − NP_abs > NP_erg U-V-A_3sg
Transitive verbs with deponent middle verbal morphology − N_perg + NP_abs M-V-A
Semi-transitive verb registering oblique on undergoer slot − NP_erg + NP_obl U-V-A

3. Trivalent pattern
The arguments get the following case marking: the subject − ergative, the direct object − absolutive, and the indirect object − dative. In a trivalent predicate, the indirect object argument is cross-referenced in the verb by the undergoer prefix.

Causative

Middle verbs form their causative using a prefix, which may be glossed 'to cause through sustained contact '. The resulting form follows ergative syntax.

Benefactive

Beneficiary is expressed by the undergoer prefix.