Neveʻei language
The table above indicates that the segments /t/, /k/ and /ʔ/ can be understood as voiceless stops at the alveolar, velar and glottal positions of articulation (Musgrave, 2007, p. 6).The phoneme /mʷ/ appears in initial and medial positions, involving the rounding of lips and an audible labio-velar, semi-vowel offset.For example, (Musgrave, 2007, p. 9): The segment /x/ can be understood as a velar fricative that is voiceless in initial and final positions but can be optionally voiced intervocalically.An example of this can be found within prepositions that end in /n/; /len/, /sakhan/ and /nsensan/, these often appear in spoken language without the final nasal when a noun phrase follows.Any consonant can appear in the root-final position of the lexical item with the exception of the prenasalised voiced stops /bw/, /b/ and /g/ and labio-velars /vw/ and /mw/ (Musgrave, 2007, p. 15).However, Neveʻei is sometimes used in writing for certain special occasions, such as the composition of hymns, recording details of family history, and land ownership.[M 5] Due to the lack of stable spelling conventions for Neveʻei, individuals differ in the choice of orthographical methods when transcribing unusual phonemes.Independent pronouns inflect according to person and number (singular, dual, or non-singular), but not according to case or grammatical gender."The pronominal forms listed as dual in the table are instead used in cases where there is a pragmatic contrast with singular or plural reference, or where two participants are acting together rather than separately."Neveʻei also contains a set of indefinite pronouns which function as both verbals subjects and objects, with separate forms in fast and slow speech.[M 12] Example:[M 13] nisitthingnganga'littlei-leh3SG.REAL-seenusutwansomethingnisit nganga' i-leh nusutwanthing little 3SG.REAL-see something"The child saw something"In Neveʻei, similar to most Oceanic Languages, nouns do not change.[M 16] Neveʻei uses a decimal (base 10) system for numbers, however many young people are only familiar with one to ten, so higher value numerals are often expressed using methods derived from Bislama.[M 18] Also note that nangavil is used for the actual number 10 when counting and vungavil is used to modify a phrase or noun."Verbal prefixes ending in t also often lose the t before verb roots beginning with s. Example:[M 22] i-sav1PL.REAL-dancei-sav1PL.REAL-dance"We (all) dance"Reduplication is most commonly used in Neveʻei to indicate things such as intensity, prohibition, reciprocity and habitual aspects and is also sometimes used in order to differentiate between transitive and intransitive forms of a verb.[M 27] The prefixed element sV- is used in both negative simulfixes with the realisation of V- depending on a process of vowel harmony.[M 28] The following examples[M 29] show how the negative simulfixes are used with the intransitive verb nonong 'finish' and the transitive equivalent nonong-on 'finish (something)'.'Even though yangwai 'desiderative' can be negated as seen in the previous example there is also the separate verb sisi that expresses anti-desiderative modality.[6] The three non-anaphoric forms of the demonstrative have the same initial element ne-, similar to how nouns often appear in the language.It is identical in form to the pronominal trace, which marks the original site of a noun phrase in a relative clause.The islet is located …'The anaphoric demonstrative cannot only be used after a noun has been marked by tuan to be used in later references.In the example above, natuturmwitiyilian 'story' is first modified by a relative clause marked by nen, then later referred to with the anaphoric demonstrative.[6] This example shows the proximate demonstrative nene used as the head of a nominal phrase: Ni-yangwal1SG.REAL-DESIDnebwe-vwer-vwer1SG.REAL.IRR-REDUP-talksuraboutnatuturmwitiyilianstorytuan.INDEFNeneDEMi-vwer-vwer3SG.REAL-REDUP-saybisahclearØ-medang3SG.REAL-hownanicoconuti-vwelwm3SG.REAL-comesakhanGOALget1NONSG.INCLNi-yangwal nebwe-vwer-vwer sur natuturmwitiyilian tuan.[8] In the following examples, a place adverbial appears in the clause-final position as a non-core argument: Tokhialwaysutnenwhenget1NONSG.INCLer-vwelem1DU.REAL-comeutne…hereTokhi utnen get er-vwelem utne…always when 1NONSG.INCL 1DU.REAL-come here'Always when we come here.'up here' 'up there' 'way up there' 'down here' 'down there 'way down there' There also exists a form that does not feature deixis lo 'below', specifically used to mean 'down below to the coast' such as in: nenRELlambigi-dah3SG.REAL-go.downi-vu3SG.REAL-thitherlenGOALnetahsealo.belownen lam i-dah i-vu len netah lo.REL big 3SG.REAL-go.down 3SG.REAL-thither GOAL sea belowThe big one (brother) went down there to the sea below.The proximate and intermediate final elements of the proximate and intermediate demonstratives nene 'this' and nenang 'that' are also shared by the locational and temporal forms ie 'this here', iang 'that there', itie 'now, at this time', and itiang 'then, at that time'.Some examples from Musgrave's (2007, p. 34) grammar include: Unlike many other languages closely related to Neveʻei, the patterns for directly suffixed nouns are not as complicated.According to Musgrave's (2007) grammar findings, when found without a reference to a specific possessor, directly possessed nouns are displayed in their construct form, and the third person non-singular independent pronoun –ar and the plural postmodifier –ar are identical, their semantics must be worked out in context.A main difference identified in Musgrave's (2007) grammar is that Neveʻei does not juxtapose different indirect possessive subtypes and its direct possessive forms are reduced to singular pronominal possessors, as opposed to the Proto Oceanic system.Two formula's describe these animate constructions below (Musgrave, 2007, p. 72): nemwatsnakearPLnebat-nhead-CONSTat-met.3PL.REAL-blacknemwat ar nebat-n at-met.snake PL head-CONST 3PL.REAL-black'The snakes' heads are black.'(Musgrave, 2007, p. 72) nakhankhanpawpawngeDEMnevwene-nfruit-CONSTsevakhonenakhankhan nge nevwene-n sevakhpawpaw DEM fruit-CONST one'one fruit of the pawpaw'Similarly to the inalienable relationship of directly suffixed possessed nouns, indirectly possessed nouns can also establish an inalienable relationship.These constructions often pertain to a certain semantic category: purposive relationships, habitual relations and possession of body parts.