Iwal language
Iwal (also called Kaiwa from Jabêm Kai Iwac "Iwac highlanders") is an Austronesian language spoken by about 1,900 people from nine villages in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea (Cobb & Wroge 1990). Although it appears most closely related to the South Huon Gulf languages, it is the most conservative member of its subgroup. NameThe term Iwal is an endonym. Cognates in other related languages include Yabem Iwac and Numbami Yuwala. PhonologyIwal distinguishes 5 vowels and 16 consonants. Unlike most of its neighboring languages, it distinguishes the lateral /l/ from the trill /r/, the latter derived from earlier *s, as in aru from Proto-Oceanic (POc) *qasu 'smoke', ruru- from POc *susu 'breast', and ur from POc *qusan 'rain'. Otherwise it appears to be the most phonologically conservative language in the South Huon Gulf chain (see Ross 1988:154–160). It has retained POc *t as /t/ (not /l/ or /y/) and POc *mw as /mw/ (not /my/ or /ny/), as in mwat 'snake' from POc *mwata. Vowels
Consonants
[χ] is only heard in word-medial position. MorphologyPronouns and person markersFree pronouns
Genitive pronouns
Possessive suffixes
DeicticsIwal deictics correlate with first, second, and third person, each of which has a long and a short form. The latter appear to be anaphoric in usage. Deictics also serve to bracket relative clauses: ete/ebe ... ok/nok/nik. By far the most common brackets are ebe ... ok, but if the information in the clause is associated with either speaker or addressee, the brackets are likely to be ete ... nik or ete ... nok. Deictics may occur either in place of nouns or postposed to nouns, as in nalk etok 'that earth/soil'.
NumeralsTraditional Iwal counting practices started with the digits of the left hand, then continued on the right hand, and then the feet to reach '20', which translates as 'one person'. Higher numbers are multiples of 'one person'. Nowadays, most counting above '5' is done in Tok Pisin; in the Iwal New Testament, all numbers above '5'—except bage isgabu '10'—are written with Arabic numerals and most likely read in Tok Pisin.
Bioclassifying prefixesOne unusual feature of Iwal is a small set of bioclassifying prefixes: ei- (POc *kayu) for trees, wer- for edible greens, man(k)- (POc *manuk) for birds, ih- (POc *ikan) for fish.
SyntaxWord orderThe basic word order in Iwal is SVO, with (mostly) prepositions, preposed genitives, postposed adjectives and relative clauses. Relative clauses are marked at both ends, and so are some prepositional phrases. Negatives come at the ends of the clauses they negate. There is also a class of deverbal resultatives that follow the main verb (and its object, if any). ei 3SG ni- FUT.3SG tle chop eivovo canoe butu down 'He'll chop down the canoe tree.' wakas root gi- 3SG sov descend nalk earth aplo inside gi- 3SG le go ite not 'The roots did not go deep into the ground.' in- 3PL di see gen thing ete DEM ayeu 1SG ga- 1SG lgum do nik DEM 'They'll see the things I have done.' Verb serializationVerb serialization is very common in Iwal. Within a serial verb construction, all verbs must agree in tense and the perfective marker is itself a serialized verb. Negatives come at the ends of the clauses they negate. ei 3SG ni- FUT.3SG tle chop butu down ni- FUT.3SG le go ni- FUT.3SG tak stay ni- FUT.3SG kwai finish 'He'll chop it down and it'll go and lie there.' atob then ei 3SG ni- FUT.3SG mbweg stay ni- FUT.3SG wei be.on nalk earth ite not 'Then he won't sit on the ground.' gi- 3SG dugdug roll gi- 3SG sov descend gi- 3SG le go gi- 3SG tak stay 'It rolled on down until it stopped.' NoteThe primary source for this article is Bradshaw (2001), whose copyright holder is Joel Bradshaw, whose contributions here are licensed under the GFDL. References
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