Semelai language
| Semelai | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Malaysia |
| Region | Malay Peninsula |
| Ethnicity | 6,300 Semelai (2008)[1] |
Native speakers | 4,100 (2009)[1] |
| Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | sza |
| Glottolog | seme1247 |
| ELP | Semelai |
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.[2]
Phonology
[edit]Semelai has 32 consonants and 20 vowels.[3]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | tenuis | 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 | ˀm | ˀn | ˀɲ | |||
| Approximant | plain | l | j | w | ||
| preglottal | ˀl | ˀj | ||||
| Trill | plain | r | ||||
| preglottal | ˀr | |||||
- /p t c k/ are unreleased [p̚ t̚ c̚ k̚] in word-final position.
- /c ɟ/ are slightly affricated [cᶝ ɟᶽ] in word-initial position.
- /s/ may occur as [s] or [ɕ] in free variation.
- /m n ɲ ŋ/ may be prestopped [ᵇm ᵈn ᶡɲ ᶢŋ] in word-final position.
- /r/ can be heard as a tap [ɾ] in word-final position. When preceded by /n/ it is heard as [ᵈr].
- /w j/ are heard as off-glides [ʷ ʲ] in word-final position.
- /w j/ are nasalized [w̃ j̃] after nasal vowels.
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| oral | nasal | oral | nasal | oral | nasal | |
| 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 | ||
Morphosyntax
[edit]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".[4] 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.[5]
Nominal morphology
[edit]Free pronouns
[edit]| 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
[edit]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
[edit]- 1 2 Semelai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ↑ Kruspe 2004a, pp. 5–6.
- ↑ Kruspe (2004a), p. 32
- ↑ Kruspe 2004a, p. 95.
- ↑ Kruspe 2004a, p. 94.
- ↑ Kruspe 2004a, p. 171.
References
[edit]- 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.
- Kruspe, Nicole (2004a). A Grammar of Semelai. Cambridge Grammatical Descriptions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-81497-9.
- 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
[edit]- 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