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Roviana language
Roviana is a member of the North West Solomonic branch of Oceanic languages. It is spoken around Roviana and Vonavona lagoons at the north central New Georgia in the Solomon Islands. It has 10,000 first-language speakers and an additional 16,000 people mostly over 30 years old speak it as a second language (Raymond 2005). In the past, Roviana was widely used as a trade language and further used as a lingua franca, especially for church purposes in the Western Province, but now it is being replaced by the Solomon Islands Pijin. Published studies on Roviana include: Ray (1926), Waterhouse (1949) and Todd (1978) contain the syntax of Roviana. Corston-Oliver (1996 & 2002) discuss ergativity in Roviana. Todd (2000) and Ross (1988) discuss the clause structure in Roviana. Schuelke (2020) discusses grammatical relations and syntactic ergativity in Roviana.[2] Phonology and orthographyConsonants
The Roviana alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet and consists of the above letters. allophones: [h] ~ [ɦ] ([+voiced]) / V_V → /huhuβe/ [huɦuβe] 'bathing' [ŋ] ~ [ɲ] / _V [-back] → /ŋiɾa/ [ɲiɾa] 'strong' /r/ is lightly trilled in unstressed syllables and strongly trilled in stressed syllables. Vowels
V → V: / stressed Vs V → Ṽ / _N [a] ~ [ə] / _V → /leana/ [leəna] Phonotactics(C) V (C represents a single consonant and V represents a monophthong or diphthong.) DiphthongsThere are five diphthongs; /ei/, /ai/, /ae/, /au/, and /oi/ The majority of lexical morphemes consist of two or three syllables. Lexical morphemes consisting of four syllables or a single syllable are uncommon whereas morphemes consisting of more than four syllables have never occurred. StressStress is not contrastive.
The nominalising infix ⟨in⟩ occurs within the first syllable of the root, it always receives stress;
All material which precedes the root (prefixes and reduplicated material) is assigned stress as if it were a single root;
The transitive suffix /-i/ takes stress;
Other suffixes, however, do not take stress and are ignored in determining the placement of stress. Material following the root is not treated as a unit for the purpose of stress assignment;
The suffix /-ɣami/ does not receive stress. Stress is assigned independently to each root in a compound:
GrammarRoviana word order is verb–subject–object (VSO). Pronouns
Pronominal suffixes
These are suffixed to direct/inalienable possessions such as kin terms and parts of the body. lima-na hand-3SG 'his/her/its hand' tama-qu father-1SG 'my father' Preposed possessor
These are suffixed to indirect or alienable possessions: nana POSS:3SG hore canoe 'his/her canoe' mia POSS:2SG popoa home 'their home' Postposed possessor
These are suffixed to a second kind of indirect or alienable possessions: Hie This sa DEF lose room tanisa POSS:3PL 'This is his/her room'
The possessive for food is prefixed ge or ga: gemi POSS:2PL ginani food 'your food'
The possessive for desire is prefixed o or e: equ POSS:1SG puta sleep 'I want to sleep' Interrogative pronouns
Indefinite pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns
NounsThere are two classes of nouns in Roviana. The first includes kin terms, body parts and some local nouns. These are used with suffixed personal pronouns such as:
Nouns of the second class are used with separate possessive words such as:
Local nouns are formed from verbs by the suffix ana. They denote a place where an action is performed:
Nouns are formed from verbs & adjectives by the infix ⟨in⟩. When the verb or adjective begins with a vowel, ⟨in⟩ is prefixed:
When the verb or adjective begins a consonant in is infixed after the first consonant:
A noun can also be formed by in from the causative or reciprocal forms of verbs:
DemonstrativesArticles in Roviana occur before the noun, marking the noun phrase as common or proper. Roviana has definite and indefinite articles. The indefinite article is na: na INDEF nana POSS:3SG buka book 'his/her book' na can also be exchanged with sa: sa hore 'the canoe' na and sa may also be applied with plural nouns: na INDEF tie person habahuala poor -di POSS:3PL 'the poor people' The definite article is sa: sa DEF dia POSS:3PL vetu house 'their house' The personal articles are the non- absolutive e and absolutive se. E is commonly used with a proper noun in the subjective case, se in the objective: Dogoria saw rau 1SG se ABS Nate Nate rane rane sarere sarere lahe. lahe 'I saw Nate last Saturday.' SyntaxImperative and interrogative sentencesImperative sentencesAn actor can optionally be omitted (1); otherwise there is no structural difference from a declarative clause (2). (1) La go (si ABS goi). 2SG 'Go!' (2) Va-mae-a CAUS-come-3SG sa DEF magu. knife 'Give me the knife!' Interrogative sentencesYes–no questions are structurally identical to declaratives, but have a distinct rising intonation. The two single word answers are uve 'yes' and lokari 'no'. Wh-questions or information questions contain an interrogative phrase in focus position (i.e. clause initial) and optionally is followed by the focal particle si; for example,
Esei who poza-mu name-2SG si FOC agoi? 2SG:FOC 'What is your name?' (lit. 'Who is your name?') Interrogative morphemes are frequently preceded by the disjunctive particle na;
Complex sentencesCoordinationCoordination is marked by a conjunction between the two clauses; the conjunction belongs with the second clause;
Gina maybe tourism tourism kamahire now kote FUT sage go.up mae come ba but lopu NEG ta-gilana. PASS-know 'Maybe tourism will pick up, but we don't know.' SubordinationThree major classes are relative clauses, complement clauses and adverbial clauses. Relative clausesRelative clauses follow the head N and are introduced by the invariant relative clause marker sapu. They may only be formed on A, S and O and on the argument nominal of a verbless clause. A more detailed explanation is below. Complement clausesComplement clauses are introduced by the subordinator sapu; otherwise, they are no different from main clauses. Complement clauses occur after verbs of cognition, speech or perception, whereas subordinate clauses (with the exception of relative clauses) occur in focus position; Lopu NEG hiva-ni-a like-TR-3SG ri 3PL sapu COMP tangin-i-a hold-TR-3SG rau 1SG sa DEF vineki girl 'They didn't like me holding the girl.' (lit. 'They didn't like it, that I was holding the girl.') Complement clauses are considered to be intermediate between main and subordinate clauses. In texts, complement clauses in Roviana are rare. Direct quotation is more frequent than subordination to higher predicates of information, while epistemic modals (e.g. gina 'maybe', tu 'EMPH) are often used rather than subordination to higher predicates of cognition (ergativity). Adverbial clausesAdverbial clauses occur in focus position and never contain new mentions in core argument positions. They are introduced by a subordinator and followed by the focal particle si, a consequence of being in focus position;
Ke so beto after vagi gather ri 3PL sarina DEF:PL ⟨in⟩avoso ⟨NOM⟩know si FOC la go buna-i-a bomb-TR-3SG ri 3PL sa DEF vasina place asa. that 'So after they had gathered all the information, they went and bombed that place.' Subordination is extremely limited in Roviana. Subordinate clauses never contain other subordinate clauses, nor do they contain relative clauses. Similarly, relative clauses do not contain either subordinate clauses or relative clauses. ErgativityThe subject of an intransitive verb has the same morphological marker as a direct object, and a different morphological marker from the subject of a transitive verb. A – transitive subject, O – transitive direct object, S – intransitive subject, respectively. Whether Roviana is an ergative language or not is argumentative, however; relative clauses in this language can be categorised by ergativity, so it can be described as an ergative language. Relative clausesRelative clauses in Roviana follow the head N and are introduced by an invariant relative marker sapu. The coreferent of the N in the matrix clause is never overt within the relative clause. This feature may be according to whether the notional coreferent within the relative clause is A, S or O. Relative clauses on ARelative clauses on A use clausal nominalisation. The notional A has no overt realisation. The nominalised verb in a relative clause on A carries a suffix 'NSUF', which is also used to index the possessor in possessives; sa DEF huda tree noma-na big-3SG.NSUF 'the big tree' When the O in the relative clause is a proper N, it is marked with the article e; Hierana this sa DEF koreo boy sapu REL tupa-na punch-3SG.NSUF e ART Zone. John 'This is the boy that punched John.' Relative clauses on SGiven that the coreferent in the relative clause does not have overt realisation; Hierana this sa DEF tie man sapu REL kote FUT taloa. leave 'This is the man who is going away.' Relative clauses on OIn relative clauses on O, A is overt in the relative clause and full verbal morphology is used to index the O. The nominal suffixes are not used in relative clauses on O; Hierana this sa DEF koreo boy sapu REL tupa-i-a punch-TR-3SG.DO e ART Zone. John 'This is the boy that John punched.' In the context of a relative clause which is by definition subordinate, e is glossed simply ART, since it is used with proper Ns which are A or O. These following two examples have got e; the first one is on A whereas the second one is on O. Hierana this sa DEF koreo boy sapu REL tupa-na punch-3SG.NSUF e ART Zone. John 'This is the boy that punched John.' Hierana this sa DEF koreo boy sapu REL tupa-i-a punch-TR-3SG.DO e ART Zone. John 'This is the boy that John punched.' 'When' clauses'When' clauses are introduced by the subordinator totoso 'time' or the syncopated form totso, but they do not specify the precise nature of the temporal relation involved; Totso time koa stay goi you.SG pa PREP korapa inside tropic tropic si FOC kaqu must pezaku wash.hands lamo always si ABS goi. you.SG 'When you stay in the tropics, you must always wash your hands.' 'After' clausesThe event of an 'after' clause is introduced by the subordinator beto 'finish' and temporally precedes the event of the matrix clause to which it is syntactically subordinate; Ke so beto finish vag-i gather-TR ri they sarina DEF.PL ⟨in⟩avoso ⟨NOM⟩know si FOC la go buna-i-a bomb-TR-3SG.DO ri they.ERG sa DEF vasina place asa. that 'So after they had gathered all the information, they went and bombed that place.' 'Contemporaneous' clauses'Contemporaneous' clauses have imperfective aspect, usually accompanied by reduplication of the verb, with the meaning 'While ...-ing' or 'As ...-ing'; En-ene REDUP-walk ri they la go hoirana there si FOC tutuvi-a meet-3SG.DO ri they.ERG se ABS Manue. Possum 'As they were walking along, they met Possum.' ConditionalsIn a conditional, the protasis is a subordinate clause. As with the subordinate clauses, there is a neutral system of case marking; ...ba but pude if gore go.down vura come.out mae come sa it si FOC kote FUT taloa leave si ABS rau. I '...but if it works out, I'll leave.' External links
Footnotes
References
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