Ughele language


Ughele is an Oceanic language spoken by about 1200 people on Rendova Island, located in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands.
There is no internal dialect differentiation.

Phonology

The following information is gathered from Benedicte Haraldstad Frostad. "A Grammar of Ughele: A Language of The Solomon Islands". 2012. Pages 35–48

Vowel Inventory

Ughele contains a five vowel inventory that is typical of most Oceanic languages.
These are differentiated by changes in the place of articulation and the degree of stricture required to produce the sound.
Lip rounding only accounts for the differentiation of two segments.
These are the close-mid back vowel /o/ and the close back vowel /u/.
This inventory consists of three front vowels: /i/, /e/, /a/; two back /o/, /u/ and no central phonemes.
There is no variation in vowel length.

Minimal pairs

Distinguished by place of articulation
/veke/ and /veko/ - 'flying fox’ and ‘bald’
/ɣami/ and /ɣamu/ - ‘we/us’ and ‘you’
Distinguished by level of stricture
/patu/ and /petu/ - ‘stone’ and ‘mangrove’
/tina/ and /tini/ - ‘thousand ‘ and ‘body’
/neka/ and /nika/ - ‘slippery cabbage’ and ‘fire’
/kopi/ and /kupi/ - ‘lake’ and ‘to pick’

Consonant Inventory

Ughele has 18 consonants and no consonant clusters, unless spoken accidentally.

Stops

Ughele contains bilabial, alveolar and velar stops. These are /b + p/ , /d + t/ and /g + k/ respectively.
As well as voiced and unvoiced pairs for all plosives. -
/ba/ and /pa/
/made/ and /mate/
/poga/ and /poka/
All voiced stops are pre-nasalised, however the degree of this varies between speakers. Pronunciation of this runs from barely audible nasalisation to almost fully nasalised segments. E.g. /b/ → /b̃/, /d/ → /d̃/, /g/ → /g̃/
There is only one found in Ughele, this is in the lexeme /arozo/

Fricatives

This post-alveolar affricate is sometimes realised as a palatal nasal stop /ɲ/ , although this is relatively rare in spoken language and therefore is speaker-dependent.
/d͡ʒ/ → /ɲ/ ~ /d͡ʒ/
Thus ‘ngajiri’ may be pronounced /ŋad͡ʒiri/ or /ŋapiri/

Approximants

Ughele contains one alveolar lateral approximant /l/ and one labial velar /w/.
However /w/ only occurs in a small set of loanwords from English and Roviana
Window - /wida/
Week - /wiki/
Win - /wini/
‘Vaseni’ Year - /waseni/

Minimal Pairs Based on Manner of Articulation

Voiced alveolar plosive /mada/ ‘to let’, and fricative, /maza/ ‘flesh’
Unvoiced alveolar plosive /tabu/ ‘holy’, and fricative /sabu/ ‘hunt’
Voiced velar plosive ' /gu/ ‘1st/p possessive’, and fricative /ɣu/ ‘just’

Written language

Prior to the efforts of Frostad et al. Ughele had no documented history or written language standard. After these efforts Ughele is now written in Latin script as shown in these notes.

Morphology

Pronouns and Person Marking

Ughele, like many other Oceanic languages, possesses a complex pronominal system that includes personal, relative and interrogative pronouns.
Personal pronouns
Personal pronouns predominate in terms of quantity; there are six types of pronoun forms: independent pronouns, preverbal subject partial clitics, postverbal subject pronouns, object clitics, preposed possessive pronouns and attributive suffixes. Personal pronouns are marked for number and clusivity. In each of these types, distinctions are made between singular and plural forms, as well as 1st. 2nd and 3rd person. Inclusive and exclusive forms for 1st person plural are separated; the inclusive form extends to include the addressee whereas the addressee is then excluded from the extension of the exclusive form. There are partial formal similarities, and in some cases a complete overlap of forms between the types. The table below is an overview of the various types of personal pronouns.
Table 1: Ughele personal pronouns.
Person and numberIndependent
pronouns		Preverbal subject partial cliticsPostverbal subject
pronouns		Object cliticsPreposed possessive
pronouns		Attributive suffixes
1 SGraugugua-ugua-gu
2 SGghoimumua-ghomua-mu
3 SGiananana-anana-na
1 PL INCLghitadanada-ghitanada-da
1 PL EXCLghamimamami-ghamimami-mama
2 PLghamumumiu-ghamumiu-miu
3 PLriedidia-nidia-di

Personal pronouns in Ughele can occupy various positions throughout the clause, with some types being more restricted in their use than others.

Independent pronouns

Independent pronouns may act as the head of a noun phrase, taking on the forms of subject, direct object, or indirect object as a complement to prepositions. They may also appear in possessive constructions.
Above is an example of the 3rd person plural pronoun rie and 1st person plural exclusive pronoun ghita in noun phrases headed by pronouns. The numeral modifier ka ru follows the pronoun head, whereas it would typically precede a noun head.
Ughele has object marking clitics and two different sets of subject markers, and these occur in specific fixed positions relative to the verb.

Object clitics

Object clitics are pronominal forms, which only occur with verb stems and only mark direct object.
Transitive verbs rarely occur without object marking clitics, and are either attached directly to the verb stem, or follow the transitive suffix, either –i or –ni.
1st person singular exclusive object clitic –u attached to verb stem:
3rd person singular object clitic –a attached to transitive suffix –i:
3rd person singular object clitic –a attached to transitive suffix –ni:
Object clitics may be the only referent to the object in the clause or they may occur with a coreferential noun phrase .
2nd person singular –gho:
2nd person singular object clitic –gho with coreferential noun phrase 2nd person singular independent pronoun
–ghoi:

Preverbal subject partial clitics

Preverbal subject marking pronouns in Ughele can appear in the form of partial clitics. These clitics precede the verb complex, but only in very specific constructions. They cliticize to two particles, the homophonous imperative mood marker ma, and conjunction ma ‘then’, and they occur as independent forms indicating pivots in complex clauses . This aspect of Ughele’s grammar bears resemblance to that of three of its nearest neighbouring languages, Hoava, Roviana and Marovo, with that of Marovo being the most similar.
1st person plural inclusive preverbal subject clitic –da attached to mood marker ma:
2nd person singular preverbal subject clitic –mu attached to conjunction ma:
3rd person plural preverbal subject independent form di:

Postverbal subject pronouns

In Ughele, postverbal subject pronouns overlap completely with preposed possessive pronouns. Postverbal subject pronouns mark various types of foci, where the pronouns would refer to the focused constituent. Below is an example of the 3rd person plural postverbal subject pronoun used in a sentence.

Possessive Constructions

Possession in Ughele, as in many Oceanic languages, can be sorted into two types of construction, direct and indirect. Direct possessive constructions involve a prenominal attributive suffix, while the indirect possessive constructions distinguished between three further types, two which express possession through prepositional phrases, one with the preposition ta, the other with the preposition taga. The third indirect possessive construction uses a possessive pronoun which modifies the possessum noun. Ughele also distinguishes alienable possession from inalienable possession, and this influences to varying degrees which construction will be used. However, it is important to note that inalienable and alienable possession distinction is not a so much a binary construction but rather a spectrum, which demonstrates tendencies for different relationships between possessor and possessum to take certain possessive constructions.
Table 2 illustrates the general tendencies for correlation between semantic meaning and choice of possessive construction.
Table 2: Use of possessive construction in relation to semantic meaning.
Direct POSS constr.ta PP POSS constr.taga PP POSS constr.Possessive pronoun
Body partsXX
Bodily productsX
Other body related itemsXX
Parts of a wholeX
Kinship termsXX
Spatial relationsX
Unowned possessionXX
Actions carried outX
Actions undergone
OwnershipXX

Direct Possessive Construction

The direct possessive construction in Ughele is similar to many Oceanic Languages and identical to Proto Oceanic direct possessive construction. It involves an attributive suffix which occurs prenominally on the possessum noun, this indexes number and person of the possessor as in.
Generally, intrinsically inalienable possession takes the indirect possessive construction. That is, things which the possessor has no real control of their possession over, such as body parts or kinship terms. Direct possessive constructions are used in Ughele mainly for intrinsically inalienable possessive relationships such as the body and its parts, as well as certain kinship terms. Less inherently inalienable possessive relationships may also tend towards a direct possessive construction with entities being referent possessum nouns within the construction when they are a part of a larger whole. However, the relationship between lexical items and possessive constructions is by no means stringent. The indirect prepositional constructions, both ta and taga, although more readily ta, may also be used for the same noun, even when there is no semantic difference.
Attributive suffixes are what are often labeled as possessive suffixes in most other Oceanic languages, but in Ughele, they also have other functions.
In direct possessive constructions, attributive suffixes may either agree with the possessor noun or be the only expression of the possessor.
Attributive suffixes are also used to derive nominal attributive modifiers from adjectival verbs, indicating the number and person of the referent of the head noun .

Possessive Constructions using prepositions ''ta'' and ''taga''

Two of the three indirect possessive constructions in Ughele use the prepositions, ta or taga. The structure of the construction is identical for either preposition which is used in a prepositional phrase which follows the possessum noun, as in and.Within the PP is the preposition, either ta or taga, followed by the possessor noun expressed in a noun phrase. While not as commonly as the direct possessive construction, ta and taga can be used for intrinsically unalienable possession such as body parts, as in. Indirect possessive constructions using ta are the most frequently used in Frostad's 2012 corpus, being fairly versatile and widely spread across situations. Both ta and taga can be used for kinship terms, inalienable body parts, unowned possessions such as names, as well as for actions carried out by the referent of the possessor noun.
‘Kololuka is the story of us in Ughele.’
‘That was my little story.'

Possessive constructions using a possessive pronoun

Preposed possessive pronouns which modify a possessum noun make up one of the three indirect possessive marking strategies in Ughele. The possessor may or may not be expressed in a noun phrase.
‘I understand your language ’
‘Thank very much for your collaboration with ’
The previous two examples illustrates the flexibility in the possessive pronoun construction when expressing a possessor noun. In the possessor is expressed in a noun phrase, specifically the 2nd person singular pronoun ghoi, while does not express a possessor at all.
All other forms of possessive pronouns are compiled in the table below.
Table 3: Possessor Pronouns
SGPL
1 INCLnada
1 EXCLguamami
2.muamiu
3nanadia