Araki language

language
name=Araki
states=Vanuatu
region=Araki island, Espiritu Santo
speakers=8
familycolor=Austronesian
fam2=Malayo-Polynesian
fam3=Central Eastern
fam4=Eastern
fam5=Oceanic
fam6=Central-Eastern
fam7=Remote Oceanic
fam8=North and Central
fam9=Northeast
fam10=West Santo
iso2=map|iso3=akr

Araki is a nearly extinct language spoken in the small island of Araki, south of Espiritu Santo Island in Vanuatu. The local name of the island is [ˈɾaki] . Araki language is named after the island, on which it is spoken.

Classification

Araki language belongs to the Oceanic group of Austronesian languages, and is often designated as a Melanesian language. More precisely, Araki language belongs to the set of 'North and Central Vanuatu languages'.

Araki is spoken today by about 8 native speakers; it is progressively being replaced by the neighbouring language of Tangoa. The rest of the population of Araki island have a passive knowledge of Araki language, which allows them to understand it, and even make whole phrases and sentences. Nevertheless, a large portion of the Arakian vocabulary, as well as idiosyncratic syntactic and phonetic phenomena of the language have been forgotten. Speakers of Araki can also speak the English-based pidgin Bislama; but this lingua franca is mainly used in the two towns of the country, Port-Vila and Luganville, and seldom in rural areas.

Araki was described in 2002 by the linguist Alexandre François.

Phonology

Araki language has a phonological inventory of 16 consonant phonemes and 5 vowels, which are shown in the following two tables:

Consonants

Verbs

Verbs are predicative words, which are preceded by subject clitics. Unlike nouns, they cannot form a direct predicate (that is, without a clitic), and cannot refer to an entity, nor form the subject of a sentence. They cannot directly modify a noun by just following it. From the semantic point of view, verbs refer to actions, events or states. Each verb in Araki must be marked with either Realis or Irrealis mood.

The only obligatory elements of a Verb Phrase are the head and the subject clitic. This can be extended not only to phrases headed by a verb, but also to phrases headed by an adjective or a numeral. Under certain conditions, a noun can also be the head of a so-called 'VP', provided that it is endowed with mood-aspectual properties, such as negation.

From a syntactic point of view, Araki contrasts intransitive with transitive verbs.

Intransitive Verbs

Intransitive verbs never take either object NPs or transitive suffixes.
They are morphologically unvarying (that is, receive no morphological markings).

Transitive Verbs

Transitive verbs take object arguments, as NPs and/or as object suffixes. Most transitive (or transitivised) verbs, though not all of them, can be morphologically marked as such. This usually implies the presence of a transitivity suffix -i and/or of an object personal suffix.

Some verbs can be described as having oblique transitivity, since they are usually followed by an oblique (generally, prepositional) complement.

Araki does not normally allow for ditransitive verbs. Where English would have two direct objects, as in "I'll give you some money", Araki would have one complement as a direct object, while the other would be assigned the oblique case. Therefore, one complement appears inside the VP and the other outside it.

ymmetrical Verbs

Some verbs in Araki language allow its syntactic subject to be marked with either the case-role of Patient or Agent.

(1) M̼arasala (2) mo (3) ede
(1) door (2) 3rd Person:Realis (3) open
'The door opened/is open'

(1) Nam (2) ede (3) m̼arasala
(1) 1stPersonSg:Realis (2) open (3) door
'I opened the door'

However, this phenomenon is more limited in Araki than it is in English.

Verb Serialization

Araki language allows two verb roots to appear in one single Verb Phrase, thus forming a sort of complex verb 1, V₂>; usually no more than two verbs can appear at a time. This series of two verbs share one mood-subject clitic and the same aspect markers. This does not imply that they semantically have the same subject. No object or other complement can insert between these two verbs. The transitivity suffix -i, as well as the object suffix, appear on the right of the second verbd, provided this is authorized by the morphology of V₂ and by the syntactic context.

Verb serialization is much rarer in Araki language than in many other Oceanic languages. It seems to be productive only when either of the two verbs is a movement verb. Another less seldom pattern, is when the second element is a stative verb or an adjective: V₂ indicates the manner of V₁.

A much more frequent strategy in Araki, is that of clause-chaining.

Numerals

Numerals behave syntactically like (intransitive) verbs, and could be argued to form a subset of verbal lexemes. They must always be introduced by a subject clitic, which is sensitive to person and modality (Realis/Irrealis).
(1) Naru-ku (2) mo (3) dua
(1) child-1stPerson-Sg. (2) 3rd Person:Realis (3) two
'I have two children' (lit. my child is/are two).

Cardinal Numbers

Numerals are listed in the following table:

Ordinal Numbers

Ordinal numbers are formed with the prefix ha-, at least for the numbers 2-5. Greater numbers have already integrated this - or a similar - prefix ha- to their radical. The number 'one' has a suppletive form mudu 'first'. The ordinal forms are used especially with the word dan(i), to form the days of the weeks:

Adjectives

Contrary to many languages which lack a distinct category of adjectives, Araki language does have a set of lexemes which can be named this way. The lexical category of adjectives is defined by two basic principles:
* adjectives can be predicates, and in this case must be preceded by a subject clitic, like numerals or verbs;
* adjectives can modify directly a noun in a Noun Phrase, without a subject clitic (opp. numerals) or a relative structure (opp. verbs).

Adjectives always follow the noun they modify, and come before numerals.
(1) p̼ira (2) hetehete (3) mo (4) hese
(1) woman (2) small (3) 3rd Person:Realis (4) one
'a young woman'

Adjuncts

Adjuncts form quite a small category of lexical items, whose syntactic position is to follow immediately the verb radical, though still within the Verb Phrase. When the verb is transitive, adjuncts are inserted between the verb radical and the transitiviser suffix and/or the object suffixes, as though they were incorporated:
(1) Na (2) pa (3) nak (4) taha (5) m̼are-ko!
(1) 1stPerson-Sg.:Irrealis (2) Sequence marker (3) hit (4) Result marker (5) dead-2ndPerson-Sg.
'I am going to kill you' (lit. to-hit-become-dead-you).

Adverbs

Contrary to adjuncts, which are always incorporated into the Verb Phrase, adverbs never are. They can appear either at the beginning or at the end of a clause. The unmarked position of a (non-typical) adverb is after the Verb-Object bundle, where Prepositional Phrases are too. The category of adverbs includes all words which form directly - that is, without a preposition - an oblique complement.
(1) V̼apa (2) di (3) mo (4) roho (5) ro (6) saha-ni (7) kaura
(1) cave (2) anaphoric marker (3) 3rd Person:Realis (4) stay (5) Progressive marker (6) up-Demonstrative:2ndPerson (7) above
'The cave is located up there, above'.

Demonstratives

Demonstratives are associated either to nouns for reference tracking, or have the whole clause as their scope. Although they syntactically behave partially like locational adverbs, demonstrative words form a specific paradigm, which is easily identified morphologically.

Reduplication

Araki uses reduplication in order to present a notion as intense, multiple or plural in one way or another. Semantically, verbal reduplication triggers feautures such as non-referentiality/genericity of the object, and thus is generally associated with noun incorporation. Reduplication is also the main device, if not the only one, which allows a word to change its syntactic category. Reduplication occurs:

* From noun to noun (indicating plurality, and sometimes a diminutive capacity ('Many Ns, 'small Ns').
For example: naru 'son' → nanaru 'sons', hudara 'dirt' → hudahudara 'small particles of dirt'

* From noun to verb or adjective (referring not to an of the world, but to a process/state which is normally caused by it).
For example alo 'sun' → aloalo 'to be sunny'

* From verb to verb (deriving one of the following: an intensified meaning, plurality, reflexivity, distributivity, imperfectivity, detransitivity).
For example, v̼ano 'walk' → v̼anov̼ano 'race'

* From verb to noun (referring to the very notion of the verb, in general terms).
For example, sodo 'talk; → sodosodo 'speech, message, language'.

Structurally, Araki has three types of reduplication

CV-Reduplication

The first syllable of the word is reduplicated. naru → nanaru ('son' , 'sons')
lokudo → lolokudo ('angry')
levosai → lelevosai ('intelligent')

CVCV-Reduplication

The first two syllables of the word are reduplicated. m̼arahu → m̼aram̼arahu ('fear' , 'be afraid')
veculu → vecuveculu ('colour')
hudara → hudahudara ('dirt' , 'small particles of dirt')

Root-Reduplication

The entire root of the word is reduplicated. dev̼e → dev̼edev̼e ('pull')
alo → aloalo ('sun' , 'to be sunny')
sodo → sodosodo ('talk' , 'speech, message, language')

Clause Structure

As mentioned above, Araki is a strict SVO language. This means that different sentence types, such as assertives, imperatives and interrogatives do not involve a change in word order. This, contrary to what occurs in European languages. These sentence types may differ in other ways.

Imperatives

All imperative sentences take Irrealis modality, by definition, since they refer to virtual events. The verb must be preceded by its subject clitic.
(1) O (2) ruen-i-a!
(1) 2ndPersonSg:Irrealis (2) help-Transitive-3rdPersonSg
'help me'

Thus, except for prosody, all imperative sentences are formally identical with sentences expressing an intent or a near future (for example, 'you should help me' or ' you are going to help me').

A negative order does not used the usual negation marker ce, but the modal clitic kan 'Prohibitive':
(1) Na (2) kan (3) sa (4) lo (5) ima-na
(1) 1ndPersonSg:Irrealis (2) Prohibitive (3) go.up (4) Location marker (5) house-3rdPerson
'I should not go / I am not supposed to go to his house'.

Interrogatives

Interrogative sentences can take either Realis or Irrealis modality.
Yes/No questions are similar to the corresponding question, except for prosody.
Quite often, the interrogative is marked by a final tag ... vo mo-ce-re ... 'or not?'.
In WH-questions, the interrogative words take the same slot as the word they replace (that is, they remain "in-situ".

Arakian Interrogative words include sa 'what', se 'who', v̼e 'where', gisa 'when', and visa 'how many'. The interrogative article ('what X, which') is sava, a longer form of sa. It comes before a noun, for example sava hina 'what thing'. Two interrogative words are derived from sa 'what': sohe sa 'like what → how' and m̼ara sa 'because of what → why'.

Negation

The general negation marker is a single morpheme ce, which is used in all negative sentences except imperative. It always comes at the beginning of the predicate phrase, following the subject clitic. It can be combined to Realis or Irrealis mood.

The negation ce combines with other elements, for example aspect markers, to build complex negative morphemes. For example,
* Negation ce + aspect le 'again' → 'no longer'
* Negation ce + aspect m̼isi 'still' → 'not yet'
* Negation ce + partitive re 'some' → 'not any'
* Negation ce + NP re hina 'some thing' → 'nothing'
* Negation ce + adverb n-re-dan 'on some day' → 'never'

The combination re + Verb + partitive re in object position>, has the frequent effect of implying the non-existence of this object. The construction <ce re + N> has been grammaticalised into a complect predicate ce re, meaning 'do not exist, not to be'.

Existential Sentences

Since the combination ce re has generalized to form a negative existential predicate, one could expect that, in a second stage of evolution, affirmative existential sentences (that is, 'there is N') would simply use the same predicate re without the negation. In fact, this is normally impossible. Affirmative existential sentences never use re, but have to employ other strategies. These include the use of the predicate mo hese 'one', or a locative phrase.

Complex Sentences

Coordination

Coordination as a clause-linker is far from being widespread in Araki language: clause-chaining is by far the preferred strategy. Nevertheless, some coordinators exist, whose meaning is more precise than just 'and'.

The most frequent coordinator is pani ~ pan 'and, but', which usually carries an adversive meaning:
(1) cam (2) ce (3) levse (4) lesi-a, (5) pani (6) nia (7) mo (8) roho (9) ro
(1)1stPersonInclusive:Realis (2) Negation (3) know (4) see-3rdPersonsg (5) but (6) 3rdPerson (7) 3rdPerson:Realis (8) stay (9) Progressive marker
'We are not able to see him [ghost] , "yet" he is around'.

The word for 'or' is voni ~ von ~ vo. M̼ara 'because' can be said to have coordinating effects.

Frequent use is made of the Bislama coordinator "'ale" (derived from the French "allez"). Possible meanings are 'OK; then; now; so; finally'.

NP coordination 'X and Y' can be translated into Araki in three different ways:
* the noun-like preposition nida- 'with';
* the comitative suffix -n(i), only with free pronouns;
* the numeral rolu 'three → and', with personal pronouns.

Conditional Systems

Araki has three markers corresponding to English 'if': vada, aru, code. Surprisigly, two of these three markers is compatible with Realis modality.

Co de 'suppose, let us say that → if' is the only marker, which is incompatible with Realis modality. It can refer to a possible situation in the future, or it can present a counter-factual hypothesis about the present.

Aru appears only with Realis modality in the conditional clause (the main clause may bare Realis or Irrealis marking). It can refer either to a possible hypothesis about the future, or to a counter-factual situation in the past.

Vada is a common subordinator in Araki, probably deriving etymologically from the root vadai 'say, tell'. When used in a topic clause, vada is most often associated to Realis mood. It can refer either to a single event in the past (English 'when'), to a generic event in the global situation (English 'whenever'), or to a possible event in the future (English 'when', 'if', 'in case').

Clause Chaining

Clause chaining is the combination of at least two clauses (C₁ and C₂), without any coordinator, subordinator or any other kind of overt link between them. On prosodic criteria, no pause is audible at their boundary, at least no such pause as between two autonomous sentences. Contrary to verb serialization, every verb must be preceded by its own subject clitic, whether or not it refers to the same subject as the preceding verb. A sentence like the following is perfectly common in Araki:
(1) Racu (2) mo (3) vari-a (4) sule (5) mo (6) plan-i-a (7) mo (8) sa (9) mo (10) covi (11) mo (12) sivo
(1) man (2) 3rdPerson:Realis (3) hold-3rdPersonSg (4) stone (5) 3rdPerson:Realis (6) throw-transitive marker-3rdPersonSg (7) 3rdPerson:Realis (8) go.up (9) 3rdPerson:Realis (10) fall (11) 3rdPerson:Realis (12)go.down
'A man takes a stone and throws it (so that it goes) up and falls down (again)'.

Notice the ambiguity of the sentence: it is only the context that makes clear that what falls down is actually the stone, not the man. The high frequency of clause chaining constructions makes the clitic mo (Third person Realis, singular or plural) by far the most frequent word encountered in actual discourse.

Clause chaining can be used to describe a wide variety of situations:

* Time succession and consequence;

* Two phases of a single complex action;

* Simultaneity of two events;

* Commenting on an action;

* Spatial dynamics;

* Temporal dynamics;

* Sentential objects;

* Relative clauses;

* Numeral phrases.

Unusual Characteristics

Araki is one of the few languages of Vanuatu, and indeed of the world, possessing a set of linguolabial consonants.

Araki language lacks a row of voiced stops, as well as prenasalised stops, both of which are prevalent in the Oceanic language group.

Araki has an unusually high number of phonemic differentiation on the alveolar point of articulation. Most marked is the existence of the trill consonant beside the flap one.

Language preservation

In June 2008, the Jacques Chirac Foundation for Sustainable Development and Cultural Dialogue announced its intention to focus on preserving the Araki language. [ [http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=40260 "New foundation seeks to preserve rare Vanuatu language"] , Radio New Zealand International, June 9, 2008.] [ [http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jyHbiQwT8A2VnasPh30A3G8kbt3w "Chirac launches foundation 'to awaken consciences'"] , AFP, June 8, 2008.] This language is cited as an example, among many others, of the situation of language endangerment which the Chirac Foundation aims at addressing, especially through its programme “"Sorosoro: Pour que vivent les langues du monde"”. "Sorosoro" is itself an Araki word, meaning “breath, speech, language”. [See [http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6577298142 Chirac Foundation's Facebook page] , and [http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/2008/06/05/01002-20080605ARTFIG00703-chirac-je-veux-reveiller-les-consciences.php interview by J. Chirac, 5 June 2008] .]

Notes

References

* François, Alexandre. 2002. "Araki: A disappearing language of Vanuatu". Pacific Linguistics, 522. Canberra: Australian National University. 375 pp. ISBN 0-85883-493-6 ( [http://pacling.anu.edu.au/catalogue/522.html Publisher's page] ).

External links

* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=akr "Ethnologue" page] .
* [http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/archivage/languages/Araki.htm Linguistic documentation on Araki, including bilingual stories that can be read and listened to] (homepage of LACITO-CNRS).
* [http://alex.francois.free.fr/AF-Araki.htm A trilingual Araki – English – French online dictionary] .
* [http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/austronesian/language.php?id=465 Araki wordlist at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database] .