The sounds in parentheses are possible allophones of the bilabial trill. [β] can be intervocalical, [ɸ] can be the final sound, and [pʷ̜] can be syllable-initial. The sounds in half brackets occur extremely rarely and can likely be attributed to loan words.[3]
The exceedingly rare bilabial trill /ʙ/ is found in the areal-related Kwomtari and Sko languages, but not in other Border languages.[6] It likely developed from a prenasalized bilabial stop followed by a high back rounded vowel, hence why [mbu] occurs only in ten words.
Kilmeri has eight vowels, all of which are always short.[3]
The near-high and near-low vowels are especially rare.[3] Thus, Kilmeri was believed to have seven vowels[6] until a small selection of words, such as /bi/ (pig) and /bI/ (hole) show a clear distinction between /i/ and /I/.[3]
The main syllable structure is CV with two preferred syllables.[3]
Orthography
The phonetic inventory easily translates into Latin letters. The near-low vowel uses ae and the near-high vowels use diacritics. Literate Kilmeri speakers much preferred the symbol p for the bilabial trill, but pp was selected to indicate two different phonemes.[3]
Phoneme
Grapheme
/b/
b
/d/
d
/k/
k
/l/
l
/m/
m
/n/
n
/p/
p
/ʙ/
pp
/r/
r
/s/
s
/ʋ/
w
/j/
y
/a/
a
/æ/
ae
/ɛ/
e
/i/
i
/I/
î
/ɔ/
o
/u/
u
/ʊ/
û
Pronouns
Kilmeri has eleven personal pronouns without gender distinction.[6]
Personal pronouns
Singular
Dual
Plural
1st INCL
ko
dedukoyo
nuko
1st EXCL
koyo
uke
2nd
de
deyo
ine
3rd
ki ~ ke
kiyo
iki
The dual forms end with the locative suffix -yo and is derived from the singular. The inclusive dual is often substituted with the inclusive plural, especially in narrative stories.[3]
Verbs
Kilmeri verb forms can express complex modality. Examples:[6]
de-le
PROB-go
‘will probably go’
lam < le-m
go-POT
‘might go’
lou < le-ou
go-FRUST
‘go in vain’
lap < le-p
go-IMP
‘go!’
klam < k-le-m
NEG.IMP-go-NEG.IMP
‘don’t go!’
loipap < le-ipe-p
go-first-IMP
‘go first, and then…’
Circumfixes can also be applied to verbs in Kilmeri.
Number agreement in Kilmeri is absolutive rather than accusative.[6]
In Kilmeri, intransitive verbs, as well as the two transitive verbs ‘eat’ and ‘throw down to’, agree with subjects in number. This pattern is also present in Amanab. These verbs are:[6]
gloss
singular
plural
‘eat’
ni
ile
‘throw down to’
pakʊne
pakʊpi
‘come’
pule
pulupi
‘die’
sui
supuli
‘go’
le
mole
‘sit’
nake
mape
‘sleep’
nui
sapi
‘speak’
mui
molive
However, number marking for transitive verbs, except for ‘eat’ and ‘throw down to’, refers to the number of the object, rather than the subject.[6]
1234567Foley, William A. (2018). "The Languages of the Sepik-Ramu Basin and Environs". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol.4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp.197–432. ISBN978-3-11-028642-7.
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