| Mono | |
|---|---|
| Mono-Alu | |
| Region | Solomon Islands |
Native speakers | (2,900 cited 1999) [1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mte |
| Glottolog | mono1273 |
| ELP | Mono (Solomon Islands) |
Mono, or Alu, is an Oceanic language of the Solomon Islands reportedly spoken by 660 people on Treasury Island (Mono proper), 2,270 on Shortland Island (Alu dialect), and 14 on Fauro Island in 1999. [1]
The Mono-Alu language has been studied extensively by Joel L. Fagan, [2] a researcher for the Department of Linguistics, Research School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University. His publication, "A Grammatical Analysis of Mono-Alu (Bougainville Straits, Solomon Islands)," [3] is one of the first and only translations and analyses of Mono-Alu language.
Fagan identified the Mono-Alu language as having twenty-eight phonemes. They are made up of nine diphthongs, five vowels and fourteen consonants that make up the alphabet.
The other consonants have the same sounds as in English.
| Labial | Coronal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |
| Plosive | p b | t | k g | ʔ |
| Fricative | s | h | ||
| Tap | ɾ | |||
| Approximant | ( w ) | l | ( j ) |
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Low | ɐ |
The number system of Mono-Alu is very similar to other Austronesian languages. [5] For example, Mono-Alu shares the numbers 'two' (elua) and 'five' (lima) with the Hawaiian language. A number for 'zero' was available in the language, but it was under the same use as the word 'nothing.' Fagan identified numbers from one to ten-thousand in Mono-Alu.
| Cardinal | English |
|---|---|
| Menna | nothing |
| Kala (or elea) | one |
| Elua | two |
| Episa | three |
| Ehati | four |
| Lima | five |
| Onomo | six |
| Hitu | seven |
| Alu | eight |
| Ulia | nine |
| Lafulu | ten |
| Lafulu rohona elea | eleven |
| Lafulu rohona elua | twelve |
| Lafulu rohona episa | thirteen |
| Lafulu rohona efati | fourteen |
| Lafulu rohona lima | fifteen |
| Lafulu rohona onomo | sixteen |
| Lafulu rohona hitu | seventeen |
| Lafulu rohona alu | eighteen |
| Lafulu rohona ulia | nineteen |
| Elua lafulu (or Tanaoge) | twenty |
| Episa lafulu (or Pisafulu) | thirty |
| Efati lafulu (or Fatiafulu) | forty |
| Lima lafulu (or limafulu) | fifty |
| Onomo lafulu | sixty |
| Fitu lafulu | seventy |
| Alu lafulu | eighty |
| Ulia lafulu (or Siafulu) | ninety |
| Ea latuu | one-hundred |
| Elua latuu | two-hundred |
| Ea kokolei | one-thousand |
| Elua kokolei | two-thousand |
| Lafulu kokolei | ten-thousand |
Mono-Alu also made[ clarification needed ] use of ordinal numbers. However, only 'first' (famma) is an actual word, where all other successive numbers are a grammatical construct.
| Ordinal | English |
|---|---|
| famma | first |
| Fa-elua-naang | second |
| Fa-epis-naana | third |
| Fa-ehati-naana | fourth |
| Fa-lima-naana | fifth |
| Fa-onomo-naana | sixth |
| Fa-hitu-naana | seventh |
| Fa-alu-naana | eighth |
| Fa-ulia-naana | ninth |
| Fa-lafulu-naana | tenth |
Mono-Alu, like many other Austronesian languages, uses two separate pronouns for the first-person plural in order to express clusivity - that is, one first person plural pronoun is inclusive (including the listener), and the other is exclusive (not including the listener). Mono-Alu does not have third person pronouns. Fagan translated pronouns and their possessives.
| Pronoun | Obj | Suffix | Other | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | singular | mafa | -afa | -gu | sagu | |
| plural | exclusive | mani | -ami | -mang, -ma | samang/sama | |
| inclusive | maita | -ita | -ra | sara | ||
| 2nd person | singular | maito | -o | -ng | sang | |
| plural | maang | -ang | -mia | samia | ||
| 3rd person | singular | --- | -i, -ng | -na | sana | |
| plural | --- | -ri, -iri | -ria | saria | ||
Mono-Alu is very specific regarding adverbs and other verb affixes. Verbs can be altered with a prefix, infix, and a suffix.
| Prefixes | Infixes | Suffixes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ang | relative prefix, alternate forms an, ai, a'nta | fa | infix denoting completion | ai | there, away |
| fa | causative prefix, fa becomes f before a, alternate form ha | fang | one another (reciprocal infix), alternate form fan | ma | hither, thither, alternate form ama |
| ta | infix or prefix showing action or state. | fero | elsewhere, to somewhere else | ||
| isa | together, at the same time, alternate sa | ||||
| male | again (also occurs independently) | ||||
| mea | makes a plural | ||||
| meka | till[ spelling? ] tired, for a very long time, alternate form meko |
| a | place where or whither,[ clarification needed ] alternate form ang occurs after a |
| ng | added to the first of two names gives the meaning 'and', alternate form m |
| ua | denotes addition, 'and', 'with' |
| -a | 'of', especially before -ang, alternate forms an, ang, aan |
| afa- | 'what?' |
| -ata | often found after verbs and other words, alternate forms eta, ita, ota, uta |
| ga | particle, most often after the first word in a sentence, untranslatable; 'so, therefore' at the beginning of a sentence, also used with pronoun forms to emphasise them: gafa, gami, gai, gaina, gang, etc. |
| -nana | equivalent to copula, alternate form nina |
| -titi | strengthens the idea of repetition or duration |
There are two ways of indicating differences of grammatical gender:
In other cases, there is no distinction between masculine, feminine, and neuter.
Some exceptions within the rules of Mono-Alu have been discovered. [6]
Two adverbs of place, instead of being written with a double consonant, are written with one only accentuated.
Instead of the aspirate h, the letter f can be used:
There is no definite article in Alu. The number elea ('one') is used as an indefinite article. [3]
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