Maisin language

Maisin (or Maisan) is a language of Papua New Guinea with both Austronesian and Papuan features. The Austronesian elements are those of the Nuclear Papuan Tip languages. The Papuan element is Binanderean or Dagan. It is spoken by the Maisin people of Oro Province.

Maisin
RegionOro Province, Papua New Guinea
EthnicityMaisin people
Native speakers
2,600 (2000 census)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3mbq
Glottologmais1250

Maisin displays significant lexical copying from Korafe, a neighboring Papuan language.[2]

Other languages with disputed affiliation between either Austronesian or Papuan are Magori, the Reefs-Santa Cruz languages, the Lower Mamberamo languages, and the Pasismanua languages.[2]

Phonology

Monophthongs
Front Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a

Diphthongs
Ending with /i/ Ending with /e/ Ending with /a/ Ending with /o/ Ending with /u/
Starting with /i/ /ii/ /ia/
Starting with /e/ /ei/ /ee/ /eu/
Starting with /a/ /ai/ /aa/ /au/
Starting with /o/ /oi/ /oo/ /ou/
Starting with /u/ /ua/ /uu/

Consonants
Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar
Unrounded Rounded Unrounded Rounded
Stop Voiceless p t k (kʷ)
Voiced b d ɡ
Nasal m n (ŋ)
Fricative Voiceless ɸ ɸʷ s
Voiced β ʝ
Flap ɾ
Approximant j w

[ŋ] and [kʷ] are not phonemic, but are distinguished in the orthography.

Phonotactics

Syllables can begin and end with up to one consonant each. I.e., English wrong /rɔŋ/ would be an acceptable word, but strength /streŋθ/ would not. Words can only end in either a vowel or [ŋ]. The vowels /u/ and /o/ never occur word-initially. /β/ never occurs before /o/ or /u/.

Writing system
A aB bD dE eF fFw fwG gI iJ jK kM m
/a//b//d//e//ɸ//ɸʷ//ɡ//i//ʝ//k//m/
N nO oR rS sT tU uV vW wY yKw kwŊ ŋ
[n]/o//ɾ//s//t//u//β//w//j/[kʷ][ŋ]

Literacy varies from 20% to 80% in different areas.


Morphosyntax

Negation in Maisin

Negation in Maisin is achieved predominantly by morphology. In the Marua communalect, negation is marked by isaa… -ka[3] (Ross, 1984, p. 50), while in the Sinapa communalect, negation is marked by saa… -ka (Ross, 1984, p. 79).[3] The negation marking is discontinuous (Ross, 1984, p. 50).[3]

Isaa is a morpheme located prior to the predicate of the sentence, and can be roughly glossed as ‘not’ in English. Morphologically, it is classified as a separate word (Ross, 1984, p. 50).[3] -ka is an enclitic that is found attached to a verb’s tense- or aspect-marking enclitic. Alternatively, when there is no tense- or aspect-marking enclitic in the sentence, it attaches to the predicate’s last item (Ross, 1984, p. 50).[3] Negation through isaa... -ka can be seen in the following examples.


Example 1

isaa

isaa

not

iyeeyeka

i-yee-ye-ka

he-PROG-swim-NEG

isaa iyeeyeka

isaa i-yee-ye-ka

not he-PROG-swim-NEG

'He isn't swimming.' (Ross, 1984, p. 50)

[3]

In Example 1, the verb stem 'swim’ takes both the progressive marker -ye (created through partial reduplication of the verb stem yee[3] (Ross, 1984, p. 41) and the negative enclitic -ka, as well as the male second-person singular pronominal enclitic. The enclitic -ka attaches to the progressive marker -ye. The combination of isaa and -ka in the sentence negates the action of swimming.

Example 2

bendooka

bendoo-ka

Bendo-TOP

isaa

isaa

not

raatika

raati-ka

small-NEG

bendooka isaa raatika

bendoo-ka isaa raati-ka

Bendo-TOP not small-NEG

'Bendo is very big.' (lit. 'Bendo isn't small.') (Ross, 1984, p. 50)

[3]

Here negation is also shown through isaa… -ka. In this case, -ka is attached directly to the end of the predicate, as there is no tense- or aspect-marking present. The first -ka in the sentence (in bendoo-ka) is not a negative marker; rather, it is a homophonous morpheme that functions as a topic marker (Ross, 1984, p. 51).[3]

Example 3

bendooka

bendoo-ka

Bendo-TOP

isaa

isaa

not

vareyananka

var-e-anan-ka

house-LOC-FUT-NEG

bendooka isaa vareyananka

bendoo-ka isaa var-e-anan-ka

Bendo-TOP not house-LOC-FUT-NEG

'Bendo won't be in the house.' (Ross, 1984, p. 50)

[3]

In Example 3, -ka is found attached to the enclitic -anan, which marks future tense. Again, negation is achieved through the combination of isaa and -ka.


Maisin negation with isaa only

In the presence of the conjunction -ate or the demonstrative -nen, the -ka enclitic is removed, leaving isaa as the sole negation marker in the sentence. This occurs because -ate and -nen are both located in the same position in a word as -ka (Ross, 1984, p. 50).[3] isaa-only negation is demonstrated in the following examples.


Example 4

isaa

isaa

not

iraarananeŋka

i-ar-ar-anan-nen-ka

he-PROG-go-FUT-that-TOP

isaa

isaa

not

aaranaŋka

a-ar-anan-ka

I-go-FUT-NEG

isaa iraarananeŋka isaa aaranaŋka

isaa i-ar-ar-anan-nen-ka isaa a-ar-anan-ka

not he-PROG-go-FUT-that-TOP not I-go-FUT-NEG

'If he doesn't go, I shan't go.' (Ross, 1984, p. 50)

[3]

The presence of the demonstrative morpheme -nen in the first clause of Example 4 displaces (and removes) -ka. Thus, isaa is the sole negator of the clause.


Example 5

bendooka

bendoo-ka

Bendo-TOP

isaa

isaa

not

ikanate

i-kan-ate

he-eat-and

arauku

a-ra-uku

I-come-descend

bendooka isaa ikanate arauku

bendoo-ka isaa i-kan-ate a-ra-uku

Bendo-TOP not he-eat-and I-come-descend

'Before Bendo had eaten, I arrived.' (lit. 'Bendo didn't eat and then I arrived.') (Ross, 1984, p. 50)

[3]

This example shows the presence of the conjunction -ate, which is attached to the end of the verb stem kan. This removes -ka and again leaves isaa as the only negation marker in the sentence.

Maisin negation within Oceanic language family

Maisin is an Oceanic language (Eberhard, Simons, & Fennig, 2019),[4] and its negation system is fairly typical of Oceanic languages. Oceanic languages often express negation discontinuously (Crowley, Lynch, & Ross, 2001, p. 51),[5] with the first element located preverbally and the second postverbally (Crowley et al., 2001, p. 51)[5] – Maisin fits this pattern, as the above examples demonstrate.

Additionally, Maisin follows both the Polynesian pattern of marking negation clause-initially and the Papuan pattern of marking negation clause-finally (Crowley et al., 2001, p. 51)[5].

List of abbreviations
  • FUT = 'final' future enclitic
  • LOC = locative enclitic
  • NEG = negative enclitic
  • PROG = progressive aspect
  • TOP = topic marker enclitic (Ross, 1984, p. 2) [3]

Notes

The first interlinear text example was retrieved from page 50 of Maisin: A Preliminary Sketch by Malcolm Ross. The glossing of the morphemes yee and ye as 'PG' and the verb stem 'swim' respectively means that the negative enclitic -ka is attached to ye 'swim'. This does not seem to fit the description of -ka as attaching to the tense- or aspect-marking enclitic of the predicate. The progressive marker is generated through reduplication (Ross, 1984, p. 41),[3] and so the glossing of each morpheme may be ambiguous - that is, it may not be entirely clear as to whether yee should be glossed as 'PG' or 'swim', and likewise with the morpheme ye. This may explain why the first example seems to deviate from the typical pattern of negation.

See also

References
  1. Maisin at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Reesink, Ger; Dunn, Michael (2018). "Contact phenomena in Austronesian and Papuan languages". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 939–985. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
  3. Ross, Malcolm (1984). "Maisin: A Preliminary Sketch". Pacific Linguistics. 0 (69): 1–82 – via ProQuest.
  4. Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Austronesian". Ethnologue. Retrieved April 6, 2019.
  5. Crowley, Terry; Lynch, John; Ross, Malcolm (2001). "Typological Overview". The Oceanic Languages. Routledge. p. 51. ISBN 9780700711284.
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