Goemai language

Goemai has eleven vowel phonemes which can be grouped by length; four short vowels and seven long vowels. Orthographically, long vowels are represented by doubling the vowel symbol.[2]^: 18 Goemai also contains several vowel sounds which are non-phonemic, but occur allophonically, shown enclosed in square brackets in the table. In the table, sounds are represented on the left in IPA, and the right using Goemai orthography. Vowels are never syllable-initial in Goemai. While syllable-final vowels are generally short, there is no contrast between vowel lengths in this position.

Vowel length is contrastive, but only in the middle of syllables, as in pairs such as kúr "tortoise" versus kúːr "burn", and ʃʰɔ̀m "hyrax" versus ʃʰɔ́ːm "guineafowl".[2]^: 35

There are also several diphthongs in Goemai, which are not believed to be phonemic. Instead, they likely arise as a result of phonological processes, including labialization and height assimilation. The diphthongs attested in Goemai include [ʉ͡a], [ʉ͡ə], [a͡u], [o͡u], [a͡i], [e͡i], and [o͡ːi].[2]^: 39

Goemai has the consonants shown in the chart below, with symbols on the left indicating the IPA transcription, and symbols on the right denoting the orthography used by Hellwig.[2]^: 17 Symbols enclosed in square brackets are non-phonemic. All of the consonants in the table may appear at in syllable-initial positions, but some are restricted from appearing in syllable-final position.[2]^: 54–55 Those phonemes that are attested in syllable-final position are annotated in the table below, while unannotated phonemes appear only at the beginning of a syllable. Goemai has a four-way contrast in its plosive inventory and a three-way contrast in its fricative inventory. Of note is Goemai's contrast between aspirated and unaspirated fricative sounds, which is rare among languages in general.[2]^: 19

a. Only used when phoneme occurs in syllable-initial or -medial position.

b. Only used when phoneme occurs in syllable-final position.

c. Attested in syllable-final position.

Goemai is a tonal language, making use of several distinctive tones. The exact number and pitch of these tones is disputed. It has been suggested that Goemai has three level tones high (é), mid (ē), and low (è) along with two contour tones: falling (ê) and rising (ě).[2]^: 42 Tone can be the only contrastive feature between words in Goemai, as shown in the following minimal pairs: ɓák "here" (adv.) versus ɓàk "disregard" (v.), and ʃé "foot/leg" (n.) versus ʃè "learn/teach" (v.).[2]^: 43

The level mid tone is not a basic tone of Goemai, and only appears as a result of assimilation or other phonological processes, including downdrift and downstep.[2]^: 42 Although there are words that are posited to have an underlying rising tone, this tone cannot appear on a single syllable. Instead, it is always spread out across multiple syllables. The following example sentence demonstrates the underlying rising tone of the verb /nǎ/ "see" being spread to the following noun, /mà:r/ "farm". The underlying low tone of the noun then passes to the definite determiner clitic =hɔk, which lacks an underlying tone.

The rising tone is alternatively realized as a level high tone if it is not possible for it to spread.[2]^: 42–43

There are four syllabic forms in Goemai, as illustrated in the words below, with the relevant syllable(s) bolded.

In syllables of the form CVVC, the VV represents a single long vowel sound. Syllables of the form N can occur when prenasalization of a sound manifests as a syllabic nasal. This is most common with the prenasalizing prefix /ⁿ-/, which acts as an adverbializer when affixed to verbs[2]^: 279 and as a locative when affixed to nouns.[2]^: 287

Affixes are uncommon in Goemai, and those that exist are predominantly prefixes, which must take the form CV, unless they consist of just a lone nasal.[2]^: 57 Two of the most common affixes are the affixes gòe-, which is used as a nominalizer, and N- (a single nasal matching the place of the following consonant), which is used as an adverbializer.[2]^: 314

While a handful of suffixes and infixes do exist in the language, they are almost always used nonproductively as plural markers. Around 10% of the verbs of Goemai mark number in this way,[2]^: 173 while most other verbs in the language are completely unmarked.[2]^: 172

Goemai has a large inventory of clitics, which are used for word formation in broader distribution than affixes.[2]^: 310 Like prefixes, the majority of clitics take the form CV.[2]^: 57 Goemai has both proclitics and enclitics, although in Goemai, any clitic can also stand alone as a word on its own.[2]^: 310

Most of the clitics in Goemai are phrasal, including the very common clitics =hòe "exactly", and kò= "every/each; any".[2]^: 310

Modifiers such as là=, the diminutive singular, and =hok, the definite determiner, can attach to noun phrases as clitics. Question particles typically manifest as enclitics at the end of a clause.[2]^: 310

In Goemai, reduplication is typically partial, though full reduplication exists in certain situations. Reduplication confers different meanings depending on the word being modified. Sometimes, quantifiers or adverbs are reduplicated to indicate increased intensity,[2]^: 263 as in the case of zòk ("generous") being fully reduplicated as zòkzòk ("very very generous").[2]^: 281 Numerals can be reduplicated to indicate that the number is divided over a period of time, or distributed across several entities or groups, as in k'ún ("three") being reduplicated as k'ún k'ún ("three each").[2]^: 268 Partial reduplication is also a common technique for adverbializing verbs, as in pyá "become white" (v.) versus pòe-pyá "white" (adv.).[2]^: 280

In certain situations, such as when modifying words relating to location or distance, reduplicated forms do not differ in meaning from the base form, as in séng ("far") being partially reduplicated to soè-séng ("far").[2]^: 263 In such cases, there is a distinction between partial reduplication, which results in the same meaning as the base form, and full reduplication, which intensifies the meaning. Instead of full reduplication of a word, entire phrases can be reduplicated for a similar intensifying effect.[2]^: 273

Polysyllabic words are sometimes formed by combining two existing words via compounding, as in the two-syllable word hàːm.ʃíŋ ("gruel"), which is formed from the two single syllable words hàːm ("water"), and ʃíŋ ("mix").[2]^: 59

Certain verbs of Goemai can be modified by a special class of approximately 80 ideophones.[2]^: 281 Each modifies only a single other verb in the language, and can modify no other verb. The effect of this modification is to emphasize the result of the verb, as in the following example (ideophone in bold):

The basic word order of Goemai is strictly subject-verb-object in transitive clauses,[2]^: 375 as shown in the following example sentences.

In intransitive sentences, there is a strict SV basic word order,[2]^: 374 as shown below:

In cases where arguments are redundant, or can be inferred from the surrounding context, they are usually omitted. In particular, the subject may be omitted entirely if it is third person singular, so long as it is clear which entity is being referenced. In addition, direct objects may be omitted, but only if they refer to inanimate objects or lower animals.[2]^: 375

In the following example, the subject "rabbit" is omitted after being introduced once: