Consonants

Araki has 16 consonants which generally appear at the beginning of a syllable, with some exceptions.

Only fluent speakers of Araki distinguish between the flap [ɾ] and the trill [r];^[4] and only they can distinguish and pronounce the linguolabial consonants. 'Passive' users of the language replace these consonants either with bilabial consonants or alveolar consonants.^[5] Although many younger people claim to be able to speak Araki, they are usually passive speakers, and therefore do not use linguolabial consonants.

Vowels

The vowel phonemes are:

Araki does not possess phonemic long vowels. Also, the language does not have phonemic diphthongs. However, strings of consecutive vowels are possible - indeed prevalent - in the language. In these cases, each vowel builds a separate syllable.

Syllable structure and stress

Most syllables in Araki are open (CV). Diachronic effects of word stress have led to the irregular loss of some syllables, and the creation of new phonotactic patterns of CVC and CCV, with many word-final consonants, though not as pervasive compared to the Torres–Banks languages. Although a cluster of more than two consonants is impossible within a word, longer consonant clusters may appear in longer linguistic sequences.

Word stress in Araki normally falls on the penultimate syllable, at least when the last syllable of the word is of the form -(C)V. A secondary stress may be heard on every second syllable toward the left of the word. Stress is assigned only after the lexeme has received all its affixes to form the whole phonological word. A process of final high vowel deletion (which is common in Vanuatu languages) does not affect the stress rule.

Writing system

After François (2002) proposed an initial system for the orthography, he later amended it in agreement with the community.^[6] The new orthography is indicated here:

The older orthography used ⟨c⟩ for t͡ʃ, ⟨d⟩ for ɾ, ⟨r⟩ for r, and ⟨g⟩ for ŋ.

Word order

The constituent order in Araki is strictly subject–verb–object (SVO). There is a clear formal boundary between the direct object - always internal to the predicate phrase, whether incorporated or not - and the oblique arguments: adverbs, prepositional phrases and indirect objects, which always appear outside the verb phrase.

Nouns

As in many Oceanic languages, not only verbs but also nouns (as well as other syntactic categories) are predicative in Araki. Nouns differ from verbs in being directly predicative, which means that they do not have to be preceded by a subject clitic. Also, only nouns are able to refer directly to entities of the world, and make them arguments entering into larger sentence structures.

Syntactically speaking, a noun can be either the subject of a sentence, the object of a transitive verb or the object of a preposition, all syntactic slots which are forbidden to verbs or adjectives. Proper names - place names and personal names - can be said to belong to the global category of nouns in Araki.

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.

Personal markers

In the case of Araki, it is more appropriate to discuss ‘personal markers’ (rather than ‘pronouns’). There are seven morphosyntactic person markings: first, second, third, and in the case of non-singular first person, there is an inclusive/exclusive distinction.

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).

Adjectives

Contrary to many languages which lack a distinct category of adjectives, Araki 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.

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:

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.

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 features 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').
  e.g. nar̄u 'son' → nanar̄u 'sons', hurar̄a 'dirt' → hurahurar̄a '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).
  e.g. alo 'sun' → aloalo 'to be sunny'
• From verb to verb (deriving one of the following: an intensified meaning, plurality, reflexivity, distributivity, imperfectivity, detransitivity).
  e.g. v̈ano 'walk' → v̈anov̈ano 'race'
• From verb to noun (referring to the very notion of the verb, in general terms)
  e.g. soro 'talk; → sorosoro 'speech, message, language'.

Structurally, Araki has three types of reduplication

Imperatives

All imperative sentences take Irrealis modality, by definition, since they refer to virtual events. The verb must be preceded by its subject clitic.

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 use the usual negation marker je, but the modal clitic kan 'Prohibitive':

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-je-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', v̈e 'where', ngisa '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 m̈ar̄a sa 'because of what → why'.

Negation

The general negation marker is a single morpheme je, 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 je combines with other elements, for example aspect markers, to build complex negative morphemes. For example,

• Negation je + aspect le 'again' → 'no longer'
• Negation je + aspect m̈isi 'still' → 'not yet'
• Negation je + partitive r̄e 'some' → 'not any'
• Negation je + NP r̄e hina 'some thing' → 'nothing'
• Negation je + adverb n-r̄e-ran 'on some day' → 'never'

The combination {negation je + Verb + partitive r̄e in object position}, has the frequent effect of implying the non-existence of this object. The construction {je r̄e + N} has been grammaticalised into a complect predicate je r̄e, meaning 'do not exist, not to be'.

Existential sentences

Since the combination je r̄e 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 r̄e without the negation. In fact, this is normally impossible.

Affirmative existential sentences never use r̄e, but have to employ other strategies. These include the use of the predicate mo hese 'one', or a locative phrase.

Coordination

Coordination as a clause-linker is far from being widespread in Araki: 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:

The word for 'or' is voni ~ von ~ vo.

M̈ar̄a '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 nira- 'with';
• the comitative suffix -n(i), only with free pronouns;
• the numeral r̄olu 'three → and', with personal pronouns.

Conditional systems

Araki has three markers corresponding to English 'if': vara, ar̄u, jore. Surprisingly, two of these three markers are compatible with Realis modality.

1. Jo re 'suppose, let us say that → if' is the only marker that 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.
2. Ar̄u appears only with Realis modality in the conditional clause (the main clause may bear Realis or Irrealis marking). It can refer either to a possible hypothesis about the future, or to a counter-factual situation in the past.
3. Vara is a common subordinator in Araki, probably deriving etymologically from the root varai 'say, tell'. When used in a topic clause, vara 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:

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.

Notes

References

Bibliography

• François, Alexandre (2002). Araki: A disappearing language of Vanuatu. Pacific Linguistics, 522. Canberra: Australian National University. doi:10.15144/PL-522 (inactive 1 August 2023). hdl:1885/146137. ISBN 0-85883-493-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of August 2023 (link)
• François, Alexandre (2012), "Ditransitive alignment and referential hierarchies in Araki", Linguistic Discovery, 10 (3): 97–124, doi:10.1349/ps1.1537-0852.a.418.
• Miller, J. G. (1990). Live Book 7: Santo and Malo. New South Wales: Mission Publication of Australia.
• Tryon, D. T. (1972). "The languages of the New Hebrides: A checklist and general survey". In Beaumont, C.; Tryon, D. T.; Wurm, S. A. (eds.). Papers in Linguistics of Melanesia, Series A-33. Pacific Linguistics.
• Grimes, Barbara, ed. (1996). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (13th ed.). Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
• Vari-Bogiri, Hannah (2008). "A Sociolinguistic Survey of Araki: A Dying Language of Vanuatu". Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 26 (1): 52–66. doi:10.1080/14790710508668398. S2CID 41801304.