Vowels

Vowel length is distinctive in Niuean; vowels are either long or short. Furthermore, two adjacent identical vowels (whether short-short, short-long, long-short, or long-long) form a rearticulated vowel; the sound is distinct from one long vowel.

Both short and long vowels can occur in any position.

All short vowels may combine with one another to form diphthongs. The possible diphthongs are outlined in the table below.

Hiatus

Hiatus is the separate pronunciation of two adjacent vowels, as opposed to diphthongs, which are written as two letters but pronounced as one sound. These two vowels may be the same or be different ones.

Hiatus typically occurs across morpheme boundaries, such as when a prefix ending with a vowel comes before a root beginning with that same vowel. It may also occur, rarely, within monomorphemic words (words that consist of only one morpheme) as a result of the elision of a historical intervocalic consonant.

Two adjacent identical short vowels are always pronounced separately, as are combinations of any two long vowels or a short and a long vowel; two adjacent different short vowels may undergo hiatus or form a diphthong. This must be determined from the morphology or etymology of the word.

Syllable structure

The basic structure of a Niuean syllable is (C)V(V); all syllables end in a vowel or diphthong, and may start with at most one consonant. Consonant clusters in borrowed words are broken up with epenthetic vowels, e.g. English tractor becomes tuleketā.

Stress

The stress on a Niuean word is nearly always on the penult (second-to-last syllable), though multi-syllable words ending in a long vowel put primary stress on the final long vowel and secondary stress on the penult. Long vowels in other positions also attract a secondary stress.

Glottal stop

The Niuean language does not contain the glottal stop, which is present in its closest relative, Tongan. This has caused some distinct words to merge. For example, Tongan taʻu (year) and tau (fight) have merged in Niuean as tau (year; fight).

Alphabet

The traditional alphabet order, given with the traditional names of the letters, is ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, fā, gā, hā, kā, lā, mō, nū, pī, tī, vī, rō, sā. Note that rō and sā as introduced letters are ordered at the end.

Sperlich (1997) uses an alphabetical order based on English for his dictionary: a, ā, e, ē, f, g, h, i, ī, k, l, m, n, o, ō, p, s, t, u, ū, v (r is left out since no words start with this letter). He recommends that consonants be named consistently with a following ā: fā, gā, hā, kā, lā, mā, nā, pā, tā, vā, rā, sā.

Vowel length can be marked with a macron; however, this is not always done.

History

As with many languages, writing was brought to Niue in connection with religion, in this case with Christianity by missionaries educated in Samoa. This has led to some Samoan influences in morphology and grammar and also to a noticeable one in spelling: as in Samoan, the sound /ŋ/ (Help:IPA) is written g, rather than ng as in Tongan and some other Polynesian languages with this sound. (McEwen (1970) uses ng in his dictionary; however, this feature of his spelling was not popular, particularly since it conflicted with the spelling used in the Niuean Bible.)

Typology

Niuean can be considered a VSO language; however, one analysis of Niuean uses ergative terminology, in which case it may be better to speak of verb–agent–patient word order.

Because the unmarked case is the absolutive, Niuean transitive verb constructions often appear passive in a literal translation.

Compare

Kua kitia e ia e kalahimu.

and

Kua kitia e kalahimu

The first example sentence could also be translated into English as the nominative–accusative construction "He saw the crab".

Pronouns

Niuean pronouns are differentiated by person and number. Furthermore, first person non-singular (dual and plural) pronouns distinguish inclusive and exclusive forms, including and excluding the listener, respectively. However, they are not differentiated by gender or case; for example, ia means both he and she, him and her (inanimates ['it'] are not usually pronominalised).

Note that the endings of the dual and plural forms resemble the numbers 2 and 3, ua and tolu.

Numbers

Some numbers in Niuean are:

(*Note: Both McEwen (1970) and Sperlich (1997) give fā for four; however, Kaulima & Beaumont (1994) give fa with a short vowel.)

Tens and ones combine with ma, e.g. hogofulu ma taha, 11; tolugofulu ma ono, 36.

The numbers from one to nine (and occasionally higher numbers) can take the prefix toko- when used to count persons; for example, tokolima five (for people).

Numbers are used as verbs, for example:

Ne taha e fufua moa i loto he kato.

or

Tolu e tama fuata ne oatu ke takafaga.

or

Ko e tau maaga ne fa.

Morphology

Morphology comprises the ways in which words are built up from smaller, meaningful sub-units, or how words change their form in certain circumstances.