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Emai
Native to	Nigeria
Region	Edo State
Native speakers	between 25,000 and 35,000 (2018)
Language family	Niger–Congo? Edoid Emai
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ema

Emai, a language of the Niger-Congo language family and one of the approximately 25 or more Edoid languages, is spoken in ten villages in South Central Nigeria by roughly 25,000-35,000 members of the Emai clan. The ten villages that Emai is spoken in span approximately 250 kilometers of agriculturally rich land between the present-day Edo State's Edion and Owan rivers. In addition to Afuze, which is the predominant "political village" of the Emai clan, Emai is also spoken in the nine following villages: Eteye, Evbiame-New-Site, Eviame-Old-Site, Ogute, Ojavun-New-Site, Ojavun-Old-Site, Okpokhunmi, Ovbionwu, and Uanhumi. The level of endangerment of Emai is 4, meaning that it is actively used and that its use is supported by educational institutions.

Phonology

The consonant and vowel inventories of Emai are orthographically represented in the tables below and annotated with the corresponding symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) placed in brackets when appropriate.

Vowels

Emai has 12 vowels, including front, central, and back vowels as well as nasalized vowels. In the table below, the orthographic representation conveys nasalization with the letter n following the vowel and the IPA representation conveys nasalization with the symbol ~. For both front and back half-close vowels (e and o), there exists no contrast on the basis of nasalization. Emai exhibits no vowel harmony, unlike many neighboring languages, and has no phonemic diphthongs.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i [i]		u [u]
Nasal (Close)	in [ĩ]		un [ũ]
Half-Close	e [e]		o [o]
Half-Open	e [ɛ]		o [ɔ]
Nasal (Half-Open)	en [ɛ̃]		on [ɔ̃]
Open		a [a]
Nasal (Open)		an [ã]

Consonants

Emai's consonant inventory contains 28 consonants and contrasts sounds across eight places of articulation and six manners of articulation.

	biliabial	labiodental	alveolar	alveopalatal	palatal	velar	labiovelar	glottal
Stop (plosive)	p [p], b [b]		t [t], d [d]			k [k], g [g]	kp [k͡p], gb [g͡b]
Fricative		f [f], v [v]	s [s], z [z]		sh [ç], y [ʝ]	kh [x], gh [ɣ]
Affricate				ch [tʃ], j [dʒ]
Approximant	vb [β]		r [ɹ]		y [j]		w [w]	h
Nasal	m [m]		n [n]		ny [ɲ]		nw
Lateral			l [l]

Syllable Structure

Emai allows for the following syllable structures:

• V
• CV

An example of each of these allowed syllable structures is shown in the table below with the template syllable bolded.

Allowed Syllable Structures

Template	Instantiation	Translation
V	á.wà	'dog'
CV	gbé	'kill'

Notes on Syllable Structure

The above table represents the allowed syllable structures in Emai as a whole. However, there is another level of specification in the allowed syllable structures for different parts of speech. For instance, all nouns begin with a vowel whereas most verbs tend to begin with a consonant (with only a few beginning with a vowel). Like verbs, adjectives also typically begin with a consonant while adverbs begin with both vowels and consonants. A few instances of these parts-of-speech-based restrictions on syllable structure are illustrated in the table below.

Parts-of-Speech-Based Syllable Structure

Word	Translation	Part of Speech	Initial syllable structure
ì.wè	'house'	noun	V
é.ghó'	'money'	noun	V
kpa	'to vomit'	verb	CV
sha.sha	'to scrape'	verb	CV

Tone

Emai uses high, low, and down-stepped high tone. For some word classes in Emai, words that are identical in every other way are distinguished from one another in meaning on the basis of tone, and tone contrasts can be used to encode both for lexical and grammatical meaning. The table below shows how tone is orthographically represented in Emai.

Tone

Type of Tone	Tone representation	Instantiation	Translation
High Tone	acute accent	òkpá	'one'
Low Tone	grave accent	òkpà	'rooster'
Down-stepped High Tone	acute accent followed by a single quote	òvbéé'	'trickery'

Morphology

Emai contains both inflectional and derivational morphological processes.

Inflectional Morphology

In Emai, inflectional morphology affects the following word classes: nouns, pronouns, nominal modifiers, verbs and a subclass of adverbs.

Noun Inflection

Number in Emai is expressed by contrastive vowel prefixes attached to nominal roots belonging to the following categories: human, animate, inanimate, body-part locus, and abstractions. These prefix pairs that encode for singularity and plurality form a system of 11 noun class pairs that reflect "a remnant gender system." Singular tends to be marked by the vowels (o- and o-), plural tends to be marked by the vowels (i-, e-, e-), and the vowel (a-) can be used to mark for both singular and plural. Some examples of this system are shown in the table below with the relevant contrastive prefix bolded.

Nominal Inflection for Number

Contrastive Prefix Pair	Singular Expression	Translation	Plural Expression	Translation
o- ~ i-	òmòhè	'man'	ìmòhè	'men'
a- ~ e-	áwà	'dog'	éwà	'dogs'
o- ~ a-	óbò	'hand'	ábò	'hands'

Pronoun and Modifier Inflection

Number inflection for pronouns and modifier roots in Emai relies on a similar, albeit more restricted system of contrastive vowel prefixes that only uses the o- ~ e- gender prefix pair. Not all modifiers and pronouns, however, show number prefixation. For instance, certain demonstratives take the same form in both singular and plural, such as the word nà, which can mean both 'this' and 'these' and áìn which can mean both 'that' and 'those' depending on the context. Some examples of pronouns and modifiers that do inflect for number according to contrastive vowel prefix pairs are shown in the table below.

Pronoun and Modifier Inflection for Number

Contrastive Prefix Pair	Singular Expression	Translation	Plural Expression	Translation
o- ~ e-	ólìyó	'that kind'	élìyó	'those kind'
o- ~ e-	ónóì	'next one'	énóì	'next ones'
o- ~ e-	óvbèé	'another'	évbèé	'others'

Ideophonic Adverbs

Inflection for ideophonic adverbs functions to indicate whether the adverb takes on a clause final or clause initial position in the statement. If the ideophonic adverb is in the clause final position, no prefix is attached to the adverb, and for the adverb to take on a clause initial position, the prefix i- is attached to it. This inflectional rule only applies to ideophonic adverbs referring to "rate of movement, spatial position, posture or sound" and is demonstrated in the example below, using the ideophonic adverb of khùó, meaning 'whoosh.'

Clause Final Ideophonic Adverb:

ójé

Oje

híán'

PAP.cut

ùkèlè

morsels

khùó.

whoosh

ójé híán' ùkèlè khùó.

Oje PAP.cut morsels whoosh

'Oje cut a morsel with a whooshing sound.'

Clause Initial Ideophonic Adverb:

ìkhùó

whoosh,

ójé

Oje

híán'

PAP.cut

ùkèlè.

morsel

ìkhùó ójé híán' ùkèlè.

whoosh, Oje PAP.cut morsel

'With a whoosh, Oje cut a morsel.'

Verb Inflection

Verbs are inflected in a number of ways, for instance encoding for tense, mood restrictions, distribution, etc. A common inflectional affix found in Emai is the Factative (F) suffix -i which attaches to bare verbs in monotransitive and intransitive clauses. Another way that inflection is applied to verbs in Emai is with the aspect markers of imperfect continuous (C) ó and prospective predictive (PRED) ló. Examples of these aspect markers are shown below.

Continous:

ólí

the

ómòhè

man

ò

SC

ó

C

lá

run

ólí ómòhè ò ó lá

the man SC C run

'The man is running'

Predictive:

ólí

the

ómóhé

man

ló

PRED

là

run

ólí ómóhé ló là

the man PRED run

'The man will run'

There are typically pre-verbal markers in Emai, and tone on verbs is entirely inflectional as well.

Derivational Morphology

Derivational morphology in Emai affects verbs, nouns and adverbs.

Verbal Affixation

There are two derivational verbal affixes in Emai. The first of these verbal affixes is the Perseverative (PERS) prefix, translating to the English equivalent of "still." The prefix takes the form of Cí- where C is the verb initial consonant. The second derivational affix is the Distributive (DS) suffix, which takes the form of lo/lo/no. The Distributive suffix can be used to distribute over the transitive object or the intransitive subject and can encode for both a conventional distributive meaning such as "each of them" or "one after the other" or a repeated meaning such as "repeatedly." Some examples of each of Emai's derivational affixes are shown below with the relevant affix bolded.

Perseverative Prefix:

1:

ólí

the

óvbékhán

youth

dí-dá'

PAP.PERS-be.tall

ólí óvbékhán dí-dá'

the youth PAP.PERS-be.tall

'The youth is still tall.'

2:

ólí

the

ómóhé

man

gbí-gbé'

PAP.PERS-break

olí

the

ákhè

pot

á.

CS.

ólí ómóhé gbí-gbé' olí ákhè á.

the man PAP.PERS-break the pot CS.

'The man still broke the pot.'

Distributive Suffix:

1:

é

they

ló

PRED

tín-nó

fly-DS

kú

disperse

à.

CS.

é ló tín-nó kú à.

they PRED fly-DS disperse CS.

'They will each one after the other fly away.'

2:

íìhì

ant

sá-ló

PRP.sting-DS

mè

me

íìhì sá-ló mè

ant PRP.sting-DS me

'Ants stung me repeatedly.'

Nominalization

In Emai, nominals can be derived from verbs by attaching a prefix consisting of a single vowel to the verb root. These prefixes consist of all of the basic (non-nasalized) vowels in Emai, and each prefix serves a different function in terms of meaning and has a different set of constraints regarding when and how it can be attached to verb roots. Some examples of nominalization are shown in the table below.

Examples of Nominalization

Prefix	Function of Prefix	Verb Root	Translation of Verb Root	Verb Root with Prefix	Translation of Verb Root with Prefix
e-	To change VERB to "force characterized by VERB"	fioo	'to blow'	éfiòò	'wind, breeze, gale, storm'
e-	To change VERB to "mental state characterized by VERB"	hio	'to be arrogant'	èhìò	'arrogance, pride'
o-	To change VERB to "place characterized by VERB"	va	'to escape'	òvá	'outlet, hole, escape'

Another type of nominalization that functions differently is gerundive nominalization which involves attaching the ú-...-mi circumfix to a verb to change the verb into a noun meaning "human activity characterized by verb" like in the the example of la, meaning 'to run,' which can undergo gerundive nominalization to become ú-là-mí, which translates to "running."

Lexical Compounds

Emai has various types of compounds, including analytic compounds, phrasal compounds, and synthetic compounds.

Analytic Compounds

Analytic compounds can be applied to semantic classes belonging to the following categories: flora, fauna, fish, insects, birds, containers, location, time units, food items, traditional belief, kin relations and social role and are formed by either combining two noun stems (N-N) or three noun stems (N-N-N), where the left-most noun stem denotes a more general referent that the other noun stem or stems serve to add a level of specification to. Some examples of analytic compounds are shown below.

Examples of Analytic Compounds

Left Noun Stem	Right Noun Stem	Compound
ìùmì 'weed'	émèlá 'cow'	íúmémèlá 'cow weed'
ómò child	ògbòn 'new'	ómògbòn 'new-born child'
òkpòsò 'woman'	ódíòn 'elder'	ókpósódíòn 'female elder'

Phrasal Compounds

Phrasal compounds can be applied to semantic classes belonging to the following categories: place, time, human social structure and animal. They are formed by combining two nouns stems and placing in between those noun stems a "grammatical morpheme" like in the following example:

àmágó

mango

lì

R

òbàn

raw.fruit

àmágó lì òbàn

mango R raw.fruit

'unripe mango'

Synthetic Compounds

Synthetic Compouns can be applied to semantic classes belonging to the following categories: household artifacts, natural world entities, social roles, locations and time conditions. They are formed by combining a vowel prefix, a verb root and a noun stem (prefix-V-N). All basic vowels except for e- can serve as prefixes in synthetic compounds in Emai and each prefix performs a different function in terms of changing the meaning of the relevant attached verb root and noun stem. Some examples of simple synthetic compounds are shown in the table below.

Examples of Simple Synthetic Compounds

Prefix	Verb Root	Noun Stem	Compound
a-	ka 'to dry'	éhòn 'ear'	ákáéhòn 'eardrum'
o-	mie 'to discover with'	èò 'eye'	ómìèò 'prophet, fortune teller'
o-	la 'to flow with'	èhèìn 'lie'	òléhèìn 'liar'

Reduplication

Reduplication in Emai occurs in the form of verb root reduplication and noun stem (NS) reduplication.

Noun Stem Reduplication

There are five structural classes of stem reduplication in Emai, all of which consist in NS-1+NS-2 sequences. Each class of stem reduplication has a different function. For instance, some classes of stem reduplication serve an emphatic function and others serve to take an aspect of the referent's meaning and "maximally extend" that meaning. In addition, each class of stem reduplication exhibits a different extent of reduplication. For instance, in one class the entire noun stem is reduplicated while other classes only show partial reduplication. In cases where there is only partial reduplication, it is in most cases the NS-1 that is affected by processes of vowel and syllable deletion. An example of each of the five classes of stem reduplication is shown below.

Noun Stem Reduplication

Process of Reduplication	Noun Stem	NS1+NS2
Entire stem reduplication	óvbì 'offspring of'	óvbíóvbì 'grandchild'
Partial stem reduplication (final vowel of NS-1 replaced by copy of initial vowel of NS-2)	éhòn 'ear, edge'	éhéèhón 'extreme edge of'
Partial stem reduplication (final vowel of NS-1 deleted)	èrà 'father'	érèrà 'paternal grandfather'
Partial stem reduplication (initial vowel of NS-2 deleted)	ònà 'this one'	ónánà 'this very one'
Partial stem reduplication (final consonant and vowel of NS-1 deleted)	ósò 'certain one, some one'	óósò 'someone'

Verb Root Reduplication

The reduplication of a verb root attached to a vowel prefix changes a verb into a noun. There is no "obvious pattern" evidenced in the way reduplicated verb roots combine with vowel prefixes. Some examples of root reduplication are shown below.

Verb Root Reduplication

Verb Root	Reduplicated Verb with Vowel Prefix Bolded
gbulu 'to roll'	ágbúlúgbùlù 'cart, vehicle'
funo "to extinguish, flicker'	ìfùnòfúnó 'unsteadiness, instability'
gbo 'to shiver'	ògbògbò 'pneumonia'

Borrowed Lexemes

While there are not many verbs in Emai that are borrowed from other languages, noun classes of concrete and "highly abstract" entities reveal some lexical borrowing from English, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, in addition to other languages. For instance, borrowing from English can be seen in the word in Emai for sugar, which is ìshúgà, and borrowing from Igbo can be seen in the word in Emai for money, which is égó in Igbo and éghó' in Emai.

Syntax

Basic Word Order

The basic word order in Emai is subject/verb/object (SVO) for transitive clauses and subject/verb (SV) for intransitive clauses, as illustrated in the following examples:

Examples of Transitive Clauses:

1:

ólí

The

ómòhè

man

é

PRP.eat

ólí

the

émàè.

food

ólí ómòhè é ólí émàè.

The man PRP.eat the food

‘The man has eaten the food.’

2:

ólí

The

óvbékhán

youth

nwú’

PAP.take

émà.

yam.

ólí óvbékhán nwú’ émà.

The youth PAP.take yam.

‘The youth carried yam.'

Examples of Intransitive Clauses

1:

ólí

the

ómòhè

man

lá-ì.

PRP.run-F

ólí ómòhè lá-ì.

the man PRP.run-F

'The man has run.'

2:

ólí

the

úkpùn

cloth

káká-ì.

PRP.become.dry-F

ólí úkpùn káká-ì.

the cloth PRP.become.dry-F

'The cloth has dried.'

Word Order for Specific Phrase Types

Possessees and Possessors

To form sentences in Emai referencing possession, the possessee (or the thing being possessed) is placed before the possessor:

óá

Home

ísì

ASS

òjè

Oje

óá ísì òjè

Home ASS Oje

‘Oje’s home'

Determiners and Noun Phrases

Emai contains both predeterminers and postdeterminers. The definite article, which translates to the English equivalent of "the," is a predeterminer in Emai, meaning that it comes before its corresponding noun phrase. An example of a predeterminer in Emai is shown below.

ólì

The

èkpèn.

leopard

ólì èkpèn.

The leopard

‘The leopard’

Other types of determiners in Emai, such as demonstratives and quantifiers, follow their corresponding noun phrase like in the following example.

íwé

house

áìn

that

íwé áìn

house that

'that house'

Auxiliaries and Verb Phrases

In order to construct auxiliary and verb phrase pairs in Emai, the auxiliary comes before the verb phrase:

ólí

The

ómóhé

man

ló

PRED

mà

CER

gbé

kill

ólí

the

 ófè.

rat.

ólí ómóhé ló mà gbé ólí  ófè.

The man PRED CER kill the rat.

‘The man will surely kill the rat.'

Comparative Adjectives and Standards

In Emai, the comparative adjective comes before the standard:

ólí

The

ómòhè

man

dá

PRP.be.tall

léé

surpass

òhí.

Ohi

ólí ómòhè dá léé òhí.

The man PRP.be.tall surpass Ohi

‘The man is taller than Ohi.’

Adpositions and Noun Phrases

Emai uses prepositions, meaning that in adposition/noun phrase pairs, the adposition comes before the noun phrase:

élí

the

ópìà

cutlass

ríì

PRP.be

vbí

LOC

ìtébù.

table

élí ópìà ríì vbí ìtébù.

the cutlass PRP.be LOC table

'The cutlasses are on the table'

Position of Adverbs in Clauses

As discussed in the section on inflectional morphology, there is a class of ideophonic adverbs that can inflect to be clause initial. However, adverbials in Emai are overwhelmingly postverbal, like in the following example:

ó

he

ò

H

è

eat

óí

it

kóíkóí.

briskly

ó ò è óí kóíkóí.

he H eat it briskly

'He eats it briskly.'

In addition to being postverbal, the position of adverbs in clauses is also governed by order relations corresponding to the specific adverb class. Postverbal adverbs in Emai fall into the following nine adverb classes: Temporal Deixis, Temporal Frequency, Temporal Quantity, Temporal Extent, Aspectual Extent, Place, Manner, Reason, and Rate/Sound. There is preferred word order in Emai that governs the positions of these different adverbial classes when more than one adverb appears in a single clause. For instance, if adverbs of Aspectual Extent, Place, and Temporal Deixis show up in a single clause, they will appear in that order. This is illustrated in the following example, where the Aspectual Extent adverb (vììn) is bolded, the Place adverb (vbí ékóá) is italicized, and the Temporal Deixis adverb (òdè) is written in all caps:

ó

he

nwú'

PAP.take

ólí

the

ewe

goat

den

tie

vììn

tightly

vbí

LOC

ékóá

room

ÒDÈ.

yesterday

ó nwú' ólí ewe den vììn vbí ékóá ÒDÈ.

he PAP.take the goat tie tightly LOC room yesterday

'He tied up the goat tightly in the room yesterday.'

Corresponding Question Frames

The aforementioned adverb classes (excluding the ninth class of Rate/Sound) each correspond to a specific information question frame. The class of Temporal Deixis has two possible question frames, but all of the other seven classes exhibit a single corresponding frame for forming questions. The following table illustrates these frames and gives an example for each.

Information Question Frames

Adverb Class	Corresponding Question Frame	Example
Temporal Deixis	éghè re 'when' í yi 'which one'	éghè time olí the ómóhé man ré' PAP.take é eat ólí the émàè? food éghè olí ómóhé ré' é ólí émàè? time the man PAP.take eat the food 'When did the man eat the food?'
Temporal Frequency	ísékà 'how often'	ísékà how.often ólí the ómóhé man é' PAP.eat émàè? food ísékà ólí ómóhé é' émàè? how.often the man PAP.eat food 'How often did the man eat food?'
Temporal Quantity	NP ékà 'how much'	No relevant example
Temporal Extent	ébé'/ébí' i tee se 'how long'	ébé' how olí the ómóhé man í' PAP.MAN mùzàn wait téé be.long sè? extent ébé' olí ómóhé í' mùzàn téé sè? how the man PAP.MAN wait be.long extent 'How long did the man wait?'
Aspectual Extent	ébé'/éb í' se 'to what extent'	ébé' how olí the ógó bush í' PAP.MAN tòò burn sé? extent ébé' olí ógó í' tòò sé? how the bush PAP.MAN burn extent 'To what extend did the bush burn?'
Place	ébé'/ébí 'where'	ébé' where olí the ómóhé man zá' PAP.be.loc gbé kill ófè? rat ébé' olí ómóhé zá' gbé ófè? where the man PAP.be.loc kill rat 'Where did the man kill a rat?'
Manner	ébé'/ébí i 'how'	ébé' how ó he ò H í MAN shán? walk ébé' ó ò í shán? how he H MAN walk 'How does he walk?'
Reason	émé'/émí' ze khi/li 'why'	émé' what ó it zé-í' PAP.cause-F khí IND ólí the ómóhé man gbé' PAP.kill ólí the ói? thief émé' ó zé-í' khí ólí ómóhé gbé' ólí ói? what it PAP.cause-F IND the man PAP.kill the thief 'Why did the man kill the thief?'