User:Dhoffman 20/sandbox

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.

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

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 híán' ùkèlè khùó.

Oje PAP.cut morsels whoosh

'Oje cut a morsel with a whooshing sound.'

Clause Initial Ideophonic Adverb: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:

ó lí ó m ò hè ò ó lá

the man SC C run

'The man is running'

Predictive:

ó lí ó m ó hé l ó 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/l o /n o. 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:

ó lí ó vbékhán dí-dá'

the youth PAP.PERS-be.tall

'The youth is still tall.'

2:

ó lí ó m ó hé gbí-gbé' o lí ákhè á.

the man PAP.PERS-break the pot CS.

'The man still broke the pot.'

Distributive Suffix:

1:

é l ó tín-n ó kú à.

they PRED fly-DS disperse CS.

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

2:

íìhì sá-l ó m è

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. 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.

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 lì ò bàn

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.

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.

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.

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.

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: ó lí ó m ò hè é ó lí émàè.

The man PRP.eat the food

‘The man has eaten the food.’

2: ó lí ó vbékhán nwú’ émà.

The youth PAP.take yam.

‘The youth carried yam.'

Examples of Intransitive Clauses

1: ó lí ómòhè lá-ì.

the man PRP.run-F

'The man has run.'

2: ó lí 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 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.

ó lì è kp è n.

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 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:

ó lí ó m ó hé l ó mà gbé ó lí  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:

ó lí ó m ò hè dá l éé 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 ó pìà 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 ò è ó í 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 é k ó á) is italicized, and the Temporal Deixis adverb (òd è ) is written in all caps:

ó nwú' ó lí e we den vììn vbí é k ó á ÒD È.

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.