User:Gohar Schnelle/sandbox

Dom is a Trans–New Guinea language of the Eastern Group of the Chimbu family, spoken in the Gumine and Sinasina District of the Chimbu province and in some other isolated settlements in the western higlands of Papua New Guinea.

=Sociolinguistic Backgrounds =

The Dom people live in an agricultural society, which has a tribal, patrilocal and patrilineal organization. There is a small dialectal differentiation among the clans. The predominant religion is christianity.

=Grammar =

Vowels
iu
 * eo
 * aa:

Allophones
Vowel lengthening in a contour pitched syllable has allophonic character. Only in Polysyllabic words.

Vowel Sequences
iu,io,iauo
 * eu,ei,eao
 * au,ai,aea:

Alternation of vowel sequences
Dom shows quite a lot of vowel sequences, which in part are restricted by there environment

Consonants
The Dom consonant system consists of 13 indigenous and 3 loan consonants.

The phonemes /c/[ts], /j/[ndʒ]and /ʟ/[ʟ] are loan phonemes and unstable in use.

Minimal pairs
˩˥su 'two' ~ ˩˥tu 'thick'
 * ~ ˩˥du 'squeeze'
 * ~ ˩˥nu 'aim at'
 * ~ ˩˥ku 'hold in the mouth'
 * ~ ˩˥gu 'shave'
 * ~ ˩˥pu 'blow'
 * ~ ˩˥mu 'his/her back'
 * ~ ˩˥yu 'harvest taro'

Allophones
Variants can be determined by the factors dialect or age. Certain exceptions show archaic variants, for example the existence of intervocal [b] in the word ˥˩iba 'but' or the otherwise non-existent sequence [lk], which is used only by elder people or in official situations.Brackets "" show, that the allophone is used only in loanwords.

Tones
In Dom the highness of a syllable has phonemic character. There are three phonemic patterns in monsyllabic words:


 * high: ka˥ 'word'
 * falling: ŋgal˥˩ 'string back'
 * rising: kal˩˥ 'thing'

Combinations of this tones in polysyllabic words transform the initial tones of the combined syllables in this way, that the summarized tone of the syllables remains in the described patterns:
 * disyllabic words:
 * high: mu˥kal˥ 'a kind of bamboo'
 * falling: jo˥pa˩ ' yopa tree', jo˥pal˥˩ 'people'
 * rising: a˩pal˧ 'woman'
 * trisyllabic words
 * high: no˥ma˥ne˥ 'to think'
 * falling: a˥ra˥wa˩ 'pumpkin'
 * rising: au˩pa˩le˧ 'sister.3Sg.POSS'

Minimal pairs
[wam˥˩] (personal name) ~ [wam˩˨]'to hitch.3SG' ~ [wam˥]'son3SG.POSS'

Non-phonemic elements

 * [ɨ] is optional inserted between consonants:


 * ˥˩komna 'vegetable' [kom˥ na˩] or [kom˥ɨna˩]

Word Classes
Major classes: nouns (large, open), adjectives (about 50 items, closed), verbs (about 140 items, closed) Small closed classes: pronouns, postpositions, demonstratives, interjections.

Morphology
Suffixing language mildly fusional at the boundaries between person-number and mood

Noun Phrase

 * elements preceding the head:
 * attributive NP
 * yal i kal
 * man DEM thing
 * 'the thing of the man'
 * possessive marker
 * na bola-n
 * you pig-2SG.POSS
 * 'your pig'
 * relative clause
 * o pal bin-gwa kal
 * hand.3SG.POSS by produce-3SG.SRD thing
 * 'thing produced by hand'
 * noun classifier
 * bola sipsip
 * pig sheep
 * 'sheep'


 * elements following the head:
 * numerals
 * yal su
 * man two
 * 'two men'
 * adjectives
 * gal bl
 * child big
 * 'big child'
 * appositions
 * ge apal gal
 * girl woman child
 * 'girl, female child'
 * demonstratives
 * yal i
 * man DEM
 * 'this man'

If a noun phrase includes a demonstrative element, it has always the last position of the phrase:


 * yal su i


 * man two DEM


 * 'the two men'

Adjective Phrases

 * er wai won ta


 * tree good truly a


 * 'a very good tree'

Postpositional Phrase

 * m-na bol


 * mother-1SG.POSS with


 * 'with my mother'

Verbal Phrase

 * elements preceding the head verb:


 * subject:


 * yal su al-ipke
 * man two stand up-2/3DL.IND
 * 'two men stand up'


 * subject-object:


 * na keepa ne-ke
 * 1EXC sweet.potato eat-1SG.IND
 * 'I eat a sweet potato'


 * adverbial


 * orpl-d u-o
 * quickly come-2SG.IMP
 * 'come quickly'


 * final clause


 * er ila na-l d u-ke
 * to inside go-1SG.FUT Q come-1SG.IND
 * 'I came to go inside'


 * elements following the head verb:


 * auxiliars:


 * bl-n de bla d-na-wdae
 * head-2SG.POSS burn.INF burst (say)-FUT-3SG.MUT
 * 'Your head will be burnt and explode (as a matter of course)'


 * mutual knowledge marker


 * mol-me =krae
 * stay-1SG.IND=MUT
 * 'he/she stay as we know'


 * demonstratives


 * yo-gwa ime
 * be-3SG.IND down.there
 * 'There it is down over there'

Complex Sentences
head-marking language subject cross-reference markers on verbs indicating person-number possessive markers on nouns indicating person-number no case marking at core NP arguments head-final language SV intransitive clauses, AOV transitive clauses, main clause final clause in clause chain Adjuncts precede the noun phrasees; exceptions: adjective modifiers follow the head noun

Verb Serialisation
valency increasing evidentiality aspect lexicalisation idiomatisation

Borrowings
Tok Pisin is the main source for lexical borrowing, borrowings from English are often made indirectly via Tok Pisin. Borrowed lexemes mostly refer to new cultural objects and concepts as well as proper names and high numbers. , which did´nt exist in the Dom language before: But recently Tok Pisin lexical items replace already existing Dom words:
 * kar ’car’
 * skul 'school, to study'
 * akn 'Mount Hagen'
 * andret 'hundred'
 * wanpla for dom tenanta 'one'
 * blat for dom miam 'blood'
 * stori for dom kapore-el- 'to tell a story'

Language Contact Situation
There are three different languages spoken by Dom speakers alongside Dom: Tok Pisin, Kuman and English. Tok Pisin serves as the papuan lingua franca. Kuman which is a close related eastern Chimbu language of high social and cultural prestige, functions as the prestige language used in ceremonies and official situations. School lessons are mostly hold in English. Whether a speaker speaks one of these languages depends on his age.