Biak/Grammar

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Revision as of 10:51, 4 March 2021 by Tmou1 (talk | contribs) (Verb number/person inflection)

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Word Classes

  1. Nouns n
  2. Verbs v
  3. Pronouns prn
  4. Adverbs adv
  5. Prepositions pr
  6. Interjections ij
  7. Numerals num
  8. Conjunctions
  9. Topic markers
  10. Exclamations

Note the absence of adjectives in Biak

Grammar Points

Verb number/person inflection

Verbs combine with pronomial subject affixes that express number and person of the subject. In addition to singular and plural, Biak also has a dual and a paucal. For 1st person dual and plural, Biak also distinguishes between inclusive and exclusive. There are at least three ways to combine verbs with pronomial affixes, and this is mainly determined by the beginning of the verb stem.

CC-initial:

srow<v><s_sg1> ↔ yasrow

Noun Specificity

Possession (Alienable/Inalienable)

spellrelax

Partial Reduplicaton

Verb Transitivity

Locative-existential clauses

Demonstratives

Pronouns