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An Outline Description PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Series D - No. 64 KIRIBATESE: AN OUTLINE DESCRIPTION by Terab'ata R. Groves Gordon W. Groves Roderick Jacobs Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Groves, T.R., Groves, G.W. and Jacobs, R. Kiribatese: An outline description. D-64, vi + 160 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1985. DOI:10.15144/PL-D64.cover ©1985 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. PACIFIC LING UISTICS is issued through the Linguistic Circle of Canberra and consists of four series: SERIES A - Occasional Papers SERIES B - Monographs SERIES C - Books SERIES D - Special Publications EDITOR: S.A. Wurm ASSOCIATE EDITORS: D.C. Laycock, C.L. Voorhoeve, D.T. Tryon, T.E. Dutton EDITORIAL ADVISERS: B.W. Bender K.A. McElhanon University of Hawaii University of Texas David Bradley H.P. McKaughan La Trobe University University of Hawaii A. Capell P. MUhlhausler University of Sydney Linacre College, Oxford Michael G. Clyne G.N. O'Grady Monash University University of Victoria, B.C. S.H. Elbert A.K. Pawley University of Hawaii University of Auckland K.J. Franklin K.L. Pike University of Michigan; Summer Institute of Linguistics Summer Institute of Linguistics W.W. Glover E.C. Polome Summer Institute of Linguistics University of Texas G. W. Grace Malcolm Ross University of Hawaii Univet'sity of Papua New Guinea M.A.K. Halliday Gillian Sankoff University of Sydney University of Pennsylvania E. Haugen W.A.L. Stokhof National Center for Harvard University Language Development, Jakarta; A. Healey University of Leiden Summer Institute of Linguistics B.K. T'sou L.A. Hercus Murdoch University; Australian National University University of Hong Kong Nguy�n Dll.ng Liem E.M. Uhlenbeck University of Hawaii University of Leiden John Lynch J.W.M. Verhaar University of Papua New Guinea Gonzaga University, Spokane All correspondence concerning PACIFIC LINGUISTlCS, including orders and subscriptions, should be addressed to: The Secretary PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies The Australian National University Canberra, A.C.T. 2601 Australia. Copyright @ The Authors First Published 1985 Typeset by Ling Matsay Printed by A.N.U. Printing Service Bound by Adriatic Bookbinders Pty Ltd The editors are indebted to the Australian National University for assistance in the production of this series. This publication was made possible by an initial grant from the Hunter Douglas Fund. National Library of Australia Card Number and ISBN 0 85883 318 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS page 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Kiribati and its people 1.2 The Kiribatese language in the Austronesian 3 family of languages 1.3 Dialects 3 1.4 Foreign influences 2. PHONOLOGY AND ORTHOGRAPHY 5 2.1 Long and short sounds 6 2.2 Approximate pronunciation of the Phonemes 9 2.3 Permitted and prohibited combinations 12 2.4 Terminal nasals 15 2.5 The syllable 17 2.6 Stress, rhythm and intonation 18 2.7 orthography 18 3 • MORPHEMES 20 3. 1 Forms of the roots 20 3.2 Affixes 22 3.3 Adaptation of foreign words 28 4. FUNCTION CLASSES (Parts of speech) 32 4.1 Articles 32 4.2 Noun classifiers and numerals 34 4.3 Agent Prefixes 39 4.4 Nouns 40 4.5 Pronouns 57 4.6 Prepositions 65 4.7 Adj ectives 67 4.8 Verbs 73 4.9 Adverbs 94 4.10 Conjunction 99 4.11 Reduplication 101 iii iv page 5. SYNTAX OF SIMPLE SENTENCES 104 5.1 Equational sentences 104 5.2 Descriptive sentences 106 5.3 Intransitive sentences 107 5.4 Singly transitive sentences 108 5.5 Doubly transitive sentences 110 5.6 Conditional sentences 111 5.7 Imperative sentences 113 5.8 Exclamatory sentences 113 APPENDIX Al : Paradigm of transitive verbs 114 APPENDIX A2 : Kiribatese - English word list 120 APPENDIX A3 : English - Kiribatese word list 140 BIBLIOGRAPHY 154 To Professor Wal ter Munk wi thout whom this work would not have been wri tten .--------------------------------- Groves, T.R., Groves, G.W. and Jacobs, R. Kiribatese: An outline description. D-64, vi + 160 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1985. DOI:10.15144/PL-D64.cover ©1985 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS The present work resulted from the activities of one of us (TRG) as 'informant' on projects at the University of Hawaii involving the Kiribatese language . It became evident that some preliminary thought and organisation would make the informant sessions more fruitful . As there was still lacking a satisfactory description of the Kiribatese language , we decided to present our thoughts in the present work . Except for RJ we are not expert linguists , and this work doubtlessly has many shortcomings . Nevertheless, we believe that we have succeeded in finding and describing many of the features of the language that will interest linguists and cause difficulties for students of the language . This work is therefore intended as an aid to descriptive and comparative linguists and to beginning and advanced students of the language . As we progressed in the preparation of this work it became apparent that there was no convenient stopping place . Practically every section has ramifications that would take months or years to clean up . We thus abandoned the idea of postponing publication until a 'complete ' work could be presented in order that students and linguists might benefit from the amount of materials which we have at hand at this point . A rough version of thi s work was circulated in mimeograph form a few years ago . Since then a few corrections were made and a little more information has been added . We are confident that we or others will improve this work , enlarge it, and present a more comprehensive description of the language at a later date . With this in mind, we shall greatly appreciate all suggestions and critisisms . One of us (TRG) is responsible for the factual information presented. Another (GWG) did most of the writing , and the third (RJ) provided the organisational framework for presentation. Our many Kiribatese friends have provided invaluable assistance , and it would be difficult to list all their names . We would like to thank Dr . Alolae Cati , Bwere Eritaia, Jeff Marck , H.E. Maude , Kaitara Meetai , Malcolm Mitz , Father Raimon, Stephen Trussel, members of the Vernacular Committee of the Kiribati Government, and participants in the Kiribatese (then called 'Gilbertese ') study group at the University of Hawaii, for their help. We are grateful to Carol Misko and Gregory Hayward for their help with PEACESAT communications . Much of this work was written while one of us (GWG) was visiting Professor of Geophysics at University Sains Malaysia. 1. INTRODUCTION The Kiribatese language is used today by about 60, 000 people , including the inhabitants of Kiribati , which became an independent republic in 1979 . This new nation contains the Gilbert Islands , B'aanaba (Ocean Island) , the Phoenix Islands , and the Northern and Southern Line Islands . Before European contact , 1 Groves, T.R., Groves, G.W. and Jacobs, R. Kiribatese: An outline description. D-64, vi + 160 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1985. DOI:10.15144/PL-D64.1 ©1985 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. J 2 migrations or military campaigns had already carried the language to Mili in the Marshall Islands and to Nui in Tuvalu . In recent times Kiribatese emigrants have taken the language throughout the territory of Kiribati , and to Nauru , Fiji, the Solomon Islands , and vanuatu . Some inhabitants of these places have become proficient in the language through contact with Kiribate se immigrants or migrant workers . In addition , many Tuvaluans are proficient in the language through contact with Kiribatese speakers dur ing the time of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony , when the two ethnic groups were included under the same British dominion . The language is quite uniform throughout , so any two speakers will have a mutual intelligibility of near 100% . The language is one of the Malayo-Polynesian group of the Austronesian family of languages. It resembles many of the Micronesian languages as well as Polynesian . It is nominally classed as one of the Micronesian languages , and it is the most Polynesian-like of any of them. Like these languages, Kiribatese is not a tonal language . Some common roots occur throughout the Malayo-Polynesian area, from Malagasy to Easter Island . In recent times (since European contact) words from other languages such as Tuvaluan , English , etc ., have been introduced . The language may now be diverging in outlying areas due to the incorporation of words from the various local languages. The American missionary , Hiram Bingham , introduced some Greek words into his Kiribatese version of the Bible (Bingham , undated) , and a few of these have survived as an integral part of the language . Since Britain established the protectorate over the Gilbert Islands in 1892 English has become the pre­ dominant foreign influence and provider of loan words . But until very recently Kiribatese was not really a dynamic language in the sense of rapid change through incorporation of new speech patterns , new vocabulary , etc . Among the majority of Kiribatese there is a strong tendency to stick to the traditional speech patterns. But on South Tarawa , seat of the Kiribati Government headquarters and containing about one third of the nation 's polulation , Anglicisms are becoming more and more popular . Kiribatese has a very loose or flexible structure which enables roots or bases to be used in many different functions (as nouns , verbs , etc.) .
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