Kunimaipa language

Kunimaipa
Region	Papua New Guinea
Ethnicity	incl. Biangai
Native speakers	(14,000 cited 1978–2000)
Language family	Papuan Trans-New Guinea Goilalan Kunimaipa Kunimaipa
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: kup – Kunimaipa wer – Weri + Amam big – Biangai
Glottolog	kuni1267  Kunimaipa weri1254  Weric bian1252  Biangai

Kunimaipa is a Papuan language of New Guinea. The varieties are divergent, on the verge of being distinct languages, and have separate literary traditions.

Phonemes

Consonants

Below is a chart of Kunimaipa consonants.

Table of consonant phonemes of Kunimaipa

	Labial	Coronal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n	ŋ
Plosive	p b	t d	k g
Fricative	v	s		h
Lateral approximant		l
Trill		r

Vowels

• “ i, e, a, o, and u”

Morphophonemics

Each stem that ends with a has three kinds of allomorphs: a, o, and e. Allomorphs end with a in a word finally or before a syllable with a. It is the most common ending. O ending appears before syllables with o, u, or ai. E ending appears before syllable with e or i. All of above holds true, except the ending syllable before -ma. In the general morphophonemic rule, ending a appears before syllable with a. In the case of -ma, o appears before the syllable with a. For example, the sentence so-ma, meaning ‘I will go.’

Words

Non-suffixed

Word classes that are usually not suffixed are responses, exclamations, attention particles, vocative particles, conjunctions, names, and particles. Responses are short replies on a conversation; such as, kara 'okay', ee 'yes', gu 'yes', ev 'no'. Exclamations is usually occurs on sentence boundary; such as, auma 'surprise', au 'mistake', maize 'regret', and aip 'dislike'. Attention particles are only used on reported speech; such as, gui 'call to come', ae 'attention getter', and siu 'attention getter -close'. Vocative particles are beginning of addresses in sentence boundary; such as, engarim 'hey, woman', erom 'hey, man', engarohol 'hey, children', and guai 'uncle'. Conjunctions are links in "phrases, clauses, and sentences"; such as, mete 'and, but, then', ma 'or, and', povoza 'therefore', and ong 'but, then'. Names label person, place, days, and months; such as, made-ta-ka, 'on Monday', and pode-ta-ka, 'on Thursday'. Lastly, one particles that is used in introducing a quote is never suffixed, pata meaning 'reply'.

Suffixed or non-suffixed

Word classes including adjectives, pronouns, interrogative words, nouns, and verbs can be suffixed or non-suffixed depending on the meaning and usage. Some example of adjectives in Kunimaipa are tina 'good', goe 'small', and hori 'bad'. The Kunimaipa language has 7 pronouns, including ne, ni, pi, rei, rari, aru, and paru. Example of od interrogative words are taira and tai meaning 'what'. Noun is a large word class including words such as abana 'men', abanaro 'young men', no nai nai 'everything', and mapo 'all'.

Not Classified According to suffixation

The word classes that cannot be classified by suffixation are locations, temporals, adverbs, and auxiliaries.

Further reading

• Aki, Mambu; Pennington, Ryan (2013). "Tentative Grammar Description".
• Boxwel, Maurice (1992). "Organised Phonology Data" (PDF).