Maskelynes (), or Kuliviu (Uliveo), is an Oceanic language spoken on the Maskelyne Islands off south Malekula, Vanuatu.

Phonology Maskelynes has twenty consonants and six vowel phonemes. Any vowel length is due to vowel clusters across morpheme breaks, and is not phonemic.

Consonants LabialCoronalDorsal plain NasalPlosiveᵐbⁿd̪ᵑgFricative~~ApproximantRhotic~ are in free variation as unreleased or unvoiced word-finally or before a consonant is also in free variation as nasal word-finally, especially among young speakers is realized as a voiceless among some speakers, especially young are unreleased word-finally or before a consonant (though has never been recorded before a consonant) lose their labialization word-finally when not followed by a vowel and before is in free variation as trilled (tapped in Peskarus) before and sometimes before is before voiced consonants are [] before voiceless consonants and word-finally is in free variation with for some speakers are vocalic when in nucleus following

Vowels FrontCentralBackClose ()MidOpen is near-close between front consonants is close-mid word-finally is after labiovelarized consonants or before are realised as single phones, is realised as front between front consonants, and near-close when proceeded or preceded by back consonants is front between front consonants

Voiceless vowel A voiceless occurs at the ends of words. It is uncertain if it is an allophone of or a separate phoneme

Phonotactics Possible syllable structures in Maskelynes: (C/S)V(S)(C)

Orthography + Maskelynes alphabetLetterabb̃deǝghiklmm̃nŋopp̃rstuwvṽw/uy/iIPA

Grammar

Verbs The verbs of Maskelynes are agglutinative, mostly being modified by prefixes, though the stem of a verb can stand on its own. These prefixes encode for, in order of appearance in verb: 1. tense-aspect-modes; 2. subject, person and number; 3. various modes, including realis and irrealis; 4. two tense-modes; 5. reduplication. The object of a sentence is encoded by a suffix.

Examples of verbal agglutination:

Reduplication Reduplication in Maskelynes has various usages, and can encode for e.g. plurality, habituality, iterative aspect, etc.

References

External links Resources in and about the Maskelynes language at OLAC Paradisec has a number of collections that include Maskelynes language materials Maskelynes (Kuliviu) at Omniglot

Bibliography