Toʼabaita language
Toabaita, also known as Toqabaqita, Toambaita, Malu and Maluu, is a language spoken by the people living at the north-western tip of Malaita Island, of South Eastern Solomon Islands. Toabaita is an Austronesian language. Overview. The website "Ethnologue" records the number of speakers of Toqabaqita as 12,600 in 1999. Lichtenberk, who has written an extensive grammar of Toqabaqita reports that Toqabaqita may be part of a North Malaita group of dialects which includes Baeguu, Baelelae and Fataleka, and possibly Lau. Ethnologue however reports no known dialects of Toqabaqita, but reports that within this group of languages, they  are mutually intelligible. Lichtenberk points out that the speakers of Toqabaqita do recognize similarities across the whole island's languages, but the Toqabaqita people themselves do not have this conception of North Malaita being a language and Toqabaqita as a dialect within this group. Toqabaqita is classified as member of the Malayo-Polynesian, Oceanic, Central-Eastern Oceanic, Southeast Solomonic language family. Then there is a slight divergence in classification between Lichtenberk and Glottolog. Lichetenberk classifies the next subgrouping as Longgu/Malaita/Makira (San Cristobal), whereas Glottolog does not include Longgu at this point, but instead as a sister subgroup to  Malaita/Makira. The Wikipedia entry for Longgu, which is a Southeast Solomonic language spoken on Guadalcanal, is reported to be originally from Malaita. Lichtenberg then breaks the Malaita/Makira subgroup into the Central/Northern and Southern Malaita subgroups, then North Malaita subgroup itself, to which Toqabaqita belongs. In contrast Glottolog breaks the subgroup Malaita/ San Cristobal (Makira) into two subgroups Malaita/Makira and Longgu, then to North and south Malaita subgroups, where the north includes the above listed putative dialects as well as the central Malaita languages. The number of speakers of Toqabaqita is relatively high for a Solomon Islands  language, although most speakers become bilingual in Pijin as they grow up. Toqabaqita has the status of first language for children, and is used in daily life. Many Toqabaqita speakers also speak some English, and this is the language of the schools, although only primary schools are available locally. The literacy rate in Toqabaqita is 30-60%, and Latin script is used. Language Typology. Toqabaqita has as its basic constituent order Subject - Predicate – X, with X referring to other elements than the subject and predicate. This can also be categorized as SVO (subject verb object) and SVX (subject verb other ). Lynch in his review of Oceanic languages found that this constituent order is in fact the most widely geographically distributed pattern. Verbs in Toqabaqita can include a variety of affixes, both suffixes and pre-fixes, which mark other grammatical categories of tense aspect, sequentiality and negation. Lexical objects are usually indexed on the verb as a suffix. In Toqabaqita the basic noun phrase consists minimally of a noun or an independent personal pronoun. Noun phrases may contain modifiers, which are generally suffixes. Lexical morphemes consist of at least two syllables in Toqabaqita. Where a monosyllabic word occurs, such as a  grammatical morpheme, it then attaches as a clitic to the preceding word, with some notable exceptions. If speech is slow then the grammatical morpheme may have its vowel lengthened and take stress. Phonology. Toqabaqita phonemes consist of 17 consonants and 5 vowels. /k͡p/ and /g͡b/ are doubly-articulated voiceless and voiced labial–velar stop consonants. Pre-nasalization is a feature of particular Toqabaqita consonants, including all the voiced plosives, that is /b/, /d/, /g/ and /g͡b/, and for the glide /w/ . The degree of prenasalization varies and is determined by their position in the word. Vowels can be long, but  it is not allowed to have adjacent long vowels. Stress is not indicated by the phonemes, but by the symbols (?) for primary stress and (?) for secondary stress (presumably by Lichtenberk, and presumably when glottal stop is written ). Personal Pronouns and Person Markers. Independent Personal Pronouns. The Independent person pronouns in Toqabaqita are for single, dual and plural pronouns for first person exclusive, first person inclusive, second and third person categories. With only a few systematic exceptions the pronominal noun phrases are used in the same position as where a lexical noun phrase would occur. Lexical nouns are marked only as  singular or plural in Toqabaqita. The variants in the table marked with (1) were used exclusively by women. Of these pronouns used only by women, only the first person inclusive plural pronoun "kia" is used at the present time. This is specifically in the context of referring to one's home, or one's home place or one's country most commonly when away from one's home area. It is notable that although there are multiple plural personal pronouns some are used more commonly than others. Some alternatives are rarely used, specifically these are the first person exclusive "kamaliqa , the third person plural kiiluqa", and the second person singular "qoo". Both forms of the second person plural, "kamuluqa" and "kamaluqa" are commonly used. There are phonetic associations with specific person pronouns. The dual pronouns all contain r, and the plurals all contain l, with exception of the third person plural "kera". Lichtenberk suggests that this is due to their associations with the numbers "rua" which glosses as two, and "ulu" which glosses as three, and also that perhaps the plurals were previously trial or paucal forms of pronouns. In some cases where the independent pronoun and a subject marker  are identical (homophones) and occur in the same sentence one will be omitted, and Lichtenberk (2008) suggests it is the pronoun that is omitted. This occurs for "koro", where it is both the inclusive dual inclusive independent personal pronoun and the dual inclusive nonfuture subject marker. Similarly "kulu" is both the plural inclusive independent plural pronoun and the plural inclusive nonfuture subject marker. Lichtenberk believes that most speakers would avoid the repetition. In the above example the first "kulu" would be deleted. The independent personal pronouns, including the third person pronouns, are used with human reference, or with spirits, very  rarely with animals. They may be used with mythological animals or with an animal that is in view. The third person pronoun can be used to specify subject topicalization, even with inanimate objects, as is: There are numerous specific uses of the independent personal pronouns such as the third person singular pronoun being used to close off a story or a narration, in a verb-less statement: To emphasize a pronoun the same strategies that are used with lexical nouns are also employed, but with a specific pronominal foregrounder "ni". Here the emphasis is on the persons being spoken to . The inclusive pronouns can be used in a way to include the addressee, to index personal closeness or in a jocular sense. Person Markers. Toqabaqita uses person markers with proper nouns that designate people, spirits, ogres, pets and domestic animals. They are gender differentiated, with "tha" used with male and "ni" with female people. When referring to gods and spirits and introduced Christian deities, "tha" is used. "Tha" is used to refer to all pets and domestic animals, both male and female. They are used for reference not for address, see examples 11 and 12, but even then they are  not obligatory. Contrast the need for a person marker when talking about Ulufaala the named person in the narration, rather than when he arrives in person. "Tha" is used with the nouns that refer to children, "wela" (child, young person), "kale" (offspring), or "weleqi" (adult males). "Tha" is used for inanimate objects that actually have names. Object Pronouns. In Toqabaqita there are two classes of transitive verbs, Class 1 and Class 2, and they index their pronominal direct objects differently. Class 1 transitives have object indexing suffixes only for the third person; "-a" for singular direct objects, "-daroqa" for dual  categories and "-da" for plural objects. Toqabaqita doesn't index object status first and second person, but it is indicated by the appropriate independent personal pronoun as in (18). Class 2 Transitive verbs have object indexing suffixes for all grammatical persons and numbers, and follow a similar pattern to the independent personal pronouns. Again there are forms that were previously used only by women, in women's speech, that are no longer used. For the third person singular there are two forms "-na" and "-a", and their use is often phonologically determined, in particular so there are no sequences of  three vowels. The "-na" object pronoun is used here in (20) to follow the vowel "a". Subject Pronouns. Toqabaqita has subject indexing suffixes which appear on the verb and also indicate nonfuture tense, future tense, imperfect aspect, sequentiality, negative aspect, and dehortation. There is some suffixes that are the same in the third person dual and plural categories. It is interesting to observe that there are no archaic women's speech forms noted by Lichtenberk. Possession. Possession in Toqabaqita is relational in that there are two entities in the relationship the "possessor" and the "possessum". The possessor may own an  item, it may be a body part, or a tool. But this also includes relationships with the person or item, including a kinship relationship. Lichtenberk prefers to term these "personal suffixes" as they not only index possession, but also with a transitive verb to index their subject, to indicate a recipient/beneficiary relationship, and to index a complement with a number of prepositions. These suffixes can be used with both lexical nouns and verbs. It can be seen that some of these suffixes are identical with the singular object pronoun suffixes, namely -"ku", -"na", and -"a". Again there are forms  previously used by women in speech, that are no longer used, marked (1). In terms of semantics the personal suffixes are used with relational nouns where the relationship is described as inalienable possession. This includes parts of a whole (24), body parts (23,27), products of a possessor (25,26), and integral contents such as blood of animal or juice of a fruit. From a phontactic point of view, words with "l" or "r" in the syllable use third person singular -"na", as in example (27). Attributes as well as spatial and temporal relations of the possessor are also designated with these  personal suffixes, as in example (28). Toqabaqita also employs the bare possessive noun phrase where there is no indexing of the possessor on the possessed noun. A Possessor noun phrase must be present, this may be a lexical noun or a pronoun. The two following examples display this, in that a possessor noun phrase is pronominal, and it is the independent personal pronoun that is employed. In this manner all the independent pronouns can be bare possessor nouns. Negation. There are a range of strategies that can be used to express negation in Toqabaqita. These are the simple negative, the  negative verb, and the double negative construction. Simple negative. Overview. The simple negative occurs when negation is achieved through means of the negative subject markers alone. The negative subject markers in Toqabaqita are listed above. Syntactically, the negative subject markers occur in the verb phrase, between the irrealis marker (where present) and preverbal particles (where present). The negative subject markers always precede the verb. The negative subject markers can be used to negate a range of clause types, such as declarative and imperative, shown in (31) and (32) below. They also occur in clauses with future- and past-time reference , as in (33) and (34) below. The simple negation and double negation strategies are often used interchangeably, although the double negative is more common. However, there is one context in which only simple negation occurs; this is where the negated verb functions as a noun modifier as in example (35). Section::::"Negative additiveness". The simple negative is also used in a multi-clausal construction referred to as "negative additiveness". The first clause in this construction is positive while any subsequent clauses will be negated using the negative subject markers. The underlying subjects of each clause will typically have the same reference , but the negative clause(s) will not have an expressed subject phrase. Example (36) illustrates the negative additiveness construction. The subject of both clauses is "nia", third person singular, but the second clause does not contain a subject phrase. The negative additiveness construction does, however, allow distinct subject identities when its constituent clauses involve weather expressions. For example, the subject of the first verb in (37), "-qaru" ‘fall, is "dani" ‘rain. However, the underlying subject of the second verb in (37), "thato" ‘be sunny, is "fanua" ‘place as illustrated in (38). Nevertheless, the only expressed subject in (37) is that of  the first clause. The negative verb. Overview. The second major strategy to express negation in Toqabaqita is the use of the negative verb "aqi". This verb has a range of meanings, including ‘not be so, not be the case in general uses, and ‘not exist; not be available in existential constructions. "Aqi" diverges from typical verbal behaviour in Toqabaqita in two key ways. Firstly, it only occurs with third person singular subject markers, rather than the full range of subject markers. Secondly, it typically does not take subject noun phrases. Example (39) shows the use of the negative verb to  describe the non-occurrence of a prayer service. Negative existential sentences. Negative existential sentences are used to express the non-existence of an entity and "aqi" exhibits different syntactic behaviour when used in negative existential constructions. Firstly, where "aqi" normally does not take subject noun phrases, it does take a subject noun phrase when used for negative existentials. Furthermore, in negative existentials, the subject phrase follows the verb, as shown in example (40) below. This is in contrast to the standard constituent order in Toqabaqita in which the subject precedes the verb, shown in the non-negative existential sentence in  example (41). Additionally, subject markers in negative existential constructions must be third person singular. For example, in (42), below, it can be seen that although the subject phrase "tai toqa" ‘some people is plural and human, the corresponding subject marker "qe" is third person singular. Double negative construction. The third strategy used to express negation in Toqabaqita is the double negative construction, which involves the negative verb "aqi" and negative subject markers in combination. This construction is more common than the simple negative. Broadly speaking, the double negative involves two negative clauses used sequentially. The first of these may be  considered a "mini-clause" involving a third person subject marker and the negative verb "aqi". The second clause is a negative event clause that is negated using negative subject markers. The negative event clause does not include a subject phrase, however, a noun phrase corresponding to the subject of this event clause may optionally precede the mini-clause. Two subtypes of the double negative have been identified; these are referred to as the "general" and "sequential" double negative constructions respectively. The general double negative. The general double negative is used to negate an event clause. It can be schematised as  follows: The NP is optional as indicated by parentheses, while the "mini-clause" "qe aqi" and the subsequent negative event clause are both obligatory. Example (43) shows the use of the general double negative construction without the optional noun phrase. Example (44) shows a general double negative with the subject noun phrase expressed, and example (45) shows the construction's ungrammaticality when the subject phrase occurs within the negative event clause. The sequential double negative. The sequential double negative is different from the general double negative in its constituents, semantics, and the contexts in which it occurs. Firstly, the subject  marker in the mini-clause is the third person singular sequential marker, "ka". Secondly, the sequential construction only occurs following another clause; the coordinating construction "ma" 'and' may be optionally used to mark the relationship between these clauses. Finally, where the general double negative expresses a general negation of the event clause, the sequential double negative expresses "unfulfilled expectation." In other words, it expresses that circumstances that might have been expected (based on preceding discourse) failed to come to pass. The sequential double negative construction can be schematised thus: Although this construction has been identified as a double negative, the  negative event clause in this construction is grammatically optional. In which case, "in clauses expressing unfulfilled expectations "aqi" also functions as a lexical verb." Example (46) shows this construction with the negative event clause omitted. While the negative event clause is grammatically optional, many contexts can be found where it is expressed. Examples (47) and (48) below illustrate the use of this construction with an expressed negative event clause.