Tungag language


Tungag, or Lavongai, is an Austronesian language of New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea.
Since Lavongai is an Austronesian language, it follows several of the unique characteristics of these groups of language. Several examples is the specific form for the singular, dual, trial and plural tense, the clarity of knowing if the person spoken to is included or excluded in the dual, trial and plural tenses, and the defining of the possessive tense expressed by an ending added to the noun. However, unlike the languages spoken in Papua New Guinea, it has not adopted and mixed with other languages.
It is spoken on the island of New Hanover and its neighboring islands. There are different dialects of the Lavongai language. The major difference between the language dialects is between the villages of the south coast and the villages from the western tip to the islands on the north coast. There are also smaller differences between villages, but it does not have a major effect on the communication between these villages.
Its endangered level is 5, which means it is a language used frequently, so there is no fear that it will be endangered, but is not considered the main language of New Guinea.

Phonology

Phoneme inventory of the Tungag language:
/x, ɣ/ are allophones of /k, ɡ/.

Sound system

Alphabet

In the Lavongai language, there are 21 letters - six vowels and 15 consonants. These letters are ʌ, a, b, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, ŋ, o, p, r, s, t, u, v.

Vowels

In the Lavongai language, there are six vowels: a, e, i, o, u, ʌ.
The /ʌ/ is pronounced as the /uh/ in butter. The other vowels: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ are pronounced the same as their pronunciation in the Latin language. Thus they all can be pronounced as a long vowel or a short vowel. However, the /i/ retains its /i/ sound unlike the Latin language, in which the /i/ is pronounced as /y/ if the 'i' is behind another vowel.

Consonants

In the Lavongai language, there are 15 consonants: b, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, n, ŋ, p, r, s, t, v.

Many consonants can be replaced/deleted

'f' and 'p'
However to some, 'f' and 'h' are considered letters in the alphabet, but others do not.
For the letter 'f', it can usually be replaced by the letter 'p'.
While there are some cases where 'p' cannot replace 'f', the number of cases is very small.
For the letter 'b', it can be replaced by 'v'
For the letter 'r', it can be replaced by 'd'
For the letter 'h', unlike like the above letters, the letter 'h' is normally dropped. Dropping the letter 'h' in a word does not change the meaning at all.
In the Lavongai language, there are 7 diphthongs: /au/, /oi/, /ai/, /ei/, /ao/, /eu/, and /ua/.
The diphthongs /au/, /oi/, /ai/ have the same pronunciation as "how", "high", and "boy" from the English language. However,the other diphthongs do not have a perfect sound.

/au/

Regarding the diphthong /au/, it can sometimes replace the vowel 'a' if it is a three letter word and between two consonants and vice versa. This practice is more common in the dialects spoken on the north coast.
However this replacement can not be done to every word. Listed below are some of the words that can not have use the 'a'/'au' replacement.
Note: taun has two meanings: "the day" or "to cook".

/ua/

Regarding the diphthong /ua/, it can sometimes be replaced with vowels 'o' or 'a'.
Regarding the diphthongs /ai/ and /ei/, they can be exchanged with other.

Nouns

Proper nouns and mass nouns

These nouns are nouns that can not be marked with a possession mark, nor can be counted.
Alienable nouns are nouns that have a possessive pronoun preceding the noun
Inalienable nouns are nouns that use a suffix to express possessive.
When counting from one to 10, the Lavongai language counts based on groups of fives and tens.

1 - 4

The numerals 1 through 4 are mono-morphemic words.
The numeral 5 is distinct with its two morpheme composition.
The numerals 6 through 9 are based on adding either 1 - 4 with the numeral 5.
The words for 2 - 4 can be shortened by omitting the first syllable and changing 'o' to 'u'.
Likewise to the numeral 5, the numeral 10 also has a distinct two morpheme composition.
The Lavongai language follows the SVO structure.


Sentence Structure for Different Types of Sentences
Intransitive clause
Subject / Verb Phrase / Adjunct
Transitive clause
Subject / Verb Phrase / Direct Object / Adjunct
Transitive clause
Subject / Verb Phrase / Direct Object / Indirect Object /Adjunct
Transitive clause, speech and perception verbs
Subject / Verb Phrase / Direct Object / ta / Indirect Object / Adjunct
Negation on the Sentence level
Subject / parik / pa Verb Phrase / adjunct
Prohibition
Subject / ago ta / Verb Phrase / Adjunct / -an / Direct Object
Coordinate Conjunction
Verb Phrase / Coordinating Conjunction / Verb Phrase
Subordinate Conjunction
Verb Phrase / Subordinate Conjunction / Verb Phrase
Fronted Object
Direct Object / Subject / Verb Phrase / Trace Object / Indirect Object / Adjunct
Fronted Verb Phrase
Verb Phrase / Subject