Aramba (Arammba), also known as Serki or Serkisetavi, is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea.
Children learn how to read and write the Aramba language in preschool, before entering primary school which is conducted in English.
The Aramba people are semi nomadic, and live off the animals and plants in the surrounding rainforest and savannah.
The Aramba region could be accessed by airplane, or by boat from the provincial capital, Daru island, though this could take up to a week.
Alongside with nouns, verbs constitute the only open word class in Aramba.
With regard to morphology, nouns may optionally inflect for number, taking the plural suffix -a (e.g. yám-a 'thing-s', táy-a 'ancestor-s').
Some of these clitics have derivational function (e.g. adjectiviser -dje/-sa 'with the quality of'; genitive -ni 'of') while most others carry case-marking functions (e.g. ergative -o; instrumental -m 'with'; comitative -s 'together with'; human comitative -ro 'together with' benefactive -n 'to, for'; locative -ye 'in'; non-human allative -fo 'towards, to, at the place of, into'; human allative -nmbo 'towards, to'; non-human ablative -fá 'from, away from, from the side of'; human ablative -mba 'from, away from'; purposive -r 'for, (in order) to' etc.).
Boevé & Boevé (1999: 61) give the following list of 13 adjectival forms: xanda 'big', ndamba 'small', tefye 'old', dóbne 'young, new', dermber 'long', negwe 'short', denxa 'far', xexa 'close by', gafu 'good', tútéf 'straight', tofo 'first', górye 'after' and wàrfo 'up'.
The following adjectival meanings turned out to be (among) the most frequent: 'large' (found in all 20 languages), 'small' (19), 'long' (14), 'short' (15), 'new' (15), 'old' (14), 'good' (13), 'bad' (14), 'black' (13), 'white' (14), 'red' (8), 'raw, green, unripe' (7) (cf.
At the same time, it has 6 adjectives which have different meanings from the ones (by Dixon) listed above, predominantly in the domain of locational and temporal qualification ('far', 'close by', 'up', 'after', 'first').
The Aramba adjectives can generally be distinguished from other word classes in that they do not exhibit any nominal or verbal morphology.
It seems that adjectivised nouns often make up for the limited repertoire of underived adjectives: gye1SGPN.ABfànyethereADVmeFCPRTxuf--1SG.AB.P.CP-ryebeV.IT-endeg-P.PG-NM.SGxandabigADJsemberjealousN.RD-dje-ADJR-PPngarewomanNgye fànye me xuf- rye -endeg xanda sember -dje ngare1SG there FC - be -P.PG big jealous -ADJR womanPN.AB ADV PRT 1SG.AB.P.CP- V.IT -NM.SG ADJ N.RD -PP N'There I was a very jealous woman.'
(Boevé & Boevé, 1999: 88)In Aramba, free personal pronouns exhibit the ergative-absolutive case marking pattern, i.e. the unmarked (absolutive) forms are used in intransitive subject (S) and transitive object (O) function (cf.
third column in Table 3), while the marked (ergative) form is used in transitive subject (A) function (cf.
Aramba has three demonstrative forms: proximal ne 'this', medial fàn 'that' and distal mbe 'that over there'.
(Boevé & Boevé, 1999: 60) Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help);fànthatDMewesbawomanNtópADVfànthatDMxanda-xandaold_manN-o-ERG-ERGde-she-AB.3F.SG-ridpass_byV.L-áx-DP-NM.SGfàn ewesba tó fàn xanda-xanda -o de- rid -áxthat woman p that old_man -ERG she- pass_by -DPDM N ADV DM N -ERG AB.3F.SG- V.L -NM.SG'That old man had passed by that old woman.'
Non-numeral quantifiers include nga 'one, some, another', xàyo xusi / bedjidjó meme 'uncountable', yeyenówe 'not much', brámwe 'all', ñgówe 'many', dof-dof 'many' and tús 'plenty'.
The subclass of complementizers includes mánà 'when, if', mbàndámàr 'until', and interrogative pronouns me 'whichever', mende 'like what', muma 'from where', manda 'wherever', mumba 'whatever' and múme 'how big'.
Nevertheless, the examples below demonstrate that by no means all semantically inalienable nouns are formally marked as such.
ngaoneQTngarúmanN-ni-GEN.-PPyàmanbagirlNtogyelittleADJnga ngarú -ni yàmanba togyeone man -GEN. girl littleQT N -PP N ADJ'Somebody's little daughter.'
(strong command) (Boevé & Boevé, 1999: 16)Unlike the common verb root, the limited action root is not compatible with the (optional) intensifier suffix -or and the suffix encoding progressive or durative aspect (-endeg / -ox) (more in in the following section).
(Boevé & Boevé, 1999: 19) Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help);In construction, a verb is always prefixed and suffixed by Subject and Object (agreement) markers, which respectively mark the Undergoer and Actor of the action referred to by the verb.
), sometimes Gender (3.sg.m/3.sg.f), Tense (distant past, present, future), Aspect (perfective, imperfective, progressive) and, in some cases, spatial deixis (locative 'over there').
When talking about events as being located in the past, present or future (tense) and when talking about these events from different viewpoints (aspect), different combinatorics between Undergoer prefixes and Actor suffixes apply.
Note that for intransitive verbs, the Actor is always indicated via the verbal prefix set; the suffixes are invariant but morphologically they correspond to the third person singular Actor suffix of transitive verbs.
3 and 5) are not necessarily zero-marked for all other person/number values (of course, this only applies to transitive verbs); e.g. for 'third person plural' you get -a for both suffix slots in No.
In particular, the selection of verb root has an effect on the durative vs. non-durative reading of the action referred to.
X just happened, X is about to happen Recent Past: today, Near Future between now and distant future between a few weeks and a long time ago between a few weeks ago and now Table 5: Tense/Aspect marking on transitive and intransitive verb roots.
Nevertheless, some tendencies can be stated: In the following, we provide some examples of transitive and intransitive verb forms in complete sentences.
AB: Absolutive AC: Accompaniment ADJR: Adjectiviser ADV: Adverb ADVT: Adverb of Time AL: Alienable C: Common root CJ: Conjunction CJS: Conjuncion-subordinate CP: Completive CT: Continuous D: Non distant past durative DIR: Directional DEG: Degree adverb DM: Demonstrative DP: Distant Past DSC: Discourse DT: Detransitiviser EMP: Emphasis FC: Focus FT: Future I: Imperfective: IJ: Interjection IMP: Imperative IN: Inalienable Noun INC: Inchoative/ inceptive INT: Intensifier IP: Inalienable Noun Prefix IT: (Inherently) Intransitive L: Limited Action root LC: Locative N: Noun NAC: Non Active Complement NEG: Negative NM: Nominative NOM: Nominalized NPR: Proper Noun p: Past PERS: Personifier PF: Perfect PG: Progressive PH: Prohibitive POS: Positive POST: Post Posed PP: Post Positional clitic PR: Present PRT: Particle PS: Possessive PT: Non distant past punctiliar Q: Interrogative Pronoun QT: Quantifier R: Relativiser RD: Reduplicated RFL: Reflexive ST: Strong TH: Theme TPC: Topicalizer TR: Transitive V: Verb WK: Weak