Leti language

This article focusses on the Tutukei variety and is based on a descriptive study by Aone van Engelenhoven (2004), a Dutch linguist of Leti descent.

Again per van Engelenhoven 2004, "in Southwest Malukan society turn-taking in singing is ritualized and as such a fixed strategy, which makes it a powerful rhetoric device in Leti discourse.

However, the contrast is set up synchronically on account of certain exceptions (/ea/ 'he, she', /msena/ 'refuse', /dena/ 'stay'), and the fact that when suffixed the conditioning vowel can disappear: Metathesis and apocope, together binding processes, are pervasive in Leti as a feature of combinations of morphemes.

A similar metathesis is found with the nominaliser, historically an infix -in-, but now taking the form -nï- among many other allomorphs (detailed more below): thus sora 'sew' derives snïora 'needle'.

Human nouns pluralise with the third person plural pronominal clitic -ra, which must follow another suffixed element: püata 'woman', püat=e 'the woman', püat=e=ra 'the women'.

For example rai + lavna 'king' + 'big' → ralïavna 'emperor', pipi + ïadmu 'goat' + 'shed' → pipïadmu 'goat shed', vutu + müani 'ribbon' + 'man' → vutumüani 'man's ribbon', vika + papa 'buttocks' + 'cucumber' → vikpapa 'cockroach', kapla + nèma reduplicated 'ship' + 'fly' → kapalnèmnèma 'airplane'.

Reduplication, which usually copies a root-initial CV or CVCV sequence with binding, has a variety of functions, among them adjectivisation of nouns (üau 'idiot' → üa-üau 'idiotic') and verbs (mèra 'redden' → mèr-mèra), derivation of nouns, especially instruments (sòra 'sew' → sòr-sòra 'needle'), marking atelicity, and relativising on an object (n-vèèta 'he pulls' → (n-)vèvèèta 'which he pulls').

A few pairs involve adjectives or numerals, but the vast majority consist of nouns (e.g. püata // müani 'woman // man', üèra // vatu 'water // stone') or verbs (e.g. kili // toli 'look // see', keri // kòi 'scratch / scrape').

In lirmarna the function of lexical pairs is to highlight particular elements of a sentence, or simply to mark formality.

Roger Mills suggests that Luangic-Kisaric retained distinct reflexes of PMP *ŋ, on the basis of other languages in the family, and *Z.

Mills explains the metathesis found in consonant-final basis as arising from an original echo vowel added to consonant-final forms, e.g. *kúlit 'skin' > kúliti, after which the original post-tonic vowel was deleted, e.g. yielding kúlti > Leti ulti.

[5] The following paragraph is the opening of the Sailfish story as told by Upa S. Manina of Talvunu // Resïara house in the Ilwiaru quarters in Tutukei and reproduced in van Engelenhoven (2004).