It is the second-most widely spoken native language of the Federated States of Micronesia[2] the first being Chuukese.
[4][2] Pohnpeian employs a great deal of loanwords from colonial languages such as English, Japanese, Spanish, and German.
Examples of these loanwords include: The modern Pohnpeian orthography uses twenty letters — sixteen single letters and four digraphs — collated in a unique order:[6] As German missionaries designed an early form of the orthography, Pohnpeian spelling uses -h to mark a long vowel, rather like German: dohl 'mountain'.
Orthographically, ⟨i⟩ is used to represent /j/, though it is often unwritten; -u is realized as /w/; and ⟨h⟩ indicates a long vowel (a spelling convention inherited from German).
[6]: 54–5 Words beginning in nasal consonant clusters may be pronounced as written, or with a leading prothetic vowel.
The roundedness of the prothetic vowel depends on that of the adjacent consonant cluster and the first written syllable.
For example: Pohnpeian orthography renders the consonant clusters [mʷpʷ] and [mʷmʷ] as mpw and mmw, respectively.
[6]: 55–9 Further phonological constraints frequently impact the pronunciation and spelling of consonant clusters, triggered variously by reduplication and assimilation into neighboring sounds.
By this process, liquids /l/ and /r/ are assimilated into the following alveolar (coronal) consonant: nur > nunnur ("contract").
For example, the prefix nan- ("in") produces: Partial assimilation also occurs across word boundaries: kilin pwihk is pronounced [kilimʷ pʷiːk].
Complete nasal assimilation also occurs across word boundaries: pahn lingan is said [paːlliŋan] ("will be beautiful").
Both varieties of nasal substitution affect adjacent consonants of the same type: alveolar (coronal), bilabial, or velar.
By following the order of operations, reduplication of the word sel ("tired") progresses thus: *selsel > *sessel (liquid assimilation) > sensel (nasal substitution).
Possessive phrases generally add this construct state to a classifier noun, followed by the possessor, and lastly the possessum.
For example: werenPOSSESSIVECLASS:CANOE-nohlothat-manwarcanoeweren ohlo warPOSSESSIVECLASS:CANOE-n that-man canoe"that man's canoe"[6]: 188, 192 Some possessive classifiers, namely ah and nah, may precede the possessum: neinCLASS:-nohlothat-man(nah)[CLASS]rasarassawnein ohlo (nah) rasarasCLASS:-n that-man [CLASS] saw"that man's saw"Possessive classifiers can also occur with more than one following noun.
Example uses of pointing modifiers:[6]: 150 Demonstrative pronouns are determiners that can replace noun phrases in a verbal sentence.
Numbers and measure words depend on the grammatical class and physical characteristics of the object being counted.
[6]: 127, 135, 141–2 Higher numerals such as pwiki "hundred", kid "thousand", do not inflect for noun class.
Some thematic features among intransitive verbs include ablaut, reduplication, the suffix -ek, and the prefix pV, where V stands for any vowel.
Pohnpeian intransitive verbs can be divided into the following types: There are five verbal prefixes, which appear as bound morphemes: the causative ka-, the negatives sa- and sou-, and two other semantic modifiers ak- and li-.
For example, with luwak, "be jealous", an adjective:[6]: 215–218, 221 The majority of intransitive verbs have only a transitive causative form: pweipwei > kapweipwei, "to be stupid."
Though the prefix is productive in many active and resultative verbs, it is not productive with neutral intransitive verbs, nor for a handful of intransitives denoting bodily functions such as "sneeze" (asi), "frown" (lolok), "be full" (tip), and "be smelly" (ingirek).
The prefix ka- often has assimilative allophones depending on the stem, for example: As illustrated in these examples, the prefix often causes semantic differentiation, necessitating different constructions for literally causative meanings; karirala, a different form employing ka-, is used to mean "to make hidden.
For example, mwenge (to eat) and laid (to fish) are active; langada (to be hung up) and ritidi (to be closed) are resultative (static); and deidei (to sew, to be sewn) and pirap (to steal, to be stolen) are neutral — they can have either an active or a resultative meaning.
Derivations often include reduplication: Many intransitives are ablauted from their transitive forms, sometimes with reduplication: Others are derived from transitive forms through the prefix pV-, conveying a meaning of reciprocal action: kakil (stare) > pekekil (stare at one another).
Sometimes this results in two intransitive derivations of a single transitive root, usually with a semantic nuance: The suffix was apparently much more productive earlier in the language's history, even among active verbs.
Incorporation is not possible when there is a demonstrative suffix, however:[6]: 212–4 Pohnpeian adjectives are a class of non-action intransitive verbs.
Adjectives generally follow the head noun, though possessives and numbers with fractions precede the noun:[6]: 124, 141 Transitive verbs consist of single roots and various suffixes upon modern intransitive verbs.