Yaul language

Yaul, also known as Ulwa, is a severely endangered Keram language of Papua New Guinea. It is spoken fluently by fewer than 700 people and semi-fluently by around 1,250 people in four villages of the Angoram District of the East Sepik Province: Manu, Maruat, Dimiri, and Yaul. Currently, no children are being taught Ulwa, which has led to the rapid decline of intergenerational transmission for this language.

Yaul
Ulwa
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	East Sepik Province
Native speakers	700 (2018)
Language family	Ramu Keram Mongol–Langam Yaul
Language codes
ISO 639-3	yla
Glottolog	yaul1241
ELP	Ulwa

According to Barlow (2018), speakers in Maruat, Dimiri, and Yaul villages speak similar versions of Ulwa, while those in Manu speak a considerably different version. Thus, he postulates that there are two different dialects of Ulwa.

Word Order

The word order in Ulwa is generally fixed. There are two categories for word order, and this is based on if the clause is transitive or intransitive. In a transitive clause, the object follows the subject and precedes the verb, leading to a SOV word order. With intransitive clauses, the subject precedes the verb: SV.

Below is an example from Barlow (2018) which represents the SOV word order in a transitive clause:

Amun tïn mï mïnda mame.

Amun                 tïn                       mï                        mïnda                 ma=ama-e

now                     dog                      3SG.SUBJ            banana               3SG.OBJ=eat-IPFV

‘The dog is eating the banana now.’

Furthermore, these fixed categories should only be regarded for active voice clauses. If the construction is in the passive voice, the word order is simply inverted.

Here is another example, this one of the passive construction, showing the inverted word order of VS:

Ndïn asape lamndu.

ndï=n                     asa-p-e                            lamndu

3PL=OBL             hit-PFV-DEP                      pig

‘The pig was killed by them.’ [elicited]

Core Argument Alignment

Ulwa displays one SAP alignment: nominative-accusative. There is no known evidence of ergative-absolutive alignment. This is based on the different forms of third person found. The third person form for both the S and A arguments is mï, while the form for third person P argument is ma=. Since this only occurs for third person markings, it appears that besides this, Ulwa has neutral alignment.

Below is an example using the third person mï for the A argument, and the clitic ma= for the P argument:

Yana mï yata masap i.

Yana                    mï                       yata                     ma=asa-p                             i

Woman               3SG.SUBJ           man                     3SG.OBJ=hit-PFV             go.PFV

‘The woman hit the man [and] [the woman/*the man] left.’ [elicited]

Speech Act Constructions

Ulwa has a few different construction types including declarative and interrogative (polar and content). This section will discuss the strategies used to achieve these constructions.

Declarative

Declarative constructions in Ulwa should be thought of as the 'basic' speech construction in the language. It follows the word order SOV, which is discussed above. No special intonations or strategies are needed for declarative statements, as is seen in the below example from Barlow (2018):

(50) way ango ambi me

way                      ango                   ambi                    me

turtle                   NEG                    big                       NEG

Interrogative

Interrogative questions can be split into two types in Ulwa: polar form and content form.

Polar

Polarity questions are essentially yes/no questions. In Ulwa, there is no change in deviation in structure from declaratives when asking an interrogative question. A rise in intonation is used instead.

Content

Content questions, on the other hand, are questions that elicit information that complete the thought, idea, or construction. An English example of this could be, "Who stole my watch?" In Ulwa, while the word order still does not change, a special morpheme is used, either kwa (who) or angos (what). An example of this is given below:

(52) Kwa utam maamap?

Kwa                     utam                   ma=ama-p

One                     yam                    3SG.OBJ=eat-PFV

“Who ate the yam?”

Sources

• Barlow, Russell (2018). A Grammar of Ulwa (PDF) (Ph.D. thesis). University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. hdl:10125/62506.
• Barlow R (2023). A grammar of Ulwa (Papua New Guinea) (pdf). Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:10.5281/zenodo.8094859. ISBN 9783961104154.

• Barlow, Russell. 2023. A grammar of Ulwa (Papua New Guinea). (Comprehensive Grammar Library). Berlin: Language Science Press.

External links

• Language materials from the Ulwa [yla] language of East Sepik recorded by Russell Barlow and archived with Kaipuleohone
• Paradisec has two collections with Yaul materials, including Don Laycock's DL2 collection, and JM1