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Phonology

Iaai is remarkable for its large inventory of unusual phonemes, in particular its consonants, with a rich variety of voiceless nasals and approximants.²

Vowels

Iaai has ten vowel qualities, all of which may occur long and short. There is little difference in quality depending on length.³

Iaai constitutes one of the few cases of front rounded vowels attested outside of their geographic stronghold in Eurasia,⁴ even if other cases have since been reported in the Oceanic family.⁵

The vowel /ø øː/ is only known to occur in six words. In all of these but /ɲ̊øːk/ "dedicate", it appears between a labial (b, m) and velar (k, ŋ) consonant.

After the non-labiovelarized labial consonants and the vowel /y yː/, the vowel /ɔ ɔː/ is pronounced [œ œː].

The open vowels only contrast in a few environments. /æ æː/ only occurs after the plain labial consonants and the vowel /y yː/, the same environment that produces [œ œː]. /a aː/ does not occur after /ɥ ɥ̊ y yː/, but does occur elsewhere, so that there is a contrast between /æ æː/ and /a aː/ after /b p m m̥ f/.

The vowels /i e ø a o u/ are written with their IPA letters. /y/ is written û, /æ/ is written ë, /ɔ/ is written â, and /ɤ/ is written ö. Long vowels, which are twice as long as short vowels, are written double.

Consonants

Iaai has an unusual voicing distinction in its sonorants, as well as several coronal series. Unlike most languages of New Caledonia, voiced stops are not prenasalized.⁶

Unlike many languages with denti-alveolar stops, Iaai /t̪, d̪/ are released abruptly, and /t̪/ has a very short voice onset time. However, the apical post-alveolar and laminal palatal stops /ʈ, ɖ, c, ɟ/ have substantially fricated releases [ʈᶳ, ɖᶼ, cᶜ̧, ɟᶨ], and may be better described as sounds between proper stops and affricates.

The labial approximants are placed in their respective columns following their phonological behaviour (their effects on following vowels), but there is evidence that all members of these series are either labial-palatal or labial-velar. /ɥ̊, ɥ/ are sometimes pronounced as weak fricatives [ɸʲ, βʲ].

In many cases, words with voiced and voiceless approximants are morphologically related, such as /liʈ/ "night" and /l̥iʈ/ "black". /h/- and vowel-initial words have a similar relationship. The voiceless sonorant often marks object incorporation. However, many roots with voiceless sonorants have no voiced cognate.

The labialized labials are more precisely labio-velarized labials. There is evidence that non-labialized labial consonants such as /m/ are palatalized /pʲ/, /mʲ/, etc., but this is obscured before front vowels. If this turns out to be the situation, it would parallel Micronesian languages which have no plain labials.

Notes

• Dotte, Anne-Laure (2013), Le iaai aujourd'hui. Évolutions sociolinguistiques et linguistiques d'une langue kanak de Nouvelle-Calédonie (Ouvéa, Îles Loyauté). Doctoral thesis. Université Lumière-Lyon2, Lyon, France. 528 pp.
• Dotte, Anne-Laure (2017). "Dynamism and change in the possessive classifier system of Iaai". Oceanic Linguistics. 56 (2): 339–363. doi:10.1353/ol.2017.0017. ISSN 1527-9421. S2CID 148949180. Retrieved 2023-07-20.
• Maddieson, Ian; Anderson, Victoria (1994), "Phonetic Structures of Iaai" (PDF), UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, 87: Fieldwork Studies of Targeted Languages II: 163–182
• Miroux, Daniel (2011), Parlons Iaai, Ouvéa, Nouvelle-Calédonie (in French), Paris: L'Harmattan.
• Ozanne-Rivierre, Françoise (1976), Le Iaai : langue mélanésienne d'Ouvéa (Nouvelle-Calédonie). Phonologie, morphologie, esquisse syntaxique (in French), Paris: Société d'études linguistiques et anthropologiques de France.
• Ozanne-Rivierre, Françoise (1984), Dictionnaire iaai (in French), Paris: Société d'études linguistiques et anthropologiques de France.
• Ozanne-Rivierre, Françoise (2003), "L'aire coutumière iaai", in Cerquiligni, Bernard (ed.), Les Langues de France (in French), Paris: PUF.
• Ozanne-Rivierre, Françoise (2004), "Spatial deixis in Iaai (Loyalty Islands)", in Senft, Gunter (ed.), Spatial deixis in Oceanic languages, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
• Tryon, Darrell T. Iai grammar. B-8, xii + 137 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1968. doi:10.15144/PL-B8

External links

• (in French) Five stories in Iaai, collected by F. Ozanne-Rivierre, and presented in bilingual format (Pangloss Collection of LACITO-CNRS).
• Presentation of Iaai, including an extensive bibliography.
• Database of audio recordings in Iaai - basic Catholic prayers[permanent dead link‍]
• Iaai Grammar at the Internet Archive

References

1. Dotte 2013. ↩

2. The main sources about the phonology of Iaai are Ozanne-Rivierre (1976); Maddieson and Anderson (1994). ↩

3. See Maddieson & Anderson (1994). ↩

4. Maddieson, Ian. Front Rounded Vowels, in Martin Haspelmath et al. (eds.) The World Atlas of Language Structures, pp. 50-53. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-19-925591-1. (online version). /wiki/ISBN_(identifier) ↩

5. See for example Löyöp, Lemerig, Vurës of northern Vanuatu, p.194 of: François, Alexandre (2011), "Social ecology and language history in the northern Vanuatu linkage: A tale of divergence and convergence" (PDF), Journal of Historical Linguistics, 1 (2): 175–246, doi:10.1075/jhl.1.2.03fra, hdl:1885/29283, S2CID 42217419. /wiki/L%C3%B6y%C3%B6p ↩

6. See Maddieson & Anderson (1994). ↩