Yélî Dnye language

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The Yélî Dnye language, also known as Yele, is the language of Rossel island, the easternmost island in the Louisiade Archipelago off the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. For now it is best considered a language isolate, but it may turn out to be related to the Anêm and Ata language isolates of New Britain in a tentative Yele-West New Britain family. There are about 4000 speakers.

Yele is one of the better known East Papuan languages. It has been studied extensively by cognitive linguists. One of its interesting features is its extensive set of spatial postpositions. For example, Yele has eleven postpositions equivalent to English on; using different ones depending on such things as whether the object is on a table (horizontal), a wall (vertical), or atop a peak; whether or not it is attached to the surface; and whether it is solid or granular (distributed).

Yele also has a uniquely rich set of doubly articulated consonants. In nearly all the languages of the world which have them, these are labial-velar consonants — that is, they are pronounced simultaneously with the lips and the back of the tongue, such as a simultaneous p and k. Only Yele contrasts other doubly articulated consonants: it also has distinct labial-alveolar and labial-postalveolar consonants, as illustrated below.

Stops in Yelî Dnye	Bilabial		Pre-alveolar		Postalveolar		Velar			Labial-prealveolar		Labial-postalveolar		Labial-velar
Oral stop	paa	side	taa	knife	ʈoo	tongue	kaa	spear		t͡pənə	lung	ʈ͡pənə	horn	k͡pene	coconut bag
Prenasalized stop	mbee	carry	nde	food	ɳɖe	firewood	ŋɡaa	tree		n͡md͡boo	pulp	ɳ͡mɖ͡boo	many	ŋ͡mɡ͡bo	fog
Nasal stop	maa	road	nii	juice	ɳaa	feast	ŋa	lease		n͡mo	bird	ɳ͡mo	we	ŋ͡mo	breast

The two coronal articulations are (1) laminal and slightly pre-alveolar, sometimes transcribed tʸ, nʸ, etc., and (2) apical and slightly post-alveolar, sometimes transcribed ṭ, ṇ etc. or simply t, n, etc..

[edit] Pronouns

Yélî Dnye has two sets of pronouns: free and possessive. They are,

I	ɳə a	we two	no ni	we	ɳ͡mo ɳ͡mɨ
thou	ni N-	you two	ʈ͡pũ ʈ͡pɨ	you	n͡mo n͡me
s/he	– u	they		– yi

[edit] See also

• East Papuan languages

[edit] References

• James E. Henderson, 1995. Phonology and grammar of Yele, Papua New Guinea. Pacific Linguistics B-112. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
• Peter Ladefoged & Ian Maddieson, 1996. The sounds of the world’s languages. Oxford: Blackwells. ISBN 0-631-19814-8
• Stephen C. Levinson, 2003. Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-01196-5