Lengo or informally known as "Doku" is anOceanic language spoken on the island ofGuadalcanal. It belongs to theSoutheast Solomonic language family.

Lengo has 6vowels.^[2]

Vowel sequences occur commonly for all combinations of these vowels, with the exception of/uo/. The front open-mid vowel/ɛ/ never occurs in sequence.

Lengo has 15consonants.^[3]

Voiced stops areprenasalized. Two instances of regional variation in these phonemes have been observed. These are/β/ becoming/v/, and/ð/ becoming/z/.

Lengo, nowadays uses the SVO orSubject-verb-object word order

Lengo has five sets ofpronominal forms. These are emphatic, subject reference, object, direct possessor, and indirect possessor. These distinguish maximally between fourpersons (first person inclusive and exclusive, second, and third person), and fournumbers (singular, plural, dual, and paucal). There is nogrammatical gender distinction, but there is ananimacy distinction in the object paradigm. Two further uses of these pronominal forms occur - areflexive pronoun, and a set ofinterrogative pronouns.^[4]

The dual and paucal forms are derived from the plural forms by the addition ofko- andtu- respectively.The dual forms are used only to indicate 'two and only two', whilst the plural and paucal forms mean 'two or more' and 'three or more' respectively. First person exclusive excludes the addresse(s).

The emphatic pronoun in Lengo is optional, and can occur in combination with obligatory pronouns that may occur with subject or object function. It can also appear without other pronouns. It is used to emphasize the semantic role of a noun in a clause.^[5]

Examples:

The subject reference pronoun appears as the first element in a verb phrase. It is obligatory in any main clause, but can be excepted in subordinate clauses. It is optional in imperative sentences.^[8]

Example:

The object form in Lengo is identified using a set of pronominal suffixes, which index the object arguments on the verb. In instances where a verb takes both a direct and indirect object, only the indirect object is marked. The third person plural object form is marked for animate or inanimate objects.^[10]

Example:

The direct possessor form is used forinalienably possessed nouns. It is a suffix on the possessed noun that indicates the possessor. In the case of the dual and paucal forms, number is indicated as a prefix on the noun, and the plural form of the possessive suffix is used.^[11]

The third person singular direct possessor appears in two forms, with '-e' being more prevalent than '-na'.^[12]

Examples:

The indirect possessor form is used foralienably possessed nouns. It occurs as a free morpheme preceding the possessed noun. There are two categories distinguished - 'oral consumable' and 'general'. The oral consumable category includes items that are able to be eaten, drunk, or consumed via the mouth, such as tobacco.^[11]

Oral consumable form:

General form:

Areflexive pronoun is composed when a direct possessor suffix is added to the stem 'tibo'. This results in avalency decrease of the verb.^[14]

Examples:

Lengo has two pronouns that haveinterrogative orrelative uses. 'thei' is used if the reference is human, and 'tha' if the reference is non-human.^[16]

Relative use:

Interrogative use:

There are several ways to indicate negation in Lengo.

There is the discontinuous morphememua 'NEG', which surrounds the verb being negated. There are three modals which can appear in the serial verb construction and are negative (taigha), prohibitive (tabu) or non-volitive (kou). Lastly, there is the auxiliaryboro 'impossibleFUT', which is sometimes glossed as 'NEG' and can negate the verb.

Themua... mua 'NEG ... NEG' structure can also be combined withtaigha 'NEG' to create a double negative, which carries the meaning of a strong affirmative.^[18]

The grammatical negator, themua... mua 'NEG ... NEG' structure, is the only instance of a 'discontinuous' morpheme in Lengo. The morphememua appears both before and after the verb being negated.^[18] The basic structure of this construction ismua V mua, as seen in (13) and (14):

A variant of this construction ismo ... moa, as seen in (15).

Note that although all examples presented by Unger showmua ... mua 'NEG ... NEG' used for a negative imperative, it should not be assumed that this construction is exclusive to a particular sentence structure. More examples are needed for a satisfactory conclusion.

Regardless,mua ... mua is an uncommon negator in Lengo. Much more frequently used is the modaltaigha 'NEG'.

Lengo has a 'serial verb construction'. The various types of serial verb construction identified are directional, sequential, causative, manner, ambient, comitative, dative, instrumental and modal.^[21] The basic structure of a modal serial verb construction is as follows:

V +na V(-O)^[21]

The first verb is the modal verb, and the second verb follows an article (alwaysna). This second verb is treated somewhat like an infinitive.^[22] Lengo has five modal verbs; of these, three are used to create negative constructions. These three are:^[23]

Of all the ways to express negation in Lengo, the modaltaigha 'NEG' is the most versatile and often used.^[24] It can be used to negate verbs in statements, like in (16):

In (17) and (18),taigha appears at the very beginning of the serial verb construction, and the realis locativet-i appears between the negator and the articlena. The entire serial verb construction is negated bytaigha.

Sometimes the constructiontaigha na undergoes elision and is shortened totai'na, note that the apostrophe exerted here is not a glottal stop but is merely an indicator to know that the word comes from the two root wordstaigha andna an example of this is in (19):

It is important to note that this shortened formtai'na 'NEG' should not be confused withtai'na 'LOC'. Refer to example (20), which shows both homophones in use: the first being the locative and the second (bolded) being the combined modal and article.

Taigha is flexible and can be used to create negative polar questions and answer polar questions, as in examples (21), (22) and (23).

Example (21) is a negative polar question which can be answered with eithereo 'yes' ortaigha 'no'. Answering witheo would mean 'yes, I havenot seen your basket', whereas answering withtaigha would mean 'no, I have seen it'.^[27]

In example (22),taigha is used to answer a polar question in the negative. In (23),taigha is modified by an adverbial,vata 'yet'.

In (24),o taigha 'orNEG' is added to the end of the sentence to create an alternative question.

A content question can also be answered withtaigha, as in (25).

The wordtabu 'prohibitive (with consequences); forbidden' is another common way of forming a negative. It is often used by parents who are correcting their children.^[29] As withtaigha 'no/none', a clause could consist of the single wordTabu! 'Don't!'^[30] The basic structure is the same as with other modals: the first verb is the modal, and it is followed by the articlena and the second verb.

In (26), the consequence of disobeying is explicitly addressed. In (27), the articlena is omitted, and the consequence of 'or else ...' is implied.

The third and last negative modal iskou 'refuse', which is used to indicate non-volition. It appears in the same place astaigha andtabu, but carries a more specific meaning.

In example (28), if the more generaltaigha 'NEG' had been used instead ofkou, it would simply mean that the fish do not eat the bait. However, in (28), the fish not onlydo not eat the bait, but theywill not.^[31]

Example (29) has the wordslaka 'also' andt-i 'REAL-LOC' in between the negator and the articlena.

In Lengo, tense auxiliaries appear before the subject reference pronoun and verb. There are two tense auxiliaries:bo 'FUT' andboro 'impossibleFUT'. Whileboro is perhaps not a straightforward example of negation, it nevertheless does carry a meaning of 'negation for a reason'. Iftabu is specifically prohibitive andkou is specifically non-volitive, thenboro can be presented as a negator denoting impossibility. Furthermore, it is sometimes glossed asNEG, as in (30):

Example (31) showsboro glossed as 'impossible'. However, it still has the effect of negating the verb.

The modaltaigha 'NEG can be combined with themua ... mua 'NEG ... NEG' structure to create a double negative, which carries the meaning of a strong affirmative, as in (32). However, this construction (meaning 'must') is rarely used. Instead, the Pijin formmasi 'must', a borrowing from English, is much more common.^[19]

Example (33) shows the same sentence as (32), but without either of the negation structures. This example is a simple imperative.

The following is a list of all the abbreviations used in this article.

• Materials on Karnai are included in the open accessArthur Capell collections (AC1 andAC2) held byParadisec

• Gela-Guadalcanal languages
• Languages of the Solomon Islands

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