Maia is aPapuan language spoken in theMadang Province ofPapua New Guinea, and is a member of theTrans-New Guinea language family.^[2][3] It has a language endangerment status of 6a, which means that it is a vigorous and sustainable language spoken by all generations. According to a 2000 census, there are approximately 4,500 living speakers of the language, who are split between twenty-two villages in the Almani district of theBogia sub-district.^[4]

There are variations in the Maia spoken between villages, but they can be generally categorized into two primary dialects. Of these two dialects, the Main Dialect accounts for approximately three-fourths of speakers and the Southern Dialect accounts for the remaining one-fourth. Variations of the Main Dialect tend to be predictable with only minor variations in pronunciation. The information presented in this article is based on the Wagedav dialect, a sub-dialect of the Main Dialect spoken in the Wagedav village.^[3]

Other names for the language are Banar, Pila, Saki, Suaro, Turutap, and Yakiba.

The phonemic inventory of Maia is fairly small, as is typical of languages from Papua New Guinea.

In some cases, vowels and consonants are modified or deleted across morphemes in a word. These morphophonemic rules are detailed in this section.

The following table details these consonant phonemes and allophones for each, if any.^[3]: 10

The voiced labiovelar approximant /w/ is the sole multi-place consonant in Maia.

Maia contains the five basic vowel phonemes in the chart below:^[3]

Possible syllable structures in Maia are illustrated in the chart below. Onsets in Maia can end with a vowel, while codas can end in either a vowel or consonant.^[3]

There are two instantiations of this rule. The first instance applies to adjacent vowels in a verb: when two vowels are adjacent to each other at the junction of two morphemes within a verb, the first vowel is deleted. For example, 'he is eating' is not'nimɛ - a', as the 'ɛ' is deleted to give'nima' (p. 11).^[3]

The second instance is more general: when there are two identical vowels adjacent to each other at the junction of two morphemes within any word, one is deleted. For example, 'he worked' is not 'malip-a-a' , as one 'a' is deleted to give'malipa' (p. 11).^[3]

In words with two verb suffixes, the vowel in the final suffix is repeated in the penultimate suffix. For example, 'I heard' is not'damɛ - mi' but is instead'damimi' (p. 12).^[3]

The consonant deletion rule applies to a few select clitics:-gat, -di, -no, -waka. When these clitics are appended to the end of another word that ends in a consonant, the initial consonant of the clitic is deleted. For example, 'always' is not 'inaβ - gat' but is'inaβat' (p. 12).^[3]

Maia is asyntheticfusional language, in which word-building is accomplished primarily through clitics and derivational affixes.

Maia does not have case markings, but does have agreement between nouns and their adjectives and between verbs and their objects.^[3]

Clitics are an especially common means of word-building in Maia. Some clitics can be combined sequentially to produce a cumulative meaning, as in the case of combining the contrast marker clitic=(d)i and the topic marker=(n)o to indicate a topic that is in contrast with something else. The upper limit on the number of clitics that can be combined appears to be three.^[3]

The following table summarizes the clitics in the Maia language. Consonants in parentheses are typically included only if the word to which the clitic is appended ends in a vowel.

Affixes in Maia are predominantly derivational suffixes.

The nominalizing suffix -arav can be used to create nouns from verb roots. For example, 'wadib' means 'to argue', but 'wadib-arav' means 'the arguing' (p. 40).^[3]

The verbalizing suffix-(n)a can be used to create verbs from nouns and adjectives, as in the case of the word for white, 'waia' (p. 45):^[3]

There are four classes of derived causative verb suffixes, which may be affixed to the end of a preexisting verb root to emphasize a causal relationship. These suffixes are-tate, -te, -rate, and-de. For example, 'ebe' ('wake up') is the progenitor of 'ebetate' ('to wake up (somebody)') (p. 46).[3]

The only class of non-derivational affixes in Maia are possessor prefixes. These prefixes are appended in front of an adjective to indicate the possessor of the noun, as summarized in the table below. The distinction between singularity and plurality is established with a difference in stress patterns.^[3]

These prefixes indicate that an adjective "belongs" to the object being described. In the following example, the prefixu-indicates that the quality of being short belongs to the tree (p. 59).^[3]

These prefixes are also frequently, but not always, appended to verbs to indicate the recipient of an action. Transitive verbs with objects require the presence of such a prefix, while intransitive verbs are more variable. The following example illustrates this (p. 43):[3]

There are a few words in Maia in which two existing nouns are combined to give rise to a new word. This includes compounds such as 'muado nanum': separately, 'muado' means 'man' and 'nanum' means 'woman', but compounding together gives rise to the new meaning of 'people' (p. 41). Similarly, 'kakape' ('bee') and 'yag' ('water') together are the compound word 'kakapeyag' ('honey') (p. 42).^[3]

Full or partial reduplication of nouns in Maia can indicate plurality, a diminutive form of the original word or alternatively, the derived adverb form of the word. The Maia word 'kuvik' ('side') can be repeated as 'kuvik kuvik' to mean 'each side' (p. 41). The word for 'house' is 'dawa' and the word for small house is 'dawadawa' (p. 41). Lastly, an example of the third case is 'riwaro' ('nothing') partially reduplicated into 'ririwaro' to mean 'aimlessly' (p. 41).^[3]

Full or partial reduplication of verb roots indicates an augmentation of the action or indicates a repeated action. Typically reduplication occurs in two different forms: either repetition of only the first syllable or repetition of the entire root. For example, 'gubue' means 'to fold' while 'gugubue' means 'to fold repeatedly', and 'ipua' means 'to peel' while 'ipuaipua' means 'to peel repeatedly' (p. 49).^[3]

Reduplication or partial reduplication of adjectives can serve three different purposes: to indicate augmentation, plurality, or diminishment. An example of reduplication used to express augmentation, repeating the Maia word for 'good' ('lov') changes the meaning to 'very good' ('lovlov'). Reduplication can also indicate plurality, as in the example of 'nanam kani' ('big tree') and 'nanamkanikani' ('big trees'), or 'maia' ('thing') and 'maiamaia' ('things'). Lastly, reduplication can signal the diminutive form of a word, as in the case of 'isav' ('hot') and 'isisav' ('warm').^[3]

Numeral quantifiers utilize a special case of reduplication. Complete reduplication of a number indicates something in succession ('iner' alone means 'two', but 'ineriner' means 'two by two'), while partial reduplication of a number acts as a multiplier ('ininer' means 'double').^[3]

Stress patterns are used to differentiate between 1st and 2nd person singular and plural inalienably possessed nouns. (Maia has some nouns that are inalienably possessed, which include body parts, kinship terms, and position nouns.) For example, ‘my skin’ is /i’ dia/, but ‘our skin’ is /’idia/ (p. 13).^[3]

In transitive clauses, the verb must agree in both person and number with the object. In the following example, the verb for 'divide' must include the third-person-singular marker 'a' to indicate that it applies to a singular object in the third person (the pig):^[3]

In intransitive clauses, the verb must agree in both person and number with the subject. The example below demonstrates that the verb for 'go' must be modified to indicate that it applies to a first-person plural subject:[3]

The non-derivational possessor affixes described above in this section also agree in person and number with the noun they describe.

The basic word order of Maia isSOV for transitive clauses, as illustrated by the transitive sentence example below:^[3]

The basic word order is SV for intransitive clauses:^[3]

For clauses that have both an indirect object and a direct object, the indirect object typically comes before the direct object. The following example, in which 'Kunia' is the indirect object and 'plate' is the direct object, illustrates this:^[3]

The verb phrase in the example above illustrates that the verb + object phrase in Maia is head final, as the verb 'chase' comes after the object 'pig'.^[3]

The example above also demonstrates that the determiner+noun phrase is also head final, as the determiner'ono' ('that') comes after its complement'kani' ('pig').^[3]

The possessee+possessor phrase is also head final, as the possessee 'garden' comes after the possessor 'Mamudia':^[3]

An exception is the complementizer/subordinator+clause phrase, which is head-initial. In the example below,'me maianane' translates to 'because'. This complementizer precedes the rest of the clause.^[3]

Adverbs are placed before the verb in adverbial phrases:^[3]

Adjectives are placed immediately after the noun that they describe:^[3]

• Maia - English - Tok Pisin Dictionary

• Kaukombaran languages
• Languages of Madang Province

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