Neverver
Nevwervwer
Lingarak
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	CentralMalekula
Native speakers	560 (2012)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic North-Central Vanuatu Central Vanuatu Malakula Malakula Interior Neverver
Dialects	Mindu Wuli
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lgk
Glottolog	ling1265
Neverver is not endangered according to the classification system of theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Neverver (Nevwervwer), also known asLingarak, is anOceanic language. Neverver is spoken in Malampa Province, in centralMalekula, Vanuatu. The names of the villages on Malekula Island where Neverver is spoken are Lingarakh and Limap.

Neverver is a threatened language, and native languages are protected and secured by the local government that is in charge. Sixty percent of the children are able to speak this language.^[2] However, the dominant languages in the community, such as Bislama, English, and French are pushed to be used within these language communities.^[3] Bislama is the most widely used language within this region. English and French are the two most distinguished languages within this region because they are connected with the schooling system. In the Malampa Province, English and French are the primary languages taught for education. English is used for business transactions within this region and helps generate revenue within the region.^[2] This is due to the fact that before this province gained its independence in 1980 they were governed by the joint French-English colonial rule. Overall, there are only 550 native speakers of Neverver.

Neverver falls under the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian language family (based on comparison of cognates, morphology, phonology and other evidence markers), which is the second largest language family in the world.^[4] There are two dialects of the Neverver language; Mindu and Wuli.^[5]

This articleshould specify the language of its non-English content using{{lang}} or{{langx}},{{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and{{IPA}} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriateISO 639 code. Wikipedia'smultilingual support templates may also be used.See why.(June 2021)

Neverver contains a total of 27consonant phonemes in five distinctplaces of articulation and six distinctmanners of articulation.^[1] A notable feature of Neverver is that some voiced consonants appear only in itsprenasalized form.^[1] Another feature of Neverver's consonants is that some have a contrastivegeminate counterpart: /pː/, /tː/, /kː/, /mː/, /nː/, /lː/, /rː/, and /sː/.^[1] The consonant phonemes are given in the table below using theInternational Phonemic Alphabet (IPA).

Voiced obstruents, including the fricatives/β/ and/ɣ/, and the prenasalized trills/mbʙ/ and/ndr/ are devoiced in word-final position in rapid speech. Among younger speakers, the prenasalized plosives become simple nasals in word-final position.

The plosive/p/ becomes a voiceless trill[ʙ̥] before the vowel/u/.^[6]

Neverver contains a total of eightvowelphonemes, five regular vowels and threediphthongs. However, there is evidence that /y/ and /ø/ are contrastive among older speakers, bringing the total number of vowels to ten for some speakers.^[1] The vowel phonemes are given in the table on the left IPA. A list of diphthongs are also provided in the table on the right along with examples.^[1]

Neverver allows forsyllables with up to one consonant in theonset and in thecoda, including syllables with only anucleus. This means the structure of syllables is(C)V(C).^[1] An example of the possible syllable structures is given in the table below where the corresponding syllables are in bold:^[1]

Stress in Neverver is regular and not contrastive. It generally falls on the singular syllable of monosyllabic words and on the penultimate syllable of multisyllabic words. In compounds, each stem is treated separately so stress is assigned to each following the general stress pattern.^[1] Examples of the assignment of stress in common words are given in the table below.^[1]

Verbs follow a stress pattern that is different from the general stress pattern. In verbs, stress falls on the first syllable of the verb stem, disregarding the obligatory prefix; however, in imperative statements, stress is placed on the subject/mood prefix and on the first syllable of the verb stem. During reduplication, primary stress is assigned to the first instance of the reduplication.^[1] Examples of the assignment of stress in verbs, instances of reduplication, and imperative statements are given in the table below.^[1]

Neverver uses different pronominal and nominal forms. There are three main noun classes: common, personal, and local nouns. There is also another fourth pronominal-noun category which blends features of the Neverver pronominal system with properties of the three major noun classes. There are three pronoun paradigms in Neverver: independent personal pronouns, possessive determiners, and possessive pronouns. Like most Austronesian languages, in Neverver the inclusive/exclusive distinction only applies to the 1st person plural category. Personal nouns in Neverver include personal proper names as well as personal kin terms.

Independent personal pronouns encode basic person and number contrasts. This includes the optionally articulatedi-, which can indicate either a subject or object. Although this initiali- is optional with the pronouns, it is obligatory with the personal interrogative. For example,i-sikh means 'who'. Independent personal pronouns usually refer to animate entities, unless in some particular circumstances such as reflexive constructions. Below is a table showing the independent pronoun paradigm:^[7]

Furthermore, all subjects, both nominal and pronominal, are cross-referenced with a subject/mood prefix which is attached to the verb stem in realis tense. These subject/mood prefixes differ from independent personal pronouns because there is a further dual distinction in addition to the singular and plural distinction. Subject/mood prefixes are also obligatory in all verbal constructions, unlike independent pronouns. Below is a table showing the subject/mood paradigm:^[8]

The table shows that the 3rd person form is irregular.

In Neverver there are gendered pronominal nouns, withvinang expressing a female andmang expressing a male. These can be obligatory modified with a demonstrative or a relative clause. Gender can also be expressed using third person singular pronouns. In Neverver, when there are two human participants involved of different genders, one is expressed with a gender-coded form and the other can be coded with an optional gender-neutralei. The gender-coded form to express a female participant as the grammatical subject of the first clause, is encoded in the subject/mood prefixi-. If the male becomes the grammatical subject in the next clause, this is distinguished with the male pronominal-nounmang. For example:^[9]

In the above example there is a male and female participant involved. The subject/mood prefixi- encodes that the female is the subject of the first clause. When the subject shifts to the male, the pronominal-nounmang is used to show this shift. To show that the female has become the object again, the 3rd person pronounei expresses this.

Prefixes derive possessive determiners in Neverver. Most of these begin with the possessive prefixt-. In Neverver, possessive determiners refer exclusively to human possessors, and a different construction is used to express non-human possessors. Below is a table showing the possessive determiners paradigm:^[9]

Prefixes also derive possessive pronouns in Neverver. Possessive pronouns are made up of a nominalising prefixat- and the possessive prefixt-, which are both attached to the base pronominal morpheme (the independent pronoun). Furthermore, when the nominalising prefix is attached, the possessive pronoun can become the head of the noun phrase by itself. Below is a table showing the possessive pronoun paradigm:^[10]

As the table shows, the 3rd person form uses the suppletedtiti morpheme rather than the independent personal pronoun form. For example,at-t-na means 'mine' andat-titi-dr means 'theirs'.

In Neverver, personal nouns are one of the three main noun classes, along with common nouns and local nouns. These personal nouns can include personal proper names and personal kin terms. Many of the women's personal proper names are traditionally marked with the morphemesle- orli; however, there is no morpheme associated with men's traditional personal proper names. Neverver also has a small set of kin terms that can express family relations as well as other name avoidance strategies.^[11]

The basicword order of Neverver isSVO, including intransitive, transitive, andditransitive verbs.^[1] Examples of sentences with intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive verbs are given below.^[1]

In Neverver, there are a numerous ways to describe possession. The correlation between an object and what matter it is made up of can make a difference in describing possession.^[2] There are seven main types of possession in the language of Neverver. This includes:^[12]

1. Human Possession
2. Inherent possessions without nominal modifier
3. Associative possession with nominal modifier
4. Relative clause without nominal modifier
5. Relative clause with nominal modifier
6. Number relative clause without nominal modifier
7. Number relative clause with nominal modifier

Some examples of possession from Barbour are:^[2]

• Human possession: nida (mother) t-na "my mother"
• Associative possession with nominal modifier: wido (window) an (nmod) nakhmal (house) ang (the) "The window of the house"
• Number relative clause with nominal modifier: nimokhmokh-tro (female old) an (nmod) i-ru (two) ang (the) "the two old women/wives"

Reduplication of words occur in the language of Neverver. They occur in conjunction with verbs in this language. Words are reduplicated by reproducing and repeating the entire word or partially of it.^[4] For example, the word 'tukh' of Neverver means strike, when duplicated to 'tukh tukh' it produces the word for beat.^[2]

Reduplication Constraint One is used within Neverver. This is when a word's prefix being reduplicated follows the constant-verb format.^[2] The table below shows examples of this:^[13]

The most useful process of Reduplication in Neverver is to acquire a stative verb from a verb encoding action. Some examples of this can be seen in the table below.^[14]

There are irregular reduplications within Neverver that do not follow the constant-verb format. According to Julie Barbour, the wordvlem, which means "come", does not follow this format.^[15] It would be implied that the reduplication of this word would ve-vlem. Julie Barbour uses the example sentence "Ari vle-vle-vle-vlem" which translates into "They came closer and closer."^[15]

Negation is a grammatical construction that semantically expresses a contradiction to a part of or an entire sentence.^[16] In Lingarak, negatives typically contradict verb constructions.

Verb clauses in Lingarak are negated using the negative particlesi.^[17] This negative particle always occurs after the verb. Thus, the particle is typically called a post-verbal negative particle. It can be used to negate the following constructions:

• Declarative clause - clauses that are typically used to express statements.^[18]
• Imperative clauses - clauses that are typically used to give commands.^[19] This can be observed in example 15 below.
• Realis mood - a mood of language, where the proposition is strongly asserted to be true and apparent, and can be readily backed up with evidence.^[20] Realis verb forms typically involve the past tense.
• Irrealis mood - a mood of language, where the proposition is weakly asserted to be true, and not readily backed up with evidence. Irrealis verb forms typically involve certain modals.

In example 1 below, a declarative clause in the realis mood has been negated.^[21] The verbi-vu meaning 'go' in third person singular realis mood is negated using the post-verbal negative particlesi.

Similar to example 1 above, the post-verbal negative particlesi is also used to negate the first person singularnibi-kkan meaning 'eat' in example 2 below.[21] However:

• The post-verbal negative particlesi directly follows the verbal construction that it is negating. In this casenibi-kkan. This is important in this example because there are two verbs involved. Sincesi directly followsnibi-kkan, it only negatesnibi-kkan and noti-ver.
• It is also important to notice that the verb that is being negatednibi-kkan, directly precedessi, and thatsi directly precedes the reduced exclamatory particlein. Any part of a sentence that is being negated and occurs after the negated verb construction will occur aftersi in the negated construction. There are however certain exceptions for this as shown in examples 6 to 9 wheresi affixes to form new aspect markers, and also in examples 10 to 13 wheresi occurs with serial verb constructions.

Example 3 below shows another example of negation using the post-verbal negative particlesi.[21] However, in this example it is important to observe that any words (that can take a mood) aftersi in example 3 are written in the irrealis mood. This is another characteristic of negation in Lingarak. When something in the realis mood is negated in Lingarak, then elements following thesi particle will be written in irrealis mood.^[21]

In Lingarak, verb constructions that express the meaning of existence, also known as existential constructions, are treated like other common verbs when being negated.^[17] Thus, to negate the verbtokh in Lingarak which means ‘to exist’, only asi particle is required to follow it as shown in example 4 below.^[21]

This is atypical of Oceanic languages since Oceanic languages typically have special negative existential verbs as shown below in example 5.[22] This example is in Tokelauan which is spoken in Polynesia. In contrast to the Lingarak, Tokelauan uses a verb in the negative form for 'exist' instead of a post-verbal negative particle.

In Lingarak, the aspect of continuity is expressed withmo. When a verb that is occurring continuously is negated, thesi particle is used as an affix and is connected to the end ofmo. Thus, creating a new particlemosi which means ‘no longer’.^[17] This is demonstrated in example 6 below.^[17] Similar to examples 1 and 2 above, the negative particlesi occurs after the verbal construction. (In this caseNimt-uv-uv, meaning 'go'.) In order to express the continuous aspect of the verbNimt-uv-uv,si is affixed into the end of the aspect markermo to formmosi. This now gives the negation the meaning of 'no longer' as shown in the free translation of example 6.

It should also be noted that the affixesmo- and-si in example 6 above are interchangeable in terms of affix order. This is demonstrated in example 7 below.[21] In contrast tomosi in example 6 above,si precedes the continuous aspect markermo to form the continuous negation particlesimo.^[17] Similar to the particlemosi in example 6,simo also has the meaning of 'no longer' as shown in the free translation of example 7.

Similar to the aspect of continuation, the aspect of ‘not yet’ can also be expressed by the particlevas which is short forvasi.[21] This particle is formed by reducing the affixation ofsi onto the particleva. Unlikemo,va in Lingarak is not a free morpheme. Thus, it is inseparable fromsi. Example 8 presented below demonstrates an instances ofvasi.^[21]

A sentence using the reduced form ofvasi which isvas as discussed above, is presented in example 9 below.[21]

In Lingarak, verbs can be strung together to form a single complex nucleus. This is process of compounding two verbs can be analysed as an instance of serialisation.^[23] These instances of verb constructions are typically referred to as serialised verb constructions and also typically behave like a single verb. In this way, they can only have one subject argument, and onesi particle for negation. An example of negating one of these serialised verbs is demonstrated in example 10 below.^[17]

As seen in example 10 above, the serialised verb constructionib-lav-bir, is negated with the post verbal particlesi like all other typical scenarios of verb clause negation in Lingarak.[24] This is because this serialised verb construction behaves like a single verb. However, the placement of thesi particle begins to change when the second verb in the construction begins to play a more prepositional role (rather than verbal) as discussed below.

The formdelivs in Lingarak means 'go around'. However, this verb never occurs independently, but instead will serialise on the end of other verbs to form serial verb constructions. The serial constructions are presented in the table below. However, it is important to note that these serialisations only occur for verbs that have meaning of motion or posture.

Despite the prepositional like meaning ofdelvis_, when serialised with other verbs, the serialised verb construction behaves likeib-lav-bir when being negated by the post-verbal negative particlesi since it is inherently a verb meaning 'go around'. This behaviour is illustrated in example 11 below.^[24]

In addition todelvis, the formsur in Lingarak means 'near', 'along', in some other cases it also means 'by'. When compounded with verbs to create a compound verb construction, the placement ofsi begins to vary when negating these compounded constructions. Likesav delvis in example 11, example 12 is also negated using a post-verbal negative particle after a word with a prepositional like meaningsur.[24]

In contrast to example 12 above, example 13 below places the negative particle betweeni-vlem 'come' andsur. Thus, as stated above,si has broken a compound verb construction. The placement of thesi particle has changed when negating verb constructions which havesur in the position of the second verb of a serialised verb construction. Thus as discussed above, the placement ofsi begins to change when the second verb in the construction begins to play a more prepositional role. It is possible that this inconsistent nature ofsur is occurring becausesur is currently undergoing re-analysis from verb to preposition.[24]

There is also a repertoire of negative verbs in Lingarak. These are presented in the table below.^[21]

These negative verbs are used like other verbs in Lingarak to express negative meaning and do not requiresi for negation of the negative counterparts are used. This can be shown in example 14 below.^[21]

When the post-verbal negative particlesi is used alongside reduplication, negative imperatives and prohibitions can be formed. This is demonstrated in example 15 below.^[25]

The inability to perform an action can also be expressed by usingmosi to negate action.^[25] This is illustrated in example 16 below. In example 16, the function ofmosi is expresses the 'loss of an ability' to perform an action.

Negative 'if' conditions can be constructed using the post-verbal negative particlesi in conjunction with reduplication^[25] andbesi (meaning 'if) as shown in example 17 below.

Numbers one through nine follow a quinary pattern. It can either possess realis or irrealis mood and polarity of a main clause.

Below is a table showing the numerals, one through nine. A key characteristic of Neververs numbering system is associated with definiteness.^[26]

Numbers in the form of ten or greater take on the form of a noun rather than a verb, as shown in the table below:^[27]

Clear cut numbers greater than ten contain the term 'nangavul nidruman':^[28]

• Malekula languages
• Languages of Vanuatu

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