Mavea
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Mavea Island
Native speakers	34 (2008)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic North-Central Vanuatu North Vanuatu Espiritu Santo Mavea
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mkv
Glottolog	mafe1237
ELP	Mavea
Mav̋ea is classified as Definitely Endangered by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger
This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.

Mavea (also renderedMav̋ea,Mafea orMavia) is anOceanic language spoken onMavea Island in Vanuatu, off the eastern coast ofEspiritu Santo. It belongs to theNorth–Central Vanuatu linkage ofSouthern Oceanic. The total population of the island is approximately 172, with only 34 fluent speakers of the Mavea language reported in 2008.^[1]

There are 94 languages in the North Vanuatu linkage, including Mavea. The closest linguistic relative to Mavea, sharing a little over 70% of cognates, isTutuba. Following Tutuba,Aore, South Malok,Araki, andTangoa are the next closest relatives.^[2]

Mavea is a moribund language and there are many factors as to why this is.

One factor would be the arrival and Christianization by theSeventh-day Adventist andChurch of Christ missionaries in 1839. Only 16% of the population can speak Mavea. These native speakers of Mavea belong to Generation 1, 2, and 3^{[further explanation needed]} which ranges from the ages of 20–80 years old. Those born after 1980 ("Generation 4") are less fluent. Commonly, this generation is not taught the language, because the language is inactive and not used in any new domain.^[2]

Mavea is not used very commonly outside of the home; in particular, it is not used in school, which reduces the younger speakers' exposure to the language. Most speakers do not feel concerned with the possible loss of the Mavea language.^[2]

Bislama, the nationallingua franca of Vanuatu, is used more frequently. This creole is the first language for many people in Vanuatu who live in the city. It is used for business, religious sacraments, politics, and is seen as a way to move upward in society.^[2]

Mavea has 15 consonants and 8 vowels. The extra vowels are recent developments; they are not indicated in the orthography.^[2]

Plosives in Mavea are not aspirated.^[4]

Linguolabial consonants are represented using the corresponding labial consonant with adouble acute accent on top:p̋[t̼];v̋[ð̼];m̋[n̼].^[2] (This is a slight variation compared with the convention, shared by other Vanuatu languages, of transcribing linguolabials usingtwo dots, respectively asp̈;v̈;m̈.)

Theretroflex[ɖ] is represented in the orthography asd.

There are both free and boundpronouns. Free pronouns are common in many Pacific languages. These free pronouns do not change for gender, but shows numerical differences, including singular, plural, dual, orpaucal.^[2]

For example:

• /mo/ = he/she/it (third person singular subject)
• He eats taro. = /mo-an pete/

Proper nouns includes personal names,vocatives, relational terms, andlocatives. They do not proceed anarticle and can not be used with adeterminer. To show gender distinction, males use the prefix /mol-/. For females, the prefix /vo-/ or /va-/ was added.^[2]

Similar to the proper nouns, there are both bound and freecommon nouns. Both can be used in an argument, be quantified with a marker, be modified with a determiner, be the head of a relative clause, and be questioned with "who" or "what". Bound common nouns are separated into nouns of kinship, body parts, bodily functions, and whole part relations. Also showspossessives.^[2]

Verbal predicates are marked with a subject agreement prefix. There areintransitive verbs,transitive verbs,ambitransitive,ditransitive, andauxiliary.

Intransitive verbs are used when the subject has no direct object receiving the action.^[2]

There are two kinds ofadverbs: phrasal adverbs andsentential adverbs. Sententail adverbs take up the entire sentence and appear after or before the verb's core argument. For example: to show frequency, /te pong/ meaning "sometimes" is used as a sentential adverb.

Spatial adverbs are used to show the location of the speaker and the direction the speaker is speaking towards. For example:konaro means "here, at speaker's location." This is common in many Pacific languages.^[2]

Mavea shows partialreduplication in its grammar. Reduplication is used to show emphasis. For example:sua means "to paddle" andsuosua means "to paddle intensely". Sometimes when using reduplication, the vowels can change. Usually the "a" changes to "o" or "e".^[2]

Adjectives can only be used asnoun modifiers. There both adjectives as independent lexical items and also adjectives pulled from transitive verbs by using reduplication. For example:pulua is "paint" and "ima pulpulu" means "painted house".^[2]

There are sevenprepositions in Mavea.

There are four attesteddemonstrative pronouns in Mavea:aro,nel(e), maro, andmale.^[5]Aro andnel(e) can also function as demonstrativedeterminers, andaro specifically only rarely appears as a pronoun,^[5] as in:

Maro ('this one') is used to refer to something nearby the speaker, and has theplural formmaror,^[5] which is formed byaffixing the pluralsuffix-re:^[6]

Male ('that one') on the other hand is used when speaking of something that is distant to the speaker,^[5] both literally, as in

And metaphorically, in order to distance the speaker from thereferent,^[6] as in

Malere is the plural form ofmale,^[5] and likemaror is formed by affixing the plural-re:^[6]

Maro andmale are both formed by combining thecomplementizerma- and a locativeadverbial;aro for the former, andale for the latter.^[6]

In addition to demonstrative pronouns, Mavea also has three demonstrative determiners:nele, (a)ro, andnor(o),^[8] although of these onlynor(o) is not attested as a pronoun in addition to its role as a demonstrative determiner.^[5]

The three-way demonstrative system common to Oceanic Languages^[9] is not present in Mavean demonstrative determiners,^[8] occurring instead in the locative adverbs of the language.^[10] The demonstrative determiners of Mavea encode both spatial and temporal proximity to either the speaker,^[8] as in  

or to the discourse, as in

The plural formsneler(e), ror, andnoror are formed by affixing what is likely a reduced form of the plural wordre.^[11]

Nele, along with its plural formneler(e), is formed in part by the specific definitearticlele.^[11]

Nor(o), and its plural formnoror, is actually made up in part by a cut down form of the third demonstrative determiner,(a)ro, whilenele is not.^[11] Interestingly, the two demonstrative determiners which containaro, that isnor(o) and(a)ro itself, are also the two demonstrative determiners which serve double duty as demonstrative pronouns,^[5] in addition to being used as locational adverbs, a function never assigned tonel(e)(re).^[11]

Additionally, one of the other demonstrative pronouns,maro, also hasaro as one of its constituents.^[6]

Demonstrative determiners can refer to a location in both time and space, but the spatial location is often discourse-related, rather than speaker-related,^[11] as in the following example, wherearo is used to referanaphorically to a party (anana) that has previously been mentioned in the text:

This use is sometimes called the "tracking use".^[11]Ror, nor(o)(r), andnelere all also have anaphoric uses, as displayed in the following examples, where thenoun phrase referents occurring prior to the demonstrative have each been mentioned previously:^[12]

The demonstrative determiners of Mavea follow the head noun when usedadnominally, a pattern which is the norm in oceanic languages, though by no means universal.^[9] Examples of this include:

Locative adverbs are a class of sentential adverb, modifying entire sentences, and as such occur either subsequent to the verb's core argument,^[13] as shown in:

Or more rarely prior to the verb's core argument, as shown in:

There are two sets of locative adverbs in Mavea,^[13] all members of which serve as spatialdeictics. There is the A-set, so named because all of its members begin with [a], and the K-set, so named because each of its members begins with [ko]. They form a six-way system based on proximity to the hearer, and to the speaker, as well as relative direction (up, down, or across)^[13]

Atisi(vo),atisa, andatiṽa, as well as their K-set equivalentskonatisi(vo),konatisa, andkonatiṽa, are likely derived from the formatu (orkonatu for the K-set), compounded with a movement verb likesi(vo) ('go down'),sa ('go up'), orṽa ('go'):^[10]

'Soon after I felt something touching my leg here.'

Speakers can emphasise the distance in the formsatisi(vo),atisa, andatiṽa, as well as their K-set formskonatisi(vo),konatisa, andkonatiṽa by producing them with a long [t], e.g.: [a.'t:i.si].[10]

There is no easily discerniblesemantic difference between the A-set and the K-set, however some members of the A-set may also serve as demonstratives,^[15] as in:

which is not attested in any member of the K-set.

The spatial and temporal adverbsaro,aine, andkon(a)ro, as well as the demonstrative determinernor(o), can be juxtaposed with a noun in order to form an adverbial predicate,[7] as in

'The third one (is) here, the fourth one (is) here.'

Personal pronouns in Mavea do not inflect forcase orgender, but do shownumber (singular, dual, paucal, plural). First person non-singular has aninclusive/exclusive distinction. Independent personal pronouns are notobligatory, but are used for emphasis, contrast or focus.^[16]

Bound pronouns are obligatory at the beginning of a predicate phrase. Only 1SG and 3SG inflect formood.^[17]

The Mavea counting system is very similar to other Oceanic languages, especially numbers 1 through 5, and 10.^[2]

1. tea
2. rua
3. tol(u)
4. vat(i)
5. lima
6. marava
7. rave rua
8. rattol(u)
9. rappat(i)
10. anavul(u)

Mavea distinguishes direct and indirect possession. Direct possessive constructions nouns take a bound possessiveclitic. On the other hand, indirect possession is expressed by the presence of a classifier to which a possessive clitic is suffixed.^[20]

Direct possession is expressed by a possessive clitic attached to the noun when the possessor is not expressed as a Noun Phrase (NP). Alternatively, if no suffix exists for the person and number of the possessor, the nouns are followed by an independent pronoun.^[20]

The semantic classes of nouns participating in direct possessive constructions, include, body parts, and bodily functions, kinship terms, articles of clothing, and household goods.^[20]

A noun, which is directly possessed, takes a possessive clitic matching the possessor's features.^[21]

For example:

and

This third person singular possessive clitic, pronounced as [na], is suffixed to the noun 'Laloa' for 'saliva'.

If a full NP expresses the possessor, the possessee takes the construct suffix –n, or can be pronounces [na], although this construct suffix is a homophony of the possessive clitic –n and –na the distribution is different as displayed in the following examples;^[21]

Note that the case of Full NP, the possessee precedes the possessor

and

Possession is recursive, in the following example, the noun 'vulu' which is possessed by the noun 'vanatu' which in turn is possessed by John, therefore both nouns a suffixed with –[n].

Nouns in indirect possession constructions do not take a possessive clitic, they require a classifier to which a possessive clitic (or construct suffix) is attached.^[21]

There are six classifiers in Mavea:

1. a- 'to be eaten'
2. ma- 'to be drunk'
3. no- 'general possession, valuables'
4. pula- 'anima raised, vegetable planted'
5. sa- 'housing and land'
6. madoue- 'a dead man's possession'^[23]

classifier "a-" infers that the item is possessed is meant to be eaten

If the possessor is a full NP, the classifier is market with the construct -n

Summarised

^[25]

Intonation is used to distinguish yes–no questions because there is no syntactic way to do so. There are alsotag questions which uses the negative tag /te modere/ at the end. In English, /te modere/ means "or not".^[2]

Some monoclausal content questions include:

• ape = where
• ingese = when
• ise = who
• ivisa = how much/many
• matai = for what reason
• matan = why
• sa = what
• sava = which/what kind?
• se = which
• sur sa = about/for what

Sentential negation is expressed with the bound prefix /sopo/ and appears right after the subject agreement prefix.^[2] The order is subject → negation → verb.

Sometimes /sopo/ can be shorten to /po/.

When the subject agreement marker is absent, the bare negation marker jumps to the front.

To show the aspectual meaning "not yet", /lo/ is added to the negation marker /sopo/. This refers to events that have not happened yet but are likely to in the future. Added to the end of this form of negation is /pa/ which means "still" or "yet".

When combined with /me/ the negation changes into "not anymore, no more".

Equative clauses are shown by adding the negative marker /sopo/ to the subject marker for third person singular /mo-/.Mosopo meaning " it is/was/not."

Negative locational predicates are similar to equative clauses, by adding the locational marker /na/ to the equative clause /mosopo/.

• Guérin, Valérie (2011).A Grammar of Mavea: An Oceanic Language of Vanuatu(PDF).Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications, No. 39. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i press. p. 424.ISBN 978-0-8248-3639-9. Retrieved12 April 2021.
• Guérin, Valérie (2008).Discovering Mavea: Grammar, texts, and lexicon. Honolulu: Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics, University of Hawai'i press.
• Gunter, Senft (2004).Deixis and demonstratives in Oceanic languages. Australian National University, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. p. 179.ISBN 0-85883-551-7.OCLC 902361921.

• Presentation of Mavea by Valérie Guérin.
• Mavea resources at theEndangered Languages Archive (ELAR)
• Mavea-English-Bislama Dictionary

• Espiritu Santo languages
• Languages of Vanuatu
• Definitely endangered languages

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