Amele language

Amele
Sona
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Madang Province
Native speakers	(5,300 cited 1987)[1]
Language family	Trans–New Guinea Madang Croisilles linkage Mabuso? Gum Amele
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aey
Glottolog	amel1241

Amele (Amele: Sona) is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea. Dialects are Huar, Jagahala and Haija.

Amele is notable for having 32 possessive classes,^[2] over 69,000 finite forms and 860 infinitive forms of the verb.^[3]

Phonology

Amele has 5 vowels: /i, ɛ, æ, u, ɔ/.^[4]

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Stop	voiceless		t		k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d		g
Fricative		f	s	ʝ		h
Approximant			l

Grammar

Amele has seven tense-aspect categories, including four past tenses:^[5]

• past habitual
• remote past
• yesterday’s past
• today’s past
• plus present
• future
• relative future

References

1. Amele at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. "WALS Online - Chapter Possessive Classification".
3. Anna Siewierska, Jae Jung Song (1998). Case, Typology and Grammar: In honor of Barry J. Blake. Amsterdam: John Benjamin B.V. p. 112. ISBN 90-272-2937-6.
4. Roberts, John R. (1987). Amele. London: Croom Helm. ISBN 0709942540. OCLC 14132880.
5. Pawley, Andrew; Hammarström, Harald (2018). "The Trans New Guinea family". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 21–196. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.

External links

• Alphabet and pronunciation