Adang is a Papuan language spoken on the island of Alor in Indonesia. The language is agglutinative. The Hamap dialect is sometimes treated as a separate language; on the other hand, Kabola, which is sociolinguistically distinct, is sometimes included. Adang, Hamap and Kabola are considered a dialect chain. Adang is endangered as fewer speakers raise their children in Adang, instead opting for Indonesian.
Phonology
Consonants
Notes: Post-alveolar [t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ, ɲ] are palatalized versions of their alveolar counterparts [t, d, n] and occur when following a diphthong ending in high front vowel [i]. The [i] has been deleted in some cases, resulting in new minimal pairs contrasting alveolar and post-alveolar variants. The extent of this sound change differs between speakers and Robinson and Haan only consider [d͡ʒ] to have become a fully separate phoneme. Because it is the result of a process limited the syllable coda, this new phoneme only occurs syllable-finally. In certain dialects /l/ is deleted following a diphthong ending in [i]. /g/ occurs in syllable-initial position, but the only cases in which it does syllable-finally are onomatopoeic forms. /s/ only occurs syllable-finally in loanwords. /f/ never occurs in syllable-final position.
Vowels
Diphthongs are /ai/, /oi/, /eu/, /au/ and /ou/. Vowel sequences that begin with a lax mid vowel (i.e. /ɔ/ or /ɛ/) cannot be diphthongs and are always disyllabic.
Phonotactics
Adang syllable structure is (C)V(C). V can either be a monophthong or a diphthong. C can be almost any consonant. Exceptions are /f/, which never occurs in syllable final position, and /d͡ʒ/, which only ever occurs in final position. /s/ and /g/ only occur syllable-finally in specific categories of words (i.e. loanwords and onomatopoeic words, resp.).
Grammar
Syntax
Clauses in Adang are predicate-final: intransitive verbal predicates have Subject-Verb order and transitive predicates follow Agent-Patient-Verb order. In ditransitive constructions the theme precedes the recipient. Adang has accusative alignment. Some sentence examples:
A nominal predicate also follows the subject (note that Adang does not use a copula):
Negation
A clause is negated by placing negator nanɛ or nɛnɛ after the predicate. Besides nanɛ there are two negative particles: ʔɛ and haʔai. ʔɛ is used to limit the scope of negator nanɛ by placing ʔɛ in front of the negated element. In this case nanɛ must still succeed the predicate:
Nanɛ may also be used on its own for rules or general prohibitions. Alternatively, ʔɛ at the end of a clause expresses a negative imperative (without nanɛ). Compare:
To make a negative imperative more polite add haʔai to the beginning of the sentence. Lastly, the verb aʔai negates existence or possession.
Questions
Adang question words are anɔ ‘who’, naba ‘what’, tarɔ ‘where’, tarɔni ‘how/why’ and den ‘how many/when’. They remain in situ. Depending on whether they replace a subject or an object they can be followed by the subject focus marker so or the object focus marker fe.
Yes–no questions are distinguished from declarative sentences by rising intonation on the last syllable.
Nouns
The structure of the Adang noun phrase:(possessor + possessive.pronoun) N V CLF V numeral quantifier REL DEM/DEF (Robinson & Haan 2014:242)
Determiners and demonstratives
A demonstrative or the definite determiner ho is placed at the end of the noun phrase. The demonstrative paradigm shows a distinction between proximal (hɔʔɔ) and distal, and distal demonstratives further distinguish between location above the speaker (hɛtɔ), below the speaker (hɛpɔ) and level with the speaker (hɛmɔ).
Possession
Nouns are divided into three classes according to their behavior concerning possession: the first class must with occur possessive pronominal prefixes at all times (inalienable), the second never occurs with possessive pronominal prefixes and instead uses independent possessive pronouns (alienable), and the third only occurs with possessive pronominal prefixes when possessed. The prefix sets of the first and third classes are different. Next to the independent possessive pronouns of alienable nouns, Adang has a set of contrastive possessive pronouns. These may occur before or without alienable pronouns, and also together with possessive prefixes. They can also occur without a possessed noun.