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Kilmeri is a language spoken in Papua New Guinea. It is part of the Border language family and it is spoken in 15 villages bordering the Puwani River outside of Vanimo, the capital of the Sanduan Province. The language is considered threatened as it is used by all generations for communication, but the number of speakers is declining. It was estimated in 1990 that there are between 2,200 and 2,500 speakers of the language. There is evidence of two dialects of Kilmeri: one spoken in the western villages and one spoken in the eastern villages. The Kilmeri people refer to their language as bo apulyo, meaning 'sound in the middle;' there is not a clear reason why the language is called Kilmeri.

Phonology

Consonants

In Kilmeri there are 12 distinct phonemes, however, there are 18 consonant sounds that are possible. In total, there are five places of articulation and there are six manners of articulation. The table below contains all 18 consonant sounds with their manner and place of articulation. The consonants that are placed in parentheses are allophones of certain phonemes that occur in certain positions within a word. The sound [p^w] occasionally appears as the onset of a syllable. The sounds [β] and [ɸ] are allophones of the phoneme /ʙ/, appearing intervocally and at the end of syllables, respectively. The sounds in square brackets are not seen often in Kilmeri. The 12 distinct phonemes include: /p/, /b/, /d/, /m/, /n/, /k/, /ʙ/, /r/, /s/, /l/, /ʋ/, and /j/.

Kilmeri Phoneme Inventory

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosives
Voiced prenasalized	b		d		[g]
Prenasalized with trilled release	ʙ
Voiceless	p					[ʔ]
Labialized	(pw)
Nasals	m		n		k
Rhotic trills			r
Fricatives	(β ɸ)	[f]	s
Laterals			l
Approximates		ʋ		j

Vowels

In Kilmeri there are 8 phonemic vowels. The vowel inventory includes vowels that are front, central, and back. Three vowels are rounded, these vowels are: /u/, /ʊ/, and /ɔ/. The remaining vowels are all unrounded. The vowel inventory is displayed in the table below.

Kilmeri Vowel Inventory

	Near	Central	Near-Back
High	i		u
Near-high	ɪ		ʊ
Mid	ɛ		ɔ
Near-low	æ
Low		a

Syllable Structure

There are 5 distinct syllable structures that are found in the language. Kilmeri allows C and CC onsets, as well as syllables with no onsets. The language allows for single C codas or no coda. Words that have CC onsets have phonotactic restraints that limit what consonants can go together. The pre-nucleus consonant clusters that are allowed include: /br/, /pr/, /kl/, /kr/, /kw/, /sm/, /sn/, /sl/, and /sr/. The syllable structures, examples, and translations are included in the table below.

Kilmeri Syllable Structure

	Example	Translation
V(V)	ai	father
CV(V)	pu	water
V(V)C	ɛl	belly
CV(V)C	rɔp	basket
CCV(V)	srɛ	circle of leaves
CCV(V)C	smɛp	door

The most commonly found syllable structure is CV, and most words are made up of two syllables. Words that contain four or more syllables often include multiple morphemes .

Stress

In Kilmeri stress is primarily found on the penultimate syllable. This rule is followed for words that have either two or three syllables, however, in words with more than three syllables there is a main accent that comes before a second accent. There are also instances where stress is found on the antepenultima or the ultima. An example of stress on the penultimate syllable can be seen in the word [pi.'sɛ.si] meaning 'cut in half.'

Morphology

Kilmeri makes use of affixes heavily to construct meaning in words. The language is synthetic and primarily agglutinating.

Morphonemic Changes

Vowel lowering, assimilation and vowel elision are all examples of morphonemic changes in Kilmeri.

Vowel Lowering

Vowel lowering is found when a suffix beginning with a consonant is added to a phoneme. For example, the phrase for /nakɛ-p/, meaning 'I was staying,' becomes [na.kap] and the mid vowel /ɛ/ becomes the low vowel /a/ in front of the continuous past suffix -p.

Assimilation

Assimilation often occurs in verbs, and is dictated by the suffix(es) that surround the root morpheme. Typically verbs that end in ɛ are assimilated when affixes are added. For example, the root verb for "tie" /lɔlɛ/ assimilates when the prohibitive circumfix k-V-m is added. When saying "don't tie" what would be /k-lɔlɛ-m/ becomes [kɔ.lɔ.lam].

Vowel Elision

Vowel elision emerges in Kilmeri in the form of apocope, syncope, and coalescence.

Serial verbs often have syncope where the last vowel of the first vowel is dropped. For example, /suɛli_pakɛ/ (cut_throw, 'cut through') becomes [suɛl.pa.kɛ].

Apocope appears in fast speech and is commonly used by speakers. The word /ba-ni-kɔ/ (FAC-eat-FAC, 'have eaten') changes to become [ba.nɔk].

Coalescence is found with verbs that are followed by suffixes that begin with vowels, including the conative suffix -or. For example, /juki-ɔr/ (grate-CON, 'try to grate') becomes [ju.kɔr].

Word Classes

The non-functional vocabulary of Kilmeri consists of verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. Verbs and nouns comprise the major word classes in the language with around 800 verbs and 275 nouns. The functional, closed word classes in Kilmeri include: pronouns, quantifiers, deictics, interrogatives, negatives, conjunctions, and particles.

Verbs

Transitive verbs make up the largest class of verbs, followed by intransitive verbs with 299 and 165 lexemes, respectively. Verbal affixes make up the largest morphological class in the language, with suffixes used more frequently than prefixes. In Kilmeri, verbs indicate person and number through morphology.

Kilmeri uses affixation to indicate tense. An example of the durative suffix -nake is provided below:

ruri wo ikoina mopi-nake

child cry much cry-DUR

'The child is constantly crying.'²⁷¹

Nouns

Most nouns in Kilmeri are common nouns and they are primarily used as arguments for verbs. Simple noun phrases consist of a head that can be followed by modifiers.

Case Morphology

The three most commonly used cases in nominal morphology are the possessive case, instrumental-comitative case, and locative-allative case. The less common cases are the PATH related case (used for spatial motion and directions; differs from the locative-allative case), similative case, affinitative case, and vocative case. All of these cases are indicated through suffixes.

Possessive Case

Possession is expressed in Kilmeri through the use of the possessive marker -pi, which is attached to the possessor, as shown below:

sele memi-pi

garden grandmother-POSS

'grandmother's garden'

Instrumental-comitative case

Instrumentality and comitativity are expressed through the same suffix, -no.

The instrumental case is used to express the means by which an action was completed. For example, /dawa-no/ (axe-INS) means 'with an axe.'

The comitative case is used to connect two nouns that are part of a pair and is often used to express family relationships and function. For example, /yuku yako-no/ (man woman-INS) means 'men and women.'

Locative-allative case

The locative-allative case is used to indicate spatial location in phrases. An example is provided below:

sele-yo le

garden-LOC go

'to go to the garden.'

Adjectives

Adjectives are often used as noun modifiers in the language and always follow the head of the clause. The language allows for adjectives to be turned into verbs. The affix -pi (meaning "do, make") transforms adjectives into light verbs as seen in the example below.

rumkari ba-ikoi-pi-ko

girl FAC-big-LV-FAC

'The girl has grown up'

The language does not use comparatives or superlatives. Elative meaning can be expressed when the intensifying suffix -ele is attached to a positive morpheme. For example, "ikoi-ele" means 'very big.'

Reduplication

There is both partial and total reduplication in Kilmeri. Reduplication is used as a way to emphasize an adjective. Below is an example of partial reduplication:

bue moni-ni

salt small-RED

'a very little salt'

Here is an example of total reduplication:

bo sumi sumi

story short short

'a very short story.'

Adverbs

In Kilmeri adverbs can modify verbs and there are temporal adverbs that can either modify verbs or whole clauses. The suffix -na is often used to transform adjectives into adverbs.¹⁰⁵ An example of -na is provided below:

ako ppulae-na nake

wife bad-ADV live

'The wife is ill-behaved'¹⁰⁶

There are also spatial adverbs in the languages such as numuelyo meaning 'far away' (about 1km distance) and popom meaning 'straight.'

Clitics

There are two clitics used in Kilmeri which usually attach to verbs, one is the emphatic clitic =ro and the other is the interrogative clitic =pe.

Emphatic clitic

The clitic =ro occurs frequently on verbs (it can also attach to nouns phrases) and is used to emphasize an activity that is particularly important in a phrase. The clitic is used below to describe animals that were shot while hunting.

uki ko-pi bi dupua lu-we bike lu=ro biep lu=ro

husband 1SG-POSS animal two shoot.PP-DU.O cassowary shoot.PP=EMPH boar shoot.PP=EMPH

'My husband shot two animals, he shot a cassowary and he shot a boar.'

Interrogative clitic

In Kilmeri content questions can feature the clitic =pe, which is connected to the first constituent in the clause. An example featuring both clitics, =ro and =pe, is provided below:

bi ako=ro ponamo ono=pe ki no

meat wife=EMPH give.3SG.OR.PP human.being=Q APH eat.PP

'The meat he gave to his wife; (but) the humans, did he eat them?'

Syntax

Basic Word Order

The basic word order in Kilmeri is SOV, but it can be modified to SV or SOOV based on the sentence. The language is verb final. The only thing that can go after a verb is an adjunct. SV word order is used for intransitive clauses. Additionally, the object argument is not necessary in transitive clauses where the object can be understood from the context. Transitive verbs that have a subject argument and an object argument (either a patient or recipient) follow the SOV word order. Finally, ditransitive verbs that have a subject argument and two object arguments (theme and recipient/goal) follow the SOOV word order. Often clauses will have at least one nominal adjunct (locative, instrumental, or temporal); temporal adjuncts appear before the subject.

Kilmeri Basic Word Order

Word order	Kilmeri	Gloss	Loose translation
SV	yaup moli	hot.water boil	'The hot water is boiling.'
SOV	ko epe mekiye-p	I mother help-PC	'I was helping (my) mother.'
SOOV	Claudia de wo ko powai-p	Claudia you rope I give.1SG.OR-IMP	'Claudia, give the rope to me.'