Mori Bawah Language
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Mori Bawah, also known as Lower Mori or East Mori, is an
Austronesian language The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...
of the Celebic branch. It is one of the principal languages of the Morowali Regency in
Central Sulawesi Central Sulawesi (Indonesian language, Indonesian: ''Sulawesi Tengah'') is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia located at the centre of the island of Sulawesi. The administrative capital and largest city is located in Palu. The provin ...
.


Classification

Mori Bawah is classified as a member of the Bungku-Tolaki group of languages, and shares its closest affinities with Bungku and other languages of the eastern seaboard of Sulawesi, such as Wawonii and Kulisusu. Together, Mori Bawah and the Mori Atas language are sometimes referred to collectively by the cover term ''Mori''.


Dialects

Mori Bawah comprises several dialects. Following Esser, five dialects can be regarded as principal.Esser, S. J
''Phonology and Morphology of Mori''
translated from the Dutch version of 1927-1933 (Dallas: SIL, 2011), pp. 2 ff.
* Tinompo * Tiu * Moiki * Watu * Karunsi’e The Tinompo dialect is highest in prestige. Tinompo was the dialect spoken by the indigenous royal class, and in the first half of the twentieth century it was further promoted by colonial authorities as a standard throughout the Mori area, including for Mori Atas and Padoe.


Phonology

Mori Bawah has the following sound inventory: Only open syllables of the shape V, CV are allowed. Consequently, Mori Bawah is a strictly vowel final-language.


Grammar


Pronouns

Mori Bawah has seven sets of bound and free pronouns:


Agreement

Core
arguments An argument is a series of sentences, statements, or propositions some of which are called premises and one is the conclusion. The purpose of an argument is to give reasons for one's conclusion via justification, explanation, and/or persua ...
(A: subject of transitive verbs; O: object of transitive verbs, S: subject of intransitive verbs) are not marked for
case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...
, but are obligatorily indexed by a pronominal
agreement Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus (disambiguation), a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of ...
marker on the verb. With transitive verbs, A is always indexed by a nominative pronoun, and O by an absolutive pronoun. The indexing of the single argument of intransitive verbs shows
split-ergative In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergat ...
alignment: S is always indexed by a nominative pronoun in future clauses, and also in imperative, negative and certain other dependent types of non-future clauses. In all other cases, S is indexed by an absolutive pronoun.


Voice

Mori Bawah has two valency-reducing voice types,
passive voice A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing ...
and
antipassive voice The antipassive voice ( abbreviated or ) is a type of grammatical voice that either does not include the object or includes the object in an oblique case. This construction is similar to the passive voice, in that it decreases the verb's valenc ...
. If a transitive verb is marked for passive voice with the infix ''<in>'', it becomes formally intransitive, and O (the "object") becomes the S-argument. The original A-argument cannot be mentioned at all. In antipassive voice, the verb takes the prefix ''poN-''. The object can be omitted, or overtly expressed if indefinite; it is however not indexed by a person-indexing pronoun. The original subject of the transitive verb becomes the S-argument in a formally intransitive antipassive clause.


References

{{Languages of Indonesia Bungku–Tolaki languages Languages of Sulawesi