Makalero

Makalero or Maklere is a Papuan language spoken in the Lautém district of East Timor. It was previously considered to be a dialect of Makasae, but is nowadays seen as a separate language, both by its speakers and linguists.^[1]

Makalero
Native to	East Timor
Region	Timor Island, eastern end around Baucau and inland, west of Fataluku, from northern to southern coast in a dialect chain.
Native speakers	8,000 (2017)[1]
Language family	Trans–New Guinea ? West Bomberai ? Timor–Alor–Pantar Eastern Timor Makalero
Official status
Recognised minority language in	East Timor
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mjb
Glottolog	makl1245
Distribution of Makalero mother-tongue speakers in East Timor
Coordinates: 8°39′S 126°30′E

Phonology

The data in this section are from Huber (2017).^[1]

Vowels

Makalero has five vowel phonemes. Most long vowels occur in predictable contexts; thus Huber argues long vowels are marginal phonemes at best.

Monophthong phonemes

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i (iː)		u (uː)
Mid	e (eː)		o (oː)
Open		a (aː)

Syllables are commonly CV; some are CVC. Epenthetic vowels are often inserted between series of two consonants, and echo vowels are often added to the end of phonological phrases.

Consonants

Makalero has 11 native consonant phonemes.

Consonant phonemes

	Labial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p	t	d̠	k	ʔ
Fricative	f	s
Nasal	m	n
Trill		r
Lateral		l

Grammar

All information in this section is from Huber 2011.^[2]

Lexical Categories

Makalero does not have a definitive noun/verb distinction. Nearly all content words can be heads of NPs as well as predicates. In the following examples, isit can be a predicate or a nominal.

asi-atupusi

1S:POSS-belly

hai

NSIT

nomo

NEG

isit

ill

^[2]: 98

 

asi-atupusi hai nomo isit

1S:POSS-belly NSIT NEG ill

'my belly did not hurt anymore'

Ki-isit=ee

3:POSS-ill=DEF

hai

NSIT

k-ua-misa

3:UND-on.top:RED-go.up

^[2]: 98

 

Ki-isit=ee hai k-ua-misa

3:POSS-ill=DEF NSIT 3:UND-on.top:RED-go.up

'His illness got worse' (lit. went up on top)

Content words must be bimoraic, unlike function words, which may be monomoraic.

Valency

Makalero has only avalent verbs and divalent verbs. There are no trivalent verbs; instead, biclausal constructions are used.

The avalent verbs are adverbial verbs such as atanana 'first,' hana’e 'a long time ago,' aire’ 'now,' kamunei 'tomorrow,' mu’it 'for a long time,' raine’ 'last night,' and tone’ 'maybe.'

Divalent verbs allow for a subject and either an object or complement.

In the following example, Kiloo is the subject and ani is the object.

Kiloo

3S

ani

1S

pase

beat

^[2]: 143

 

Kiloo ani pase

3S 1S beat

'He beat me'

In the following example, ani is the subject and rau-rau is the complement.

Ani

1S

mei=ni

take=LNK1

rau-rau-kena

RDL-good-see:BD

^[2]: 143

 

Ani mei=ni rau-rau-kena

1S take=LNK1 RDL-good-see:BD

'I see it very well'

Numerals

1	unu	11	ruu resi nu
2	loloi	12	ruu resi loloi
3	lolitu	13	ruu resi lolitu
4	faata	14	ruu resi faata
5	lima	15	ruu resi lima
6	douhu
7	fitu
8	afo
9	siwa
10	ruru-u