Belait language

Classification

Belait is related to the Miri, Kiput and Narum languages of Sarawak. It is considered part of the Lower Baram subgroup of North Sarawak languages.

Dialects

There are four mutually-intelligible dialects of Belait. These are spoken in two main regions:

• In the villages of Kuala Balai and Labi
• In the Kiudang subdistrict of Tutong Two distinct dialects of Belait – Metting and Bong – are spoken within the Mungkom village, Kiudang. There are very few speakers of any of the dialects.

Phonology

General references on Belait phonology include Martin (1990) on Metteng Belait and Noor Alifah Abdullah (1992) on Labi Belait. This sketch is based on the Metteng dialect (Clynes 2005). Other dialects may vary in their phonology and lexicon.

Consonants

Vowels

Metteng Belait has five monophthong vowels . There is one diphthong .

The phoneme is realised as in non-final syllables, and as and in final syllables.

Syllable structure

Lexical roots are disyllabic. Final syllables are typically (C)V((C)C). Non-final are typically ((C)C)V(C).

Grammar

Word classes

The major word classes in Belait are verbs and nouns. The two classes can be distinguished by their distribution, form and function. For example, verbs are negated with the form (e)ndeh and nouns with the form kay':

| pra'yeh nga' salit, ndeh ana' umaw' padi | rainDIST already be.hard, NEG able AV.make paddy | 'The rain has become hard, [we] are not able to grow rice'|lang=beg}}

| kad macim blabiw, '''kay'''' blabiw | tarsier like rat NEG rat | 'The tarsier is like a rat, but it is not a rat'|lang=beg}}

There are also several closed functional classes:

• Pronouns
• Prepositions
• Classifiers
• Numerals
• Modals and aspectuals
• Deictics (including demonstratives)

Basic clause structure

Belait is head-initial. This means that head nouns precede possessors and other modifiers. They also precede relative clauses. Most clauses consist of a predicate and a subject. The subject can either follow or precede the predicate. Hence, word order is flexible.

| padingyeh lassaw' | swordDIST hot | 'The sword was hot'|lang=beg}}

| nengngay'nyeh padingyeh lay' mi' dile' | UV.throw3S swordDIST to at sea | 'He threw the sword into the sea'|lang=beg}}

Predicates can be Verb Phrases (VP), Noun Phrases (NP) or a Prepositional Phrase (PP). Non-subject arguments of a verbal predicate occur immediately after the verb.

Verbal predicates

The head of a verbal predicate is the verb. There are two main types of verbs in Belait: intransitive and transitive. Intransitive verbs only have a single subject argument. They do not have any voice morphology on the verb. In contrast, transitive verbs occur in two different voices: Actor Voice (AV) and Undergoer Voice (UV). The two constructions are illustrated below:

AV:actor voice UV:undergoer voice | idih unnah kuman salang | people before AV.eat charcoal | 'The people before [first ancestors of the Belait] ate charcoal'}}

| brejin kinanlew abey' | durian UV.eat3P complete | 'The durian was all eaten up by them'}}

In the AV construction in (5) the subject is the Actor, i.e. idih unnah 'the people before'. In the UV construction in (6) the subject in the Undergoer, i.e. brejin 'durian'. In both cases, the subject comes before the predicate. The undergoer voice typically has perfective semantics. The actor voice tends to be used in other contexts.

References

References

1. Martin, Peter W. 1995. 'Whither the indigenous languages of Brunei Darussalam?' ''Oceanic Linguistics'' 34:44–60
2. Blust, Robert. 1997. 'Ablaut in Western Borneo'. ''Diachronica'' XIV:1–30.
3. Clynes, Adrian. 2005. 'Belait'. In Nikolaus P. Himmelmann & Alexander Adelaar (eds.) The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar. Abingdon: Routledge.
4. Martin, Peter W. 1990. ''Notes on the Phonology of Belait''. Unpublished MS.
5. Noor Alifah Abdullah. 1992. Struktur bahasa Belait. Unpublished BA Thesis, Department of Malay Language and Linguistics, Universiti Brunei Darussalam.