Geography

The Tifal language is bounded by Papuan and Irian Jaya speakers to the south and west, the Telefomin valley in the east, and the Sepik river to the north.

Orthography

Phonemic	ɑ	ɑː	b	d	eː	f	i	iː	k	l	m	n	ŋ	o	oː	s	t	u	uː	w	j
Lowercase	a	aa	b, p	d	e	f	i	ii	k	l	m	n	ng	o	oo	s	t	u	uu	w	y
Uppercase	A	Aa	B	D	E	F	I	Ii	K	L	M	N		O	Oo	S	T	U	Uu	W	Y

Consonants

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	b	t d		k
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Fricative	f	s
Approximant	w		j
Lateral		l

/b/ is realized as [pʰ] word finally, as [p] in syllable-coda position before a consonant, and [b] elsewhere.

/t/ is realized as [t] in syllable coda before a consonant and [tʰ] elsewhere.

/d/ is realized as [ɾ] intervocalically, e.g. /didab/: [dɪˈɾʌpʰ] 'water container'.

/k/ is [ɣ] intervocalically, [k] in syllable coda before consonants, and [kʰ] elsewhere.

/s/ is realized as [ʂ] before /u/.

/l/ is alveolar adjacent to back vowels and alveodental elsewhere. One dialect realizes /l/ as [r] intervocalically.

Vowels

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Mid	eː		o oː
Open		ɑ ɑː

/o/ and /oː/ rarely contrast.

Vowel allophones

Phoneme	Condition	Allophone	Realization elsewhere
/i/	word-initially and finally	[i]	[ɪ]
/a/		[a]	[ʌ]
/u/		[u]	[ʊ]
/eː/	in open syllables, before /m/, and between /j/ and /p/	[eː]	[ɛː]
/o/	before /n/ or /ŋ/; between /t/ and /k/	[ɔ]	[o]

Phonotactics

Syllable structure is (C)V(ː)(C). The expression kwiin takan 'oh my!' may be an exception.

/d/ only occurs word-initially. /f/ only occurs syllable-initially. /ŋ/ is always syllable-final.

Initial /l/ only occurs in some dialects. Initial /kw/ occurs in two dialects, and may usually be interpreted as C+V.

/w/ and /j/ occur syllable-initially. Only one dialect allows syllable-coda /j/.

Stress

In inflected words stress lies on the last syllable of the verb stem. Otherwise, if there are long vowels stress falls on the first in the word. If all vowels are short, stress falls on the last syllable if it is closed and the first syllable otherwise.

Nouns

Nouns are not inflected but may mark possession. Body parts and kinship terms are obligatorily possessed, and some kinship terms require affixing. On other nouns possession is optional, except for proper names which are never possessed.

Pronouns

Pronoun stems

Person			Basic	Emphatic
1	s		ni-/na-	nala-/nalal-/-nila
	pl		nuu-/no-	nuulu-/nulul-
2	s	m	kab-	kaltab-/kalab-
		f	kub-	kultub-/kulub-
	pl		kib-	kiltib-
3	s	m	a-	ala-/alal-/al-
		f	u-	ulu-/ulul-/ul-
	pl		ib-/i-	iltib-/ilib-/ilal-/il-

Non-emphatic pronouns

Suffix meaning:	Poss. Possessive case The possessive case of a language is a grammatical case used to indicate a relationship of possession. It is not the same as the genitive case, which can express a wider range of relationships, though the two have similar meanings in many languages.See Possession for a survey of the different...	Subj.	Definitive	Inst. Instrumental case The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...	First	with, and, also
Suffix:	-mi~ni	-i~-di	-yo	ta	-siik/-siin	soo/soono

Emphatic pronouns

Suffix meaning:	Poss. Possessive case The possessive case of a language is a grammatical case used to indicate a relationship of possession. It is not the same as the genitive case, which can express a wider range of relationships, though the two have similar meanings in many languages.See Possession for a survey of the different...	Inst. Instrumental case The instrumental case is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the instrument or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action...	'only'	'like, simile'
Suffix:	-mi~ni	ta	-kal	tab

Verbs

Tifal has a rich aspectual system. Verbs may be separated into four groups based on how they transform from continuative to punctiliar aspect

Grammatical aspect

In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...

. Some only have vowel and/or simple stem changes, some have suppletive

Suppletion

In linguistics and etymology, suppletion is traditionally understood as the use of one word as the inflected form of another word when the two words are not cognate. For those learning a language, suppletive forms will be seen as "irregular" or even "highly irregular". The term "suppletion" implies...

 stems, some change compound-final stems, and some which have allomorph

Allomorph

In linguistics, an allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme. The concept occurs when a unit of meaning can vary in sound without changing meaning. The term allomorph explains the comprehension of phonological variations for specific morphemes....

s which add -(a)laa-min (or rarely -daa-laa-min) to the stem.

Verbs also can be divided based on transitivity

Transitivity (grammatical category)

In linguistics, transitivity is a property of verbs that relates to whether a verb can take direct objects and how many such objects a verb can take...

. Some require direct objects, some with optional objects, some with optional locational objects, and a few intransitive verbs.

Order of verb suffixes

verb	ben.	ben.	-laa	tense	person	mood	statement-final marker

Tense and aspect

Most final verbs mark tense, mood, and person, but most verbs can mark aspect and not tense and still be a final verb.

Tense-aspect suffixes

	Continuative	Punctiliar
pres	-b/m1	-d
yesterday past	-m-som/-a-som	-b
dist. past	-a-s
very remote past	-bis	-s
abilitative	1-m-am	1-d-am
near future	1-m-okom	1-d-okom
dist. future	1-m-okob	1-d-okob

1. "initial consonant of the customary or class changing marker is retained"

Tifal sentences are contain inflected verb-root-chains, often with a final fully conjugated verb. One must inflect for the amount of time between one verb in the chain and the next.

Deixis

Marking spacial relation between verbs and their objects is obligatory. "up" must be clarified as either "upslope" or "upstream", "down" as "downslope" or "downstream", and "across" as "across land" or "across a river".

Kinship

Tifal has dyadic kinship terms (terms referring to the relationship two or more people have to each other), which are present in less than 10 languages and not prevalent in Papua New Guinea. However, they are a salient feature of the Ok languages. Related terms are found in Oksapmin

Oksapmin language

Oksapmin is a Trans–New Guinea language spoken in Telefomin District, Sandaun, Papua New Guinea. It has been influenced by the Ok languages , and the similarities with those languages were attributed to borrowing in the classifications of both Stephen Wurm and Malcolm Ross , where Oksapmin was...

, Mian

Mian language

Mian is an Ok language spoken in the Telefomin district of the Sandaun province in Papua New Guinea by the Mian people. It has some 3,500 speakers spread across two dialects: West Mian with approximately 1,000 speakers in around Yapsiei and East Mian with approximately 2,500 speakers in and around...

, and Telefol

Telefol language

Telefol is a language spoken by the Telefol people in Papua New Guinea, notable for possessing a base-27 numeral system.-History:The Iligimin people also spoke Telefol, but they were defeated by the Telefol proper.-Orthography:...

.

Further reading

• Steinkraus, Walter. 1969. 'Tifal phonology showing vowel and tone neutralization.' Kivung 2:1
• Healey, Phyllis, and Walter Steinkraus. 1972. 'A Preliminary Vocabulary of Tifal with Grammar Notes.' Language Data Microfiche AP 5, S.I.L., Huntington Beach, v + 117 pp. ISBN 0-88312-305-3
• Steinkraus, Walter. 1962-63. Manuscripts. SIL, Ukarumpa.
• Boush, Al. 1974-79. Manuscripts. SIL, Ukarumpa.

External links

• PNG Language Resources: Tifal
• WALS - Tifal
• Tifal on globalrecordings.net
• Missionary video in Tifal