Muyu language

Muyu, Moyu, is one of the Ok languages of South Papua, Indonesia.

Based on available resources, linguists divided it to two varieties Kadi (North Muyu) and South Muyu. However according to native speakers, it may be a dialect continuum of 9 mutually intelligible dialects which also include Ningrum and Yonggom. Petabahasa by Indonesia Ministry of Education classified it to three languages, Kadi spoken in Kampung Woropko, South Muyu spoken in Kampung Anggumbit, and Muyu in Kampung Kamka.

The stop consonants are represented orthographically as either voiceless ⟨p, t, k⟩ or voiced ⟨b, d, g⟩ consonants, reflecting the language's allophonic rules.

The typical constituent order of a clause in Muyu is verb final. Role marking of core arguments is largely done through subject agreement on finite verbs, with a small number of verbs also indexing their object, and some verbs displaying verbal number alternations. Nouns lack bound morphology; postpositions, relational nouns, and a multipurpose oblique clitic serve to mark peripheral roles, while core arguments are unmarked by default. Verbs are morphologically complex; in addition to indexing their participants, they also take suffixes indicating aspect and mood, they may be marked for switch-reference, and there are a number of non-finite forms. Complex predicates are frequent in Muyu, including light verb constructions, auxiliary verbs, and multi-verb constructions, where each verb contributes its lexical meaning to express a complex event. Chains of multiple clauses in a row, where all but the final are marked for switch-reference, are frequently used to link multiple events together.

Nouns are morphologically simple. There is a grammatical gender system, in which the two genders are masculine and feminine. Gender agreement surfaces on the verb, where subject and object indexes distinguish masculine and feminine in the third person singular, and on pronouns, where the second person singular also makes a gender distinction. Grammatical gender assignment for humans or animals is based on their sex/gender, while there seems to be no clear pattern for inanimates, and often masculine agreement is used as default even for a feminine inanimate noun. Kin terms behave differently to other nouns; they are the only nouns able to take morphology, a plural -a suffix, and many have two seemingly unrelated forms, based on whether the kin is discussed in relation to a 3rd person, or a 1st or 2nd person; when discussing "his/her/their father", one would use adi, while for "my/your father", emba is used. The infinitive form of the verb, produced with the suffix -i, can be used as a verbal noun.

Personal pronouns distinguish all three persons, and the number singular and plural, while the second and third person pronouns also make a gender distinction. The pronouns may not be used when referring to inanimates.

Adjectives follow the head noun in the noun phrase, or can head a nonverbal predicate, and be intensified by the word kai following them. They can be derived to form inchoative verbs meaning "become (adjective)" with either the suffix -n or -teleb, the first producing a singular verb, the latter a plural verb.

Quantifiers follow the noun, and include numerals and non-numeral quantifiers. Numerals above alopmin "three" are rarely used, and often are also words for body parts, indicative of a body-tally counting system. The quantifiers kadap and timung both indicate a large quantity, "many" or "much", while kumun means "all".