| Makalero | |
| States: | East Timor |
| Region: | Timor Island, eastern end around Baucau and inland, west of Fataluku, from northern to southern coast in a dialect chain. |
| Coordinates: | -8.65°N 156°W |
| Speakers: | 8,000 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| Familycolor: | Papuan |
| Fam1: | Trans–New Guinea ? |
| Fam2: | West Bomberai ? |
| Fam3: | Timor–Alor–Pantar |
| Fam4: | Eastern Timor |
| Minority: | East Timor |
| Iso3: | mjb |
| Glotto: | makl1245 |
| Glottorefname: | Maklere |
| Map: | Makalero.png |
| Mapcaption: | Distribution of Makalero mother-tongue speakers in East Timor |
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.
The data in this section are from Huber (2017).
Makalero has five vowel phonemes. Most long vowels occur in predictable contexts; thus Huber argues long vowels are marginal phonemes at best.
| Close | pronounced as /i/ (pronounced as /i:/) | pronounced as /u/ (pronounced as /u:/) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid | pronounced as /e/ (pronounced as /e:/) | pronounced as /o/ (pronounced as /o:/) | ||
| Open | pronounced as /a/ (pronounced as /a:/) |
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.
Makalero has 11 native consonant phonemes.
| Plosive | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Trill | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| Lateral | pronounced as /link/ |
All information in this section is from Huber 2011.
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.
Content words must be bimoraic, unlike function words, which may be monomoraic.
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.
In the following example, ani is the subject and rau-rau is the complement.
| 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 |
LNK1:linker 1RED:reducedNSIT:new situationRDL:reduplicantBD:bound form