The Meyah grammatical system is not highly complex, but it does have a greater number of verbal inflections than its East Bird's Head neighbors. Meyah is a SVO language with person-number agreement on possessed nouns and verbs. Alienable nouns are generally marked by the fossilized alienable noun class marker m- as in: mek 'pig', meg 'tree', mod 'house*. Adjectives and inalienable noun stems can function as predicates in that they can take the same person-number, aspect, and mode inflections that verb stems take and can be negated by sentence final negative gum 'not': di-en- eteb [dineteb] guru 'iSG-DUR-large not' (I am not big). Adjectival stems function attributively following noun heads. However, verbs do not function attributively. Meyah does have a rather complex morphophonemic system involving coalescence between prefix vowels and stem vowels. The prefixes indicating person-number, aspect, mode, and instrument are all (CV) structures. Meyah verb, adjective, and inalienable nouns stems have an ^The data in this text was collected under the auspices of a cooperative agreement between SIL International and the Department of Social Affairs, Republic of Indonesia. ^Government organized population centers. ^Mansibaber is a derogatory name used by Biak/Numfor language speakers. initial vowel limited to /e. a, o/. When a person-number prefix is attached to one of these stems, its final vowel coalesces with a front or back vowel [-Low] of the stem or intervening prefix. The resulting vowel then becomes [+High Front] or [+High Back] as in (1-2). (1) bi-et [bit] bl-en-et [binet] bi-e-n-t [bint] bi-em-et [bimet] 2SG-eat 2SG-DUR-eat 2SG-PERF-eat 2SG-M0D-eat You eat. You are eating. You have eaten. You might eat. (2) di-ofij [dufij] di-en-ofij [dunofij] di-o-m-fij [dumfij] di-em-ofij [dumofij] iSG-help iSG-DUR-help iSG-PERF-help iSG-MOD-help I help. I am helping. I have helped. I might help. The vowel -a is dominant and does not coalesce. Therefore, if the stem vowel is -a, the prefix vowel is elided, and if the prefix vowel is a-, then the stem vowel is elided as in (3). (3] Bi-agot [bagot] Na-ofij [^Qfij] 2SG-speak iDU.INC-help You speak. We two help. The time of an event is indicated through the use of temporal adverbs that usually occur initially in the sentence as in (4), but can occur at the end. Verbal inflections include durative en, perfective aspect infix -N- (nasal), inceptive aspect e;'-, modal em-, and instrument er- as illustrated in (4-6). (4) Monog di-em-eJQ jah Manokwari tomorrow 1 SG-MOD-go to Manokwari Tomorrow I might go to Manokwari. (5) BuQ bi-n-t mat insa ke-uma you 2SG-PERF-eat food ANA NOM-that S/he had eaten that food. (6) Era meiteb er-of mega use machete INST-fell tree S/he uses a machete to fell the tree. Meyah uses a three term system for demonstrative and spatial deixis. The deictic stems are prefixed by nominalizer ke- or adverbializer si- as in (7). (7) ke-if [kef] 'this' si-if [sif] 'here' ke-uma [koma] 'that' si-uma [suma] 'there' ke-unj [konj] 'that yonder' si-unj [sunj] 'there yonder' The uninflected stems in (7) function as clitics attaching to nouns or prepositions such as: (8) a. orka meic-if eker gij mod-uma bring ladle-this sit in house-that S/he brings this ladle. S/he sits in that house. b. ojuj-if eja jah-uma descend-here go to-there 72 S/he descends here. S/he goes there. Meyah locative deictic constructions include demonstrative and locative adverb stems that denote elevational orientation to the deictic center such as: (9) ke-imba this below^ si-imba there belov^ ke-inda this above si-indQ there above Movement toward or aw^ay from the deictic center is indicated by en *come' and eja 'go', as in (10). When these stems function adverbially they remain unmarked as 3SG. (10) Di-ecira jah mei okoka ke-imba eja 1 SG-travel to river okoka NOM-below^ go I travel going (aw^ay) to Okoka river village dov^n below. "N ISSN 0126 -2874 NUSA LINGUISTIC STUDIES OF INDONESIAN AND OTHER LANGUAGES IN INDONESIA VOLUME 47, 2000 STUDIES IN IRIAN LANGUAGES PART II Edited by GER P. REESINK