Pronouns and person markers In Biak
pronouns and
articles are morphologically related, with both situating a given participant by indicating their relative discourse or spatial (e.g. directional or motional) status. This is not uncommon for Austronesian Languages. Pronouns in Biak are marked for
number and
clusivity. Free personal pronouns in Biak share their main distributional properties with nouns; however, they are somewhat more restricted. They can be used as a complement of a predicate or preposition but they cannot be used as subjects. In the example below, the use of the first-person personal pronoun can be seen to complement a verb, while the second example shows how a free personal pronoun, in this clause third-person , cannot be used as a subject: {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(1) {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(2)
Pronominal affixes In Biak, pronominal affixes can combine with verbs in three possible inflection patterns (given in the table below), which are partly phonologically conditioned. The presence of a subject noun phrase in the same clause is optional. Thus the following sentence is still grammatical without NP Rusa nanine, while the verb has a pronominal affix that gives the same information. {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(3) These pronominal markers are person markers and are found in the final position of the noun phrase they determine. They attach to verbs along with a specifier that attaches after the pronominal affix; due to their distribution properties these markers should be considered clitics. There are two specificity markers, and , where can be used in all positions and is restricted to positions before pauses. In the example below the article attaches to the verb , rather than the verb because it is the final verb in the noun phrase headed by . {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(4) Nonspecificity, which refers to entities that do not yet exist in this world, or is used to question or deny the existence of an entity, is marked with the articles for singular and for plural noun phrases. This is shown in the examples below: ; Non-specific {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(5) ; Specific {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(6)
Demonstratives Biak has identical forms in
adnominal and
pronominal demonstratives, which is common in
Austronesian languages. In Biak, demonstratives can be used as part of complex
articles containing demonstrative roots and also motion markers and directionals. Complex articles, however, do not have both a directional and a motion marker. The table above restricts person-SPC to 3SG marker for an explanation, but 3SG marker can be replaced (DU), (TR), and (PL.AN) or (PL.INAN). Also, it is important to note that the corpus contains no example of complex articles containing both a directional and a motion marker. Furthermore, and are used as allomorphs of and , respectively, but attested in article-final position only. In Biak, the relationship between the third-person
pronouns and demonstratives are unrelated to demonstratives, which is uncommon in Austronesian languages. However, Biak follows the worldwide trend in terms of the relationship. Moreover, depending on the speaker's relative distance, Biak has three-way distance contrasts of adnominal demonstratives, which is common in Austronesian languages. The comparison is restricted to only adnominal use because some languages do not express the same distance contrasts in adnominal and pronominal demonstratives. If a complex article contains a demonstrative, the demonstrative is preceded by person-, as illustrated by and , respectively. Also, in the below examples, situational use of demonstratives is shown. {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(7)|glossing3=yes|abbreviations=SPC:specific {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(8)|glossing3=yes|abbreviations=SPC:specific The
paradigm for complex articles sets the basis for
deictic nouns, predicative pronouns, and locative-existentials.
Deictic nouns Deictic nouns are formed by applying the formative 'place' at the position preceding demonstratives, as illustrated by 'place-back-over.there' and 'place-here.' {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(9)|glossing3=yes {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(10)|glossing3=yes|abbreviations=SPC:specific The situational use of demonstratives is seen in (9). On the other hand, (10) shows 'this' as the situational use of demonstratives and 'here' as the anaphoric use of demonstratives.
Predicative pronouns Predicative pronouns are formed by using the
inflected predicative is 'PRED' at the position otherwise occupied by the marker of givenness an. This is illustrated by '3SG.PRED-SPC-this' in both (11) and (12). {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(11)|glossing3=yes|abbreviations=SPC:specific {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(12)|glossing3=yes|abbreviations=SPC:specific In (11), it depends on the context whether situational or anaphoric use of the demonstrative is. Situational use of the demonstrative is given in (12).
Locative-existentials Locative-existentials is different from predicative pronouns because they do not possess a specificity marker, which is illustrated by '3SG.PRED-over.there'. {{interlinear|lang=bhw|number=(13)|glossing3=yes|abbreviations=SPC:specific In (13), the use of the demonstrative depends on the context. == Semantics ==