Veraüa, also known as Vatrata, is an Oceanic language spoken on the western coast of Vanua Lava Island, in the Banks Islands of northern Vanuatu.
Veraüa was described in 2011 by linguist Stefan Schnell.
The language Veraüa is named after the village where it is spoken. This village is known locally as Veraüa . The alternate form Vatrata , from Mota, is occasionally used. Other cognates include Vurës and Mwesen Vetrat , and Lemerig . These names ultimately reflect a protoform *òaturata in Proto-TorresâÂÂBanksâÂÂliterally "flat stone": *òatu "stone" (< *) + *rata "flat" (< *rataR < ).
According to recently recorded oral local history, Vanua Lava was struck by a major earthquake and landslide in 1945 that devastated gardens and hamlets on its north-west coast, as a result of which the Veraüa community abandoned its previous settlements and resettled to its current main center of residence, the village of Veraüa (Vatrata). Veraüa is located about 4 km from the village of Vetuboso, the largest settlement on Vanua Lava that is inhabited mainly by speakers of the closely related language Vurës.
Together with speakers of Veraüa, speakers of the now moribund language Lemerig moved to the village of Veraüa. Lemerig is remembered by many residents of Veraüa, but is no longer used in everyday communication. It is likely that the now de facto loss of the Lemerig language is the result of natural disaster and subsequent resettlement movements.
Veraüa has 7 phonemic vowels, which are all short monophthongs:
There is no stress in Veraüa, although the effects of metaphony and vowel reduction must have preceded its loss.
Veraüa is unique within the local languages of Vanua Lava in that a Proto-TorresâÂÂBanks final vowel is retained as an echo vowel (either a, ÃÂ, or à Â) if it is lower than the preceding vowel, or both the final and preceding vowels are *a. Examples include *òula "moon" > vulà  and *òanua "island" > vunuà  . However, they can be syncopated phrase-medially, as in *òanua laòa "Vanua Lava" > Vunulava .
In Veraüa there are two types of possessive constructions recorded, that of direct possessive constructions and indirect possessive constructions. Similar to other Oceanic languages, the distinctions between directly and indirectly possessed nouns in Veraüa appear to generally correspond to the semantic distinctions seen between inalienable and alienable possession.
In both direct and indirect possessive constructions there are a further three construction sub-types based on the expression of the possessor. The three types of possessor constructions are as follows:
In order to express the possessor as a pronoun, possessive suffixes are used. Stefan Schnell reports that they "are considered pronominal in nature because they have specific, definite referents and inflect for the same categories as personal pronouns."
In Veraüa, direct possession primarily expresses inalienable or inherently given relationships.
These types of relationships can be seen through expression of:
Direct possessive constructions consist of the possessum, that of which is being possessed, and the possessor. This structure tends to follow a possessum-possessor order. The possessum is expressed as a bound noun while the possessor can be expressed as either:
The bound noun possessum will take one of these three possessor constructions as shown below:
In summary the constructions can be described as follows:
Indirect possessive constructions primarily express alienable possession, that is a possession that is more easily terminated. The possessor is not directly expressed on the possessum noun, rather the possessor is expressed on a possessive classifier. This construction results in the possessum and the possessor being less morphologically dependent on one another. Consequently, this construction allows for the possessor to appear in different positions syntactically and for the possessor to be able to form a standalone NP with the possessum NP being omitted from speech.
Indirect possessive constructions are divided further into two types, labelled Indirect Possessive Construction Type 1 and Type 2 respectively. In addition to both types, indirect possessive constructions also have several different functions, those being the anaphoric/generic use of a classifier (elided NP), the adnominal recipient construction and recipient / beneficiary construction. The different functions of indirect possessive constructions are further explained in Stefan Schnell's A Grammar of Veraüa: an Oceanic language of North Vanuatu, chapter 6.
In an indirect possessive construction, the possessum is a free noun and the possessor is hosted by a possessive classifier which mediates the syntactic relation between the possessed and possessor. There are eight possessive classifiers that each express their own respective function and the types of relations that indirect possessive constructions express.
In the Indirect Possessive Construction Type 1, the possessive classifier is expressed as a bound morpheme with the possessor being expressed as either:
The possessive classifier will take one of these three possessor constructions as shown below:
In summary the constructions are as follows:
In an Indirect Possessive Construction of Type 2, the possessive classifier precedes the possessed noun. The result of this, is that the possessive classifier and the possessum form a complex NP. The possessor is exclusively expressed by a pronominal possessive suffix.
In summary the construction is as follows: