b'pwaipwaia lubulabudry earth (classifier optional) vb stem -peula to be strong adj-papeulastrong(no pl form, but classifier may occur) kai ke-papeulastrong timber Class 3 adjectivebwaina good (no classifier, no plural form) gwadi bwainaa good child gugwadi bwainagood children The components of a noun phrase usually occur in the order stated above, but reordering is common when a speaker who wishes to foreground a part of the phrase puts it first. It is rare to find a noun phrase with all four components present. Classifiers Classifiers are a feature of Kiriwina speech which dominates nominal expression.Although classifiers do not stand as free forms, yet they must occur to show the various semantic domains the speaker recognises in his world view.Only a brief survey is possible here. There are about 150 classifiers, the number varying slightly in different dialects. They may be categorised as follows: 1.Six are basic property specifiers (to-, na-, kai-, ya-, kwai-, pila 2 -).This basic group specifies items on the basis of their human or animal nature, or on their thickness, rigidity, simplicity or complexity. 2.About 30 subclassifiers more precisely delineate the fields of the six basic property specifiers, for example dividing human-ness into three categories (adult male, adult female and child). 3Nine classifiers specify items on the basis of the way they have been acted upon in fields such as gardening, fishing or food preparation. 4Forty-eight classifiers distinguish things which have been divided in some particular way - topographically, partitively (body divisions, sharing goods, etc). 5Finally, 56 classifiers distinguish things which have been grouped in some particular way (inherent arrangement of family groups, bundles, heaps, coils, rows, etc.). Most classifiers are historically derived from nouns or other morphemes with lexical meanings. In the dictionary classifiers could be entered as subheadwords under the headword from which they are derived. However, they have a clear functional difference from these historically related forms. While classifiers are essential in the noun phrase as a core component of most modifiers, their relationship with the head noun in that phrase is determined by the semantic feature of the noun which the speaker chooses to focus on. There is no morphological relation between a head noun and its classifier, so that the semantic domains can only be determined by usage attested by text citations. For this reason all classifiers are entered as headwords in their own right, acknowledging their status as a major word class.Where there is a morphological similarity between a classifier and another lexeme this is noted as information in the entry for that lexeme. Thus kai (n3) tree, timber is a headword and within this entry kai (cl) long/rigid item occurs as a subentry showing its morphological relation, but the reader is referred to the separate entry for kai (cl) where the semantic domain of the classifier is specified and examples of it use are given.23'