A Descriptive Study of Nouns in the Helong Language

This study presents a descriptive analysis of nouns in the Helong language, specifically the Helong Semau dialect spoken in Otan Village, South Semau District, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Helong is an endangered Austronesian language with a small and declining number of native speakers, making grammatical documentation crucial for preservation efforts. The research aims to identify the types of nouns in Helong and to describe their syntactic structures and functions within simple sentences. A qualitative descriptive research design was employed. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, narrative elicitation, and translation tasks with native speakers of the Helong Semau dialect, selected using purposive sampling. The collected data were transcribed, translated, and analyzed using morphological and syntactic classification procedures. The findings reveal that Helong nouns can be classified into six types: abstract nouns, concrete nouns, proper nouns, collective nouns, compound nouns, and singular/plural nouns. Abstract nouns are systematically marked by the obligatory prefix in-, which functions as an abstract nominalizer attached to adjectives, verbs, or concrete nouns. Concrete nouns refer to tangible objects and carry no morphological marking for concreteness. Proper nouns are invariant across languages and require no auxiliary verb. Plural nouns are formed by full reduplication of the singular form. The study concludes that Helong possesses a regular and productive noun system with clear morphological marking for abstractness and plurality, contributing to the documentation of an endangered language and to Austronesian morphosyntax research in eastern Indonesia.