====== Bulum River ======

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

===== Situation =====
The Bulum River family consists of two closely-related language, Borong, also known as Kosorong, and Somba-Siawari, also known as Burum-Mindik, spoken south of the Cromwell range from the Bulum river valley in the west to the Kua river in the east and south to the confluence of the Bulum and Mongi rivers in Papua New Guinea's Morobe province Its nearest linguistic relatives are the Mongi River languages to the northeast (McElhanon 1967: 5-6, Suter 2018: 6, q.v. p. 4.)

===== Subclassification =====
The internal classification of Bulum River is as follows:\\
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Bulum River

Borong

Somba-Siawari

Siawari

Somba\\
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Burum (Somba) and Mindik (Siawari) were treated as different languages in McElhanon (1967,) but are nowadays considered to be dialects of a single languge.\\
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McElhanon (1967: 6-9) gives lexicostatistical figures between Kosorong (Borong,) Mindik (Siawari) and Burum (Somba) as follows:

|< - 80px 80px 80px 80px >|
|        |  Kosorong  |  Mindik  |  Burum  |
|Kosorong|    ---     |   42.1   |  37.1   |
|Mindik  |    42.1    |   ---    |  73.6   |
|Burum   |    37.1    |   73.6   |   ---   |

===== Sources =====
Pilhofer (1927-1928) comparative morphology for Somba

Pilhofer (1928-1929) 290 comparative terms for Bulum (Somba)

McElhanon (1967: 34-43) 140 comparative terms for Kosorong (Borong,) Mindik (Siawari) and Burum (Somba)

McElhanon (1968) 1,438 comparative terms for Kosorong, Yakŋe (Siawari) and Burum

McElhanon and Voorhoeve (1970) 67 Trans New Guinea comparisons include examples from Kosorong, Burum and Mindik

McElhanon (2012) 1,993 comparative terms for Yakŋe, Burum and Kosorong

Olkkonen (1982) phonology of Burum (Somba)

Olkkonen and Olkkonen (1983) grammar of Burum (unobtained)

Olkkonen (1985) phonology of Burum

Olkkonen (1987) Somba-Siawari orthography (unobtained)

Olkkonen (1990) Somba-Siawari clitics

Olkkonen (1994) sketch phonology of Mindik

Olkkonen (2000) phonology of Borong

Olkkonen and Olkkonen (2000) grammar of Borong

Olkkonen (2001) sketch phonology of Borong

Olkkonen and Olkkonen (2003) dictionary of Somba-Siawari (unobtained)

Olkkonen and Olkkonen (2004) dictionary of Burum-Mindik

Olkkonen and Olkkonen (2007) dictionary of Somba-Siawari

Smith (1988) Morobe counting systems (unobtained)

Suter (2018) comparative Pindiu grammar including (pp. 43-51) Pindiu object-marking verbs and (pp. 182-188) Pindiu desinences

===== History of classification =====
**[under construction]**\\
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===== Historical phonology =====
**[under construction]**\\
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Proto-Bulum River had … consonants and … vowels as follows:\\
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…\\
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… initial consonants …\\
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|< - 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px >|
||Bulum River|Kosorong |Borong  |Burum    |Yakŋe    |Somba-Siawari|
||           |McElhanon|Olkkonen|McElhanon|McElhanon|Olkkonen     |
||***…**     |****     |****    |****     |****     |****         |
||*…         |         |        |         |         |             |


… medial consonants …\\
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…

|< - 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px >|
||Bulum River|Kosorong |Borong  |Burum    |Yakŋe    |Somba-Siawari|
||           |McElhanon|Olkkonen|McElhanon|McElhanon|Olkkonen     |
||***…**     |****     |****    |****     |****     |****         |
||*…         |         |        |         |         |             |


… final consonants …\\
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…

|< - 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px >|
||Bulum River|Kosorong |Borong  |Burum    |Yakŋe    |Somba-Siawari|
||           |McElhanon|Olkkonen|McElhanon|McElhanon|Olkkonen     |
||***…**     |****     |****    |****     |****     |****         |
||*…         |         |        |         |         |             |


… vowels and diphthongs …\\
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…

|< - 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px >|
||Bulum River|Kosorong |Borong  |Burum    |Yakŋe    |Somba-Siawari|
||           |McElhanon|Olkkonen|McElhanon|McElhanon|Olkkonen     |
||***…**     |****     |****    |****     |****     |****         |
||*…         |         |        |         |         |             |


===== Pronouns =====
**[under construction]**\\
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===== Verbal morphology =====
**[under construction]**\\
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===== Loans to and from neighboring languages =====
**[under construction]**\\
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