Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute
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The Central Morehead River family consists of five languages spoken …
Names for Central Morehead River languages are drawn from the terms meaning “just, only” in each respective language (q.v. Carroll ed. 2015.)
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Proto-Central Morehead River had 19 or 20 consonants and 10 vowels as follows:
| *m | *ɳ | *ŋ | |||
| *t̪ | *ʈ | *tʃ | *k | *kʷ | |
| *mb | *n̪͜d̪ | *ɳ͜ɖ | [*ndʒ] | *ŋg | *ŋgʷ |
| *ɸ | *θ | *ʂ | |||
| *w | *ɽ | *j |
| *i | *ʉ | *u | |
| *e | *ə | *ɵ | *o |
| *æ | *ɐ | *ɒ |
Like Bensbach River to the west but unlike Arammba to the north and Nambu to the east, Central Morehead River has no plain voiced stops, as proto-Morehead's plain voiced series has merged with the voicless row, leaving a contrast between only plain and prenasalized stops.
Central Morehead River has two series of apparant affricates, [*ts *ndz] and [*tʃ ndʒ]. The first of these reflects retroflexed stops, which are likewise affricated in several East Morehead River languages. The second arises from the palatalization and devoicing of Proto-Morehead River velar plain voiced stop /*g/, which is invariable, and the apparently vowel-conditioned fronting of prenasalized /*ŋg/, an areally-driven change shared with the central and southern members of East Morehead River. These two series are distinguishable in Anta and Wérè, where the retroflexes are merged with apicals in a trend shared with Arammba and Bensbach River (but not Warta Thuntai) while the latter are reflected as [tʃ] and [s] respectively. The other Central Morehead River languages have merged the two sets.
Retroflexed non-stop /*ɽ/, while very common medially and finally, is found initially in only one (apparently) native free nominal, /*ɽ uŋg/ “pig.” Otherwise, it is found only in verb stems, where it is most typically prefixed, in a few interrogatives, and in loans.
Only a very small number of roots have initial vowels. Each of these is demonstrably a loan or is suspected to be one. Proto-Morehead River had no initial vowels.
Phonetic diphthongs [*eⁱ *æⁱ *ɐⁱ *æᵘ *ɐᵘ] are found, but only in a handful of roots. As most these occur in open final syllables, and there are otherwise no final glides /*w *j/, we interpret these as sequences /*Vw *Vj/.
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