Ewage-Notu

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Ewage-Notu is spoken by 12,000 people (1980) living within five miles of the coast between Bakumbari and Pongani in Papua New Guinea's Oro (Northern) province. The language is called Notu around Oro Bay and Ewage elsewhere (Parrington 1980: 22, Parrington and Parrington 2009: 3.)

Strong (1910-1911: 211-213) 97 comparative terms for Okeina (Pongani and Okein villages)

Beaver and Chinnery (1914-1915: 164-166) 166 comparative terms for Yega

Wilson (1969: 80-81) 35 comparative terms for Notu

Farr and Larson (1978: 5-11) 102 comparative terms for Notu

Parrington and Parrington (1974) Notu-Ewage clauses

Parrington (1980) Ewage demonstratives

Parrington (1994) sketch phonology of Ewage

Parrington and Parrington (2009) Notu-Ewage grammar (n.b. the date of this manuscript as provided by the Summer Institute of Linguistics is suspect)

Parrington (1994) gives 19 consonants and 5 vowels for Ewage as follows:

Vowels are further distinguished by the presence vs. absence of nasalization:

Prenasalized velar stop /ŋg/ is realized as [ŋ] initially and as [ŋg] medially.

Non-stop /w/ <w v> is realized as bilabial voiced fricative [β] when followed by front vowels /i ɛ/.

Apical non-stop /ɾ/ is be realized as [ɾ r l] in free variation.

As Parrington's nasal vowels occur only word-finally, where they are indicated as orthographic <n>, while prenasalized stops /mb nd ndz/ occur only medially, Parrington's prenasalized series might be thought reducible to a nasalized vowel followed by a plain voiced stop /b d dz g/. This would not however explain initial occurences of Parrington's /ŋg/ (historically /*ɣ/_Ṽ/.) This confusing situation arises from Oro's prenasalization of preceding non-stops /*w *ɾ *j *ɣ/ along with following voiced stops /*b *d *dz *g/. Parrington's system may be significantly simplified by positing a phonemic velar nasal /ŋ/ which occurs only initially, as is Larsen and Larsen's (1977: 20) analysis of Orokaiva. This would eliminate three phonemes and a prosody at the cost of an allophony which lacks historical justification. However, the placement of nasalized vowels in such an arrangement would not always be authentic.

Vowel sequences occur freely and are not distinguished from diphthongs.

Neither final consonants nor consonant clusters occur.

Stress is placed on the first syllable and is not phonemic.

Parrington and Parrington (2009: 56-57) give Notu-Ewage pronouns in five case forms as follows:

(n.b. Parrington and Parrington give /na-mɔ/ as 1 sg. comitative.)

Additionally, two first person plural inclusive forms are given, which are combinations of the above: nominative /i-ŋgɔ-dɛ na/ (2 pl. com.+ 1 sg.) and possessive /i-ŋgaɛ na-sɔ/ (2 sg. com. + 1 sg. poss.) No dual forms are given as in other Oro languages.

There are only three pronominal roots /na i u/, undifferentiated by number. These reflect Oro /*na *ni *nu/, hence the prenasalization of following voiced stops in singular comitative /-ŋgaɛ/ and plural augment /-ŋgɔ/. Loss of Oro initial nasals is common, but sporadic and unpredictable.

Suffix /-nɛ/ in the singular agent forms is probably to be equated with Oro /*-ne/ emphatic.

In all conjugations, verbal subjects are indicated by suffixes as follows (q.v. Parrington and Parrington 2009: 40-53):

There is no distinction between first person and third person plurals.

These subject suffixes follow tense markers (below) and are followed by indicators of mood:

Parrington and Parrington give desinences for final (independent) indicative verbs in six tense forms as follows:

Final hortative forms are given as follows:

Different subject medial (dependent) forms are given as follows:

Same subject medial forms are given as follows: