Omati River

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

The Omati River family, also known as Turama-Omatian, is comprised of three or four closely-related languages spoken along and around the inland reaches of the Omati and Turama Rivers in the westernmost portion of Papua New Guinea's Gulf Province (Franklin 1973: 263-267.) Its members are quite similar to one another, approaching mutual intelligibility (Petterson 2011: 4.)

The internal classification of Omati River is as follows:

Omati River

Barikewa

Kaser-Mouwase

Kaser

Mouwase

Johnston (1919-1920: 119) 130 comparative terms for Karima (Mouwase) of Kibeni village

Johnston (1921-1922: 166) 126 comparative terms for Barika (Barikewa) of Asanu village

Saunders (1923-1924: 57) 118 comparative terms for Dugeme (Dukemi Kaser)

Franklin ed. (1973: 573-575) 100 comparative terms for Ikobi-Kairi (Kikori River) and Mena varieties of Kaser and for Omati (Mouwase)

Petterson (1991) 190 comparative terms for Barikiwa (Barikewa) of Iba village

Petterson (2011) phonology of Turama River Kaser of Koumaio village

Petterson (2011) dictionary of Kaser

Petterson (2014) Kaser verb morphology

Carr (2006) 190 comparative terms for Barikewa or Kaiam village, Kaser of Koumaiou and Mowase of Gibidai

In addition to these, a survey vocabulary of Kaser was provided in spreadsheet form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics Ukarumpa, but it is unattributed. It is not the same as Franklin's or Carr's data.

[under construction]

Proto-Omati River had at least 11 consonants and 7 vowels as follows:

….

Only a limited set of consonants occurs finally:

Phonologically, Omati River dialects can be divided into two groups, those in which final consonants are very common, and those in which they are not allowed, and an epenthetic vowel is appended to erstwhile consonant-final roots to avoid them. This division crosscuts that between languages, for example Carr's Barikewa of Kaiam village has many final consonants but Petterson's Barikiwa of Iba often appends a vowel, while in both Petterson's and Carr's Turama River Kaser of Koumalou has final consonants, as does Franklin's Ikobi-Kairi dialect, but Franklin's Mena and both Saunder's and Petterson's Dukemi (Dugeme) dialects regularly append vowels. Mouwase is most consistent in this respect, but also employs and alternate strategy in which final consonants are sometimes lost altogether. In none of these cases is it clear that this final vowel is phonemic. These epenthetic vowels are relatively recent in origin and reflect the influence of the neighboring Kiwai and Inland Gulf languages, which disallow final consonants.

…

In addition to the simple vowels above, … diphthongs are found as follows:

Nasalization is contrastive, but is difficult to reconstruct because it is preserved only sporadically in Kaser. For example, /*isĩ/ “eye” is not directly attested as such, but nasalization is indicated by outcomparison to Lake Kutubu /*[i]hĩ/ and possibly in the Kaser compound /sĩ-guin/ “star”.

Tone is contrastive, but has not been indicated in the protoforms below.

Initial consonants correspond as follows:

Medial consonants correspond as follows:

Final consonants correspond as follows:

Vowels and vowel sequences correspond as follows:

These correspondences are exemplified as follows, with Barikewa attestations drawn from Petterson (1991) and Carr (2006 ibid.,) Kaser from Carr (2006) and Petterson (2011 ibid.) and Mouwase from Carr (2006) and Petterson (2014 ibid.) unless otherwise indicated. Abbreviated sources are as follows: [hj] = Johnston (1919-1920: 119, 1921-1922: 166), [hs] = Saunders (1923-1924: 57,) [kf] = Franklin ed. (1973: 573-575.) Petterson's Kaser and Mouwase forms are phonemic; all other sources including Petterson's Barikiwa are survey vocabularies.

For clarity, our presentation is divided into four sections, beginning with initial and medial consonants, followed by final consonants, then vowels, then vowel sequences and diphthongs.

Initial and medial bilabial nasal /*m/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Initial and medial apical nasal /*n/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Initial apical voiceless stop /*t/ is voiced to /d/ in Barikewa and fricated and deoccluded to /h/ in Kaser and Mouwase:

When /*t/ is followed by /*s/ in the onset of the next syllable or root-finally, the expected reflex /h/ is dropped in Kaser and sporadically in Mouwase:

In one example, Barikewa initial [h] indicates a loan from Kaser:

Medial /*t/ is lenited to non-stop [ɾ], as it is in Lake Kutubu:

Velar voiceless stop /*k/ is only found intially, where it is retained as such in Kaser and Mouwase and dropped in Barikewa:

Initial bilabial voiced stop /*b/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Root-medial /*b/ is lenited to [β] in all dscendants. This is synchronically viewable as /w/, because medial [b] /*b₂/ is well established in loans (below,) there is otherwise no trace of Omati River medial /*w/, and because neighboring inland Gulf languages typically occlude medial but not initial /*w/:

Medial [*b] in native words indicates a compound or reduplication. It is sometimes realized as voiceless [p] in Petterson's Barikiwa and Mouwase:

Here root-medial [b] indicates a loan from Inland Gulf or Kiwai:

…:

Initial apical voiced stop /*d/ is devoiced to /t/ in all descendants:

… /*d₂/ …:

:

…:

…:

…:

Velar voiced stop /*g/ is devoiced to /k/ in all descendants. Initially, /*g/ much more common than /*k/:

Inital and medial bilabial fricative /*ɸ/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Initial and medial fricative /*s/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Bilabial non-stop /*w/ …:

Palatal non-stop /*j/ occurs only root-initially, where it is occluded to apical /r/ [ɾ] in Mouwase:

The only known example of medial /*j/ is likely a reduplication:

Only a restricted set of consonants occurs finally ….

Final bilabial nasal /*m/ is found only following non-front vowels /*u * ɔ *aᵘ *a/. It is reflected as apical /n/ in Barikewa. …:

…:

Final /*n/ …:

Final /*t/ …:

Final /*b/ is lenited to [β] …:

When final /*b/ occurs in the first member of a compound, Mouwase unexpectedly reflects it as /h/, joining the reflex of Omati River initial /*t/ (above):

…

Final /*ɸ/ …:

Final /*s/ …:

Like Rumu (q.v. Petterson 1992,) Proto-Omati River distinguished seven vowels, /*i *u *e̝ *o̝ *ɛ *ɔ *a/.

High front vowel /*i/ is retained as such in all descendants:

High back vowel /*u/ is retained as such in all descendants:

High mid front vowel /*e̝/ is often heard as high front [i] Barikewa and Kaser and has merged with /i/ in Mouwase:

High mid back vowel /*o̝/ is often heard as high back [u] in Barikewa and Kaser and has merged with /u/ in Mouwase:

When /*o̝/ follows low central /*a/ in a previous syllable, Petterson gives Kaser /u/ alongside /o/:

When /*o̝/ is followed by a low mid vowel /*ɛ *ɔ/ in the next syllable, it is retained as such in Kaser and lowered to low mid /ɔ/ in Barikewa and Mouwase:

… /o̝/ …:

Low mid front vowel /*ɛ/ is retained as such in all descendants:

In several examples in which Mouwase has /ɛ/ following /a/ in a previous syllable, Barikewa and Kaser reflect /*ɛ/ as /a/. This is not exceptionless (cf. /*damɛ/ above) and the factors which govern this change are unkown:

Low mid back vowel /*ɔ/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Low central vowel /*a/ is generally retained as such in all descendants, unless followed by high vowels /*i *u/ (below):

Mouwase raises and fronts /*a/ to low mid /ɛ/ when followed by high front /*i/ in the next syllable:

There is one unexplained exception:

Mouwase raises and backs /*a/ to low back /ɔ/ when followed by high back /*u/ in the next syllable:

In one example, Mouwase raises /*a/ followed by /*u/ to /u/, probably because it is destressed in a compound:

… vowel sequences and diphthongs ….

…/*ɛⁱ/ …:

… /*aⁱ/ …:

… /*aⁱ/ …:

… /aᵘ/ …:

In one example …:

… /*aᵋ/ …:

…:

… /*uⁱ/ …:

…:

… /*ia/ …:

… /*ui/ …:

… /*ua/ …:

… /*o̝a/ …:

… /*ɛɔ/ …:

In one example …:

…: