Samo

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Samo is spoken by approximately 600 people (1977) living in the lowlands east of the Strickland river, between the Cecilia river to the north and the lower Nomad and Rentoul rivers to the south, in Papua New Guinea's Western province. According to Shaw, Samo, as the central point in a dialect chain, is mutually intelligible with all other Strickland River languages (Shaw 1973: 193, Voorhoeve 1975: 391, Shaw and Shaw 1977: 97.)

Shaw (1973: 204-213) grammar sketch of Samo

Franklin (ed. 1973: 564) 99 comparative terms for Samo

Shaw and Shaw (1973) Samo locations (unobtained)

Shaw (1974) Samo kin terms (unobtained)

Shaw (1975) Samo kin terms (unobtained)

Shaw and Shaw (1977) phonology of Samo

Shaw (1986: 72) 100 comparative terms for Samo

Voorhoeve (1975: 391-392) grammar notes including phonemic inventory and pronouns for Samo dialect of Nomad

Anonymous (2011) sketch phonology of Samo-Kubo (Supei-Kubor)

Shaw and Shaw (1977: 98-99, ibid.) give 12 consonants and 6 vowels for Samo as follows:

Vowels are further distinguished by the presence or absence of nasalization:

Medial voiceless stops /t k/ are uncommon, appearing primarily in compounds and in loans. Root-initial /t k/ may be realized as voiced [d g] when appearing medially in a compond.

Fricative /f/ is specified as labiodental.

Fricative /s/ is realized as fronted alveolar [s̪] when followed by high vowels /i u/ and as alveolar [s] when followed by mid and low vowels /e o ɔ a/.

Initial bilabial non-stop /w/ has not been found followed by high vowels /i u/. Medially, /*w/ is never followed by /u/.

Medial apical non-stop /l/ is realized as nasal [n] when both preceded and followed by a nasalized vowel and as lateral [l] elsewhere. Initially, it is found only as nasal [n] and is always followed by a nasalized vowel. Thus, an apical nasal exists, but is not recognized as such within Shaw and Shaw's phonemic structure. This situation reflects the merger of once distinct sounds /*n *l/, at which time /*l/ did not occur initially. Initial /l/ has not been found to be followed by rounded high back vowel /u/.

Any consonant can occur initially or medially. Neither final consonants nor consonant clusters occur.

Any vowel can occur initially, medially or finally.

In addition to the simple vowels given above, a number of diphthong-like segments are found. Shaw and Shaw designate these as vowel sequences, but their coocurrence is restricted. These can be divided into two types which might be designated as rising or falling, depending upon whether the quality of the first vowel is higher or lower than that of the second.

Those of the first type are designated by Shaw and Shaw as glides or “close knit sequences.” Here a lower vowel [a ɔ] is followed by a higher one [i u e]. These share some similarities to genuine sequences in that either element of the diphthong can carry nuclear stress, but function rhythmically and receive the same timing as simple vowels:

Those of the second type begin with a higher vowel [i u o] and are generally followed by a lower one, excepting sequences of two high vowels [iu ui]. Thus, high mid back vowel [o] may be followed only by [ɔ a]. In this type of diphthong, stress always falls on the second member.     Shaw and Shaw's rounded high back vowel /u/ has an unusual allophone which is described as retroflexed [ụ] and is found only as the first member of sequences /uV/. Sequences which begin with high front [i] and rounded high mid back [o] are heard in casual speech as palatalization and rounding respectively of the preceding consonant, and do not occur initially, where they would presumably be indistinguishable from segments /wV jV/:

Falling sequences with initial [i o] can be combined with rising sequences (above) to form a falling-rising sequence within a single syllable, e.g. /o.lo.'kiãĩ/ “bald”, /'koai.mɔ̃/ “plenty”, /kɔ.'goai/ “pregnant.” Besides these, vowel sequences do not occur except across syllable boundaries, in which they are considered to reflect segments /VwV VjV/. Long simple or geminate vowels do not occur.

Sress is contrastive, with roots taking primary stress on either the first or second syllable, then secondary stress on every other syllable following the primary stress. Monosyllabic verbs do not distinguish stress in zero-marked imperative forms, but underlying stress patterns become evident when the roots are inflected with suffixes such as /-la/ infinitive. Past tense /-bɔ/ never takes stress, assigning stress to the verb root regardless of its underlying pattern.

Unstressed syllables do not occur in sequence even across morphemes in compounds, leading to situations in which normally unstressed syllables can become stressed due to the addition of an invariably unstressed suffix or clitic. If the previously unstressed vowel is /ɔ/, it is realized as an allophone [a̯] fwhich is found only in this environment.

Unstressed medial vowels generally tend to be neutralized to a central mid quality Shaw and Shaw give as [ʌ], but are distinguished in careful speech.

Shaw (1973: 204-207, q.v. Voorhoeve 1975: 392) gives pronouns for Samo in three case forms as follows:

Ergative and possessive forms differ only in the singulars as shown.

The absolutive forms may serve as a transitive subject where the object cannot conceivably be the subject; e.g. /jɔ̃ wɔ nã-bɔ/ “he ate sago.” Otherwise the subject must be indicated by the ergative form; e.g. /jẽ bɔi nã-bɔ/ “he ate (the) snake” vs. /jɔ̃ bɔi nã-bɔ/ “(the) snake ate him.”

Reflexives are formed by adding a suffix /-wã/ to the absolutive stem.

Samo verbal morphology is quite simple by New Guinean standards, marking neither person nor number. Excepting the stem class distinction described below, a limited number of suffixes marking tense, mood and aspect are appended to the root in a straightforwardly agglutinative manner.

Samo verb stems fall into two classes which are defined by the form of the indefinite /-la ~ -da/, with past tense /-bɔ/ forms included for comparison. Roots of the first class are more common, and like all Samo roots end in vowels. Those in the second class have a final segment /-lV/ which is dropped when followed by /-la/; this is in turn realized as /-da/ (Shaw 1973: 207):

This phenomenon is phonological in origin, as other suffixes with initial apical non-stop /l/ (below) are likewise affected. An analogous process is found in Kamula (q.v. Routamaa and Routamaa 1995: 27-28.)

Independent verbs are marked with one of 15 suffixes to mark tense, aspect and mood, or zero to signify a polite imperative, as follows (Shaw 1973: 210-212:

Shaw suggests the semantic difference between past tenses /-ma/ and /-bɔ/ to be found at the paragraph and discourse level rather than at the word level, a notion which is supported by the probability that /-ma/ is historically identical to the past subordinate suffix on dependent verbs (below.) On independent verbs, /-bɔ/ is more common.

The present tense suffix is given above as /-(Ṽ)lijɔ/ because it nasalizes preceding vowels, thus may be viewed as a probable reflex of erstwhile /*n/.

It is evident that the imperfect, continuative and already-in-process suffixes are etymologically as well as semantically related. The non-past negative would seem to be a compound of /-la/ indefinite and /mɔi/ “not.”

Following past /-bɔ/ or indefinite /-la ~ -da/ on independent verbs may be found one of two suffixes which Shaw designates as aspect suffixes, although their meanings are modal in character:

Dependent verbs are marked with one of 9 suffixes as follows (Shaw 1973: 207-209.) Unlike in many New Guinean languages, the division between independent and dependent verbs is at least historically mostly superficial, with some suffixes being found on both:

Between the root and the tense/mood suffix of independent and dependent verbs alike can occur one of three formatives which characterize the relationship of the subject to the verb. The latter two of these serve as a kind of plural marking, with motion and stative verbs taking the collective plural and others taking the reciprocal plural, although neither are mandatory accompaniments to a semantically plural subject:

In addition to these, there are a number of suffixes following all of these which Shaw considers to be enclitics, as they are found also at the end of clauses which have no verb (Shaw 1973: 212):