Suki-Aramia River

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

The Suki-Aramia River family, also known as Gogodala-Suki, is comprised of four languages spoken in the vicinity of the Aramia River and middle Fly River in Papua New Guinea's Western Province. The Aramia River languages are very similar to one another, but Suki is sharply distinct.

Both Gogodala and Suki have been significantly influenced by neighboring languages, Suki by Zimakani up the Fly to the northwest and Arammba to the southwest, Gogodala by Kiwai, Tabo and Inland Gulf to the east.

The internal classification of Suki-Aramia River is as follows:

Suki-Aramia River

Suki

Aramia River

Waruna

Ari

Gogodala

Austen (1919-1920) 115 comparative terms for Suki (Nausaku)

Rentoul (1924-1925) 80 comparative terms for Suki (Jiminakana)

Voorhoeve (1970: 1252-1255) 46 comparative terms for Suki and Gogodala

Zeipi [SIL] comparative vocabulary of Doru variety of Suki obtained from the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Ukarumpa, and provided in digitalized form by Paul Whitehouse.

Ray (1907 321) brief description of Girara, (1914: CITE) Gaima and Girara varieties of Gogodala

Riley and Ray (1930-1931: 172-189) 534 comparative terms for Waruna and Gogodara and Adiba varieties of Gogodala

Reesink (1976: 31-34) 100 comparative terms for Ari

Additionally, an vocabulary of Suki was provided in digitalized form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics, however it is unattributed.

[under construction]

The special relationship between Gogodala and Suki was first recognized by Voorhoeve (1970: 1247.) …Suki-Gogodala Stock within his (1968) Central and South New Guinea Phylum, in which Gogodala (p. 7) had previously been included as a subphylum-level isolate. …(pp. 1252-1255) identified 46 probable cognates out of 170 comparative terms.

Due to the very limited amount of available data, especially for Suki and Ari, and to the substantial distance between its two subgroups, a complete reconstruction of Proto-Suki-Aramia River phonology isn't possible at this time. All protoforms proposed here are necessarily highly tentative, and may not prove correct in some or many details. Additionally, because Suki is so thinly attested, some protoforms are based only upon Aramia River plus outcomparison to other subfamilies of Strickland River, particularly Bosavi-East Strickland. It's conceivable that some of these are loans into Aramia River; however, as excepting Dibiyaso (Bainapi) the families aren't currently adjacent to one another, and because there is otherwise no obvious placement for Suki-Aramia River, we tentatively assume at least some of them to be legitimate retentions, i.e. evidence for Suki-Aramia River's inclusion in the Strickland River subfamily of Trans-New Guinea. If this turns out to be incorrect, it's hoped that the arrangement and presentation of evidence here will provide a basis for its falsification.

[under construction]

Proto-Suki-Aramia River had perhaps 9 to 12 consonants and 6 vowels:

Suki-Aramia River languages lack prenasalized voiced stops. The loss of prenasalization, a very widespread regional trend, is shared with (at least) the eastern subfamilies of Fly River, Bosavi and Duna-Bogaya, as well as Kiwai and the eastern subfamilies of Trans-Fly.

There is no immediately obvious reason why glides [*j *w] should be distinguished from sequential vowels /*i *u/, although it can't be ruled out that a better understanding of synchronic phonology would show these to be necessary.

Vowels correspond as follows:

Ari attestations below are drawn from Reesink (1976.) Waruna and Gogodala attestations are drawn from Riley (1930-1931.) Suki words are drawn from Voorhoeve (1970) unless marked as follows: la = Austen (1919-1920,) ar = Rentoul (1924-1925,) sil = Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Nasals /*m *n/ are retained as such in all descendants:

Plain stops /*p *t *k/ …

Voiced stops /*b *d *g/ …

/*r/ …:

[?is this distinct from medial /*d/?]

/*i/ …:

…:

Low-mid front vowel /*ɛ/ …:

/*a/ …:

High-mid back vowel /*o/ is merged with /u/ in Suki and Waruna:

A perusal of Suki vocabularies finds almost no examples of [o] that aren't given as [u] in another vocabulary, usually the majority thereof. We tentatively suggest that Suki, contra Voorhoeve (1970: 1248,) has or had no phonemic /o/:

Word-final /*u/ is typicallyreflected as /*i/ in Aramia River:

Final /*u/ is preserved as such in the following example, possibly because it's a monosyllable (or, conceivably, a loan from Dibiyaso):

In a regional trend shared with Zimakani and the languages of the Lower Fly and Inland Gulf subgroups of Fly River, Aramia River adds a final vowel, in this instance invariably /a/, to consonant-final roots:

One cross-family illustration is found in this loan, apparently from Boazi or Baramu, although the origin of initial /g/ is in both instances unkown, suggesting a third as-yet unidentified source; the Boazi word means “wood” or “firewood,” the Baramu word is glossed as “wood” and the Aramia River words mean “house”:

Free pronouns are reconstructed as follows:

Objects are prefixed to basic verbs such as “see” and “give” (Voorhoeve 1970: 1251):

At least the singular forms might be assumed to continue Trans New Guinea's object/inalienable possessives, but the correspondences by which the plurals might be derived aren't obvious.

[under construction]

Kiwai /*kikopu/ > /*iou/ “egg”

Kiwai /*gagari/ > /*gag[ar]i/ “bow”

[under construction]

From Arammba:

From Pahoturi:

“water”, then to Zimakani.

Kiwai /*amo/ > /*omo/ “breast”     This word may or may not be a legitimate retention from Trans-New Guinea; it is not found in other nearby families.

Tabo /*gosa/ > /*gosa/ “bone”

The originality of the Tabo form is evident by comparison to those of other Trans-Fly families.

Tabo /*gauba/ > /*gauba/ “wallaby”

The originality of the Suki form /ikapu/ is evident by the natural direction of semantic change – “wallaby” to “meat” rather than vice-versa – and by outcomparison to other Strickland River forms for “wallaby.”

Mahigi-Mubami /*gojV/ > /*gui/ “rain”

Fly River /*ŋg[oe]/.

Words shared with Kikori River and Lake Kutubu

[under construction]

/*be/, “come” /*isi-d[ɔ]um/ “eyeball”, /*ita/ “fire”, /*gof[o/õ] “fly (n.)”, /*gaima/ “flying fox”, /*men[a/o](-gi)/ “one, “skin”. /*i/ “tree” ?”two“, /*wi/ “walk/go”