Sempan

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Sempan is spoken by approximately 1,000 people (1975) living along the Otakwa, Inawka and Omawka Rivers, just inland of New Guinea's southwest coast in Indonesia's Papua province (Drabbe 1953: 87, Voorhoeve 1975: 372.) They are bordered by the Kamoro to the west, the Asmat to the east and southeast and to the north by impassable mountains. Sempan is attested solely by the works of Drabbe.

Drabbe (1950) unpublished comparative vocabulary of Sempan

Drabbe (1953) grammar of Tarjà Kàmoro, including (pp. 87-95) discussion of and (pp. 96-104) 378 comparative terms for Sémpan

Drabbe (1954: 232-255) 100 comparative terms for Sémpan

Drabbe (n.d.) dictionary of Sémpan (unobtained)

Galis (1955) 16 comparative terms and numbers drawn from Drabbe

Voorhoeve (1975: 372) brief general description based upon Drabbe (1953)

Voorhoeve (1980) survey of Asmat dialects and (pp. 61-121) 455 reconstructed terms for Proto-Asmat, including supporting forms from Sempan drawn from Drabbe

Voorhoeve (2005: 148-149, 152-154, 158-164) Proto-Asmat-Kamoro correspondences and (unexempified) reconstructions

Drabbe's Sempan has 10 consonants (1953: 88) and probably 5 vowels as follows:

Apical non-stop /*r/ does not occur initially. There are no underlying consonant clusters.

This is identical to and continues the system of proto-Asmat-Kamoro, save that /*s/ is reflected as [h] in the dialect that Drabbe recorded, with Drabbe qualifying that [h s] vary by dialect. It is superficially very similar to that of Kamoro (Voorhoeve 1975: 372,) but Kamoro has undergone sound shifts such that equivalent qualities are not always comparable (Drabbe 1953: 88,) while the correlation to Proto-Asmat consonant qualities is nearly one to one (Voorhoeve 2005: 148-149.)

The lack of phonemic voiced stops leaves nasals /m n/ free to vary with phonetic [mb nd], as occurs the dialects of Kamoro and Asmat as well as in the Cook and Gondu Rivers languages far to the southeast, which likewise lack phonemic /b d/ (Drabbe 1953: 6, 88, 1963: 10-11, Voorhoeve 1971: 84, 1980: 14-42.) This allophony represents a southwest coastal regional phenomenon of which Proto-Asmat-Kamoro may well be the source.

Drabbe (1953: 104) gives pronouns for Sempan as follows. As in proto-Asmat-Kamoro, there is no number distinction in the third person:

No case forms are given. The separability of the augment is visible by comparison to Kamoro.

[under construction]

Drabbe (1953: 88-95) …: