Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute
Bunaq (Bunak, Buna', Buna) is spoken by approximately 80,000 people (2009) living in central Timor on both sides of the border between the Bobanaro, Covalima, Ainaro and Manufahi subdistricts of East Timor and the Lamaknen district of Belu regency of Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province. The origin of the term Bunaq /bunaʔ/ is unknown, but it is used by speakers to refer to themselves. Some speakers in the northeast call themselves Gaiq /gaiʔ/ or Gaeq /gaeʔ/. Neighboring Tetun speakers calls them Marae (Schapper 2009: 4-18.)
Schapper (2009: 16-18) distinguishes five dialects of Bunaq as follows:
Bunaq
Southwest
Lamaknen
Northeast
Ainaro
Manufahi
Schapper's (p. 18) chart of lexical differences between dialects provides no obvious basis for further subclassification.
[under construction]
Stokhof ed. (1983) Holle comparative vocabulary for Marae
Capell (1943-1944: 330-337) 156 comparative terms for Bunak
Berthe (1959) …
Berthe (1963) …
Friedberg and Berthe (1978) Bunaq texts (unobtained)
Cowan (1963) …
Sawardo, Sanda, Jehane, Nitbani, and Kusharyanto (1996) grammar of Buna
Hull (2004) …
Bele (2009) dictionary of Buna'
Schapper (2007) grammar of Bunaq Lamaknen of Gewal village
Schapper (2009) grammar of Bunaq Lamaknen of Gewal village
Schapper (2011) Bunaq dialects (unobtained)
Schapper (2011) (unobtained)
Schapper, Huber and van Engelhoven (2012) proto-Timor including Bunaq reflexes
Schapper, Huber and van Engelhoven (2014) proto-Timor-Alor-Pantar including Bunaq reflexes
Schapper (n.d.) dictionary of Bunaq (unobtained)
Robinson and Holton (2012) proto-Timor-Alor-Pantar including Bunaq reflexes
[under construction]
Schapper (2009: 35-73) gives 16 consonants and 5 vowels for Bunaq Lamaknen as follows:
| m | n | |||
| p | t | tʃ | k | ʔ |
| b | d | z | g | |
| s | h | |||
| l | ||||
| w | r |
| i | u | |
| e | o | |
| a |
In addition to the simple vowels given above, three diphthongs are found as follows:
| eⁱ | oⁱ | |
| aⁱ |
Voiceless laminal affricate /tʃ/ can be realized as fricative [s]. It is uncommon, being historically an allophone of apical stop /t/ conditioned by following high front vowel /i/ in multisyllabic roots in which /t/ is not the reciprocal prefix /t-/. It has become contrastive in Bunaq Lamaknen due to these exceptions and to a handful of loans.
Glottal stop /ʔ/ does not occur intiially. It can be realized as a creaking intonation of the following vowel if encountered medially or of the preceding one when final.
Voiced stops /b d g/ do not occur finally..
Voiced laminal /z/ can be realized as palatalized [ʒ] or as palatal affricate [dʒ]. It does not occur finally. In monosyllables it is most often realized as fricative [z]. In disyllables where /z/ is followed by high front vowel /i/, affricate [dʒ] is the most commonr realization.
Unoccluded fricative /h/ is rare medially and does not occur finally.
Lateral non-stop can be realized as voiceless fricative [ɬ] word finally, particularly when following high front vowel /i/.
Rhotic non-stop /r/ ….
Only a subset of consonants occurs finally:
| m | n | |||
| p | t | k | ʔ | |
| s | ||||
| l | ||||
| w | r |
…
…
…
Schapper (2009: 90-92, 213-238, 311-336, cf. Capell 1944: 321-323, Berthe 1959: 352, 1963 109-112, Sawardo et al. 32-34, 49) gives Bunaq pronouns in three case forms as follows:
| nominative | alienable | inalienable | |
| 1 sg. | ne-to | n-ie | n- |
| 2 sg. | e-to | ø-ie | ø- |
| 3 sg. anim. | — | g-ie | g- |
| 3 sg. inan. | — | — | h-/n-/t- |
| 1 pl. excl. | ne-i | n-ie | n- |
| 1 pl. incl. | i-ø | i-e | ø- |
| 2 pl. | e-i | ø-ie | ø- |
| 3 pl. | halaʔ-i | gi-e | g- |
| 1 dl. excl. | ne-li | n-ie | n- |
| 1 dl. incl. | i-li | i-e | ø- |
| 2 dl. | e-li | ø-ie | ø- |
| 3 dl. | hala-li | g-ie | g- |
(Schapper analyzes alienable possessors as /ni-e/ etc.)
[under construction]
Besides undergoers (above) and related prefixes, Bunaq has no verbal morphology (q.v. Schapper 2009: 337-374.) Somewhat unusually, these undergoers appear with loans as well as with native words.
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