Table of Contents

Ontena

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Situation

Sources

Frantz (1994) sketch phonology of Ontena village, recapitulated in an undated and unattributed manuscript from Summer Institute of Linguistics, Ukarumpa

Phonology

[under construction]

Frantz (1994 ibid.) gives 8 or 9 consonants and 6 vowels for Ontena as follows:

m n
ɸ s x [ʔ]
β ɾ j
i u
e: ɐ o:
a

Low front vowel /a/ is probably really long /a:/, as it is in Akuna, and <aa> is structurally and historically equivalent to /ɑ:/ in other West Kainantu languages.

Frantz' fricatives /ɸ s x/ are structurally and historically equivalent to Akuna's /p t k/, and are realized as [p t k] when preceded by syllable final archiphoneme glottal stop /ʔ/ in a cluster; likewise Akuna's stops have fricated allophones (Frantz and Frantz 1966, 1973: 406-413, Frantz 1995 ibid.) These reflect North Kainantu /*p *s *t/, but their reinterpretation was probably already etablished in and synchronic to Proto-Gadsup.

Prounouns

[under construction]

Verbal morphology

[under construction]