South Kainantu

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

[under construction]

The South Kainantu family is comprised of two languages, Awa and Oweina spoken …

The internal classification of South Kainantu is as follows:

South Kainantu

Awa

Oweina

Loving (1962: 28-43) Awa nominal suffixes, reprinted in McKaughan ed, (1973. 19-30)

Loving and McKaughan (1964: 1-30) Awa dependent verb morphology, reprinted in McKaughan ed. (1973: 56-64)

Loving and McKaughan (1964: 31-44) Awa independent verb morphology, reprinted in McKaughan ed. (1973: 36-55)

McKaughan (1964: 98-121) 546 comparative terms from Awa of Ilakia village, reprinted in McKaughan ed. (1973: 694-738)

Loving (1965) Awa possessive prefixes

Loving (1966: 23-32) Awa phonology

Loving (1973: 6-9) lexicostatistical comparison of Awa dialects

McKaughan and Loving (1973: 31-35) Awa possessive prefixes

Loving (1973: 10-18) Awa phonology, a revised version of Loving (1966)

Loving (1973: 65-87) Awa grammar

McKaughan, compiler (1973: 88-175) Awa texts

Kerr (1973: 769-799) Awa reflexes of proto-Kainantu kin terms

Loving and Loving (1975) dictionary of Awa of Mobuta village (Southern dialect)

Loving (1992) Awa sketch phonology

Xiao (1990) comparison of Awa with Binumarien and Hua

Loving (n.d.) survey vocabulary of Oweina provided in digitalized form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics, Ukarumpa

Gajudsek (1980) brief ethnological description and a few words for Oweina-Waisara

[under construction]

Proto-South Kainantu had perhaps 7 consonants and 6 vowels as follows:

…

In addition to the simple vowels above, three diphthongs occur:

Two archiphonemes /*N/ and /*ʔ/ are found finally, resulting from the conflation of nasals and stops respectively in final position:

Word-initial consonants correspond as follows:

Simple word-medial consonants correspond as follows:

Medial consonant clusters with syllable-final /*N/ correspond as follows:

Medial consonant clusters with syllable-final /*ʔ/ correspond as follows:

Final consonants correspond as follows:

Vowels and diphthongs correspond as follows:

These correspondences are exemplified as follows, with Oweina attestations drawn from Dodd via Whitehouse, Awa of Mobuta from Loving and Loving (1975 ibid.) and Awa of Ilakia from McKaughan (1973:721-738.)

… /*m/ …:

Initial apical nasal /*n/ is preoccluded to [nd] in Oweina:

…:

… /*p/ …:

… apical stop /*t/ …:

… /*k/ …:

… /*w/ …:

… /*ɾ/ …:

Initial palatal non-stop /*j/ …:

… simple medial consonants …:

… /*m/ …:

… /*n/ …:

… /*p/ …:

… /*s/ …:

… /*k/ …:

… /*w/ …:

… /*ɾ/ …:

… /*j/ …:

… medial consonant clusters with syllable-final /*N/ …:

… /*Nm/ …:

… /*Nn/ …:

… /*Np/ …:

… /*Ns/ …:

… /*Nk/ …:

… /*Nw/ …:

… /*Nj/ …:

… medial consonant clusters with syllable-final /*ʔ/ …:

… /*ʔm/ …:

… /*ʔn/ …:

… /*ʔp/ …:

… /*ʔs/ …:

… /*ʔk/ …:

… /*ʔw/ …:

… /*ʔj/ …:

… final consonants …:

Final /*N/ …:

Final /*ʔ/ … :

Final /*j/ …:

…

… vowels …:

High front vowel /*i/ …:

High back vowel /*u/ …:

Mid central vowel /*ɐ/ …:

Long mid front vowel /*e:/ …:

Long mid back vowel /*o:/ …:

Long low central vowel /*ɑ:/ …:

Diphthong /*ɐⁱ/ …:

Diphthong /*ɐᵘ/ is merged with mid back vowel /o/ in Awa:

Diphthong /*o:ⁱ/ …:

[under construction]

…

The verbal morphology of Awa is extensively described by Loving and McKaughan (1964, 1973: 36-55, 56-64,) but there is currently no known source of information about Oweina verbal morphology.