Migabac

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Migabac is spoken by perhaps 4,000 people (2012) living in eleven villages along and inland from the east coast of the Huon peninsula between the Masaweng and Tewea rivers in Papua New Guinea's Morobe province (McEvoy 2003: 62, 2012: 3.)

McEvoy (2012: 3, ibid) distinguishes three dialects of Migabac as follows:

Migabac

North Migabac – Hudewa and Walingai villages

Ago – Ago village

South Migabac – Kapawa, Daumbole, Tanka and Butengka villages

Additionally, there are four bilingual villages on the border of Migabac territory in which Migabac is spoken, three alongside the Dedua language, Zorogo, Zongefifi and Zageheme, and Wandokai where Kâte is spoken. Speakers of all Migabac dialects understand one another with little effort.

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Dempwolff (1905: 245) 28 terms for Ago village

Ray (1919) …

McElhanon (1984) discussion of Huon glottal stop includes Migabac examples

McEvoy (2002) grammar of Migabac (unobtained)

McEvoy (2003) Migabac serial verbs (unobtained)

McEvoy (2003) phonology and (pp. 287-292) 389-term vocabulary of of (Southern) Migabac

McEvoy (2004) sketch phonology of Migabac

McEvoy (2008) discourse grammar of Migabac

McEvoy (2012) Migabac dialects

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McEvoy (2003 ibid., 2012: 3-4) gives 19 consonants and 5 vowels for Southern Migabac as follows:

Fricative /f/ is specified as labiodental.

In addition to some lexical differences between the northern and southern dialects, there are four phonological differences, with McEvoy's materials generally representing the southern dialect (McEvoy 2012: 4-5.) Laminal voiced /dz/ is merged with apical /d/ in South Migabac. The uncommon South Migabac rounded velar /kʷ/, which is said to contrast with coarticulated labivelar /kp/, is answered by [kp w] in North Migabac. Intervocal bilabial voiced /b/ is lenited to and merged with /w/ in North Migabac. Apical non-stop /ɾ/, which McEvoy gives as <l> (above,) is realized as [r] and less frequently as lateral [l] in North Migabac and as [l] in South Migabac.

This is by New Guinean standards an unusually asymmetrical and complicated system, upon which some remarks are in order. First, stops [p k] are found only in clusters, which occur only across morpheme boundaries (below,) and in loans. In clusters, they are allophones of synchronic fricatives /f h/, reflecting proto-East Huon stops /*p *k/. Second, the distinction between coarticulated labiovelar /kp/ and the uncommon rounded velar /kʷ/ (above) is most likely not original to proto-Migabac, but results from dialect mixture or loans.

Accordingly, without taking a stand upon what the synchronic analysis of any Migabac dialect should be, we can propose an inventory of 16 native consonants, with fricatives displayed systemically as voiceless stops as follows:

Any consonant can occur initially or medially. Finally, two archiphonemes occur as follows:

When these occur in isolation, they are realized as velar nasal [ŋ] and glottal stop [ʔ] respectively; accordingly they are represented as <ŋ ʔ> in McEvoy's orthography and in that adopted here. These reflect Proto-Huon final nasals /*m *n *ŋ/ and stops /*p *t *k/, which are neutralized to archiphonemes in all East Huon languages (McElhanon 1974 ibid.) It should be borne in mind that the dispositions of final /N/ when followed by another consonant (below) are not the assimilations of a velar nasal but of an unspecified one.

Historically, consonant clusters occur only across morpheme boundaries, and thus consist of an archiphoneme /N C/ <ŋ ʔ> followed by a full consonant. These clusters are realized as follows:

It's probable that some clusters must be analyzed as such synchronically, as some are not compounds but loans (e.g. /kambiŋ/ “mango”.)

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McEvoy (2003: 284-285, 2008: 41-42) gives free pronouns for Southern Migabac in four case forms as follows:

…:

McEvoy (2003: 279-281, 2008: 32-37) gives verbal objects and benefactives as follows; these are given here rather than alongside verbal subjects and tense markers (below) because they are historically developments of the free pronouns (above):

In addition to these, there is a reflexive/reciprocal object /-nagu-/ that does not vary by person.

These forms come after the verb stem and before the subject and tense markers (below,) indicating that the tense markers originated as auxilliary verbs with optionally preposed objects.

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McEvoy (2003: 282-284, 2008: 27-29, 47-48) …

…possessive. As the locative possessives are identical to regular possessives except for having vowel /a/ in the second syllable instead of /e/ (above,) the possessives will serve to illustrate …:

Adjectives are derived from nominals and verb stems by the addition of a suffix /-ʔne/ to nominals and either /-iʔne/ or /-ʔne/ to verb stems (McEvoy 2003: 282, 2008: 49-50.) The realizations of /-iʔne/ are invariable; those of /-ʔne/ are as follows:

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McEvoy (2003: 284-285, 2008: 37-41) …

No distinction is drawn between second and third persons in plural and dual numbers. … summarized as follows:

These are preceded and sometimes followed by tense, mood and aspect formatives as follows:

The near past is used to refer to events earlier in the same day or on the preceding day, with the remote past used to refer to events before then. The present is used to refer to events which are ongoing or have just completed. The regular future is used to refer to events expected within the next year, with the remote future is used to refer to events exxpected to occur after then. The hortative …. The hypothetical …, while the contrafactual ….

The personal forms used in the present and remote future tenses are nearly identical to those of the near past, with the third person singular undergoing what is probably only a a superficial variation. The present and remote future tenses are distinguished from the near past by the addition of tense marker /-ga/ preceding the subject, with the remote future further distinguished by the addition of /-noa-/:

The personal forms used in the future and hypothetical tenses are based on those of the hortative, which differ from those of the near past (above) only in the first and third person singulars. All are preceded by the irrealis marker /-da-/, with the future and hypothetical tenses adding suffixes /-te/ and /-ka/ respectively to the subject forms:

Excepting the third person singular, remote past subjects are preceded by the tense marker /-i-/:

Contrafactual subjects are nearly but not quite the same as those which mark the distant past, differing only in the second and third person singulars. They are preceded by irrealis marker /-da-/ as found in the hortative and other irrealis tenses (above):

Different subject medial verbs are marked by subject forms which are similar to those of the distant past and contrafactual, but with first person singular /-be/ rather than /-ba/, and a unique third person singular /-me/. They implicitly take the tense of the final verb which follows, distingushing between actions which occur immediately before it in sequence from those which occur simultaneously with it:

Excepting only one of two forms for the second person singular, imperative person markers are preceded by the formative /-n-/:

In addition to the person-marked paradigms above, there are desinences which do not vary according to the person of the subject. These include the desiderative and same-subject medial verbs in sequential and simultaneous aspects:

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