Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute
The Huon Tip family consists of least five languages spoken on the easternmost tip of the Huon peninsula in Papua New Guinea's Morobe province. Its nearest llinguistic relative is Kovai spoken on Umboi island to the north. The best-known and most thoroughly documented Huon Tip language is Wemo, commonly known as Kâte (Suter 2018: 6, q.v. p.4.)
The internal classification of Huon Tip is as follows:
Huon Tip
Sene
Masaweng River
Migabac
Momare
Southeast Huon
Mape-Naga
Mape
Naga
Kâte
Wemo
Wamorâ
Mâgobineng
Parec
Wanac
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Zöller (1891) … (unobtained)
Grube (1895) Kai (unobtained)
Dempwolff (1905: 245) 28 terms for Ago (Migabac)
Dempwolff (1924-1925) Kâte kinship system (unobtained)
Ray (1919) … (pp. 320-321) Kai group
Keysser (1925) dictionary of Kâte (unobtained)
Pilhofer (1926-1927) Kâte (unobtained)
Pilhofer (1926-1927) Kâte (unobtained)
Pilhofer (1927-1928) comparative morphology for Huon Tip languages
Pilhofer (1928-1929) 290 comparative terms for Kâte, Naga, Mape, Wamoḷa, Mâgob, Sene, Momăḷe and Migabac
Pilhofer (1933) grammar of Kâte
Pilhofer (1953) vocabulary of Kâte (unobtained)
Schneuker (1962) Kâte (unobtained)
McElhanon (1968) 1,519 comparative terms for Wemo, Wanac, Parec, Mape-Nigâc, Mape, Naga, Wamorâ, Bamotâ (Mâgobineng,) Sene, Momare and Migabac
McElhanon (1968) species terms for Mape, Naga, Sene, Momare and Migabac McElhanon and Voorhoeve (1970) 67 Trans New Guinea comparisons include examples from Migabac, Momare, Sene, Mâgobineng, Wâmora, Wemo, Naga, West Mape and East Mape
McElhanon (1973) Finisterre-Huon typology
McElhanon (1974) Huon glottal stop
McElhanon (1975) …
McElhanon (1978) Morobe province classification and checklist
McElhanon (2012) 1,907 comparative terms for Wemo
McElhanon (2012) 830 comparative terms for Wemo
Johnson (1972) Kâte verbs
Flierl and Strauss (1977) dictionary of Kâte
Smith (1988) Morobe counting systems (unobtained)
Brown and Brown (1991) sketch phonology of Kovai (unobtained)
Brown (1992) grammar of Kovai (unobtained)
Brown (1992) sketch phonology of Kovai
Bugenhagen (1994) Kovai (unobtained)
Sifurna (1997) Mape verbs (unobtained)
Suter (1997) comparison of Kâte verbal desinences with those of Kovai, Ono and a number of other New Guinean languages
Suter (2010) Kâte ergative
Suter (2012) …
Suter (n.d.) Huon labiovelars
Suter (n.d.) Huon case enclitics
Suter (2018) comparative Huon Tip grammar including (pp. 34-40) Huon Tip object-marking verbs and (pp. 160-173) Huon Tip desinences
McEvoy (2002) grammar of Migabac (unobtained)
McEvoy (2003) Migabac serial verbs (unobtained)
McEvoy (2003, 2005) phonology of and (pp. 287-292) 389-term vocabulary for (Southern) Migabac
McEvoy (2004) sketch phonology of Migabac
McEvoy (2008) grammar of Migabac
McEvoy (2012) Migabac dialects
In addition to these, vocabularies of Kovai and Kâte were provided in digitalized form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics; however they are unattributed.
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Proto-Huon Tip had 16 consonants and perhaps 5 to 7 vowels as follows:
| *m | *n | *ŋ | ||
| *p | *t | *s | *k | *kp |
| *b | *d | *dz | *g | *gb |
| *w | *ɾ | *j |
| *i | [*u] | |
| *e | [*ɵ] | *o |
| *ɐ | ||
| *ɑ |
Coarticulated labiovelar stops /*kp *gb/ descend from rounded velars /*kʷ *ŋgʷ/. They are given as <*kp *gb> here because their realizations as such appear to be universal within Huon Tip.
Vowels /*ɵ *u/ are uncommon, and are suspected of having arisen from diphthongs /*ɐⁱ *ɐᵘ/. Mid back /*o/ is shown here as such because this is its prevailing reflex, and because it appears to contrast at the Proto-Huon Tip level with [*u], although it is known to descend from Huon /*u/.
Consonant clusters are found only acress morpheme boundaries.
Root-finally, nasals /*m *n/ and stops /*p *t *k/ are realized as one of two archiphonemes as follows (McElhanon 1974):
| *N |
| *ʔ |
Consonants correspond as follows:
| Huon Tip | Sene | Migabac | Momare | Mape | Naga | Wemo | Mâgob. | Wâmora |
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
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| *… | ||||||||
| *… |
Vowels correspond as follows:
| Huon Tip | Sene | Migabac | Momare | Mape | Naga | Wemo | Mâgob. | Wâmora |
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
| *… | ||||||||
| *… |
These correspondences are exemplified as follows …
… initial consonants …
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… medial consonants …
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… final consonants …
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… vowels and diphthongs …
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