Humene-Uare

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Humene-Uare, also known as Kwalean, is comprised of two closely-related languages spoken to the southeast of Port Moresby in the central portion of Papua New Guinea's Central Province. A third language, Mulaha, has gone extinct in recent times (Dutton 1975: 626;) it's not clear whether Mulaha was a member of Humene-Uare or coordinate thereto.

…

English (1900-1901) Iaibu (Mulaha) (unobtained)

Ray (1907: 391-412) 154 comparative terms for Mulaha after W. G. Lawes (n.d.) and Manukolu (Humene) after J. Chalmers (n.d.)

Ray (1929) Mulaha, Manukolu, Garia, Kwale

Dutton (1970: 926-950) 292 comparative terms for Uare and Humene (Manugoro,) including Mulaha (Iaibu) forms drawn from English (1901-1902)

Kikkawa (1999) sketch phonology of Uare

Kikkawa (2004) survey of Uare dialects (unobtained)

[under construction]

Ray (1907) placed Humene and Mulaha with Koiari

Dutton (1970)

Dutton (1975) Kwalean family in South-Eastern Trans New Guinea Phylum

Greenberg (1971: 835-836) Mulaha subgroup of East New Guinea.

Proto-Humene-Uare had 14 consonants and 7 vowels as follows:

Any consonant may occur initially or medially, excepting perhaps glottal stop. Voiceless velar stop /*k/ is rare. Initial voiced velar /*g/ is marginal due to the lenition of Owen Stanley Range initial /*g/ to Humene-Uare /*ɣ/. Initial apicals /*d *ɾ/ are uncommon.

Neither word-final consonants nor consonant clusters occur, although there may be traces of erstwhile final consonants which condition the form of the attributive (below.)

Sequential vowels are uncommon. Observed sequences include /*ai *aɛ *ɔo̝ *ɔu/.

Stress in disyllables and trisyllables is generally penultimate. Counterexamples such as /*maˈda/ “sun” indicate segments that have been lost; cf. Doromu-Maria /*meˈdaʔa/, Meneao Range /*madeka/.

Consonants correspond as follows:

Vowels correspond as follows:

These correspondences are exemplified as follows, with all Humene and Uare forms drawn from Dutton (1970: 926-950) unless otherwise indicated. Humene forms drawn from Ray (1908: 391-412) after Chalmers are indicated [jc].

Bilabial nasal /*m/ is retained as such in both languages:

Apical nasal /*n/ is retained as such in both languages:

Apical voiceless stop /*t/ is generally retained as such in both languages:

When preceded by high mid vowel /*e̝/, /*t/ is fricated to [*s], yielding a new phoneme /s/ in Uare and deoccluding to merge with /*h/ in Humene:

Velar voiceless stop /*k/ is uncommon. It is reflected as glottal stop /ʔ/ in Uare:

Glottal stop /*ʔ/ is generally retained as such in both languages:

There are no unambiguous examples of initial glottal stop /*ʔ/, though this could just mean that it was not heard.

Biliabial voiced stop /*b/ is retained as such in both languages:

Apical voiced stop /*d/ is retained as such in both languages. It is much more common medially than initially:

Voiced velar /*g/ is reflected as /ʔ/ in Humene, or initially as zero. It was sometimes heard as [k] in Uare, where /*k/ has become glottal stop:

It may be seen that initial /*g/ is only clearly attested in two words, in keeping with the lenition of Owen Stanley Range initial /*g/ to Humene-Uare /*ɣ/. One of these, /*go̝ɾi/ “bury,” is a loan from the Central Papuan subfamily of Oceanic (cf. Motu /guri/.)

Bilabial fricative /*ɸ/ is retained as such in both languages:

Unoccluded fricative /*h/ is retained as such in both languages:

Bilabial non-stop /*w/ is occluded to [β] in both languages:

Apical non-stop /*ɾ/ is retained as such in both languages:

Palatal non-stop /*j/ is occluded to [ʒ] in both languages:

Velar non-stop /*ɣ/ has merged with the reflex of /*w/ [β] (above) in Humene:

Chalmer's [ɣone] “dog” (Ray 1907: 396) suggests this merger to be quite recent in origin.

High front vowel /*i/ is retained as such in both languages:

High back vowel /*u/ is retained as such in both languages:

High mid front vowel /*e̝/ is reflected as /e/ in Humene and as /i/ in Uare:

High mid back vowel /*o̝/ is reflected as /o/ in Humene and as /u/ in Uare:

Mid front vowel /*ɛ/ is reflected as /e/ in both languages:

Mid back vowel /*ɔ/ is reflected as /o/ in both languages:

Low central vowel /*a/ is retained as such in both languages:

[under construction]

The attributive suffix, found on adjectives and upon some conceptually dependent substantives, has three forms beginning with /*ɣ *g *ʔ/ respectively:

As /*ɣ/ is known to reflect Owen Stanley Range initial /*(ŋ)g/, it's probable that the original form of the atributives was /*-(ŋ)ga/, and that its differing realizations depend upon final elements in the root which it follows; however, it's not immediately obvious what these elements might be.

The solution tentatively adopted here is based upon analogy to West Kainantu and Kratke Range “noun classes” (q.v. Bee 1965, 1973: 741-744, Lloyd 1969) which historically reflect dropped final segments and condition the realization of following consonants in a compound. This would require at least some final consonants or segments /*N(V) *C(V)/ to have been lost prior to proto-Humene-Uare, surfacing only in compounds of this kind:

[under construction]

…with attestations drawn from Dutton (1970: 926-950):

In several examples above (e.g. “tongue”, “chin”) Uare-Humene has added a suffix /*-nɛ/ to the nominal root. We assume this to originate as the Central Papuan third person possessor /*-na/, although the reason for the change in vowel quality isnˈt known.

In light of the infrequency of velar voiceless stop /*k/ (above,) the example of “white” suggests that the regular reflex of pre-Humene-Uare /*k/ may be glottal stop /*ʔ/.

Proto-Humene-Uare free pronouns are reconstructed as follows, with attestations drawn from Dutton (1970: 922-923, 927):

Humene's first person singular reflects the plural, which is then distinguished from the singular by the addition of a suffix [-one]. Second person plural [ʒa] is given also as an alternate form of the singular in Humene, recalling Doromu-Maria to the east in which Owen Stanley Range /*ja/ has entirely replaced singular /*ga/ (Humene-Uare /*ɣa/).

[under construction - not much is known]