Abinomn

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute, developed with Mark Donohue

Abinomn is spoken in a single village located north of the Taritatu (Idenburg) River, the main tributary of the Mamberamo, in Indonesia's Papua province. It is not closely related to any other languages and its nearest relatives are unknown (Pawley, Ross and Osmond 2005: 70 after Donohue p.c.)

Clouse (n.d.) survey vocabulary of Avinomn (Baso) provided in comparative spreadsheet format by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics

Pawley, Ross and Osmond (2005: 69-70) Abinomn pronouns after Donohue (p.c.)

Donohue and Musgrave (2007: 365) Abinomn nominal number

Donohue (p.c.) gives 14 or 15 consonants and 5 vowels for Abinomn as follows:

According to Donohue, bilabial voiceless stop [p] is a conditioned allophone of fricative /ɸ/.

There is no phonemic velar voiced stop /g/, but voiceless /k/ is typically realized as [g] when following high front vowel /i/ (below.)

Unoccluded fricative /h/ has been found in only one word, /heinar/ “spiny anteater (landak).”

Donohue does not recognize central mid vowel [ə] as phonemic. Most instances of [ə] are followed by a resonant /m n/ and especially /r/; it is conceivable that these should be analyzed as syllabic resonants. We write <ə> here for easier reading without prejudice to its phonemic status.

Only a restricted subset of consonants is known to occur finally:

Pawley, Ross and Osmond (2005: 69 after Donohue p.c.) give Abinomn free pronouns in two case forms as follows:

([ə] schwa is not shown in Donohue's transcriptions)

Prefixed pronouns are found preceding verbs in three case forms as follows:

This tripartite distinction is somewhat unusual, with the subject being used on intransitive verbs and preceding the undergoer on transitive verbs when the subject ranks higher on the animacy hierarchy than does the undergoer. Where the actor of a transitive verb ranks lower, it follows the undergoer and is used instead of the subject.

Abinomn has an unusual system of marking nominal number which superficially appears to be typologically similar to those found in the Torricelli Range and Lower Sepik River families. The singular form is always unmarked, while the dual is always indicated by a suffix /-rom/, the variant [-dom] appearing after root-final /r/. The suppletive form of the plural is generally determined by the final consonant of the root, excepting final bilabial nasal /m/ which occurs with either of two classes. The realizations of these plural suffixes are influenced by the preceding vowel, with high front /i/ somewhat unexpectedly inducing voicing of the stops in plurals /-kon -ti/ to [-gon -di]. At least four underlying paradigms may be distinguished with variants conditioned as follows:

Donohue and Musgrave (2007: 365) give number suffixes for twenty-two Abinomn nominals. To these we add selected attestations from Clouse (n.d. via Whitehouse,) with forms not directly attested given in brackets, and organize their sum by paradigm as follows. Donohue and Musgrave's <f> represents bilabial /ɸ/ [ɸ] (Donohue p.c., q.v. Clouse n.d.) Clouse's distinction between high vs. low mid vowels [e ɛ o ɔ] is not distinguished here as height doesn't appear to be contrastive (Donohue p.c.;) similarly word-final glottal stop [ʔ] has been ignored. Minor inconsistencies in attestations have been corrected where possible.

Both Clouse and Donohue attest some words with apparently root-final stops /p t/, but it's not known what plural suffixes these should take.

Nominal roots with a final vowel other than high front /i/ take the most common plural form /-kon/, which defines the first class:

If the final vowel is high front /i/, plural /-kon/ is often but not invariably realized as [-gon]:

Roots with final /s/ observe the same pattern as those with root-final unmarked vowels:

Roots with final velar unvoiced stop /k/ take an epenthetic vowel /i/ in the plural, which is realized as [-gon] just as on roots with final /i/ (above):

Roots with final apical non-stop /r/ observe the same pattern as those with root-final unmarked vowels, except that the dual is realized as [-dom]:

The second class is found on nominal roots with final apical nasal /n/. Here the plural is designated by /-ti/:

Where the vowel preceding final /n/ is high front /i/, the plural is realized as [-di]:

The third class is, like the fourth (below), found on nominal roots with final bilabial nasal /m/. Here the plural is designated by /-kər/:

Other nominals with final /m/ fall into a fourth class in which the plural is designated by /-tom/. Clouse (n.d.) gives no clear examples of this class:

In two examples in which final /m/ is preceded by the segment /sia/, the plural is realized as [-som]:

Nothing is known about Abinomn verbal morphology.