Porapora River

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

The Porapora River family consists of two closely related languages, Abu and Gorovu, spoken from along and around the Porapora river, a tributary of the Sepik, to west of the Ramu river on either side of the border between Papua New Guinea's East Sepik and Madang provinces (Z'graggen 1971: 87-88.) It is called the Agoan Family in the works of Z'graggen, after the names of its members, Adjora (i.e. Abu) and Gorovu.

The internal classification of Porapora River is as follows:

Porapora River

Abu

Gorovu

Z'graggen (1971: 87-88) gives a lexicostatistical relationship of 51% between Abu and Gorovu.

Z'graggen (1969, 1971: 87-88) brief descriptions of Adjora and Gorovu

Z'graggen (1972) 431 comparative terms for Adjora of Senae village and Gorovu of Bangapella village, formerly of Gorovu village

Laycock (1971) 251 comparative terms for Adjora, Gwin (Abu) and Yerany (Gorovu) villages (digitalized by Russell Barlow)

[under construction]

Porapora River had 14 or 15 consonants and 4 vowels as follows:

…initially…

Any consonant can occur medially.

Only a restricted set of consonants occurs finally:

Initial consonants correspond as follows:

Subinitial consonants correspond as follows:

Medial consonants correspond as follows:

Final consonants correspond as follows:

These correspondences are exemplified as follows, with attestations drawn from Z'graggen (1971, 1972) and from Laycock (1971.).

Only a restricted set of consonants occurs initially. These are not synchronically disinguishable from their subinitial equivalents (below,) which become initial due to the regular loss of initial high central vowel /*ʉ/, but are distinct therefrom in other subgroups of Ramu River. It would have been possible then to reconstruct proto-Porepora River with a full range of initial consonants; we have opted for a slightly more archaic treatment to facilitate comparison with other Ramu River subgroups.

Initial bilabial nasal /*m/ is found in native words only in the third person pronouns …:

One example of initial /*m/ is a regional loan:

Initial apical nasal /*n/ …:

Initial velar prenasalized voiced stop /*ŋg/ …:

Subinitial consonants are those which which originally were medials of multisyllabic roots but have become initial in all three languages due to the mutual loss of destressed intiial high central vowel /*ʉ/

Subiniital bilabial nasal /*m/ …:

Subinitial apical nasal /*n/ …:

Suinitial velar nasal /*ŋ/ …:

Subinitial bilabial voiceless stop /*p/ …:

Subinitial apical voiceless stop /*t/ …:

No examples of subinitial laminal voiceless /*s/ have been found.

Subinitial velar voiceless stop /*k/ …:

Subinitial bilabial prenasalized voiced stop /*mb/ …:

Subinitial apical prenasalized voiced stop /*nd/ …:

Subinitial laminal prenasalized voiced /*ndz/ …:

Suinitial velar prenasalized voiced stop /*ŋg/ …:

Suinitial bilabial non-stop /*w/ …:

Subinitial apical non=stop /*r/ …:

Subinitial palatal non-stop /*j/ …:

… /*j/ is a regional latter-day loan from Oceanic (cf. Manam [sokai ~ ˈsoʔaj] (Turner 1986: 10, 13..)

Subinitial velar non-stop /*ɣ/ …:

One example …:

Any consonant can occur medially.

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

Medial apical nasal /*n/ is generally retained as such in both languages:

When medial /*n/ is either preceded or followed by high front vowel /*i/, it is realized as palatal [ɲ]. …:

…[ɲ] …:

… /*n/ …:

One irregular reflex of /*n/ is probably a doublet in which the Abu form was borrowed immediately from another Ramu River language in which the occlusion of /*n/ to /nd/ is regular:

Medial velar nasal /*ŋ/ is retained as such in both languages:

Medial plain bilabial stop /*p/ is sometimes fricated to [ɸ f] in Gorovu:

Medial apical voiceless stop /*t/ is retained as such in both languages when followed by non-high front vowels /*ʉ *a *u/:

Medial laminal voiceless /*s/ has been found in only one example, where it may be a loan from the Guam and Moam River languages (cf. Abu /*uŋgʉm/ “crocodile”; several other examples of /*s/ in other subgroups of Ramu River have merged with paltal non-stop /*j/ in Porapora River):

Medial velar voiceless stop /*k/ is sometimes lenited to [ɣ] in Gorovu:

One of the most conspicuous phonological differences between Gorovu and Abu is that medial prenasalized stops are devoiced in Abu but lenited and deoccluded in Gorovu.

Medial bilabial prenasalized voiced stop /*mb/ is usually devoiced to [mp] in Adjora and is deoccluded to /w/ [w β] in Gorovu. This is distinct from the reflex of bilabial non-stop /*w/ [b] (below):

Medial apical prenasalized voiced stop /*nd/ …:

In one example known to correspond to /*nd/ in other subfamilies of Ramu River, medial /*nd/ is realized in Adjora as [r] in a cluster with preceding /*t/:

Medial laminal prenasalized voiced /*ndz/ …:

Medial velar prenasalized voiced stop /*ŋg/ is usually devoiced to [ŋk] in Adjora and lenited to [g] in Gorovu, where it merges with the reflex of medial non-stop /*ɣ/ (below):

Medial bilabial non-stop /*w/ …:

… /*w/ …:

Medial apical non-stop /*r/ is retained as such in both languages:

Medial palatal non-stop /*j/ when followed by vowels /*i *a *u/ is generally occluded to voiced affricate or stop [dʒ dʲ] in both languages.

When/*j/ is followed by high central vowel /*ʉ/ it is not occluded and following /*ʉ/ is fronted to /i/:

Medial velar non-stop /*ɣ/ …:

Only a restricted set of consonants occurs finally, including nasals /*m *n *ŋ/, voiceless stops /*p *t *k/ and non-stops /*w *r *j *ɣ/.

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

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

Final velar nasal /*ŋ/ is generally retained as such in both languages:

Final bilabial voiceless stop /*p/ is like medial /*p/ sometimes fricated to [f β] in Gorovu:

The reflexes of final apical voiceless stop /*t/ are difficult to distinguish from those of non-stop /*r/ (below):

Lminal voiceless /*s/ has not been found finally.

Final velar voiceless stop /*k/ has in most all instances been dropped in both languages. There are several examples in which Gorovu finals [g ɣ ŋ] show it to have been retained in proto-Porapora River, as these correspond to final /*k/ in other subfamilies of Ramu River:

Final bilabial non-stop /*w/

One irregular reflex of final /*w/ is (above) probably a doublet in which the Abu form was borrowed immediately from another Ramu River language:

Final apical non-stop /*r/ is retained as such in both languages. It is often appended in Gorovu with a vowel copying that of the preceding syllable:

Final palatal non-stop /*ɣ/ …:

Final velar non-stop /*ɣ/ …:

… vowels …

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

…:

Roots of the form /*ajʉC/ become /ajiC/ in both languages:

…:

A number of terms for body parts are suffixed with /*-aj/ [-aj -ai -aɪ]. With no information on the grammar of either language, it's difficult to say what this suffix might mean, though a possessive function would seem a priori quite likely: