Mala

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Mala, also known as Hatzfeldhafen, Pay (Pa) or Alam, is spoken by at least 800 people (1980) living in perhaps eight villages, Dagui (Dagoi,) Aidibal (Aidebal,) Dugumor (Dugumur,) Tobenam (Tombenam, Tobinam) Busip (Busiw,) Malala, Moro and Rurunat, located along New Guinea's north coast in the Bogia district of Papua New Guinea's Madang province. Most Mala-speaking villages are immediately east of Banara to either side of the mouth of the Kaukombar (Kaukumbar) river, but Dagui lies past the Coastal Maia region to the west and Malala, Moro and Rurunat villages past the Maiani region to the east;. The terms Mala and Alam mean “what?”; Pay (Pa) means “talk/word” (Z'graggen 1971: 47, 1975: 25, q.v. 1980: 108, 131, Loeweke and May 1982: 5-6, May and Loeweke 1982: 1-2, May 1994: 1, q.v. Tranel 1952: 452, Z'graggen 1975: 3.)

There are at least two dialects of Mala as follows (Loeweke and May 1982: 9):

Mala

Central Mala – Aidibal (Aidebal,) Dugumor (Dugumur,) Tobenam (Tombenam,) Busip (Busiw)

East Mala – Malala, Moro, Rurunat

Moro is not named as part of the eastern dialect but we assume it to belong thereto due to its locaton. As Dagui (Dagoi) village is not included in Loeweke and May's (1982, May and Loeweke 1982, May 1994) roster, it's not clear whether this contintues a third dialect.

[under construction]

Hollrung (1887: 85-…) … Hatzfeldhafen … (Central Mala)

Schellong (1890: …) … Hatzfeldhafen … (Central Mala)

Zöller (1890: 126) Hatzfeldhafen (Central Mala) (unobtained)

Zöller (1891: 406-…) … Hatzfeldhafen … (Central Mala)

Schmidt (1900: 358-372, 1902: 60-62) … comparative terms for Hatzfeldhafen (Central Mala) after Zöller

Werner (1911: 305) Dagoi numerals (unobtained)

Ray (1919: …) … Tombenam … (Central Mala)

Schebesta (1940: 586-…) Dagui kin terms (unobntained)

Z'graggen (1980: 1-159) 322 comparative terms and (p. 161) pronominal paradigms for Pay of Malala village (East Mala)

Loeweke and May (1982) comparative grammar of Mala

May and Loeweke (1982) comparative phonology of Mala

May (1994) sketch phonology of Mala

Pick (2020: …) …

May and Loeweke (1982: 3, 18-21, ibid., May 1994) give 13 or 16 consonants and 5 vowels for Mala as follows:

Word-finally, voiceless stops /p t̪ k/ are realized as aspirated [pʰ t̪ʰ kʰ].

Fronted apical /t̪/ constrasts with /s̪/ only finally; initially and medially /s̪/ is found when followed by high vowels /i u/ and /t̪/ when followed by non-high /e o a/.

May and Loeweke's inventory includes plain voiced stops /b d̪ g/ alongside prenasalized /mb n̪d̪ ŋg/; however there are no contrastive examples. Instead, voiced stops tend to be realized as plain when preceded or followed by another voiced stop in an adjacent syllable and as prensalized in other environements.

Bilabial voiced fricative /β/, systemically equivalent to non-stop /w/, is realized as [β] word-finally, when followed by front vowels /i e/, and when following /i e/ or lowe central /a/ and followed central /a/, and as [w] when followed by rounded vowels /u o/ or following /o u/ and followed by /a/.

Rhotic apical non-stop /r/ is realized as a flap [ɾ] when occuring between vowels at the onset of an unstressed syllable; elsewhere it is a trill [r].

Mala lacks a palatal non-stop /j/ as proto-Kaukombar River /*j/ has been dropped.

There are no consonant clusters.

Vowel sequences are intepreted as sequences rather than as diphthongs. The folowing sequences have been found:

The three vowel sequences /iao/, /uai/ and /oua/ are also found.

Stress is constrastive and most commonly falls on the second syllable..

May and Loeweke (1982: 8-17, 38-40) give pronouns for Mala in twelve case forms, the bases of which can be divided into three sets as follows:

(Analysis ours.)

Case forms based upon set I pronouns are as follows:

Case forms based upon set II pronouns are as follows. The equative form is used as the nominative in Central Mala and looks to be cognate to Hardin's 2002 topic enclitic):

Case forms based upon set III pronouns are as follows:

Loeweke and May (1982: 35-46) give subject-marked desinenences for Mala in six tense paradigms as follows:

In addition to these, an element /-ik- ~ -k-/ precedes the past tense suffixes to indicate the counterfactual meaning “should have;” however full paradigms for this tense/mood are not given.