Gants

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Situation

Gants (Gantj, Gainj, Ganj, Gaj) is spoken by at least 1.880 people (1981) living in nine villages on the northeast side of the Schraeder range in the Simbai valley north and west of the Simbai river, a tributary of the Ramu, in the Usino-Bundi district of Papuan New Guinea's Madang province. Gants /ŋgaɲɟ/ [gaɲc] is the name that speakers call their language (Pawley 1966: 3, Z'graggen 1975: 11, Daniels 2015: 987, 2017: 83-84.) Gants has borrowed a significant number of words from the Kalam (Karam) language immediately to the west.

Sources

Biggs (1949) vocabulary of Gaj (unobtained)

Aufenanger (1960: 249) 19 terms and counting system for Gainj river

Scholtz (1965) vocabulary of Gants provided in spreadsheet form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics

Pawley (1992) vocabulary of Gants (unobtained)

Daniels (2015: 356-392) 142reflexes of Proto-Sogeram for and (pp. 982-1083) grammar of Gants

Daniels (2017) comparison of Gants, Sogeram River and Kursav

Daniels (2020) (unobtained)

History of classification

[under construction]

Wurm (1961) …

Wurm (1964: 60, 1965: 390) …

Wurm (1971: 551; 1975: 470, 486–488; Wurm and Hattori 1981)…

Pawley (p.c.) in Lane (?1991, 2007: …)

Pawley (1995: 97) …

Pawley (2006) …

Daniels (2015, 2017) … East Sogeram with its nearest relative said to be Kursav (Faita.)

Phonology

Daniels (2015: 989) gives 14 to 16 consonants and 6 vowels for Gants as follows:

m n ɲ ŋ
p t c k
mb nd ɲɟ ŋg
s
[w] ɾ [j]
i ɨ u
e o
a

In addition to the simple vowels given above, five diphthongs are found as follows:

eⁱ oⁱ iᵘ
aⁱ aᵘ

The diphthong /iᵘ/ is very rare.

This inventory is basically identical to that Pawley (1966: 21-52) gives for neighboring Karam (Kalam) but without any attempt to reduce the high vowels to underlying /j Ø w/.

Voiceless stops /p t c k/ and prenasalized voiced stops /mb nd ɲɟ ŋg/ have allophones by position as follows:

initial medial final
/p/ p ɸ β ɸ p ɸ
/t/ t ɾ ɾ
/c/ c c c
/k/ k ɣ k
/mb/ b mb mp
/nd/ d nd nt
/ɲɟ/ ɟ ɲɟ ɲc
/ŋg/ g ŋg ŋk

Pronouns

Daniels (2015: 1003-1005) gives free pronouns for Gants in four case forms as follows:

subjectobject possessiveemphatic
1 sg.ja ja-k ja-ndɨŋ ja-mba
2 sg.na na-k na-ndɨŋ na-mba
3 sg.nu nu-k nu-nduŋ nɨ-mba
1 pl.a-ju a-ju-k a-i-duŋ a-i-mba
2 pl.na-ju na-ju-kna-i-duŋ na-i-mba
3 pl.ni-u ni-uk ni-duŋ ni-mba

Kin terms

Inalienable possessors of kin terms are marked by the prefixation of personal pronouns to the roots except that the first person is often /a-/ rather than /ja-/ (Daniels 2015: 999-1000.) The form of the third person possessor is determined by whether or not the root has an underlying initial low central vowel /a/, which induces the form [no-] rather than [nɨ-] :

root 1 sg./pl. 2 sg./pl. 3 sg./pl.
a- ~ Ø- na- ~ n-nɨ - ~ no-
mother ami/amɨŋØ-ami n-amɨŋ no-mɨŋ
grandmother apɨke Ø-apɨke n-apɨke no-pɨke
daughter mbeɲ a-mbeɲ na-mbeɲ nɨ-mbeɲ
ja- ~ j-na- ~ n-nɨ - ~ no-
father j-aŋ n-aŋ no-ŋ
cross-cousin mɨndaŋ ja-mɨndaŋ na-mɨndaŋ nɨ-mɨndaŋ
man's brotherkamɨɾ ja-kamɨɾ na-kamɨɾ nɨ-komɨɾ

Verbal morphology

Daniels (2015: 1022-1041) gives subject desinences for Gants final verbs in seven tense/mood paraigms as follows. Unlike most other Sogeram River languages, mperatives, which are found only with second persons, do not have a distinct set of subject markers:

immediate pastpresentfar pastrecent pastmiddle pastfuture imperative
1 sg. -Ø-enɨŋ -cɨ-nɨŋ-me-nɨŋ -ŋgɨ-nɨŋ -ma-ŋgɨ-nɨŋ-paŋ-nɨŋ
2 sg. -Ø-naŋ -cɨ-naŋ-me-naŋ -ŋgɨ-naŋ -ma-ŋgɨ-naŋ-paŋ-naŋ -pɨ-naŋ
3 sg. -Ø-ek -cɨ-k -me-k -ŋg-ɾɨk -ma-ŋg-ɾɨk -paŋ-ndɨk
1 pl. -Ø-ɾuŋ -cɨ-ɾuŋ-me-ɾuŋ -ŋg-ɾuŋ -ma-ŋg-ɾuŋ -paŋ-ɾuŋ
-2 pl.-Ø-ɾaŋ -cɨ-ɾaŋ-me-ɾaŋ -ŋg-ɾaŋ -ma-ŋg-ɾaŋ -paŋ-ɾaŋ -p-ɾaŋ
3 pl. -Ø-ik -c-ek -m-aⁱk -ŋg-ɾek -ma-ŋg-ɾek -paŋ-ndek

Irrealis verbs take a slightly different set of subject suffixes and can be either final or medial:

irrealis
1 sg. -ɨɾɨŋ
2 sg. -ɨna
3 sg. -ɨɾe
1 pl. -ɾuŋ
-2 pl.-ɨɾaŋ
3 pl. -i-ɾe

Medial verbs are distinguished according to whether their subjects are the same as or different from the subject of the final verb:

different subjectdifferent subjectsame subjectsame subjectsame subject
sequential simultaneous unmarked delayed infinitive
1 sg. -ke-nɨŋ -ɨɾe-ɾɨŋ -nda -mendi -paŋ
2 sg. -ke-naŋ -ɨne-na -nda -mendi -paŋ
3 sg. -ke-Ø -ɨɾe-ɾe -nda -mendi -paŋ
1 pl. -ke-ɾuŋ -ɨɾe-ɾuŋ -nda -mendi -paŋ
-2 pl.-ke-ɾaŋ -ɨɾe-ɾaŋ -nda -mendi -paŋ
3 pl. -i-ke-Ø -i-ɾe-ɾe -nda -mendi -paŋ

Daniels points out the identity between infitive /-paŋ/, which can also be used as a desideritive or a purposive, and future tense formative /-paŋ-/ above.

Loans from neighboring languages

Gants has borrowed a large number of terms from its neighbor Kalam spoken immediately to the west. These which follow are incorrectly connected to Sogeram River etymologies in Daniels (2015: 356-392, 2020: 253-291;) a look at the underlying vocabulary from which these materials were drawn would presumably reveal many more. Kalam forms are drawn from Pawley and Bulmer (2011):

KalamGants
bambooakiʎ akɨ
vine mɨɲ mɨɲ
smoke sikumsukum

Note that Gants' reflex of Sogeram River final apical non-stop /*ɾ/ as palatal /j (Daniels 2015: 114-115) continues Kalam's palatalization /ʎ/.