Serra Hills

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

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The Serra Hills family consists of three or four languages spoken … Papua New Guinea's Sandaun province (….)

The internal classification of Serra Hills is as follows:

Serra Hills

Rawo

Puare

Pini

Mori (Womo)

Sumararu

Laycock (1970) comparative vocabularies for Rawo and Puare/Puari

Donohue (2002: 640-686) grammar of Skou includes pronouns and 166 comparative terms for Rawo, Puare, Womo and Sumararu

Donohue and San Roque (2002) grammar of I'saka includes (pp. 97-99) some comparisons with Rawo, Puari, Womo and Sumararu

Dryer (2020) Poko-Rawo object-verb order

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Laycock (1973) … (1975) …

Voorhoeve (1975) …

Donohue (2002) …

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Proto-Serra Hills had perhaps 14 consonants and 5 vowels as follows:

There is no apical voiceless stop /*t/ because East Vanimo Coast /*t/ has been fricated to /*s/. Similarly, East Vanimo Coast bilabial voiceless /*p/ has been deoccluded to /*h/, but a new /*p/ has arisen from East Vanimo Coast voiced /*b/.

Prenasalized stops /*mb *nd *ŋg/ can be voiced or voiceless, and are found not only but primarily in medial position.

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These correspondences are exemplified as follows, with attestations drawn from Donohue (2002: 640-686.)

… initial consonants ….

Initial bilabial nasal /*m/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Initial apical nasal /*n/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Initial bilabial voiceless stop /*p/ is generally retained as such in all descendants:

Initial velar voiceless stop /*k/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Initial prenasalized stops /*mb *nd *ŋg/ are uncommon.

Initial bilabial prenasalized stop /*mb/ …:

Initial apical prenasalized stop /*nd/ …:

Initial velar prenasalized stop /*ŋg/ …:

Initial bilabial implosive voiced stop /*ɓ/ is generally dropped altogether in Puare, Womo and Sumararu:

Initial palatal implosive voiced stop /*ʄ/ … Several of these roots (“path”, “yellow”) look to be loans from an Oceanic language, though probably already established by thte time of proto-Serra Hills:

Initial apical voiceless fricative /*s/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Initial unoccluded voiceless fricative /*h/ is lost in Rawa, Womo and Sumararu:

Initial bilabial non-stop /*w/ when followed by non-front vowels is retained as such in all descendants:

When followed by a front vowel /*i *ɛ/, initial /*w/ is lost in Rawo:

Initial apical non-stop /*ɺ/ …:

Initial palatal non-stop /*j/ …:

… medial consonants ….

Medial bilabial nasal /*m/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Medial apical nasal /*n/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Medial bilabial voiceless stop /*p/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Medial velar voiceless stop /*k/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Medial bilabial prenasalized stop /*mb/is generally retained as such in all descendants:

One example is ambiguous between /*mb/ and voiceless stop /*p/, probably due to nasalization caused by preceding /*n/:

Medial apical prenasalized stop /*nd/ …:

Medial velar prenasalized stop /*ŋg/ …:

Medial apical voiceless fricative /*s/ is retained as such in all descendants:

Medial unoccluded voicless fricative /*h/ is lost in Rawo, Womo and Sumararu:

Medial bilabial non-stop /*w/ …:

Medial apical non-stop /*ɺ/ …:

Medial palatal non-stop /*j/ …:

… vowels ….

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