Dadibi

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Dadibi is spoken by 5,000 to 6,000 people (1974) living around the Karimui Plateau in Papua New Guinea's Simbu district and in three villages on the Erave River in Southern Highlands province. It may be divided into Karimui Plateau and Erave River dialects (MacDonald 1973: 114-116, Mac Donald and Mac Donald 1974: 129-130.)

Franklin (1968) Gulf District

MacDonald (1973) Teberan family

MacDonald and MacDonald (1974) phonology

MacDonald (1976) grammar

MacDonald (1992) sketch phonology

MacDonald survey vocabulary provided in digitalized form by Paul Whitehouse via Summer Institute of Linguistics in Ukarumpa

Whitby and Bai (1990, 2008) dictionary

MacDonald and MacDonald (1974: 131) give 13 consonants and 5 vowels for Dadibi as follows:

Vowels are further distinguished by the presence vs. absence of nasalization:

As is typical of languages in the north Papuan Gulf region, initial stops /b d g/ are realized as plain voiceless [p t k]. These contrast with aspirated stops /p t k/ [pʰ tʰ kʰ], which in native words occur only initially (1974: 132, 134-135.)

The contrast between velars /k h/ arose from a split in the reflexes of /*k/, which became /h/ when followed by vowels /*a *ɔ *o/ but remained /k/ when followed by /*i *e *u/, a split which finds its typological analogs in Awyu and Mian reflexes of /*k/. As in Awyu, the contrast became phonemic due to loans, e.g. /kone/ “think/know” from Southern Highlands /*kone/. Both /k h/ occur in native words only root-initially.

MacDonald (1973: 126-127, 1976: 45-49) gives Dadibi pronouns in three case forms as follows:

Those in the first set are absolutive in the strict sense, indicating subjects of intransitive verbs and objects of transitive verbs, those in the second functioning as agent subjects of transitive verbs and possessors. The same division of function is found in Fasu (Loeweke and May 1966: 26) and Rumu (Petterson 1989 ibid.) as well as Folopa (Anderson 2010: 19-24.) The third set, which MacDonald dubs reflexive possessives, indicate the subject of verbs with locative or patient arguments possessed by the subject.

MacDonald shows the ergative-possessive plurals to be derived from the absolutives by the encliticization of /-go/, which marks ergative-possessive regular nominals. When the pronouns is qualified by a numeral, it is appended thereto instead; e.g. /da si/ “we two (abs.)” /da si-go/ “we two (erg./poss.).” The first and second person singulars are marked by /-o/ rather than /-go/.

The reflexive possessive form of the third person plural is original, the absolutive form being derived from it by the addition of a suffix /-di/ [-di -li].

[under construction]

MacDonald (1973: 57-69)…

Person is distinguished only in imperatives, as follows: (pp. 66-69):

MacDonald identifies the suffixes /o/ and /ma/ as indicative or vocative and emphatic respectively, though qualifying that /ma/ occurs only with imperatives.