Alor Tip
Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute
Situation
The Alor-Tip family consists of three closely-related languages, Wersiing, Kula and Sawila, spoken in the easternmost portion of Alor island in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province. Its nearest relatives within the larger Alor-Pantar family are the dialects of Central East Alor immediately to the west (Schapper 2014: 3, 4-5, Schapper and Hendery 2014: 341.)
Subclassification
The internal classification of Alor Tip is as follows:
Alor Tip
Wersing
Kula-Sawila
Kula
Sawila
Sources
Anonymous (1914) vocabulary of Kolana'sch (unobtained)
Stokhof (1975: 61, 62) 117 comparative terms for Kolana (i.e. Wersing) of Kolana village and Tanglapui (i.e. Kula) of Lantoka (Tanglapui) village
Donohue (1996) voice in Tanglapui of Lantoka, with some notes on the variety spoken in Naumang village
Donohue (1996) Kolana fieldnotes from Kolana village
Donohue (1997) Kolana syllables and stress (unobtained)
Donohue (2006) Kolana syllables and stress
Haan (2006) phonology of Kula
Haan (n.d.) 292 terms for Kula
Kratochvíl (2009) Sawila fieldnotes (unobtained)
Kratochvíl (2014) grammar sketch of Sawila of Lalamana and Kanaumana villages
Kratochvíl, Bantara and Malaikosa (2014) dictionary of Sawila
Holton (2010) Wersing fieldnotes (unobtained)
Holton (2010) Kula fieldnotes (unobtained)
Holton, Klamer, Kratochvíl, Robinson and Schapper (2012) reconstruction of Proto-Alor-Pantar includes Sawila and Wersing reflexes after Kratochvíl (2009) and Holton (2010) respectively
Holton and Robinson (2014) reconstruction of Proto-Alor-Pantar includes Sawila and Wersing reflexes
Schapper and Hendery (2012) Wersing fieldnotes (unobtained)
Schapper and Hendery (2014) grammar sketch of Wersing of Peitoko village (Pureman dialect)
Schapper, Huber and van Engelhoven (2014) reconstruction of Proto-Alor-Pantar includes Kula, Sawila and Wersing reflexes after Holton (2010) and Williams (p.c. 2011,) Kratochvíl (n.d.) and Holton (2010) and Schapper and Hendery (2012) respectively
Schapper (2015) unpublished dictionary of Wersing
Historical phonology
[under construction]
Proto-Alor Tip had 13 consonants and perhaps … vowels as follows
| *m | *n | ||
| *p | *t | *s | *k |
| *b | *d | *g | |
| *l | |||
| *w | *r | *j |
| *i | *u | |
| [*e] | [*o] | |
| *a: | *ɑ |
In addition to the simple vowels given above, three diphthongs are found as follows:
| *ⁱe |
| *eⁱ |
| *aⁱ |
Bilabial voiceless stop /*p/ reflects proto-Alor-Pantar voiced /*b/, original /*p/ having been fricated to [ɸ] as in Kamang before disappearing entirely. Alor Tip /*b/ is found only in loans.
… /*t/ … /*s/ ….
…
…
| Alor Tip | Sawila | Tanglapui | Tanglapui | Wersing | Kolana | Kolana |
| Kratochvíl | Stokhof | Donohue | Schapper | Stokhof | Donohue | |
| *… | ||||||
| *… |
…
…
Pronouns
[under construction]
…
Verbal morphology
[under construction]
…