Vinaata

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Vinaata (Pinata,) one of at least three primary divisions of the Tairora language family, is spoken by 800 people (1994) living in two villages, Vinaata and Konkompira, in the valley of the Lamari River, a tributary of the Purari, in the Obura-Wonenara district of Papua New Guinea's Eastern Highlands Province (Gajdusek 1980: 150-151, Vincent and Vincent 1994: 1, q.v. Vincent 2010: iv.)

Vincent and Vincent (1994) sketch phonology of Vinata

Gajudsek (1980) brief ethnological description and a few words for Pinata

Vincent and Vincent (1994) give 18 consonants and 7 vowels for Vinata as follows:

(Vincent and Vincent's <ɑ> shown as /ɐ/​ after Vincent 2010: v-vi and outcomparison)

Nasalized bilabial fricative /ᵯ/ and alveolar flap /ᵰ/ are developments of plain nasals /*m *n/, hence their placement in the chart above.

Bilabial non-stop /β/ is historically and structurally equivalent to glide /*w/. It may be realized as voiced or voiceless [β ɸ]. There is no palatal glide /j/ because East Kainantu /*j/, which had perhaps the value [c] in proto-Tairora, has been aspirated and occluded to /s/ [s ts] initially and to [z] medially.

Prenasalized stops /mp nt ntʲ ŋk/ are historically clusters; otherwise no consonant clusters occur. Final consonants do not occur.

In addition to the simple vowels, there are two diphthongs as follows:

Tone is contrastive, but is not indicated in the orthography.

Vincent and Vincent (1994) give only two first person singular pronouns for Vinata, /ne/ free form and /ni/ possessive. These continue Kainantu emphatic /*ne:/ and possessive /*ni/ which have been replaced in North Tairora by the plural forms /te ti/ (q.v. Vincent 1973: 531-532, 2010: 593-584.)

Nothing is known about Vinaata verbal morphology.