Ontena
Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute
Situation
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Sources
Frantz (1994) sketch phonology of Ontena village, recapitulated in an undated and unattributed manuscript from Summer Institute of Linguistics, Ukarumpa
Phonology
[under construction]
Frantz (1994 ibid.) gives 8 or 9 consonants and 6 vowels for Ontena as follows:
| m | n | |||
| ɸ | s | x | [ʔ] | |
| β | ɾ | j |
| i | u | |
| e: | ɐ | o: |
| a |
Low front vowel /a/ is probably really long /a:/, as it is in Akuna, and <aa> is structurally and historically equivalent to /ɑ:/ in other West Kainantu languages.
Frantz' fricatives /ɸ s x/ are structurally and historically equivalent to Akuna's /p t k/, and are realized as [p t k] when preceded by syllable final archiphoneme glottal stop /ʔ/ in a cluster; likewise Akuna's stops have fricated allophones (Frantz and Frantz 1966, 1973: 406-413, Frantz 1995 ibid.) These reflect North Kainantu /*p *s *t/, but their reinterpretation was probably already etablished in and synchronic to Proto-Gadsup.
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Prounouns
[under construction]
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Verbal morphology
[under construction]
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