Awa

­ Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Awa is spoken by 1,200 to 1,500 people (1973) living in eight villages on either side of the Lamari River, a tributary of the Purari, in the Okapa and Obura-Wonenara subdistricts of Papua New Guinea's Eastern Highlands province (Loving 1965: 1, McKaughan 1973: 3.) Loving distinguishes four dialects of Awa, Southern Awa, spoken in Tainoraba, Amoraba, Mobuta and Agamusi villages, Northeastern Awa in Tawaina and Yona villages, the Ilakia village dialect in the north and the Tauna village dialect in the northwest (Loving 1973: 6-9.) A map of Awa territory and vilages is found in Loving and Loving (1975: xiv.) Awa's nearest relative is the poorly-documented Oweina to the southeast.

Loving (1973: 6-9) distinguishes four dialects of Awa spoken in eight villages as follows:

Awa

Tauna (Tauna)

Ilakia (Ilakia)

Northeast Awa (Tawaina, Yona)

South Awa (Tainorabu, Amorabu, Mobuta, Agamusi)

Loving calculates lexicostatistical relationships between these villages as follows:

(Tainora. = Tainorabu)

McKaughan's (1964: 99-101, 1973: 695-698) figures for three of these villages are substantially higher:

A comparison of McKaughan's (1973: 721-738) Ilakia with Loving and Loving's (1975 ibid.) Mobuta shows the two to have no significant phonological differences, other than that McKaughan doesn't distinguish Loving and Loving's laminal /ts/ from apical stop /t/.

Loving (1962: 28-43) nominal suffixes of Awa of Mobuta, reprinted in McKaughan ed, (1973. 19-30)

Loving and McKaughan (1964: 1-30) Awa dependent verb morphology, reprinted in McKaughan ed. (1973: 56-64)

Loving and McKaughan (1964: 31-44) Awa independent verb morphology, reprinted in McKaughan ed. (1973: 36-55)

McKaughan (1964: 98-121) 546 comparative terms for Awa of Ilakia, reprinted in McKaughan ed. (1973: 694-738)

Loving (1965) Awa possessive prefixes

Bee (1965: 1-37) 63 Awa words including reflexes of proto-Kainantu, reprinted in McKaughan ed. (1973: 739-768)

Loving (1966: 23-32) phonology of Mobuta

Loving (1973: 6-9) lexicostatistical comparison of Awa dialects

McKaughan and Loving (1973: 31-35) possessive prefixes

Loving (1973: 10-18) phonology of Mobuta, a revised version of Loving (1966)

Loving (1973: 65-87) grammar of Mobuta

McKaughan, compiler (1973: 88-175) texts from Mobuta and Ilakia

Kerr (1973: 769-799) 24 Awa kin terms including reflexes of proto-Kainantu

Loving and Loving (1975) dictionary of Mobuta

Loving (1992) sketch phonology of Awa

Xiao (1990) comparison of Awa with Binumarien and Hua

Loving (1966, 1973: 10-18) gives 9 consonants and 7 vowels for Southern Awa of Mobuta as follows:

(n.b. Loving gives /ɐ/ as /ə/)

Loving analyzes voiced [b ɾ g], which do not occur initially, as medial intervocalic allophones of /p t k/, while medials [p t k] are analyzed as clusters /ʔp ʔt ʔk/. McKaughan (1973: 10-11) comments that phonemic /b d g/ are needed to account for contrasts following homorganic nasals in a cluster; however Loving does not recognize this distinction, and all of McKaughan's examples are given with voiceless stops in Loving and Loving's (1975) dictionary. While <b r g> have been adopted in the practical orthography (q.v. Loving and Loving 1975: v-vi,) from a structural and historical standpoint, Loving's original analysis is correct.

Affricate /ts/ is specified as dental [t̪s̪], in contrast to alveolar stop /t/. We interpret the underlying feature as laminality, in keeping with its origin as an occlusion of palatal glide /j/, hence its position in the chart above. Loving's /ts j/ are in complimentary distribution, /j/ occurring only between vowels (Loving 1973: 12, q.v. Loving and Loving 1975: 125-126,) while /ts/ occurs root-initially and following /N ʔ/ in a cluster (below.)

Glottal stop /ʔ/ is, like cluster-initial /N/ [m n ŋ], best viewed as an archiphoneme /C/ resulting from the merger of syllable-final stops. Accordingly, /ʔ/ does not occur initially, only /N ʔ/ occur syllable finally, and, since word-final /N/ has been dropped, only /ʔ/ occurs word-finally. Nasal /N/ remains underlyingly present as Loving and Loving's (1975: vi) nominal class II, surfacing when followed by suffix-initial /k w j/. The combinatory rules which characterize these morphophonemic classes are are follows (q.v. Bee 1973: 743):

We propose a modification of Loving's inventory, with 7 consonants and 2 syllable-final archiphonemes as follows:

To the six standard Kainantu vowels, Awa adds a seventh, low front /æ/; this reflects diphthongs /*ɐⁱ *ɑ:ⁱ/.

Each syllable takes one of four tones, low, high, rising or falling, low tone being the most common, rising and falling infrequent (Loving 1973: 14.)

Loving (1973: 85-86, Loving and Loving 1975: x-xi, ibid.) gives free and inalienable possessive pronouns for Awa as follows:

The simple pronouns may be followed by one of two suffixes, /-tiɑɾiɑ/ “alone, by one's self” and /-pɐtɐʔ/ “only, alone”. Both simple and emphatic forms may be followed by /-ně/ to signify something possessed by the personal referent, i.e. “mine,” emphatic “only mine, my own”, etc.

[under construction]

Loving and McKaughan (1964, 1973: 6-55, 56-64) give Awa final verb forms for two roots, /tɐgɐ/ “see” and /wiɾæ-u/ “laugh”, in six tense forms as follows:

… realis …:

… irrealis … :

Imperative forms are given for second persons as follows:

…