West Kainantu

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Situation

The West Kainantu family is comprised of perhaps nine languages spoken in the Kainantu, Okapa and Obura-Wonenara subdistricts of Papua New Guinea's Eastern Highlands province.

Subclassification

The internal classification of West Kainantu is as follows:

West Kainantu

North Kainantu

Agarabi

Kambaira

Gadsup

Oyana

Ontena

Akuna-Tompena

Central and South Kainantu

Central Kainantu

Awiyaana

Usarufa

South Kainantu

Awa

Oweina

The placement of Oyana above is based upon McKaughan (1964: 99-101, 1973: xvi, 403, 695-698, 699) and Frantz (1976: 75,) as no Oyana data is available to us at this time.

Wurm (q.v. McKaughan 1973: 698) …:

Gadsup Oyana Auyana Awa
Gadsup 69 46 ?
Oyana 69 53 ?
Auyana 46 53 46
Awa ? ? 46

(Gadsup i.e. Akuna)

McKaughan (1964: 99-101, 1973: 695-698) calculates lexicostatistical resemblances between nine West Kainantu villages as follows:

Gadsup Auyana Awa
Oyana Akuna Tompena Kawaina Kosena Asempa Tauna Ilakia Mobuta
GadsupOyana 85.7 84.7 70.4 72.2 71.4 66.7 63.5 63.5
Akuna 85.7 97.9 65.6 66.3 67.7 66.0 63.9 63.3
Tomp. 84.7 97.9 64.6 65.3 69.4 64.6 63.5 61.8
AuyanaKawaina 70.4 65.6 64.6 93.9 91.9 76.3 73.2 72.4
Kosena 72.2 66.3 65.3 93.9 97.9 76.0 73.9 71.9
Asempa 71.4 67.7 69.4 91.9 97.9 78.3 75.2 74.2
Awa Tauna 66.7 66.0 64.6 76.3 76.0 78.3 82.6 86.3
Ilakia 63.5 63.9 63.5 73.2 73.9 75.2 92.6 88.4
Mobuta 63.5 63.3 61.8 72.4 71.9 74.2 86.3 88.4

Sources

[under construction]

Historical phonology

[under construction]

Proto-West Kainantu had 8 consonants and 6 vowels as follows:

*m *n
*p *t *s
*w *j
*i *u
*e: *o:
*ɑ:

In addition to the simple vowels above, four diphthongs occur:

*ɐⁱ *ɐᵘ
*o:ⁱ
*ɑ:ⁱ



Only a restricted set of consonants occurs finally. Finals /*N/ and /*ʔ/ are archiphonemes resulting from the conflation of nasals and stops respectively in final position:

*N
*j



Bee's (1965: 1-37, 1973: 739-768) reconstruction of Eastern Family, while formally including Tairora and Afaqina (Binumarien,) is in most respects a reconstruction of West Kainantu. Bee's values are not unreasonable, but are not entirely consistent, and are based upon too few (60) comparative terms to support a reliable system. Equivalences between the values adopted here and those of Bee are as follows:

Usher Bee
*m *m *b
*n *n
*p *p
*t- *k
*-t- *r *d
*s *t
*s *h
*w- *kw
*-w- *w
*d
*j *j
*-ø *-V
*-N *-N
*-ʔ *-Q
*-ɾ *-V
*-j *-V
*i *i
*u *u
*ə *a
*e: *e
*o: *o
*ɑ:
*ɐⁱ
*ɐᵘ *au
*o:ⁱ *oi
*ɑ:ⁱ



Pronouns

[under construction]

Verbal morphology

[under construction]