Huon Tip

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Situation

The Huon Tip family consists of least five languages spoken on the easternmost tip of the Huon peninsula in Papua New Guinea's Morobe province. Its nearest llinguistic relative is Kovai spoken on Umboi island to the north. The best-known and most thoroughly documented Huon Tip language is Wemo, commonly known as Kâte (Suter 2018: 6, q.v. p.4.)

Subclassification

The internal classification of Huon Tip is as follows:

Huon Tip

Sene

Masaweng River

Migabac

Momare

Southeast Huon

Mape-Naga

Mape

Naga

Kâte

Wemo

Wamorâ

Mâgobineng

Parec

Wanac

Sources

[under construction]

Zöller (1891) … (unobtained)

Grube (1895) Kai (unobtained)

Dempwolff (1905: 245) 28 terms for Ago (Migabac)

Dempwolff (1924-1925) Kâte kinship system (unobtained)

Ray (1919) … (pp. 320-321) Kai group

Keysser (1925) dictionary of Kâte (unobtained)

Pilhofer (1926-1927) Kâte (unobtained)

Pilhofer (1926-1927) Kâte (unobtained)

Pilhofer (1927-1928) comparative morphology for Huon Tip languages

Pilhofer (1928-1929) 290 comparative terms for Kâte, Naga, Mape, Wamoḷa, Mâgob, Sene, Momăḷe and Migabac

Pilhofer (1933) grammar of Kâte

Pilhofer (1953) vocabulary of Kâte (unobtained)

Schneuker (1962) Kâte (unobtained)

McElhanon (1968) 1,519 comparative terms for Wemo, Wanac, Parec, Mape-Nigâc, Mape, Naga, Wamorâ, Bamotâ (Mâgobineng,) Sene, Momare and Migabac

McElhanon (1968) species terms for Mape, Naga, Sene, Momare and Migabac     McElhanon and Voorhoeve (1970) 67 Trans New Guinea comparisons include examples from Migabac, Momare, Sene, Mâgobineng, Wâmora, Wemo, Naga, West Mape and East Mape

McElhanon (1973) Finisterre-Huon typology

McElhanon (1974) Huon glottal stop

McElhanon (1975) …

McElhanon (1978) Morobe province classification and checklist

McElhanon (2012) 1,907 comparative terms for Wemo

McElhanon (2012) 830 comparative terms for Wemo

Johnson (1972) Kâte verbs

Flierl and Strauss (1977) dictionary of Kâte

Smith (1988) Morobe counting systems (unobtained)

Brown and Brown (1991) sketch phonology of Kovai (unobtained)

Brown (1992) grammar of Kovai (unobtained)

Brown (1992) sketch phonology of Kovai

Bugenhagen (1994) Kovai (unobtained)

Sifurna (1997) Mape verbs (unobtained)

Suter (1997) comparison of Kâte verbal desinences with those of Kovai, Ono and a number of other New Guinean languages

Suter (2010) Kâte ergative

Suter (2012) …

Suter (n.d.) Huon labiovelars

Suter (n.d.) Huon case enclitics

Suter (2018) comparative Huon Tip grammar including (pp. 34-40) Huon Tip object-marking verbs and (pp. 160-173) Huon Tip desinences

McEvoy (2002) grammar of Migabac (unobtained)

McEvoy (2003) Migabac serial verbs (unobtained)

McEvoy (2003, 2005) phonology of and (pp. 287-292) 389-term vocabulary for (Southern) Migabac

McEvoy (2004) sketch phonology of Migabac

McEvoy (2008) grammar of Migabac

McEvoy (2012) Migabac dialects

In addition to these, vocabularies of Kovai and Kâte were provided in digitalized form by Paul Whitehouse via the Summer Institute of Linguistics; however they are unattributed.

Historiy of classification

[under construction]

Historical phonology

[under construction]

Proto-Huon Tip had 16 consonants and perhaps 5 to 7 vowels as follows:

*m *n
*p *t *s *k *kp
*b *d *dz *g *gb
*w *j
*i [*u]
*e [*ɵ] *o

Coarticulated labiovelar stops /*kp *gb/ descend from rounded velars /*kʷ *ŋgʷ/. They are given as <*kp *gb> here because their realizations as such appear to be universal within Huon Tip.

Vowels /*ɵ *u/ are uncommon, and are suspected of having arisen from diphthongs /*ɐⁱ *ɐᵘ/. Mid back /*o/ is shown here as such because this is its prevailing reflex, and because it appears to contrast at the Proto-Huon Tip level with [*u], although it is known to descend from Huon /*u/.

Consonant clusters are found only acress morpheme boundaries.

Root-finally, nasals /*m *n/ and stops /*p *t *k/ are realized as one of two archiphonemes as follows (McElhanon 1974):

*N

Consonants correspond as follows:

Huon Tip Sene Migabac Momare Mape Naga Wemo Mâgob. Wâmora
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…

Vowels correspond as follows:

Huon Tip Sene Migabac Momare Mape Naga Wemo Mâgob. Wâmora
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…
*…

These correspondences are exemplified as follows …


… initial consonants …




… medial consonants …




… final consonants …




… vowels and diphthongs …


Pronouns

[under construction]


Verbal morphology

[under construction]