Kasua

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Situation

Kasua is spoken by approximately 600 people (2007) living in seven villages, Fokomaiyu, Talesou, Siane Falls, Musula, Iwatupu, Welio and Ikisalopo, from the boundary of the Papuan Plateau to the north, around the southeastern and southern slopes of Mount Bosavi and to the headwaters of the Turama river at the southern edge of Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands province and just across the border at Wawoi Falls in Western Province. The term Kasua /kasuwa/ means “cassowary” (Voorhoeve 1975: 394, Logan 2007: 1-2.)

Sources

Franklin (ed. 1973: 558-559) 81 comparative terms for Kasua

Shaw (1986: 67) 97 comparative terms for Kasua

Logan, Madden and Pfantz (1990 sociolinguistic survey of Kasua (unobtained)

Logan and Logan (1992) sketch phonology of Kasua (unobtained)

Logan (2001) Kasua alphabet (unobtained)

Logan (2003) sketch phonology of Kasua

Logan (2007) syntactic grammar of Kasua of Musula, Iwatupu, and Fokomaiyu villages

Phonology

Logan (2003, 2007: 2-3) gives 10 consonants and 7 vowels for Kasua as follows:

m	n
p	t		k
f	s			h
w	ɺ	j

i		u
		o
ɛ		ɔ
æ	a

In addition to the simple vowels given above, five diphthongs are found as follows:

	oⁱ	oᵘ
ɛⁱ
aⁱ		aᵘ

Stops /p t k/ are generally voiced when preceded by a back vowel. Final bilabial /p/ is realized unreleased [p̚].

Fricative /f/ is specified as labiodental.

Apical fricative /s/ is realized as [ʃ] when followed by rounded high back vowel /u/.

Unoccluded fricative /h/ is found only initially.

Apical non-stop /ɺ/ is an alveolar lateral flap. It occurs only medially.

According to Logan, nasal vowels are rare and occur primarily after /m/ and /n/. This is in agreement with Shaw's (1986: 67) vocabulary, in which vowels are shown as nasalized only when following [m n], and Franklin's (ed. 1973: 558-559) which shows no nasalization at all.

Pronouns

Logan (2007: 4-5) gives pronouns for Kasua in three case forms as follows:

	base	absolutive	ergative	erg. emphatic
		-wa ~ -ɔ	-jɛ ~ -tɛ	-jɛ-wi ~ -tɛ-wi
1 sg.	nɛ	nɛ-wa	nɛ-jɛ	nɛ-jɛ-wi
2 sg.	kɛ	kɛ-wa	kɛ-jɛ	kɛ-jɛ-wi
3 sg.	ɛ	ɛ-wa	ɛ-jɛ	ɛ-jɛ-wi
1 pl.	ni	ni-wa	ni-jɛ	ni-jɛ-wi
2 pl.	ki	ki-wa	ki-jɛ	ki-jɛ-wi
3 pl.	i	i-wa	i-jɛ	i-jɛ-wi
1 dl.	næk	næk-ɔ	næ-tɛ	næ-tɛ-wi
2 dl.	kæk	kæk-ɔ	kæ-tɛ	kæ-tɛ-wi
3 dl.	æk	æk-ɔ	æ-tɛ	æ-tɛ-wi

It may be seen that the realizations of the absolutive and ergative suffixes are altered when preceded by final /k/ of the dual bases. In addition to these cases, a dative indicated by a suffix /-ma/ is found throughout the text: 1 sg. /nɛ-ma/, 3 sg. /ɛ-ma/, 3 pl. /i-ma/.

Verbal morphology

[under construction]

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