Last Updated: 2020-06-24
Background
Language Family: Trans-New Guinea / Madang-Adelbert Range / Madang / Mabuso / Gum
- Amele is spoken on the Madang Province of Papua New Guinea.
Phonology
Consonants
- The Huar dialect includes /r/, which does not exist in any other dialect of Amele (Roberts 2016, 81).
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Place of Articulation
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Manner of Articulation
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Labial
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Alveolar
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Palatal
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Velar
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Labiovelar
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Glottal
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Stops
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b
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t d
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k ɡ
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ɡb
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ʔ
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Fricatives
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f
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s
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h
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Nasals
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m
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n
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Trills
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r
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Approximants
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l
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j
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w
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Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced.
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Vowels
- Amele contains the following diphthongs: /ai/, /au/, /ei/, /eu/, /oi/, /ou/
- Roberts (2016) interprets these as sequences of consecutive vowels rather than as complex phonemes. Other sequences of vowels can also occur (including consecutive identical vowels), but only across syllable boundaries (Roberts 2016, 66–68). Roberts (1991) also argues for the existence of /ae/ and /ao/ as diphthongs (p. 3), but he seems to have moved away from that analysis by 2016. I have chosen not to account for them in the rules.
- Mid vowels sometimes lengthen, but Roberts (2016) finds the length to be a realization of an underlying sequence of identical vowels (p. 75).
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Front
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Central
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Back
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High
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i
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u
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Mid
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e
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o
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Low
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a
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Alphabet
- The alphabet used is of the modern Amele orthography (developed ca. 1990), as the older orthography (developed in the 1920s) has several ambiguities. The modern orthography is also the one used by Crúbadán, making it all the more preferable.
- Older orthography also uses ⟨p⟩, but because [p] is non-phonemic in Amele, I have excluded ⟨p⟩ from my ruleset.
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Grapheme
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Phoneme
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Comment
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a
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/a/
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b
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/b/
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c
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/ʔ/
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d
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/d/
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e
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/e/
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f
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/f/
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g
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/ɡ/
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h
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/h/
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i
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/i/
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j
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/j/
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k
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/k/
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l
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/l/
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m
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/m/
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n
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/n/
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o
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/o/
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q
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/ɡb/
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r
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/r/
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only used in Huar dialect
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s
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/s/
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t
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/t/
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u
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/u/
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w
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/w/
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Lenition Rules
- In some words, /s/ alternates with [h] when adjacent to high vowels (Roberts 2016, 56).
- In words in which /b/ is realized as [p], there can be further spirantization of [p] word-initially and intervocalically to [f] (Roberts 2016, 52).
Misc. Rules
- Word-final non-alveolar stops devoice if the word is multisyllabic; contrast between /ɡb/ and /b/ also collapses in such position, with both phonemes being realized as [p] (Roberts 2016, 52–53, 64).
- [p] can also be found as an allophone of /b/ in other positions (Roberts 2016, 52).
- /j/ goes to [ʒ] in certain circumstances: word-initially, when surrounded on both sides by /a/, word-finally after /i/, and intervocalically before /i/ (Roberts 2016, 57).
- /w/ is realized as [ʋ] in a few environments:
- word-initially preceding the front vowels
- word-finally following /i/
- inter-vocalically preceding the front vowels (Roberts 2016, 56).
- Consonant clusters can only occur word-medially (Roberts 2016, 65).
- Phonetically lax /a/ lengthens before voiced stops in monosyllabic words (Roberts 2016, 76).
References
Roberts, John R. 1991. “Orthography Reform in Amele.” Notes on Literacy 17: 1–20.
———. 2016. “Amele Rrg Grammatical Sketch.” SIL International.