Last Updated: 2020-06-24
Background
Language Family: Austronesian / Malayo-Polynesian / Central-Eastern / Eastern Malayo-Polynesian / Oceanic / Central-Eastern Oceanic / Southeast Solomonic / Malaita-San Cristobal / San Cristobal
- Arosi is spoken in the Makira province of the Solomon Islands.
Phonology
Consonants
- It’s interesting that the Arosi language includes the glide /w/ but not /j/. Although Capell (1971; as cited in Lynch, Crowley, and Ross 2001, 562) includes /j/ as a separate phoneme (along with /kʷ/ and /ɡʷ/), Lynch, Crowley, and Ross (2001) explain that, due to a lack of evidence, they are not explicitly contrastive, but rather allophones of intervocalic /i/, /k/, and /ɡ/, respectively.
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Place of Articulation
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Manner of Articulation
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Bilabial
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Alveolar
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Velar
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Glottal
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Stops
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p pʷ b bʷ
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t d
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k ɡ
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ʔ
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Fricatives
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s
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h
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Nasals
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m mʷ
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n
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ŋ
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Flaps
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ɾ
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Approximants
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w
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Note: The alveolar and velar stops are ordered voiceless and voiced. Phonemes that have the diacritic (ʷ) are labialized.
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Vowels
- Vowel length is contrastive in Arosi (Lynch, Crowley, and Ross 2001, 562). Long vowels are indicated by duplicate graphemes.
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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
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Grapheme
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Phoneme
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a
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/a/
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b
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/b/
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d
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/d/
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e
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/e/
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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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k
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/k/
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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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p
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/p/
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r
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/ɾ/
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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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’
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/ʔ/
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Digraph
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pw
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/pʷ/
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bw
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/bʷ/
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mw
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/mʷ/
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ng
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/ŋ/
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Syllable Structure
- Syllables in Arosi consist of either /V/ or /CV/ (Capell 1971, 20:6).
- Consonant clusters are not permitted in Arosi (ibid.).
Misc. Rules
- /k/ and /ɡ/ are labialized preceding back vowels (Lynch, Crowley, and Ross 2001, 562).
- /i/ is realized as [j] intervocalically (ibid.).
- /t/ is realized as [s] preceding /i/ (ibid).
References
Capell, Arthur. 1971. Arosi Grammar. Vol. 20. Pacific Linguistics: Series B. Canberra: Research School of Pacific; Asian Studies, Australian National University.
Lynch, John, Terry Crowley, and Malcolm D. Ross. 2001. The Oceanic Languages. Taylor & Francis Ltd.