Somba-Siawari

Last Updated: 2019-11-19

COMPROMISED: ambiguity due to phonetic transcription of /p/, /t/, and /k/ intervocalically (ex. ⟨kapa⟩ and ⟨kawa⟩ both transcribe to /kapa/)

Background

Language Family: Nuclear Trans New Guinea / Finisterre-Huon / Huon / Western Huon / Kosorong-Burum-Mindik

• Also referred to as Burum, Somba-Siawari is spoken in the Morobe province of Papua New Guinea.

Phonology

Consonants

• /f/ is not a native phoneme of Somba-Siawari (Olkkonen 1985, 33). However, after much influence from other languages (Kâte and Pidgin), it has become prevalent in the language. I have chosen to include it in the phonemic inventory.

	Place of Articulation
Manner of Articulation	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Stops	p b	t d		k kʷ ɡ ɡʷ
Affricates		ts dz
Fricatives	f	s		ɣ
Nasals	m	n		ŋ
Trills		r
Approximants	w	l	j
Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced. The velar stops that have the diacritic (ʷ) are labialized.

Vowels

• Both Olkkonen (1985) and Gasaway (1997) represent the mid central vowel as /ə/ (p. 35; p. 59); however, I have chosen to use /ɵ/ as Olkkonen (1985) describes it as a close mid-high central rounded vowel.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	ɵ	o
Low		a

Alphabet

• Intervocalically, /p/, /t/, and /k/ are written ⟨w⟩, ⟨r⟩, and ⟨h⟩, respectively (see Lenition Rules below) (Olkkonen 1994, 4).

Grapheme	Phoneme
a	/a/
b	/b/
d	/d/
e	/e/
f	/f/
g	/ɡ/
h	/ɣ/
i	/i/
j	/dz/
k	/k/
l	/l/
m	/m/
n	/n/
ŋ	/ŋ/
o	/o/
ö	/ɵ/
p	/p/
q	/kʷ/
r	/r/
s	/s/
t	/t/
u	/u/
w	/w/
y	/j/
z	/ts/
Digraph
gw	/ɡʷ/

Syllable Structure

• Syllables in Somba-Siawari have the following structures (Olkkonen 1985, 35–36):
  • V
  • VC
  • CV
  • CVC
  • VV
  • VVC
  • CVV
  • CVVC

Lenition Rules

• Intervocalically /p/, /t/, and /k/ are realized as [w], [r], and [h] (Gasaway 1997 argues for [ɣ] (p. 63)), respectively (Olkkonen 1994, 4).
• Voiceless stops become voiced following voiced consonants (Gasaway 1997, 67).
• Degemination of consonants occurs through affixation (Gasaway 1997, 62).

Misc. Rules

• /ɣ/ is realized as [h] word-initially (Olkkonen 1994, 4).
• /w/ becomes [β] preceding front vowels (Gasaway 1997, 60).
• Voiced stops become voiceless following voiceless consonants (Gasaway 1997, 67).
• [j] epenthesis occurs intervocalically at morpheme boundaries if the second vowel is not high (Gasaway 1997, 69).
• /i/ and /u/ are realized as glides when occurring in syllable onsets and /w/ and /j/ are realized as vowels when occurring in syllable nuclei (Olkkonen 1985, 30).
• Voiceless stops are aspirated word-initially and unreleased word-finally (Olkkonen 1985, 31).
• /kʷ/ and /ɡʷ/ can be realized as [kp] and [ɡb] in the Yaknge and Siawari dialects (Olkkonen 1994, 4).
• The velar and labiovelar consonants are backed preceding central and back vowels and velar consonants (unless found word-finally) (Olkkonen 1985, 31).

References

Gasaway, Eileen. 1997. “Burum Morphophonemics.” In Papers in Papuan Linguistics 3, edited by Andrew Pawley, 87:59–99. Pacific Linguistics a. Canberra: Research School of Pacific; Asian Studies, Australian National University.

Olkkonen, Soini. 1985. “Burum Phonology.” In Five Phonological Studies, edited by John M. Clifton, 31:27–50. Workpapers in Papua New Guinea Languages. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics. http://www.sil.org/pacific/png/abstract.asp?id=20041.

———. 1994. “Burum-Mindik Organised Phonology Data.”