Last Updated: 2020-06-02
Background
Language Family: Trans-New Guinea, Main Section, Central and Western, Huon-Finisterre, Huon, Eastern
- Dedua is spoken in the Morobe province of Papua New Guinea.
Phonology
Consonants
- Based on the comparison with other languages in the same language family, McEvoy (2005) concludes that voiceless stops in syllable codas are neutralized and realized as glottal stops (p. 269). Thus, the phonemic status of the glottal stop is called into question. However, I have opted to treat it as a phoneme here because this seems to be the common practice found in the literature.
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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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Alveopalatal
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Palatal
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Velar
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Glottal
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Stops
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p b
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t d
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k kp ɡ ɡb
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ʔ
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Affricates
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dʑ
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Fricatives
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f
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s
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Nasals
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m
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n
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ŋ
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Trills
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r
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Approximants
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w
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j
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Note: For phonemes that share a cell, those on the left are voiceless and those on the right are voiced. /kp/ and /ɡb/ are labiovelar stops.
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Vowels
- According to McEvoy (2005), the diphthongs listed below are always interpreted as complex nuclei (p. 270).
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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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Diphthongs
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/ei/, /eu/, /ai/, /au/, /oi/, /ou/
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Alphabet
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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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syllable-finally
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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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/ʔ/
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syllable-initially
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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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/r/
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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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y
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/j/
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Digraph
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dz
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/dʑ/
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gb
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/ɡb/
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kp
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/kp/
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ng
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/ŋ/
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Syllable Structure
- Syllables in Dedua consist of the following structures (S. Ceder and Ceder 2003, 3):
- Glottal stops and /ŋ/ are the only phonemes that appear in syllable codas (McEvoy 2005, 268). This makes for the inference that complex consonants are always realized as such rather than two separate phonemes.
Lenition Rules
- /ʔ/ becomes [h] syllable-initially (S. Ceder and Ceder 2003, 3).
Misc. Rules
- /r/ varies freely with [l] intervocalically (S. Ceder and Ceder 2003, 3).
- /w/ varies freely with [v] (ibid.).
- In syllable coda position, the velar nasal undergoes assimilation to the place of articulation of the following consonant if present. This assimilation is reflected in written Dedua (McEvoy 2005, 268); however, it has been accounted for in the rules to reflect /ŋ/ as underlying.
References
Ceder, Sune, and Britt Ceder. 2003. “Dedua Organized Phonology Data.” SIL Langauge and Culture Archives.
McEvoy, Steve. 2005. “Phonological Descriptions of Papua New Guinea Languages.” In, 261–302. Summer Institute of Linguistics.