Last updated: 2019-12-16
Background
Language family: Trans–New Guinea / Main Section / Eastern / Central and Southeastern / Dagan
- Daga is spoken in the Central, Milne Bay, and Oro provinces of Papua New Guinea.
Phonology
Consonants
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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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Palatal
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Velar
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Stops
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p b
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t d
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k ɡ
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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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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.
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Vowels
- Like many Trans-New Guinea languages, Daga includes a large amount of diphthongs (and some triphthongs) (“Daga Organised Phonology Data” 2011, 2–3). However, these can also be interpreted as vowel sequences (John and Murane 1972, 24), so they won’t be accounted for in the rules.
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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
- There is some debate as to how ⟨a⟩ is realized: Murane (1974) transcribes it as /a/ whereas (“Daga Organised Phonology Data” 2011) uses /ɑ/ (p. 5; p. 1). I have opted to use /a/ in the ruleset.
- ⟨l⟩ appears in loanword proper nouns (“Daga Organised Phonology Data” 2011, 3).
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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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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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/t/
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t
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/t/
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u
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/u/
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v
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/w/
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w
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/w/
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y
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/j/
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Syllable Structure
- Syllables in Daga include the following structures (“Daga Organised Phonology Data” 2011, 3):
Lenition
- /t/ spirantizes to [s] preceding front vowels (“Daga Organised Phonology Data” 2011, 3).
Misc. Rules
- There is free variation between /r/, [ɾ], and [l] (John and Murane 1972, 20).
- /n/ assimilates to velar stops (ibid.).
- /w/ becomes [β] preceding front vowels (ibid.).
- A phonetic glottal stop is epenthesized preceding word-initial vowels, between like-vowels, and following all word-final vowels (ibid.).
References
John, J., and Elizabeth Murane. 1972. “Vocalic Syllabicity in Daga.” Phonetica 25 (1). S. Karger AG: 19–26. doi:10.1159/000259367.
Murane, Elizabeth. 1974. Daga Grammar: From Morpheme to Discourse. Edited by Irvine Davis. Benjamin F. Elson.