Wahgi language


Wahgi is a Trans–New Guinea language of the Chimbu–Wahgi branch spoken by approximately 100,000 people in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Like other Chimbu languages, Wahgi has some unusual lateral consonants.

Phonology

Consonants

The dental consonants are "distributed", with closure along a considerable distance of the vocal tract. This presumably means that they are laminal, and that the alveolar consonants are apical. The dental consonants have palatalized allophones in free variation.
The description of the dentals suggest they may be alveolo-palatal or something similar. This is further suggested by transitional vowels triggered by, apparently even by its non-palatalized allophone: 'moon', 'here'.
The nasal element of the prenasalized consonants is syllabic when not preceded by a vowel, but takes a noncontrastive low tone and is never stressed: 'but', 'we know'. Prenasalized consonants are perceived as single segments word-initially, but as nasal + stop word-medially.
Nasals and semivowels have no notable allophony, apart from the optional palatalization of. The other consonants vary markedly, with most variants being positional:
word-initialword-medialword-finalword-initial,
phrase-medial		word-final,
phrase-medial
/p/p~b
pʷ~bʷ		p~bpʰ~ɸpʰ~ɸ~pᵊ
/mb/ᵐp~ᵐbmp~mbmpʰ~mɸmpʰ~mɸ~mpᵊ
/s/t̪~t̪s̪~s̪~t̪ɕ~ɕ
s̪ʷ		t̪s̪~s̪~t̪ɕ~ɕ
t̪		t̪s̪~s̪~t̪ɕ~ɕ
/nz/ⁿd̪~ⁿd̪z̪~ⁿd̪ʑ~ⁿt̪~ⁿt̪s̪~ⁿt̪ɕn̪d̪~n̪d̪z̪~n̪d̪ʑ~n̪t̪~n̪t̪s̪~n̪t̪ɕn̪t̪~n̪t̪s̪~n̪t̪ɕ~n̪s̪~n̪ɕ--
/t/t~d
tʷ
ɾ~rr̥t~d
ɾ~r		ɾ~r~r̥
t̚
/nd/ⁿt~ⁿdnt~ndntʰntʰ~ntᵊ
/k/k~ɡ
kʷ~ɡʷ		k~ɡ
ŋ 		kʰ
/ng/ᵑk~ᵑɡ
ᵑɡʷ		ŋk~ŋɡ--
ɬ̪ɬ̪ˢ̪~ɬ̪~ɮ̪ɬ̪ˢ̪~ɬ̪
/ɺ/ɺ̥~ɺ̥~ɺ̥tʰ~ɺ̥tr̥~ɺ̥r̥~ɺ~ɺ̥dɺ̥~ɺ̥~ɺ̥tʰ~ɺ̥tr̥~ɺ̥r̥
/ʟ/ʟ~kʟ~ʟ̝~ɢ̆ʟ~kʟ

The southern Kuma dialect has these three laterals, though the alveolar is rather uncommon. The dental and velar laterals assimilate to or before dental and alveolar consonants; the alveolar only to before alveolar consonants. In locational forms with a suffix beginning with /t/, the /t/ is elided following the lateral, so that on the surface Wahgi distinguishes dental vs alveolar lateral fricatives and alveolar lateral fricatives vs flaps.

Vowels

All vowels neutralize to in final unstressed closed syllables.
In rapid speech, unstressed elide between stressed syllables. For example, in rapid speech is pronounced.

Tone and stress

Wahgi appears to have three word tones rather than phonemic tone on each syllable. At least one syllable will have a phonetic high tone, with the resulting patterns of high, rising and falling on words of one or two syllables, and peaking, rising and falling on words of three to five syllables. Stress also appears to be contrastive, but analysis is difficult.
On both monosyllabic and disyllabic words, the three tones are realized as high, rising and falling: , and . An analysis of two phonemic syllable tones, HIGH and LOW, is complicated by the appearance of all three word tones on monosyllables with final occlusive codas.
In polysyllabic words,
On trisyllables, the patterns LHL, HLL, and LLH are attested. On tetrasyllables are LLHL, LLLH, and LHHL. On pentasyllables, only two patterns have been found, LLHHH and LLHHL.
Words with six to nine syllables are only attested with a single pattern, a peaking tone on the first three syllables followed by a falling tone stretched out over the remaining syllables. For words of six syllables, this is realized as LHLHLL ; for seven, LHLHLLL; for eight, LHLHHLLL; for nine LHLHHLLLL. In each case, the second syllable is also stressed, and it is not clear if these are actually double-peaking tones or single peaking tones with preceding stress. Regardless, there does not appear to be any phonemic distinction.

Phonotactics

The maximal syllable in Wahgi is CVCC; the minimal syllable is V, which may be any vowel but. Any consonant may occur in the onset except the three laterals. Any consonant may occur in the coda except the semivowels and /ng/. With a coda consonant cluster, the first consonant may only be and the second may only be.
A word may be anywhere from one to nine syllables long. A monosyllabic word may be any type of syllable but V and maybe CV. Beside the syllable-onset and -coda restrictions, may not occur word-initially and may not occur word-finally.
Observed vowel clusters within words are. In some cases these sequences reduce across morpheme boundaries, and stress seems to play a role in vowel reduction. It may be that some of the difficulties in analyzing stress may be a conflation of vowel sequences across syllables with sequences in single heavy syllables.
Observed consonant clusters within words are those allowed as syllable codas,, plus.
In rapid speech, the following additional combinations are known:.

Evolution

Below are some reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea proposed by Pawley, drawn from Ramsey :
proto-Trans-New GuineaMiddle Wahgi
*ma- ‘NEG clitic’ma ‘no!’
*ma ‘ground’maɫ
*maŋgV ‘compact round object’muŋ ‘fruit, nut, lump’
*moVm ‘joint’mokum, mokem ‘knuckle, joint’
*mundun-maŋgV ‘heart’mund-muŋ
*mV ‘taro’mi
*mVV + t- ‘vomit’mek ‘vomit’, mek ‘vomitus’
*am ‘mother’ama
*amu ‘breast’am
*niman ‘louse’numan
*nman ‘mind, soul’numan ‘thought, mind, will’
*kumV- ‘die’kumb- ‘ die’
*moVm ‘joint’mokum, mokem, mokem ‘knuckle, joint’
*na- ‘eat’no-
*niman ‘louse’numan
*nman ‘mind, soul’numan ‘thought, mind, will’
*mundun ‘internal organs’ mundun mo- ‘be pot-bellied’
*niman ‘louse’numan
*nman ‘mind, soul’numan
*mundu-maŋgV ‘heart’mund-muŋ
*ŋaŋ ‘baby’ŋaŋ ‘small male child’
*ambi ‘man’ amb ‘woman’, ambi- ‘wife’
*imbi ‘name’embe
*pu- ‘go’pu
*apa ‘father’apa- ‘maternal uncle’
*mund-mangV ‘heart’mund-mung
*tVk- ‘cut, cut off’tuk- ‘chop’
*maŋgV ‘compact round object’mungum ‘kidney’
*maŋgV ‘compact round object’muŋ ‘fruit, nut, lump’
*mundu-maŋgV ‘heart’mund-muŋ
*kakV- ‘carry on shoulder’ kau- ‘carry on head or shoulder’
*tVk- ‘cut, cut off’tuk- ‘chop’
*muk ‘blue’muk
*mVV + t- ‘vomit’mek, mek ‘vomitus’
*ma ‘ground’maɫ ‘ground, soil, world’
*nok ‘water’noɫ
*ŋaŋ ‘baby’ŋaɫ ‘small baby’, ŋaŋa ‘male child’
*-i ‘2DL verbal suffix’-iɫ

To support his proto-Trans-New Guinea reconstructions, Pawley also cites probable reflexes in the Apali, Kalam, Kâte, Selepet, Binandere, Katei, Kiwai, Telefol, and Asmat languages.

Semantics

Colors

Middle Wahgi distinguishes 14 color terms :
Middle Wahgi has three types of contrasting color patterns.
Middle Wahgi has at least a dozen words for days before or after, going far beyond ‘yesterday’ or ‘tomorrow’ :
The first dictionary of Middle Wahgi was published by Church of the Nazarene medical missionary Evelyn Ramsey in 1975.