Organised Phonology Data

Saliba Language [SBE]

Sariba and Rogeia Islands, the western tip of Sideia Island and the Papuan mainland along the West Channel to Gadogadoa Point - Milne Bay Province Trans New Guinea Phylum; Papuan Tip Cluster Family: Suau family Population census: 2,900 Major villages: Sidudu, Sawasawaga, Logeakai, Logeapwata Linguistic work done by: SIL Data checked by: Sabine and Rainer Oetzel 24 May 2004 Phonemic and Orthographic Inventory

/ a b b d    h i j k k l m m n o p/

/p s t u w/

Consonants

Bilab LabDen Dental Alveo Postalv Retro Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn Glottal Plosive p b t d k   Nasal m n Trill Tap/Flap Fricative s h Lateral Fricative Approx Lateral l Approx Ejective Stop Implos

/p / labialized voiceless bilabial plosive Saliba OPD Printed: September 6, 2004 Page 2

/b/ labialized voiced bilabial plosive

/k/ labialized voiceless velar plosive

// labialized voiced velar plosive

/m/ labialized voiced bilabial nasal p polohe 'heavy  gwaugwauna 'cold' kelepa 'knife' ka negwali 'we peel' p pwaisa 'tobacco' m memenagu 'my tongue' kipwala 'star' salime 'out rigger' kamkam 'chicken' t tamana 'his father' nete 'wharf' m ye mwayau 'it is full' kamwasa 'road, track' k kokolaka 'rat' like 'seeds' n nabada 'enough' sinebada 'old lady' k kwateya 'yams' ku likwa 'you wear' s sinagu 'my mother' ta kasi 'we cut grass' b bosa 'basket' taubada 'old man' h hesagu 'my name' loheya 'boy' b bwakohi 'roof cap' kubwakubwana 'short' l lohalohana 'long' wamali 'arrow' d debagu 'my forehead' madai 'today'  gawala 'ashes' nige 'not'

Vowels

i u

e o

a i ihagu 'my in-law' e ena 'PREP' pilipilidai 'legend' enem 'DET' se kabi 'they hold' kaikope 'stairs' yau 'first person singular personal o osili 'brown leaf' pronoun' bagodu 'wave' kwateya 'yams' ya numako 'I drank already' u unai 'POSTPOSITION' a aga 'historic condition (modal)' numa 'house' taubada 'old man' weku 'stone' ta leha 'we (inclusive addressee) paddle' waga 'boat' kanuwa 'sweet potato' Saliba OPD Printed: September 6, 2004 Page 3

Diphthongs /ei/ /eu/ /ai/ /ae/ /ao/ au/ /oi/ /ou/ /ui/ ei ya beleibanidi 'I fry them' ao maoli 'life' ya tabei 'I pull it up' tubudao 'ancestors' eu seuseuli 'left side' ui buibuina 'ripe' lopeu 'slingshot' ye lapui 'he listens' ai ya hepaisowa 'I use' oi koigogo 'meeting' ye lobai 'he finds' maliboi 'flying fox' ae baela 'banana' ou toudada 'gunwale' ya lae 'I take' tou 'sugarcane' au daudau 'sandy seabed' hesau 'other'

Suprasegmentals (tone, stress, length) Pitch (Tone) In Saliba pitch is not contrastive, i.e. there is not phonemic tone. In the Saliba dialect spoken in Sawasawaga, the pitch does not vary a lot on the sentence level. Most prominent is the falling pitch at the end of all clauses. This is the same for statements, commands, and questions. Only when people speak more slowly does their speech exhibit a more elaborate melody; but the pitch still falls at the end of every type of clause. Duration (Length) Duration (length) is not a contrastive feature in Saliba. The data do not yield any example for contrastive vowel length. Typically every syllable in a stretch of speech between pauses receives the same amount of time, typically between 80 and 120 milliseconds. Only the stressed syllables of words that are central to the meaning of the clause are lengthened to about double the length of the ordinary syllable. Stress The stressable element in Saliba is the syllable, not a single mora in a syllable. Stressed syllables are perceptually more prominent by greater duration and/or intensity, and/or higher pitch. Instrumental analysis shows that these three factors do not always coincide. There are different stress assignment constraints for verbs and nouns, and some of the other word classes are never stressed. For verbs, in at least 80% of the cases the stress falls on the penultimate syllable of the word, but heavy syllables tend to attract the primary stress. For nouns with lexical roots of three or more light syllables, about 70% of them have stress falling on the first syllable, and about 30% on the penultimate syllable. In lexical stems without suffixes, usually every second syllable preceding the primary stress receives secondary stress. This tendency is true for nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Saliba OPD Printed: September 6, 2004 Page 4

Grammatical prefixes like subject agreement markers and reduplication do not influence stress assignment. Subject agreement markers, e.g. ya ‘1SG’, ku ‘2SG’, kwa ‘2PL’, are not stressed. Reduplication can receive secondary stress according to the pattern mentioned in the previous paragraph. Suffixes tend to pull the primary stress to the right, but not the secondary stress(es), so that there can be three syllables between the secondary and the primary stress in inflected words. The object agreement suffix -gomiu ‘2PL’ always receives the primary stress on its first syllable. Some word classes ordinarily do not receive stress. e.g. the determiners like ta ‘this here’, ne ‘that there’, wa ‘that (not visible)’. Possessive words, e.g. kana ‘his’, yodi ‘their’, are unstressed when they occur with their head noun. When they occur by themselves, they function as nouns, and receive stress accordingly, on the penultimate syllable.

Syllable Patterns The syllable is defined by vowel nucleus. Surface syllable patterns are as follows:

Syllable Example Example Pattern V e.na ‘POSTPOSITION’ i.ha.gu ‘my in-law’ VV ai.ya.ni ‘corrugated iron’ Au.li.li ‘(name of a man)’ CV ma.ta.gu ‘my eye’ wa.ga ‘boat’ CVV ye kai.ka.la.si ‘it bites’ yau.mai ‘wind’ CVm lam.na ‘root’ te.nem ‘that’

Conventions: Phonological Lateral Approximant /l/ The phoneme /l/ is realised as [ ] or [ ], which are in free fluctuation. The choice of one or the other is entirely left to the individual, even though the more commonly used allophone is the flapped ‘r’ [ ]. For this phoneme we chose the letter /l/ because this is the preferred orthographic sign for the phoneme. Glottal Stop The glottal stop is a phoneme only word-medially, while all word-initial vowels are preceded by phonetic a glottal stop (Obligatory Glottal Stop Onset). Glides Our analysis led us to define the glides [j] and [w] as phonemes /j/ and /w/, respectively. While there are many occurrences where the glide is predictable according to the universal tendency, there are many other words where the glide can only be a phoneme: 1. There is contrast of words in which a high vowel is followed by the corresponding glide, and words where the high vowel before the glide is lacking, e.g. nauwa ‘tidal current’ vs. nawalai ‘moon, month’, and sibauwa ‘widower’ vs. se bawa1 ‘they stay’. The only way to account for the contrasts is to assume a phonological segment for each phonetic segment. 2. Defining the glides as phonemes satisfies the preference for syllables with onsets in other than word-initial positions.

1 The se in this example is a subject agreement marker prefix. While phonologically part of the verb, we write it separately in our orthography. Saliba OPD Printed: September 6, 2004 Page 5

3. The reduplication rule demands for the first two moraic segments with their syllable onset(s) to be reduplicated. If [ ] were an allophone of the phoneme / /, one would first have to take away its syllabicity. There is however no simple rule that could do that which would not also change the very common diphthongs / / and / /.

Conventions: Orthographic Following the preference of the Saliba people and the orthographies of surrounding languages, we chose for the phoneme /l/. In speaking, however, is pronounced [] by most people. People would read following the English pronounciation. The glottal stop is written < ' > only when it is a phoneme, i.e. word-medially, e.g. ya he’a’a ‘I clean’, and po’opo’o ‘round’.

The glides / / and / / are written even in cases where they are predictable, such as iyala ‘fight’, nauwa ‘tidal current’, and sibauwa ‘widower’. The only exception is that orthographically, between / / and / /, the glide is not written: niu ‘coconut’, komiu ‘second person plural independent pronoun’. Word breaks are inserted (1) between words; (2) between the subject agreement prefix and the stem of the verb; (3) in compound stems, between two roots if either one is longer than two syllables; and (4) before the second person plural object agreement suffix -gomiu.

Transcription of a recorded passage tautlwaja j taubinawaja basilaki unai se tlhai s dbima || basilaki unai mta kadi paiswa d manuwa s sipasipa || nukulan unai s bawabawa || ludi j ihadi kadi paiswa d s paiswa s laulia || na sija manuwa s sipasipa unai s ujma mimilahi ludi wa kadi kai j msidi s kaikai || j laulau , kab huja hsau mta s lau ludiwa kadi j kaiabu j  h malatmtm habuluna s tlhai s lau manuwa s sipasipa || na ihadiwa natuna j kitahtt || d kapulika je luduwai jede wawajawa hpsanawa unai || je hbali ksai je buswa || s la d s kai || taumulitawa i wan, kait, je wan, j ppja || tau bauna i wan, taki jd na u kaim || se kai ye h bnijai jna ludiwa kadi je kaiabu || malat mtm ailina mta jad s tlhai || s tlhai s lula mta s ujma s dbima || s dbima d n asakatali unai bna s bawa || na s kitasa basilaki kjana s kitakita || na ludiwa mta j hmu liwatanidi j lama || je jaja t ni se nuwatui || j wane, taubinawaja tautlwaja ka najaiau na ja lawa ja kitamiju || na j hddwa ni s md || ludiwa j lama d kawanamada u nai j tuli slaslan unai || basilaki s wan wkuwa hsana d aimatutuwa || na wau tautlwaja taubinawaja ludi kawanamada unai j tuli || na sija j di labui s dbima d nasakatali unai bna se tuli || s kitasa basilaki kjana s kita d ni s hnuwa || s jna s dbima sawasawaa unai kab s tuli || jad sawasawaa slaslan unai tautlwaja taubinawaja s tuli || mta taubinawaja tautlwaja pilipi lidaina /

Tautolowaya yo Taubinawaya Bwasilaki unai se tolohai se dobima. Bwasilaki unai meta kadi paisowa ede manuwa se sipwasipwa. Nukula ne unai se bawabawa. Loudi yo ihadi kadi paisowa ede se paisowa se lauliga. Na siya manuwa se sipwasipwa unai se uyoma meimeilahi loudi wa kadi kai ye moseidi se kaikai. Ye laulau ee, kabo huya hesau meta se lau loudi wa kadi ye kaigabu ye gehe malatomtom habuluna se tolohai se lau manuwa se sipwasipwa. Na ihadi wa natuna ye kitahetete. Ede kapulika ye louduwai yede wawaya wa hepesana wa unai. Ye hebwali kesegai ye buse wa. Se lage ede se kai. Taumulita wa i wane, Kaite, ye wane, ye pepeya. Taubaguna i wane, Taki ede na u kai mo. Se kai ye gehe bonijai ena loudi wa kadi ye kaigabu. Se tolohai se lulage meta se uyoma se dobima. Se dobima ede Nasakatali unai bena se bawa. Na se kitasae Bwasilaki koyana se kitakita. Na loudi wa meta ye hemuliwatanidi ye laoma. Ye yogayoga to nige se nuwatui. Ye wane, Taubinawaya Tautolowaya kwa nayaigau, na ya laowa ya kita gomiu. Na ye hedede wa nige se mode. Loudi wa ye lauma ede Saliba OPD Printed: September 6, 2004 Page 6

Kawanamwadao unai ye tuli solasola ne unai. Bwasilaki se wane weku wa hesana ede Gaimatutuwao. Na wau Tautolowaya Taubinawaya wa loudi Kawanamwadao unai ye tuli. Na siya yodi labui se dobima ede Nasakatali unai bena se tuli. Se kitasae Bwasilaki koyana se kita ede nige se henuwa. Se yona se dobima Sawasawaga unai kabo se tuli. Yaede Sawasawaga solasola ne unai Tautolowaya Taubinawaya se tuli. Meta Taubinawaya Tautolowayawa pilipilidaina.

Tautolowaya and Taubinawaya started at Bwasilaki and came down hither. In Bwasilaki, their (regular) work was to trap birds. They (always) stayed in the bush. The (regular) work of their sister and their brother-in-law was to cook. After trapping birds they went back hither in the afternoon and their sister gave them their food and they were eating. This was going (on and) on until one day their sister finished roasting their meal, and in the early morning they went to trap birds. Their brother-in-law looked after his child. So when he strained a pumpkin, (he did it) in the baby's excrement. He mixed together what the baby had excremented. They came back and they ate. The lastborn said, This food stinks. The firstborn said, That’s enough, just eat. They finished eating, (and) in the night their sister roasted their food. They started and arrived (out of the bush), (and) they walked down hither. They came down hither (and) so they wanted to stay in Nasakatali. They looked eastwards (and) they saw the mountain of Bwasilaki. And their sister followed them coming hither. She was calling, but they did not consider it. She said, Taubinawaya, Tautolowaya, wait for me, and I get to you and see you! And they did not mind what she said. Their sister went hither (and) so she sat down in Kawanamwadao in the passage there. The Bwasilaki people call that stone Gaimatutuwao. And (even) now Tautolowaya's and Taubinawaya's sister sits in Kawanamwadao (passage). And when the two of them came down hither they wanted to sit down in Nasakatali. They looked eastward (and) they saw the mountain of Bwasilaki, (and) so they did not want (to sit there). They walked (along the beach) and came down hither to Sawasawaga (and) then they sat down. That’s in Sawasawaga passage there (where) Tautolowaya and Taubinawaya sit. This is the legend of Taubinawaya and Tautolowaya. Saliba OPD Printed: September 6, 2004 Page 7

Orthographic Chart The orthographic chart provided here includes the neighbouring languages for which a working orthography exists, i.e. Suau, Buhutu, Bwanabwana, Tawala. For Suau, I have included both the orthography in use, and the one suggested by Russ Cooper in his OPD (undated, not approved) which he wrote on the basis of his research prior to joining SIL. Empty spaces show the absense of this phoneme in the language.

Suau Buhutu Tawala Bwanabwana Saliba Phoneme R. Cooper’s R. Cooper, B. Ezard, R. & S. in use A. Canavan suggestion 1996 1975 Oetzel, 1997 i i i i i i i e e e e e e e a a a a a a a o o o o o o o u u u u u u u p p p p p p p p pw pw pw b b b b b b b b bw bw bw t t t t t t t d d d d d d d k k k k k k k k kw kw kw  g g g g g g  gw gw gw  ' or ∅ ' ' ' ' or ∅  'w -  v - f f f - f fw - s s s s s s s h h h h h h h hw - 2 l r, l l l l l l w w w w w w w j i, e, y y y y y y

2 In the Suau Bible of 1962 (reprints 1971, 1977, 1981), the phoneme /l/ is written both and , and are read differently, [] respective [l]. However, we think this not being a natural phenomenon in , but induced through the way of writing, as is shown by R. Cooper's analysis. Elementary school teachers in Modewa in the Suau area support this view and use only . Saliba OPD Printed: September 6, 2004 Page 8

Bibliography The following books and papers have also been written about the Saliba language, including sociolinguistic and anthropological papers: Margetts, Anna. 1999a. Negation in Saliba. Negation in - typological studies. U. Mosel and E. Hovdhaugen (eds.), Studies in Austronesian Linguistics 02. LINCOM Europa. München - Newcastle. ______1999b. Valence and transitivity in Saliba, an Oceanic language of . MPI Series in Psycholinguistics, MPI Nijmegen. ______In prep. Suppletion in the Saliba paradigm of 'give'. Cross-linguistic perspectives on argument structure: implications for learnability, in M. Bowerman and P. Brown (eds.). ______In prep. Saliba demonstratives in situational use: a first account. Deixis and Demonstratives in Oceanic languages. G. Senft (ed.). Mosel, Ulrike. 1994. Saliba. LINCOM Europa. München - Newcastle. Oetzel, Rainer and Sabine Oetzel. 1996. Survey Report: Saliba. S.I.L., unpublished manuscript. ______1997. Orthography and Phonology Description of Saliba. S.I.L., unpublished manuscript. ______1998. Sociolinguistics and Literacy Study for the Saliba Language. S.I.L., unpublished manuscript. ______1999. Social Organization Paper for the Saliba Language. (anthropological study). S.I.L., unpublished manuscript Other works mentioning the Saliba language and culture include: Abel, C. 1987. “Missionary Lingue Franche: Suau”, A world of Language: papers presented to Professor S.A. Wurm on his 65th birthday. Pacific Linguistics, Series C- No.100, (1987) 971- 988 Lithgow, David. 1976a. "History of Research in : Milne Bay Province". New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study Vol.2 Austrodnesian Languages (S.A. Wurm, ed.). Pacific Linguistics, Series C, No. 39, (1976) 157-170 ______1976b. “Austronesian Languages: Milne Bay Province”. New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study Vol.2 Austronesian Languages (S.A. Wurm, ed.). Pacific Linguistics Series C - No. 39, (1976) 444-523 ______1987. "Language Change and Relationships in Tubetube and Adjacent Languages", A world of Language: papers presented to Professor S.A. Wurm on his 65th birthday. Pacific linguistics, Series C, No. 100, (1987) 393-410 Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1922. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Eighth impression. London 1972 Wetherell, David. 1996. “Charles Abel and the Kwato Mission of Papua New Guinea 1891- 1975”.Melbourne University Press. Carlton South, Victoria, Australia.