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/ <a b bw d e g gw h i y k kw l m mw n o p> <A B Bw D E G Gw H I Y K Kw L M Mw N O P> /p s t u w/ <pw s t u w > <Pw 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 <l> for the phoneme /l/. In speaking, however, <l> is pronounced [] by most people. People would read <r> 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 tautlwaja j taubinawaja basilaki unai se tlhai s dbima || basilaki unai mta kadi paiswa d manuwa s sipasipa || nukulan unai s bawabawa || ludi j ihadi kadi paiswa d s paiswa s laulia || na sija manuwa s sipasipa unai s ujma mimilahi ludi wa kadi kai j msidi s kaikai || j laulau , kab huja hsau mta s lau ludiwa kadi j kaiabu j h malatmtm habuluna s tlhai s lau manuwa s sipasipa || na ihadiwa natuna j kitahtt || d kapulika je luduwai jede wawajawa hpsanawa unai || je hbali ksai je buswa || s la d s kai || taumulitawa i wan, kait, je wan, j ppja || tau bauna i wan, taki jd na u kaim || se kai ye h bnijai jna ludiwa kadi je kaiabu || malat mtm ailina mta jad s tlhai || s tlhai s lula mta s ujma s dbima || s dbima d n asakatali unai bna s bawa || na s kitasa basilaki kjana s kitakita || na ludiwa mta j hmu liwatanidi j lama || je jaja t ni se nuwatui || j wane, taubinawaja tautlwaja ka najaiau na ja lawa ja kitamiju || na j hddwa ni s md || ludiwa j lama d kawanamada u nai j tuli slaslan unai || basilaki s wan wkuwa hsana d aimatutuwa || na wau tautlwaja taubinawaja ludi kawanamada unai j tuli || na sija j di labui s dbima d nasakatali unai bna se tuli || s kitasa basilaki kjana s kita d ni s hnuwa || s jna s dbima sawasawaa unai kab s tuli || jad sawasawaa slaslan unai tautlwaja taubinawaja s tuli || mta taubinawaja tautlwaja pilipi lidaina / Tautolowaya yo Taubinawaya Bwasilaki unai se tolohai se dobima.