UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara A grammar of Abawiri, a Lakes Plain language of Papua, Indonesia A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics by Brendon Eugene Yoder Committee in charge: Professor Bernard Comrie, Chair Professor Marianne Mithun Professor Eric W. Campbell Professor Lourens de Vries, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam June 2020 The dissertation of Brendon Eugene Yoder is approved. _________________________________________________________________________ Marianne Mithun _________________________________________________________________________ Eric W. Campbell _________________________________________________________________________ Lourens de Vries _________________________________________________________________________ Bernard Comrie, Committee Chair June 2020 A grammar of Abawiri, a Lakes Plain language of Papua, Indonesia Copyright © 2020 by Brendon Eugene Yoder iii for Talia Jane Yoder “Dew from Heaven” January 15, 2020 to March 1, 2020 We will always love you. iv Acknowledgments This dissertation did not begin with me. The Fuau community initiated the project on which the dissertation is based, and has been actively involved all along. Yulianus Wau (Yuli) first invited me to the community in 2014, and continues to be a primary impetus for the language documentation project. He organizes meetings, thinks of various types of speech to record, and organizes recording sessions with other speakers. Other key community leaders who have helped in many ways are Bastian Guani and Elus Wau. All three of these individuals also allowed themselves to be recorded in a variety of contexts. During writing, Yuli and his son Otis have consistently been available for questions from afar via WhatsApp. Many questions about the Abawiri language have been cleared up thanks to their prompt and thorough replies to my inquiries. Even an activity as isolating as the writing of a dissertation cannot be completed without a community of support. My advisor Bernard Comrie has consistently provided careful and thorough advice on all aspects of fieldwork, analysis, and writing. I am particularly grateful for his help through several unforeseen logistical challenges I faced during the creation of this dissertation. Each of the other committee members – Marianne Mithun, Eric W. Campbell, and Lourens de Vries – provided unique and important feedback that improved the dissertation in many ways. The whole committee has had to work remotely as I finished the dissertation during the COVID-19 pandemic. I am grateful for their flexibility. v Discussions with many other people have shaped aspects of my analysis as well. While it is impossible to name everyone who has discussed issues of Abawiri grammar with me, I would like to name a few: Danny Hieber, Phill Rogers, Yi-Yang Cheng, René van den Berg, Sonja Riesberg, Nick Evans, Bill Foley, Mike Moxness, and Janet Bateman. Additionally, Sandy Thompson went out of her way to discuss my research and give valuable feedback, while Steve Parker and Matt Gordon gave many useful comments on Abawiri phonology. Many other people have helped me tremendously along the way. First, thanks to my parents, who first noticed my love of language and have encouraged me all along. Thanks also to my parents-in-law Mark and Patti Foley, who encouraged me to start the PhD and have cheered me on the whole way through. Many thanks to Kellie LaFollette for generously allowing me to use her basement workspace, where most of chapter 8 was written, and to Gary Simons, who allowed me the use of an office space during the final stages of dissertation writing. Lastly, thanks to my amazing wife Naomi and my three kids, Luke, Silas, and Analeigh. They traveled to Indonesia with me on multiple trips, and even spent time with me in Fuau. The kids love village life and can’t wait to go back! My family has kept me grounded in the real world, particularly during the intense period of drafting dissertation chapters. Naomi has been incredibly supportive, encouraging, and patient with me all through the research and writing process. Between the two of us, I am the only one being vi officially recognized for these years of hard work. “PhD spouse” is not an official title, but it should be. I couldn’t have done it alone. vii Curriculum Vitae Brendon Eugene Yoder Education 2020 PhD in linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara. 2011 MA in linguistics, University of North Dakota. Thesis: Phonological and phonetic aspects of Enggano vowels. 2006 BA in applied linguistics, Moody Bible Institute. Research interests Language documentation, Papuan languages, tone, grammar and discourse, community- based language development, orthography, Bible translation Publications 2018 The Abawiri tone system in typological perspective. Language (Phonological Analysis) 94(4). e266–e292. DOI: 10.1353/lan.2018.0067. 2010 Prenasalization and trilled release of two consonants in Nias. Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session 50. 2010 Syntactic underspecification in Riau Indonesian. Work Papers of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session 50. 2010 Ashley, Karen C., Lynette Disch, David C. Ford, Erin MacSaveny, Steve Parker, Carla Unseth, Angela M. Williams, Rachel Wong and Brendon Yoder. 2010. How many constraints are there? A preliminary inventory of OT phonological constraints. Rutgers Optimality Archive 1079. http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/1079- 0610/1079-PARKER-0-2.PDF. Conference talks 2019 Participatory orthography development in Abawiri: A case study. ORTHO19, Chiang Mai, September 16, 2019. 2019 Argument relations in Abawiri: Grammar, semantics, and pragmatics. The 5th Workshop on the Languages of Papua. Universitas Papua, Manokwari, Indonesia, July 16-18, 2019. 2017 Grammatical relations: How Abawiri works without them. 26th Annual Linguistics Symposium at California State University, Fullerton. April 12, 2017. viii 2017 Participatory orthography development in Abawiri. 5th International Conference on Language Documentation & Conservation. University of Hawai’i at Manoa, March 2-5, 2017. 2016 The tone system of Abawiri in typological perspective. 8th Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference. SOAS, London, May 13-14, 2016. 2009 Syntactic underspecification in Riau Indonesian. 2009 DFW Metroplex Linguistics Conference. University of Texas at Arlington, November 7. Archiving 2020 Abawiri documentary corpus. SIL International Archives, Linguistics. https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/84819. 2012 Enggano audio recordings. SIL International Archives, Linguistics. http s ://www.sil.org/resources/archives/43530 . Grants and awards 2019 UCSB Graduate Humanities Research Fellowship. One-year dissertation fellowship. 2019 Wallace Chafe and Marianne Mithun Fund for Research on Understudies Languages. Grant for fieldwork on Abawiri. 2017 UCSB Graduate Division Humanities & Social Sciences Research Grant. “Documentation of the Abawiri language”. 2017 Endangered Language Fund. “Documentation of the Abawiri language”. 2015 Endangered Language Fund. “Ethnographic documentation of the Abawiri language of Papua, Indonesia”. 2014-2018 UCSB Doctoral Scholars Fellowship. Four-year full funding package including tuition and stipend. Teaching experience Sole instructor: 2017 Introduction to Language and Linguistics. 6 weeks. University of California, Santa Barbara. 2013 Introduction to Phonology. 12 weeks. YPA-Papua, Jayapura, Indonesia. 2013 TOEFL preparation course. 12 weeks. YPA-Papua, Jayapura, Indonesia. 2012 Beginning English grammar. 12 weeks. YPA-Papua, Jayapura, Indonesia. 2012 Introduction to Phonetics. 11 weeks. YPA-Papua, Jayapura, Indonesia. ix 2012 Introduction to Language and Linguistics. 11 weeks. YPA-Papua, Jayapura, Indonesia. 2008 Articulatory phonetics. 2-week workshop. SIL International, Jakarta, Indonesia. Co-taught: 2010 Basic Oral Language Documentation. 2-week workshop. Atma Jaya University, Jakarta, Indonesia. With Will Reiman. 2008 Software for language description (SIL FieldWorks and Phonology Assistant). 3- day workshop. Atma Jaya University, Jakarta, Indonesia. With Eldwin Truong. Teaching assistant: 2017 Language and Life. 10 weeks. University of California, Santa Barbara. 2016 Introduction to Language and Linguistics. 10 weeks. University of California, Santa Barbara. 2016 Language in Society. 6 weeks. University of California, Santa Barbara. 2016 Language as Culture. 10 weeks. University of California, Santa Barbara. 2016 Introduction to Phonology. 10 weeks. University of California, Santa Barbara. 2015 Introduction to Language and Linguistics. 10 weeks. University of California, Santa Barbara. Professional appointments current Linguistics and translation advisor, GIDI, Papua, Indonesia 2012-2014 Consultant and trainer, YPA-Papua, Jayapura, Indonesia. 2010-2011 Transcriber/annotator, Oregon Health & Sciences University, Portland, OR. 2007-2010 West Indonesia Sociolinguistic Survey Team, SIL International, Jakarta, Indonesia. x Abstract A grammar of Abawiri, a Lakes Plain language of Papua, Indonesia by Brendon Eugene Yoder Abawiri is a Lakes Plain language spoken in the Mamberamo River Basin in the northern lowlands of Papua, Indonesia. It is primarily spoken in a single village, Fuau, by about 550 people. The Lakes Plain languages have long been considered something of a curiosity by linguists specializing in Papuan languages. Preliminary descriptions have included