Lakes Plain sound changes

[Man in Space]

I have a bit of a soft spot for the Lakes Plain languages and their bizarre phonological histories. I may not have a ton of familiarity with the family, but it's not very well-documented anyway. Resources at my disposal at present are:

- Bateman, Janet (2003), "Grammatical Overview of Iau". (I have the 2021 revision hosted by SIL at hand.)
- Clouse, Duane (1993), "Languages of the Western Lakes Plains". IRIAN: Bulletin of Irian Jaya XXI:1 – 17
- Clouse, Duane (1996), "Towards a Reconstruction and Reclassification of the Lakes Plain Languages of Irian Jaya". Pacific Linguistics A-85. In Franklin, Karl (ed.), Papers in Papuan Linguistics 2:133 – 236
- Clouse, Heljä and Duane (1993), "Kirikiri and the Western Lakes Plain Languages: Selected Phonological Phenomena". Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 24:1 – 18
- Yoder, Brendon (2018), "The Abawiri tone system in typological perspective". Language 94:c266 – c292

I probably have some other stuff if I dig into my archives. Anybody have anything they think I should add?

[Nortaneous]

How much else is there? SIL has some papers on Sikaritai and Obokuitai (and maybe Doutai and Edopi), but I don't think they get into much (if any) historical detail. Yoder has published a grammar of Abawiri. Glottolog says there's a sketch grammar of Duvle, but it's probably sitting undigitized in a file cabinet in Ukarumpa, which is too bad since IIRC Clouse said it was atypical for the family. But unless there's anything in the Abawiri grammar, I think Clouse 1996 is pretty much it, and that's neither comprehensive nor replicable given the current state of the literature. :/

[Darren]

I've been trying to compile Lakes Plain resources for a while. What I've found online for free are:

Full grammars - Abawiri (Yoder 2020), Iau (Bateman 2021). Somewhere out there is "A grammatical description of Fayu: a Western Lakes Plain language of West Papua" by Page Maitland which I'm still trying to get my hands on.

Phonological sketches - Iau (Bateman 1990), Doutai (McAllister and McAllister 1991), Edopi (Green and Green 1988), Kirikiri and western LP (Clouse and Clouse 1993), Obokuitai (Scott and Jenison 1991) and Sikaritai (Martin 1991)

There's also some more specific stuff about Abawiri (tone, orthography, arguments), Duvle (Duvle-Wano Pidgin), Edopi (kinship, names, translating unknown concepts), Iau (discourse, particles, etc.), Obokuitai (some texts) and Sikaritai (dominance and non-dominance).

And of course there's Clouse's comparative work, and some wordlists for a number of other langs. Sadly none of this goes into more than surface levels of phonological history. If someone was dedicated enough, they could probably work out some more detailed sound changes for at least Iau, Abawiri and Obokuitai (which seem to be the three best-documented). I'm interested enough that I might one day have a go at it myself.

[Man in Space]

Thank you so much! I will consult these sources.

[Darren]

I've just finished compiling a comparative Lakes Plain wordlist which covers a bit over 500 headwords for up to 25 languages, which as far as I know is the most comprehensive one to date. I'll be having a go at working out some further sound changes which weren't covered by Clouse. If anyone wants to take a look I can share the link.

[bradrn]

I've just finished compiling a comparative Lakes Plain wordlist which covers a bit over 500 headwords for up to 25 languages, which as far as I know is the most comprehensive one to date. I'll be having a go at working out some further sound changes which weren't covered by Clouse. If anyone wants to take a look I can share the link.

Wow, amazing! I’d love to look at that.

(And, you know, I suspect that such a comprehensive list might even be publishable somewhere, or at least deserves to be shared with the linguistic community at large… at any rate, if you find any new sound changes, those certainly would be!)

[Darren]

I've just finished compiling a comparative Lakes Plain wordlist which covers a bit over 500 headwords for up to 25 languages, which as far as I know is the most comprehensive one to date. I'll be having a go at working out some further sound changes which weren't covered by Clouse. If anyone wants to take a look I can share the link.

Wow, amazing! I’d love to look at that.

(And, you know, I suspect that such a comprehensive list might even be publishable somewhere, or at least deserves to be shared with the linguistic community at large… at any rate, if you find any new sound changes, those certainly would be!)

Here you go. I'll see how the sound changes work out, maybe I'll make a scratchpad thread for working on them.

[bradrn]

I've just finished compiling a comparative Lakes Plain wordlist which covers a bit over 500 headwords for up to 25 languages, which as far as I know is the most comprehensive one to date. I'll be having a go at working out some further sound changes which weren't covered by Clouse. If anyone wants to take a look I can share the link.

Wow, amazing! I’d love to look at that.

(And, you know, I suspect that such a comprehensive list might even be publishable somewhere, or at least deserves to be shared with the linguistic community at large… at any rate, if you find any new sound changes, those certainly would be!)

Here you go. I'll see how the sound changes work out, maybe I'll make a scratchpad thread for working on them.

Thanks! I must admit, I’m a bit curious as to how *ai turned into Saponi mamiɾɛ… but otherwise the relationship between the languages is really obvious!

As for a scratchpad, I’d say this thread would work perfectly fine for that purpose.

[Darren]

Thanks! I must admit, I’m a bit curious as to how *ai turned into Saponi mamiɾɛ… but otherwise the relationship between the languages is really obvious!

Saponi is a weird one. Its pronouns seem to be borrowed from East Bird's Head languages (1pl *meme, 2sg *ba), although lexically it's pretty close to Rasawa and it seems to have some clearly Lakes Plain bound morphemes.

As for a scratchpad, I’d say this thread would work perfectly fine for that purpose.

Good idea, I'll do that.

[bradrn]

I know we’re all busy with the relay etc., but have you by any chance gotten around to doing any work on this?

[Darren]

I know we’re all busy with the relay etc., but have you by any chance gotten around to doing any work on this?

Not really... I've also lost my free excel + word subscriptions from school so it's harder to work on now. I'll pick it back up when I can.

[bradrn]

I know we’re all busy with the relay etc., but have you by any chance gotten around to doing any work on this?

Not really... I've also lost my free excel + word subscriptions from school so it's harder to work on now. I'll pick it back up when I can.

Sorry to hear that! If it helps, I’ve been using LibreOffice lately since I switched to Linux, and can report that it works pretty well. (Though of course I still prefer LaTeX, Emacs and their ilk…)

[Darren]

I know we’re all busy with the relay etc., but have you by any chance gotten around to doing any work on this?

Not really... I've also lost my free excel + word subscriptions from school so it's harder to work on now. I'll pick it back up when I can.

Sorry to hear that! If it helps, I’ve been using LibreOffice lately since I switched to Linux, and can report that it works pretty well. (Though of course I still prefer LaTeX, Emacs and their ilk…)

Thanks, LibreOffice looks good! I'll start work back up tomorrow, although it's pretty slow going since I don't have much experience with diachronics. I've been looking at the voiced/unvoiced stop alterations which crop up pretty consistently in the family, so hopefully soon I'll have something to post re that.

[Darren]

1. Stop voicing alternations

In the next few posts, I'll be looking at cases where cognate sets show a discrepancy in stop voicing between different languages, for instance Fayu doû ~ Waritai toû, both meaning "short" and Sikaritai a-tá ~ Biritai a-ɾa "muscle, meat". I'd like to explore whether there are any regular patterns to this (spoiler: there's at least one), how frequent this actually is, and which direction it goes in. Please feel free to criticise as much as you like. Language abbreviations are listed at the bottom.


1.1 Definition of a stop in this context

Firstly, I'll clear up what I mean by "stops", given that voiced/voiceless pairs aren't always stops in LP languages, Here's a summary of what I consider to be prototypical voicing pairs:

	Voiceless	Voiced
Labial	P = [p, ɸ, h]	B = [b, β, m]
Coronal	T = [t, s]	D = [d, ɾ, l, n]
Dorsal	K = [k]	G = [ɡ, ɣ]

These all rely on well-established sound changes or allophony already known to exist in LP, so I'll just give a short explanation of these:

• PLP *p fricates in the majority of the languages, at least allophonically, and no LP languages distinguish any two of /p ɸ h/; these can all be safely treated as equivalent to P.
• Almost all nasal consonants appear only as allophones of the voiced stops, so any instances of /m n/ can be treated as B D - the notable exceptions being Faia, which has /n̥ m/ arising from clusters *pd bd (shown in Clouse and Clouse 1993, p.8), and Rasawa which has an adjectival suffix -nu/-no of uncertain origin.
• /β ɾ l ɣ/ are lenided allophones of voiced stops in most cases, although [β] seems to arise sometimes from fortition of *u in non-syllabic positions e.g. Sa keⁱawo vs. Ra kaɾiaβo "drink". Also, in some cases D may be reflected as ∅, e.g. Do bou-wa vs. Ka bouɾu-wa "bite, chew".
• /s/ always reflects PLP *t, although the exact mechanisms behind its development are unclear; Clouse says "The most puzzling change that occurred was the emergence of *s in PFW and PT. Although the phone [s] occurs in all of the languages, in no instance are there cognates where the reflex *s is chosen for all of the languages; *t is always chosen as the reflex in one or more of the languages, but not consistently in the same languages" (Clouse 1997, p. 140). I think it's safe to assume that [s] ⇒ T in the vast majority of cases, especially before /i/.
• It's known that PLP did not have a voiced equivalent to *k, so all instances of /ɡ/ are likely secondary developments, either allophonic or phonemic. Out of the languages with described phonologies, /ɡ/ is only phonemic in Doutai and Abawiri.
• I'm treating all instances of /kʷ ɡʷ/ as equivalent to K G; their phonemic status is posited for Sikaritai and Abawiri (it's worth noting that the work on Abawiri is a lot more in-depth than for Sikaritai and more reliable).

1.2 Consistent D-devoicing in Waritai?

There's only one instance of voicing alternation which Clouse mentions as a specific change, which is *d > d~t in Waritai, an East Tariku language. Exploring this further, I believe that this is indeed a predominantly consistent change word-initially, which is somewhat obscured by an entirely separate process of aphaerisis.


1.2.1 Examples
This devoicing can be seen in numerous examples, some of which are shown below:

PLP *du "bird" > tu
"comb" > îtɛ (cf. Ki dida, Do îdɛ, but also Ka titî)
"drink" > kwito-wa (Ka kwida-wa)
"pull" > tokidi-wa (Do dokudɛ)
"red" > tia (Si dí)
"snake" > təbi (Si débí)

Although there are also plentiful exceptions to this:

"cheek" > ɾaku (cf. Do dakû, but also Ka a-takuw)
"elbow" > ɾikû (Ka a-ɾiki)
"grass" > ɾû (Do duk)
"spider" > ɾoba (Do dobá)
"wide" > daɾisa (Do daɾisa)

And even a number in the other direction:

"heel" > ɾɛkû (cf. Er otoku, Ka a-tou)
"knee" > ɾûda (Ka a-sûa)
*to "leg" > ɾo (Ka a-to)
"vein" > ɾi (Bi atei)
?*auCo "wing" > doɾû (Si a-sóod, Pa aˈtɔɾu)

What's striking is that these last five are all body part terms which commonly take a prefix a- (alternating with e-, o- etc.) in LP languages (cf. all the Kaiy forms), so these may be a case of intervocalic voicing. Of all the body parts in the Waritai list, only one instance has retained this prefix (oro "knee") and this comes from the least reliable source (Voorhoeve 1975); in contrast it's plain ɾo in the generally trustworthy Clouse. This is supported by other examples of D- where cognates have at- or ad-:

"root" > ɾi (cf. Si atgid̚, Ka atifɛɾi)
"sand" > do (cf. Pa ˈarɔ, possibly Si oɾɛta)

And "cheek" shown above could also be interpreted as such. A comparison can even be drawn to the retention of a voiced phoneme in "spider" mentioned above cognate to Papasena aropa (at least in one wordlist; it's given as oˈɸa in a different one). A more tenuous example is ɾoutɛ "tongue" vs. Sikaritai a-siɡ̚ja (/a.sík.ia/) and Eritai e-tida; the i~u alternation is not unprecedented, and there are a few other instances of ita : îi̯a after (extra-)high vowels, e.g. "crocodile" fɛita vs. Ob /héik.ia/. Waritai also stands out in that many examples where D's voicing is retained reflect it as ɾ, which may imply that all cases where it was not devoiced are (or were historically) in lenition environments, where the realisation [ɾ] is areally almost universal. These examples are abundant enough that I can suggest a shift *at, *ad > d /#_. As I may get to later, this is mirrored in the velars in at least one case (gaî "hand" vs. Ka a-kai), and possibly also in the labials (boɾû "nose" vs. Pa a-ˈpoɾuta, baɾiso "skin" vs. Ob a-hadid).


1.2.2 Interaction of voicing and tone

Tonal information is only available consistently for Iau and Abawiri, often for Obokuitai, Doutai and Sikaritai as well, and sometimes for Edopi; also stress is marked on the Papasena and Kwerisa entries. I list below the instances of the Waritai *d > T and *d > D correspondences where tonal information is available in cognate forms; I'll exclude intervocalic instances of D = D and the previously established VtV = dV to keep this somewhat manageable

1) *d > T

English	Waritai	Other languages
"bird"	tu	Si, Ob dù, Pa du, ˈdu, Ia du˨˩si˦˥, Ab dúke
"drink"	kwito-wa	Pa ˈkʷig̚ˈdawa
"fish"	tɛɾi	Ob tê, Si dèd, Pa ˈdɛrig̚, Ia dʊ˥˩, Ab tīe
"pull"	tokidi-wa	Pa ˈdawıkig̚ˈda
"red"	tia	Si, Ob dí, Pa diˈtɛ
"short"	toû	Pa daᵘg̚ˈtɛ
"snake"	təbi	Si débí, Pa daˈwi, ˈdauᵘi
"tomorrow"	tia	Pa ˈdia

2) *d > D

English	Waritai	Other languages
"cold'	dɛkɛi	Pa aɾɛˈkaig̚
"heavy"	dɛɸɛî	Pa aˈkudɛˈɸɛig̚, Kw auˈɛɾɛpi

Honestly, I don't think much can be gained from this. If I treat PLP as having had *H, *L and *HL tones (like Foley does; if LH existed it was probably rare), then D-devoicing is seen before likely H ("red"), L ("bird") and HL ("fish") tones as well as in stressed ("drink", "pull") and unstressed syllables ("short", "tomorrow"). The two counter examples are both intervocalic in cognates so can be ignored. While tone is elusive here, as is usually the case with LP languages, it seems to have zero correlation with stop voicing.


1.2.3 Summary

Two shifts must to be at work here; namely 1) devoicing of initial D, and 2) voicing and/or flapping of T,D in #a_V position with subsequent loss of the initial vowel. I think these are the only contradictory examples in my database:

i) D → d /#_ fails:

1. ɾû "grass"
2. diapoɾi "many"
3. ɾita-ɾi "small"
4. daɾisa "wide"

(1) is reflected as buɾu in Kaiy, which is probably Waritai's closest relative (likewise Si bid, Er buɾu, Ob sɛɾuɾub̚, Bi saɾudu, Pa aɸiˈɾi, but also Do dû, Kw du), which suggests that the PLP form – or at least the PET form – was something like *budu (the Ob and Bi forms can't be derived from the same form as all the others; they're part of their own dialect chain anyway). I think it's fair to say that it's not a strong counter-example. (2) is a more confusing case; the only likely (partial) cognates are Edopi odi.aᵘ.abe and Biritai dîaɣa; Edopi at least suggests a similar intervocalic origin, although admittedly Biritai is more closely related to Waritai. (3) has no obvious cognates whatsoever except the very tenuous Papasena aˈɾiku, which has a tempting initial vowel but an unexplained /t/ = /k/ correspondence. The last case is also annoying; the only clear cognate is Doutai daɾisa; this could reasonably be put down to borrowing as the form is entirely identical and Doutai is Waritai's closest neighbour.

ii) a[T,D] → d /#_ fails:

1. tɛiɸo "thick"
2. səbɛɾɛ "thin"

(1) and (2) are cognate to Kaiy ataipo and atibiso respectively; however, no other cognates seem to have initial a- (Do téipó "thick", Do sabaɾɛ, Si sɛbɛkio-kwɛ, Er sɛbaki, Ob sɛbɛso "thin"). I'm tempted to put this down to an innovation in Kaiy, since there's no evidence for an initial vowel elsewhere.


1.2.4 Conclusion

My final verdict is that there was regular devoicing of PLP word-initial *d in Waritai, which has been replaced by loss of initial *a with flapping of following *t and *d; these changes must have happened following the breakup of the East Tariku languages as they are restricted to Waritai. These changes can be codified as follows:

1. *d → t /#_
2. *t,d → d~ɾ /#a_V
3. *a → ∅ /#_ɾ

Tentatively I might be able to expand the second and third ones:

1. *p t k → b d ɡ /#a_V
2. *a → ∅ /#_[b,d,ɡ]

Although this extension is based off of only three examples.

---

Abbreviations:

More: show

Ab: Abawiri
Aw: Awera
Bi: Biritai
Da: Dabra
De: Deirate
Do: Doutai
Du: Duvle
Ed: Edopi
Er: Eritai
Fai: Faia
Fay: Fayu
Ia: Iau
Ka: Kaiy
Ki: Kirikiri
Kw: Kwerisa
Ob: Obokuitai
Pa: Papasena
PCT: Proto-Central Tariku
PELP: Proto-East Lakes Plains
PET: Proto-East Tariku
PFW: Proto-Far West
PLP: Proto-Lakes Plain
PWT: Proto-West Tariku
PT: Proto-Tariku
Ra: Rasawa
Sa: Saponi
Se: Sehudate
Si: Sikaritai
Tab: Taburta
Tau: Tause
Wa: Waritai
We: Weirate

[bradrn]

Excellent and fascinating work! I can’t really see anything to disagree with here.

[Darren]

A short post to note one change that jumped out at me for Papasena:

There are five wordlists for Papasena, which have pretty precise phonetic transcriptions and actually make Papasena one of the best documented languages in the family. There seems to be a lot of dialectal variation with regards to the common LP phenomenon of extrahigh fricated vowels; some sources (wordlists 1 and 5) just give /i/ in most cases, corresponding to /ig̚/ in wordlist 2 and /i/ or /î/ in wordlist 3. Wordlist 4 usually has /i/, but in two cases it has "iš" (presumably [iʃ]), which suggests a shift of *i̝ ( → iʝ) → iʃ, reminiscent of French.

	PLP	WL 1	WL 2	WL 3	WL 4	WL 5
"pig"	*(d)iCV (possibly *dide)	i	ig	i "closed"	i	ï
"mountain"	*(a)kwediCV (possibly *akwedita)	ˈmaɣi/ˈbaɣi	ˈbagig̚	ˈbaɣi	ˈbaɣiš	maˈṛi*
"stone"	*kwipa(CV)	wi	wig̚	ˈui	ˈuiš	ᵘwi
"wind"	*kwaCiCV**		waˈɸig̚		ˈwapʰi

Wordlist 2 is the newest list, from 1986 (all the others are 1978), and it explicitly notes at the beginning that iɡ̚ uɡ̚ are single units of vowel + unreleased consonant. The names of villages where the wordlists were collected are confusing, but it seems like 1 and 5 come from "Papasena I" (or "Daude" or "Papasena Satu") and 3 and 4 come from "Papasena II"; number 2 is just listed as "Papasena". However, at the end of no. 4, there is a hard-to-decypher note saying "There's a small village next door called Beri [?] / Don't name as Tarive [?] / Can [unreadable] not speak Iri, Sikari / Papasena only". This seems to refer to Biritai/Eritai/Sikaritai, but those aren't particularly close to the three Papasena villages, so I don't know what to make of that. There's no other significant variation to pin this shift to one group; the informant for 4 is listed as 29 and male, but wordlist 3's is 25 from the same village and shows no such shift. I also can't see any evidence of this shift in the small amount of Papasena music online (such as this banger), although it's hard to tell for sure.

In conclusion:

The Papasena data suggests that there has been a shift a shift of LP *î (front extra-high fricated vowel, varying between [i̝ɡ̚], [i̝] and [​i]) to a sequence [iʃ] (transcribed <iš>), which may be confined to just one dialect, or an idiolect. This kind of change is attested in a language as banal as French, where word-final /i/ is often realised as [iʃ] (similarly /y/ → [yʃ]). On the other hand, it may simply be an artefact of transcription, either a mis-mapping of a rare segment [i̝], or an imprecise transcription of it. As such I'm not gonna list it as a sound change, but it might still be worthy of a note when I eventually compile the LP lists.


* This shows a change of intervocalic [ɾ] (< /d/) to [ɣ] (< /k/?) which crops up occasionally in numerous languages and I will make a future post on. If true, a change of d → k /V_V would be pretty bizarre on the phonemic level. (Exx. Kirikiri maɣai vs. Sikaritai bɾaai "copula", Papasena ˈbaɣî vs. Duvle æbæri, Papasena ˈḳaɣug̚ˈda vs. Eritai kuɾudo-ku "vomit")

** There are lots of apparent cognates for "wind" throughout the family, with at least /kwa/ or similar appearing quite often. *kwadakwiCV was my first thought, which sort of explains Waritai wɛɾɛkî, Doutai wrebi, Kaiy îjahaɾi, maybe even Rasawa buɾaːyo, Tause auɣwəɾi. I suspect however it's obscured by excess morphemes in descendants, which are obvious in e.g. Biritai asa vs. Obokuitai asa-kwɛig̚, Sikaritai igjɛ aud vs. Weirate auɾikwa vs. Kaiy îjahaɾi. I actually reckon that something like *kwaCiCV is enough to explain all true cognates, many of which have been reinforced by semantic extensions.

[bradrn]

With a view to the ultimate aims of this project: all this is honestly fascinating, but would we integrate this into a new version of the ID? I particularly worry about citing sources — normally that’s easy, but the source here is merely ‘personal communication from Darren’, and I’d feel extremely uncomfortable integrating such things into any kind of reference work.

I also can't see any evidence of this shift in the small amount of Papasena music online (such as this banger), although it's hard to tell for sure.

I struggle with phonetic transcription, but I find the frequency of ⟨ij⟩ in the subtitles to be intriguing. Could that be a reflection of phonetic [ig̚]?

[Darren]

With a view to the ultimate aims of this project: all this is honestly fascinating, but would we integrate this into a new version of the ID? I particularly worry about citing sources — normally that’s easy, but the source here is merely ‘personal communication from Darren’, and I’d feel extremely uncomfortable integrating such things into any kind of reference work.

Initially it was for the ID. Now I don't know. If it doesn't make it into the ID, I'm still going to keep working on it (in which case moving the thread to the Languages forum would make sense). Personally I'm not fussed by having "own work" as a source, which crops up in the old ID although I know you're not a fan of it. It depends on what the ID itself is intended for; if we want it as a relatively formal reference work, it won't make the cut, and I'm fine with that.

I also can't see any evidence of this shift in the small amount of Papasena music online (such as this banger), although it's hard to tell for sure.

I struggle with phonetic transcription, but I find the frequency of ⟨ij⟩ in the subtitles to be intriguing. Could that be a reflection of phonetic [ig̚]?

I think so. Kind of weird given that Indonesian <j> is /dʒ/, although I guess I can see how frication could be heard as [iʝ] and approximated as <j>. Also I think they use <ld> for [ɾ] or [l] or maybe [ɺ] which threw me off for a bit.

[bradrn]

Personally I'm not fussed by having "own work" as a source, which crops up in the old ID although I know you're not a fan of it. It depends on what the ID itself is intended for; if we want it as a relatively formal reference work, it won't make the cut, and I'm fine with that.

Yes, I’d like it to be a relatively formal reference work. In my view, we already have an informal reference, in the form of the old ID. But if you or others disagree, I’m fine with that — all I want is to be clear what our goals are.

Also I think they use <ld> for [ɾ] or [l] or maybe [ɺ] which threw me off for a bit.

Huh, weird!

[Darren]

Personally I'm not fussed by having "own work" as a source, which crops up in the old ID although I know you're not a fan of it. It depends on what the ID itself is intended for; if we want it as a relatively formal reference work, it won't make the cut, and I'm fine with that.

Yes, I’d like it to be a relatively formal reference work. In my view, we already have an informal reference, in the form of the old ID. But if you or others disagree, I’m fine with that — all I want is to be clear what our goals are.

I liked the informality of the old ID, but I'm happy for a replacement to be more reputable. Maybe we should try and come up with an actual list of aims (cringe, I know) in the main thread so we all know what we're doing.