Pouye language

Pouye (Bouye) is a language spoken in Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea, by a thousand people, and growing. It is spoken in the seven villages of Bulawa (3.665801°S 142.014408°E / -3.665801; 142.014408 (Bulwo)), Kiliauto, Komtin, Maurom (3.683154°S 141.847269°E / -3.683154; 141.847269 (Maurom)), Wokien (3.697824°S 141.957815°E / -3.697824; 141.957815 (Wokien)), Wulme, and Yukilau (3.678344°S 141.925477°E / -3.678344; 141.925477 (Yiklau)), which are mostly located within East Wapei Rural LLG.

Pouye
Native to	Papua New Guinea
Region	Sandaun Province
Native speakers	960 (2003)
Language family	Sepik languages Ram Pouye
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bye
Glottolog	pouy1238
ELP	Pouye

A grammar of the Pouye language is published here: https://www.sil.org/resources/archives/62023

Phonology

This description follows Dede & Reuter (2011).

Phonemic inventory

Pouye has 12 consonants, of which three have constrastive secondary articulations (labialisation or palatalisation).

Pouye consonant inventory

	Bilabial	Alveolar			Palatal	Velar
		labialised	plain	palatalised		labialised	plain
Plosive	/p/	/tʷ/	/t/	/tʲ/		/kʷ/	/k/
Nasal	/m/		/n/
Trill			/r/
Approximant			/l/		/j/	/w/

A fairly large nine-vowel inventory is also seen:

Pouye vowel inventory

	Front	Central	Back
Close	/i/	/ɨ/	/u/
Near-close	/ɪ/
Close-mid	/e/		/o/
Open-mid	/ɛ/	/ə/
Open	/a/

In addition there are seven diphthongs /au̯ əu̯ ou̯ ai̯ əi̯ ei̯ ɪi̯/ which act as discrete vowel units.

The trial orthography is as in the IPA except for /tʷ tʲ kʷ j/ which are tw ty kw y and the vowels /ɨ ɪ ɛ ə/ which are i i e a. This causes ambiguity between /i ɨ ɪ/, /e ɛ/ or /a ə/ although the functional load on these contrasts is low.

Phonotactics

Pouye allows maximally two consonants in a syllable onset and one consonant in the coda. The nucleus may be a single vowel or diphthong, but although CVVC and CCVC syllables are permitted, CCVVC syllables are unattested. Complex onsets may be maximally a plosive plus a trill or approximant, or the sequence /kt/, for instance in /kin.kti/ "small" (no other two-plosive sequences occur).

Stress is generally placed on the penultimate syllable, although exceptions do occur (/wɨlˈou̯k/ "snake") and if the penult is /wɨ/ or /wo/ the stress is pushed leftwards (/⁠ˈka.wo.wi/ "white").

Morphophonology

Several morphophonemic alternations occur in Pouye, both within phonological words and across word boundaries.

Trill-deletion

The nominal object marker -rɨ loses its initial consonant following /r/ or /l/ or a monosyllable ending in /n/:

/jar-rɨ/ → [jarɨ] who-OBJ "whom"

/pol-rɨ/ → [polɨ] Paul-OBJ "Paul"

/wan-rɨ/ → [wanɨ] 1SG-OBJ "me"

Compare /wəlou̯k-rɨ/ → [wəlou̯krɨ] snake-OBJ. Similarly, the locative marker -ru is realised as [u] in fast speech following any plain alveolar consonant (/n l r t/).

/tɨlpan-ru/ → [tɨlpanu] palm.floor-LOC "on the floor"

/tau̯ wai̯l-ru/ → [tau̯ wai̯lu] tree tree.keel-LOC "on the tree keel"

/jɪprar-ru/ → [jɪpraru] chicken-LOC "on the chicken"

/pɨrɨt-ru/ → [pɨrɨtu] ground-LOC "on the ground"

Compare /ləu̯-ru/ → [ləu̯ru] house-LOC "to the house/village".

Vowel epenthesis

When concatenation of morphemes would produce a sequence of two identical plosives, /ɨ/ is inserted between them epenthetically.

/t-tɪnri-ke-nɨn-a/ → [tɨtInrikenɨn]

R-revenge-PRF-PAS-awhile

"Had had revenge"

Likewise /ɨ/ is inserted to prevent the formation of non-permissible consonant sequences, i.e. sequences of three consonants where the last two do not form a valid onset as described above, or two such consonants word-initially.

/wilau̯k-mta/ → [wilau̯kɨmta] good-INT "great" /n-kɨ/ → [nɨkɨ] IMP-get "get it!"

Compare for instance /nam-ki/ → [namki] 1P-ACP "with us", where the sequence /mk/ appears intervocalically and can be syllabified to two distinct syllables without requiring epenthesis.

Consonant coalescence

Two identical nasals, trills or laterals (/mm nn rr ll/) degeminate when brought together.

/t-ətɨn-nɨn/ → [tətɨnɨn] R-sew-PAS "has sewn" /t-ɪl-lai̯/ → [tɪlai̯] R-weave-CONT "weaving"

With the imperative prefix n-, epenthesis occurs prior to this rule, meaning that imperatives remain distinct.

/n-nək/ → [nɨnək] IMP-hold "hold!" *[nək]

Approximant epenthesis

Between two vowels at morpheme boundaries, a non-lateral approximant is inserted. Following /i ɨ ɪ e ɛ/, /j/ is inserted, and following /u o ə a/, /w/ is inserted.

/t-ake-ɨr/ → [takejɨr] R-see-around "look round" /ra-lə-atʲɨ/ → [raləwatʲɨ] REP-down-come "come down again"

In exception to this rule, the hortative prefix pa- inserts /l/ before a vowel.

/pa-i-nɨm/ → [palinɨm] HRT-go-P "let's go" *[pawinɨm]

Note also the exception described below.

Vowel deletion

The low vowel /a/ is deleted before /e/ or /ɛ/ over morpheme boundaries.

/t-ja-ɛj-ɨr-wɨt/ → [tʲejɨrwɨt]

R-up-COM-with-stand

"Come up and stand with"

Labial-velar approximant deletion

The suffix -wo "only" is reduced to -o in penultimate position, i.e. when followed by another single monosyllabic suffix. This prevents stress shifting leftwards.

/wan-wo-kʷɨ/ → [waˈnokʷɨ] 1S-only-POS "my/mine only"

Compare /wan-wo/ → [ˈwanwo] 1SG-only "I only" or /kʷ-atu-wo-ke-nɨn/ → [kʷatuwoˈkenɨn] QCK-hang.up-up-PRF-PAS "quickly hung up (sth.) and left", in which cases wo would not be stressed normally anyway.

Dissimilation

When the prefixes na- (potential) or ya- (negative) precede the realis prefix t-, and this sequence precedes a morpheme beginning with a plosive, the realis prefix becomes r- via dissimilation of manner with the following plosive.

/ya-t-patɨ-tamu/ → [yarpatɨtamu]

NEG-R-twist-break

"Didn‘t break"

Vowel harmony

With compound words, vowel harmony causes the open vowel /a/ in the first element to raise to /ə/ in the second element.

/mau̯-ləu̯/ → [məu̯ləu̯] bush-house "bush-house"

Alveolar plosive epenthesis

The alveolar plosive /t/ is inserted at the end of a word when the following word begins with /m/. If the first word already ends in /t/, then additional epenthesis of /ɨ/ occurs.

/pa-ki me/ → [pakit me] FCS-TMP say "then said" /lot mei̯pɨr-ke/ → [lotɨt mei̯pɨrke] Lot laugh-PRF "Lot laughed"

This and the following rule occur over word boundaries, as opposed to the previous rules which are all word-internal processes.

Secondary trill deletion

The trill /r/ is also deleted in fast speech in the word riyɨ "now" when the previous word ends in /n/.

/ja-t-i-nɨn rijɨ/ → [jatinɨn ͜ ijɨ] NEG-R-go-PAS now "still has not gone"

Loan word phonology

Pouye has borrowed a number of words from the lingua franca Tok Pisin. In these words the phonemes /b d ɡ v s/ can be retained, e.g. /sevenpela/ "seven" (cf. native /jilɨkalikir/). Morphophonemic rules generally apply to these words, and the trill deletion rule described above extends its environment to following /s/ as well:

/barnabas-rɨ/ → [barnabasɨ] Barnabas-OBJ "Barnabas"

Note the loan phonemes /b/ and /s/.