Kómnzo language
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Komnzo (also Kómnzo, Kómnjo, Kamundjo) is a Yam language of Papua New Guinea spoken by 150–250 people in the village of Rouku (8°42′06″S 141°35′55″E/8.701793°S 141.598485°E/ -8.701793; 141.598485(Rouku)) and the town of Morehead.
Phonology
Consonants
The consonant inventory comprises 18 phonemes (ᵐb, t, ⁿd, k, ᵑɡ, kʷ, ᵑɡʷ, m, n, ŋ, ɸ, ʦ, ⁿʣ, ð, s, r, w, j). The system consists of a series of obstruents (oral and prenasalized plosives and affricates), fricatives, nasals and semivowels. Consonants occurring only in loanwords are: b, g, d, l.
| Dental | Alveolar | Affricate | Plain | Labialized | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | ||||
| Nasal | m ⟨m⟩ | n ⟨n⟩ | ŋ ⟨ŋ⟩ | ||||
| Plosive | Voiceless | t̪~t ⟨t⟩ | ts ⟨z⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ | kʷ ⟨kw⟩ | ||
| Prenasal | ᵐb ⟨b⟩ | ⁿd ⟨d⟩ | ⁿdz ⟨nz⟩ | ᵑɡ ⟨g⟩ | ᵑɡʷ ⟨gw⟩ | ||
| Fricative | ɸ ⟨f⟩ | ð ⟨th⟩ | s ⟨s⟩ | ||||
| Rhotic | r~ɾ ⟨r⟩ | ||||||
| Semivowels | j ⟨y⟩ | w ⟨w⟩ |
Vowels
The vowel inventory consists of eight phonemes (i, e, æ, a, ʏ, ø, u, o) and one epenthetic vowel (ə̆).
Epenthesis
Komnzo phonology exhibits widespread vowel epenthesis. The epenthetic vowel is usually a short schwa (ə̆), sometimes a short high front or high back vowel. Many syllables and many words in Komnzo lack a specified vowel, e.g. mnz 'house' [mə̆nts] or gwth 'nest' [ᵑɡʷə̆θ].
Orthography
In the tables above, graphemes are indicated by <angle brackets>. The current orthography of Komnzo does not represent the epenthetic vowel because it can be predicted by the rules of syllabification. This leads to orthographic representations which untrained users might find hard to pronounce, for example: zfth 'reason' is pronounced [tsə̆ɸə̆θ] or fta '36' is pronounced [ɸə̆ta].
Numeral system
Komnzo number words use a senary numeral system, with the following powers: nibo (61), fta (62), taruba (63), damno (64), wärämäkä (65) and wi (66). Counting in larger quantities is restricted to a ritualized counting procedure, whereby yam tubers are counted publicly for exchange feasts. Traditionally, damno is the number of yams one should store to feed a family for a year. For everyday counting above six, English numerals are borrowed.
| Komnzo | English | value |
|---|---|---|
| näbi | ‘one’ | 1 |
| eda ~ yda | ‘two’ | 2 |
| etha ~ ytho | ‘three’ | 3 |
| asar | ‘four’ | 4 |
| tabuthui | ‘five’ | 5 |
| nibo | ‘six’ | 6 |
| nibo a näbi | 'seven' | 6 and 1 |
| nibo a eda | 'eight' | 6 and 2 |
| fta | ‘36’ | 62 |
| taruba | ‘216’ | 63 |
| damno | ‘1296’ | 64 |
| wärämäkä | ‘7776’ | 65 |
| wi | '46656' | 66 |
Notes
- Döhler, Christian (2013) . presentation at the 3rd International Conference on Language Documentation and Conservation (ICLDC). Accessed on 2019-11-12.
- Döhler, Christian (2016). (PhD thesis). The Australian National University. doi:. hdl:.
- Döhler, Christian (2018). . Studies in Diversity Linguistics 22. Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:. ISBN978-3-96110-125-2.
- Evans, Nicholas, I Wayan Arka, Matthew Carroll, Christian Döhler, Eri Kashima, Emil Mittag, Kyla Quinn, Jeff Siegel, Philip Tama & Charlotte van Tongeren. (2017) The languages of Southern New Guinea. In Bill Palmer (ed.), The languages and linguistics of the New Guinea area, 641–774. Berlin; Boston: Walter de Gruyter. ISBN978-3-11-029525-2. Accessed on 2019-11-12.
- Döhler, Christian (2024). . Open Text Collections 1. Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:. ISBN978-3-96110-494-9.