Kamano language
| Kamano | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Papua New Guinea |
| Region | Eastern Highlands Province |
Native speakers | 63,000 (2000 census)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | kbq |
| Glottolog | kama1370 |
Kamano (Kamano-Kafe) is a Papuan language spoken in Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea.
Nomenclature
The terms 'Kamano' and 'Kamano-Kafe' are both used to refer to the language primarily spoken in Henganofi District, although within the linguistics literature Kamano refers to some varieties within the Kamano-Yagaria group, a dialect chain of Eastern Highlands Province[2]
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ |
| prenasal | ᵐp | ⁿt | ᵑk | ||
| voiced | ɡ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | h | |
| voiced | β | z | |||
| Nasal | m | n | |||
| Tap | ɾ | ||||
- Consonant sounds /p t k m n z/ can have preglottalized sounds [ˀp ˀt ˀk ˀm ˀn ˀz] occurring word-medially.
- The phoneme /f/ can be in free fluctuation with a voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ].
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Low | a |
- /e/ can occur as [ɛ] word-initially or word-medially.
- /a/ can occur word initially as [ʌ].[3]
Clause chaining
Kamano Kafe exhibits a unique form of the clause chaining system often described in Papuan languages. Clause chaining in Papuan languages typically involves one or more medial verbs with limited morphological possibilities being under the scope of a more fully inflected final verb. The medial verbs in these clause chains typically use a switch reference system and various degrees of agreement with final verbs. The Kamano system, unlike other clause chaining systems in New Guinea, has requisite person and number agreement with the subjects of higher clauses [4]. A typical example is given below.
Nägra
I
tr-o-ge-nka,
leave-1P.SG-SR-B.2P.SG
kägra
you
tr-an-ke-no',
leave-2P.SG-SR-B.3P.SG
ägra
he
tre-'n-i-e
leave-PERF-3P.SG-IND
"I left, then you left, then he left."
References
- ^ Kamano at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Ford, Kevin (1993). "A Preliminary Comparison of Kamano-Yagaria". Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 24. 191-202.
- ^ Drew, D. E. (1963). The phonemes of Kamano.
- ^ Elliott, John (2017). "Understanding preview-subject clause chains in Kamano Kafe". University of Hawai'i at Manoa Working Papers.