Kwomtari is the eponymous language of the
Kwomtari family of
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
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Spencer (2008) is a short grammar of Kwomtari. The language has an SOV constituent order and nominative–accusative alignment. Both subjects and objects are marked suffixally on the verb. Verbs are inflected for status (mood) rather than for tense or aspect.
Locations
Ethnologue lists Kwomtari as spoken in six villages in Komtari (Kwomtari) ward (),
Amanab Rural LLG
Amanab Rural LLG is a local-level government (LLG) of Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea. It is located along the border with Keerom Regency, Papua Province, Indonesia.
Kwomtari languages and Senagi languages are spoken in Amanab Rural LLG.
Wa ...
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Sandaun Province
Sandaun Province (formerly West Sepik Province) is the northwesternmost mainland province of Papua New Guinea. It covers an area of 35,920 km2 (13868 m2) and has a population of 248,411 (2011 census). The capital is Vanimo. In July 1998 the a ...
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Baron (2007) lists Kwomtari-speaking villages as Mango, Kwomtari, Baiberi, Yenabi, Yau'uri, and Wagroni.
Phonology
The phoneme is realized as a voiced bilabial fricative intervocalically and voiceless bilabial fricative elsewhere. The realization of the phoneme is in free variation between a voiced retroflex lateral and a voiced retroflex stop .
The unusual vowel phonemes and are of intermediate height between cardinal and respectively but without the centralization present in and . They have also been attested in
Weri, a
Goilalan language of south-east Papua, and certain
Dani dialects.
[Foley (1986:54)]
References
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External links
Kwomtari phonology, word examples and text example
{{Languages of Papua New Guinea
Languages of Sandaun Province
Kwomtari–Nai languages