Notes on the Diachronic Phonology of Nauruan

Abstract

1 Notes on the Diachronic Phonology 2 of Nauruan 3 Lev Blumenfeld 4 CARLETON UNIVERSITY 5 This paper investigates the Nauruan reflexes of Proto-Micronesian phonemes. 6 Nauruan participates in most reductive sound changes found elsewhere in 7 Micronesian. The attrition patterns of *t and *k in Nauruan resemble similar 8 developments in Eastern Chuukic. An unusual developments are shifts of 9 major place of articulation, from coronal to velar, and from velar to labial. 10 This paper contains a discussion of the reflexes of Proto-Oceanic palatals 11 in Micronesian. A list of Kiribati loans in Nauruan is supplied. 12 Keywords: Nauruan; Kiribati; Micronesian; Sound Change; Lenition 13 1. INTRODUCTION.1 14 1.1. OVERVIEW. This paper investigates the internal phonological develop15 ments in Nauruan (NAU), a Micronesian spoken by just under 10,000 people in 16 the Republic of Nauru and diaspora (Eberhard, Simons, and Fennig 2021). The 17 status of NAU as a Micronesian language was established by Hughes (2020a,b). 18 Building on that work, this paper investigates the reflexes of Proto-Micronesian 19 (PMC) phonemes in NAU. 20 The phonemic inventory of NAU is given in table 1, following the proposals 21 in the synchronic description in Blumenfeld (2022). Closely related proposals 22 are found in Hughes (2020b); see discussion in Blumenfeld (2022) on the dif23 ferences between the two proposals. The rhotic ř is distinguished from r by a 24 higher degree of constriction and frication (Hughes 2020b:92ff.). Distinct from 25 the glides /j,w/ are semivowels /i̯,u ̯ /, which in turn are in complementary dis26 tribution with corresponding vowels /i,u/; see Blumenfeld (2022) for details. 27 The vowel inventory is shown in table 2. In addition, the symbol [a] is used 28 as a disjunction of [ʌ] and [ɑ] where the identity of the vowel is uncertain (see 29 details in Blumenfeld 2022). 30 This paper sets up the correspondences for consonants in table 3 (vowels are 31 discussed separately in section 2.9). The symbol *z in this table refers to the 1. I am grateful to my Nauruan (NAU) consultants, two anonymous reviewers, and to Bob Blust, Kevin Hughes, Artemij Keidan, and Ken Rehg for helpful comments on an earlier draft, and to Alamanda Lauti for continuing kind help with all aspects of my work on NAU. The work was supported in part by an SSHRC Insight Development Grant #430-2013-000826. Oceanic Linguistics, Volume 61, no. 2 (December 2022)© by University of Hawai‘i Press. All rights reserved. 32 post Proto-Oceanic (POC) lenis counterpart of *s (Ross 1988:71ff.; Geraghty 33 1983, 1986). The updated picture of POC palatal reflexes in Micronesian is dis34 cussed in section 2.5. For the origins of NAU /p/ and /kʷ/, see below. 35 Conditioned changes are described in table 4. Note the commonality in the 36 environments of the major place shifts (velar outcomes of *n, *l, *s, *S, labial 37 outcome of *ŋ). The degree of regularity of each of these changes will be illus38 trated in relevant sections below. I will start with some highlights of the 39 findings. TABLE 1. NAU CONSONANT INVENTORY. pʷ p t k kʷ bʷ b d ɡ mʷ m n ŋ ř r j, i̯ w, u ̯ TABLE 2. NAU VOWEL INVENTORY. i ɨ u e ʌ o æ ɑ TABLE 3. NAU REFLEXES OF POC AND PMC CONSONANTS. POC *b *bʷ, *b *p *m *mʷ, *m *k *t *g,*y,*w PMC *p *pʷ *f *m *mʷ *k *t *x,*y,*w NAU b bʷ Ø m mʷ k,t,w,Ø t,j,Ø Ø POC *s, *c (*z), *j *j *d,*dr *r *R *l *ŋ *n *ñ PMC *s *S *Z *c *r *r,Ø *l *ŋ *n *ñ NAU d, ɡ ? ř r r,Ø j,ŋ,n,Ø ŋ,mʷ n,ŋ n TABLE 4. CONDITIONED CHANGES. Sound Change Environment Notes *k *k > w adjacent to u almost regular *k > t ＿i rare; t → ts before i *k > k, Ø irregular; see section 2.2 *t *t > t, j, Ø irregular; see section 2.2 *s, *S *s, *S > ɡ {#,a,o}＿{a,o} almost regular *l *l > j adjacent to *{i,u} *l > ŋ {#,a,o}＿{a,o} almost regular *l > n, Ø irregular; rare *ŋ *ŋ > mʷ {#,a,o}＿{a,o} almost regular *n *n > ŋ {#,a...