Native to Papua New Guinea ISO 639-3 kwo | Native speakers 600 (1998) Glottolog nucl1593 | |
Language family Kwomtari
Kwomtari–Nai
Kwomtari | ||
Kwomtari is the eponymous language of the Kwomtari family of Papua New Guinea. It is spoken in six villages in Amanab District, Sandaun Province.
Spencer (2008) is a short grammar of Kwomtari. The language has an AOV 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.
Sound System
The phoneme /ɸ/ is realized as a voiced bilabial fricative [β] intervocalically and voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸ] elsewhere. The realization of the phoneme /ɭ / is in free variation between a voiced retroflex lateral [ɭ ] and a voiced retroflex stop [ɖ ].
The unusual vowel phonemes /i̞/ and /u̞/ are of intermediate height between cardinal [i]/[u] and [e]/[o] respectively but without the centralization present in [ɪ] and [ʊ]. They have also been attested in Weri, a Goilalan language of south-east Papua, and certain Dani dialects.