Wiru language

Wiru reflexes of proto-Trans-New Guinea (pTNG) etyma are:

• ibi(ni) ‘name’ < *imbi
• nomo ‘louse’ < *niman
• laga ‘ashes’ < *la(ŋg,k)a
• tokene ‘moon’ < *takVn[V]
• mane ‘instructions, incantations’ < *mana
• keda ‘heavy’ < *ke(nd,n)a
• mo- ‘negative prefix’ < *ma-

Consonants

• /p, t, k/ can be heard as aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ] in word-initial position and can also be heard with slight friction and voicing, in word-medial positions.
• /t/ can be heard as [d] when preceded by /i/ and followed by /a/ or /o/. It is heard as [ɾ] in all other intervocalic environments.

Vowels

Stress

Content words in Wiru feature stress on the initial syllable. Stressed syllables are longer, while unstressed syllables feature vowel reduction and lenition of the onset consonant.

/kákà/ → [ˈkʰáːɣə̀] ('banana'), in which the phoneme /k/ is realized as an aspirated stop in the stressed syllable and as an unaspirated fricative in the unstressed syllable, and the phoneme /a/ is elongated in the stressed syllable and realized as a schwa in the unstressed syllable.

Because Wiru uses lexical and grammatical tone, stress is not marked through pitch changes.

Trans-New Guinea-like pronouns are no 1sg (< *na) and ki-wi 2pl, ki-ta 2du (< *ki).

Wiru has a general noun-modifying clause construction. In this construction, a noun can be modified by a clause that immediately precedes it. The noun may, but need not, correspond to an argument of the modifying clause. Such constructions can be used to express a wide range of semantic relationships between clause and noun. The follow examples all use the same noun-modifying clause construction:

[No

1SG

ka-k-u]

stay-PRS-1SG

tono

mountain

tubea.

big

[No ka-k-u] tono tubea.

1SG stay-PRS-1SG mountain big

'The mountain I am on top of is big.'

[Kia-nea

be.red-INF

karo

car

pi-k-i]

lie-PRS-2/3PL

ail-aroa

man-woman

eida

there

piri-ki-ya.

lie-PRS-2/3PL-HAB

[Kia-nea karo pi-k-i] ail-aroa eida piri-ki-ya.

be.red-INF car lie-PRS-2/3PL man-woman there lie-PRS-2/3PL-HAB

'The people who own red cars live there.'

[Kenbra

Canberra

namolo

first

no-k-o]

come-PST-1PL

ko

story

ou.

say.1SG.FUT

[Kenbra namolo no-k-o] ko ou.

Canberra first come-PST-1PL story say.1SG.FUT

'I'll tell the story about the first time we came to Canberra.'

[Toro

1PL

pea

all

skul

school

ke

LOC

poa-rok-o]

go-OPT-1PL

oi

time

no-ka-l-e...

come-PST-DS-2/3PL...

[Toro pea skul ke poa-rok-o] oi no-ka-l-e...

1PL all school LOC go-OPT-1PL time come-PST-DS-2/3PL...

'The time for all of us to go to school arrived...'

The noun-modifying clause construction imposes a falling tone on the head noun. That is, no matter what the lexical tone of the noun that is being modified is, it takes on a high-low tone pattern when it is modified in a noun-modifying clause construction.

The following basic vocabulary words are from Franklin (1973, 1975), as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database: