Border languages (New Guinea)

Border
Tami
Geographic
distribution:
New Guinea
Linguistic classification: a primary family of Papuan languages
Subdivisions:
? Morwap

The Border or Tami languages are an independent family of Papuan languages in Malcolm Ross's version of the Trans–New Guinea proposal. They are named after the Indonesia – Papua New Guinea border, which they span.

Contents

Classification

Laycock classified Morwap as an isolate, but noted pronominal similarities with Border. Ross included Morwap in Border but noted that they do not appear to share any lexical similarities. However, Morwap data are quite poor.

Pronouns

The pronouns that Ross reconstructs for proto-Border are the following:

I *ka exclusive we *kia- ?
inclusive we *bile ?
thou *je you  ?
s/he *ihe they *ihe- ?

References

  • Ross, Malcolm (2005). "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages". In Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide, Jack Golson, eds. Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. pp. 15–66. ISBN 0858835622. OCLC 67292782. 

External links