Tobati language
Tobati, or Yotafa, is an Austronesian language spoken in Jayapura Bay in Papua province, Indonesia. It was once thought to be a Papuan language.[1] Notably, Tobati displays a very rare object-subject-verb word order.[3]
Tobati | |
---|---|
Yotafa | |
Native to | Indonesia |
Region | Papua |
Native speakers | 100 (2007)[1] |
Austronesian
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | tti |
Glottolog | toba1266 [2] |
Phonology
Labial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ɲ | N† | |||
Stop | voiceless | t | c | k | |||
voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ||||
Fricative | voiceless | ɸ | f | s | ʃ | h‡ | |
voiced | ɣ~ɰ | ||||||
Approximant | w | j | |||||
Rhotic | r | ||||||
† Before a vowel realized as [ŋg], otherwise nasalizes the preceding vowel.[3]
‡ Displays free variation as [h~ɦ~x~ɣ].
/f/ also shows allophony as [p]. However, it does not behave as a stop (see below).
Tobati has a five-vowel system of /a e i o u/, realized as /a ɛ i ɔ ʊ/ in closed syllables.
Phonotactics
Tobati permits 3 consonants in the onset, and at most a single consonant or a nasal-stop cluster in the coda.
Nasal-stop clusters only permit a nasal and a stop of the same PoA. For the /nd/ sequence, /n/ becomes dental [n̪]. Neither the bilabial, consisting of /b/ and the /f/ allophone [p], nor palatal nasal-stop clusters distinguish voice (i.e. they are [pm~bm] and [cɲ~d͡ʒɲ] respectively). The /Nk/ sequence voices to [ŋg].[3]
References
- Tobati at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Tobati". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- Crowley, Terry; Lynch, John; Ross, Malcolm (2002). The Oceanic Languages. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 186-88