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Abstract

Abstract

This paper presents a natural speech corpus-based study of word-initial [h]-drop from the Nmbo speech community of southern Papua New Guinea. It is a speech community within a traditional egalitarian multilingual language ecology sustained by a practice of virilocal exogamy, and there is strong intergenerational transmission of local vernacular languages. This study investigates the propensity of word-initial [h]-drop in nouns, based on Nmbo speech data of Kerake tribe people. The results from the Nmbo Sociolinguistic Corpus shows clear age-conditioned variation, with younger speakers showing a higher propensity for [h]-drop. Nmbo speakers residing both within and outside their Nmbo villages of origin appear to be partaking in the innovative [h]-drop. The origin of the [h]-drop appears to be from the village with a more multilingual profile, as would be predicted by the notion of a multilingual (Cheshire, Kerswill, Fox, & Torgersen, 2011Mufwene 2001).

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2020-12-18
2025-04-24

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Word-initial [h]-drop variation in Nmbo
Asia-Pacific Language Variation 6, 250 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.20002.kas
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): apparent time construct; deletion; egalitarian multilingualism; exogamy; lenition; network analysis; Pacific; Papua New Guinea; phonological variation

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