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Article published In:
What’s so standard about standards? Variationist principles and debates
Edited by Jonathan R. Kasstan
[Asia-Pacific Language Variation 8:2] 2022
► pp. 150–173

Kawa and the variable stopping of obstruents in Ende

| University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
| Boston University
| University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

This paper details a study investigating sociophonetic variation in Ende, a language spoken in Papua New Guinea. The study examines speech produced by 30 individuals, investigating what social and linguistic factors are linked with the variable alternation between stopped and affricated realizations of Ende retroflex obstruents [ʈ͡ʂ~ʈ] and [ɖ͡ʐ~ɖ].

Our analysis provides evidence that the obstruents in question are more likely to be realized as stops when they are voiced and when the speakers are orators. Orators are people who practice kawa, a long-standing practice whereby select individuals perform regular public orations. Among orators, the speaker’s age also appears to play a role in retroflex stopping. The link between the stop variant and social factors can be understood within the context of the distribution of power in the community, even in the absence of any explicit standard.

Keywords: affrication, gender, language change, oration, Pahoturi River, Papuan
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Ende
    • 2.1Language background
    • 2.2Gender among the Ende tän mit
    • 2.3Kawa public oration
    • 2.4Retroflex obstruents in Ende
  • 3.Methods
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Speakers
    • 3.3Extraction and auditory analysis
    • 3.4Linguistic factors
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Quantitative patterns
    • 4.2Voice, stops, and affricates
  • 5.General discussion
    • 5.1Group patterns
    • 5.2Individual patterns
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 December 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.21003.str
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