proto-southwestern-tai revised: a new reconstruction - seals 22

Ende Phonology 197
1993). Nakagawa (1988b) focuses on ritual language used during bridewealth negotiations,
in which he describes spatial metaphors employed in parallel speech couplets, that are
often employed by cultures of eastern Indonesia (see Grimes et. al., 1997; Fox, 1988).
Aoki and Nakagawa’s (1993) unpublished 2,500+ word Ende-English dictionary is a
significant catalog of vocabulary from Ende, primarily from the Aku dialect. However, the
dictionary also includes dialectal information from all three dialects of Ende. More than
any other work, the Ende-English dictionary played a key role in the present study.
Furthermore, recent linguistic descriptions have appeared for many of the neighboring
Bima-Sumba languages on Flores. These include descriptions of Keo (Baird, 2002),
Ngadha (Djawanai, 1977, 1983), and Rongga (Arka et. al., 2007). Other larger languages,
such as Manggarai to the west and Sika to the east also have received various descriptions.
However, it should be noted that central Flores and CMP languages still remain grossly
under-described (see Tryon, 1995; Ross, 1995).
2. Overview of Ende phonology
The following description of Ende phonology, based on the Ja'o dialect, demonstrates
various properties that are encountered in the other languages of central Flores, but may be
less commonly encountered elsewhere in the languages of eastern Indonesia and
Austronesia as outlined by Hajek (2008, forthcoming). First, Ende has a large consonant
phoneme inventory with 22 phonemes, which is characteristic of other consonant phoneme
inventories on central Flores, including Keo (23; Baird, 2002), Palu’e (21; Donohue, n.d.),
Rongga (23; Arka et. al., 2007), and Ngadha (21; Djawanai, 1977, 1983). More
particularly, Ende evinces a complex stop system that shows four-way distinction between
1) voiced, 2) voiceless, 3) prenasalized, and 4) implosive stop phonemes that is also
common in languages of central Flores (see §2.1.1.1 for discussion of the stop system in
Ende). Furthermore, even though Ende still shows phonemic contrast with plain voiced
stops, they are much less common. This is notable as another Bima-Sumba language,
Kambera, does not show plain voiced stop phonemes, a very marked feature of consonant
inventories (Klamer, 1998; cf. Hajek, 2008 forthcoming). 3 Lastly, Ende shares a similar
syllable structure with the languages of Flores; all Ende syllables are open, and closed
syllables are strictly prohibited (see §2.2 for description of Ende syllable structure; cf.
Klamer, 2002:368).
Ende also contains aspects that appear to be less common among the languages of
central Flores. The following properties in Ende, although not absent, are more marked.
First, Ende has a marked alveolar approximant /�/ phoneme that shows frication during
articulation, showing allophonic variation with alveolar fricative [z]. The only other
language of Flores that demonstrates a similar speech sound is Rongga (Arka, 2004),
although the extent to which these sounds show similar properties is unclear (see §2.1.1.6
for a description of the alveolar approximant in Ende). Secondly, Ende has a phonemic
glottal stop in word-initial and word-medial positions. In the word-initial position the lack
of a glottal stop affects the vowel quality of such vowels. That is, word-initial vowels show
variation in length, duration, and breathiness, although this distinction appears to be a
result of the presence or absence of the glottal stop and not a distinction between vowel
phonemes as in the case of Kedang (see Samely, 1991 for Kedang; see §§2.1.1.1 and
2.1.2.7 for Ende). The following phonological description of Ende is divided into three
3 For an explanation of the phonetic motivation behind this rare phenomena see Hajek (2008 forthcoming).