Tobati language
Oceanic language spoken in Indonesia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tobati, or Yotafa, is an Austronesian language within the Oceanic branch, from the Sarmi–Jayapura subfamily, in Jayapura bay in Papua province, Indonesia.[1] Notably, Tobati displays a very rare object–subject–verb word order.
Tobati was once thought to be a Papuan language because as recently as 1952, it had a characteristically Papuan subject–object–verb word order.[2]
Phonology
/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 three 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 place of articulation. 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 [ŋɡ].[2]