Iau or Turu is a Lakes Plain language of West Papua, Indonesia, spoken by about 600 people. Most speakers are monolingual, and their number is growing. Other peoples in the western Lakes Plain area speak basic Iau. Iau is tonal.
Names and dialects
Dialects are Foi, Turu, Edopi, and Iau proper; these may be distinct enough to be considered separate languages. Foi is spoken on the large Tariku River, Turu on the Van Daalen River, Iau proper between the rivers, and Edopi at the juncture of the Tariku and Kliki rivers. Another name for the language is Urundi ~ Ururi. Dosobou is specifically Edopi. In Puncak Jaya Regency, Iau dialects are spoken in Bakusi, Duita, Fawi, and Fi villages, located between the Rouffaer River and Van Daalen River in Fawi District.
Phonology
The following discussion is based on Bateman.
Consonants
Labial
Coronal
Velar
Stop
Fricative
There are six consonants. /t d/ are dental; /s/ is alveolar. /b d/ are implosive, and may be realized as nasals before the low nasal vowel /ã/. /d/ may also be realized as the liquid . /f/ is pronounced ~ word-initially, or as before the high nonback vowels /i ɨ/. The labial allophone is preferred in the Foi dialect; the glottal allophone is preferred in Turu. It is always pronounced word-medially and as an unreleased plosive word-finally. /f/ is the only consonant that can occur word-finally.
Vowels
The low vowel is always nasalized, except when it is a component of a diphthong. The open-mid front vowel varies between , , and . The following diphthongs exist:
ɛ
ɪ
ʊ
i
u
i̝
a
aɛ
aɪ
aʊ
ai
au
ai̝
ɛ
ɛi
ɔ
ɔɛ
ɔi
ʊ
ʊɪ
u
ui
No diphthongs begin with /ɪ i i̝/ or end in /a ɔ/. There are two triphthongs: /aui/ and /aʊɪ/. The back components of these triphthongs are realized as unrounded.
Syllables
Syllables consist minimally of a vowel. They may include a single onset consonant and/or a single coda consonant. Diphthongs and triphthongs are attested. The template is V. The tone-bearing unit is the syllable.
Stress
Stress in Iau is predictable: it falls on the final syllable of disyllabic words. The interaction between stress and tone is not clear.
Tone
Iau is the most tonally complex Lakes Plain language. Unlike other Lakes Plain languages which can be disyllabic or trisyllabic, Iau word structure is predominantly monosyllabic. Iau has eight phonemic tones, transcribed by Bateman using numerical Chao tones : two level tones, two rising tones, three falling tones, and one falling-rising tone. Phonetically, these are:
high
mid
high-rising
low-rising
high-to-low-falling
high-to-mid-falling
mid-to-low-falling
falling-rising
A sequence of two tones may occur on one syllable. There are eleven tone clusters that can occur on verbs to mark aspect; only three of these can occur on nouns. Some minimal sets in Iau illustrating phonemic tonal contrasts:
be⁴⁴ ‘father-in-law’
be³³ ‘fire’
be⁴⁵ ‘snake’
be²³ ‘path’
be⁴² ‘thorn’
be⁴³ ‘flower’
be³² ‘small eel’
be⁴²³ ‘tree fern’
te⁴⁴ ‘pig wallow’
te³³ ‘mosquito’
te⁴⁵ ‘man’
te²³ ‘edible tuber’
te⁴² ‘calf of leg’
te⁴³ ‘inlet of body of water’
te³² ‘flooring’
Tone is only lexical on nouns; the lexical forms of verbs are unmarked for tone, and each tone represents a different aspect. The complex system of aspectual marking via tone is discussed in Bateman.
Aspect
Iau also displays complex tonal verb morphology. Verbal roots do not have any inherent tone, but tone is used to mark aspect on verbs. Example paradigms:
Mood
Tonal alternations can also serve as final mood and speech act particles.
tone 44: speaker assumes the information is correct
tone 32: speaker asks a question to confirm what he believes is true
