Urim language

Urim is a Torricelli language of Papua New Guinea. It is also known as Kalp; dialects are Kukwo, Yangkolen. There is a grammatical description by Hemmilä and Luoma (2009).

Phonology

Urim has vowel length contrast, but only for monosyllabic words. Urim also has the prestopped nasals /pm/, /tn/, and /kŋ/.

Urim minimal pairs with short and long vowels:

• ‘time’, ‘tree trunk’
• ‘wild sago’, ‘outside’

Pre-stopped nasals contrast with non-pre-stopped nasals:

• ‘species of plant’, waŋ ‘time’, ‘fire’
• ‘enough’, yan ‘father’, ‘walk’
• ‘nose’, ‘you (pl)’
• ‘wasp’, ‘earthquake’, ‘liver’

Pronouns

Pronouns are:

Like the Lower Sepik-Ramu languages, Urim (as well as Kombio) distinguishes dual and paucal pronouns.

References