Upper Sepik languages

The Upper Sepik languages are a family of the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea. They were identified as a family by Donald Laycock in 1956, which he included in his Sepik family in 1965. Foley (2005) does not the unity family, but Ross (2005) reconstructs proto-Upper Sepik pronouns.

Pronouns

Ross reconstructs two sets of pronouns for proto–Upper Sepik. These are the default set (Set I), and a set with "certain interpersonal and pragmatic functions" (table 1.27):

Pronoun Set I

I	*an	we two	*nə-d	we	*nə-n
thou (M)	*nɨ	you two	*nə-p	you	*nə-m
thou (F)	(*nɨ-n)
he	*tə-	they two	(*rə-p)	they	*ra-m
she	*tɨ-

Pronoun Set II

I	*ka	we two	*krə-d	we	*krə-m
thou (M)	*kɨ	you two	*kə-p	you	*kə-m
thou (F)	?
he	*si	they two	*sə-p	they	(*sə-m)
she	(*sae)

References