Low Vowel Dissimilation Outside of Oceanic: The Case of Alamblak

Alamblak is the easternmost of the Sepik Hill languages spoken in East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Alamblak phonology (Bruce 1984) includes an alternation involving low vowel dissimilation, a process that, until recently, appeared to be limited to Oceanic languages (Blust 1996a, 1996b, Lynch 2003). Finding a parallel sound pattern in a non-Austronesian language of New Guinea allows several questions raised by Blust (1996b) to be answered. However, phonetic motivation for this recurrent sound change remains unclear.