"thou" pronouns are proto–East Lake Plain *a, *do, Awera yai, nai (the latter from *dai; compare also e "we"), and Rasawa e-, de-. Saponi shares no pronouns with the Lakes Plain family; indeed its pronouns mamire "I, we" and ba "thou" are remenincent of proto–East Bird's Head *meme "we" and *ba "thou". However, Saponi shares half its basic lexical vocabulary with Rasawa, and Ross left it in the Lakes Plain family pending further investigation. The Tause language was also previously grouped amongst the Tariku group of Lakes Plain languages. Ross transferred it to the East Bird's Head – Sentani languages on the basis of pronoun similarities in hopes that this would promote further research. Below are pronouns in selected Lakes Plain languages as given by Foley (2018): {| ! !! Awera !! Kirikiri !! Iau !! Duvle !! Obokuitai !! Diebroud |+ Lakes Plain pronouns |- ! 1s | yai || a || a || æ || i || aː |- ! 2s | dai || de || di || do || di || daː |- ! 1p | e || e || e || a || ai || iː |} Phonology Lakes Plain languages have remarkably small phonemic inventories, rivaling even those of Polynesian languages. Consonants Clouse and Clouse (1993) note many of the Lakes Plain languages share several unusual phonological features. While Papuan languages typically have at least two nasal phonemes, this is not the case for Lakes Plain languages. Although phonetic nasals do exist in most Lakes Plain languages, they do not contrast with the corresponding voiced stops. Doutai, Sikaritai, Obokuitai and Abawiri (Foau) lack even phonetic nasals. Additionally, no Lakes Plain language has a liquid phoneme. Clouse (1997) reconstructs a typologically remarkable consonant inventory for the ancestor of Lakes Plain, consisting entirely of only five stops: This results in Lakes Plain languages having high functional load, meaning that there are many words with small distinctions in sounds. Vowels Many of the languages have very high constricted (fricativised) vowels; in Doutai and Kirikiri these constitute separate phonemes from /i/ and /u/. The fricativised vowels seem to have developed from deletion of a following consonant. Clouse (1997) reconstructs a five-vowel system for proto-Lakes Plain, not unlike Japanese or Spanish: Tone Lakes Plain languages are all tonal. (The Skou languages and Kainantu-Goroka languages are other Papuan languages possessing contrastive tone.) Clouse and Clouse (1993) reconstruct tone (high level "H"