====== North Angal ======

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

===== Situation =====
North Angal, also called Mendi or Mendi proper, is spoken north and west of Mendi town in the Mendi valley in the north central portion of Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands province, immediately south of the border with Enga Province (Rule 1965: 98, Franklin 1974, Franklin and Franklin 1978: 82-83, Tipton 1982: 1.)

===== Sources =====
Rule and Rule (1960) Mendi alphabet

Rule (1965: 98-105) phonological comparison of Mendi and Wela (West Angal)

Franklin (1974: 167-177) Mendi vowels, including 54 Mendi reflexes of Proto-Engan, reprinted in Franklin and Franklin (1978: 82-94)

Franklin (1975: 264-268) 92 Mendi reflexes of Proto-Engan

===== Phonology =====
Rule (1965: 99-100, ibid.) gives 14 consonants and 8 vowels for Mendi as follows:

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|  m   |  n   |       |      |
|  p   |  t   |   ʃ   |  k   |
|  mb  |  nd  |  ndʒ  |  ŋg  |
|      |  l   |       |      |
|      |  ɽ   |       |      |
|  w   |      |   j   |      |


|< - 60px 60px 60px >|
|  i  |     |  u  |
|  e  |     |  o  |
|  ɛ  |     |     |
|  æ  |  ɑ  |  ɒ  |

To these Franklin (1974, Franklin and Franklin 1978: 83) adds a fricative /h/, as may be seen in [(h)ɑkʰ] /hɑk/ “belt,” which reflects initial /*k/ (/*kako/ “man's belt sp.”) Voiceless stops /p t k/ are aspirated [pʰ tʰ kʰ] initially, with /p t/ being optionally fricated or rhoticized to [pɸ ɸ tɾ]. Medials /p k/ are lenited to unaspirated [p β k g]. Medial /t/ is realized as [ɾ r]. Franklin treats Rule's /t/ as /r/, specifying its initial realization as voiceless and retroflexed.

Like other Angal languages, Mendi allows final consonants; this is where erstwhile final vowels have been dropped, a development which continues the devoicing of final vowels in the Trans-Enga languages to the north (Franklin and Franklin 1978: 85.) Final stops /p k/ are aspirated or unreleased [pʰ p̚ kʰ]; final /t/ is realized as devoiced [ɾ̥]. Final prenasalized /mb nd ŋg/ are devoiced and aspirated to [mpʰ ntʰ ŋkʰ]. We might surmise that this is also true of /ndʒ/, but neither Rule nor Franklin give any examples of this segment.

Lateral /l/ is realized as fronted or palatalized [l ʎ] initially and medially and as voiceless fricative [ɬ] finally. Lateral retroflex flap /ɽ/ does not occur initially, and is devoiced to /ɽ̥/ finally.\\
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These allophonic equivalences may be summarized as follows:

|< - 60px 60px 60px 60px >|
|        |  initial  |  medial  |  final  |
|  /p/   |  pʰ pɸ ɸ  |   p β    |  pʰ p̚  |
|  /t/   |   tʰ tɾ   |   ɾ r    |   ɾ̥    |
|  /ʃ/   |     ʃ     |    ʃ     |    ʃ    |
|  /k/   |    kʰ     |   k g    |   kʰ    |
|  /mb/  |    mb     |    mb    |   mpʰ   |
|  /nd/  |    nd     |    nd    |   ntʰ   |
|  /ŋg/  |    ŋg     |    ŋg    |   ŋkʰ   |
|  /l/   |    l ʎ    |   l ʎ    |    ɬ    |
|  /ɽ/   |     —     |    ɽ     |   ɽ̥    |

===== Pronouns =====
Franklin (1975: 264-268) gives personal pronouns for Mendi as follows:

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|1 sg.|ni |
|2 sg.|ŋge|
|3 sg.|ipu|
|1 pl.|nɔ |
|2 pl.|imi|
|3 pl.|nim|
|1 dl.|jɔ |
|2 dl.|ipi|
|3 dl.|ipi|

===== Verbal morphology =====
No information on North Angal verbal morphology is available to us.\\
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