====== Mongi River ======

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

===== Situation =====
The Mongi River family consists of at least two closely-related languages, Dedua and Kube-Tobo, spoken south of the Cromwell range from the Kua river valley in the west to beyond the Mongi river as far east as the headwaters of the Masaweng in Papua New Guinea's Morobe province. Its nearest linguistic relatives are the Bulum River languages to the southwest (McElhanon 1967: 5-6, Suter 2018: 6, q.v. p. 4.)

===== Subclassification =====
The internal classification of Mongi River is as follows:\\
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Mongi River

Dedua

North Dedua

South Dedua

Kube-Tobo

Tobo

Kube

Kurungtufu

Yoanggeng\\
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According to Lee (1993: 10,) Tobo is a dialect of Kube with 95% cognacy over nearly 200 basic terms, much higher than McElhanon's (1967: 6-9) figure of 71.4% (below.) Thus a conservative tally would count only two rather than three languages in the Mongi River family.\\
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McElhanon (1967: 6-9) gives lexicostatistical figures between Dedua, Hube (Kube) and Tobo as follows:

|< - 80px 80px 80px 80px >|
|     |  Dedua  |  Hube  |  Tobo  |
|Dedua|   ---   |  50.7  |  42.9  |
|Hube |  50.7   |  ---   |  71.4  |
|Tobo |  42.9   |  71.4  |  ---   |

We assume Dedua's figures to have been significantly depressed by loans from Kâte, which are pervasive enough to have moved Hooley and McElhanon (1970 :1069, 1070) to reclassify Dedua in the East Huon family (below.)

===== Sources =====
Pilhofer (1927-1928) comparative morphology for Dedua and Kube

Pilhofer (1928-1929) 290 comparative terms for Dedaue (Dedua) and Hube (Kube)

McElhanon (1967: 34-43) 140 comparative terms for Dedua, Hube (Kube) and Tobo

McElhanon (1968) 1,495 comparative terms for Dedua, Kube-Yoangen, and Tobo

McElhanon and Voorhoeve (1970) 67 Trans New Guinea comparisons include examples from Tobo, Kube and Dedua

McElhanon (2012) 2,020 comparative terms for Tobo and Yoangen Kube

Smith (1988) Morobe counting systems (unobtained)

Ceder and Ceder (1988) grammar of Dedua (unobtained)

Ceder and Ceder (1989) dictionary of Dedua (unobtained)

Ceder and Ceder (1990) grammar of Dedua (unobtained)

Ceder and Ceder (1990) orthography of Dedua (unobtained)

Ceder and Ceder (2003) sketch phonology of Dedua

Ceder and Ceder (n.d.) dialect survey of Dedua (unobtained)…

Lee (1993) grammar of Kube

Lee (n.d.) dictionary of Mongi (unobtained)

Gasaway (1997) Burum morphophomenics

Blake (2000) Dedua participants

Blake (2000) Dedua clitics (unobtained)

Mankins (2012) grammar of Tobo (unobtained)

Mankins (n.d.) dictionary of Tobo (unobtained)

Suter (2018) comparative Pindiu grammar including (pp. 43-51) Pindiu object-marking verbs and (pp. 182-188) Pindiu desinences

===== History of classification =====
**[under construction]**\\
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===== Historical phonology =====
**[under construction]**\\
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Proto-Mongi River had … consonants and … vowels as follows:\\
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…\\
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…\\
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…\\
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…\\
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…\\
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…\\
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… initial consonants …\\
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…

|< - 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px >|
||Mongi River|Dedua    |Dedua|Kube     |Kube|Tobo     |Tobo   |
||           |McElhanon|Ceder|McElhanon|Lee |McElhanon|Mankins|
||***…**     |****     |**** |****     |****|****     |****   |
||*…         |         |     |         |    |         |       |


… medial consonants …\\
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…

|< - 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px >|
||Mongi River|Dedua    |Dedua|Kube     |Kube|Tobo     |Tobo   |
||           |McElhanon|Ceder|McElhanon|Lee |McElhanon|Mankins|
||***…**     |****     |**** |****     |****|****     |****   |
||*…         |         |     |         |    |         |       |


… final consonants …\\
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…

|< - 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px >|
||Mongi River|Dedua    |Dedua|Kube     |Kube|Tobo     |Tobo   |
||           |McElhanon|Ceder|McElhanon|Lee |McElhanon|Mankins|
||***…**     |****     |**** |****     |****|****     |****   |
||*…         |         |     |         |    |         |       |


… vowels and diphthongs …\\
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…

|< - 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px 100px >|
||Mongi River|Dedua    |Dedua|Kube     |Kube|Tobo     |Tobo   |
||           |McElhanon|Ceder|McElhanon|Lee |McElhanon|Mankins|
||***…**     |****     |**** |****     |****|****     |****   |
||*…         |         |     |         |    |         |       |


===== Pronouns =====
**[under construction]**\\
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===== Verbal morphology =====
**[under construction]**\\
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===== Loans to and from neighboring languages =====
**[under construction]**\\
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…\\
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