Lembena

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

Situation

Lembena is spoken by approximately 1,500 people (1998) straddling the border of Papua New Guinea's Enga and East Sepik Provinces just west of the Yuat River and Madang Province. The designation “Lembena” properly indicates only one of ten Lembena-speaking clans, which happened to be the first one contacted by a linguist (Heineman 1998: 7.)

Sources

Davies and Comrie (1985: 283-311) 116 comparative terms for three varieties of Lembena, Maibi of Yambaido village, Yariba of Erim village and Lembena of Kopaipalu village after J.M. Bowers

Heineman and Heineman (1994) sketch phonology of Lembena

Heineman (1998) grammar of Lembena

Franklin (2015) dictionary of Lembena

Additionally, the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Ukarumpa provides an undated and unattributed sketch phonology of Lembena, with data recapitulating Heineman and Heineman (1994.)

Phonology

Heineman (1998: 8-9) gives 14 consonants and 5 vowels for Lembena as follows:

m	n	ɲ
p	t	s	k
mb	nd		ŋg
	l	ʎ
w		j

i		u
e		o
	a

Medial /t/ is realized as alveolar flap [ɾ]. Medial /l/ is realized as lateral flap /ɺ/, except when adjacent to /i/ where it is not distinguished from palatal /ʎ/. /ndi/ when followed by another vowel is realized as an affricate [ndʒ].

Neither final consonants nor consonant clusters occur.

As in Tsaka and Kyaka Enga, final vowels are typically devoiced.

Contrastive tone or stress are not attested, but given the presence of tone in the closely-related Enga as well in Enga-Southern Highlands, it cannot be ruled out that it exists but has been overlooked.

Pronouns

Heineman (1998: 14-15) gives Lembena pronouns as follows. There is no distinction between second and third person dual and plural forms, respectively:

	nominative		possessive
	base	augmented	base	augmented
1 sg.	na:	na-mba(la)	na-ŋga	na-mbala-ŋga
2 sg.	ni:	ni-mba(la)	ni-ŋga	ni-mbala-ŋga
3 sg.	mba:	mbala	mba-ŋga	mbala-ŋga
1 pl.	nani	nani-mba(la)	nani-ŋga	nani-mbala-ŋga
2/3 pl.	ɲa:	ɲa-mba(la)	ɲa-ŋga	ɲa-mbala-ŋga
1 dl.	nali	nali-mba(la)	nali-ŋga	nali-mbala-ŋga
2/3 dl.	nili	nili-mba(la)	nili-ŋga	nili-mbala-ŋga

Heineman treats the base forms as shortened versions of what we label here as augmented forms, but historically the base forms are original.

Verbal morphology

Heineman (1998: 24-35) presents desinences for the final declarative forms of two roots, /na/ “consume” and /pi/ “do”, as follows:

	far past	near past	immediate past	present	future
1 sg.	n-a-we	n-e-we	na-la-we	n-ele-we	n-opo-we
2 sg.	n-a-e-ne	n-e-Ø-ne	na-la-e-ne	n-el-e-ne	n-op-e-ne
3 sg.	n-a-me	n-e-me	na-la-me	n-ele-me	n-o:-me
1 pl.	n-a-ma-ne	n-e-ma-ne	na-la-ma-ne	n-ele-ma-ne	n-o:-ma-ne
2 pl./3 pl.	n-a-mi-ne	n-e-mi-ne	na-la-mi-ne	n-ele-mi-ne	n-o:-mi-ne
1 dl.	n-a-pa-ne	n-e-pa-ne	na-la-pa-ne	n-ele-pa-ne	n-o:-pa-ne
2 dl./3 dl.	n-a-pi-ne	n-e-pi-ne	na-la-pi-ne	n-ele-pi-ne	n-o:-pi-ne

	far past	near past	immediate past	present	future
1 sg.	pi-a-we	p-i-we	pi-la-we	p-ili-we	pi-po-we
2 sg.	pi-a-e-ne	p-i-Ø-ne	pi-la-e-ne	p-il-i-ne	pi-p-e-ne
3 sg.	pi-a-me	p-i-me	pi-la-me	p-ili-me	pi-o-me
1 pl.	pi-a-ma-ne	p-i-ma-ne	pi-la-ma-ne	p-ili-ma-ne	pi-o-ma-ne
2 pl./3 pl.	pi-a-mi-ne	p-i-mi-ne	pi-la-mi-ne	p-ili-mi-ne	pi-o-mi-ne
1 dl.	pi-a-pa-me	p-i-pa-ne	pi-la-pa-ne	p-ili-pa-ne	pi-o-pa-ne
2 dl./3 dl.	pi-a-pi-ne	p-i-pi-ne	pi-la-pi-ne	p-ili-pi-ne	pi-o-pi-ne

From these can be discerned the following underlying tense forms, with variations above conditioned by the final vowel of the root (Heineman 1998: 24):

far past	-a-
near past	-e-
immediate past	-la-
present	-ele-
future	-opo-

Heineman gives /-ala-/ immediate past because verb /na/ (< /*na/) is interpreted as merely /n-/; comparison to Enga-Kyaka shows /*la/ to be original. The variant /o:/ in the future form is presumably conditioned by the presence of a following labial /m p/.

The underlying forms of the personal subject indicators are as follows (Heineman 1998: 28):

1 sg.	-we
2 sg.	-e
3 sg.	-me
1 pl.	-ma
2 pl./3 pl.	-mi
1 dl.	-pa
2 dl./3 dl.	-pi

Imperative forms of /na/ and /pi/ are as follows (Heineman 1998: 30-32):

1 sg.	na-wa	pi-wa
2 sg.	na-:	pi-a
3 sg.	n-ena	p-ina
1 pl.	na-ma	pi-ma
2 pl.	na-lapa	pi-lapa
3 pl.	n-ena	p-ina
1 dl.	na-mba	pi-mba
2 dl.	na-lapa	pi-lapa
3 dl.	n-ena	p-ina