Nete
Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute
Situation
Nete is spoken in the region north of the Lagaip River, straddling the border between Papua New Guinea's Enga and East Sepik provinces.
Nete's affiliation with the Enga-Southern Highlands family was first noted by Lang (1970, Franklin and Franklin 1978: 83.)
Sources
Davies and Comrie's (1985: 283-311) 94 comparative terms for Iniai village, collected by Wayne Dye.
Phonology
There is no published phonology of Nete.
Pronouns
Davies and Comrie (1985: 310-311) give the following pronouns for Nete, represented phonetically:
| 1 sg. | na-mba |
| 2 sg. | ni-mba |
| 3 sg. | [oɣo] |
| 1 pl. | nani-ma? |
| 2 pl. | jaɺa-mba |
| 3 pl. | ɸidowa |
| 1 dl. | naɺi-mba |
| 2 dl. | [labo] |
| 3 dl. | niɛ-'mbʌ |
The second person dual form above is in error, actually meaning “two”. The third person singular appears to be a derivation of /*o/ “that”. The third person plural has no known origin, and is likely in error.
Verbal morphology
Nothing is known about Nete verbal morphology besides what little can be gleaned from third person present glosses in Davies and Comrie (1985: 283-311,) which suggest a system generally similar to that of other Trans-Enga languages.