A Grammar and Dictionary of Tayap : The Life and Death of a Papuan Language / Don Kulick, Angela Terrill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kulick, Don, Author.

Terrill, Angela, Author.

Series:

Pacific linguistics ; 661.

Pacific Linguistics [PL] ; 661

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Taiap language.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (516 pages) : 2 illustrations

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter Mouton, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Tayap is a small, previously undocumented Papuan language, spoken in a single village called Gapun, in the lower Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea. The language is an isolate, unrelated to any other in the area. Furthermore, Tayap is dying. Fewer than fifty speakers actively command it today. Based on linguistic anthropological work conducted over the course of thirty years, this book describes the grammar of the language, detailing its phonology, morphology and syntax. It devotes particular attention to verbs, which are the most elaborated area of the grammar, and which are complex, fusional and massively suppletive.The book also provides a full Tayap-English-Tok Pisin dictionary. A particularly innovative contribution is the detailed discussions of how Tayap''s grammar is dissolving in the language of young speakers. The book exemplifies how the complex structures in fluent speakers' Tayap are reduced or reanalyzed by younger speakers. This grammar and dictionary should therefore be a valuable resource for anyone interested in the mechanics of how languages disappear. The fact that it is the sole documentation of this unique Papuan language should also make it of interest to areal specialists and language typologists.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Acknowledgements

Contents

Conventions and abbreviations

1. The Tayap language and its speakers

2. Phonology and orthography

3. Word classes

4. Noun phrases: Structure, modifiers, case marking and possession

5. Basic verb morphology

6. The formation of realis and irrealis verbs

7. Mood

8. Complex predicates

9. Simple and complex sentences

Tayap Texts

Tayap-English-Tok Pisin Dictionary

English-Tayap finder list

Appendix 1. English translation of Georg Höltker 1938. Eine fragmentarische Wörterliste der Gapún-Sprache Newguineas. Anthropos 33: 279-82

Appendix 2. Two photographs of Gapun village taken in 1937 by Georg Höltker

References

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Feb 2020)

ISBN:

9781501512025

1501512021

9781501512209

150151220X

OCLC:

1105857128