A grammar of coastal Marind / Bruno Olsson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Olsson, Bruno, author.

Series:

Mouton Grammar Library [MGL]

Mouton Grammar Library [MGL] ; 87

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Papuan languages--Grammar.

Papuan languages.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (XXI, 587 p.)

Place of Publication:

Berlin, Germany ; Boston, Massachusetts : De Gruyter, [2021]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This grammar provides the first modern, comprehensive description of Coastal Marind. It is a Papuan language spoken by the coastal-dwelling Marind-Anim, formerly expansionistic head-hunters of the Southern New Guinea lowlands. Like the other languages of the poorly known Anim family, Coastal Marind features astonishingly complex verb morphology and a range of unusual phenomena, including indexing of up to four arguments on the verb, verbal marking of focus (the 'Orientation' system), engagement prefixes tracking the attention of the addressee, and a system of four genders realised by intricate agreement patterns. The structure of the language is examined in a detailed but accessible way, and its many complexities are brought to life by contextualised spontaneous data, drawn from a rich audio-visual corpus.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Acknowledgements

Contents

List of maps, tables and figures

Abbreviations and conventions

1 Preliminaries

2 Phonology

3 Nominals, their morphology and derivation

4 Pronouns and demonstratives

5 Nominal gender

6 Adpositions and particles

7 The syntax of phrases

8 Overview of the verb

9 Participant indexing I: The Actor, Dative and Genitive prefixes

10 Participant indexing II: Undergoer alternations

11 The system of Verb Orientation

12 Valence classes

13 Valence-changing constructions

14 Tense and aspect

15 Mood, attitude and engagement

16 Distribution of events in time and space

17 The Auxiliary, copula clauses and light verbs

18 Basic clausal syntax

19 Non-declarative speech acts

20 Combinations of clauses

Appendix: Texts

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

3-11-074706-5