Koromu (Kesawai) : Grammar and Information Structure of a New Guinea Language / Carol Priestley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Priestley, Carol, Author.

Series:

Pacific linguistics ; Volume 658.

Pacific Linguistics [PL] ; 658

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Language and languages.

Papua New Guinea--Languages.

Papua New Guinea.

Indonesia--Papua.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxvi, 527 pages).

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter Mouton, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This book is a grammatical description of Koromu (or Kesawai), an endangered and previously undescribed language in Papua New Guinea's Ramu Valley. Koromu belongs to the Madang subgroup of the putative Trans New Guinea family. The grammar covers the structures of the language, with an emphasis on information structure. Geographic, linguistic, social and historical setting are described as well as phonology and morphophonology. The book examines the morphosyntactic structures of the language, covering basic clause structure, word classes, phrase structures and structures of spatial reference, verbal morphology, serial verb constructions, experiencer object constructions and the various constructions of clause combining (clause chaining, complement clauses, adverbial and relative clauses). Chapters also deal with noun phrase (non)realisation and morphological signaling of prominence and show how links and tails are encoded grammatically. Appendices contain texts and a wordlist.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Preface

Acknowledgements

Contents

List of Tables

List of Maps

List of Photos

Conventions and abbreviations

Abbreviations for sources (see Appendix 1 for more details)

1 Introduction: Linguistic, sociolinguistic, ethnographic and historical contexts

2 Phonology and morphophonology

3 Basic clause structure

4 Word classes

5 Noun phrases

6 Possessive nominal constructions

7 Postpositional phrases

8 Spatial reference

9 Verb morphology

10 Complex verbal predicates

11 Impersonal experiencer object constructions

12 Basic clause combining

13 Noun phrase realization, omission and prominence

14 Ground - links and tails

Appendices

References

Author Index

Language Index

Subject Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9781501510229

1501510223

9781501510953

1501510959

OCLC:

1129184988