Angela Terrill

Lavukaleve is a Papuan Language spoken on the Russell Islands in the Central Province of the Solomon Islands. The phonology and morpho-phonology of Lavukaleve are described, as well as arguments adjuncts, the Lavukaleve predicate structure (including predicate types and core participant marking, the agreement suffix, focus constructions, tense, aspect and mood, word-level derivation, complex predicates), interclausal syntax, and the Lavukaleve discourse organisation. The book includes a list of affixes, a list of lexemes, and an appendix with Lavukaleve texts. The data used in this work was collected by the author during five field trips.

A Grammar of Lavukaleve

Don Kulick

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.

The Life and Death of a Papuan Language

A Grammar and Dictionary of Tayap

Grammar of the Biri language of Eastern Central Queensland, a Pama-Ngungan language belonging to the Maric subgroup ; salvage grammar based on old written sources and on recordings made in the 1960's and 1970's ; phonology, morphology and syntax of Biri are discussed in chapter four ; the last two chapters discuss the numerous dialects of Biri and the close linguistic relationship between Biri and the languages in the surrounding area.

Biri

Don Angela Kulick Terrill

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.

Angela Terrill

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