A grammar of Momu, a language of Papua New Guinea
Date
2016
Authors
Honeyman, Thomas Tout
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This thesis is a description of the grammar of Eastern Momu, a
language spoken in Papua New Guinea in the north-western province
of Sandaun. This is a region with a fair amount of diversity,
with several isolates or small language families, and few
detailed descriptions. Momu, or Fas as it is more commonly known
in the literature, together with the virtually undocumented
Baibai language, forms one of these small language families.
The thesis is structured such that after a general introduction
to the people, language, and region, I give chapters covering:
phonology, phonot- actics and morphophonemics (Ch. 2), word
classes (Ch. 3), nominals (Ch. 4), noun phrases (Ch. 5), verbs
(Ch. 6), aspect (ch. 7), grammatical re- lations (Ch. 8), adverbs
(Ch. 9), clauses (Ch. 10), non-verbal predicates (Ch. 11),
modality and negation (Ch. 12), serial verb constructions (Ch.
13), compounds and coordination (Ch. 14), subordination (Ch. 15)
and complementation (Ch. 16).
At first glance, Momu has a relatively uncomplicated five vowel
phon- ology, or ten vowels if one includes length. Glides hold a
special position within the phonology, phonotactics and
morphophonology, as I have ana- lysed it. Glides interact heavily
with adjacent segments including metathesis with adjacent
consonants in a predictable fashion. Additional phonetic long
high vowels arise from some glide-vowel combinations. Amongst the
conson- ants, there is a bilabial trill. This is an areal feature
that is rare amongst the world’s languages.
A marked feature of the verbal system, but also areally, is a
relatively high count of verbs coding verbal number. Verbal
number in Momu is conservat- ively estimated to occupy 30% of the
verbal lexicon, placing it at the upper end of the typological
space. The theme of verbal number runs throughout the thesis as
its relatively high frequency makes for contrastive behaviour in
certain domains.
Momu has some classically "Papuan" features such as serial verb
con-
structions and verb-final ordering (albeit not strictly so). This
thesis aims to position Momu within the growing body of work
describing the incredible features, number and variety of
languages of Papua New Guinea, but also to focus on a region
within Papua New Guinea with perhaps a higher degree of diversity
and lower total count of documentation overall.
Description
Keywords
grammar, grammatical description, papua new guinea, sandaun province
Citation
Collections
Source
Type
Thesis (PhD)
Book Title
Entity type
Access Statement
License Rights
Restricted until
Downloads
File
Description