A Short Grammar of Alorese (Austronesian)

Marian Klamer
Leiden University

Alorese (Bahasa Alor) (25,000 speakers) is the only indigenous Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language spoken amongst the Papuan languages of the Alor-Pantar archipelago in south-eastern Indonesia. Like many of the other minority languages spoken in this part of Indonesia, Alorese has not been previously described. This sketch is based on primary data collected by the author during on-site fieldwork in 2003.

While earlier sources suggest that Alorese is a dialect of Lamaholot, this grammar compares the Alorese basic lexicon with that of three Lamaholot dialects, to suggest that Alorese is a language of its own. Another feature that distinguishes Alorese from any of the Lamaholot dialects is its isolating profile, lacking all productive morphology.

There are significant lexical differences between Alorese dialects spoken on Pantar island and those spoken on Alor. The present sketch notes such variation, but emphasis is on the language as it is spoken in Baranusa, west Pantar. Historical and ethnographic evidence is presented to reconstruct the history of its speakers as migrants from the east Flores Lamaholot-speaking region, who arrived in Pantar before or around 1,300 AD. Alorese phonology and morphology are sketched before presenting the major grammatical constructions used. Serial verb constructions, especially directional ones, are often used. Alorese combines head-initial clausal constituent order with post-predicate negation and a clause-final conjunction. It has accusative alignment, the grammatical relations subject and object are expressed by constituent order. Alorese non-declarative sentence types are structurally very similar to declarative ones. Clauses are linked to each by conjunctive linking words or by complementation; complementation is by juxtaposition. Alorese contains words and grammatical constructions that are non-Austronesian. Details are presented suggesting that these are due to different kinds of contact between Alorese and Papuan languages in historic and prehistoric times.

ISBN 9783862881727. Languages of the World/Materials 486. 142pp. 2011.

Dusner

Mary Dalrymple & Suriel Mofu
University of Oxford, Universitas Negeri Papua

Dusner is an Austronesian language with three remaining fluent speakers. It was formerly spoken in Dusner, a village of about 600 people on the western shore of Wandamen Bay, an inlet of Cenderawasih Bay in West Papua, Indonesia. Only one of the three speakers still lives in Dusner.

Dusner is a fairly rigidly SVO language. Verbs do not show distinctions in tense, aspect, mood, or voice, but there is a rich subject agreement paradigm with an inclusive/exclusive distinction in the first person and a three-way number distinction (singular, dual, plural). Subject pro-drop is common. Alongside a default third-person plural form, there is a separate form for agreement with nonhumans in the third person, as well as a third person plural pronoun whose reference is restricted to nonhumans. This violates Greenberg's universal 45, which states that if a language has gender distinctions in the plural, it always has some gender distinctions in the singular as well. Nouns are invariant except for a small class of inalienably possessed stems which must appear with possessive suffixes. In periphrastic possessive constructions, a pronominal possessor follows the head noun and shows agreement with both the head noun and the possessor. There are very few adjectives, and only a small class of prepositions, though there is a rich inventory of adverbial locative expressions. The number system is quintenary.

Contents

Abbreviations

Background

1 Phonology

2 Morphology

2.1 Verbs
2.2 Nouns
2.3 Determiners and demonstratives
2.4 Personal pronouns
2.5 Possessive pronouns
2.6 Adjectives
2.7 Verbalising prefix ve-
2.8 Prepositions and locative expressions
2.9 Numerals
2.10 Interjections and discourse particles

3 Syntax

3.1 Noun phrases
3.2 Possessive phrases
3.3 Prepositional phrases
3.4 Locative and directional expressions
3.5 Core clause structure
3.6 Nonverbal predication
3.7 Negation
3.8 Imperatives
3.9 Coordination
3.10 Subordinate complement clauses
3.11 Subordinate adjunct clauses
3.12 Relative clauses
3.13 Emphatic construction
3.14 Interrogatives
3.14.1 Polar questions
3.14.2 Constituent questions
3.15 Comparatives

4 Text

ISBN 9783862882786. Languages of the World/Materials 487. 64pp. 2012.

Shoshoni Grammar

John E. McLaughlin
Utah State University

Shoshoni is a member of the Central Numic branch of the Numic language family of the Uto-Aztecan stock. It was formerly spoken in a broad, continuous arc extending from southwestern Nevada up through northwestern Utah and southern Idaho to central Wyoming. There are four generally recognized dialect complexes–Western Shoshoni, Gosiute, Northern Shoshoni, and Eastern Shoshoni. Today, the Shoshoni community lives in colonies and reservations scattered throughout the former range.

Shoshoni is closely related to the Comanche language of Oklahoma. Shoshoni has an underlying obstruent system which consists of voiceless stops /p, t, k, kw/, two voiceless fricatives /s, h/, and a voiceless affricate /ts/, but a surface phonetic system that includes voiced and voiceless stops, fricatives, and affricates in all the places of articulation of the underlying stops and affricates. Nominals in Shoshoni are inflected for three cases and for singular, dual, and plural number. Shoshoni aspect and tense are reflected as suffixes on the verb stem and there is a large set of instrumental prefixes that can be prefixed as well. Adverbial relations are marked by postpositions. Shoshoni word order is relatively free, although there is a marked tendency toward SXV. Subordinate clauses in Shoshoni are marked for same reference of subjects or for switch reference of subjects.

John E. McLaughlin, Associate Professor of English at Utah State University, has published on the historical phonology and morphology of the Numic and Central Numic languages since 1980.

ISBN 9783862883042. Languages of the World/Materials 488. 106pp. 2012.

Darai Grammar

Dubi Nanda Dhakal
Tribhuvan University, Nepal

This grammar is a description of Darai, an Indo-Aryan language, which was not adequately described before. The genetic classification of this language has not been determined yet but proposed as an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is a language spoken by 10210 people in the Chitwan, Nawalparasi and Tanahun districts of central and western Nepal. The Darai people residing in Nayabeltari and Gaindakot Village Development Committees (VDCs) in Nawalparasi and Gajarkot in Tanahu no longer speak their ancestral language. The data for this grammar came largely from the natural texts. The text corpus was mainly obtained from the language consultants who were the inhabitants of Kathar, Chainpur, Mangalpur VDCs and Bharatpur municipality of the Chitwan district.

Synchronic description of phonology is given in chapter two. Darai has 29 consonants and 6 vowels. This chapter examines the vowels and consonants, their distribution, consonant clusters, syllable structure and morphophonology. Chapter three discusses the morphology. Nouns inflect for number, pronominal possessive marking, indefinite marking and cases. The pronominal possessive suffixes are used to mark the kinship relations as well as ownership. The indefinite marker attached to noun is also an interesting feature. Darai is characterized as a split ergative language which is based on nominal hierarchy. The semantic categories and functions of adjectives are also analyzed in this chapter. In addition to tense, aspect and mood, Darai verbs are characterized by modality marking such as obligation, possibility, inference, mirativity, hearsay, frustative and dubitative. A Darai bitransitive verb may cross-reference both the actor and patient. Verb agreement is also triggered by number, gender, case, honorificity as well as pragmatic features. Verb agreement due to focus hierarchy is a striking feature characterized Darai. Different kinds of adverbs are also dealt with in this chapter. This chapter also analyzes the word classes such as clitic, particles, onomatopoeia and echo words. Some native Darai particles are widely used in natural discourse despite the influences from neighboring languages in lexicon. Chapter 4 deals with syntax. This chapter first of all presents the word order. This chapter also discusses the simple sentence in Darai in addition to the modifications of simple sentences. This chapter discusses the clause combining, such as complement clauses, relative clauses and adverbial clauses. Clause combining is productive because of morphosyntactic evidences seen in Darai grammar. The grammatical features exhibit that Darai may be classified as an 'eastern' Indo-Aryan language closely related to Maithili, Bhojpuri and Majhi.

ISBN 9783862883103. Languages of the World/Materials 489. 216pp. 2012.

Khwopa Newar: A Grammar sketch

Dan Raj Regmi
Tribhuvan University

This is a grammar sketch of Khwopa Newar, a dialect of Newar, from a functional-typological perspective. This dialect is spoken by 200,000 Newar in Bhaktapur district of Nepal. Unlike other dialects, it exhibits phonemic velar nasal, nasalized vowels, consonant-glide clustering, devoicing, overt genitive marking and evidentiality marked by tense. Only in Khwopa Newar, the nouns may be followed by pronouns in constructions to express high honorificity. Nonetheless, it shares a number of structural features with other dialects of Newar. Some of them include a five-vowel system with length and nasal distinction, atonality, consistently ergative marking, duality and inclusive-exclusive distinction.

Moreover, both tense and aspect in Khwopa Newar heavily interact with the semantic feature of conjunct-disjunct, as in standard Newar. It makes use of both nominal and verbal classifiers. SOV is the basic word order; however, the word order seems to be relatively free as in other dialects. A change in word order generally triggers a change in meaning. A noun is modified by both pre-modifiers and post-modifiers. It employs both lexical and clausal nominalization; and nominalized clauses are realized in a number of syntactic constructions. Clause combining in Khwopa Newar is controlled by both finite and non-finite verbal forms.

The author, Dr. Dan Raj Regmi, is Associate Professor and Head of Central Department of Linguistics, Tribhuvan University, Nepal and has specialized in Tibeto-Burman linguistics, sociolinguistic survey and language documentation.

ISBN 9783862883783. Languages of the World/Materials 490. 89pp. 2012.

Meyma’i: A Central Iranian Plateau Dialect

Habib Borjian
Encyclopædia Iranica, Columbia University, New York

Meyma’i is spoken in the district of Meyma (Meymeh) in central Iran and belongs to the Central Plateau group of dialects, also known as Central dialects. This geographic language group is spread over a vast area from Isfahan in the south to Kashan in the north, and most of its dialects, Meyma’i included, are rapidly giving way to Persian, thus highly endangered. Central Plateau group, one of the major subgroups of Northwest Iranian languages, includes dozens of dialects which differ in major traits of phonology, morphosyntax and lexim, and thus show low mutual intelligibility. Many of the dialects remain undocumented and most have not received scholarly attention, notwithstanding their significance in both philology and typology.

This book offers the most detailed study ever done on a single dialect of the Central Iranian Plateau group. The grammar, which includes chapters on phonology and noun and verb morphology and syntax, is followed by a chapter on comparative-historical phonology of both consonants and vowels, appended with sample texts and glossaries. As much Meyma’i shares with its neighbors, it also differs in significant ways. Among the subjects studied in more details are diachronic vowel shifts (rarely studied in Iranistics), the dilemma of gender, and the rich inventory of Meyma’i adpositions. In a number of traits, such as the lexical choices of some verbs, we find Meyma’i—true to its geography—at the juncture of the Central dialects. The past tenses of transitive verbs show a peculiar form of split ergativity, represented by agential suffixes that freely float through the sentence, yielding complex syntactic structures.

Habib Borjian has carried out fieldwork and published on various languages of the Iranian family, especially those in danger of extinction. He collaborates with Endangered Language Alliance to document rare languages spoken by immigrant communities in New York City. Dr. Borjian is the associate editor of Journal Persianate Studies and a senior assistant editor of Encyclopaedia Iranica, to which he is a regular contributor.

Keywords: Central dialects, Northwest Iranian languages, Iranian dialectology, comparative-historical phonology, morphology, syntax

ISBN 9783862883752. Languages of the world/Materials 491. 115pp. 2012.

A Grammar of Bhujel

Dan Raj Regmi
Tribhuvan University

This book provides a comprehensive description of Bhujel, a previously undescribed and endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken by about 3,923 ethnic Bhujel, most of them living along the Mahabharata mountain range of Tanahun, Gorkha, Chitwan and Nawalparasi districts of Nepal. It investigates phonological and morphosyntactic features in Bhujel and compares them, from a typological perspective, with those characteristic structural features in both Bodish and Himalayish languages.

Bhujel, an atonal and consistently ergative language, is characterized by a complex verb agreement pattern indexing person, number and inclusivity in the verb complex. Person marking, based exclusively on the hierarchical ranking of the participants (i.e.1→2, 1→3, 2→3), sometimes encodes the agent and sometimes the patient but not both at a time.

Uniquely, the verb is also marked by suffix -u in 1→2, 1→3, 2→3, along person and number suffixes, to encode the direct relations of the participants. Like tense, such marking is neutralized in negative constructions in Bhujel. However, the inverse relation of participants (i.e. 2→1, 3→1, or 3→2), somewhat counter to universal expectations, remains unmarked. The author, Dr. Dan Raj Regmi, is Associate Professor and Head of Central Department of Linguistics, Tribhuvan University, Nepal and has specialized in Tibeto-Burman linguistics, sociolinguistic survey and language documentation.

ISBN 9783862883882. Languages of the World/Materials 492. 226pp. 2012.

Eastern Nepali Grammar

Kedar Prasad Poudel
English Department, Mahendra Multiple Campus, Dharan, Nepal

Nepali is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mostly in Nepal. It was called Parbate /pərbəte boli/ ‘spoken in Hills’ or /gorkha bhasa/ ‘language of Gorkha’ before. Considering only one variety as the standard one, one particular dialect has been studied in the traditional approach. Its Eastern dialect is different from its other varieties, because of not only geographical distances but also its different neighbouring languages.

Previously published grammars seem to have been written with the influence of Sanskrit grammar. They are traditional and prescriptive. This grammar is different from previously written grammars of Nepali. Its language corpuses are studied on the basis of how the native speakers speak, but not on the basis of what etymological sources the corpuses have and the rules that the prescriptive grammarians have prescribed in their writing system.

Both forms and functions are considered but the focus is given onto the forms rather than the functions. This book contains four major chapters: phonology, morphology, writing system and syntax. The analysis of writing system is essential, as it is much debatable. These chapters are preceded by ‘introductory remarks’, and succeeded by ‘conclusion’. Examples are given in phonemic transcription along with their interlinear glosses and free translation within single inverted commas.

ISBN 9783862884018. Languages of the World/Materials 493. 168pp. 2012.

The Raji Dialect of Jowshaqan

Habib Borjian
Encyclopædia Iranica, Columbia University, New York

Spoken in a rural setting in central Iran, Jowshaqani belongs to the Raji or Kashan subgroup of Central Plateau dialects, a branch of Northwest Iranian languages. This volume begins with an areal study of the Raji dialects through an isoglottic analysis of fourteen grammatical and lexical features. This is followed by a full diachronic investigation of sound changes within the framework of Indo-Iranian comparative-historical phonology.

The main chapter offers a sketch grammar consisting of phonology and noun and verb morphology and syntax. Jowshaqani has a rich inventory of personal pronouns distinguished by gender in the third person singular, as do verb endings: nen ate “he comes,” néna atea “she comes.” The language makes a distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs, in both morphology and syntax, of past tenses, where agential affixes float freely through the sentence, yielding complex syntactic structures. The grammar is followed by texts and a glossary.

ISBN 9783862884254. Languages of the World/Materials 494. 139pp. 2013.

A Grammar of Bhadarwahi

Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi
Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University

Bhadarwahi is spoken by 250, 000 speakers in Bhadarwah town of Doda district in the eastern part of Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir State in India. Genetically, it comes under Northern Zone Western Pahari languages of Indo-Aryan family, and it shows lexical similarity with Pangwali, Siragi, Padri, and Bhalesi languages. The origin of Bhadarwahi can be traced back to the ancient time when Buddhism started to spread around 400 BC in this region, and Buddhist priests searched a language other than Sanskrit to spread the teachings of Buddha.

Typologically it is a subject dominant language with an SOV word order (SV if without object) and its verb agrees with a noun phrase which is not followed by an overt post-position. These noun phrases can move freely in the sentence without changing the meaning of the sentence. The indirect object generally precedes the direct object. Aspiration, like any other Indo-Aryan languages, is a prominent feature of Bhadarwahi. Nasalization is a distinctive feature, and vowel and consonant contrasts are commonly observed. Infinitive and participle forms are formed by suffixation while infixation is also found in causative formation. Tense is carried by auxiliary and aspect and mood is marked by main verb.

ISBN 9783862884353. Languages of the World/Materials 495. 152pp. 2013.