Ge'ez (Classical Ethiopic)

Stefan Weninger
University of Marburg

Ge'ez, a South-Semitic language, is the classical tongue of Ethiopia. Extinct as a spoken language since
the 10th century, it is still used by the Ethiopian church, and still influencing the modern languages of Ethiopia.
In this regard it's comparable to the Classical tongues of Europe, Latin and Greek. After Egyptian and Meroitic
it is one of the oldest attested languages of Africa.
The present volumne contains: A short outline of the problems connected with Ge'ez phonology; the basic
structures of the morphology, with special reference to the verb; the principles of Ge'ez syntax; a sample text,
thoroughly analyzed in interlinear translations. Comparative charts of the nomenclature of the verbal stems,
a chapter on reseach tools and literature and an ample bibliography should function as a helpful guide to
Ge'ez-studies for the non-specialist and faciliate reference. The second revised and enlarged edition takes
account of new findings, the bibliography is updated and more examples are given.

ISBN 9783895866043. Languages of the World/Materials 01. 60pp. 1995.

Kwamera

Lamont Lindstrom and John Lynch
University of Tulsa; Pacific Languages Unit, Vanuatu

There are slightly more than one hundred languages spoken by the 150,000 inhabitants of the Republic of Vanuatu in the southwest Pacific. Kwamera is one of five languages spoken by almost 3000 people on the island of Tanna in that country. Like its close relatives, however, it is somewhat aberrant phonologically, morphologically and lexically in comparison withmost of the 400 or so other members of the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian.

This monograph describes the structure of Kwamera, paying particular attention to phonology and morphophonemics, to the complex verb morphology, to the range of possessive constructions, and to inter­clausal phenomena of various kinds.

ISBN9783929075052. Languages of the World/Materials 02. 48pp. 1994.

Mbalanhu

David J. Fourie

Mbalanhu is a Wambo dialect, assigned to Guthrie's R.20, and spoken by approximately 50320 people in Central Northern Namibia. Apart from a limited number of articles by the same author, no linguistic data on the structure of Mbalanhu is available.

The sketch commences with a section on phonology. This is followed by a description of noun classes and nominal suffixes in the next section which also contains a treatise of the derivation and structure of several concords (e.g subject­, object­, possessive­), and nominal qualifiers. The third section focuses on verbal conjugation in the dialect, while the final section deals with syntax. The formal grammatical description is a Mbalanhu narrative text accompanied by an interlinear transcription and English translation. This compact sketch incorporates several tables with data, and an abundance of examples. It should form a welcome addition to linguistic material on the R.20 languages/dialects, which, due to a situation of prolonged military conflict in Southern Angola and Northern Namibia, have been inadequately studied to date.

ISBN 9783929075069. Languages of the World/Materials 03. 46 pp. 1993.

Ukrainian

Andrii Danylenko & Serhii Vakulenko
Kharkiv Pedagogical University

Ukrainian is spoken by approx. 39 million people in the Ukraine and by several million people abroad (e.g. in Canada, USA, Brasil). It belongs to the Eastern branch of the Slavonic group of the Indo-European language family. Ukrainian is a solid inflectional language, although it has not reached the degree of synthetic optimization charactersistic of some other Slavonic languages (Russian, Belorussian, Polish).

The authors provide a brief but fairly comprehensive description of the phonetic segmentation, and present a new system of conveying the traditional Cyrillic script by Latin characters in order to reconstruct the original Ukrainian spelling.

The overall pattern of the grammar is given from the communicative point of view. The main part-of-speech categories are being analysed with respect to their sentence functions. References are occasionally made to typologically different languages so as to highlight some important grammatical traits of Ukrainian. The so­called synthetic Future tense, Pluperfect tense, the Vocative case and other recessive properties of Ukrainian are being treated as a sequel to the slackening of its synthetic evolution.

The syntax is presented from a perspective that accounts for the verb´s key role in clause structure. The description comprehends all the basic types of both simple and multi-clause sentences, with special emphasis on some peculiar phenomena (e.g. resultative constructions, negative pronouns with incorporated predication). The last section deals with the main charcteristices of the Ukrainian vocabulary. The sketch is supplemented with an original Ukrainian text and substantial bibliography, which contains the most essential writings on Ukrainian.

ISBN 9783929075083. Languages of the World/Materials 05. 70pp. 1995.

Cantonese

Siew-Yue Killingley

Cantonese (or General Cantonese), with about 55 million speakers as a world language, is spoken in China, particularly in the eastern Pearl River delta, in Hong Kong, and elsewhere by the Chinese diaspora, particularly in Macao, South-East Asia, and certain cities in North America, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Contents: 1. Yue and Cantonese. 2. Phon-eme inventory and romanization. 3. Problems of studying Chinese morphology. 4. Morphology: noun, classifier, adjective, pronoun, numeral, verb, and adverb. Aspect, negation and interrogation in the adjective and verb, etc. (5) Syntax: noun, classifier, modal, adjective and verb phrases; relativization; aspect, modality, adverbial function, negation, and interrogation; clause particles and clause intonation. Problems of homophony. (6) Clauses: Elements of clause structure and the order of components. Valency. Voice: relationship to changes in valency; agent/patient roles. (7) Clause chaining: conjunction and subordination. The sentence as an element of discourse. Intonation, conjunctions, and particles in sentences and in discourse. (8) The text for analysis is a traditional story retold by the author (as to an adult) in a formal conversational narrative style, the parts in direct speech providing examples of more colloquial speech.

ISBN 9783929075120. Languages of the World/Materials 06. 1993

Koptisch - Ein Leitfaden durch das Saïdische

Andrea Eberle unter Mitarbeit von Regine Schulz
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München / The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Coptic, belonging to the Afro-Asiatic languages, is the final development of the ancient Egyptian language. It is derived from the popular tongue of the so called New Empire and uses the Greek alphabet complemented with six letters from Demotic, an earlier form of Egyptian writing since the 7th century B.C.

Beginning with the 1st century A.D. Coptic writing started to replace the complicated Hieroglyphic system and became the official written language during the 3rd century by the spread of Christianity and Christian texts. In addition to this, gnostic, Manichaean and profane texts are important parts of Coptic literature.

After the Arabian conquest of Egypt in 641 A.D. and the spread of the Islam, Coptic was abandoned as colloquial and written language in favour of Arabic even by the Christian population. Until now Coptic is used as liturgical language of the Coptic Church.

The present volume is an introduction to Sahidic Coptic, the starting-point for any coptic study. The emphasis has been put on basic matters relevant to the needs of the beginner.

The volume contains: the basic structure of the morphology with special reference to the verbal system; the principles of the different syntactical constructions (main and subordinate clauses - both with translated examples); a sample text with interlinear phonetic transcription and translation; an extensive bibliography with references to more specialized literature and an index.

This comprehensive introduction in Coptic is based on the experience of almost a decade of continuous teaching and was also used successfully for self-studies. (written in German)

ISBN 9783895860225. Languages of the World/Materials 07. 109pp. 2004.

Koiari

Tom Dutton
Australian National University

Koiari is a Papuan (or non­Austronesian) language spoken by about 1600 people living in the foothills of the Owen Stanley Range just inland of Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. It is a member of the Koiarian family, one of about sixty families of Papuan languages found in Papua New Guinea and the surrounding area. In most respects Koiari is a typical Papuan language.

It is typologically SOV with core relations indicated by affixation on the verb and peripheral ones by postpositions. The verb is the centre of the clause and is morphologically complex. There are no articles and no formal noun classes except that body part, kinship and certain other nouns are inherently possessed. The language has only six pronouns and no inclusive­exclusive distinction is made. The Koiari counting system is based on two. In other respects, however, Koiari is unusual amongst Papuan languages. It is phonologically relatively simple ­­ all syllables are open and there are no unusual vowels or consonants and no complex consonant clusters. Its verb system is also unusual in making dual reference to subjects and objects, one set of suffixes reflecting the number of subjects and objects ergatively, the other agreeing with subjects nominatively.

Moreover, all non­verbal words in Koiari, except for a small subset of function words, are inherently marked for category by morphemes which appear in the surface realisation of sentences under certain conditions. Possessive case marking is also unusual in Koiari in the manner in which it is marked, notably by suffixation, and the range of suffixes and constructions used to indicate different possessive relations. Because of its geographical location Koiari has been in contact with AN languages spoken in the surrounding area for a long time. This contact increased following pax Britannica. At the same time other languages were introduced the language is in danger of becoming obsolescent as younger Koiari use the local lingua franca, Hiri (formerly Police) Motu, in domains formerly the sole preserve of Koiari.

ISBN 9783929075106. Languages of the World/Materials 10. 77 pp. 1996.

Gunin (Kwini)

William McGregor
University of Melbourne

Gunin is spoken by a small number of people presently residing at Kalumburu on the far northern coast of the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It is a non­Pama­Nyungan language, belonging to the Worrorran or Northern Kimberley family. Phonologically it is unremarkable for an Australian language, except that (like its close relative Wunambal) it distinguishes six vowels: a, e, i, o, u and i. Among its interesting grammatical characteristics are the following. The verbal construction is of the preverb­inflecting verb type: an invariant verbal particle is followed by an inflecting verb which carries pronominal prefixes cross­referencing the subject and object (in transitive clauses); these operate on a nominative­accusative system. Tense and other verbal categories are also marked on the inflecting verb. Five noun classes are distinguished, marked by agreement prefixes on adjectives and by cross­referencing pronominals in the verb. Some inalienably possessed nominals are prefixed by a pronominal cross­referencing the possessor, and most kinterms take pronominal suffixes indicating the possessor.

Gunin grammar has not previously been described, and indeed very little information has been recorded about the language. The description is based primarily on three hours elicitation, and half a dozen narrative texts which the author was able to record during a speaker's visit to Derby in 1988.

ISBN 9783929075090. Languages of the World/Materials 11. 64pp. 1993.

Even

Andrei L. Malchukov
Russian Academy of Sciences


The present work provides a concise grammatical description of Even, one of the Tungusic languages of Siberia. This grammatical sketch differs from the previous works on Even grammar in that 1) it is confined to synchronic description, 2) it foregrounds the functional aspects of grammar, 3) it focuses on those topics that are of interest from a typological viewpoint.

ISBN 9783929075137. Languages of the World/Materials 12. 48pp. 1995.

Sanskrit

Dermot Killingley and Siew-Yue Killingley
University of Newcastle


Sanskrit, a living spoken minority language of the Indian subcontinent used for ritual and other purposes, has crucially influenced Western linguistic thought. This sketch describes classical Sanskrit, adapting traditional (Western) terminology in the light of modern linguistics, and taking into account indigenous (ancient Indian) terminology. It presents the phonology elegantly, relating it to the sanskritists' romanization and to Devan~g~ri. The morphology highlights the verb, the most complex inflectional class, and deals with verb derivation, tense, mood, aspect, voice, non-reflexive and reflexive polarity, deixis and concord. The verb paradigm is exemplified in tabular form as a complex piece of asymmetry. The traditional concepts of 'root' and 'stem' are explained in relation to word and lexeme, and to noun, adjective and verb formation. Phonological alternation (gua and vrddhi), thematic versus athematic, weak versus strong and other topics are also included. Sanskrit syntax is a relatively neglected area. The 'compound' (sam sa), often treated under word-formation, is treated here as a phrase of indefinite length with some word-like qualities. Fixed word order in the compound phrase is contrasted with free word order in the clause, which is typically SOV with alternative orders according to focus and modality. 'Verbless' clauses are treated in terms of BE-deletion. Voice is treated in relation to valency, and to agent/patient roles. Clause chaining is described in terms of finite and non-finite clauses, relative modifiers, conjunction and subordination, and the functions of infinitives and of inflected and uninflected participles are explained. The role of enclitics and conjunctions in discourse is described. The sketch ends with a text, a medieval didactic tale in a formal narrative style.

ISBN 9783895860256. Languages of the World/Materials 18. 1995.