This dissertation reconstructs the history of Alorese, an Austronesian language spoken in east Indonesia, by combining perspectives from oral history and historical linguistics. The social history... Show moreThis dissertation reconstructs the history of Alorese, an Austronesian language spoken in east Indonesia, by combining perspectives from oral history and historical linguistics. The social history of the Alorese people is reconstructed through migration stories based on narrative accounts from fourteen Alorese villages. The historical linguistic study of Alorese begins with a grammatical description of the Alorese dialect spoken in northeast Pantar. This is followed by a study of Alorese historical phonology, in which varieties of Alorese are compared with varieties of its sister language, Western Lamaholot. This dissertation also examines lexical borrowing from the Alor-Pantar (Papuan) languages into Alorese and vice versa. Based on a combined investigation of lingusitic and oral history, this dissertation proposes that the homeland of the Alorese people may have been in northeast Pantar. The study of Alorese historical phonology results in the bottom-up reconstruction of the sounds of Proto-Alorese and its vocabulary, and the establishment of Alorese as a subgroup of the Flores-Lembata languages, the next higher group within Malayo-Polynesian. In addition, the investigation of loanwords also provides insight into the history of contact between the Alorese and the speakers of the Alor-Pantar (Papuan) languages in the Alor archipelago. Show less
This book provides a grammatical description of Noon, an Atlantic language spoken by fewer than 32,000 people in 33 villages and neighborhoods in the outskirts of Thiès. The study, based primarily... Show moreThis book provides a grammatical description of Noon, an Atlantic language spoken by fewer than 32,000 people in 33 villages and neighborhoods in the outskirts of Thiès. The study, based primarily on new data collected by the author, provides an analysis on phonology, morphology, nominal classification, verbal system, ideophones, interjections and linguistic routines, syntax and divination systems. This work constitutes an important step forward in the nominal classification system. There are two nominal class systems in Noon: a Niger-Congo agreement system for modifiers that are attached to the head noun and another system for independent modifiers. The second nominal class system, based on human and diminutive semantic features, has an additional agreement singular/plural class pair for human nouns. The author also describes the divination practices in Noon by presenting an overview of divination systems in Senegal based on audio/video recordings collected in a natural setting. This empirical work, carried out in a linguistic and multimodal perspective, allows to focus first on the forms of divination of Noon, then on their meanings and expressions, and finally on some characteristic features in divination practices. Show less
This study is the first-ever attempt at a comprehensive grammatical description of Hamar, a language spoken in South West Ethiopia by approximately 46.500 people. The study is based on 9... Show moreThis study is the first-ever attempt at a comprehensive grammatical description of Hamar, a language spoken in South West Ethiopia by approximately 46.500 people. The study is based on 9 months of fieldwork carried out between 2012 and 2014 in Hamar territories. Language data was gathered from 14 native speakers in Hamar villages, and it amounts to 50 texts of varying lengths and genres. The grammar investigates the phonology, the morphology, the syntax and some pragmatic and discourse related features of Hamar and it is organized in 13 chapters followed by three appendices: appendix A and B consist of a selected lexicon of circa 1400 entries, appendix C includes three annotated Hamar texts. Hamar is a fascinating language and it has revealed unique typological features: the noun classification system of Hamar for instance is a rare example of ʻnon-fixedʼ gender system, i.e. a system in which gender is not an inherent property of nouns, but optional. The grammar is of interests to typologists but also to linguists interested in comparative Afro-Asiatic studies: the grammar offers an overview of the classificatory issue of Hamar and South Omotic languages, and it includes an updated comparative list of South Omotic lexicon. Show less
This thesis investigates the grammar of Sheko, an Omotic language spoken in southwest Ethiopia. The study presents an analysis of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language, amply... Show moreThis thesis investigates the grammar of Sheko, an Omotic language spoken in southwest Ethiopia. The study presents an analysis of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language, amply illustrated by examples. The supplements contain a sample of texts and an extensive word list. Among other things, the author discusses the interrelation between gender, definiteness and number in nominal morphology. Some nominal morphology also occurs on verbal forms. In the verb system, stem formation, aspectual and modal distinctions as well as stance marking are treated. The language has a rich array of complex verb constructions, such as medial clauses and serial verb constructions, next to different types of subordinate clauses. In relative clauses, a resumptive pronoun may occur before the antecedent. One of the divergent ways in which interrogatives are formed is by ‘subtractive morphology’, i.e. dropping off a grammatical element which is obligatorily present in declaratives. Furthermore, subject clitics attach to a variety of hosts in correlation to information structure and focus. These and a number of other issues make the work valuable for specialists of Omotic and Afroasiatic studies as well as for general linguists and anyone interested in the typology of language. Show less
This book is a descriptive grammar of Lepcha, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Sikkim, Darjeeling district in West Bengal in India, in Ilam district in Nepal, and in a few villages of Samtsi... Show moreThis book is a descriptive grammar of Lepcha, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Sikkim, Darjeeling district in West Bengal in India, in Ilam district in Nepal, and in a few villages of Samtsi district in south-western Bhutan. The data for this study were collected during several sojourns amongst the Lepcha people in Kalimpong and Sikkim between 1994 and 1998. The grammar includes chapters on phonology, morphology, derivation and sentence particles, as well as morphologically analysed example sentences and texts, a bilingual glossary and an index. This grammar is the first modern description of the Lepcha language. Lepcha has no elaborate conjugational morphology. Nouns lack a grammatical gender distinction and show no agreement with articles, adjectives or verbs. There is no verbal agreement morphology and actants are not morphologically indexed in the verb. Tense, mood, aspect and other meanings of the verb are expressed by the use of postpositions and auxiliary verbs. Although Lepcha is unmistakably a Tibeto-Burman language, its exact position within Tibeto-Burman is still unclear. Whilst Lepcha may lack the formal complexity of some Himalayan languages, the interest of Lepcha morphology lies in the semantics of the grammatical categories expressed by the Lepcha repertoire of endings and auxiliaries. Show less
