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A Sketch Grammar of Kopar : A Language of New Guinea / William A. Foley.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Pacific Linguistics [PL] ; 667Publisher: Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter Mouton, [2022]Copyright date: ©2022Description: 1 online resource (XVII, 248 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9783110791181
  • 9783110791549
  • 9783110791440
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 499.12 23/ger
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- List of Map -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- Chapter 2 Phonology -- Chapter 3 Word classes -- Chapter 4 Nouns and noun phrases -- Chapter 5 Verbal morphology -- Chapter 6 Clause structure -- Chapter 7 Interclausal relations -- Appendix 1 -- Appendix 2 -- References -- Index
Summary: Kopar is a very moribund, close to extinct, language spoken in three villages at the mouth of the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea. This is the only description of the language available. It also discusses areas where rapid language shift is affecting the structure of Kopar. Although the period of fieldwork was necessarily short, this book provides as comprehensive a description as possible of the grammatical structure of this complex and fascinating language. It is quite thorough and detailed and goes well beyond what is normally considered a sketch grammar. It covers all the phenomena essential to description and comparison and gives clear, typologically sound definitions and explanations. The grammar is written with the research interests of language typologists and comparative grammarians foremost in mind. Typologically, Kopar can be described as a split ergative, polysynthetic language. The language lacks nominal case marking so ergativity or lack thereof is signaled by verbal agreement affixes. Tenses and moods which describe as yet unrealized events, like future and imperative, pattern accusatively for agreement affixes, while those express realized events, like past and present, pattern ergatively. In addition, the ergative case schema is overlaid by a direct-inverse inflectional schema determined by a person hierarchy, a feature Kopar shares with other languages in its Lower Sepik family. As a polysynthetic language, incorporation of sentential elements like temporals, locationals, adverbials and verbals is extensive, though noun incorporation is not. Sadly, this work is all the documentation we will likely ever have of Kopar, a language of potentially very high theoretical interest, given its rare typological profile. It will certainly be of interest to language typologists and comparative grammarians, and anyone who wants to explore the range of language variation

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- List of Map -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- Chapter 2 Phonology -- Chapter 3 Word classes -- Chapter 4 Nouns and noun phrases -- Chapter 5 Verbal morphology -- Chapter 6 Clause structure -- Chapter 7 Interclausal relations -- Appendix 1 -- Appendix 2 -- References -- Index

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Kopar is a very moribund, close to extinct, language spoken in three villages at the mouth of the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea. This is the only description of the language available. It also discusses areas where rapid language shift is affecting the structure of Kopar. Although the period of fieldwork was necessarily short, this book provides as comprehensive a description as possible of the grammatical structure of this complex and fascinating language. It is quite thorough and detailed and goes well beyond what is normally considered a sketch grammar. It covers all the phenomena essential to description and comparison and gives clear, typologically sound definitions and explanations. The grammar is written with the research interests of language typologists and comparative grammarians foremost in mind. Typologically, Kopar can be described as a split ergative, polysynthetic language. The language lacks nominal case marking so ergativity or lack thereof is signaled by verbal agreement affixes. Tenses and moods which describe as yet unrealized events, like future and imperative, pattern accusatively for agreement affixes, while those express realized events, like past and present, pattern ergatively. In addition, the ergative case schema is overlaid by a direct-inverse inflectional schema determined by a person hierarchy, a feature Kopar shares with other languages in its Lower Sepik family. As a polysynthetic language, incorporation of sentential elements like temporals, locationals, adverbials and verbals is extensive, though noun incorporation is not. Sadly, this work is all the documentation we will likely ever have of Kopar, a language of potentially very high theoretical interest, given its rare typological profile. It will certainly be of interest to language typologists and comparative grammarians, and anyone who wants to explore the range of language variation

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Jun 2024)