Languages of Papua New Guinea

A grammar of Umbu-Ungu

Authors:
Issue Date:
2011
Date Created:
1976
Extent:
vi, 249 pages
Abstract:
This is a description of the grammatical hierarchy of the Umbu-Ungu dialect of the Kaugel language. The description covers stem to paragraph levels and is presented according to the Tagmemic model. Kaugel is an SOV language. Like many Papuan languages it is an ergative-absolutive language so far as the Noun Phrase is concerned; that is the actor of the transitive clause is marked with an ergative clitic, but both subject of the intransitive clause and object of the transitive clause are unmarked. However, the verb suffixes reflect a nominative accusative system, in that the same set of person suffixes indicate both the subject of the intransitive verb and the actor of the transitive verb. There is no verb suffix indicating object. The participant identification system, both in verb suffixes and free-form pronouns, distinguishes first, second and third singular, and first and nonfirst dual and plural. Ordering rules for other structures include the following: adjectives follow nouns, the possessor precedes the thing possessed, and the relative clause usually precedes the noun it is relativising. There are no prefixes, only suffixes, and post-positions rather than pre-positions. Words fall into two major types: verbs and non-verbs. Verbs are suffixed for person, number and tense. Non-verbs take no affixation of their own but almost all of them can accept phrase-final clitics indicating such things as ergative, locative and indirect object.
Description:
Tagmemic grammar description
Publication Status:
Preprint
Table of Contents:
Abbreviations used in glosses -- 1. INTRODUCTION -- 1.1 Language overview -- 2. MORPHOPHONEMICS -- 2.1 Phonemics and orthography -- 2.2 Morphophonemic rules -- 3. STEMS -- 3.1 Derived stems -- 3.2 Compound verb stems -- 3.3 Compound non-verb stems -- 4. WORDS -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Verb classes -- 4.3 Verb suffixes -- 4.4 Non-verbs -- 5. CLITICS -- 5.1 Phrase final clitics -- 5.2 The utterance final clitics -- 6. COMPLEXES -- 6.1 Adjunct verb complex -- 6.2 Non-verb complexes -- 7. PHRASES -- 7.1 Verb phrases -- 7.2 Aspect verb phrases -- 7.3 The semantic-unit verb phrase -- 7.4 Non-verb phrases -- 7.5 Noun phrases -- 7.6 Numeral phrases -- 7.7 Spatial phrases -- 7.8 Subordinating clause phrases -- 7.9 Axis-relator phrases -- 8. CLAUSES -- 8.1 Equative clauses -- 8.2 Active clauses -- 8.3 Merged clauses -- 8.4 Coordinate clauses -- 8.5 Subordinate clauses -- 8.6 Clause level tagmemes -- 9. SENTENCES -- 9.1 Introduction -- 9.2 Simple Sentence -- 9.3 Dependent Base Sentences -- 9.4 Speech Sentences -- 9.5 The juxtaposed sentences -- 9.6 Merged sentences -- 9.7 The overt-link sentences -- 10. PARAGRAPHS -- 10.1 Paragraph linkage -- 10.2 New paragraphs -- 10.3 Peripheral tagmemes -- 10.4 Paragraph types
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Work Type:
Nature of Work:
Entry Number:
42774