- Title
- Topics in the grammar of Mono-Alu (Oceanic)
- Creator
- Meier, Sabrina C.
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This thesis provides a description of Mono-Alu, a Northwest Solomonic (Oceanic, Austronesian) language. Mono-Alu is spoken by approximately 5,000 speakers on three islands in the Solomon Islands, just south of the border with Papua New Guinea. The varieties spoken on two of the three islands are described. The thesis includes a brief description of the phonology of Mono-Alu and more detailed discussion of nominal, adpositional, and verbal phrases, simplex clauses, and complex sentences. Stress assignment is regular, with the word-final syllable being extra-metrical and primary stress falling on the first mora of the final foot. Formally possessive morphology occurs marking post-verbal subject agreement and in a self-benefactive construction. Both, prepositions and postpositions are attested. The language exhibits lexical and constructional word-class flexibility and NPs can function as semantic head of the verb complex. Constituent order flexibility is utilised to mark information structure categories. Pragmatically unmarked constituent order and argument indexing in the verb complex display a nominative-accusative alignment. A typologically uncommon feature of Mono-Alu is the preposition ga. Its complement is a NP coreferent with the absolutive argument in the clause, that is marked as an oblique and does not function as an argument. The preposition also plays a role in the formation of cleft sentences. Further typologically unusual features of Mono-Alu are the expression of dual and plural predicate number and the use of deictic directionals as markers of sequential associated motion. This grammar presents the first detailed linguistic description of Mono-Alu and the first description based on contemporary language data. Fine-grained descriptions of many aspects of Mono-Alu grammar contribute to a better understanding of Oceanic languages and to linguistic and typological research in general.
- Subject
- Oceanic languages; grammatical description; language documentation
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1414765
- Identifier
- uon:36811
- Rights
- Copyright 2020 Sabrina C. Meier
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 14 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 206 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |