Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-sjtt6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-16T01:33:02.525Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

23 - A Grammatical Sketch of Yimas (Lower Sepik, Papua New Guinea)

from Part Five - Grammatical Sketches

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2023

Delia Bentley
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
Ricardo Mairal Usón
Affiliation:
Universidad National de Educación a Distancia, Madrid
Wataru Nakamura
Affiliation:
Tohoku University, Japan
Robert D. Van Valin, Jr
Affiliation:
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Get access

Summary

This chapter provides a grammatical sketch of Yimas, a morphologically highly complex polysynthetic language spoken in the Sepik basin region of the northern swampy lowlands of Papua New Guinea. The chapter discusses the extensively elaborated word structure of Yimas and the non-configurational property of its clauses, which lack the familiar syntactic category of phrases. Particular emphasis is placed on the system of agreement on the two principal word classes of the language, nouns and verbs, transitivity and macrorole assignment, alignment, clause linkage and nominalizations.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bresnan, Joan and Moshi, Lioba. 1990. Object asymmetries in comparative Bantu syntax. Linguistic Inquiry 21: 147185.Google Scholar
Broadwell, George Aaron. 2006. A Choctaw Reference Grammar. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M. W. 1979. Ergativity. Language 55: 59138.Google Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro and Byarushengo, Ernest. 1977. On the notion of ‘direct object’. In Byarushengo, Ernest, Duranti, Alessandro and Hyman, Larry (eds.), Haya Grammatical Structure, 5471. Los Angeles: Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics.Google Scholar
Foley, William. 1986. The Papuan Languages of New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Foley, William. 1991. The Yimas Language of New Guinea. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Foley, William. 2005. Linguistic prehistory in the Sepik Ramu basin. In Pawley, Andrew, Attenborough, Robert, Golson, Jack and Hide, Robin (eds.), Papuan Pasts: Cultural, Linguistic and Biological Histories of Papuan-Speaking Peoples (Pacific Linguistics 572), 109144. Canberra: The Australian National University.Google Scholar
Foley, William. 2017a. The languages of the Sepik-Ramu basin and environs. In Palmer, Bill (ed.), The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide, 177412. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Foley, William. 2017b. Yimas: The profile of a polysynthetic language of New Guinea. In Evans, Nicholas, Fortescue, Michael and Mithun, Marianne (eds.), Handbook of Polysynthesis, 808829. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foley, William and Van Valin, Robert D. Jr. 1984. Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth. 1976. The adjoined relative clause in Australia. In Dixon, Robert (ed.), Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages, 76105. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth. 1983. Warlbiri and the grammar of non-configurational languages. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 1: 547.Google Scholar
Martin, Jack B. 2011. A Grammar of Creek (Muskogee). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munro, Pamela. 1984. The syntactic status of object possessor raising in Western Muskogean. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 10: 634649.Google Scholar
Munro, Pamela and Gordon, Lynn. 1982. Syntactic relations in Western Muskogean: A typological perspective. Language 58: 81115.Google Scholar
Pawley, Andrew. 1993. A language which defies description by ordinary means. In Foley, William (ed.), The Role of Theory in Language Description, 87130. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Van Valin, Robert D. Jr. 2005. Exploring the Syntax–Semantics Interface. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Valin, Robert D. Jr. 2013. Head-marking languages and linguistic theory. In Bickel, Balthasar, Grenoble, Lenore, Peterson, David and Timberlake, Alan (eds.), Language Typology and Historical Contingency, 91124. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Valin, Robert D. Jr. and LaPolla, Randy. 1997. Syntax: Structure, Meaning and Function. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×