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Lingtyp readers may be interested in a new book in LangSci's series
"Studies in Diversity Linguistics":<br>
<br>
Berghäll, Liisa. 2015. <i>A grammar of Mauwake.</i> (Studies in
Diversity Linguistics, 4.) Berlin: Language Science Press.<br>
<br>
This is one of the most detailed grammars of a language belonging to
the Trans-New Guinea family (Glottolog: <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/mauw1238">http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/mauw1238</a>).
It is written accessibly and with a typological readership in mind.<br>
<br>
Free download at:<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/67">http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/67</a>
(Printed copy also available, via print on demand.)<br>
<br>
Please consider submitting a book manuscript (monograph or edited
volume, descriptive or typological) to "Studies in Diversity
Linguistics".<br>
<br>
Best wishes,<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
************************************<br>
<br>
This grammar provides a synchronic grammatical description of
Mauwake, a Papuan Trans-New Guinea (TNG) language of about 2000
speakers on the north coast of the Madang Province in Papua New
Guinea. <br>
<div style="display: block;" id="more" class="more"> <br>
It is the first book-length treatment of the Mauwake language and
the only published grammar of the Kumil subgroup to date. Relying
on other existing published and unpublished grammars, the author
shows how the language is similar to, or different from, related
TNG languages especially in the Madang province. The grammar gives
a brief introduction to the Mauwake people, their environment and
their culture. Although the book mainly covers morphology and
syntax, it also includes ashort treatment of the phonological
system and the orthography. <br>
<br>
The description of the grammatical units proceeds from the
words/morphology to the phrases, clauses, sentence types and
clause combinations. The chapter on functional domains is the only
one where the organization is based on meaning/function rather
than structure. The longest chapter in the book is on morphology,
with verbs taking the central stage. The final chapter deals with
the pragmatic functions theme, topic and focus. <br>
<br>
13 texts by native speakers, mostly recorded and transcribed but
some originally written, are included in the Appendix with
morpheme-by-morpheme glosses and a free translation. The
theoretical approach used is that of Basic Linguistic Theory.
Language typologists and professional Papuanist linguists are
naturally one target audience for the grammar. But also two other
possible, and important, audiences influenced especially the style
the writing: well educated Mauwake speakers interested in their
language, and those other Papua New Guineans who have some basic
training in linguistics and are keen to explore their own
languages. </div>
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