A Grammar and Dictionary of Tayap : The Life and Death of a Papuan Language

• Tayap is a small, previously undocumented Papuan language, spoken in a singlevillage called Gapun, in the lower Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea. Thelanguage is an isolate, unrelated to any other in the area. Furthermore, Tayap isdying. Fewer than fifty speakers actively command it today.Based on linguistic anthropological work conducted over the course of thirtyyears, this book describes the grammar of the language, detailing its phonology,morphology and syntax. It devotes particular attention to verbs, which are themost elaborated area of the grammar, and which are complex, fusional andmassively suppletive.The book also provides a full Tayap-English-Tok Pisindictionary.A particularly innovative contribution is the detailed discussions of howTayap’'s grammar is dissolving in the language of young speakers. The bookexemplifies how the complex structures in fluent speakers’ Tayap are reduced orreanalyzed by younger speakers.This grammar and dictionary should therefore be a valuable resource for anyoneinterested in the mechanics of how languages disappear. The fact that it is thesole documentation of this unique Papuan language should also make it ofinterest to areal specialists and language typologists.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Language Studies and Linguistics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Languages of the Pacific Islands

Papuan Languages

Linguistic Typology

Linguistics

Lingvistik

Kulturantropologi

Cultural Anthropology

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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