Hua
A Papuan Language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea
There is no country in the world where as many different languages are spoken as in New Guinea, approximately a fifth of the languages in the world. Most of these so-called Papuan languages seem to be unrelated to languages spoken elsewhere. The present work is the first truly comprehensive study of such a language, Hua. The chief typological peculiarity of Hua is the existence of a ‘medial verb’construction used to conjoin clauses in compound and complex sentences. Hua also shows a fundamental morphological distinction between coordinate and subordinate medial clauses, the latter are not ‘tense-iconic’, the events they describe are not necessarily prior to the event described in later clauses. Moreover their truth is always presupposed. The distribution and behaviour of a post-nominal suffix - mo provides insights into the nature of topics, conditional clauses, and functional definitions of the parts of speech. In phonology, the central rules of assimilation are constrained by the universal hierarchy of sonority, which may, however, be derived from binary features. These are some of the areas in which the grammar of Hua is unusually perspicuous. The present work aims at a standard of completeness such that it would be a useful reference work for research in almost any theoretical topic.
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 5] 1980. lvii, 550 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 19 July 2011
Published online on 19 July 2011
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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HUA, a Papuan Language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea | p. vii
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Acnowledgements | p. ix
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Introduction | p. xxix
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Part I: Phonology
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0 The phoneme inventory | p. 3
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1 Rules which create unmarked syllables | p. 5
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1.1 Rules of coalescence
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1.2 The rule shwa insertion
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1.3 The interaction of coalescence and shwa insertion
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2 Other contact rules | p. 33
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2.1 Prenasalization and preglottalization
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2.2 Minor rules
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2.3 Conclusion
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2.4 Summary of rules in sections 1 and 2
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3 Conjugation | p. 47
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3.1 Verb stem alternations
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3.2 Morphophonemics of the desinences
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3.3 Summary: the rules and their ordering
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3.4 A note on transcription
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4 Suprasegmentals | p. 81
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4.1 The boundaries
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4.2 The sequential constraints
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4.3 Stress
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4.4 Tone
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5 Summary and conclusions: the distinctive features in Hua | p. 111
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5.1 Vowels
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5.2 Consonants
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Part II: Morphology
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6 The parts of speech: some morphological definitions | p. 115
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7 Verb complexes | p. 117
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7.1 Main verbs as compounds: the support verb hu-
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7.2 The auxiliary and desinential suffixes
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7.3 Verbal prefixes
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8 Noun complexes | p. 215
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8.1 The internal structure of the stem
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8.2 Nominal suffixes
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8.3 Prefixes on the noun complex
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9 Prenominal qualifiers | p. 257
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9.1 Deictics
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9.2 Quantifiers
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9.3 Modifiers
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10 Miscellaneous parts of speech | p. 271
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10.1 Postpositions
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10.2 Conjunctions
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10.3 Interjections
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11 Interrogative words | p. 275
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11.1 Interrogative verbs
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11.2 Interrogative nouns
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12 Syntactic definitions of the parts of speech | p. 279
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13 Derivational morphology | p. 291
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13.1 Verbal suffixes
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13.2 Noun-forming suffixes
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13.3 Bivalent nomino-adjectival suffixes
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13.4 Nominalized relative clauses
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Part III: Syntax
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A further note on transcription | p. 333
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14 Introduction: word order and constituency | p. 335
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14.1 The existence of a predicate node
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14.2 The position of desinences in a tree representation
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15 Transitivity | p. 343
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15.1 Copula and existential verbs
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15.2 Reflexives
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15.3 Benefactive constructions
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15.4 The syntactic structure of to- support
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15.5 Impersonal transitive verbs
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15.6 Ergative and nominative
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16 Agreement phenomena | p. 365
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16.1 The expression of possession
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16.2 Verb-object agreement
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16.3 Subject-verb agreement
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17 Asymmetrical coordination: medial clauses | p. 391
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17.1 Coordinate medials
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17.2 The semantics of conditional clauses
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17.3 Subordinate medials
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17.4 A diagnostic for tense
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18 Symmetrical coordination | p. 431
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19 Modality | p. 441
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19.1 Desire
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19.2 Dislike, distaste, and fear
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19.3 Ability
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19.4 Permission
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19.5 Obligation and uncertainty
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19.6 Modal opacity and modal neutrality
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20 Discourse | p. 459
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20.1 A diagnostic for paragraphs
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20.2 Topics
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Part IV: Texts
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21 Hua oral literature | p. 473
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21.1 Origin of the Siane
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21.2 The man who fucked knotholes
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21.3 How penes got short
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21.4 The wild woman and the domesticated woman
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Appendix: the linguistic landscape | pp. 513–546
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22 Hua in its multilingual context | p. 515
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22.1 Comparative notes on Zavina (Gimi) | p. 516
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22.2 Comparative notes on Kma (Siane) | p. 531
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Subjects
Linguistics
Main BIC Subject
CF: Linguistics
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General