BINANDERE NOMINAL STRUCTURES The members of the Committee approve the masters thesis of Jonathan Paul Wilson Shin Ja Hwang ________________________________________ Supervising Professor Susan C. Herring ________________________________________ Karl J. Franklin ________________________________________ Copyright © by Jonathan Paul Wilson 1996 All Rights Reserved ii BINANDERE NOMINAL STRUCTURES by JONATHAN PAUL WILSON Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN LINGUISTICS THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON August 1996 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis could not have been completed without the help of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If any praise is given, may He receive the glory. His faithfulness has been exhibited in so many ways, but especially through the constant encouragement of my wonderful wife Kathy Ann, who patiently and cheerfully took on many extra responsibilities so that her thesis student could give it his best. I also thank God for Justin and Sarah. Their love for life and many prayers for daddy helped me keep things in perspective when the going got rough. My mother deserves recognition for her help in typing the bibliography and appendix, as well as for her faithful prayers. The unflagging patience of Dr. Shin Ja Hwang, Dr. Karl Franklin, and Dr. Susan Herring also did much too keep this wanderer on track. Each one of these deserves more thanks than I could ever adequately confer. Nevertheless, my deepest heartfelt appreciation is due each one. I also want to express special thanks to Darryl and Lael Wilson who first challenged us to get involved in the Binandere translation program and have been true friends and helpful consultants ever since. Finally, I must thank the Binandere people for their unrivaled hospitality and compassion towards me and my family. Their ability to appreciate the simple things in life, and to laugh and cry with us has made learning their language a rewarding and joyful challenge. Many others deserve thanks for their faithful prayers and support throughout this project. May God richly bless each one of you for the important part you played in making this dream come true. May its completion be an added incentive to each one of us that our labor is not in vain in the Lord (I Cor. 15:58). April 30, 1996 iv ABSTRACT BINANDERE NOMINAL STRUCTURES Publication No.__________ Jonathan Paul Wilson, M.A. The University of Texas at Arlington, 1996 Supervising Professor: Shin Ja Hwang Binandere is a Papuan language with an SOV word order which is a member of the eastern Trans-New Guinea Phylum. It is one of sixteen closely related languages spoken in Morobe and Oro Provinces of Papua New Guinea. This thesis is a grammatical description of Binandere nouns, pronouns, demonstratives, and noun phrases. Nouns are organized formally into simple, derived, and compound classes, and by number into kinship and nonkinship classes. Binandere personal names and the Binandere split-ergative case system are also described. Personal pronouns are systematized by means of case marking into absolutive, ergative, genitive, and dative/comitative sets. The demonstrative case system is presented together with a brief description of the articular and referential functions of the demonstrative. Basic, possessive, coordinate, alternative, and appositional noun phrases are also described and classified according to their respective patterns and constituent structures. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................... IV ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................................V LIST OF TABLES....................................................................................................................X LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS................................................................................................. XI 1. INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................1 1.0 Definition of the problem ......................................................................................1 1.1 The Binandere people............................................................................................2 1.2 Previous linguistic research...................................................................................3 1.2.1 Papuan linguistic research ...........................................................................3 1.2.2 Binandere language family research............................................................4 1.3 Grammatical overview of the Binandere language ...............................................6 1.3.1 Binandere language classification ...............................................................6 1.3.2 Phonology ....................................................................................................7 1.3.3 Morphology .................................................................................................9 1.3.4 Word order.................................................................................................12 1.4 Limitations and delimitations of the study ..........................................................14 1.5 Methodology........................................................................................................15 1.6 Data corpus..........................................................................................................15 1.7 Organization of the thesis....................................................................................18 2. NOUNS..........................................................................................................................20 2.0 Introduction .........................................................................................................20 2.1 Structural classes .................................................................................................20 2.1.1 Simple nouns..............................................................................................21 vi 2.1.2 Derived nouns ............................................................................................22 2.1.3 Compound nouns .......................................................................................24 2.2 Number classes....................................................................................................27 2.2.1 Kinship nouns ............................................................................................27 2.2.2 Nonkinship nouns ......................................................................................33 2.3 Personal names ....................................................................................................35 2.3.1 Assigned names .........................................................................................35 2.3.2 Codified nouns...........................................................................................36 2.4 Case marking on nouns........................................................................................38 2.5 Summary..............................................................................................................42 3. PRONOUNS..................................................................................................................43 3.0 Introduction .........................................................................................................43 3.1 Personal pronouns ...............................................................................................43 3.2 Case marking on personal pronouns....................................................................44 3.2.1 Absolutive personal pronouns ...................................................................44 3.2.2 Ergative personal pronouns .......................................................................49 3.2.2.1 Short forms of the ergative personal pronoun ...................................49 3.2.2.2 Long forms of the ergative personal pronoun....................................54 3.2.3 Genitive pronouns......................................................................................56 3.2.4 Dative/comitative personal pronouns ........................................................59 3.2.4.1 Dative personal pronouns ..................................................................59 3.2.4.2 Comitative personal pronouns ................................................................61 3.3 Summary..............................................................................................................63 4. DEMONSTRATIVES ...................................................................................................64 4.0 Introduction .........................................................................................................64 vii 4.2 Articles ................................................................................................................68 4.2.1 The demonstrative as definite article.........................................................68 4.2.2 The numeral ‘one’ as indefinite article......................................................70 4.2.3 Comparison and contrast of marking definiteness in related languages....71 4.2.3.1 Within the Binandere language family ..............................................71