Grammatical Reconstruction
The Sogeram Languages of New Guinea| By: | Don Daniels |
| Publisher: | De Gruyter |
| Print ISBN: | 9783110615142 |
| eText ISBN: | 9783110616569 |
| Edition: | 1 |
| Copyright: | 2020 |
| Format: | Reflowable |
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There is still widespread disagreement among historical linguists about how, or whether, syntactic reconstruction can be done. This book presents a comprehensive methodology for syntactic reconstruction, grounded in a constructional understanding of language. The author then uses that methodology to reconstruct Proto-Sogeram, the ancestor to ten languages in Papua New Guinea. Chapters are devoted to phonology, lexicon, verbal morphosyntax, nominal morphosyntax, and syntactic constructions. The work culminates in a sketch of Proto-Sogeram grammar. Based largely on the author's original fieldwork, this is an innovative application of a novel methodology to new data, and the most complete reconstruction of a Papuan proto-language to date. It will be of interest to scholars of language change, language reconstruction, typology, and Papuan languages.