LINGUIST List 12.3027

Tue Dec 4 2001

Books: Language Description

Editor for this issue: Richard John Harvey <richardlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Malcolm Ross, Language Description: South Halmahera Austronesian language

Taba: description of a South Halmahera Austronesian language
by John Bowden

Prices are in Australian dollars (one Australian dollar is
currently equivalent to about US$ 0,52).

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Taba: Description of a South Halmahera Austronesian language

John Bowden
PL 521

Taba is an Austronesian language spoken in the Halmahera region of
eastern Indonesia. This book is the only comprehensive modern grammar
of any language from the South Halmahera-West New Guinea subgroup that
is a sister to the much better documented Oceanic branch. Taba is a
mixed split-S and accusative language with a rich variety of phonemic
consonant clusters, a complex system of directionals, and many other
features of interest to both Austronesianists and general typologists.
The analysis of ditransitive clauses is a major innovation: the author
contends that ditransitives exhibit a mixed primary object and
'split-P' pattern of argument alignment. The grammar also contains a
wealth of information on the sometimes radical changes occuring in
contemporary Taba under the impact of Malay.

John Bowden is a Research Fellow in Linguistics at the Research School
of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University.
After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of
Auckland and a doctorate at the University of Melbourne, he spent a
year as a post-doctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute
for Psycholinguistics. This grammar is a revised version of his PhD
dissertation. His major research interests are in languages of the
east Nusantara region, in grammatical typology, and in language
contact phenomena. AUS $69.85 International $63.50

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Orders may be placed by mail, e-mail or telephone with:

Publishing, Imaging and Cartographic Services (PICS)
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian
National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia Australia
Tel: +61 (0)2 6125 3269 Fax: +61 (0)2 6125 9975

mailto://Jo.Bushbyanu.edu.au

Credit card orders are accepted.

For our catalogue and other materials, see:

http://pacling.anu.edu.au (under construction)

_______________________________________________________________

Other enquiries (but not orders) should go to:

The Publications Administrator Pacific Linguistics Research
School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Australian National
University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia

Tel: +61 (0)2 6125 2742 Fax: +61 (0)2 6125 4896

jmanleycoombs.anu.edu.au 
_____________________________________
Dr Malcolm D. Ross
Senior Fellow
Department of Linguistics
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
CANBERRA ACT 0200