In this dissertation the author describes and compares the four dialects of Mekeo, an Oceanic (i.e. Austronesian) language spoken in the extreme west of Central Province, on the southern coast of Papua, in Papua New Guinea. The four dialects vary widely in terms of mutual intelligibility. The author shows that Mekeo is a predominantly head-marking head-final language. Nominals (bare roots) without case marking function either as cataphoric topics, corresponding to unspecified pronominal arguments affixed to the verb word; or as nominal predicates. High levels of homophony and polysemy, and of referential indeterminacy complicate
everyday communication.
E-mail this message to a friend
