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This thesis is a descriptive analysis of Wano, a Trans-New Guinea language found in West Papua which is spoken by approximately 7,000 native speakers. The thesis includes: (i) an introduction of Wano topography and demography; a brief ethnographic sketch; some sociolinguistic issues such as name taboo, counting system and kinship terms; and typological profile of the language in chapter 1; (ii) morphophonological properties in chapter 2; (iii) forms and functions of nouns in chapter 3; (iv) verbs in chapter 4; (v) deixis in chapter 5; (vi) clause elements in chapter 6; and (vii) intransitive/transitive non-verbal predication in chapter 7; (viii) clause combination is consecutively observed in terms of coordination and subordination in chapter 8; serial verb constructions in chapter 9; clause linking in chapter 10; and bridging linkage in chapter 11. Chapter 12 sums-up the overall thesis. Wano has 11 consonantal and 5 vocalic phonemes expressed through their allophonic variations, consonantal assimilation and vocalic diphthongs. The only fricative phoneme attested is bilabial fricative /Î2/. There are two open and two closed syllable patterns where all consonants are syllable-onset, while approximants can also be syllable-coda. Vowels are syllable-nucleus. Stress is syllable-final which will be penultimate in cliticization. The phonology-morphology interface provides a significant contribution to the shaping of conjugational verbs, which, in turn, plays an essential role to an understanding of Wano verbal system where distinction between roots, stems, citation forms, sequential forms and tense-aspect-mood is defined. Wano is a polysynthetic language that displays an agglutinative-fusional morphology. Although the alienable-inalienable noun distinction is essentially simple in its morphology, the sex-distinction of the possessor between kin terms allows room for semantic-pragmatic complexity in the interpretation of their various uses. Wano has four non-verbal predications, consists of experiential event, nominal, adjectival, and deictic predicates. Wano is a verb-final language that allows pronominal pro-drop and has no rigid word order for arguments. A clause may consist only of (i) a single verb, (ii) a single inalienable noun, (iii) a serial verb construction, (iv) a combination of an inalienable noun with a verb, and or (v) a combination of an inalienable noun with a serial verb construction. To maintain discourse coherency, Wano makes use of tail-head linkage construction. The thesis consists of: pre-sections (i-xxxiii), contents (1-478), bibliography (479-498), and appendices (499-594) that include verb paradigms, noun paradigms, some oral texts and dialectal wordlist.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Menggwa Dla is a Papuan language spoken in Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea and Kabupaten Jayapura of Papua Province, Indonesia. Menggwa Dla is a dialect of the Dla language; together with its sister language Anggor (e.g. Litteral 1980), the two languages form the Senagi language family, one of the small Papuan language families found in North-Central New Guinea. The main text of this thesis is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the linguistic, cultural and political landscapes of the Indonesia-Papua New Guinea border area where the Dla territory is located. Chapter 2 introduces the phonology of Menggwa Dla; described in this chapter are the phonemes, allophonic variations, phonotactics, morpho-phonological processes, stress assignment and intonation of the language. The inventory of phonemes in Menggwa is average for a Papuan language (15 consonants and 5 vowels). The vast majority of syllables come in the shape of V, CV or C1C2V where C2 can be /n/ /r/ /l/ /j/ or /w/. In C1C2V syllables, the sonority rises from C1 to V (§2.2.2). Nevertheless, there are a few words with word-medial consonant sequences like ft /ɸt/, lk /lk/, lf /lɸ/ or lk /lk/ where the sonority drops from the first to the second consonant; the first consonant in these sequences is analysed as the coda of the previous syllable (§2.2.3). Chapter 3 is an overview of the word classes in Menggwa Dla; the morphological, syntactic and semantic properties of the three major word classes (nouns, adjectives and verbs) and the minor word classes are compared in this chapter. Chapter 4 describes the properties of nouns and noun phrases; the person-number-gender categories, noun-phrasal syntax, nominal clitics and personal pronouns are outlined in this chapter. Menggwa Dla has a rich array of case, topic and focus markers which comes in the form of clitics (§4.5). Subject pronouns (‘citation pronouns’) only mark person (i.e. one for each of the three persons), whereas object and genitive pronouns mark person (including inclusive/exclusive first person), number, and sometimes also gender features (§4.6). Chapter 5 introduces various morphological and syntactic issues which are common to both independent and dependent clauses: verb stems, verb classes, cross-referencing, intraclausal syntax, syntactic transitivity and semantic valence. Cross-referencing in Menggwa Dla is complex: there are seven paradigms of subject cross-reference suffixes and four paradigms of object cross-references. Based on their cross-referencing patterns, verbs are classified into one of five verb classes (§5.2). There is often a mismatch between the number of cross-reference suffixes, the semantic valence, and the syntactic transitivity within a clause. There are verbs where the subject cross-reference suffix, or the object suffix, or both the subject and object suffixes are semantically empty (‘dummy cross-reference suffixes’; §5.3.2). Chapter 6 outlines the morphology of independent verbs and copulas. Verbal morphology differs greatly between the three statuses of realis, semi-realis and irrealis; a section is devoted to the morphology for each of the three statuses. Chapter 7 introduces the dependent clauses and verbal noun phrases. Different types of dependent verbs are deverbalised to various degrees: subordinate verbs are the least deverbalised, chain verbs are more deverbalised (but they mark switch-reference (SR), and sometimes also interclausal temporal relations), and non-finite chain verbs even more deverbalised. Further deverbalised than the non-finite chain verbs are the verbal nouns; verbal noun phrases in Menggwa Dla functions somewhat like complement clauses in English. In younger speakers speech, the function of the chain clause SR system has diverted from the canonical SR system used by older speakers (§7.2.2). For younger speakers, coreferential chain verb forms and disjoint-reference chain verb forms only have their coreferential and disjoint-referential meaning — respectively — when the person-number-gender features of the two subject cross-reference suffixes cannot resolve the referentiality of the two subjects. Otherwise, the coreferential chain verb forms have become the unmarked SR-neutral chain verb forms. At the end of this thesis are appendix 1, which contains four Menggwa Dla example texts, and appendix 2, which contains tables of cross-reference suffixes, pronouns, copulas and irregular verbs.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Menggwa Dla is a Papuan language spoken in Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea and Kabupaten Jayapura of Papua Province, Indonesia. Menggwa Dla is a dialect of the Dla language; together with its sister language Anggor (e.g. Litteral 1980), the two languages form the Senagi language family, one of the small Papuan language families found in North-Central New Guinea. The main text of this thesis is divided into seven chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the linguistic, cultural and political landscapes of the Indonesia-Papua New Guinea border area where the Dla territory is located. Chapter 2 introduces the phonology of Menggwa Dla; described in this chapter are the phonemes, allophonic variations, phonotactics, morpho-phonological processes, stress assignment and intonation of the language. The inventory of phonemes in Menggwa is average for a Papuan language (15 consonants and 5 vowels). The vast majority of syllables come in the shape of V, CV or C1C2V where C2 can be /n/ /r/ /l/ /j/ or /w/. In C1C2V syllables, the sonority rises from C1 to V (§2.2.2). Nevertheless, there are a few words with word-medial consonant sequences like ft /ɸt/, lk /lk/, lf /lɸ/ or lk /lk/ where the sonority drops from the first to the second consonant; the first consonant in these sequences is analysed as the coda of the previous syllable (§2.2.3). Chapter 3 is an overview of the word classes in Menggwa Dla; the morphological, syntactic and semantic properties of the three major word classes (nouns, adjectives and verbs) and the minor word classes are compared in this chapter. Chapter 4 describes the properties of nouns and noun phrases; the person-number-gender categories, noun-phrasal syntax, nominal clitics and personal pronouns are outlined in this chapter. Menggwa Dla has a rich array of case, topic and focus markers which comes in the form of clitics (§4.5). Subject pronouns (‘citation pronouns’) only mark person (i.e. one for each of the three persons), whereas object and genitive pronouns mark person (including inclusive/exclusive first person), number, and sometimes also gender features (§4.6). Chapter 5 introduces various morphological and syntactic issues which are common to both independent and dependent clauses: verb stems, verb classes, cross-referencing, intraclausal syntax, syntactic transitivity and semantic valence. Cross-referencing in Menggwa Dla is complex: there are seven paradigms of subject cross-reference suffixes and four paradigms of object cross-references. Based on their cross-referencing patterns, verbs are classified into one of five verb classes (§5.2). There is often a mismatch between the number of cross-reference suffixes, the semantic valence, and the syntactic transitivity within a clause. There are verbs where the subject cross-reference suffix, or the object suffix, or both the subject and object suffixes are semantically empty (‘dummy cross-reference suffixes’; §5.3.2). Chapter 6 outlines the morphology of independent verbs and copulas. Verbal morphology differs greatly between the three statuses of realis, semi-realis and irrealis; a section is devoted to the morphology for each of the three statuses. Chapter 7 introduces the dependent clauses and verbal noun phrases. Different types of dependent verbs are deverbalised to various degrees: subordinate verbs are the least deverbalised, chain verbs are more deverbalised (but they mark switch-reference (SR), and sometimes also interclausal temporal relations), and non-finite chain verbs even more deverbalised. Further deverbalised than the non-finite chain verbs are the verbal nouns; verbal noun phrases in Menggwa Dla functions somewhat like complement clauses in English. In younger speakers speech, the function of the chain clause SR system has diverted from the canonical SR system used by older speakers (§7.2.2). For younger speakers, coreferential chain verb forms and disjoint-reference chain verb forms only have their coreferential and disjoint-referential meaning — respectively — when the person-number-gender features of the two subject cross-reference suffixes cannot resolve the referentiality of the two subjects. Otherwise, the coreferential chain verb forms have become the unmarked SR-neutral chain verb forms. At the end of this thesis are appendix 1, which contains four Menggwa Dla example texts, and appendix 2, which contains tables of cross-reference suffixes, pronouns, copulas and irregular verbs.

One of the most important questions in Australian comparative linguistics over the last 40 years is the validity of a Pama-Nyungan node in the Australian family tree. Much of the comparative research done on Australian languages has supported the notion of a Pama-Nyungan family, and its validity is now well-established. However. much work remains to be done, both in establishing the relationships among the Pama-Nyungan languages and in reconstructing proto-Pama-Nyungan and determining the details of its development in the various branches of the family tree. This dissertation is a contribution towards the latter effort. The primary purpose of the present study is to determine the development of the three initial velars, *k. *ng and *w. in 25 Pama-Nyungan languages through 1561 cognate sets. The cognate sets are also an important resource for the study of other aspects of phonological change in Pama-Nyungan languages. The data provide evidence for the weakening of medial consonants, the assimilation of initial velar glides and nasals to the following vowel, prenasalization of medial stops, the development of triconsonantal clusters, and the presence of both a laminal lateral and a retroflex series of consonants in proto-Pama-Nyungan. In addition, statistical evidence is presented which supports the hypothesis that assimilation of the second to the first vowel is an important process in the history of many Pama-Nyungan languages. This dissertation also discusses important issues regarding the Neogrammarian hypothesis and the comparative method. In particular, the data presented here support the idea that not all sound changes apply in a lexically abrupt, regular manner. Many of the sound changes seen in the data appear to affect only a portion of the eligible forms, and thus provide evidence for the theory of lexical diffusion. Furthermore, most of the changes are found not just in individual languages, but in a number of the languages under study. The data therefore support the notion of pandemic irregularity. / Graduate