A grammar of the great Andamanese language : : an ethnolinguistic study / / by Anvita Abbi.

• Author: Abbi, Anvita, 1949-
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Brill's Studies in South and Southwest Asian Languages 4.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (331 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Winner of the 2015 Kenneth L. Hale Award! A Grammar of the Great Andamanese Language is the first-ever detailed and exhaustive account of Great Andamanese, a moribund language spoken on the Andamanese Islands belonging to India in the Bay of Bengal. This important documentation covers all major areas of the grammar of Great Andamanese and gives us a first detailed look at this unique language, which is on the verge of extinction. Of particular interest here is the discussion of the body division class markers which play an important role throughout much of the grammar and which are documented in this volume for the first time. The volume will be of interest for general linguists from the fields of linguistic typology and areal linguistics as well as those interested in South Asian languages in general.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- I. The Andaman and the Great Andamanese -- II. Phonetics and Phonology -- III. Grammar Overview -- IV. Word Formation Processes -- V. Nouns and Noun Phrases Nouns -- VI. Possession -- VII. Pronouns, Pronominal and Object Clitics -- VIII. Modification Including Temporal and Spatial Deixis -- IX. The Verb and Verb Complex -- X. Syntactic Organisation -- Appendix A: Lico’s Genealogical Affiliation and Her Language Profile -- Appendix B: An Acoustic Study of Problematic Laterals -- Text: The Great Narrative of Phertajido -- Bibliography -- Index -- Photographs of Contact Persons.