1bis thesis describes the morphosyntax of Kewapi dialect of Kewa, a language of the
West-Central (Engan) Family of the Trans New Guinea Phylum.
Chapter I introduces the language, providing some basic information about
dialect variation and about the geographic, demographic and sociocultural setting. It
concludes with an outline of previous studies of Kewa and of the aim and scope of
the present study.
In chapter 2 some aspects of the phonology of Kewapi are outlined to
accompany the grammatical descriptions in chapters 3 to 8. Consonant and vowel
phonemes are presented. Suprasegmental elements of stress and tone as described by
the Franklins (1962, 1978) are briefly reviewed. Phonemic and orthographic
conventions proposed by Karl Franklin (1992) are adopted for the present study.
The main task of chapter 3 is to sketch the morphosyntactic character of
Kewapi. It presents an overview of the basic clause structure, deals with headmarking
and dependent-marking morphosyntax, establishes word classes and
distinguishes words, clitics and affixes.
Chapter 4 provides a detailed description of Kewapi clause level grammar.
The grammatical relations subject, object and oblique are defined. Four grammatical
mood clause types - declarative, imperative, subjunctive and interrogative - are
distinguished. A morphophonemic account is given for the occurrence of two sets of
subject-tense suffixes in declarative clauses. Verbs are classified according to their
transitivity features. The chapter concludes with a description of predicate types:
serial predicates, be predicates (or predicate nominal/adjectives) verb-less and realis
predicates.
Chapter 5 presents fairly detailed description of descriptive, possessive and
adverbial noun phrases, followed by a brief account of the formation of noun-noun,
verb-noun and noun-adjective compounds and of categories of noun. The chapter
concludes with a description of the types and grammatical functions of
nominalisations.
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Chapter 6 focuses on the structure of verbs and verb phrases in independent
declarative and imperative clauses. Verbal categories of negation, causation,
direction, split-action, aspect, tense, subject, evidence and speech act are identified
and systematised. Finally the chapter describes 'auxiliary verb phrases'.
Subordinate clauses - those that function as noun phrases (complement
clauses), those which function as modifiers of nouns (relative clauses), and those
which function as modifiers of verb phrases and clauses (adverbial subordinate
clauses)- are dealt with in chapter 7. Complement clauses are predominantly object
complement clauses. Relative clauses are predominantly prenominal relative clauses.
Kewapi has five reason subordinators that are in complementary distribution. There
are five semantic types of conditional clauses: Real, Unreal (hypothetical and
counterfactual), Predictive and Concessive. The chapter concludes with a discussion
of non-finite subordinate clauses, namely purpose and desiderative subordinate types.
The fmal chapter describes types of coordinate construction. Kewapi has
coordinate independent and coordinate dependent constructions. The latter has two
subtypes: (a) those that are not marked by verbal suffixes and (b) those that are
marked by verbal suffixes, namely, same subject (SS) and different subject (DS)
suffixes. The description of interclausal reference in Franklin (1971, 1983) and
Y arapea (200 1) is reviewed. It is argued that in Kewapi a true switch-reference
construction is one in which the coordinate dependent verb carries a subject suffix
(which functions as a switch-reference marker) and is temporally or aspectually
linked to a final clause
