A Grammar of Nese

By Lana Grelyn Takau

Nese is a dying Oceanic language spoken on the island of Malekula, in northern Vanuatu. This book, based on first-hand fieldwork data, and without adhering to any particular syntactic framework, presents a synchronic grammatical description of Nese's phonology and syntax. Despite being on the verge of extinction, with fewer than 20 living speakers, the language displays intriguing properties-including but not exclusive to the cross-linguistically rare apicolabial phonemes, interesting vowel-raising patterns in some word classes, and a discontinuous negation relationship that is obligatorily expressed with the irrealis mood marker. This book will probably be the last work published on Nese.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1760465550
• ISBN13: 9781760465551
• Release Date: August 2023
• Publisher: Anu Press the Australian National University
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.2"