Classificatory Particles In Kilivila

Download or read book Classificatory Particles in Kilivila written by Gunter Senft and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1996-03-14 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Common among the world's languages is the phenomenon of classification, a partly or fully grammatical division of the noun lexicon into distinct classes that ultimately derives from the human need to classify and filter data on various levels while communicating. In this book, Senft describes and develops a grammar of classificatory particles in Kilivila, an Austronesian language of the Trobriand Islanders in Papua New Guinea. Drawing largely on his anthropological and linguistic fieldwork in the islands, and emphasizing the use of classifiers in a social context, Senft provides quantitative data and a statistical profile of the status and use of these particles, and the classifier system that employs them.