A grammar of the Hoava
language, Western Solomons
Davis, Karen
Pl 535
This description of Hoava, an
Oceanic Austronesian language spoken on parts of New Georgia
in the western Solomon Islands, is the first published reference
grammar of a language from this area. The islands of the New
Georgia group are home to a remarkable diversity of languages,
and their Austronesian languages bear an unusual mixture of
conservative and innovative features. The author pays particular
attention to verbal morphology and its relation to argument
structure and applicativisation, and her description will
interest Oceanists and typologists alike. Hoava is genealogically
quite a close relative of Roviana, aspects of which are described
in S.H. Corston's Ergativity in Roviana, Solomon Islands (Pacific
Linguistics 1996). Nonetheless, the grammars of the two languages
differ quite sharply, in which ways which diachronic syntacticians
will find intriguing.
2003
ISBN 0 85883 502 9
xvi + 332 pp
Prices: Australia AUD$75.90 (incl. GST) Overseas
AUD$69.00
previous next
Place an order
|
