A sketch grammar of Arguni
Summary
This thesis is a sketch grammar of Arguni (ISO 639-3 code: agf), an Austronesian variety spoken on an island in the Berau Gulf, off the coast of West Papua. This constitutes the first partial description of a variety of the Arguni-Mbaruan-Yarikman dialect/language group. This work is based on the data gathered during a fieldwork trip in the Arguni village between December 2024 and February 2025.
The description starts with a short phonological sketch, identifying the Arguni segments and some phonological and phonotactic rules. The sketch also provides a relatively detailed account of Arguni reduplication, which may be of three types: full root reduplication, partial root reduplication and affix reduplication (only for the pluractional prefix fa-). Partial reduplication affects several word classes and is governed by relatively complex morphological rules and presents several irregularities.
Arguni has two systems to mark possession. The most generic strategy makes use of possessive particles preceding the noun. Some nouns denoting body parts may use an alternative strategy which makes use of possessive affixes.
An interesting morpheme is the suffix -ma(n), which acts as the pro-form for a head noun. It can attach to adjectives, e.g. ráme-ma `the sweet one', possessive particles, e.g. mbía-ma `mine', and, with more restrictions, to nouns.
The sketch offers a description of the morphology associated with several word classes: pronouns, nouns, adjectives, numerals and verbs. Verbs are morphologically the most complex word class, as they mark subject agreement with prefixes and infixes, as well as two types of pluractionality, through partial reduplication and a prefix specialised for the marking of participant plurality.
The final part of the sketch grammar covers topics related to Arguni syntax: structure of the noun phrase, word order, negation, reflexiveness, reciprocity and valency changing strategies.