Concreteness in Grammar Center for the Study of Language and Information Lecture N

the long version

"This book explores the role of phonological form in the noun class systems of the Arapesh languages, which are spoken in Papua New Guinea. Linguists have long known that formal criteria play a role alongside semantics in the classification of lexical items, resulting in generalizations of the familiar type "nouns ending in -a are feminine." But the extent to which such patterns pervade the grammatical systems of the Arapesh languages is remarkable. In Arapesh, virtually every possible noun-final sound is represented in the paradigm of noun class and agreement markers, reflecting an interpenetration of sound structure and grammar that many theories would disallow as wildly unconstrained. Concreteness in Grammar describes these formal patterns so as to reveal their naturalness and elegance, establishing their place in a typology of noun class systems and drawing out their significance for theories of grammatical architecture"--Provided by publisher.