A Reconstruction Of Proto-northern Adelbert Phonology And Lexicon

Abstract

This dissertation concerns the Northern Adelbert languages, a group of 23 Papuan languages spoken in Madang province, Papua New Guinea. The dissertation has two main components, .synchronic descriptions of Northern Adelbert languages, and an investigation of the diachronic changes in these languages. The synchronic descriptions outline the basics of each languages' phonology and verb morphology, with a focus on several languages which were previously poorly documented: Barem (ISO 639-3: buq), Manep (mkr), Mokati (wnb), Karian (bql), and Gavak (dmc). The diachronic component of the dissertation presents a reconstruction of Proto-Northern Adelbert phonology and lexicon, the ancestral language of the Northern Adelbert languages, as well as reconstructions of interstage proto-languages for various subgroups of Northern Adelbert., and presents a tree-structure classification for the family based on shared innovations.