This thesis investigates prepositions in Melanesian Pidgin, consisting of the varieties Tok Pisin, Bislama and Pijin. It provides a systematic overview of the different types of simple prepositions...Show moreThis thesis investigates prepositions in Melanesian Pidgin, consisting of the varieties Tok Pisin, Bislama and Pijin. It provides a systematic overview of the different types of simple prepositions, as well as a discussion of some complex prepositions. Full Bible translations of all three varieties have been used as a corpus. It is argued that the category of simple prepositions consists of basic prepositions and verbal prepositions. The latter category is divided into prepositions with verbal charachteristics and bifunctional forms. In taking all three varieties into account, existing theories are either affirmed or debated, the latter especially counting for the prepositional use of bifunctional forms in relation to serial verb constructions. A continuum on which the simple prepositions appear is proposed. Complex prepositions are shown to occur in all three varieties, with variation in the occurrence of the locative preposition and word order in Pijin. Additionally, a quantitative comparison is made between the varieties to learn more about the preferred prepositional strategies, concluding that Bislama prefers complex prepositions over similar bifunctional forms, Pijin displays the opposite, and Tok Pisin may use different lexical items.Show less
In this thesis a Soyot (Sayan Turkic spoken in Buryatia, Russia) text called The Hunter is analyzed in order to provide more information on the grammar of Soyot. This text came with the only...Show moreIn this thesis a Soyot (Sayan Turkic spoken in Buryatia, Russia) text called The Hunter is analyzed in order to provide more information on the grammar of Soyot. This text came with the only linguistic study available at the moment, the grammar sketch by Rassadin (2010). Besides the text, a minidictionary was also published together with the grammar sketch. This dictionary was the source for the translation of the text, which was subsequently parsed and glossed. This work was published in order to revive the Soyot language which went extinct sometime between the 1970s and 1990s. However, a lot of this language has not yet been studied. The analyzed text provided new data and it was the basis for the description of the functions of participles and gerunds. The text also shows how predicative possession is constructed. On the other hand, the mini-dictionary helped to define the sound inventory of Soyot. With the help of literature on other languages, such as related Turkic languages or Mongolic languages which have influenced Soyot, a hypothetical IPA orthography could be contructed and the syntax of subordinate clauses and predicative possessive could be compared.Show less
