Matthew S.
Dryer: Work on Papuan Languages
My research on Papuan languages is joint research with Lea Brown
Since 2001, we have been working on two languages spoken on the north coast of Papua New Guinea, in Sandaun Province, within 100 miles of the border with West Papua, the western part of the island of New Guinea that is part of Indonesia. The focus of our work has been Walman (also known in Valman), a language in the Torricelli family, spoken about 100 miles east of the border with West Papua. There are approximately 50 languages in the Torricelli, for most of which very little information is available. The best known and best documented Torricelli language is Arapesh. We have also been working on Poko-Rawo (also known as just Rawo), a language in the Sko family spoken just in from the coast, about 50 miles to the west of where Walman is spoken. In 2009, we started work on another Torricelli language, Srenge (also known as Aruop). We are working on descriptive grammars and dictionaries of all three languages. Below are our first papers on Walman.
In 2010, two doctoral students at the University at Buffalo started doctoral research on two languages of Papua New Guinea. Jennifer Wilson is working on Yeri (also known as Yapunda), another Torricelli language, and Adam Hatfield is working on Mehek, a language generally classified as a Sepik language.
Brown, Lea, and Matthew S. Dryer. 2008. The verbs for 'and' in Walman, a Torricelli language of Papua New Guinea. Language 84: 528 - 565. DOWNLOAD [This is not the final draft of this paper.]
Brown, Lea, and Matthew S. Dryer. Under submission. "An inflectional diminutive in Walman'. DOWNLOAD
Click here for photos from our field work in Papua New Guinea
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