This thesis describes the features of the phonology, morphology and syntax of
Oksapmin, a Papuan (Non-Austronesian) language of Papua New Guinea. Oksapmin
is spoken by around 8000 people, most of whom reside in the Tekin valley in Sandaun
Province. The analysis in this thesis is based on the study of data from both elicitation
and text collection undertaken on two field trips between 2004 and 2006: from May to
October 2004, and from October 2005 to January 2006.
A general introduction is provided in Chapter 1, phonology, phonotactics and
morphophonology are discussed in Chapter 2, word classes in Chapter 3,
demonstratives in Chapter 4, nouns in Chapter 5, postpositions in Chapter 6, noun
phrase syntax in Chapter 7, verbs in Chapter 8, coverbs in Chapter 9, clausal syntax in
Chapter 10, phrasal clitics in Chapter 11, and clause combining in Chapter 12. Four
sample texts are provided as appendices. Sound files are provided on the
accompanying CD for many of the examples scattered throughout the thesis, as well
as for all the texts in the appendices.
The most interesting and important grammatical subsystem in Oksapmin is the
evidential one, which permeates various areas of the grammar. Without proper
knowledge of this system, one cannot make a single grammatical sentence in the
language. Recall that evidentiality is, roughly speaking, when a speaker marks how he
or she came about the knowledge on which a given utterance is based. Evidentiality in
Oksapmin is indicated with past tense verbal inflection, with enclitics, and with a
number of other constructions. The evidential system is typologically unusual in that
the primary contrast it marks is participatory/factual versus visual/sensory evidence;
this distinction is made in the verbal inflection. Participatory/factual evidentials are
not widely attested cross-linguistically, and those systems that do exist have been
largely ignored in the typological literature.
Some of the other areas of grammar discussed in this thesis include
prenasalised consonants with nasal allophones, noun phrases with a complex syntactic
structure, a range of demonstratives which distinguish for elevation, a large
vocabulary of kin terms including a set of dyadic kin terms, extensive use of complex
predicates consisting of a light verb plus a coverb, and a variety of clause combining
strategies including clause chaining.

Papua