The corpus features children's acquisition of Ku Waru and Tok Pisin. Ku Waru is spoken by ~10,000 people living in the rural Papua New Guinea Highlands. The language is still being acquired as a first language by children. It belongs to the Trans New Guinea family of Papuan languages, and, more immediately, to a dialect continuum within the Chimbu-Wahgi branch of that family. Papuan languages are negatively defined as non-Austronesian languages in the Papuan region. The Chimbu-Wahgi branch includes what Ethnologue classifies as four distinct languages: Melpa, Mbo-Ung, Imbonggu and Umbu-Ungu (Eberhard, Simons & Fennig 2019). Ku Waru is a dialect of Mbo-Ung (ISO code mux).
Tok Pisin is a largely English-based creole and one of Papua New Guinea's national languages. It is spoken by most Ku Waru speakers aged 50 and younger. Children are exposed to Tok Pisin both at home and when they enter primary school. For further details regarding the language ecology in the study area, see Merlan & Rumsey (2015).
Ku Waru syntax is strictly verb-final. There are systems of verb serialization and clause chaining, which make use of formally distinct series of final and non-final verbs. Final verbs have portmanteau suffixes encoding tense, aspect and mood (TAM), and the person and number of their subject. Non-final verbs do not inflect independently for TAM, but share their TAM value with the following final verb. Non-final verbs do inflect for person and number – albeit less fully than final verbs – and for whether their subject is the same or different from that of the following verb (switch-reference). In bivalent clauses the word order is usually Subject-Object-Verb but sometimes (about 10% of the time) it is Object-Subject-Verb. Case is marked by postpositions. These include an 'optional' ergative postposition that is used on most but not all subject noun phrases of bivalent clauses (see Rumsey 2010).
For further details regarding Ku Waru grammar, see Merlan & Rumsey (1991:322–343; 2001) and Rumsey (2002; 2010).
Eberhard, David M., Simons, Gary F., & Fennig, Charles D. (2019). Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 22nd Edn. Dallas, TX: SIL International. Available at: http://www.ethnologue.com (accessed November 15, 2019).
Merlan, Francesca & Rumsey, Alan. (1991). Ku Waru: Language and segmentary politics in the western Nebilyer Valley, Papua New Guinea. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Appendix B (pp. 322-343) Grammatical sketch of Bo Ung, Ku Waru dialect.
Merlan, Francesca & Rumsey, Alan. (2001). Aspects of ergativity and reported speech in Ku Waru. In A. Pawley, M. Ross & D. T. Tryon (Eds.) The boy from Bundaberg: Studies in Melanesian linguistics in honour of Tom Dutton, pp. 215-231. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.15144/PL-514
Merlan, Francesca & Rumsey, Alan. (2015). Language ecology, language policy and pedagogical practice in a Papua New Guinea Highland Community. Language & Linguistics in Melanesia 33(1):82-96. Available at https://www.langlxmelanesia.com/Merlan%20&%20Rumsey%20LLM%2033_1%20FV.pdf
Rumsey, Alan. (2002). Men stand, women sit: On the grammaticalization of posture verbs in Papuan languages, its bodily basis and cultural correlates. In John Newman (Ed.), The linguistics of standing, sitting and lying, pp. 179-211. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Available at https://www.academia.edu/24042989/Men_stand_women_sit_On_the_grammaticalization_of_posture_verbs_in_Papuan_languages_its_bodily_basis_and_cultural_correlates
Rumsey, Alan. (2010). 'Optional' ergativity and the framing of reported speech. Lingua 120:1652-1676. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2009.05.012