Reviewed by Wolfgang Schulze, University of Munich
The Dani people figure among the most famous ethnic groups in the Indonesian province of Papua. There are some 300,000 Danis, most of whom speak Western Dani (about 200,000 people). Western Danis dwell on the northern slopes of the Star Mountains west of the Baliem Grand Valley and are marked for a well-studied and well-documented cultural tradition that is sometimes erroneously labeled as being especially archaic. The Dani language belongs to the southern division of the Dani-Kwerba stock, itself a part of the Trans-New Guinea Phylum. Today, Western Dani is a written language, as expressed by the fact that the entire Bible has been translated into this language. Although some brief descriptions of Western Dani are available, Peter Barclay’s voluminous grammar sets the knowledge about this language into a new dimension. The author, who has a long experience of living with Danis and who has acquired a profound knowledge of the language based on long-lasting fieldwork, exploits a wide range of (primarily) written sources in order to extract the Dani grammar. These sources include both recorded native texts and translations, mainly from the Bible and related texts.
B applies the standard descriptive tools to access the grammar of Western Dani. The description is theory-neutral to the extent ever possible and is also marked for a wide range of specific—but not to say idiosyncratic—glosses that reflect the categorical and functional specifics of this language.
B’s book, which is framed by four maps, a list of specific glosses, and a helpful bibliography, is divided into eleven sections. Chs. 1 and 11 are more essayistic in nature, discussing the sociolinguistics of the Western Danis as well as some methodological issues and prospects of research. The bulk of the book is made up of chapters that are devoted to the standard domains of linguistic description, namely, phonology, morphology, and syntax. Ch. 2 (13–41) extensively discusses the phonetics and morphophonology of Western Dani. The language is marked for heavy assimilatory processes that are present when lexical stems become suffixed, all of which are thoroughly described here. The brief Ch. 3 (42–49) introduces Dani word classes. Western Dani is marked for the typical features of head marking, attributing only few morphological categories to the nominal domain but making extensive use of morphology within verbs. Additionally, B discusses twelve more or less closed word classes such as adjectives, pronouns, and postpositions. Ch. 4 turns to the grammar of noun phrases (50–181), which includes a discussion of nouns themselves (e.g. cultural context, nominal derivation, possession, and compounding), pronouns and pronominal affixes, adjectives and their morphology, intensifiers, anaphoric references, demonstratives, relative clauses, postpositions, and conjunctions (in this order).
Chs. 5–7 (182–424) represent the heart of the book. Here, B skillfully describes the expressive world of Dani verb morphology. The Dani verb is marked for subject agreement, object agreement (if human), a complex system of modal categories heavily interacting with aspectual distinctions as well as localizing strategies and valency reducing devices. Ch. 5 also conveys information about semantic verb classes and includes the typical set of generic verbs used to derive verbal concepts. B also considers the paradigm of reduplication present not only with verbs but also with nouns. Ch. 6, which concentrates on the multiple techniques of marking objects on the verb, is a highlight of the chapters on verb morphology. Adverbs are discussed in Ch. 7, followed by an extremely useful chapter on expressions of time and place (Ch. 8; 425–64).
The remaining two chapters are devoted to syntax. Ch. 9 (465–86) briefly considers specifics of the simple sentence. However, much of what would be expected to be described in this chapter was already included in the preceding chapters on the verb. B thus confines himself to the presentation of verbless sentences, copula clauses, interrogation, imperatives, negation, and different types of exclamatory sentences, including greetings. Finally, Ch. 10 (487–634) is an impressive elaboration on the make-up of complex sentences, which range from complementation and coordination to clause chaining and subordination.
B’s description of Western Dani is more than just a grammatical description of the language. The author constantly refers to actual language use and frequently includes valuable information about cultural and regional aspects concerning the given usage of a term, construction, or paradigm. The linguistic information is presented in a very readable way, although readers will have to accustom themselves to the way B handles interlinear glosses. The fact that this volume lacks the presentation of a longer sample text does not harm the overall quality of the book. The many lengthy examples given by the author, especially in Chs. 6–10, compensate for this seeming deficiency. The theory-neutral approach guarantees that this book can be used by linguists from various theoretical backgrounds. Additionally, this volume may help to correct some prejudices about Western Dani that falsely relate this language to the notion of primitiveness.