Tondano

Tondano is a language of northern Sulawesi in Indonesia. It is at risk of disappearing and has been little recorded, and this monograph offers a full grammar of it. The text is an adapted version of a doctoral thesis completed at La Trobe University in Bundoora, Victoria, Australia, in 2015.

The opening chapters sketch the social and historical background of the community that speaks Tondano. From there, the grammar works through the language's sound system (phonetics and phonology), how words are built (morphology), and how phrases and sentences are put together (syntax).

The author states plainly that the description is not exhaustive. Gaps may remain where data is missing, where the analysis is unclear, or where the page limit forced choices. The material comes from fieldwork carried out on location between 2011 and 2015, and was gathered, organised and analysed together with Tondano speakers. Examples at every level of structure are drawn mainly from natural, spontaneous conversation. The work does not adopt one particular theoretical framework, though its terminology and methods partly follow Basic Linguistic Theory. Comparisons with other Austronesian languages and with languages more broadly appear where necessary, but they are not the book's main concern.

The intended readers are scholars and students of language and linguistics, as well as anyone interested in the anthropology and linguistics of the Austronesian-speaking cultures of Maritime Southeast Asia.