Touo: An Exploration of Grammar through Narration

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/05741s97n

Abstract

Touo is an endangered language spoken in Rendova, an island of the Solomon Islands. There are an estimated 2,000 speakers of this language, and there are two known dialects of the language, Baniata and Lokuru. There has been very little documented of this language, and there is no descriptive grammar as of yet. This thesis has two main purposes: 1) to contribute to the documentation of the Touo language and culture and 2) to attempt to describe how the Tense, Aspect, and Mood/Modality (TAM) functions of the language are utilized in traditional oral narratives. Eight narratives, of varying genre, length, and content, were collected from one native speaker of Touo. Three narratives are analyzed in detail in this thesis. The distribution, narrative function, and patterns of shifting of identified TAM features were analyzed and are discussed.

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