Universität zu Köln

Gayler, Katharina ORCID: 0000-0001-7178-4621 (2026). Larger discourse units in linguistic structure of Yali narratives. PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.

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Abstract

This thesis investigates discourse structure beyond the level of clauses and intonation units in spontaneous narration of Yali (Trans-New Guinea). Its aim is twofold: Firstly, it means to advance the description of Yali, which is an underdescribed language, especially from a prosodic point of view. Secondly, it hopes to contribute to the (theoretical) discussion of larger units in spoken discourse, which are cross-linguistically not well understood to date. In pursuit of the first, it presents a description of prosodic phrasing in Yali, in particular of its accentual phrase and intonation unit. Furthermore, it gives an overview of the most common Yali means of clause combination, which are clause chaining, switch-reference connector morphemes, and originally nominal morphemes used as clause connectors. Pursuing its second goal, the thesis traces descriptively how discourse structure emerges from these structural cues. It identifies prosodic final falls and the absence of morphosyntactic clause combination as two types of structural boundaries that prototypically correlate in Yali, and suggests them to plausibly implement boundaries of a larger discourse unit (e.g. an episode) together. However, it also finds divergence between the two structural cues, and describes it as implementing weaker boundaries. The thesis thereby diverges from widespread assumptions of discreet levels of structure in language (e.g. in the framework of prosodic hierarchy theory) and explores a bottom-up description of unit formation from multiple linguistic cues that may or may not converge instead.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD thesis)
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Gayler, Katharina kgayler1@uni-koeln.de https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7178-4621 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-802716
Date:	2026
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Fächergruppe 1: Kunstgeschichte, Musikwissenschaft, Medienkultur und Theater, Linguistik, Digital Humanities > Institut für Linguistik (IfL) > Abteilung Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ASW)
Subjects:	Language, Linguistics
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language Yali UNSPECIFIED episodes UNSPECIFIED prosody-syntax interface UNSPECIFIED prosodic structure UNSPECIFIED clause combination UNSPECIFIED
Date of oral exam:	28 January 2025
Referee:	Name Academic Title Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. Prof Grice, Martine Prof
Funders:	DFG, SFB 1252 Prominenz in Sprache, TP B05
Projects:	Prominence-related structures in Austronesian symmetrical voice and in Papuan languages
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/80271