iv
Abstract
This thesis is a description of Bunaq, a Papuan language spoken by approximately
80,000 people living in the central mountainous region of the island of Timor. Bunaq
speakers straddle the border between Indonesian West Timor and independent East
Timor (Timor-Leste). This thesis concentrates on the variety of Bunaq spoken in the
Indonesian kecamatan of Lamaknen.
    The areas of grammar covered in this thesis are phonology (ch. 2), word classes (ch.
3), clause structure (ch. 4), noun phrases (ch. 5), pronouns and person reference (ch. 6),
determiners (ch. 7), locationals (ch. 8), adnominal possession (ch. 9), verbs (ch. 10),
valency changing and deponency (ch. 11), postposition and verbal postpositions (ch.
12), serial verb constructions (ch. 13), adverbs and verbal modifiers (ch. 14).
    Bunaq is a head-marking language with a basic APV/SV word order and
postpositions. Word order shows a significant amount of pragmatic variation, and is also
sensitive to factors such as person and animacy in non-agentive clauses. Whilst Bunaq
is an APV/SV language, it is not strictly verb-final. Many elements follow the verb,
including the theme argument of a trivalent verb, the negative particle and aspect
particles.
    The Bunaq vowel phoneme inventory consists of the five cardinal vowels and three
phonemic diphthongs, while the number of consonant phonemes varying between 12
and 16 depending on the dialect. Consonant clusters are largely prohibited and codas are
restricted. Stress is not phonemic. Morphophonological processes include metathesis
and irregular root mutations.
    The language is isolating with the only morphology being a single set of person
prefixes, occurring on verbs and nouns. On verbs, they mark P and less often S; there is
This chapter gives a preliminary account of the phonology of the Lamaknen dialect of
Bunaq. The chapter begins with a description of the Bunaq Lamaknen segmental
phonology in §2.1. The orthographic conventions according This chapter gives a
preliminary account of the phonology of the Lamaknen dialect of Bunaq. The chapter
begins with a description of the Bunaq Lamaknen segmental phonology in §2.1. The
orthographic conventions according which the segments will be represented throughout
this description are given in §2.2. Bunaq phonotactics are dealt with in §2.3 and stress
in §2.4. Finally, morphophonology is dealt with in §2.5, while irregularities in
morphophonological behaviour are discussed in §2.6.

2.1     Phoneme inventory
There are a total of 24 segmental phonemes in the native phoneme inventory of
Lamaknen Bunaq, 16 consonants, 5 vowels and 3 diphthongs. See §2.1.4 on non-native
phonemes.

2.1.1    Vowel phonemes
Bunaq has a simple five vowel system, consisting of two front, two back and a single
low non-front, non-back vowel (Table 2.1).

                              Table 2.1: Bunaq vowel inventory
                                   Front                     Back
                    High               i                          u
                    Mid                e                          o
                    Low                            a

The minimal contrasts between the Bunaq vowel phonemes are given in Table 2.2.

                               Table 2.2: Vowel minimal pairs
                            Contrast         Item           Gloss
                     /a/~/e/~/i/~/o/~/u/       a         ‘eat’
                                               e         ‘salt’