Abstract
LoC Class: PL8025.95.G2, LoC Subject Headings: Bantu languages--Gabon // This PhD-dissertation is a study of Orungu, a Bantu language classified as B11b by M. Guthrie and spoken by a Ngwè-myènè people (or Myènè according to the administrative denomination) in the Ogooué Maritime province of Western Gabon. It presents a first descriptive study of the language and offers a general view of its grammar. It describes the most important segmental and supra-segmental or tonal features of its phonology, morphology and syntax. The first part is a description of the phonemes of Orungu, its noun class system, and its typical consonant mutations. The second part deals with the nominal and verbal morphology and the role tone plays at this level. The establishment of tone schemes results in a demonstration of the processes involved in the derivation of definite nouns from indefinite nouns. The description of the verb morphology is focussed on verbal derivation strategies and on the complex TAM-system involved in the verbal conjugation. The third and final part is a study of the post-lexical tone system and describes the mutations that lexical tone schemes undergo when they occur in certain tonal contexts and/or certain syntactical constructions.
