A grammar of the Kadu (Asak) language

Submission note: A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Communication, Arts and Critical Enquiry, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

This thesis is a grammatical description of Kadu–a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Katha district of Sagaing division, Myanmar. It contains eleven chapters. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the language and its speakers. Chapter 2 is an outline of the phonological structure of Kadu. Chapter 3 looks at the word classes and word-forming processes. Chapters 4 to 6 look at nominal aspects of the grammar. Chapter 4 discusses the structure of the noun phrase, while the well-developed system of numeral classifiers in Kadu is discussed in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 looks at case marking postpositions. Chapter 7 looks at the elements that make up the verb complex in Kadu. It discusses postverbal modifiers such as auxiliary verbs, verbal particles, and modal auxiliaries. Clause final particles and aspectual particles are also looked at in this chapter. Chapter 8 looks at the general structure of the clause. The structures of interrogative and negative clauses are discussed in Chapters 9 and 10 respectively. Chapter 11 looks at complex structures. It covers topics such as subordination, coordination, and narrative structures.