Tayap is a small previously undocumented Papuan language spoken in a single village called
Gapun in the lower Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea. The language is an isolate
unrelated to any other in the area. Furthermore Tayap is dying. Fewer than fifty speakers
actively command it today. Based on linguistic anthropological work conducted over the course
of thirty years this book describes the grammar of the language detailing its phonology
morphology and syntax. It devotes particular attention to verbs which are the most elaborated
area of the grammar and which are complex fusional and massively suppletive.The book also
provides a full Tayap-English-Tok Pisin dictionary. A particularly innovative contribution is
the detailed discussions of how Tayap''s grammar is dissolving in the language of young
speakers. The book exemplifies how the complex structures in fluent speakers' Tayap are reduced
or reanalyzed by younger speakers. This grammar and dictionary should therefore be a valuable
resource for anyone interested in the mechanics of how languages disappear. The fact that it is
the sole documentation of this unique Papuan language should also make it of interest to areal
specialists and language typologists.
