Contact-induced Change in a Highly Endangered Language of Northern Bougainville

Abstract

Languages belonging to the Northwest Solomonic (NWS) subgroup, within the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family, are spoken in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, and in the western Solomon Islands. These languages are lexically the most innovative Austronesian languages, retaining the least number of Austronesian cognates. Certain languages also show atypical grammatical structures. These innovative features are typically assumed to be the result of linguistic contact with the Papuan languages of the region. However, until Evans and Palmer's research on Mono-Torau and Uruava, research into contact-induced change had been carried out in other areas of Melanesia, but little was known about contact-induced change in NWS. Mono-Torau and Uruava display right-headed structures, including SOV clauses, postpositions and preposed possessors; these structures differ from other NWS structures and Evans and Palmer argue that this variation arose through Mono, Torau and Uruava speakers’ social contact with speakers of neighbouring Papuan languages, thus reflecting contact-induced change. Recent fieldwork reveals that Mono-Torau and Uruava are not the only NWS languages to exhibit such atypical grammatical features. Papapana, a highly endangered language spoken in northern Bougainville, also displays right-headed structures including verb-final clause orders, a postposition and preposed possessors. I argue that, as with Mono-Torau and Uruava, these differences reflect contact-induced change resulting from social contact with speakers of neighbouring Papuan languages.