Directional constructions in Matukar Panau

Abstract: In many Oceanic languages, middle and reciprocal meanings are expressed by reflexes of Proto-Oceanic *paRi-, a polysemous and polyfunctional prefix with collective, associative, iterative, and reciprocal functions. Traditionally, reflexive constructions in Oceanic languages were marked differently from middles and reciprocals. Where reflexes of Proto-Oceanic *paRi- show a lower productivity or disappeared, Oceanic languages co-opted available morphemes and constructions to express the functions once performed by the prefix. In terms of polysemes, along with the middle/reciprocal one, which is rooted in the history of these constructions, two paths of extension developed over time: (i) from middle/reciprocal to reflexive (with reflexes of Proto-Oceanic *paRi-), and (ii) from reflexive to reciprocal, but different from middle (with innovated markers). The aim of this paper is twofold: (i) to provide a description of middles, reflexives, and reciprocals in Nalögo, a Reefs–Santa Cruz Oceanic language, and (ii) to contribute to the discussion on the typology and diachrony of such constructions within the Oceanic family. In particular, I show that Nalögo has two innovated markers, the reflexive =lëbu (maybe from Proto-Oceanic *[ta]bulo(s) 'turn round, turn back') and the reciprocal - welo . Furthermore, Nalögo displays a so-far unknown path of semantic extension within the Oceanic family: from reflexive to middle. While the reflexive–middle polysemy is widely attested in the languages of the world, it constitutes a typological rarity in Oceanic languages.

In many Oceanic languages, middle and reciprocal meanings are expressed by reflexes of Proto-Oceanic *paRi-, a polysemous and polyfunctional prefix with collective, associative, iterative, and reciprocal functions. Traditionally, reflexive constructions in Oceanic languages were marked differently from middles and reciprocals. Where reflexes of Proto-Oceanic *paRi- show a lower productivity or disappeared, Oceanic languages co-opted available morphemes and constructions to express the functions once performed by the prefix. In terms of polysemes, along with the middle/reciprocal one, which is rooted in the history of these constructions, two paths of extension developed over time: (i) from middle/reciprocal to reflexive (with reflexes of Proto-Oceanic *paRi-), and (ii) from reflexive to reciprocal, but different from middle (with innovated markers). The aim of this paper is twofold: (i) to provide a description of middles, reflexives, and reciprocals in Nalögo, a Reefs–Santa Cruz Oceanic language, and (ii) to contribute to the discussion on the typology and diachrony of such constructions within the Oceanic family. In particular, I show that Nalögo has two innovated markers, the reflexive =lëbu (maybe from Proto-Oceanic *[ta]bulo(s) ‘turn round, turn back’) and the reciprocal -welo . Furthermore, Nalögo displays a so-far unknown path of semantic extension within the Oceanic family: from reflexive to middle. While the reflexive–middle polysemy is widely attested in the languages of the world, it constitutes a typological rarity in Oceanic languages.

This thesis studies possession in Lelepa, a language from the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian, spoken in Central Vanuatu. Investigating this particular feature of the language was achieved by collecting original data from Lelepa speakers. Language data is presented in the form of interlinearised examples taken from a corpus of texts and elicitation notes. Data was collected between 2006 and 2008 during fieldtrips to Lelepa and Mangaliliu. The core of the study is devoted to the possessive system of Lelepa. Like many other Oceanic languages, Lelepa has direct and indirect possessive constructions. This thesis shows that the direct possessive construction formally consists of a possessed noun to which a possessor suffix attaches. It encodes possession of semantic domains such as body parts, body products, reference kinship terms, items closely associated to the possessor and parts of wholes. Indirect possession is expressed by two distinct subtypes: the free and construct indirect constructions. The free indirect construction has pronominal possessors only, encoded by two distinct pronoun paradigms: general and part-whole possession pronouns. The former pronouns are used for possession of items that normally do not occur in the direct construction, and the latter are used for possession of parts of wholes. The construct indirect construction is characterised by the occurrence of either of two construct suffixes, -n or -g. The -n construct indirect construction has pronominal and nominal possessors, and the same semantic scope as the direct construction. The -g construct indirect construction has nominal possessors only, and the same semantic scope as the free indirect construction with general possession pronouns. This study also demonstrates that free variation between two possessive constructions, the direct construction and the -n construct indirect construction with pronominal possessors, occur in the language, although more work is needed to determine the scope of this feature.

1.Introduction 1.1 Oceanic languages 1.2 Introduction to Nêlêmwa 2. Noun phrase coordination in Nêlêmwa 2.1 The general dependency marker me ‘and’ 2.2 The animate, inclusory NP coordinator ma ‘and, with’ 2.3 The additive coordinator ka ~ xa ‘and, also, too’ 3. Predicate and clausal coordination in Nêlêmwa 3.1 Me : a polyfunctional morpheme 3.2 Me and xa as medial VP or clausal coordinators 3.3 Me, na and xa in clause chaining 4. Typological comparisons with other Oceanic languages 4.1 Appositive inclusory constructions in some Oceanic languages 4.2 Inclusory, coordinating and comitative strategies: a comparative overview in some Oceanic languages 4.3 Inclusory constructions: paths of grammaticalization and replacement 5. Conclusion

This paper examines a comparative construction in the Oceanic language Äiwoo and argues that it differs from those known in the typological literature on comparatives on two counts. It is similar to a so-called ‘exceed’ comparative in involving a morpheme meaning ‘go far’; but unlike canonical exceed comparatives, the construction is intransitive, and the standard of comparison is expressed as an oblique. Moreover, the standard is indicated not only by this oblique phrase but also by a directional marker on the verb, in an extension of the frequent use of directionals in Äiwoo to indicate peripheral participants. This construction thus, on the one hand, expands the established typology of comparative constructions; and on the other, shows that the use of directional morphemes to indicate peripheral participants, otherwise attested e.g. for recipients of give verbs, may extend to the standard in comparative constructions, pointing to an avenue for further typological exploration.

This paper aims to explore the diversity for expressing food ingestion in some Oceanic languages (mainly Kanak/New Caledonian and Polynesian languages), and intends to map out the convergences and divergences attested among these languages. Five main points are addressed: first, a brief historical and environmental survey; secondly, the parameters of the different 'eat' verbs among the Kanak languages, in comparison with the differentiation made in other Oceanic languages. In Kanak languages, the lexical field of expressions for 'eating' does not relate to a homogeneous or consistent domain: each language has its own food noun categories, depending on physical, nutritive or symbolic (cultural) criteria, and distinguished on the basis of the verb they combine with. Thirdly, a typological perspective will show how Kanak, and more widely, Oceanic languages, are organized according to the aspects of the context incorporated into the meaning expressed in various languages together with the basic action of eating. Fourthly, the case of languages with possessive classifiers reserved for specific kinds of food nouns and their semantic comparison with the different 'eat' verbs will be investigated; and finally, some syntactic considerations will show how diverse are the 'eat' verbs valency constructions in Oceanic languages.

This paper examines the impact of sociolinguistic factors on vocabulary breadth among secondary school learners in Tanzania. While research on sociolinguistics and language acquisition exists, the interaction between sociolinguistic factors and English vocabulary breadth in Tanzania’s educational context remains underexplored. This is significant given that English, a foreign language spoken by a minority, is the medium of instruction from secondary school onwards in a multilingual country with over 150 ethnic community languages (ECLs), and Kiswahili is spoken by the majority. The study addresses: How do sociolinguistic factors influence English vocabulary breadth among learners in Tanzania’s diverse linguistic landscape? A convergent parallel mixed-methods design was adopted to triangulate quantitative and qualitative data. Using stratified random sampling, the New Vocabulary Levels Test was administered to 320 Form 3 and 4 students from eight secondary schools in Dodoma, and interviews were conducted with the eight English teachers to provide deeper insight. Multiple regression and thematic analyses revealed that sociolinguistic factors significantly influenced vocabulary breadth. Learners who used English at home or in class, interacted with English-speaking peers, started learning English in kindergarten, and had parents with at least Form 4 education had broader vocabularies. Findings suggest that sociolinguistic factors play a crucial role in vocabulary development. Policymakers should enhance structured English exposure beyond the classroom and adopt additive bilingual approaches that consider learners’ language ecology. This study contributes to understanding the interplay between sociolinguistic factors and vocabulary mastery in a diverse linguistic setting and recommends further research on this interaction.

The way people classify the same thing differently in different languages often has cultural explanations. This paper considers the semantic values of the possessive marking system in Raga, spoken on the northern part of Pentecost Island in Vanuatu. In this system the possessive classifier bila- is used for referents of cultural and economic value, as is also the case with cognate forms in several closely related neighbouring languages in northern Vanuatu. It will be shown in this paper that the possessive classifier bila- in Raga extends beyond this to include atatu ‘people’ and vwavwa a kin term that covers the females in the father’s clan, particularly ‘father’s sister’, ‘father’s sister’s daughter’ and ‘father’s sister’s daughter’s daughter’, etc. Vwavwa is the only referential kin term in Raga that deviates from the normal direct possessive construction associated with kin terms in many Oceanic languages. This paper explores both the cultural reasons underpinning this deviation from the normal direct possessive construction to the use of the possessive classifier bila- as well as the circumstances underlying the usage of bila- to refer to ‘people’.

Regional low flow frequency analysis using Bayesian regression and prediction at ungauged catchment in Korea

Kanak and the Polynesian languages exhibit a wide range of impersonal constructions which may involve: (i) the lack or frequent omission of arguments; (ii) optional impersonal construction of monovalent verbs or intransitive construction of bivalent verbs, associated with different meanings; (iii) differential agent marking such as oblique adjuncts or agents/experiencers expressed as a possessor; (iv) the use of impersonal pronouns or non-referential ‘dummy’ pronouns. These constructions are considered to be impersonal from two perspectives: (a) as constraints (impersonal verbs, dummy pronouns) and options (labile verbs) offered by a language system, and (b) as discourse strategies offered to the speaker of a language to make the agent impersonal (through its omission, by making it peripheral as an oblique adjunct or a possessor). Keywords: Oceanic languages; labile verbs; argument omission; differential agent marking; impersonal pronouns

It is clear that serial verbs have not been entirely structurally stable, as reflected by the apparent loss of this pattern among Micronesian and Polynesian languages. This chapter examines the range of structural outcomes for particular kinds of serial verb constructions in Oceanic languages, describing the various structural homologues of serial verb constructions which appear to represent the results of various kinds of structural reanalysis of earlier serial verbs. Typological dissonance in Oceanic languages vis-a-vis serial verbs which would tend to render such patterns diachronically unstable is discussed, along with grammaticalization of serial verbs, and constructions of echo verbs in Erromangan and in other southern Vanuatu languages.

Abstract: This paper examines the factors that influence the choice between actor voice and undergoer voice in the Oceanic language Äiwoo from two perspectives: a quantitative study comparing 80 actor-voice clauses with 80 undergoer-voice clauses and a qualitative study looking at all occurrences of actor voice in the available data. The results show, on the one hand, that the factors influencing voice choice in Äiwoo largely overlap with those described for symmetrical voice languages in the western Austronesian region. On the other hand, the usage patterns of the actor voice also show affinities with the transitivity alternations found in canonical Oceanic languages: the undergoer voice is by far the most frequent in discourse, suggesting that it may be on its way to being reanalyzed as the default transitive construction, and the predominant context for the use of the actor voice is with an undergoer argument that is low in referentiality, similar to the contexts that favor "semi-transitive" constructions in many Oceanic languages. The Äiwoo data thus point to a possible path of reanalysis from a symmetrical voice system to an Oceanic-type system of transitivity alternations.

This paper examines the factors that influence the choice between actor voice and undergoer voice in the Oceanic language Äiwoo from two perspectives: a quantitative study comparing 80 actor-voice clauses with 80 undergoer-voice clauses and a qualitative study looking at all occurrences of actor voice in the available data. The results show, on the one hand, that the factors influencing voice choice in Äiwoo largely overlap with those described for symmetrical voice languages in the western Austronesian region. On the other hand, the usage patterns of the actor voice also show affinities with the transitivity alternations found in canonical Oceanic languages: the undergoer voice is by far the most frequent in discourse, suggesting that it may be on its way to being reanalyzed as the default transitive construction, and the predominant context for the use of the actor voice is with an undergoer argument that is low in referentiality, similar to the contexts that favor “semi-transitive” constructions in many Oceanic languages. The Äiwoo data thus point to a possible path of reanalysis from a symmetrical voice system to an Oceanic-type system of transitivity alternations.

This article will discuss the different constructions which could be relevant for identifying antipassives in Oceanic languages, in spite of the fact that there is no dedicated antipassive marker. Some of these constructions involve the backgrounding of the object, but are associated with different syntactic devices, discursive strategies and semantic functions, giving rise to either incompleteness of the action, low individuation of the patient, or restrictions on its uses. Looking at their semantic and pragmatic specificities, I will investigate what these types of construction have in common and to which extent they can be labelled ‘antipassive’, as has been done inter alia by Cooreman (1994), Dixon (1992) and Janic (2013, 2016).

This chapter studies the structural characteristics of adnominal possessive constructions in the Malayo-Polynesian languages of Southeast Asia (MPSEA). It looks into the features of basic and marked possessive patterns to highlight the variable features of MPSEA languages’ possessive constructions. Discussions have been raised regards the possessive constructions in Oceanic languages and geographical patterns among Austronesian possessive constructions. The chapter then explores the aspects of adnominal possessor constructions: order of possessor and possessum, locus and marking of possessor, patterns of differential possessive marking, and pragmatic variation in possessive constructions. It considers how geographical skewings could affect some types of differential possessive markings.