Oceanic Languages Research Articles

Manner/result polysemy as contextual allosemy: Evidence from Daakaka

AbstractManner/result polysemy describes a phenomenon where a single root can encode both manner and result meaning components of an eventive verbal predicate. It therefore poses a challenge to (i) the hypothesis of manner/result complementarity as a fundamental constraint on verb/root meaning and (ii) a strict one-to-one mapping between roots and meaning. Examining novel data from the Oceanic language Daakaka, I provide further evidence that polysemous verbs like tiwiye ‘press manually, break’ only apparently violate manner/result complementarity, as manner and result meaning components are in complementary distribution. As both meaning components are sensitive to their morphosyntactic environment, I develop an account of contextual root allosemy, in which manner and result interpretations are associated with designated syntactic positions in relative configuration to an event-introducing verbalizer v. In particular, I argue that a single root may be associated with two non-compositional entries in the encyclopaedia, an eventive and a stative one, which allows the root to be merged in either the manner or result position. Independent support comes from suppletive verb forms in the paradigm of polysemous roots in Daakaka, where the spell-out conditions of contextual allomorphy and contextual allosemy overlap. Finally, I discuss theoretical and empirical challenges for alternative accounts of manner/result polysemy, including accounts based on derivation, coercion, and homophony.

Middle, Reflexive, and Reciprocal Constructions in Nalögo: A Typological and Diachronic Account

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.

The Grammaticalization of Self and Self-World in East Mekeo: Personhood as a Closed System

Abstract: Relational nouns have been studied extensively, typically under the rubric of inalienable possession. Such nouns are typically bound to presupposed referents by an anaphoric morpheme indicating person and number. In Oceanic languages, one large class of relational nouns is linked contingently to nonhuman entities that are routinely specified in the utterance. However, another large class is linked noncontingently to presupposed human referents that typically need not be specified in the given utterance. In this paper, I propose that, in East Mekeo, the latter class of nouns corresponds with (and reveals to the investigator) the main parameters of the Mekeo self and its social world.

Disentangling Ancestral State Reconstruction in historical linguistics

Abstract Ancestral State Reconstruction (ASR) is an essential part of historical linguistics (HL). Conventional ASR in HL relies on three core principles: fewest changes on the tree, plausibility of changes and plausibility of the resulting combinations of features in proto-languages. This approach has some problems, in particular the definition of what is plausible and the disregard for branch lengths. This study compares the classic approach of ASR to computational tools (Maximum Parsimony and Maximum Likelihood), conceptually and practically. Computational models have the advantage of being more transparent, consistent and replicable, and the disadvantage of lacking nuanced knowledge and context. Using data from the structural database Grambank, I compare reconstructions of the grammar of ancestral Oceanic languages from the HL literature to those achieved by computational means. The results show that there is a high degree of agreement between manual and computational approaches, with a tendency for classical HL to ignore branch lengths. Explicitly taking branch lengths into account is more conceptually sound; as such the field of HL should engage in improving methods in this direction. A combination of computational methods and qualitative knowledge is possible in the future and would be of great benefit.

The Grammaticalization of Self and Self-World in East Mekeo: Personhood as a Closed System

Relational nouns have been studied extensively, typically under the rubric of inalienable possession. Such nouns are typically bound to presupposed referents by an anaphoric morpheme indicating person and number. In Oceanic languages, one large class of relational nouns is linked contingently to nonhuman entities that are routinely specified in the utterance. However, another large class is linked noncontingently to presupposed human referents that typically need not be specified in the given utterance. In this paper, I propose that, in East Mekeo, the latter class of nouns corresponds with (and reveals to the investigator) the main parameters of the Mekeo self and its social world.

Directional constructions in Matukar Panau

Abstract The Oceanic language Matukar Panau has three equivalent morphosyntactic strategies for describing the direction of the event represented by a verb, with a system of ten directional morphemes that can appear in each construction. This variation is explored using a corpus from Matukar Panau and analysed quantitatively with Bayesian regression analyses to assess what factors influence the choice of directional construction. Variables pertaining to the lexical verb and the directional morphemes are found to be the most important factors affecting the variation in the directional system. Sociolinguistic factors are shown to play a less significant role. The findings have implications for the grammaticalization of directional elements, as well as the typology of directional constructions in Oceanic languages.

Colexification of ‘Enough’, ‘Able’ and ‘Until’ in Tok Pisin and Papapana: Independent or Contact-induced Change?

Abstract Considerable research has concerned the influence of Papua New Guinea’s Oceanic languages on the development of the pidgin/creole Tok Pisin, but little research has considered linguistic influence in the opposite direction. This paper adds to both bodies of research by investigating whether the colexification of ‘enough’, ‘able’ and ‘until’ in Papapana (Oceanic) and Tok Pisin results from internal or contact-induced change. Such a colexification is unattested/rare cross-linguistically therefore I argue that language contact is responsible. The Tok Pisin verb inap ‘enough, able’ grammaticalised as the preposition/subordinator ‘until’ because of semantic extensions by Oceanic language speakers whose languages demonstrate overlapping polysemies. The Papapana verb eangoi colexifies ‘enough’ and ‘able’ (common cross-linguistically), but the colexification with the lexicalised adverb eangoiena ‘able’ and grammaticalised preposition/subordinator eangoiena ‘until’ is pattern replication modelled on Tok Pisin. Based on areal data, I propose a tentative semantic map for enough, contributing to research on cross-linguistic colexification.

The vowel inventory of Nakanamanga

Nakanamanga is an Oceanic language spoken by approximately 10,000 speakers in central Vanuatu (Lynch and Crowley, 2001), including northern Efate island and Nguna and other small islands to the north. Previous work on Nakanamanga indicates that it has five distinctive vowel qualities (/i,e,a,o,u/), as is typical of Oceanic languages, and some evidence of long vowels (Schütz, 1969). However, whether vowel length is contrastive remains unclear, and there are suggestions that vowel length exhibits complex relationships with consonantal and prosodic patterns (Schütz, 1969; McClintock, 1991; Schmidt, 2023). We present findings of a pilot study targeting vowel length in Nakanamanga, based on phonological evidence and acoustic phonetic data. A wordlist consisting of words of CVCV structures was designed after consultation with a native speaker, and recorded with the speaker in Mere-Sauwia village on Nguna. Data was processed and analysed using Praat, EMU-SDMS and R (Boersma and Weenink, 2023; Winkelmann et al., 2017; R Core Team, 2023). Results for vowel duration and first and second formant frequency at vowel midpoints provide strong evidence that Nakanamanga has ten distinct vowels, with a length contrast for all five vowel qualities. Findings lay the groundwork for larger-scale investigations of the phonetics and phonology of Nakanamanga.

An acoustic examination of Drehu vowels

Drehu is an indigenous language spoken in New Caledonia. Compared to other Oceanic languages, it has rather large vowel and consonantal inventories. The vowel system consists of 14 vowels, distinguishing seven vowel qualities and an additional length distinction. Previous phonological studies showed divergent proposals for two of the vowel qualities /ɛ/ and /ə/ based on impressionistic descriptions. For this study, data was collected through a controlled reading task that was conducted during a fieldwork trip. We investigate the Drehu vowels for the first time, using acoustic data from eight native speakers (4 female). Vowel duration, formant values and dynamic formant properties were measured to examine the phonetic correlates of the proposed phonological vowel quality and length distinctions. In this study, we report seven timbres identified across the fourteen vowels of the system. Our results confirm a distinction between phonologically long and short vowels based on duration differences. We provide a detailed acoustic description of the vowel system and propose a revised vowel inventory based on a detailed analysis of formant structure of open-mid /ɛ/ and the central vowel /ə/.

Acoustic and durational correlates of diphthong contrasts in Nafsan

The phonetic realization of diphthongs, vowels with dynamic productions involving two targets and often described as inherently long, is under-studied cross-linguistically (e.g., Petersen, 2018), including within many well-documented languages. Nafsan, an Oceanic language spoken by around 6000 people on Efate island in Vanuatu, has a vowel inventory with monophthongs of five qualities, all with a length contrast (Billington et al., 2021), and at least six contrastive closing diphthongs (Thieberger, 2006). These include /ei/ and /oi/, and two pairs in which the primary difference is viewed as the height of the second target: /ai/ and /ae/, and /au/ and /ao/. However, there are indications that duration may be an important correlate in these pairs. This presentation reports on a study of the six closing diphthongs based on data collected with six Nafsan speakers in Erakor village, using a wordlist of mostly monosyllabic words with diphthongs in both open syllables and syllables closed with a coronal consonant, produced in an utterance-medial frame. Results show that, in addition to differences in second formant frequency, /ae/ and /ao/ are significantly longer than /ai/ and /au/, raising questions about whether the contrast is best interpreted as a length contrast similar to that found among monophthongs.

Voice and Pluractionality in Äiwoo

This paper examines the uses of the prefix e- (ve-) in Äiwoo, an Oceanic language of the Temotu subgroup. It argues that the functions of this prefix can be subsumed under the label pluractionality, and that it is a likely reflex of the Proto-Oceanic prefix *paRi-. However, the distribution of the Äiwoo pluractional prefix is unusual in that it most common by far with intransitive position verbs; it can also occur on transitive verbs, but this is infrequent in the available data. This paper argues that this distribution is linked to the fact that Äiwoo has a distinct transitive actor voice which covers many of the typical pluractional functions with transitives. This is particularly clear when one compares Äiwoo (v)e- to its likely cognate (v)ö- in the Santa Cruz languages, which only applies to transitive verbs with detransitivizing functions; many of the functions of SC (v)ö- are covered by the actor voice in Äiwoo. The fact that Äiwoo appears to retain both a reflex of *paRi- and an actor voice/undergoer voice distinction may provide new perspectives on the history of *paRi-, since most Oceanic languages have lost the voice distinction; this may have led to an expansion of the functions of *paRi-, as suggested by the comparison between Äiwoo and the Santa Cruz languages.

A multifaceted approach to understanding unexpected sound change

Abstract This paper demonstrates that unexpected sound changes are best explained by an approach that accounts for different motivations: phonetic, structural and social. Here, we focus on a multifaceted investigation of the cross-linguistically uncommon bilabial trills to show the complex interaction between different drivers of sound change. In this paper, we highlight and examine the prenasalized voiced bilabial trill mʙ and plain voiceless bilabial trill p [ʙ̥] found in a number of Oceanic languages spoken on Malekula Island in Vanuatu. We offer a comparative-historical analysis, and we identify the various forces that have led to the emergence and persistence of mʙ and p in Malekula languages: the historical articulatory environments, the particular make-up of the consonant inventories of these languages, complementary sound changes and phonological processes, contact with non-Austronesian languages, and in-group identity attachment. Furthermore, we offer a hypothesis for the relative timing of these factors on the historical pathway of Malekula’s bilabial trills.

Voice and Pluractionality in Äiwoo

This paper examines the uses of the prefix e- (ve-) in Äiwoo, an Oceanic language of the Temotu subgroup. It argues that the functions of this prefix can be subsumed under the label pluractionality, and that it is a likely reflex of the Proto-Oceanic prefix *paRi-. However, the distribution of the Äiwoo pluractional prefix is unusual in that it most common by far with intransitive position verbs; it can also occur on transitive verbs, but this is infrequent in the available data. This paper argues that this distribution is linked to the fact that Äiwoo has a distinct transitive actor voice which covers many of the typical pluractional functions with transitives. This is particularly clear when one compares Äiwoo (v)e- to its likely cognate (v)ö- in the Santa Cruz languages, which only applies to transitive verbs with detransitivizing functions; many of the functions of SC (v)ö- are covered by the actor voice in Äiwoo. The fact that Äiwoo appears to retain both a reflex of *paRi- and an actor voice/undergoer voice distinction may provide new perspectives on the history of *paRi-, since most Oceanic languages have lost the voice distinction; this may have led to an expansion of the functions of *paRi-, as suggested by the comparison between Äiwoo and the Santa Cruz languages.

Aesthetics in Styles and Variation: A Fresh Flavor

Speaker attitudes, ascriptions, qualia, and other forms of overt aesthetic commentary function as constraints on language and culture and are central to sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. Despite the importance of aesthetics, sociolinguists studying variation and change have largely shied away from the topic. This review suggests that covert aesthetic evaluations play a role in variation and change. We draw on non-Western approaches to aesthetics ( rasa and “everyday aesthetics”) that emphasize the interplay between receiver and the aesthetic stimulus. We present two case studies. One, from fieldwork on Nkep (an Oceanic language spoken in Vanuatu), draws attention to the way aesthetic factors seem to slow language change. The other, from fieldwork on Spanish in California, shows how aesthetic evaluations of linguistic features facilitate the transfer of variation in a situation of language contact.

Prominence marking in an edge-prominent language - the case of Drehu

This study investigates prosodic correlates of phrasing in Drehu, an Oceanic language from New Caledonia. The analysis is concerned with the demarcation of prosodic levels in the language, namely the Accentual Phrase and the Intonation Phrase. First impressionistic descriptions of Drehu state there is fixed word initial stress, however recent experimental evidence does not support this claim. Instead, it has been suggested that Drehu could be an edge-marking language which relies on right boundary marking. To determine whether the patterns recorded in the literature are borne out, the phonological and phonetic realisation of post-lexical word level prosody is investigated. An experiment was conducted to examine the extent to which fundamental frequency (F0) and duration contribute to boundary marking in Drehu. The results show that F0 cues mark the right boundary of two prosodic levels, the AP and IP, and that the strength of the boundary is related to its level in the prosodic hierarchy. Preboundary lengthening also cues IP boundaries but not AP boundaries.

Awesome Forces and Warning Signs: Charting the Semantic History of *tabu Words in Vanuatu

The Proto-Oceanic etymon *tabu has hardly been studied outside Polynesian, yet it is attested in other Oceanic languages, albeit with different meanings. This study describes the polysemies observed for modern reflexes of *tabu, with an initial focus on Vanuatu. Sometimes, *tabu words simply refer to the mundane warning signs put up in various locations to fend off unwelcome visitors. But reflexes of *tabu are more often linked with supernatural powers, good or evil, and with the sense of awe and fear they induce upon us. The root may evoke the numinous power of high-ranked dignitaries; or the world of ancestral spirits and ghosts, and the forces of death. The diverse array of meanings attached to *tabu words is best synthesized in the form of a semantic map. This visual tool helps picture the internal organization of the root's polysemy, and can be used as a background as we compare modern languages with each other. By applying principles of the Comparative method, we can reconstruct the meaning of *tabu at the level of Proto-Oceanic: 'forbidden, off limits; sacred, due to a sentiment of awe before spiritual forces.' Finally, semantic maps reveal their full potential as we take a dynamic perspective, and retrace the evolution of *tabu from its original meanings to the various polysemies it has acquired in modern languages.

On the Nature of Proto-Oceanic *o in Southern Vanuatu (and Beyond)

The languages of Southern Vanuatu are unusual among Oceanic languages in that the default reflex of Proto-Oceanic *o is front or central and unrounded, and not back and rounded. Loan phonology also suggests that /o/ was a fairly late development in Southern Vanuatu languages. While front vowels condition "palatalization" of *t in all Southern Vanuatu languages (and of *l in some), *o also conditions palatalization in some words (though not in others). Similar but not identical developments occur in some North Central Vanuatu languages and in the Western Oceanic language Mbula. This leads into an attempt to redefine the vowel system of Proto-Oceanic, suggesting that it was not in fact the five-vowel system /*i *e *a *o *u/ currently accepted. The latter is the system that emerged in various branches after the breakup of Proto-Oceanic. The evidence indicates that Proto-Oceanic itself retained Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ə. Depending on the chronology of the changes Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *ay > Proto-Oceanic *e and Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *aw > Proto-Oceanic *o, the Proto-Oceanic system was probably one of /*i *ə *a *o *u/, /*i *e *ə *a *u/, or / *i *e *ə *a *o *u/.

Tone and downstep in Paicî (Oceanic, New Caledonia)

In this paper, I propose an updated analysis of the tone system of Paicî, one of the rare tonal Oceanic languages. Building on Jean-Claude Rivierre's (1974) work, I show that the tonal system of Paicî is best described with three underlying primitives: a High tone, a Low tone, and a downstep /↓/ analyzed as a register feature independent of tone. Paicî is particularly interesting for the empirical documentation as well as the typological and theoretical understanding of downstep, because it combines many rare properties: (i) only downstepped ↓L is attested; (ii) downstep is its own phonological object; (iii) downstep is realized utterance-initially; and (iv) downstep is not caused by a floating tone, but has its roots in a former accentual system. The paper also provides an acoustic description of tone and downstep in Paicî, an important step toward filling a serious gap in the documentation of downstepped ↓L tones and their properties.

Qaqet

Qaqet (Glottocode qaqe1238; ISO 639-3: byx) is a Papuan (i.e. non-Austronesian) Baining language that is spoken by an estimated 15,000 people in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain Province. Figure 1 shows a map of where Qaqet and the four other known Baining languages (Mali, Kairak (also spelt Qairaq – see map), Simbali and Ura) are spoken (see Stebbins, Evans & Terrill 2017 for an overview of Baining; for phonological descriptions, see Stanton 2007 on Ura, and Stebbins 2011 on Mali). The wider affiliations of the Baining languages are unknown. They share typological features with other East Papuan languages (i.e. the non-Austronesian languages of Island Melanesia), but there is no historical-comparative evidence to establish genealogical relationships.1 In terms of phonology, there are no structures shared across all of East Papuan, but Baining languages have similarities to the East Papuan language Kuot spoken on neighbouring New Ireland (i.e. the intervocalic lenition of voiceless plosives; pitch movements at the right edge of intonation units).2 Furthermore, language contact is known to have taken place across the entire region, and Baining languages share typological features with Oceanic languages. This includes phonemic contrasts between voiceless and voiced plosives and between /r/ and /l/; as well as a number of morphosyntactic structures (e.g. a large inventory of definite and indefinite articles, AVO/SV constituent order, prepositions).

Voicing in Qaqet: Prenasalization and language contact

Qaqet is a non-Austronesian Baining language of Papua New Guinea, with a very small phoneme inventory of 16 consonants and four vowels, including the voiced stops /b d ɡ/. These stops are often phonetically realized as prenasalized [mb nd ŋɡ], and this feature is assumed to be a result of language contact with surrounding Oceanic languages. Our data consist of isolated word recordings from six female speakers of the language. Using a range of acoustic measures, we compare these phonetically prenasalized stops with non-prenasalized tokens of the same /b d ɡ/ phonemes, and with the nasal phonemes proper /m n ŋ/, as well as with the unaspirated voiceless stops /p t k/.In general we find that the nasal murmur of the phonetically prenasalized stop does not fully resemble the nasal murmur of the nasal consonant proper – instead the phonetically prenasalized stop patterns between the nasal consonant and the phonetically non-prenasalized voiced stop. However, there is a clear place effect, whereby the phonetically prenasalized velar stop patterns more closely with the nasal consonants, and the phonetically prenasalized bilabial stop patterns more closely with the phonetically non-prenasalized voiced stops – with phonetically prenasalized alveolar in between the bilabial and the velar. This is particularly reflected in the distribution of energy below and above about 350 Hz. However, measures of voicing strength suggest that voicing for the velar is weaker across all manners of articulation, in line with the general difficulty of maintaining voicing at this place of articulation. We conclude that prenasalization of the voiced stops largely serves to maintain voicing for the velar place of articulation; and that if the feature of prenasalization was borrowed from neighbouring languages, it was to maintain voicing for long closure durations in a true voicing language, particularly at places of articulation where maintaining voicing is difficult.