Oceanic Languages Research Articles

Optimal categorisation

The debate as to whether language influences cognition has been long standing but has yielded conflicting findings across domains such as colour and kinship categories. Fewer studies have investigated systems such as nominal classification (gender, classifiers) across different languages to examine the effects of linguistic categorisation on cognition. Effective categorisation needs to be informative to maximise communicative efficiency but also simple to minimise cognitive load. It therefore seems plausible to suggest that different systems of nominal classification have implications for the way speakers conceptualise relevant entities. A suite of seven experiments was designed to test this; here we focus on our card sorting experiment, which contains two sub-tasks — a free sort and a structured sort. Participants were 119 adults across six Oceanic languages from Vanuatu and New Caledonia, with classifier inventories ranging from two to 23. The results of the card sorting experiment reveal that classifiers appear to provide structure for cognition in tasks where they are explicit and salient. The free sort task did not incite categorisation through classifiers, arguably as it required subjective judgement, rather than explicit instruction. This was evident from our quantitative and qualitative analyses. Furthermore, the languages employing more extreme categorisation systems displayed smaller variation in comparison to more moderate systems. Thus, systems that are more informative or more rigid appear to be more efficient. The study implies that the influence of language on cognition may vary across languages, and that not all nominal classification systems employ this optimal trade-off between simplicity and informativeness. These novel data provide a new perspective on the origin and nature of nominal classification.

A manner condition on causatives: Resultative compounds in Daakaka

In event (de)composition, causative predicates are traditionally analyzed as complex predicates, that denote sets of causing events e leading to a result state s (e.g. open). The additional modification of the causing event by a manner predicate (e.g. push) derives a complex resultative predicate in which both sub-eventualities are specified by respective roots (e.g. push X open or open X by pushing; Beavers 2012, Rappaport Hovav & Levin 2001, Dowty 1979). In this paper, I address causative predicates in the underdocumented Oceanic language Daakaka (Vanuatu). Based on original fieldwork, I demonstrate that, whereas in most languages, manner modification is optional in the context of causative predicates (ase.g. in English or Romance), in Daakaka, it is obligatory. This paper provides a unified semantic analysis of three types of resultative compounds in Daakaka, and makes the argument that manner verbs modify the causing event denoted by causative verbs. To account for crosslinguistic variation, I propose that languages differ as to whether they license existential closure over covert event variables (e.g. English) or require their overt realization by lexical (orfunctional) material (e.g. Daakaka).

Nafsan

Nafsan (ISO 639-3: erk, Glottocode: sout2856), also known as South Efate, is a Southern Oceanic language of Vanuatu. It is spoken in Erakor, Eratap and Pango, three villages situated along the southern coast of the island of Efate (Figure 1) (Clark 1985, Lynch 2000, Thieberger 2006). Nafsan is also closely related to Eton, Lelepa, Nakanamanga and Namakura, spoken further to the north on Efate and some smaller neighbouring islands.1 Nafsan is often described as the southernmost member of the North-Central Vanuatu group of languages, and the Nafsan and Eton-speaking communities are noted to be at the core of ‘an unmistakable area of innovation’ compared to their northern neighbours (Clark 1985: 25). Though crosslinguistic comparisons suggest a clear boundary between North-Central Vanuatu languages and languages of the Southern Vanuatu group, there is evidence that Nafsan speakers have both linguistic and cultural links to the southern islands, suggestive of complex historical relationships between the populations of the central and southern regions (Lynch 2004; Thieberger 2007, 2015). In terms of the sound system, Nafsan is noted to be of particular interest because it ‘forms a transition between the phonologically more conservative languages to the north and the more “aberrant” languages to the south’ (Lynch 2000: 320), and exhibits phonotactic patterns which are complex and typologically uncommon, particularly among Oceanic languages (Thieberger 2006).

Clause chaining and the utterance phrase: Syntax–prosody mapping in Matukar Panau

AbstractClause chaining is a form of syntactic dependency holding between a series of clauses, typically expressing temporal or causal relations between events. Prosodic hierarchy theory proposes that syntactic constituents are systematically mapped to prosodic constituents, but most versions of the theory do not account for clause chain syntax. This article presents original data from Matukar Panau, a clause-chaining Oceanic (Austronesian) language of Papua New Guinea. The clause chain is a syntactic constituent in which final-clause TAM scopes over preceding clauses. There are also other types of multi-clausal structures, encompassing subordinate adverbial clauses, and verbless copula clauses, and we analyse all these as instances of the “syntactic sentence.” The syntactic sentence maps to a distinct prosodic domain, marked by the scaling of L% boundary tones, and we equate this domain with the “utterance phrase” posited in some versions of prosodic hierarchy theory. The prosodic characteristics of the Matukar Panau utterance phrase are similar to those found in non-chaining languages, but while other languages use this prosody to mark pragmatically related groups of clauses, in Matukar Panau it most commonly maps to a syntactic sentence.

Don’t feel obligated, lest it be undesirable: the relationship between prohibitives and apprehensives in Papapana and beyond

AbstractThis paper analyses the preverbal morphemete,used in both apprehensive ‘precautioning’ sentences and in one of two prohibitive constructions in Papapana (papa1265, Austronesian, Oceanic; Papua New Guinea). I aim to establish whether there is a diachronic relationship between the two functions ofte, and in which direction, how and why semantic change may have occurred. This requires consideration of the synchronic differences between Papapana prohibitives, comparisons with apprehensive and prohibitive constructions in other Oceanic languages, and an investigation of other languages where apprehensive and prohibitive morphemes are formally similar/identical. I argue that the two functions ofteare diachronically related, but not polysemous, and that the prohibitive meaning developed from the apprehensive meaning via insubordination. This supports Pakendorf, Brigitte & Ewa Schalley’s proposed pathway of development from possibility to prohibition, via apprehension and warning. However, I argue that their pathway does not, as claimed, run counter to the proposed grammaticalisation path of deontic to epistemic modality, because prohibitives are arguably not deontic. This paper contributes to the growing body of research on apprehensives, demonstrates that the pathway from apprehension to prohibition is perhaps not as rare as Pakendorf and Schalley thought, and contributes to research on language change and modality.

Toward a Comparative Typology of 'Eating' in Kanak Languages

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.

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 ProtoOceanic: ‘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 Rank and Leadership in Proto Oceanic Society

The initial spread of Oceanic languages beyond the Bismarck Archipelago can be associated with the rapid dispersal of the archaeological culture known as Lapita across the southwest Pacific around 3000 bp. The question arises as to what forms of leadership and social organisation underpinned the Lapita expansion and whether historical linguistics in combination with comparative ethnography can provide clues. The present essay will consider a range of evidence favouring the conclusion that Proto Oceanic society had ranked descent groups headed by hereditary chiefs, termed *ta(u)-lapat, and that rank was based on primogeniture.

Borrowing from Bislama into Raga, Vanuatu

Abstract This paper reports on variation among speakers of Raga, an Oceanic language of Pentecost island, Vanuatu, in their use of borrowings from Bislama, the national language of Vanuatu, an English-lexifier contact language. The study measures the frequency of borrowings from Bislama in the speech of 50 speakers, surveys speakers’ strategies in assimilating loanwords into Raga and quantifies speakers’ rate of lexical replacement and insertion. This corpus of natural speech reveals an overall low incidence of borrowing from Bislama at 1.6 Bislama words per 100 recorded words. Women and younger speakers borrow more frequently from Bislama. Young speakers use borrowings in equal measure to add to their vocabulary and replace Raga words, while their elders tend to borrow from Bislama to add to their vocabulary, rather than replace Raga words.

Äiwoo wâtu and the typology of comparatives

Abstract 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.

Linguistic expressions of Goal, Source and Place in Polynesian languages

Abstract In Polynesian languages, as in many other Oceanic languages, the linguistic expression of Source and Goal is mainly express by (i) demonstratives and directional modifiers, which combine deictic and spatial information (toward speaker, addressee or third person, upwards, downwards, transverse axe), (ii) locative static and dynamic prepositions which may combine with body-part terms to introduce local and landmark nouns, or place names, and (iii) posture and motion verbs. We examine the occurrences of the Source and Goal prepositions on the one hand, and the directional modifiers on the other, taking into account their compatibilities, the spatial coding they convey, the position of the participants, and the verb meaning. In Polynesian languages, Goal and Source are of similar complexity, though in different ways, and a variety of resources can express fine-grained distinctions for Source vs. Goal depending on the position of the figure.

Acoustic evidence for right-edge prominence in Nafsan.

Oceanic languages are often described as preferring primary stress on penultimate syllables, but detailed surveys show that many different types of prominence patterns have been reported across and within Oceanic language families. In some cases, these interact with segmental and phonotactic factors, such as syllable weight. The range of Oceanic prominence patterns is exemplified across Vanuatu, a linguistically diverse archipelago with over 130 languages. However, both impressionistic and instrumentally-based descriptions of prosodic patterns and their correlates are limited for languages of this region. This paper investigates prominence in Nafsan, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu for which previous observations of prominence differ. Acoustic and durational results for disyllabic and trisyllabic Nafsan words show a clear pattern of higher fundamental frequency values in final syllables, regardless of vowel length, pointing towards a preference for prominence at the right edge of words. Short vowels also show centralisation in penultimate syllables, providing supporting evidence for right-edge prominence and informing the understanding of vowel deletion processes in Nafsan.

The alignment of F0 tonal targets under changes in speech rate in Drehu

This study investigates fundamental frequency alignment to segmental landmarks in Drehu, an Oceanic language. The authors present a production experiment that aimed to evaluate the marking of prosodic prominence, and in particular, the tonal marking of prominence, within the autosegmental-metrical phonology, since stress and prominence system of the language has not been phonetically investigated. A rate manipulation paradigm was chosen to test the segmental anchoring hypothesis, namely, to see whether prominence lending tonal movements exhibit a constant slope due to rate manipulation and whether tonal targets can be associated to segmental anchoring points in the speech stream. The authors find that a rising tonal movement, between a word initial low (L), and a word final high (H) tone, is the most frequent tonal pattern. The word initial L tone seeks to align with the left edge whereas the H tone, at the right edge, seeks to anchor to the last full syllable. In fast speech, tonal targets are produced closer together but the slope remains constant in both speech rates. High tones seek to anchor to the word-final syllable, yet not to any specific segment which suggests a weak version of the segmental anchoring hypothesis applies.

Valency-Changing Morphology in Lakurumau, a Western Oceanic Language of Papua New Guinea

This paper describes the valency-related morphology of Lakurumau, a previously undescribed Western Oceanic language, member of the Lavongai/Nalik language chain. The paper analyzes the function of valency-changing devices and their relation to the morphology reconstructed for Proto-Oceanic. Particular attention is dedicated to the unique phenomenon of phonetic alternations signaling (in)transitivity, as in the pair itak 'carve.intr'—itok 'carve.tr'. The unusual reflexes of Proto-Oceanic *-ani and *-akin[i], which have developed in Lakurumau into an applicative/transitivizer and a marker of intransitivity respectively, are also discussed, as well as the impersonal construction based on the suffix -an (from a possible Proto-Oceanic passive *-an). The data from Lakurumau are also compared, when possible, to those from the other Lavongai/Nalik languages.

Encoding Emotions in Kuni, an Oceanic Language of Papua New Guinea

Languages encode emotions in a wide variety of ways. The ways often vary between languages or between language areas, but the present paper shows that, even within a single language, different emotions may be obligatorily encoded in quite different ways. Thus, in Kuni, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea, certain emotions are encoded exclusively as monolexemic verbs, while others are represented, equally exclusively, by figurative noun–verb predications. Emotions of the latter type tend to be more richly lexicalized than those represented monolexemically, usually with alternative encodings available to speakers. In between these two contrasting categories lie two important emotions, love and anger, which can be encoded in either of the above ways. Using a 4,000-word mission dictionary dated 1937 as my corpus, I identify four sets of emotions on purely formal grounds, illustrating each set in turn. I then discuss the process of lexification (or univerbation) whereby some figurative predications were transformed into compound predicates and nouns. Finally, I speculate as to the sociocultural and interactional implications for speakers of the different possibilities for encoding emotion types.

Variable number marking in Vera’a

Abstract The number interpretation of Noun Phrase structures (NPs) with different animacy values and variable overt marking of number is investigated in a corpus from the Oceanic language Vera’a. It is found that number marking is optional for all nouns and that number marking is essentially semantic, expressing collectivity and distributivity. While statistical patterns of greater likelihood of number marking comply with the animacy hierarchy, the central motivating factor for number marking is found to be likelihood of individuatedness. This study thus contributes to a functionalist account of cross-linguistically observed patterns of hierarchical number marking.

Variation in Matukar Panau kinship terminology

Abstract Referential kinship terms in Matukar Panau (Oceanic, Papua New Guinea) are obligatorily possessed. Traditionally, kinship terms are directly possessed in Oceanic languages (with an obligatory suffix on the root that agrees with the person and number of the possessor). In Matukar Panau, some kinship terms are also indirectly possessed (with a classifier that agrees with the person and number of the possessor). A third pattern shows double-marking of possessors with directly possessed terms co-occurring with a classifier. I present a multivariate analysis of the predictors that influence the choice of the direct, indirect or double-marked patterns. Older women and younger men are most likely to use the indirect pattern, particularly when discussing their own kin from their households, especially in conversational situations. The indirect possession pattern, then, is used for more integral relationships, what has previously been the semantic domain of direct possession in Oceanic.

Expressing possibility in two Oceanic languages

AbstractIn this paper, we offer the first detailed description of expressions of possibility in the Oceanic languages Daakaka and Saliba-Logea. We show that in these languages basic expressions of possibility are bi-clausal. This suggests that, depending on their intended scope, typological studies of modal expressions may need to consider grammaticalized bi-clausal structures which have typically been excluded in studies of this domain based on their structural complexity. Relevant features to consider bi-clausal constructions as basic, grammaticalized expressions of possibility include their frequency, semantic specificity, and paradigmatic relationship with other modal expressions. The findings presented here are based on the analysis of original corpus data and targeted fieldwork.

Verbal Number in Lo–Toga and Hiw: The Emergence of a Lexical Paradigm

AbstractSeveral languages around the world encode number through a regular alternation between verb roots, in a pattern sometimes called ‘verbal number suppletion’ (Veselinova 2006). Lo–Toga and Hiw, two Oceanic languages of Vanuatu (Torres Islands), thus alternate certain verbs according to their absolutive argument's number – e.g. Hiw tō ‘go:Sing’ vs. vën ‘go:Plural’. The pattern affects 17 verb pairs in Lo–Toga, 33 in Hiw. This rich system is a local innovation in the Torres Islands, not found elsewhere in Oceanic.This structure is here analysed for the first time. Verbal number is not just agreement: its principles and categories differ from nominal number. Despite its similarity with suppletion, the structure really involves separate words, organised into a ‘lexical paradigm’ – a structured set of lexical pairs, contrasting individual vs. collective events. The comparative method helps reconstruct the system's development. A former circumfix encoding pluractionality was the source for the number alternation; yet most verbs encoded the contrast lexically, as near‐synonyms were harnessed into the emergent paradigm. Crucially, even after it was recruited into the number paradigm, each verb remained an autonomous lexeme. While nominal number belongs to the morphology, the paradigm of verbal number in the Torres languages pertains entirely to the lexicon.

Habituality in four Oceanic languages of Melanesia

AbstractOur knowledge about tense, aspect and modality (TMA) in the Oceanic languages of Melanesia has so far been severely limited by the lack of available data. Habituality in particular, as one of the less described TMA categories, has not yet been widely discussed for this group of languages. Based on corpus data and elicitations, we give a detailed overview of four languages, identifying common trends and addressing specific questions of general concern. These include the relation of habituality to (im)perfectivity and the relation between habituality and irrealis.