Tukang Besi Research Articles

Interactions between benthic molluscs in a Sulawesi mangal, Indonesia: the cerithiid mud-creeper Cerithium coralium and potamidid mud-whelks, Terebralia spp.

The sediment surface within the Osbornia belt of a mangal on Pulau Hoga, Tukang Besi Islands, Sulawesi, Indonesia, is dominated inter alia by deposit-feeding gastropod molluscs at a mean density of some 230 ind m−2 although, unusually, species of Cerithidea do not occur. Densities of the two most numerous species, the potamidid mud-whelk Terebralia sulcata and the Cerithidea-like cerithiid mud-creeper Cerithium coralium, are inversely correlated, although the species occurred together in 42% of quadrat samples. Within and beyond the normal range of field densities of each species (C. coralium mean 153 m−2; T. sulcata mean 75 m−2) there was no evidence of intraspecific depression of feeding rate, as assessed by the production of faecal pellets, although this was significantly reduced in the occasional very high density aggregations of C. coralium (>1100 m−2). The presence of the larger T. sulcata did appear to have a strong inhibitory effect on feeding in C. coralium; the converse, however, could not be demonstrated. Abundances of Terebralia palustris and C. coralium were also inversely correlated where the two co-occurred.

Oligocene reefal deposits in the Pisang Ridge and the origin of the Lucipara Block (Banda Sea, eastern Indonesia)

In 1998 we dredged early Oligocene/late Oligocene boundary, shallow-water reefal deposits and pelagic, early Pliocene muds in the submerged Pisang Ridge. The shallow-water deposits were identified as moderate- to low-energy coral-reef depositional environments, which confirms that the Pisang Ridge belonged to the continental to continental-arc Lucipara Block which also includes the Tukang Besi, Lucipara and Rama ridges. On the basis of these findings, it was possible to reconstruct parts of the general geological evolution of the Lucipara Block, which drifted away from northern Irian Jaya during mid-Miocene times and collided with the Kolonodale Block during the late Miocene. A late-early Oligocene calc-alkaline volcanic arc developed in the Weber Trough area, then uplifted to a shallow-water position at the early–late Oligocene boundary in the Pisang Ridge. Late Oligocene–early Miocene metamorphism subsequently developed, prior to the deposition of early Miocene coral reefs in the Rama Ridge. Locally, late Miocene metamorphism was identified in the Lucipara Ridge, prior to the latest Miocene–Pliocene general drowning and the splitting of the Lucipara Block into several small blocks throughout the Banda Sea region.

Coding choices in argument structure

The syntactic properties of applicatives have received a large amount of attention. Despite this there have been almost no attempts to explain the reasons behind the choice of an applicative coding of an argument when there is an grammatical oblique coding strategy available. This study focuses on dynamic applicative constructions in Tukang Besi, an Austronesian language of central Indonesia, and examines a large corpus for reasons why applicative coding is chosen over oblique coding. Factors such as semantic role information and animacy are as important as textual prominence in the coding decision.

A Grammar of Tukang Besi (review)

A Grammar of Tukang Besi (review)

How report verbs become quote markers and complementisers

Abstract In many languages across the world, verbs reporting speech, thoughts and perceptions (also referred to as quotative verbs) grammaticalise into quote markers and/or complementisers. This paper analyses the change of the items kua and fen in the Austronesian languages Tukang Besi and Buru, as originally full lexical ‘report’ verbs that became open to reinterpretation as grammatical items after having undergone ‘semantic bleaching’. It is proposed that the ‘semantic bleaching’, which crucially involves loss of argument structure, is caused by a mismatch between linguistic levels — here between surface syntax and lexical argument structure. The mismatch involves a violation of universal constraints on ‘Semantic Transparency’ and ‘Structural Simplicity’, and results in a reduced lexical representation of the report verb as a predicate without arguments. The multifunctional, polysemous character of this ‘grammaticalised’ item is now a consequence of its interaction with particular surface syntactic constructions. In other words, ‘V to C’ grammaticalisation is a structurally determined variable interpretation of a lexically impoverished item, and does not involve a change in category (labels) (contra Harris and Campbell, 1995:63; Heine and Reh, 1984: 37–38: see also Haspelmath, 1998: 327–328). This view of grammaticalised verbs as lexical forms with reduced argument structure may be extended to other areas of verb-grammaticalisation. The similar path of grammaticalisation of report verbs across languages is explained by proposing a list of structural characteristics (of syntax and discourse) that appear to be relevant in allowing the grammaticalisation to take place. Genetically related languages may diverge because they differ in one (or more) of those characteristics: the report verb in Kambera, a language closely related to Buru and Tukang Besi, did not grammaticalise because of a different surface constituent order.

Selected Papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (review)

Reviewed by: Selected papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics Malcolm D. Ross Elizabeth Zeitoun and Paul Jen-kuei Li, eds. 1999. Selected papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics (Preparatory Office), Academia Sinica. 671 pp. Cloth. This substantial volume contains twenty-one of the seventy papers presented at the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics (8ICAL), held in Taipei in December 1997. Unlike many collections of conference papers, this one has been subject to a rigorous review and revision process, resulting in a volume [End Page 445] whose substance lies not just in its size (it has 671 pages) but in its content and its contribution to Austronesian linguistics. The first three papers in the volume are the keynote addresses on the genealogy of Austronesian by Lawrence Reid, Robert Blust, and Andrew Pawley. These are reviewed in some detail below. The remaining papers are grouped into three sections: diachronic studies, phonetics and phonology, and syntax. Under diachronic studies we find John Wolff, who revisits Proto-Austronesian monosyllabic roots, Ross Clark on Proto-Polynesian numerals, and Richard McGinn on the subgrouping of Rejang (Sumatra). The phonetics and phonology section includes papers by Abigail Cohen and William Ham on Madurese consonants, Niken Adisasmito-Smith on degemination in Indonesian, Richard Wright on Tsou (Taiwan) consonant clusters, and Alexander Adelaar on the retrieval of an extinct phonology from Siraya (Taiwan) written sources. The syntax section is the largest, and, because of the conference venue, has a particular focus on the Formosan languages of Taiwan. Of its eleven papers, seven have a Formosan language as their subject matter, and four of these deal with members of the Atayalic group. Of the four, three are on Seediq: Yung-Li Chang on its bound pronouns, Arthur Holmer on instrument focus, and Naomi Tsukida on locative, existential, and possessive clauses. Stanley Starosta writes on Atayal case marking. The other three Formosan-related papers are by Heng-syung Jeng on Bunun tense and aspect, Chih-Chen Jane Tang on clausal complements in Paiwan, and Paul Jen-kuei Li on Basay. The four papers on extra-Formosan languages are by JoAnn Gault on ergativity, subject, and focus in Sama Bangingi' (Philippines), Simon Musgrave on emotion verbs in Acehnese (Sumatra), and Marian Klamer on grammaticalized quotations in Kambera, Buru, and Tukang Besi (eastern Indonesia). It is beyond the scope of this review to summarize every paper in the volume, and, apart from the three keynote contributions, my choice of papers has been governed by my own interests, which lie largely in diachrony. In fact, there are more papers to interest the historical linguist than the catalogue above might suggest. The whole volume has a distinctly westward bias. All but three papers concern western Malayo-Polynesian and Formosan languages, the exceptions being Clark (Polynesian), Klamer (eastern Indonesia), and Pawley (much of Austronesian, with an Oceanic emphasis). This bias is partly due to the fact that Oceanicists have since 1993 held separate conferences and partly because 8ICAL was held in Taiwan. Readers' reactions to this bias will vary, but for me it is a positive that this volume has much to say about the somewhat neglected Formosan languages, given their striking diversity and their importance to the study of Austronesian linguistic prehistory. Lawrence Reid's contribution "New linguistic evidence for the Austric hypothesis" summarizes already published pieces of evidence for the hypothesis that the Austroasiatic (AA) and Austronesian (AN) language stocks are related and adds some new evidence. (Actually, Reid's hypothesis is more complex: he infers that Austric split first into Austroasiatic and Austro-Tai, and that the latter then split into Austronesian and Tai-Kadai, but the Austro-Tai phase is mentioned only in passing.) Pieces of evidence are as follows. (1) The Nicobarese causative verbal [End Page 446] infix <um> is taken to be cognate with the PAN infix *<um> that marked a verb as unergative intransitive and formed deverbal nouns expressing nonagentive causers (e.g., Bontok s<um>akít 'that which makes [someone] sick'). (2) PAN and PAA are both taken to have been ergative, with a contrast beween nominative and genitive pronouns, the genitive denoting...

Structure and Collision History of the Buton Continental Fragment, Eastern Indonesia

Although commonly reservoired within Tertiary rocks, hydrocarbons in eastern Indonesia have generally been sourced from Mesozoic sediments deposited on the continental margin of northern Australasia. Fragments of this margin are now widely dispersed as allochthonous terranes throughout the area, one of the most far traveled examples being the island of Buton, southeast of Sulawesi. Asphalt reserves on Buton support a significant local industry and exploration continues for oil and natural gas. In common with other prospective Australian-derived terranes around the margins of the Banda Sea, Buton is now separated from Australia by the active plate boundary marked by the Java Trench and the collision trace along the Timor, Tanimbar, and Seram troughs. Buton differs from these other terranes in its distance from that boundary and its consequent insulation from the effects of the Pliocene-Pleistocene collision between Australia and the Banda arcs. Reconstruction of the geological history of the Buton terrane thus has an important role in guiding future exploration in the other Australasian fragments in eastern Indonesia. Geophysical studies of the Buton region have used seismic reflection, gravity, and magnetic (including paleomagnetic) techniques. Seismic reflection images generally record extension rather than compression as dominating the recent history of the area. Gravity data define the present-day western limits of the Buton terrane and suggest that in the east the terrane includes the almost entirely submerged Tukang Besi platform. The gravity surveys also demonstrate that the ophiolitic rocks exposed on Buton are not attached to deep roots, but are thin and isolated overthrust sheets. Therefore they do not mark a terrane boundary and their presence has little bearing on the prospectivity of the area. Paleomagnetic results document the independent movements of thrust sheets on Buton during the Pliocene-Pleistocene. The combined data from Buton record its separation from Australia as part of a microcontinental block in the Jurassic or Late Triassic, followed by collision with the Eurasian margin in southeastern Sulawesi in the Oligocene or early Miocene. Collision was followed by extension (as in Sulawesi itself) producing minor separation of Tukang Besi from Buton and much greater dispersion of other fragments of the microcontinent, some of which have since been incorporated in the new collision zone in the Outer Banda arc. The oil seeps and asphalt deposits of Buton are proof that hydrocarbons in the Banda arc fragments can be sourced from within these fragments and are not necessarily derived from the underthrusting Australian margin.

A Neogene back-arc origin for the Banda Sea basins: geochemical and geochronological constraints from the Banda ridges (East Indonesia)

Dredgings conducted during the French–Indonesian cruises Banda Sea II and III collected volcanic rocks from several ridges of the Banda Sea area (Tukang Besi ridge, site 218; Lucipara ridge, sites 214 and 305; Nieuwerkerk–Emperor of China, sites 219 and 220). With the exception of one 46-Ma-old N-MORB type basalt, thought to belong to an ophiolitic complex, K–Ar and Ar–Ar datings indicate that all the dredged volcanics are Neogene. They range in age from ca. 10 Ma (Tukang Besi back-arc basalts) to 8–7 Ma (Nieuwerkerk–Emperor of China calc-alkaline andesites) and to 7–3 Ma (Lucipara OIB-type transitional basalts and cordierite-bearing andesites). Radiogenic isotopic signatures of andesites are consistent with an AFC (Assimilation coupled with Fractional Crystallization) process involving assimilation of continental crust. 8–3-Ma-old calc-alkaline volcanic activity is also recorded on the Wetar segment, an inactive part of the East Sunda arc, and corresponding isotopic compositions are also consistent with an AFC process involving continental crust. These features suggest that Lucipara–Nieuwerkerk–Emperor of China ridges and the Wetar segment were representing a single volcanic arc 8–7 Ma ago. The corresponding calc-alkaline activity was related to the subduction of the Indian oceanic lithosphere beneath continental blocks of Australian origin. Back-arc opening processes occurred from 6 to 3 Ma as a multi-rift opening for the Wetar basin and as a single-rift opening for the Damar basin while subduction-related magmatism was still active in the Wetar segment. Volcanic activity stopped at 7 Ma in the Nieuwerkerk–Emperor of China ridge. On Lucipara ridge, 6–3 Ma volcanic activity emplaced concomitantly transitional basalts and cordierite-bearing andesites. The mineralogical and chemical features of the latter are consistent with an AFC process involving assimilation of continental crust by mantle-derived basaltic magmas. The end of magmatic activity on both volcanic segments at 3 Ma is thought to result from the collision of Timor with the Wetar segment of the Sunda arc.

Transitivity in Tukang Besi

The Tukang Besi language does not appear to display a clear distinction between transitive and intransitive clauses, as transitive verbs are freely able to appear without any overt object and degrees of intransitivity are to be found in the language. The ground between transitive and intransitive contains several points of interest in that eight different degrees of transitivity can be morphologically defined in the one language, allowing us to test the relative rankings of Hopper and Thompson's criteria for transitivity.

Cenozoic plate tectonic reconstructions of SE Asia

Abstract A new plate tectonic model for the Tertiary is proposed, based on the integration of new palaeomagnetic data from east Indonesia recording Philippine Sea plate motion, recent revisions of the history of the South China Sea, and previously available geological and palaeomagnetic data from SE Asia. Early Neogene counter-clockwise rotation of Borneo is interpreted to have closed a proto-South China Sea suggesting a strike-slip boundary in NW Borneo before the Neogene. This rotation suggests that the West Philippine Sea, Celebes Sea and Makassar Strait formed a single basin which opened in the late Paleogene, and widened eastwards. At c. 25 Ma a major collision, that of Australia with a Philippine Sea plate arc, trapped Indian Ocean lithosphere which later became the Molucca Sea plate. The collision caused clockwise rotation of the Philippine Sea plate, initiated the Sorong Fault system, and then eliminated the Molucca Sea by subduction on its east and west sides. The effects of collision propagated westwards through the region resulting in the initiation of new plate boundaries marked by regional unconformities. The arrival of the Sulawesi ophiolite, which collided with west Sulawesi in the late Oligocene, was the earliest event in collision between Sulawesi and the Bird’s Head microcontinent. Continental crust was thrust beneath Sulawesi in the early Miocene, and the Tukang Besi and Sula platforms were sliced in turn from the microcontinent, transferred to the west-moving Philippine Sea/Molucca Sea plate for a few million years, and finally accreted to Sulawesi. Reconstructing the Molucca Sea and Bird’s Head microcontinent suggests that most of the Banda Sea has a late Neogene extensional origin. Collision between the Philippine arc and the Eurasian continental margin in Taiwan at c. 5 Ma is the key to present regional tectonics.

Split Intransitivity in Tukang Besi

The Tukang Besi language has consistent nominative-accusative morphology on its verbs, yet syntactic processes show that we need to recognize a split in the intransitive verbs. The split is roughly along the lines of agentive/controlled versus nonagentive/noncontrolled, a division that has been used to characterize unergative and unaccusative verbs in some languages. Five grammatical tests are presented that demonstrate the different subclasses of intransitive verbs, including unergative and unaccusative. 1. INTRODUCTION. Tukang Besi is an Austronesian language spoken in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, and numerous small trading settlements in other parts of the archipelago. Morphologically it follows a nominative-accusative pattern in terms of its pronominal indexing on the verb, where there is an obligatory subject prefix,' and an optional object suffix in transitive verbs, yielding two basic transitive clause types, seen in (I) and (2).2 Intransitive verbs index their sole argument with the set of subject prefixes, and cannot appear with the object suffix indexing their sole argument, seen in (3-6). Additionally, nominals exhibit case marking along a Philippine-pattern, with one argument per clause selected as the grammatical pivot and bearing the nominative case marker na. This argument is the object if the verb bears object suffixes, and the subject otherwise. All other nonoblique nominals are marked with te '(nonnominative) core'. The set of subject prefixes and object suffixes is given in Table I. There is no distinction between singular and plural in the third person,

SE Sundaland accretion: palaeomagnetic evidence of large Plio-Pleistocene thin-skin rotations in Buton

Abstract The Tukang Besi Platform, an Australian microcontinental fragment, began docking with Sundaland in the Pliocene, impacting on east Buton (SE Sulawesi). Fortuin et al. (1989; Journal of SE Asian Earth Sciences , 4 , 107–124) postulated that south Buton had rotated clockwise through about 60° relative to central/north Buton in response to the Tukang Besi collision. A palaeomagnetic investigation was carried out to test this model. Some 41 (of 72) palaeomagnetic sites from the upper Neogene Tondo and Sampolakosa Formations on Buton yielded interpretable data. Sites from south Buton record locally consistent directions, but at sampling localities &lt; 25 km apart deflections are between 0° and 35° clockwise. There is no trend in these data with respect to the broad geotectonic setting. In central Buton declination offsets are negligible. In north Buton localized (kilometre scale) large (30–60°) clockwise and counter-clockwise declination offsets are observed. Effectively the Buton data provide spot markers on cover sequences that have been locally deformed as ‘thin-skin’ sheets. The underlying basement may have experienced the large relative motions proposed by Fortuin et al. (1989) but the upper Cenozoic cover has not been deformed in such a simple way. This study demonstrates that thin-skin sheets associated with continental collision may undergo 30–60° rotations within very short intervals (&lt; 2–3 Ma).

Reconstructing Cenozoic SE Asia

Abstract Reconstructions of SE Asia at 5 Ma intervals for the past 50 Ma are presented. They are constrained by new data from the Philippine Sea plate, which forms the eastern boundary of the region, by recent interpretations of the South China Sea and Eurasian continental margin, forming the western boundary, and by the known motions of the Indian-Australian plate to the south. An attempt is made to satisfy geological and palaeomagnetic data from the region. The implications of these reconstructions for the Tertiary evolution of SE Asia are discussed in the light of other new data from the region. There are two regionally important periods of change during the past 50 Ma. Both appear to be the expression of arc-continent collision and resulted in major changes in the configuration of the region and in the character of plate boundaries. At c. 25 Ma the collision of the Australian continent with the Philippine Sea plate arc caused major effects which propagated westwards through the region. At c. 5 Ma collision of the Philippine arc and the Eurasian continental margin occurred in Taiwan. This appears to be a key to the recent tectonics of the region. Principal features of the model include the following interpretations. Middle Tertiary counter-clockwise rotation of Borneo closed a large proto-South China Sea and led to the development and destruction of marginal basins north of the Celebes Sea. The rotation implies that much of the north Borneo margin was not a subduction, but a strike-slip boundary for most of this period. It also suggests that the central West Philippine Sea, the Celebes Sea and the Makassar Strait formed part of a single marginal basin which opened between late Eocene and mid Oligocene, and narrowed westwards like the present South China Sea. Luzon is suggested to have formed in an arc on the north side of the Celebes Sea-West Philippine Basin, whereas most of the other Philippine islands probably formed part of an arc at the southern edge of the Philippine Sea Plate before the Early Miocene. Arc-continent collision in the early Miocene caused plate boundaries to change and initiated the clockwise rotation of the Philippine Sea plate. Since then the Philippine fragments have moved in a very narrow zone, mainly as part of the Philippine Sea plate, with significant strike-slip motion of fragments at the plate margin. Most subduction under the Philippines was oblique, mainly at the western edge, and north of Mindanao. The Molucca Sea was a very wide area which formed part of the Philippine Sea plate before c. 15 Ma and originated as trapped Indian ocean lithosphere. It has been eliminated by subduction on its east and west sides. The present-day double subduction system never extended north of the present Molucca Sea into the Philippines. The Sulawesi ophiolite has an Indian ocean origin and was emplaced on the west Sulawesi continental margin at the end of the Oligocene. The major change in plate boundaries at the beginning of the Miocene following arc-continent collision of the Australian margin with the Philippine Sea plate arc caused initiation of the Sorong Fault system and led to westward movement of continental fragments which were accreted to Sulawesi during the late Neogene. The Sula platform and Tukang Besi platform formed part of a single large microcontinent with the Bird’s Head before c. 15 Ma. They moved to their present positions after slicing of fragments from this microcontinent at different times and each was attached to the Philippine Sea plate for a few million years before collision. Most of the Banda Sea is interpreted to have an extensional origin and to have opened during the late Neogene. The reconstructions imply that there has been little convergence at the north Australian margin in Irian Jaya since the early Miocene and most convergence has occurred during the last c. 5 Ma. Movement of Philippine Sea arc fragments within the northern New Guinea margin along strikeslip zones probably accounts for the terrane character of this orogenic belt.

Tukang Besi

Tukang Besi is an archipelago in southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, where an Austronesian language is spoken. The speech represented here is that of the north-west coast of the island of Wanci. With mainly slight lexical variation it represents the speech of the two northernmost islands in the archipelago, Wanci and Kaledupa.

Geology of a Miocene collision complex, Buton, eastern Indonesia

The island of Buton in eastern Indonesia is part of a Neogene collision zone that encompasses much of the eastern margin of Sulawesi. Miocene collision of microcontinents with a west-dipping subduction zone emplaced the Tukang Besi platform (TBP) against Buton, and the Sula platform (SP) against the East Arm of Sulawesi, and thrust large ophiolite sheets eastward over the imbricated margins of the platforms. Reconnaissance observations of the resulting collision complex in Buton (Wolio Complex) indicate that imbricate west-dipping thrust sheets and overturned folds are the predominant structural element, although later steep faults offset the imbricate stack and largely control present map patterns. The Wolio Complex consists of the sedimentary Turumbia sequence, peridotite, and two distinct groups of metamorphic rocks. The Turumbia sequence makes up most of the eastern part of the Wolio Complex and consists mostly of deep-water limestone ranging in age from Late Triassic through late Eocene or Oligocene. It is interpreted as a deep-water facies of the western TBP margin. Ophiolitic rocks are represented in present outcrop only by massive peridotite in the western part of the Wolio Complex, but the compositions of clasts in conglomerates overlying the Wolio Complex indicate that a full ophiolite succession was exposed to erosion during the collision. Metabasite and metachert ranging in grade from greenschist to amphibolite facies are found locally in fault contact with peridotite and are interpreted as the remnants of a metamorphic sole developed at the base of the ophiolite. Pelitic phyllite and quartzite in northeastern Buton probably represent a slice of the continental basement of the TBP, for similar rocks have been dredged from the northeast margin of the TBP and also form the pre-Mesozoic basement of the SP. The middle to upper Miocene Tondo Formation in Buton consists of clastic strata derived from uplift and erosion of the Wolio Complex, placing an upper limit on the age of TBP collision. We infer a middle Miocene time of collision, with oblique convergence continuing into late Miocene time. In contrast, sparse biostratigraphic data place the age of the SP-East Arm collision in the late Miocene. Separate microcontinents may have collided successively with different parts of the Buton-Sulawesi convergent margin, or a single large microcontinent may have been fragmented during oblique collision.

Late Cenozoic sedimentary and tectonic history of south Buton, Indonesia

A description and interpretation are given of the Upper Cenozoic sedimentary record of south Buton. Various sections and outcrops were studied and sampled for their microfossil content, to provide age and paleobathymetrical data. Together with information from the literature, these data from the base for a geohistory analysis to evaluate the vertical motions. Deposition started some 11 Ma ago, after the main deformation of the island, which was related to the collision of a microplate carrying Buton, with the southeast arm of Sulawesi. Coarse and fine terrigenous debris accumulated in a rapidly subsiding foreland basin; subsidence may have exceeded 100 cm/ka. When the rate of subsidence decreased a late Miocene-early Pliocene period of quiet pelagic sedimentation followed. From the late Pliocene onwards (around 3.5 Ma bp) an overall uplift took place, with rates between 30–120 cm/ka. This drastic change is explained by the collision of Buton with a submerged microcontinent that presently forms the Tukang Besi platform, situated southeast of Buton, which interaction resulted in wrench type tectonics and a clockwise rotation of over 60° for south Buton.