Pacific Languages: An Introduction (OA)

Pacific Languages

PacificLanguages

AN INTRODUCTION

John Lynch

copy 1998 University of Hawailsquoi PressAll rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

98 99 00 01 02 03 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lynch JohnPacific languages an introduction [John Lynch]

p cmIncludes bibliographical references and indexISBN 0ndash8248ndash1898ndash9 (alk paper)1 Pacific AreamdashLanguages I Title

P381P3L96 1998499mdashdc21 97ndash24552

CIP

University of Hawailsquoi Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet theguidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources

Designed by Josie Herr

This book is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 40 International (CC BY-NC-ND 40) whichpermits readers to freely download and share the work in print or electronic for-mat for non-commercial purposes so long as credit is given to the authorDerivative works and commercial uses require permission from the publisherFor details see httpscreativecommonsorglicensesby-nc-nd40

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The open-access editions of this publication were made possible by The Univer-sity of the South Pacific (USP) OER Course Conversion Grant This competitivefunding program is open to all USP faculty and staff wishing to integrate openmaterials into mainstream teaching and learning

To

AndoniaBrendan

andSteven

Contents

Illustrations x

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xvii

Terms Used xix

Chapter 1 Linguistics Some Basic Concepts 111 The Structure of Language 112 Common Grammatical Categories and Functions 513 Reconstructing Linguistic History 9

Part 1 Geography and History 21

Chapter 2 The Languages of the Pacific 2321 How Many Languages 2322 Linguistic Demography 2723 Language Names 4024 A Brief History of Pacific Language Research 41

Chapter 3 The History of the Austronesian Languages 4531 The Austronesian Family 4532 The Oceanic Languages 46

VII

33 The Settlement of Oceania 5134 Reconstructing Culture 58

Chapter 4 The History of the Papuan and Australian Languages 6041 Interrelationships of Papuan Languages 6142 Interrelationships of Australian Languages 6843 Possible External Links 6944 Implications for Prehistory 69

Part 2 Structure 73

Chapter 5 Sound Systems 7551 Oceanic Languages 7552 Papuan Languages 8753 Australian Languages 9154 Orthographies 9455 Summary 99

Chapter 6 Oceanic Languages Grammatical Overview 10061 Pronouns 10062 Nouns and Noun Phrases 10563 Possessive Constructions 12264 Verbs and the Verb Complex 13065 Sentences 14866 Similarities and Differences 165

Chapter 7 Papuan Languages Grammatical Overview 16671 Pronouns 16672 Nouns and Noun Phrases 16973 Possessive Constructions 17174 Verbs and the Verb Complex 17275 Sentences 177

Chapter 8 Australian Languages Grammatical Overview 18581 Pronouns 18582 Nouns and Noun Phrases 18783 Possessive Constructions 19484 Verbs and the Verb Complex 19585 Sentences 198

VIII Contents

Part 3 The Social and Cultural Context 203

Chapter 9 Languages in Contact 20591 The Social Context of Language Contact 20592 The Linguistic Effects of Contact 20893 Three Case Studies 21394 Historical Implications 218

Chapter 10 Pidgins Creoles and Koines 220101 Pidginization Creolization and Koineization 220102 Melanesian Pidgin 221103 The Pidgins of the Motu Traders 232104 Fiji Hindi 235

Chapter 11 Language Society and Culture in the Pacific Context 237111 The Vocabulary of Pacific Languages 237112 Counting Systems 244114 Languages in Use 256115 Language Use in Pacific Nations 261116 Shift Survival Death Revival 268

Conclusion Ideas about Pacific Languages 272

Suggestions for Further Reading 279

Appendices 283

1 Data Sources 2852 Phonetic Symbols 2913 Sample Phoneme Systems 2954 Glossary of Technical Terms 299

Notes 313

References 321

Index 345

Contents IX

Illustrations

Tables

1 Pacific languages by region and country2 Polynesian Outliers3 Languages of Melanesia4 Papuan language families5 Anejom pronouns6 Baniata independent pronouns

Figures

1 Genetic relationship2 Subgroups of a family3 Subgroups of Proto East-Central Papuan4 Establishing migration patterns5 Time limits on comparative linguistics6 An Austronesian family tree7 The Polynesian subgroup8 Partial classification of Anejom terms for marine life9 A moiety system

10 Njamal kinship terms11 Anejom kinship terms

X

Maps

1 Reconstructing migration patterns2 The Pacific3 Languages of Polynesia4 Languages of Micronesia5 Languages of Fiji and Rotuma6 New Caledonia7 Vanuatu8 Solomon Islands9 Papua New Guinea

10 Irian Jaya11 Australia12 Austronesian languages13 Oceanic subgroups in Melanesia14 Austronesian migrations15 Papuan language families16 Possible wider groupings of Papuan families

Illustrations XI

Preface

This book was born out of frustration I have lost count of the number oftimes people have asked me to recommend to them a ldquogood general bookon the languages of the Pacificrdquo There are any number of good specialist ortechnical books on the Austronesian languages as a whole or on the Papuanlanguages or on Australian languages or on certain subgroups or individuallanguagesmdashbut virtually all of these are aimed at readers who have studieda considerable amount of linguistics

There are however many nonlinguists who want or need to know some-thing about the languages of this region Language is an important topic ofconversation an important political and social phenomenon in many if notall Pacific countries and territories Pacific peoples want to know more abouttheir languagesmdashwhat other languages they are related to where they camefrom how they compare with say English and French what the other lan-guages in the region are like People working in Pacific countries need somegeneral information on the languages of the country or the region to assistthem in their work and in their appreciation of the cultures and societiesof the Pacific Teachers sociologists community workers government offi-cers high school and university studentsmdashall are affected by language andmost would like to know more

Hence this book It has been a long time in the making but I hope thatit will serve a useful purpose I have tried to steer a middle course betweenbeing too simplistic and being too technical Obviously to provide detailedcoverage in any book of the sound systems and grammars of fourteen hun-dred languages their interrelationships and connections with languagesoutside the region their history and current status and the relationshipsbetween language culture and social organization is quite impossible

XIII

What I have tried to do is to give the general reader a feel for what theselanguages are like (with a minimum of references) and at the same timeoffer linguists something to get their teeth into (with references to sourcesthey can follow up)

The book has three major sections Part 1 describes the geographicaldistribution of Pacific languages and attempts to summarize what is knownof their history Part 2 is an overview of the phonological and grammaticalstructure of these languages This discussion is far from exhaustive Manyareas (eg complex sentences) and many thorny problems (eg the Polyne-sian ldquopassiverdquo) are omitted or glossed over But there is enough informationto give a general picture of what Pacific languages are like in what waysthey are similar and how they differ both from each other and from met-ropolitan languages like English or French Part 3 looks at the relationshipbetween Pacific societies and cultures and their languages from a number ofdifferent points of view In the Pacific as elsewhere language is very much asocial and cultural phenomenon

The careful reader will notice a bias toward Oceanic languages in part2 This results partly from my own professional background and partly fromthe fact that while there are good general surveys of Papuan and Australianlanguages (Foley 1986 and Dixon 1980) there is nothing comparable forOceanic languages

The orthography I use in citing language data is generally the standardorthography of the language For languages lacking such an orthographyI have used a standard set of phonetic symbols (see appendix 2) This hasoften meant modifying the orthography of the original sources Similarly Ihave consistently used the same name for the same language even whensome sources use different names

Phrase and sentence examples are presented as shown below

FijianE ā rai-ci irau na yalewa na cauravouhe PAST see- (TRANS) themtwo the woman the youth

lsquoThe young man saw the two womenrsquo

bull The first line in italics is the phrase or sentence in that languagewith hyphens marking morpheme breaks within a word underlin-ing is used to focus on the particular aspect of grammar beingdiscussed (in this example the transitive suffix -ci)

bull The second line is a word-by-word and morpheme-by-morphemetranslation Where a single morpheme expresses more than oneitem of meaning these are separated by a colon (thus irau lsquothe

XIV Preface

two of themrsquo is glossed as lsquothemtworsquo) Grammatical categories aregiven in capitals a few of these are abbreviated (thus TRANS = tran-sitive) and a list of all such abbreviations appears below I havetried not to be too technical with these grammatical terms andhave used for example ldquotherdquo or ldquowithrdquo rather than abbreviationslike ART (for article) and COM (for comitative) even if these aresometimes too general Readers interested in more technical as-pects of the grammars of any languages cited should consult thesources (appendix 1)

bull The last line in single quotation marks is the free English translation

I have tried to be consistent in my use of grammatical terms throughoutthe book even where this means using a different term from that in the orig-inal source So for example I consistently use ldquocontinuousrdquo even thoughsome writers may have used terms like ldquoprogressiverdquo or ldquodurativerdquo and Iuse ldquocompletiverdquo where others use ldquoperfectiverdquo I have used small capitalswhen a technical term is introduced for the first time in the text There is aglossary of such terms in appendix 4

I have generally not directly quoted sources of language data in the textsince this would unnecessarily clutter the text with references However alist of data sources for all languages from which data are cited can be foundin appendix 1 and the languagesrsquo locations are indicated on maps 3 through7 I have also provided suggestions for further reading at the end of thebook

Preface XV

Acknowledgments

This book originally appeared in 1993 as an in-house text for the Universityof the South Pacific course ldquoStructure of Pacific Languagesrdquo I am grateful tostudents for their feedback about this earlier version and to Donn BayardBarbara Haulsquoofa Andrew Horn Ross McKerras Macha Paris Mere PuleaJeff Siegel Matthew Spriggs Jan Tent Randy Thaman Howard Van TreaseVilimaina Vakaciwa and the Department of Geography of the University ofthe South Pacific who either commented on parts of the earlier version orprovided useful information

I take particular pleasure in expressing my gratitude to Niko BesnierTerry Crowley Ken Rehg Malcolm Ross and Nick Thieberger withoutwhose assistance this book would not be what it is I reserve of course allblame for errors and misinterpretations

I am also deeply indebted to a number of Pacific people who haveopened the doors of their languages to me I am especially grateful to JohnDavani Tom Hiua John Naupa Julie Piau Tulsquoa Taumoepeau-Tupou PhilipTepahae and Apenisa Tusulu to the people of Uje and Anelcauhat (Ane-ityum) and west Tanna in Vanuatu and to my tambus in Kond and Anigl inPapua New Guinea

My sons Brendan and Steven have lived with this book over the past fewyears and the backs of discarded drafts have been of great use in helping todevelop their artistic talents My wife Andonia has been a source of constantencouragement and I am eternally grateful for her love and support I ded-icate this book to them

XVII

Terms Used

The following abbreviations are used in the text

(a) marks a phrase or sentence as ungrammatical (b) marks aphoneme or word as having been reconstructed for someproto-language

oslash zero1 first person2 second person3 third personCS construct suffixDIFFSUBJ different subjectEXC exclusiveINC inclusiveNOM nominalizerO objectPL pluralPOSS possessiveS subjectSG singularSAMESUBJ same subjectTRANS transitiveV verb

XIX

CHAPTER

1

LinguisticsSome Basic Concepts

11 The Structure of LanguageLinguistics is the systematic study of language and descriptive lin-guistics is the branch of linguistics that deals with the analysis and descrip-tion of languages Each language is a system with various units and rulesfor the combination of these units into larger units These rules are not al-ways formulated in grammar books but they are there neverthelessmdashin thebrains of speakers of the language

One simple way of seeing the operation of these rules is through the mis-takes children make when they are learning a language When a four-year-old says The mans goed away the sentence is clearly incorrect English Itdoes however follow a pattern First the child has deduced that to make anoun plural in English you add s to it She has already produced large num-bers of plural nouns like dogs cats cups bananas and so on following thisrule Second she has also deduced that to put a verb into the past tenseyou add ed to it Again she has already produced many English verbs in thepast tense this waymdashlaughed cried kicked washed etc

In producing the sentence The mans goed away the child is not imitat-ing what adults say since no adult speaker of English would say that sen-tence Instead she is applying two of the many rules she has formulated onthe basis of observing how English is spoken

1 NOUN + s = PLURAL2 VERB + ed = PAST TENSE

The only problem is that the noun man happens to be an exception to rule(1) and the verb go an exception to rule (2) Looking at this ungrammatical

1

utterance gives us insight into how the childrsquos brain is functioning in termsof rules that combine units into larger units

What are these units I have been talking about If you asked a non-linguist that question the answer would probably be sounds words andsentences Unfortunately the situation is more complex than that

111 The Sounds of LanguageAt the ldquolowestrdquo level of language we have sounds which linguists enclose insquare brackets [ ] to distinguish them from letters Individual sounds like[t] [e] and [n] are meaningless in themselves Only combinations of soundsprovide meaningful utterances [t] + [e] + [n] = ten [n] + [e] + [t] = net

No language uses all the speech sounds human beings can make andthe sound systems of different languages are organized in different waysThe study of sounds is known as phonetics and the study of the way inwhich sounds are organized into a system in a language is called phonology(or sometimes phonemics) (A chart of all phonetic symbols used in thisbook appears in appendix 2)

Let us take as an example the sounds [p] (represented by the letters por pp) and [f] (represented by f or ff) These are quite different sounds butis the difference between them important In some languages for exampleEnglish it is as the pairs of words below show

pull fullpig figsupper suffercup cuff

The only difference in sound between the words in each pair is the differencebetween the sounds [p] and [f] but each word has a very different meaningIn English the sounds [p] and [f] belong to different phonemes that is theyare different significant units of sound in the language And linguists writephonemes in slant lines to distinguish them from both sounds and lettersThus English has the phonemes p and f

Compare the same two sounds in the Tok Pisin language of Papua NewGuinea

paia faia both mean lsquofirersquopasim fasim both mean lsquotiersquomipela mifela both mean lsquowersquolap laf both mean lsquolaughrsquo

2 CHAPTER 1

In this language the difference between [p] and [f] is not significant You canuse either sound without changing the meaning of a word In Tok Pisin [p]and [f] belong to the same phoneme usually written p The same sounds indifferent languages may therefore have quite different functions in the sys-tems in which they occur and quite different relationships with each other

Note that we are dealing with sounds and phonemes here not with theletters that are used to write them In the English words we looked at abovethe phoneme f is represented by the letter f in full as well as by the combi-nation ff in suffer The same phoneme f is also represented by ph in phoneby gh in enough and so on Our principal concern is with the sound systemsof Pacific languages though we will also look at their orthographies orwriting systems

112 The Composition of WordsPhonemes combine to form larger units Consider the following English ex-amples

actactedreactreacted

Each of these consists of a number of phonemes and each is also a word since ithas meaning by itself and in the written language appears with a space beforeandafterThesecondandthirdwordshowevercanalsobedivided into twomean-ingful parts act lsquocarry outrsquo + ed lsquopast tensersquo and re lsquobackrsquo + act The fourth wordconsistsof threemeaningfulparts re+act+ed

These smallest meaningful units are called morphemes Some single mor-phemes are words (act dog house desire for example) Other words (acted re-act reacted dogs housewife desirable for example) consist of multiple mor-phemes The study of morphemes and of the way morphemes combine to formwords isknownasmorphology a termalsousedtorefer to thepatternsbywhichmorphemescombine to formwords inaparticular language

The examples given above show one other feature of morphemes Whileact can stand on its own as a word (as a free morpheme) re and ed cannotMorphemes like re and ed are known as affixes and they must be attachedto another morpheme There are a number of different kinds of affixes themost common being prefixes which like re come before the root in a wordand suffixes which like ed come after the root The convention in linguis-tics is to write prefixes with a following hyphen (re-) and suffixes with apreceding hyphen (-ed) the hyphen indicating where the join takes place

Linguistics Some Basic Concepts 3

Another kind of affix occurs in some Pacific languages namely the infixwhich is placed within the root In Roviana (Solomon Islands) for exampleverbs are converted to nouns by inserting the infix -in- (note the hyphensboth before and after the infix) before the first vowel of the root

habu lsquoto fishrsquo hinabu lsquoa catch of fishrsquokera lsquoto singrsquo kinera lsquoa songrsquomoho lsquoto be sickrsquo minoho lsquosickness diseasersquotoa lsquoto be aliversquo tinoa lsquolifersquozama lsquoto talkrsquo zinama lsquolanguagersquo

When morphemes combine to form words the sounds at the boundariesof these morphemes often change For example I said above that the four-year-old had learned to form plurals by adding the suffix -s but this is notstrictly true The regular plural morpheme has two spellings and three orfour pronunciations in English The pronunciation of the letter s in pluralslike cats cups socks is indeed the phoneme s but the letter s of pluralslike dogs bugs homes is pronounced as the phoneme z not as s and thesame letter in plurals like inches buses dishes is pronounced IZ or əz de-pending on the dialect I also said that the child had learned to form the pasttense by adding -ed to verbs Again this is not strictly true The pronunci-ation of -ed is ɪdorəd in words like banded and slotted d in killed andconned and t in laughed and kissed

In these examples the sound at the end of the noun or verb determinesthe pronunciation of the plural or past-tense suffix The study of soundchanges that take place when morphemes combine to form words is knownas morphophonemics

113 Above the Word LevelWords combine to form phrases A phrase is a group of words that func-tions as a unit in a sentence Look at the following English sentence (where marks the boundary between phrases)

The young boys were killing the cats on the beach

Each of these phrases is a unit When each is moved to some other positionin the sentence it must be moved as a whole entity For example the passiveequivalent of the sentence above is

The cats were being killed by the young boys on the beach

and not something like

The young the cats were being killed by boys on the beach

4 CHAPTER 1

(The asterisk marks the sentence as ungrammatical) That is it is not justthe noun boys that moves in this change from active to passive but thewhole noun phrase the young boys

There are different types of phrases In this book I refer to noun phraseswhich are phrases that function like nouns and can be replaced by a single nounor a pronounmdashthe young boys and the cats in our sentence above are both nounphrases (and could be replaced for example by they and them) I also refer toprepositional phrases which are noun phrases introduced by a prepositionon the beach and by the young boys in the examples above are prepositionalphrases introduced by the prepositions on and by I use the term verb com-plex to refer to phrases that function like verbs were killing and were beingkilled in the sentences above are both verb complexes1

Phrases combine to form clauses A clause is a group of phrases containinga subject (the topic being talked about) and a predicate (what is being saidabout the topic) A sentence is a group of one or more clauses that can standalone If we return to our example of the cat-killing boys none of the following isa sentence since each requires other phrases to make it complete2

The young boysWere killing the catsThe young boys on the beach

English and many other languages usually require each predicate to con-tain a verb complex so that a sentence must have at least one verb Manylanguages of the Pacific however do not require this since in these languagesthere is no verb equivalent to English be (with its various forms is are etc) Sofor example English demands the verb be in equational sentences like That manis a doctor but many Pacific languages have no verb in equivalent sentences Inthe Lenakel language of Vanuatu for example the same sentence would be Wusaan tokta literally lsquoman that doctorrsquo with no verb

12 Common Grammatical Categories and Functions121 Subject and ObjectThe terms subject and object traditionally refer to the performer and re-ceiver of the action of the verb respectively In the sentence The boy ispetting the pig the performer of the action the boy is called the subjectand the receiver the pig is the object In many languages the verb changeswith a change of subject In the sentence The boys are petting the pig theplurality of the subject the boys causes the verb to change from singular (ispetting) to plural (are petting)


This fact is important because the subject is not always the performerof the action Look at these sentences

The boy likes the pigThe boy was bitten by the pig

In these sentences the boy is still the subject because we can see the samekinds of changes in the verb when the boy becomes plural

The boys like the pigThe boys were bitten by the pig

In the second case however the boy is not performing the action The pig isperforming the action on the boy

In other languages the subject and the object behave in ways differentfrom the way in which English subjects and objects behave and we cannotgive a universal definition of these concepts But the subject often performsthe action and the object usually receives it

122 Transitivity and VoiceA sentence that contains no object is intransitive while one that does con-tain an object is transitive Examples

Intransitive Mele is eatingThe dogs are sleeping

Transitive Mele is eating a bananaThe dogs chased the children away

An active sentencemdasha sentence in the active voicemdashis one in which thesubject performs the action or where the object has the action performed onit A passive sentence is one in which the action is performed on the subjectFor example

Active Mele ate the bananaThe men cut down the tree

Passive The banana was eaten by MeleThe tree was cut down

123 Adjectives and VerbsMany Pacific languages do not distinguish between adjectives and verbs in thesame way English does The distinction in English is related to the existence ofthe verb be In English an adjectivemdashlike good for examplemdashcan either pre-

6 CHAPTER 1

cede the noun it describes or follow the verb be (or similar verbs like seem orappear) as in A good chief looks after his people and Our chief isseems good

In many Pacific languages however adjectives belong to a class ofstative verbs verbs that indicate a state rather than an action In Fijian forexample a verb is marked as stative by one of a number of markers (eg elsquothird person singular subjectrsquo) In the first sentence below the verb is kanalsquoeatrsquo and the word levu lsquobigrsquo follows the noun it modifies vuaka lsquopigrsquo

E kana na vuaka leva oqōlsquoThis big pig is eatingrsquo it eats the pig big this

In the next sentence the word levu lsquobigrsquo behaves like a verb that is just askana lsquoeatrsquo does in the sentence above

E levu na vuaka oqōlsquoThis pig is bigrsquo it big the pig this

A stative sentence is an intransitive sentence expressing a state rather thanan action Thus while Mele is eating expresses an action Mele is fat or Meleis a teacher express a state

124 Person Number and GenderIn English we are used to distinguishing first second and third personpronouns as well as subject object and possessive forms Both nouns andpronouns occur in singular and plural and in some cases they have mascu-line feminine or neuter gender The English subject object and possessivepronouns illustrate this

Singular PluralFirst person I me my we us ourSecond person you your you yourThird person

Masculine he him his they them theirFeminine she her they them theirNeuter it its they them their

Pacific languages differ in a number of ways from the English model

1 Most Pacific languages do not show gender in pronouns Raroton-gan (Cook Islands) ia or Fijian o koya or Anejom (Vanuatu) aen allmean lsquohersquo lsquoshersquo and lsquoitrsquo

2 A large number of Pacific languages distinguish two types of first per-son pronouns Inclusive first person pronouns refer to the speakerand the addressee(s) Exclusive first person pronouns refer to thespeaker and some other person(s) but not the addressee(s) In Bis-


lama the national language of Vanuatu for example yumi is the firstperson inclusive pronoun (lsquoI + yoursquo) while mifala is the first personexclusive pronoun (lsquoI + hesheitthem [not you]rsquo)

3 Many Pacific languages distinguish more than two numbers the mostcommon (apart from singular and plural) being the dual numberwhich refers to two and only two the trial number referring to threeand only three and the paucal number used for a few (three to six orso) or to a small group that is part of a much larger one

The function of the plural changes depending on how many num-bers a language recognizes In a language with a singular a dual atrial or a paucal and a plural the role of the plural is much smallerthan it is in a language with only a singular and a plural In Fijian forexample we have o koya lsquohesheitrsquo (singular) o irau lsquothey tworsquo (dual)o ira-tou lsquothey (a few)rsquo (paucal) and o ira lsquothey (many)rsquo (plural)

4 Many Pacific languages have separate object and possessive formsof the pronoun as English does But in addition and unlike Englishmany also distinguish between an independent pronoun and a sub-ject pronoun The independent pronoun can be used as an answerto a question and may be used as a subject but when it is it isusually emphatic In Lenakel for example in is the third personsingular independent pronoun and r- is the corresponding subjectpronoun The sentences In r-am-apul and R-am-apul both mean lsquoHeshe is asleeprsquo But while the second one is a neutral statement thefirst emphasizes that it is he or she not someone else who is asleep

125 Possessives and ClassifiersIn languages like English there is usually only one kind of possessive con-struction No matter what the possessed noun refers to or what the posses-sorrsquos relationship is to that noun the same construction is used my handmy father my house my dog are all possessed in the same way by means ofthe possessive my

Now look at translations of those four phrases in Motu (spoken aroundPort Moresby in Papua New Guinea) in which the suffix -gu translates lsquomyrsquoThe nouns are ima tama ruma and sisia

ima-gu lsquomy handrsquotama-gu lsquomy fatherrsquoe-gu ruma lsquomy housersquoe-gu sisia lsquomy dogrsquo

Here we can see that there are two different constructions The words forlsquohandrsquo and lsquofatherrsquo attach -gu directly to the noun I call this type a direct

8 CHAPTER 1

possessive construction The words for lsquohousersquo and lsquodogrsquo do not attach -gudirectly to the noun but attach it instead to the morpheme e- and this word(e-gu) precedes the noun This I call an indirect possessive construction

In one way or another most Pacific languages distinguish two types ofpossessive constructions to which different linguists have given differentlabels and which have different semantics These two types could be classi-fied as follows

bull Close or subordinate or inalienable possession is often manifestedby direct constructions This involves the possession of something overwhich the possessor has no control and which cannot (normally) be ac-quired or disposed of It may be an integral part of the possessor (like ahand) or a relative (we cannot control who our father is)

bull Remote or dominant or alienable possession is frequently mani-fested by indirect constructions This involves the possession ofsomething over which the possessor has control It can be acquiredand disposed of given away or sold like a house or a dog

Some languages are more complex than this using a system of classifiersoften in both possession and counting to show what type of thing the noun isjust as in English we normally do not say ten cattle or four breads but ten headof cattle or four loaves of bread using head and loaf as kinds of classifiers Lookat the following examples from Ponapean (spoken in Pohnpei Micronesia)

kene-i-mahiediblething-my breadfruitlsquomy breadfruitrsquonime-i uhpwdrinkingthing-my coconutlsquomy drinking coconutrsquosehu pah-sopsugarcane four-stalklsquofour stalks of sugarcanersquo

Ponapean has more than twenty possessive classifiers (like kene- and nime-above) and approximately thirty numeral classifiers (like -sop above)

13 Reconstructing Linguistic History131 Genetic RelationshipAll languages change The process of change is gradual but it is also con-stant There are various kinds of evidence for this For example earlierwritten records show a version of the language different from the modern


version though both are often still recognizable as the ldquosamerdquo languageThe two examples given below of the beginning of the Lordrsquos Prayer in theEnglish of about 1400 and in modern English illustrate this principle

Oure fadir that art in heuenes halowid be thi name thi kyngdom come tobe thi wille don in erthe es in heueneOur Father who is in heaven may your name be kept holy May your king-dom come into being May your will be followed on earth just as it is inheaven

Even if a language does not have written records going back a longtime the fact that people of different generations speak the same languageslightly differently shows that languages change We can even observechanges taking place in a language when we notice competing forms likethe two different pronunciations of a word like either in English (one with aninitial vowel sound like that of niece and the other with a vowel like that ofnice) or the past tense of the verb divemdashdived and dovemdashin many dialects ofAmerican English Perhaps the most obvious example of language changehowever is the continual introduction of new words into all languages (andless obvious but also quite frequent the gradual loss of words that for onereason or another have become obsolete)

Imagine now that we have a single speech community speaking a lan-guage we will call X This community splits into four separate groups AB C and D Because language change is inevitable and continuous after afew hundred years these four communities would speak different dialects ofthe same language3 But after a thousand years or more these four dialectswould have changed so much that they had become separate languages asshown in figure 1 The languages would share many similarities in vocabu-lary and grammar since language change is relatively slow But a speakerof language A would have considerable difficulty in holding a conversationwith a speaker of B C or D

Languages A B C and D in figure 1 are all genetically related toeach other because they all descend from language X which is their com-mon ancestor Languages A B C and D are often referred to as daughterlanguages of X and all four languages belong to the same language fam-ily Figure 1 which represents their relationship is their family tree

Where there are historical records of the ancestor language and of thewhole period of change it is easy to establish the relationship between thedaughter languages and to see how diversification took place But in thePacific as in many other parts of the world such records do not go back any-where near far enough for us to have concrete proof of diversification andrelationship How then do linguists establish such languagesrsquo relationship

Related languages share a number of similarities in vocabulary pronun-

10 CHAPTER 1

Figure 1 Genetic Relationship

ciation and grammar Linguists look for similarities between various lan-guages and if the similarities are numerous enough they assume that thelanguages involved are related despite the absence of documentary proofand derive from a hypothesized common ancestor which is referred to as aprotolanguage

But not all similarities between languages can be attributed to genetic re-lationship There are two other possible explanations One is that the similar-ities are purely accidental In Motu Fijian and many other Pacific languagesthe word for lsquoeyersquo is mata while in Modern Greek the word for lsquoeyersquo is matiThis however is a purely accidental resemblance as there are no other con-nections between Greek and Motu or Fijian If two or more languages shareonly a few similarities these are probably coincidental It is virtually impossi-ble however that languages could accidentally have hundreds of similarities

The second explanation for similarities between languages is copyingor borrowingmdashthat a language has adopted a word (or some other linguisticfeature) from some other language For example in many Pacific languagesthe word for lsquoradiorsquo is something like retio or ledio This word has beencopied from English but this does not mean that these languages are relatedeither to English or to each other

Copying is a very common phenomenon in all languages (see chapter 9)When new items of technology new social practices or new ideas are intro-duced into a society from outside often the words for them modified to fitlocal pronunciation will be brought in at the same time English is full ofwords copied from other languages Algebra boomerang coup demonstra-tor ghetto junta taboo thug and yen are just a few examples

Copying is more likely to take place in certain areas of the lexicon thanin others For example words like snow coconut ice cream church teamand television could be easily introduced into a language since they representthings or concepts that are by no means found in all cultures or environments


But words like hand leg one two black white eat sleep are much less likelyto be taken from another language since all languages probably have theirown words for these concepts irrespective of the culture of their speakers orthe physical environment in which they live There would be no need for a lan-guage to supplement its vocabulary by borrowing them For similar reasonscertain aspects of grammar (the morphological structure of words for exam-ple) are less likely to be borrowed than others (like word order)

If similarities between two languages are only in areas where we mightexpect to see copying they do not constitute evidence of genetic relation-ship If however the similarities are in areas of vocabulary and grammarwhere borrowing is much less likely to take place we can reasonably con-clude that these are not due to chance or borrowing but to genetic in-heritance The words and structures were present in some form in an an-cestor language and have been retained usually in a modified form in thedaughter languages This then leads to the conclusion that the languagessharing these similarities are related belong to the same language familyand derive from the same protolanguage

132 Reconstructing a ProtolanguageIn addition to being able to show with reasonable confidence that a setof languages are related and derive from the same common ancestorhistorical-comparative linguists can reconstruct what many of the soundswords and grammatical structures in the protolanguage were probably like

An important principle in reconstruction especially in dealing with simi-larities in vocabulary is that of the regularity of sound correspondencesLook at the following examples from the Aroma Hula and Sinagoro lan-guages spoken on the coast east of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea

Aroma Hula Sinagorolsquofatherrsquo ama ama tamalsquomilkrsquo laa laa latalsquosewrsquo uli uli tulilsquograndparentrsquo upu upu tubulsquosagorsquo lapia lapia labialsquopigeonrsquo pune pune punelsquoskinrsquo opi kopi kopilsquobirdrsquo manu manu manulsquomosquitorsquo nemo nemo nemo

There are a number of correspondences between identical phonemesAroma m corresponds to Hula m and Sinagoro m This correspondence is

12 CHAPTER 1

abbreviated as mmm We can also see all the vowels (aaa iii and soon) But there are also some correspondences between different phonemesFirst although we have the set ppp (as in pune pune pune lsquopigeonrsquo) wealso have another set ppb (as in lapia lapia labia lsquosagorsquo) Then we alsohave the set θθt (where θ represents the absence of a sound) as in uli ulituli lsquosewrsquo The important thing about both types of correspondence sets isthat they are regular They are not random but occur again and again inmany words Even in the short list above you can see a number of examplesof each

In the case of correspondence sets of the type mmm the original lan-guage almost certainly had m and the daughter languages have not alteredit The protolanguage then had a phoneme m where the asterisk denotesa reconstructed form

In the case of correspondence sets of the type ppp and ppb howeverone or more daughter languages has changed The logical assumption hereis that the set ppp reflects an original p while the set ppb represents anoriginal b which Aroma and Hula have changed to p The merger of pho-netically similar phonemes is a very common phenomenon and this is whatseems to have happened The distinction between the two phonemes p and bhas been lost in these two languages (in the same way as the distinction be-tween the voiced w in witch and the voiceless w in which is being lost in mostvarieties of English) Similarly the set θθt probably represents an earliert which has been lost in Aroma and Hula again loss of a phoneme is farmore common and natural than the addition of a phoneme

Using this principle of regularity of correspondence and also makinguse of what linguists know generally about language change it is possibleto reconstruct elements of a protolanguagemdashto make an educated guessabout what the phonemes words and grammar of the ancestor languagemight have been Given that Aroma nemo Hula nemo and Sinagoro nemoall mean lsquomosquitorsquo for example and that the correspondences nnn eeemmm and ooo are regular linguists would reconstruct the word nemolsquomosquitorsquo in the language ancestral to these three languages The full set ofprotoforms for the words given above would be

tama lsquofatherrsquolata lsquomilkrsquotuli lsquosewrsquotubu lsquograndparentrsquolabia lsquosagorsquopune lsquopigeonrsquo


kopi lsquoskinrsquomanu lsquobirdrsquonemo lsquomosquitorsquo

133 Families and SubgroupsThe original split of a community may be followed by later splits Similarlythe original split of a protolanguage may be followed by subsequent splitsin intermediate ancestral languages sometimes called interstage lan-guages Look at the family tree in figure 2 which represents the followinghistorical sequence of events

First the original ancestral language X initially split into three daugh-ter languages P Q and R Some time later (1) language P suffered sufficientdivisions to result in the modern languages A and B (2) language Q splitinto Z and the modern language C (3) language Z itself underwent a furthersplit into the modern languages D and E and (4) language R split givingrise to the modern languages F G and H

All of these languages are related since they all derive from a commonancestor X There are differing however degrees of relationship in this fam-ily tree For example languages A and B are more closely related to eachother than either is to any other modern member of the family because theyshare a period of common development that the other languages do notmdashtheperiod when language P was separated from the others Similarly languagesF G and H are more closely related to each other than to any other modernmember of the family Languages C D and E can also be grouped together

Figure 2 Subgroups of a Family

14 CHAPTER 1

but within the group D and E are more closely related to each other than ei-ther is to language C

Linguists generally use the term subgroup to refer to two or more lan-guages within a family that are more closely related to each other than tothe rest of the family In figure 2 A and B form one subgroup and F G and Hanother C D and E make up a third subgroup within which exists a furtherlower-level subgroup (sometimes called a subsubgroup) D and E

When the history of a language family is known through written recordsthe subgrouping of languages within that family can also usually be estab-lished by examining those records But how do we determine subgroups ofa language family in an area like the Pacific where written records of lan-guages either do not exist at all or date only from recent times

One technique for doing this is known as lexicostatistics This involvesthe comparison of the basic vocabulary of the languages we are interestedin (using a standard one-hundred-or two-hundred-word list) and expressingthe degree of relationship between any two languages in the sample as apercentage which represents the cognates (similar vocabulary items pre-sumed to derive from the same original word in the protolanguage) sharedby each pair of languages A higher percentage corresponds to a closer rela-tionship and members of subgroups should show the highest percentages

Lexicostatistics has the advantage of allowing quick formulation and quan-tification of the internal relationships of a language family but it also has manyproblemsSomeof theseare theoretical ormethodological andneednotconcernus here One obvious problem however is that a list of even two hundred wordsrepresents only an extremely small part of a whole language and the figures ob-tained from comparing such lists may not accurately represent the relationshipbetween two languages Today most linguists do not rely heavily on lexicostatis-tics as a method for subgrouping languages although they might use it to get apreliminary indication of the possible subgrouping

The chief method linguists use to establish subgroups is examination ofshared innovations If you go back to the Aroma Hula and Sinagoro exam-ples in the last section you will see that two changes or innovations havetaken place (1) original t has been lost in both Aroma and Hula (but not inSinagoro) and (2) the distinction between original b and p has been re-tained in Sinagoro but it has been lost in both Aroma and Hula where thesetwo phonemes merge as the single phoneme p

Aroma and Hula share two innovations that Sinagoro does not whichwould suggest that the two languages are more closely related to each otherthan either is to Sinagoro The family tree in figure 3 shows how these threedescendants of Proto East-Central Papuan are related

Rather than suggesting that Aroma and Hula both quite independently


Figure 3 Subgroups of Proto East-Central Papuan

made the changes t gt θ b gt p inferred from a comparison of cognates itseems logical to assume that the changes happened only once in the inter-stage language Proto Aroma-Hula In this way Aroma and Hula came toshare two innovations missing in Sinagoro which suggests that they belongtogether in a subgroup

There are various kinds of innovations which if shared by two or morelanguages exclusive of others in the family can be solid evidence for assign-ing those languages to the same subgroup Phonological innovations (likethe example above) and innovations in morphology are fairly strong evi-dence innovations in vocabulary and syntax (sentence structure) are lessstrong since changes take place in vocabulary much more easily and rapidlythan in phonology or morphology Quantity is also a factor Generally speak-ing if languages share more innovations (of the stronger kind) the hypothe-sis that they form a subgroup is more secure

134 Reconstructing Linguistic and Cultural HistoryWhat use can linguists and others can make of the conclusions reachedabout the relationships between languages the subgroups of a languagefamily and the reconstructed protolanguage

The branch of linguistics I have been discussing is known as com-parative linguistics or historical-comparative linguistics It involvescomparing languages in order to find out something about their historyThis branch of linguistics is one of the disciplines contributing to the studyof prehistory the time preceding the existence of written records (Othersuch disciplines include archaeology social anthropology the study of oralliterature and oral traditions and so on) So what can comparative linguis-tics tell us about prehistory

16 CHAPTER 1

First the fact that languages are related implies that they have a com-mon origin This often (though not always) implies that the people whospeak those languages have a common origin as well telling us somethingabout the origins of and historical connections between the peoples of aregion

Second information about subgroupings can give us an idea of thechronology of language divisions (and presumably also divisions in a com-munity) as well as providing indications about the directions in which peo-ple migrated As an example of this let us consider just the following Pacificlanguages Fijian Tongan Pukapuka (spoken in the Cook Islands) Tahitianand Rapanui (Easter Island) A simple family tree for just these five lan-guages would look like the one in figure 4

The most recent split in this family (which includes hundreds of otherlanguages) is that between Tahitian and Rapanui with the next most recentthat between Pukapuka and the ancestor of Tahitian and Rapanui Some-what earlier Tongan and ldquoProto Pukapuka-Tahitian-Rapanuirdquo divided andthe first split was between Fijian and all the other languages As you can seeby looking at map 1 the splits proceeded from west to east

On the basis of this subgrouping most linguists would assume (1) thatthe original homeland of this group of people was probably somewherearound the Fiji-Tonga area and (2) that the general direction of migrationof these peoples was probably from west to east as shown in map 1 Notethat I have used the terms ldquoassumerdquo ldquoprobablyrdquo and ldquosomewhererdquo Theseconclusions are merely the best educated guesses we can make from thedata We would still want to find supporting evidence from other disci-plinesmdasharchaeological dates oral traditions or the likemdashbefore adoptingthese conclusions firmly

Third comparative linguistics can tell us something about the cultureof the people who spoke the protolanguage and about the changes thathave taken place in that culture If a set of words can be reconstructed for

Figure 4 Establishing Migration Patterns


Map 1 Reconstructing Migration Patterns

a protolanguage the items or concepts they refer to were probably alsopresent in the protoculture For example if we could reconstruct for a pro-tolanguage words for taro yam coconut and breadfruit then we couldpresume that these items were in the original culture of the people whospoke that language And if the daughter languages have quite unrelatedwords for peanut rice coffee and sweet potato then we could assume thatthese items were not in the original culture but represent later innovationsThe identification of copied words can also tell us quite a bit about anotheraspect of linguistic and social historymdashcultural contact between groups ofpeople speaking (related or unrelated) languages

135 Time DepthsFinally a word of warning The principles and techniques of comparative lin-guistics allow linguists to trace relationships between languages going backperhaps eight or ten thousand years and to make associated conclusionsregarding migrations cultures and so on If however the initial breakupof a language family took place longer ago than about ten thousand yearslinguists often cannot find sufficient evidence to prove that the languages in-volved are related The changes that have taken place in each language overthe millennia are usually so great that very few similarities can be distin-guished or reconstructed

The hypothetical family tree in figure 5 helps illustrate this point Thesimilarities currently existing between the modern languages P through Ywould probably lead comparative linguists to divide them into four unre-lated families

18 CHAPTER 1

Figure 5 Time Limits on Comparative Linguistics

1 the C family with members P and Q2 the D family with members R S and T3 the E family with members U and V and4 the F family with members W X and Y

The true historical picture is presented in the diagram which showshow all these languages are related deriving from a common ancestor XBecause of the length of time involved however the changes have been sogreat that most similarities between say languages P and Y have been lostwhich is why linguists would treat these languages as belonging to four dis-tinct families

The study of prehistory relies heavily on comparative linguistics formany different kinds of information But it is important also to realizethatmdashat least with the techniques currently at our disposalmdashcomparativelinguistics has limitations


PART ONE

Geography and History

CHAPTER

2

The Languagesof the Pacific

When different people speak of the Pacific region they often mean differentthings In some senses people from such Pacific Rim countries as Japan andKorea Canada and the United States and Colombia and Peru are as mucha part of the region as are those from Papua New Guinea Fiji the MarshallIslands Tonga and so on In this book however I use the term ldquothe Pacificrdquoto refer to the island countries and territories of the Pacific Basin includingAustralia and New Zealand

This Pacific has traditionally been divided into four regions MelanesiaMicronesia Polynesia and Australia (see map 2) Australia is clearly sepa-rate from the remainder of the Pacific culturally ethnically and linguisti-cally The other three regions are just as clearly not separate from oneanother according to all of these criteria There is considerable ethnic cul-tural and linguistic diversity within each of these regions and the bound-aries usually drawn between them do not necessarily coincide with clearphysical cultural or linguistic differences These regions and the bound-aries drawn between them are largely artifacts of the western propensityeven weakness for classification as the continuing and quite futile debateover whether Fijians are Polynesians or Melanesians illustrates

Having said this however I will nevertheless continue to use the termsldquoMelanesiardquo ldquoMicronesiardquo and ldquoPolynesiardquo to refer to different geographi-cal areas within the Pacific basin without prejudice to the relationships ofthe languages or the cultures of people of each region

21 How Many LanguagesThis book deals mainly with the indigenous languages of the Pacific regionThere are many other languages that can be called ldquoPacific languagesrdquo for

23

Map

2Th

ePa

cific

24 CHAPTER 2

example languages that have developed fairly recently such as HawaiianCreole Fiji Hindi Hiri Motu (Papua New Guinea) Melanesian Pidgin(known as Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea Pijin in Solomon Islands and Bis-lama in Vanuatu) Broken and Kriol (Australia) and others There are alsothe languages of the metropolitan powers particularly English and Frenchwhich are widely used throughout the region but also Bahasa Indonesia inIrian Jaya and Spanish in Easter Island And there are small but substantialnumbers of speakers of various Chinese languages of Vietnamese and ofother ldquointrusiverdquo languages in Pacific towns (These languages receive someattention in part 3)

When it comes to what we might call ldquotruerdquo Pacific languages we findthat this region is probably the most linguistically complex in the worldThere are or were almost fourteen hundred distinct languages spoken inthe Pacific or about one quarter of the worldrsquos languages And these four-teen hundred languages are spoken by not much more than 01 percent ofthe worldrsquos population1 Further so far as we can tell these languages donot all belong to a single language family There are a number of languagefamilies in the Pacific

Let us look first at the nature of the differences between languagesin this region Many people describe the languages of the Pacific as ldquodi-alectsrdquo partly because most are spoken by small populations and areunimportant in terms of world politics and partly because many are un-written But linguists use the terms ldquolanguagerdquo and ldquodialectrdquo with quitespecific meanings

Speakers of the same language living in geographically separateareas often speak differently though these differences are usually notgreat enough to prevent communication between them For examplemany Americans say sidewalk diaper and flashlight where English peo-ple would use footpath nappy and torch And while most English peoplepronounce words like half past and mast with the same vowel as thefirst vowel in father most Americans pronounce them with the samevowel as in hat But despite these obvious differences in vocabulary inpronunciation and in grammar as well the Americans and the Englishcan still communicate quite easily We would therefore say that they arespeaking different dialects of the same language But Americans or Eng-lish people must learn French to understand a French person as Englishand French are different languages

Mutual intelligibilitymdashwhether speakers from one group can or cannotcarry on a normal conversation with speakers of anothermdashis just one way oflooking at the distinction between language and dialect In many parts of thePacific it is difficult to test for mutual intelligibility because people not only

The Languages of the Pacific 25

speak the language of their own community but also acquire an understand-ing either active or passive of the languages of neighboring communitiesfrom a very early age People from two communities can quite often carry ona conversation in two different languages so testing for mutual intelligibil-ity is fraught with all sorts of problems In cases like these linguists have touse their own judgment about how many languages are involved

Perhaps more important than the issue of mutual intelligibility is the is-sue of social identity People believe that their language is the same asmdashor isdifferent frommdashanother grouprsquos language for a variety of social rather thanlinguistic reasons Here are two examples of this

1 On the basis of mutual intelligibility Hindi and Urdu would beclassified as dialects of the same language Hindi is the nationallanguage of India It is written in the Devanagari script and isclosely associated in peoplersquos minds with Hinduism Urdu is thenational language of Pakistan It is written in Arabic script andis closely associated with Islam For these nonlinguistic reasonsmost speakers would say that Hindi and Urdu are two different lan-guages

2 Many people refer to Fijian as if it were one language It is associ-ated with a group of people who are ethnically and culturally fairlyhomogeneous and there is just one written version which all lit-erate Fijians read and write But people in the eastern part of Fijicannot understand people from the western area when they speak(unless they have learned the western Fijian language)

There is a further problem with differentiating and counting languagesthat relates to the phenomenon known as a dialect chain A dialect chainis found in a series of communities in which each community has a differentdialect Close neighbors can quite easily understand each other but peoplehave greater difficulty in understanding or communicating with people fromcommunities farther along the chain Imagine that the following villages arespread along the coast of a large island

A B C D E F G H I J

People from say village C can easily communicate with their close neigh-bors (A and B to the west D and E to the east) they have some difficultycommunicating with people from F and G and they cannot communicatewell at all with people from H I and J On the other hand people fromvillage E can communicate easily with those from C D F and G havesome difficulty with those from B H and I but find people from A and Junintelligible People from A would be unable to communicate with those

26 CHAPTER 2

from J so it would seem from looking just at the two ends of the chainthat two different languages are involved But there is nowhere in themiddle of the chain where we can draw a language boundary since every-one can communicate with their immediate neighbors So are we dealingwith one language or two

In one sense this is really a problem only when one tries to count thenumber of languages to tidy up the situation with a neat classificationSome linguists would say that the villages I have described share one lan-guage made up of a complex dialect chain Others would say it is two withhowever no distinct boundary between the western language and the east-ern one Situations like this are found in Fiji in the Caroline Islands ofMicronesia and in a number of areas in Papua New Guinea This is one rea-son that different authorities give different numbers of languages for certainareas of the Pacific

Despite these complications when I say that there are about fourteenhundred languages spoken in the Pacific I do mean languages not dialectsSome of course are quite similar to each other as French is to Spanish andItalian or even as Hindi is to Urdu But there are also differences of thesame order of magnitude as those between English and Chinese And manyof these languages are spoken in a number of dialects as well

There are two other reasons why we cannot be exact about the numberof languages in the Pacific Some languages are moribundmdashthat is at lastreport they were spoken by just a small number of old peoplemdashand there-fore are almost extinct Many Australian languages fall into this categorybut there are some in Melanesia as well The other reason is that at leastin certain parts of the Pacific we have insufficient information The interiorof Irian Java is an especially good example though not the only one In suchcases we are forced to make educated guesses

Table 1 gives the number of languages spoken in each of the main re-gions of the Pacific and in each of the countries and territories within eachregion For the reasons discussed above the figures given are approximate

22 Linguistic Demography221 Polynesia and MicronesiaWith a few exceptions we can say that in Polynesia there is generally onelanguage per island or per island group Ignoring minor problems (ldquoAre theytwo languages or two dialectsrdquo) there are twenty-one languages spoken inwhat is referred to as the Polynesian Triangle (including the extinct Moriorilanguage)2 Map 3 shows the location of all these languages


Table 1 Pacific Languages by Region and Country

Melanesia 1151+Irian Jaya 205+Papua New Guinea 750+Solomon Islands 63Vanuatu 105New Caledonia 28

Micronesia 16Belau 1Northern Marianas and Guam 2a

Marshall Islands 1Kiribati 1Nauru 1Federated States of Micronesia 11

Fiji and Polynesia 22Fiji including Rotuma 3Tonga 2Niue 1The Samoas 1Tuvalu 1Tokelau 1Wallis and Futuna 2Cook Islands 3Hawairsquoi 1French Polynesia 5Easter Island 1New Zealand 1

Australia 200b

Total 1389+aOne of these is a dialect of Carolinian other dialects of which are spoken inthe Federated States of MicronesiabMany of these have become extinct or are moribund

Speakers of many of these languages now live outside their home coun-tries There are significant communities of speakers of for example EastUvea (Wallisian) in New Caledonia and Vanuatu and of Tongan and Samoanin both New Zealand and the United States About as many Rarotongan

28 CHAPTER 2


speakers and many more speakers of Niuean live in New Zealand as in theCook Islands and Niue respectively

Some Polynesian languages have large numbers of speakers Samoanprobably has about 250000 speakers Tongan Tahitian and New ZealandMāori each approximately 100000 Rarotongan with more than 30000speakers and Wallisian with 10000 are also large in Pacific terms In con-trast some of the languages of French Polynesia other than Tahitian arespoken by fewer than a thousand people

Micronesia is similar to Polynesia in havingmdashas a rulemdashonly one languageper island or island group although there are difficulties in deciding exactlyhow many languages there are Bender and Wang (1985 54ndash56) have a goodbrief discussion of this problem While many of the speech traditions of Microne-sia are clearly identifiable as discrete languages the Trukic group of speechcommunities extending from Chuuk (Truk) Lagoon to Tobi presents a majorproblem Different linguists have divided this complex continuum into threeseven and eleven distinct languages which makes the exercise of counting lan-guages difficult and probably futile I have taken Bender and Wangrsquos figure ofthree languages for this continuum and this gives the somewhat arbitrary figureof sixteen languages spoken in Micronesia Map 4 shows the location of theselanguages but also indicates the named varieties of the three Trukic languagesthat some linguists treat as distinct

Many speakers of Micronesian languages also live outside their home coun-tries particularly in Guam and the United States Fiji Nauru and Solomon Is-lands possess sizable Kiribati-speaking communities Kiribati and Chamorroeach with more than 50000 speakers have the greatest number of speakers inMicronesia Lagoon Trukese Ponapean and Marshallese all have about 20000speakers and most of the other languages (depending on how they are defined)number in the thousands A number of languages or dialects how-evermdashincluding Sonsorolese Satawalese Namonuito Ngatikese Kapingama-rangi and Nukuoromdashhave fewer than a thousand speakers

222 MelanesiaFor the purposes of this discussion Melanesia is taken as including the in-dependent states of Papua New Guinea Solomon Islands Vanuatu Fiji theIndonesian province of Irian Jaya and the French overseas territory of NewCaledonia Melanesia differs from Polynesia and Micronesia here it is therule rather than the exception for there to be many languages per island Inthis general survey of the linguistic situation in Melanesia maps 5 through10 locate all the languages of Melanesia mentioned in this book

30 CHAPTER 2


Fiji and Rotuma

Rotuma is home to a distinct language spoken by around 10000 peoplebut linguists disagree about how many languages are spoken in the rest ofFiji Certainly there are many different varieties of ldquoFijianrdquo spoken by the300000 or so ethnic Fijians in Viti Levu Vanua Levu and the offshore is-lands The situation is further complicated by the fact that the dialect of the

Map 5 Languages of Fiji and Rotuma

32 CHAPTER 2

island of Bau southeast of Viti Levu has been adopted as the standard forthe written language for education and for certain public occasions so thatmany Fijians who speak another dialect also know that one ldquoFijianrdquo consistsof a chain of perhaps thirty or forty dialects Most linguists would probablydivide this chain into two languages Western Fijian (spoken in the westernhalf of Viti Levu) and Eastern Fijian (spoken in the rest of the country ex-cluding Rotuma)

New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands

There are twenty-eight languages in the French territory of New Caledoniaall spoken by small populations The two languages with the largest numberof speakers are Drehu with about 7000 speakers and Paicicirc with just under5000 but five of the territoryrsquos twenty-eight languages have fewer than twohundred speakers (Map 6 shows only those languages that I mention in thisbook)

Map 6 New Caledonia (showing languages referred to in the text)


Vanuatu

The Republic of Vanuatu is home to between one hundred and 110 lan-guages (Tryon 1976) As in New Caledonia all of these are spoken by verysmall populations Recent estimates (Tryon and Charpentier 1989) showthat Northeast Ambae on Ambae Island with 4300 speakers Lenakel andWhitesands on Tanna each with 4000 and Apma on Pentecost with 3800have the largest number of speakers3 Forty-one languages or almost halfthe languages of the country have two hundred speakers or fewer five ofthese forty-one have fewer than fifty speakers (Map 7 shows only those lan-guages mentioned in the text)

Solomon Islands

The most recent linguistic survey of Solomon Islands (Tryon and Hackman1983) lists sixty-three languages as being spoken in that country Those withthe largest populations are the North Malaita dialect chain with 13500 andKwararsquoae with 12500 both on Malaita No other language has more than10000 speakers Twelve languages have fewer than two hundred speakerssix of these twelve have fewer than fifty (Map 8 includes only those lan-guages discussed in the text)

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea is probably the most linguistically diverse nation inthe modern world A population of around four million people speak wellover seven hundred distinct languages Wurm and Hattorirsquos (1981) lin-guistic atlas of the region estimates that there are 750 languages spokenin Papua New Guinea This may be a slightly conservative figure Otherestimates usually count more than these Some differences lie in the dis-tinctions made between dialect and language Map 9 shows only a fewof these languages

According to Wurm and Hattorirsquos figures in the 1970s nine of the lan-guages of Papua New Guinea were spoken by more than 40000 people Allof these except Tolai are spoken in the Highlands These languages are

Enga 165000 Huli 60000Kuman (Simbu) 140000 Kewa 48000Hagen 100000 Mendi 45000Kamano 85000 Wahgi 45000Tolai 65000

At the same time a staggering 114 languages in Papua New Guinea arelisted as being spoken by populations of fewer than two hundred people

34 CHAPTER 2

Map 7 Vanuatu (showing languages referred to in the text)


36 CHAPTER 2


Irian Jaya

The situation in Irian Jaya is less clear than anywhere else in the Melanesianregion since much less research has been done on these languages thanon those of any other part of the Pacific Wurm and Hattori (1981) believethat slightly more than two hundred languages are spoken in this Indonesianprovince only four of them by 40000 people or more These four are

Western Dani 100000Grand Valley Dani 75000Ekagi 65000Biak-Numfor 40000

In contrast Wurm and Hattori list forty languagesmdash20 percent of thosein the provincemdashas being spoken by two hundred or fewer people (Map10 names only the languages mentioned in this book)

Map 10 Irian Jaya (showing languages referred to in the text)

38 CHAPTER 2

223 Australia

Dixon (1980) says that at the time of first European settlement there wereprobably about two hundred different languages spoken in Australia We willnever know the exact figure since many languages had disappeared beforeany linguistic work had been carried out on them Of these two hundred theWestern Desert language had the largest number of speakers around 6000It was spoken over an area of about 13 million square kilometers4

The survival of Australian languages (and of the people who speak them)has been severely threatened in the last two centuries Whole tribes andtheir languages died out in many areas while other tribes assimilated tovarying degrees to the invading culture losing their languages in theprocess Of the current language situation in Australia Dixon says

Of the 200 languages spoken in Australia before the Europeaninvasion 50 are now extinct the last speakers having died someyears ago in most cases there are still some people who wouldclaim tribal membership but they know only a dozen or so isolatedwords of what was once a full and flourishing language Then there

Map 11 Australia (showing languages referred to in the text)


are probably around 100 languages that are on the path towardsextinction Some are remembered by only a handful of old peo-ple and will cease to be spoken or remembered within a very fewyears others may be being learnt by children in a few families butthe total number of speakers is so smallmdasha few dozen or lessmdashthatthese languages seem bound gradually to drop out of use over thenext few generations Finally perhaps 50 languages are in a rel-atively healthy statemdashspoken as first language by a few hundred(or in one or two cases by a few thousand) people and preservingtheir full range of use in everyday affairs and in ceremony and rit-ual (Dixon 1980 18)

While the languages of the rest of the Pacific region are generally quiteviable the Australian languages which once spread right across the conti-nent are in rapid decline The number of speakers of each diminishes withthe shift toward English and the decimation of the population

23 Language NamesLanguage names in the Pacific can be problematic Some languages areknown by one and only one name It may be the peoplersquos own name for thelanguage (Nakanamanga in Vanuatu) the name of the people themselves(Motu in Papua New Guinea) an English version of a local name (Tongan)or a compound expression referring to some feature of the language (Pitjan-tjatjara the name of a dialect of the Western Desert language of Australiawhich means ldquohaving the word pitjantja lsquocomersquordquo)

In some areas however people do not have a name for their own lan-guage but refer to it as ldquothe languagerdquo ldquoour languagerdquo or ldquocorrectgoodlanguagerdquo The Tolai language of New Britain for example has been re-ferred to in the literature as Tuna from a tinata tuna lsquothe real languagersquoLanguages of this kind are often named in the literature after the locality inwhich they are spoken For example linguists call the languages spoken onthe islands of Paama and Mota in Vanuatu Paamese and Mota

People sometimes invent names for languages lacking a specificappellation Discussing the names of some languages of the Torricelli Phy-lum in the Sepik area of Papua New Guinea Laycock (1975b 774) says ldquoThelanguages are named when not after a village or area by the translationinto that language of no or there u none this practice has been widespreadin the Lumi area for some time and may antedate European contact and theprinciple has been extended in naming languages outside the Lumi areardquoThis practice explains why a number of languages in this area have very sim-ilar names (Olo Alu Galu Aru Aruop and so on)

40 CHAPTER 2

Even when people do have their own name for a language some othername is often given usually a geographical one On the island of Tannain Vanuatu for example the ldquorealrdquo names of the languages spoken in theLenakel and Whitesands areas are respectively Netvaar and Nɨrak Butthese languages are almost universally known as Lenakel and Whitesandsnot only to outsiders but also to their speakers

In many cases the same language goes by a number of different namesa name in the local language and a geographical name or a series of namesfor different dialects or different localities in the language area for exampleThe language spoken (in two dialects) on the islands of Rennell and Bellonain Solomon Islands is known variously as Rennell-Bellona Rennellese Bel-lonese Moiki Munggava and Munggiki The Nakanamanga language ofcentral Vanuatu is perhaps better known to linguists as Nguna or Ngunesewhich is the dialect that has received the most attention5

Again there are cases where names may refer only to different dialectsWest Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands) for example has a number of nameddialects some of which appear in the linguistic literature as if they were sep-arate languages (Gari or Ghari Kerebuto Nggae Sughu and Vaturanga)Early mission grammars or dictionaries often named the language afterthe location of the mission while the name in current use is different(Lamalanga [name assigned by missionaries] for Raga spoken in PentecostIsland in Vanuatu) Hyphenated language names (eg Mono-Alu in SolomonIslands) can indicate that there are (at least) two named dialects but no over-all local name for the language Spelling variations also occur The name ofthe Baniata language of Rendova in Solomon Islands has also been spelledBantildeata and Mbaniata while another Solomons language spoken in NewGeorgia has been variously spelled Bareke Bariki Mbareke and Mbariki

In this book I try to use the most generally accepted name for any lan-guage with consistency even if (1) the language has other names and (2)these other names are used in my sources

24 A Brief History of Pacific Language ResearchThe first information on Pacific languages came from European navigatorswho published lists of words and occasional sentences in various languages(and sometimes commented on the similarities between some of them) Mis-sionaries followed translating religious materials into various Pacific lan-guages but also producing grammars dictionaries and the like Some colo-nial government officials also made contributions

Professional linguists were rather late on the scene In general their in-terests have been threefold


1 Comparative-historical attempting to establish relationships be-tween languages within the Pacific and between Pacific languagesand languages outside the region thus contributing to the study ofPacific prehistory

2 Descriptive analysis of the grammars of Pacific languagescompilation of dictionaries and so on

3 Theoretical testing or formulating general claims about the natureof language and of language change on the basis of data from Pa-cific languages

241 Fiji and PolynesiaOur knowledge of the Fijian and Polynesian languages is more completethan our knowledge of most other Pacific languages for a number of reasonsThere is usually only one language per country (or island) The languagesare not especially difficult phonologically and are quite closely related sothat a knowledge of one makes a good stepping-stone to learning anotherAnd in general the Polynesian languages and Fijian have been studied forfar longer than have those of the rest of the region

Missionary endeavors and the work of some colonial officials provideda firm foundation for the description of many of these languages with agood number of grammatical studies and dictionaries being written in thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries The first grammar and the firstdictionary of Fijian for example were published in 1850 (Hazlewood 1850a1850b) and there were also early studies of the languages of Tonga Samoaand various parts of eastern Polynesia including New Zealand In many ofthe countries of Polynesia governments have also taken a keen interest inthe preservation of traditional culture and language encouraging the useof Polynesian languages in schools and churches on radio and television inbooks and newspapers and elsewhere in the public domain So there aregood grammars andor dictionaries for most of the languages of Fiji andPolynesia and there are numerous publications in and on these languagesof both an academic and a general nature

242 MicronesiaGiven Micronesiarsquos checkered colonial history it is not surprising that littlewas known about most of its languages until after the Second World WarSome of the early information on Micronesian languages was written in Ger-man or Japanese

Bender (1984 viiindashx) gives a brief summary of the history of Microne-

42 CHAPTER 2

sian linguistics since 1945 Initial studies focused on applied linguistics toassist the American government in education and other areas But thesestudies often had a more academic side as well The decision in 1966 to sendPeace Corps volunteers to Micronesia meant that language courses had tobe written providing a fresh impetus for linguistic research These languagelessons often developed into full-scale grammars and dictionaries mainlyunder the auspices of the University of Hawairsquoi which continues to be themajor center for the study of Micronesian languages

As a result of the last fifty yearsrsquo research good grammars or dictio-naries exist for most Micronesian languages Orthographies have been de-veloped for virtually all the languages and many are or have been used asclassroom languages in Micronesian educational systems

243 MelanesiaIn Melanesia some languages have been well known to linguists for a longtime but a very large number remain almost completely unstudied Apartfrom a few wordlists published by early explorers it was once again the mis-sionaries who undertook the first serious study of any of the Melanesianlanguages For many of these languages missionary grammars and dictio-naries (in French German or Dutch as well as English) remain the onlypublications of a linguistic nature By the turn of the twentieth century therewere publications on a handful of these languages including the compara-tive studies of von der Gabelentz (1861ndash1873) Codrington (1885) and Ray(1926) which presented grammatical sketches of a number of languagesBut even into the 1920s very little indeed had been published about the lan-guages of Melanesia

During the twentieth century missionary linguistic work has continuedin anglophone Melanesia Scholars from various universities have also pub-lished grammatical and lexical studies of a number of Melanesian languageswhile the Summer Institute of Linguistics has engaged in a massive amountof research into languages of the New Guinea area especially Until recentlythe pioneering work of Leenhardt (1946) remained the major source of infor-mation for the languages of francophone Melanesia though recent work by anumber of French and other linguists has dramatically increased our knowl-edge of the languages of New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands

244 AustraliaApart from a few missionaries and colonial officials very few of the earlywhite settlers paid much attention to Australian languages Given their atti-


tudes toward Aboriginal people and Aboriginal society which ranged fromclassifying them as primitive attempting to assimilate them and treatingthem with ldquobenign neglectrdquo to downright extermination and genocide onewould not have expected much linguistic work to be done on these lan-guages in the first century of contact

In the earlier part of the twentieth century some linguistic study accom-panied anthropological studies In his survey of the languages of AustraliaDixon notes that in the fifty years between 1910 and 1960 there was onlyone linguist Arthur Capell active in the field In more recent years linguistsfrom a number of universities in Australia and elsewhere as well as thoseworking with the Summer Institute of Linguistics have produced a consid-erable body of descriptive and comparative work Much of this falls into thecategory of salvage linguistics recording a language before it becomes ex-tinct Many salvage attempts are just sketches containing gaps in lexiconand grammar that can never be filled

44 CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER

3

The History of theAustronesian Languages

Comparative-historical linguists have divided the fourteen hundred or solanguages of the Pacific into three broad groups About 450 are classified asbelonging to the Austronesian family a very large family of languages withanother six or seven hundred members spoken outside the Pacific BasinSeven hundred or so languages spoken on the island of New Guinea or onislands not far from it belong to a number of apparently unrelated familiesAll are grouped under the cover term Papuan The two hundred Australianlanguages belong to a third broad genetic grouping We know much moreabout both the present and the past of the Austronesian languages of the Pa-cific than we do about the Papuan or Australian languages For this reason Idiscuss the history of the Austronesian languages first

31 The Austronesian FamilyThe Austronesian language family is one of the two largest language fami-lies in the world in number of member languages (The other is the Benue-Congo family in Africa) The family as a whole has somewhere between athousand and twelve hundred languages spoken by almost three hundredmillion people1 Map 12 shows the distribution of Austronesian languagesOutside the Pacific Basin Austronesian languages are spoken in Taiwan inMalaysia and a few small pockets on the Asian mainland in Madagascar andin almost all of island Southeast Asia All the languages of the Philippinesand almost all the languages of Indonesia (excluding most of Irian Jaya) areAustronesian

About 450 Austronesian languages are spoken within the Pacific regionThese include all the languages of Polynesia Micronesia Fiji New Caledo-nia and Vanuatu as well as almost all the languages of Solomon IslandsOnly about one quarter of the languages of the New Guinea area belong

45

Map 12 Austronesian Languages

to this family however Speakers of these languages generally occupy NewGuinearsquos offshore islands and some coastal areas but very few inhabit in-land areas

While linguists are still not in full agreement as to the major subgroupsof Austronesian figure 6 shows one widely accepted view of the higher-or-der branches of this family Nearly all of the Austronesian languages dis-cussed in this book belong to the Oceanic subgroup The family tree sug-gests an Asian origin for speakers of Austronesian and the archaeologicalevidence tends to corroborate this

32 The Oceanic LanguagesTwo languages spoken in Micronesia Palauan and Chamorro belong to oneof the Western Malayo-Polynesian subgroups of Austronesian and the Aus-tronesian languages of the western part of Irian Jaya belong to the SouthHalmaherandashWest New Guinea subgroup All of the other Austronesian lan-guages in the Pacific belong to the Oceanic subgroup This subgroup wasoriginally established by the German linguist Dempwolff (1934ndash1938) Hereferred to it as Urmelanesisch lsquoProto Melanesianrsquo All Oceanic languagesshare a number of phonological grammatical and lexical innovations thatare absent from the other Austronesian languages

321 Internal Relationships of the Oceanic LanguagesScholars have been debating the internal relationships of Oceanic for sometime They agree that the initial branching of Oceanic was in the western

46 CHAPTER 3

part of the Pacific but the poor state of our knowledge of Melanesian lan-guages has made it difficult to determine just what that initial branchinglooked like Fijian and the Polynesian languages have been thoroughly stud-ied for more than a century and their interrelationships are fairly clearThey form however only one small subsubgroup of Oceanic and studyingthem has not helped a great deal in determining the overall structure of theOceanic subgroup

Figure 6 An Austonesian Family Tree

The History of the Austronesian Languages 47

Only in fairly recent years has a coherent picture of the Oceanic sub-group begun to emerge Currently the groups within this subgroup include

1 Yapese spoken on the island of Yap in Micronesia (Ross 1995) Thismay prove to form part of the Admiralty Islands group

2 The Admiralty Islands group namely the languages of Manus andneighboring islands to the north of the New Guinea mainland

3 The Saint Matthias Islands group two languages spoken on smallislands immediately to the north of New Ireland in Papua NewGuinea This also may prove to be part of the Admiralty Islands group

4 The Western Oceanic group a very large grouping consisting ofa The North New Guinea subgroup comprising all the Oceanic

languages of western and southern New Britain plus those spo-ken along the northern coast of Papua New Guinea from justsouth of the Markham Valley westward to the Irian Jaya border

b The Papuan Tip subgroup all the Oceanic languages of thePapuan mainland and the neighboring islands

c The Meso-Melanesian subgroup made up of the Oceanic lan-guages of northern and eastern New Britain New IrelandBougainville (and their offshore islands) and the Oceanic lan-guages of the western half of the Solomon Islands (excluding ahandful of Polynesian Outlier languagesmdashsee 322 below)

d The Sarmi-Jayapura subgroup made up of the Oceanic lan-guages of the northeast coast of Irian Jaya (Ross 1996) (Theseare included here because they may turn out to be part of theNorth New Guinea subgroup)

5 The Southeast Solomons group includes the Oceanic languagesof Guadalcanal Malaita and Makira plus Bughotu on Isabel Thisgroup may possibly also include the languages of Utupua andVanikoro in the Temotu Province of Solomon Islands though it ismore likely that these form one or even two separate subgroups

6 The Southern Oceanic group (Lynch 1997) consisting ofa The North-Central Vanuatu subgroup in which are the non-

Polynesian languages of north and central Vanuatu from theTorres Islands in the north to Efate in the central south

b The Southern Melanesian subgroup with the non-Polynesianlanguages of Southern Vanuatu (Erromango Tanna and Ane-ityum) New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands

7 The Micronesian group all non-Polynesian Oceanic languages ingeographical Micronesia excluding Yapese note that the status ofNauruan within this group is still problematic

48 CHAPTER 3


8 The Central Pacific group consisting of Rotuman the languagesof Fiji and all Polynesian languages including the Polynesian Out-liers discussed below2

Attempts have been made to try to link two or more of these groupingstogether into a higher-order group but they have so far been unsuccessfulGroups 5ndash8 above have recently been linked into a putative Central-EasternOceanic subgroup (Lynch Ross and Crowley 1998) whose validity is still be-ing investigated Because of this trying to present a family tree of Oceanicwould serve no real purpose at this stage of our research

322 Oceanic Subgroups and Geographical RegionsGiven the subgrouping of Oceanic just outlined it should be obvious that theboundaries dividing the three traditional geographical-cultural regions of thePacificmdashMelanesia Micronesia and Polynesiamdashdo not correspond to the lin-guistic facts About twenty languages are spoken in the geographical areaknown as Polynesia Outside Polynesia are fourteen other languages that arevery clearly genetically ldquoPolynesianrdquo These are referred to as PolynesianOutliers and most scholars assume that they are the result of migrations intoMelanesia and Micronesia from western Polynesia after its settlement by theancestors of the modern Polynesians Table 2 gives a list with locations of thefourteen Polynesian Outliers (See also maps 4 6ndash9) Figure 7 shows the in-terrelationships of the Polynesian languages and their immediate relatives inthe Central Pacific group The primary split in Polynesian occurred betweenthe Tongic subgroup (consisting of just Tongan and Niuean) and the NuclearPolynesian subgroup (consisting of all other Polynesian languages includingthe Outliers) The closest Outliersrsquo relatives within Polynesian appear to beSamoan Tokelauan Tuvaluan East Uvea East Futuna Niuafolsquoousbquo and Puka-puka Although all the languages of Polynesia are Polynesian in the geneticsense not all Polynesian languages are spoken in Polynesia

In Micronesia the situation is somewhat different The ldquoMicronesianrdquo sub-group consists of most but not all of the languages of geographical Microne-sia Not only are two Polynesian Outliers Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi spo-ken in Micronesia but Yapese appears to be a single member of a subgroupseparate from all other Oceanic languages To complicate matters further thenature of the relationship of Nauruan to the other Micronesian languages isunclear and Palauan and Chamorro are not even Oceanic languages at all buthave as their closest relatives languages in Indonesia and the Philippines

Nowhere however is the mismatch between so-called cultural areasand linguistic classification more glaring than in Melanesia Hundreds of

50 CHAPTER 3

Table 2 Polynesian Outliers

Country or territory Location LanguageFederated States of Mi-cronesia

Nukuoro Island Nukuoro

Kapingamarangi Island KapingamarangiPapua New Guinea Nukuria Island Nukuria

Mortlock Island TakuuTasman Island Nukumanu

Solomon Islands Ontong Java LuangiuaStewart Island SikaianaRennell Island BellonaIsland

Rennellese

Duff Island PileniTikopia Island AnutaIsland

Tikopia-Anuta

Vanuatu Emae Island EmaePort Vila harbor Ifira-MeleFutuna Island AniwaIsland

West Futuna

New Caledonia Ouveacutea Loyalty Islands Fagauvea (WestUvea)

Papuan languages are spoken in Melanesia as are a number of Oceanic lan-guages including a dozen or so Polynesian Outliers (see table 3)

But more important is the fact that although we can speak of a Polyne-sian subgroup and even of a Micronesian subgroup that have some corre-lation with geography there is no such thing as a Melanesian subgroup ofOceanic Of the eight major subgroups of Oceanic six are located wholly orpartly in Melanesia

33 The Settlement of OceaniaLinguists construct hypotheses about the interrelationships of languages toattempt to find out about the past These theories about past languages andlanguage splits generally lead to theories about the origins and migrationsof peoples In many cases one can compare linguistic and archaeological hy-potheses in an effort to put both on a firmer footing

331 Origins of Oceanic SpeakersThe Oceanic subgrouprsquos position on the Austronesian family tree (figure 6)indicates that the speakers of Proto Oceanic migrated from Southeast Asia


Figure 7 The Polynesian Subgroup

52 CHAPTER 3

Table 3 Languages of Melanesia

Austronesian Papuan TotalNew Caledonia 28 mdash 28Vanuatu 105 mdash 105Solomon Islands 56 7 63Papua New Guinea 210 540 750Irian Jaya 45 160 205Totals 444 707 1151

to the Pacific region This thesis is almost universally accepted Some evi-dence suggests that the closest external relatives of the Austronesian lan-guages may be (1) the Thai-Kadai group of languages spoken mainly inThailand and Laos and (2) the languages of the neighboring Austroasiaticgroup spoken mainly in Cambodia and Vietnam Both of these groups alsohave members in southern China and in parts of Malaysia Archaeologistssuspect that dramatic improvements in agricultural practices accompaniedby significant population growth led to expansions of human populations onthe Southeast Asian mainland around 5000 BC (Bellwood 1995)

The Austronesians were one of these populations The linguistic familytree presented in figure 6 is compatible with the archaeological evidencepointing to an Austronesian homeland on the Asian mainland The first no-ticeable expansion was into Taiwan and then after some centuries fromTaiwan to the Philippines Later some Austronesian speakers migrated toMalaysia Indonesia and Madagascar

The closest relatives of Oceanic are its immediate western neighborsin the Cenderawasih Bay area and the Halmahera Islands in western IrianJaya The immediate ancestors of the Proto Oceanic speakers migrated fromeastern Indonesia through western Irian Jaya into the Bismarck Archipelago(Manus New Britain and New Ireland) and settled theremdashpossibly aroundthe Willaumez Peninsula in New Britainmdashfor some time Map 14 gives someidea of the various migrations

332 The Dispersal of Oceanic SpeakersOceanic speakers were not the first to arrive in the New Guinea area speak-ers of Papuan languages had been there for a long time The New Britainarea for example has been settled for more than thirty thousand yearsand parts of the mainland of New Guinea for much longer even than thatContact between the original Papuan-speaking settlers and the invading


Map 14 Austronesian Migrations

Austronesians must have been varied in nature In some situations the twogroups probably engaged in open warfare In others the relationship wouldhave been uneasy but not particularly hostile Yet others no doubt involvedtotal integration and intermarriage

Some speakers of Proto Oceanic and its early descendants limited theirsettlements moving slowly to settle the Admiralties and New Britain Otherswent farther Yap may have been settled from the Admiralties for exampleas were New Ireland and the western Solomons Oceanic speakers alsocrossed the Vitiaz Strait to reach the New Guinea mainland with one groupprogressively settling the north coast from east to west and another movinginto the Milne Bay area and the south coast

Some Oceanic speakers seem to have been more adventurous still Ifindeed they originated in the New Britain area they have left no tracethere but seem to have moved first southeast into the Solomons then southinto northern and central Vanuatu and north into Micronesia probably theKiribatindashMarshall Islands area from which location they settled the rest ofMicronesia There were also movements further south into southern Vanu-

54 CHAPTER 3

atu the Loyalty Islands and New Caledonia and further east to Fiji fromwhere Polynesia was settled Map 14 outlines these movements

We should be careful however not to think of all of these migrationsas major colonizing expeditions Spriggs (1995) for example suggests thatthere were probably initial long-distance scouting parties followed by morethan one movement of people along fairly well defined routes Back-migra-tions of some people also took place The migrations may have been deliber-ate as such factors as population pressure food shortages or political tur-moil forced people to seek somewhere else to live They may also have beenaccidental at least initially as fishermen were blown off course and endedup on new islands Many settlements succeeded but a great number nodoubt failed because of disease attacks by speakers of Papuan languagesand all kinds of other reasons

Such factors complicate the neat splitting of communities suggested byfamily treesOntheonehanda languagecommunitymaynothaveactually splitbut rather slowly diversified as contact between its subgroups became less andless intense On the other hand different related languages could have influ-enced each other blurring any innovations that might have been developing inone or another of them Speed of settlement is another complicating factor Inthe islands east of the Bismarcks no one seems to have stayed in one place longenough for telltale linguistic innovations to appear Under these circumstancesdefinitive higher-order subgroups of Oceanic are hard to establish

If the settlement of the Pacific proceeded in the direction and at thespeed discussed above it begins to make sense that Micronesians and Poly-nesians although originating in Melanesia nevertheless physically resem-ble their Southeast Asian ancestors more than they do Melanesians SomeOceanic speakers moved through Melanesia quickly enough to retain Asiangenetic features and these people ldquobecamerdquo Polynesians and MicronesiansOthers remained in Melanesia where centuries of intermarriage with thephysically different Papuan speakers have led to quite different genetic de-velopments (Pawley and Ross 1995 60)

333 Dating Dispersals The ldquoLapita PeoplerdquoTrying to establish a chronological framework for these migrations purelyon linguistic grounds is presentlymdashand will probably remainmdashimpossible Afamily tree provides relative datings of language divisions telling us thatone such split occurred before or after another but it does not offer anyabsolute dating

In the 1950s and 1960s linguists made an attempt to derive actual datesfrom lexicostatistical data3 (The term for this is glottochronology) Concrete


dates for the breakup of Proto Indo-European and its various subgroups werefor example proposed Glottochronology however was strongly criticized bymany scholars not only because of some of the dates it generated but also be-cause of inherent weaknesses in its methodology and underlying assumptionsThe practice has been almost universally abandoned

But although there is no linguistic technique for determining absolutedates for divisions in protolanguages or for migrations linguists can try tomatch their relative dating sequences with archaeological evidence whichis on surer ground when it comes to absolute dating In the Oceanic regionthis cooperative enterprise has led to some interesting results

Archaeologists use the term Lapita to refer to a distinctive style of pot-tery (The name comes from a place in New Caledonia one of the first sitesexcavated with this pottery) The term Lapita culture refers to the cul-tural complex associated with this pottery style including the introductionof pigs dogs and chickens distinctive stone adzes and shell ornamentsthe development of larger villages and the intensification of agriculture(Spriggs 1995 116ndash118)

Lapita culture first appears in the archaeological record of the BismarckArchipelago about 1600 BC It seems to have reached as far as Vanuatu andNew Caledonia by about 1200 BC and Fiji and western Polynesia by about1000 BC In Vanuatu and islands farther south and east Lapita people werethe first settlers There is no evidence of any pre-Lapita people (Papuans orothers) in eastern Melanesia and Polynesia and this absence of competitionfor land would have made settlement much easier than it was farther northand west

This notion of a very rapid movement of people through island Melane-sia correlates very well with the linguistic subgrouping that I discussed inthe last section That is the fact that the Oceanic group seemed to havea number of first-order subgroups (a ldquoflatrdquo tree) rather than two or threesubgroups that themselves have only two or three subsubgroups suggestsfairly quick movement over a wide area Much slower settlement patternswould have allowed more time for distinctive innovations and would presenta more layered family tree with the eastern languages much lower down thetree than the western ones

Archaeologists tell us that the original Polynesians settled in the Samoa-Tonga area about 1000 BC remaining in that area for five hundred or evena thousand years At around the turn of the era some moved into easternPolynesia while others migrated to the western Pacific to establish the Out-liers By about AD 1000 all the major eastern Polynesian island groups hadbeen settled (Bellwood 1978 318)

In Micronesia there is evidence that the Mariana Islands may have been

56 CHAPTER 3

settled from Southeast Asia about 1000 BC The rest of Micronesia howeverappears to have been settled for only about two thousand yearsmdashprobablyby Lapita people from somewhere in Melanesia though neither linguisticsnor archaeology is able to tell us precisely where

Significantly less archaeological work has been done in the western andnorthern parts of the Pacific than in the eastern part so that linguists work-ing on the Polynesian languages who are dealing with a relatively shortperiod have reliable archaeological information with which to correlatetheir findings But those working in Melanesia and Micronesia have to dealwith a longer period of time much less archaeological information againstwhich to test their hypotheses and in some areas at least occupation bypre-Oceanic peoples

334 Rapid Diversification in MelanesiaMany linguists have commented on and tried to explain the much greaterdiversity exhibited by the Austronesian languages of Melanesia than by anyother part of the Austronesian family This is partly a function of time Aus-tronesian languages have had more time to change in Melanesia than inPolynesia or Micronesia and so appear less similar to each other But thereis more to the problemmdashand to Austronesian language historymdashthan thetime factor After all Austronesians have not been in Melanesia for count-less eons longer than they have been in Polynesia and Micronesia

Some of the Austronesian languages of Melanesia seem to havechanged more rapidly than others This is due in part to contact betweenAustronesian and Papuan languages Fairly clear evidence shows that somelanguages of the Oceanic subgroup have changed radically as a result ofcontact with Papuan languages Among the most radical are languages likeMagori and Maisin in Papua New Guinea where linguists have had difficultyin deciding whether or not they are Austronesian at all So the history ofthe Austronesian languages of Melanesiamdashespecially western Melanesiamdashiscomplicated by the fact that they not only neighbor Papuan languages buthave in many cases been in intimate contact with them

But certainly all of the major differences between Melanesian languagescannot be explained by Papuan contact Many of the more aberrant Oceaniclanguages in Melanesia like those of New Caledonia are far away from thenearest Papuan language Rapid change can be an internal matter as wellas an external one and many of the differences between languages in thisregion have come about without external influence The small scale of manyMelanesian societies can allow changes to spread more quickly than theymight in larger societies although smallness does not cause rapid change


The notion of the emblematic function (Grace 1981) of language inMelanesia is an important one to mention here Linguistic differences canbe important as badges of membership in a particular social group and peo-ple often focus on these differences as markers of in-group or out-groupstatus (in the same way that young people in many societies use slang ex-pressions to mark their in-group status) In Melanesia especially differencesbetween neighboring languages may have been exaggeratedmdasheven man-ufacturedmdashin order to preserve this emblematic function Such a processleads to more rapid diversification than normally expected

34 Reconstructing CultureMuch of the effort of comparative-historical linguists has gone into the re-construction of the vocabulary of Proto Oceanic An examination of thisreconstructed vocabulary gives us insights into the culture of the speakersof the language in a number of ways

1 An examination of words that can be reconstructed for ProtoOceanic can help us make inferences about the culture of thespeakers of that language

2 Identification of widespread cultural items for which terms can notbe reconstructed for Proto Oceanic suggests that such items weremore recent introductions

3 An examination of reconstructed Proto Austronesian words not re-flected in Proto Oceanic can indicate which original Austronesiancultural items were lost or abandoned by Oceanic speakers as theymoved eastward into the Pacific

As an example of the last point we can reconstruct Proto Austronesianwords referring to different kinds of rice and millet and to rice and milletcultivation but no such reconstructions can be made for Proto OceanicPresumably these crops were abandoned by Oceanic speakers in their mi-gration from Southeast Asia to the Pacific

Terms we can reconstruct for Proto Oceanic embrace a wide culturalrange4 A few of the subject areas are

bull Canoes and fishing Terms for two types of outrigger canoes (large andsmall) outrigger float and boom matting sail paddle bailer launch-ing rollers rudder and anchor as well as terms for various parts of thecanoe and for steering and sailing There are also many reconstructedterms for a number of aspects of fishing technology and of coursenames of many different kinds of fish shellfish and crustaceans

58 CHAPTER 3

bull Pottery Various kinds of pots clay and techniques of clay pot manu-facture decorations and accessories like lids as well as terms fordifferent kinds of cooking (roasting boiling steaming stone or earthoven etc)

bull Food crops Several kinds of yam taro banana pandanus bread-fruit sago and sugar cane as well as terms associated with horti-cultural practices

bull Fruits and nuts A wide range of terms relating to the coconut hasbeen reconstructed including those for different stages of growthand parts of the fruit or tree The words for a number of fruit and nuttrees for betel nut and for plants like ginger and turmeric have alsobeen reconstructed

bull Animals and birds Proto Oceanic terms in this area include wordsfor wild and domesticated pig dog fowl rat bandicoot cassowarycuscus (possum) and numerous bird names

bull Social structure A fairly complete set of kinship terms has been re-constructed as have terms relating to chieftainship and the societalhierarchy

These and other reconstructed words paint the following picture of earlyOceanic culture The original speakers of Proto Oceanic were clearly a mar-itime people They used outrigger canoes fished with hooks and nets andgenerally exploited the resources of the maritime environment They grew anumber of crops including yam taro banana and sugar cane and gatheredfruits and nuts They had domesticated fowls pigs and dogs (and suffered therat) used the spear and the bow and arrow for hunting or warfare made claypots and built houses with shelves and platforms (as well as probably build-ing more temporary shelters in gardens or on the beach) They had a fairlyhierarchical society with chiefs and probably other social ranks as well Theybelieved in gods or spirits and probably practiced sorcery

But some words cannot be reconstructed for Proto Oceanic despite thefact that the items they name are found in most parts of the Pacific today Thesweet potato for example is grown and eaten across the Pacific yet thereis no Proto Oceanic reconstruction for it Apparently the sweet potato wasintroduced after the dispersal of Oceanic speakers Archaeological evidenceconfirms this Other items that also fall into this category include the paw-paw and the cassava (manioc) Our linguistic evidence particularly whenpaired with the archaeological testimony gives us a partial understanding ofPacific prehistory although much remains to be done


CHAPTER

4

The History of the Papuanand Australian Languages

Almost a thousand languages spoken in the Pacific region do not belong tothe Austronesian family Of these more than seven hundred are spoken in ornear New Guinea and are known by the general term ldquoPapuanrdquo the remain-ing two hundred or so are or were spoken in Australia We know much lessabout the history of these languages than about the history of the Austrone-sian languages

The majority of Papuan languages are located in the interior of theisland of New Guinea This area experienced no European contact untilshortly before (and even in some cases some time after) World War II Sowhile many of the languages east of New Guinea had been written for ahundred years or more and had been studied in some detail most Papuanlanguages were unknown to the outside world until very recently

Missionary linguists (especially those working with the Summer Insti-tute of Linguistics) were largely responsible for dramatically increasing ourknowledge of Papuan languages in the decades after 1945 and the pictureis considerably clearer than it was in say the 1960s Nevertheless thereare still very many Papuan languages about which almost nothing is knownand the work of comparative linguistics has barely begun Where Australiais concerned the death of many languages before they had been properlyrecorded leaves us with gaps of a different Kind Much of the evidenceneeded to make historical inferences has disappeared and formulating andtesting historical hypotheses is hampered at every turn

As if these problems were not enough we are faced with a much longerperiod of human habitation in both Australia and New Guinea than in mostof the rest of the Austronesian-speaking world The longer a group of lan-guages have had to diversify the fewer will be their apparent similarities

60

In dealing with the history of both Papuan and Australian languages I canmake only general and tentative statements

41 Interrelationships of Papuan Languages411 Papuan Language FamiliesThe term Papuan refers to those languages of the Pacific region excluding Aus-tralia that are not members of the Austronesian language family It does notrefer to a single family of languages ldquoPapuan languages are not all geneticallyrelated They do not all trace their origins back to a single ancestral languageOn the basis of present knowledge they belong to at least sixty different lan-guage families all with their own common ancestral languagerdquo (Foley 1986 3emphasis mine) Some linguists prefer the label ldquoNon-Austronesianrdquo for theselanguages since it does not imply the genetic unity that a positive label likeldquoPapuanrdquo does ldquoNon-Austronesianrdquo however like any negative label has itsown problemsmdashRussian Chinese English and Swahili after all are also non-Austronesian languagesmdashso I use the term ldquoPapuanrdquo in this book

While Foley does not explicitly define the criteria he uses in decidingmembership or nonmembership of a family it is clear from his conclusionsthat relatively close relationship is involved As far as these sixty or so fami-lies are concerned their ldquowider relations [are] not yet conclusively demon-strated Undoubtedly with more careful and complete comparative workthis picture will become simpler a number of families will probably com-bine into larger families as Romance Germanic and Slavic combine into theIndo-European familyrdquo (Foley 1986 3)

In this initial discussion of Papuan language families I follow Foleyrsquosconservative view later I discuss proposed combinations of these familiesThe list of Papuan families in table 4 proceeds generally on a west-to-eastbasis with the number for each family corresponding to that on map 15 Thelocations given in table 4 refer to geographical regions in Irian Jaya and toprovince names in Papua New Guinea

The situation is however even more complicated than table 4 indicatesNot every Papuan language belongs in a (smaller or larger) family A numberof Papuan languages are currently classified as isolates The term isolaterefers to a one-member family a language that on the basis of current evi-dence appears to have no relatives

412 Possible Wider Groupings of Papuan FamiliesNaturally enough the existence of so many language families in such a rela-tively small geographical area has caused many linguists to look for wider

The History of the Papuan and Australian Languages 61

Table 4 Papuan Language Families

Family Locationa Number oflanguages

West of the New Guinea mainlan1 Timor-Alor-Pantar Timor area 182 Northern Halmahera Halmahera Islands 11

Mainland Irian Jaya onlyb

3 West Birdrsquos Head Birdrsquos Head 64 Central Birdrsquos Head Birdrsquos Head 45 Borai-Hattam Birdrsquos Head 26 South Birdrsquos Head Birdrsquos Head 107 East Birdrsquos Head Birdrsquos Head 38 MairasindashTanah

Merahwestern 4

9 West Bomberai western 310 East Cenderwasih

Baywestern 4

11 TorndashLake Plain northern 2012 Nimboran northeast 313 Kaure northeast 314 Pauwasi northeast 415 Sentani northeast 416 Dani-Kwerba central 1117 Wissel Lakes central 418 Mek (Goliath) eastern 919 Kayagar southeast 320 Yelmek-Maklew southeast 221 Kolopom Frederick Hendrik

Island3

Both sides of the Irian JayandashPapua New Guinea borderc

22 Sko north coast 823 Border northern 1224 Kwomtari northern 525 Senagi northern 226 Central-South New

Guineacentral 54

27 Marind southern 628 Trans-Fly south coast 25

62 CHAPTER 4

Mainland Papua New Guinea onlyd

29 Torricelli East amp West SepikMadang

48

30 Upper Sepik East Sepik 1631 Ram West Sepik 332 Tama East and West Sepik 533 Yellow River West Sepik 334 Middle Sepik East Sepik 1235 Sepik Hills East Sepik 1536 Leonhard Schulze East Sepik and West-

ern6

37 Nor-Pondo East Sepik 638 Yuat East Sepik 639 Mongol-Langam East Sepik 340 Waibuk Enga Madang 441 Arafundi East Sepik 242 Keram (Grass) East Sepik Madang 543 Ruboni East Sepik Madang 844 Goam Madang 1145 Annaberg Madang 346 Arai East Sepik 647 Amto-Musian West Sepik 248 Mugil-Isumrud-Pi-

homMadang 28

49 Josephstaal-Wanang Madang 1250 Brahman Madang 451 Mabuso Madang 2952 Rai Coast Madang 2953 East New Guinea

Highlandsall Highlandsprovinces

42

54 Finisterre-Huon Morobe 6555 Gogodala-Suki Western 356 Kutubuan Southern Highlands 557 Turama-Kikorian Gulf 458 Teberan-Pawaian Simbu Gulf 359 Inland Gulf Gulf 560 Eleman Gulf 761 Angan Gulf 1262 Binanderean Oro 1663 Central-Southeast

New GuineaCentral Milne Bay 36


East of the New Guinea mainland64 New Britain East New Britain

New Ireland8

65 South Bougainville Bougainville 466 North Bougainville Bougainville 467 Yele-Solomons Milne Bay Solomon

Islands5

68 ReefsndashSanta Cruz Solomon Islands 4aGeographical designations in Irian Jaya province names in Papua New GuineabThere are a number of isolates in addition to the languages listed herecThe isolate Yuri belongs in this groupdSeveral isolates occur in this group

relationships between them If the neighboring Austronesian languages canapparently be classified into a single large family then can we not at leastreduce the number of Papuan language families Scholars at the AustralianNational University particularly S A Wurm have attempted to establishlarger groupings of Papuan languages on the basis of what seem to beshared features Lack of adequate information about many languages hashampered this work While some of the proposals rest on solid data othersare much more impressionistic Map 16 shows the locations of proposedwider groupings

Wurm borrowed terms from the biological sciences to refer to someof these wider groupings of languages A stock is a group of languagefamilies that appear to be reasonably closely related to each other whilea phylum is a group of distantly related families or stocks In table4 I have often treated as families groups that other linguists referto as stocks The degree of relationship between Papuan languages ofthe same stock roughly parallels that between geographically dispersedmembers of the Austronesian family but the concept of a phylum isquite different as it implies only a very distant relationship The tech-niques and procedures of comparative linguistics have not yet been ableto prove the existence of such attenuated relationships

One proposed phylum is the West Papuan phylum consisting of theNorthern Halmahera West Birdrsquos Head Central Birdrsquos Head and Borai-Hat-tam families (families 2 through 5 in table 4) along with the Amberbakenisolate for a total of twenty-four languages all in the extreme west of IrianJaya These languages have in common a certain amount of lexical similarity

64 CHAPTER 4


66 CHAPTER 4

and some grammatical features (eg the marking of subject and object byverbal prefixes rather than suffixes [Wurm 1982 208])

Another suggested wider grouping is the Sepik-Ramu phylumconsisting of more than one hundred languages belonging to sixteen differ-ent families (numbered 30 through 45 in table 4) and spoken mainly in theEast Sepik West Sepik and Madang provinces of Papua New Guinea (A fewnearby isolates would also be members of this phylum) These languagesshare a number of distinct phonological features such as a very small num-ber of vowel phonemes and also have some common grammatical features(Wurm 1982 210)

The Torricelli family (29 in table 4) is treated by Wurm as the Torricelliphylum composed of perhaps five or six families Foley (1986 241ndash242)however treats this as a single family largely because these languagesshare a number of grammatical features not found elsewhere among Papuanlanguages (Subject prefixes and complex noun-class systems are two exam-ples)

Wurm has also grouped the Papuan languages spoken east of the NewGuinea mainland into the East Papuan phylum This consists of twenty-five languages belonging to the New Britain South Bougainville NorthBougainville Yele-Solomons and ReefsndashSanta Cruz families (64 through 68in table 4) There appears to be some lexical and grammatical evidence forthe existence of this group though it is not very strong and the situation iscomplicated by the heavy Austronesian-language influence on some of themembers of the phylum

The largest and possibly most controversial genetic grouping Wurmproposes is the TransndashNew Guinea phylum This hypothesis in its most ex-treme form proposes that almost all the rest of the Papuan languagesmdashwiththe exceptions of a few small families and some isolatesmdashbelong to a singlegenetic group of about five hundred languages stretching from Timor in thewest to Milne Bay in the east It would include all of the languages of thesouthern and central part of the mainland as well as some spoken in thenorth (1 6 8 9 11ndash21 23 25ndash27 and 48ndash63 in table 4) There are certainphonological and grammatical features shared by at least some members ofthis group but the existence of the phylum as a wholemdashat least at this stageof our researchmdashseems tenuous to say the least Some support for the hy-pothesis can be found in Pawley (1995)

A number of the families listed in table 4 cannot at present be assignedto any phylum even under the most liberal application of the comparativemethod These lone families are the East Birdrsquos Head Cenderawasih Bay(plus the isolate Yava) Sko Kwomtari Arai and Amto-Musian families(see map 16)


42 Interrelationships of Australian Languages421 Mainland AustraliaSome linguists have divided the languages of mainland Australia into twopseudogenetic groups The Pama-Nyungan group of languages occupiesabout three-quarters of the mainland Its name comes from the words mean-ing lsquomanrsquo at the northeastern and southwestern extremes of the group(Dixon 1980 221) These languages are very similar typologically in bothphonology and grammar The remaining languagesmdashreferred to by the neg-ative term NonndashPama-Nyunganmdashoccupy the northwest of the mainland(see map 11 in chapter 2) They are phonologically fairly similar to the Pama-Nyungan languages but grammatically quite different

In the 1960s a lexicostatistical classification of the Australian languagesdivided the languages into twenty-six ldquophylic familiesrdquo (those sharing 15percent basic vocabulary or less) Of these groups one was Pama-Nyunganand each of the remaining twenty-fivemdashNonndashPama-Nyunganmdashgroups washeld to be a ldquophylic familyrdquo on a par with Pama-Nyungan (Dixon 1980 263)

Dixon himself is highly distrustful of this classification A majority of lin-guists now agrees that all the mainland languages belong to a single Aus-tralian family The differences between Pama-Nyungan and NonndashPama-Nyungan languages are developmental rather than original ldquoIt seems clearhellip that nearly all the languages of Australia form one genetic family goingback to a single ancestral language proto Australianrdquo (Dixon 1980 228) Be-cause of the thousands of years of contact between Australian languageshowever shared innovations supporting subgrouping hypotheses are ex-tremely hard to find ldquoPresent knowledge of the relationships between Aus-tralian languages is not sufficient to justify any sort of fully articulated lsquofam-ily treersquo modelhellip It could perhaps be that the continual levelling due todiffusion of features of every sort has obscured those genetic splits that didtake place in the development of Australian languages so that it will not bepossible to reconstruct themrdquo (Dixon 1980 264ndash265)

422 TasmaniaGenocide in Tasmania has led to the loss of all Tasmanian languages AnAboriginal population of possibly five thousand people at the time of first Eu-ropean contact speaking somewhere between eight and twelve languageswas exterminated in less than eighty years The last full-blooded Tasmaniandied in 1888 although there are still about four thousand people of partialTasmanian Aboriginal descent living in Tasmania and elsewhere So littlewas recorded of these languages that it is almost impossible to say anything

68 CHAPTER 4

about them (Crowley 1993) As regards their history Dixon (1980 233) saysldquoAll we can conclude is thismdashthere is NO evidence that the Tasmanian lan-guages were NOT of the regular Australian type They have been separatedoff for so long and the available materials are so poor that the likelihood ofa genetic connection cannot be confirmed The genetic affiliation of Tasman-ian is and must remain unprovenrdquo

43 Possible External LinksSuggestions about the wider relationships of Papuan and Australian lan-guages have not been lacking but given the long periods of time involvedmost of these can remain no more than suggestions Greenbergrsquos (1971)Indo-Pacific Hypothesis attempts to link Papuan languages with those ofTasmania (but not mainland Australia) and of the Andaman Islands in theIndian Ocean Greenberg speculated that Australian languages are relatedto the Dravidian languages of South India Scholars and amateurs have alsolooked for relationships between Papuan or Australian languages and thoseof Africa and Asia None of these hypotheses seems to be based on any ev-idence more solid than typological similarities or a few possibly accidentallexical similarities

Foley (1986 271ndash275) however has recently presented a small but tan-talizing amount of evidence for the existence of a genetic link between Aus-tralian languages and the languages of the Eastern Highlands of Papua NewGuinea A small number of basic vocabulary items look as if they might be cog-nate But he says that this evidence ldquoin no way constitutes proof of a geneticrelationship between Australian and Eastern Highlands languageshellip Muchmore detailed and careful research needs to be done before a convincing proofis provided and given the time depth that may never be possible Rather theabove data represent a first attempt at marshalling some evidence for a ge-netic link between Australian and Papuan languagesrdquo (Foley 1986 275)

Up until around eight thousand years ago New Guinea and Australiawere one continent Only then did sea levels start rising after the last Ice Ageto form what is now the Torres Strait It is distinctly possible that Australiawas settled from the New Guinea area so the idea of a genetic link betweenthe two areas cannot be ruled out

44 Implications for Prehistory441 OriginsThe New Guinea mainland was probably occupied at least fifty thousandyears ago presumably by the ancestors of the speakers of (some) Papuan


languages Australia was also settled at about the same time Since compar-ative linguistics cannot reach back more than about eight or ten thousandyears most of that fifty-thousand-year period is lost to linguistics

It is possible that all the Papuan families are related descending from asingle ldquoProto Papuanrdquo ancestor that we cannot even dimly imagine A singlelanguage spoken somewhere in the New Guinea area around 50000 BCcould have given rise over time to all of the modern Papuan languages andthis language may have been the ancestral language from which all Aus-tralian languages ultimately derive

We also have no evidence to indicate the origins of the first speakers ofPapuan or Australian languages Linguistic connections with Asia or Africaare nothing more than highly speculative nor would we expect otherwiseIf the time elapsed is too great to show interrelationships among all Papuanlanguages it is certainly too great to show genetic relationships betweenthese languages and those to the north south or west

But perhaps this very lack of evidence for external relatives means thatthe Papuan languages do or did form a genetic unity and that the same couldbe said about the Australian languages If the diversity existing among mod-ern Papuan and Australian families is due to different origins and differentmigrations of people at various times from various locations one might expectto find some genetic connections between individual Papuan or Australianfamilies and Asian or African language families The fact that we do not whilenot strong enough to be called evidence does suggest that the Papuan lan-guages may have formed a single linguistic grouping in the very distant pastand that the same may be true of Australian Tasmanian included

In only a few instances has there been anything in the way of comprehen-sive reconstruction of the phonology grammar and vocabulary of any of thelarger Papuan families and the situation in Australia is pretty similar Littlecan be said about relations with other families origins and migration routesand earlier stages of Papuan or Australian culture and the little that has beensaid on these topics must be treated as highly speculative

442 DiversificationOne question that must be asked in any study of the Papuan and Australiansituations is if both New Guinea and Australia have been settled for aboutthe same length of time why do we find such incredible genetic diversityamong Papuan languages whereas Australian languages all seem to belongto just a single family

Physical geography and its effect on wide-ranging human movementis one contributing factor ldquoMost of New Guinea is difficult country indeed

70 CHAPTER 4

steep forest-covered mountains with precipitous drops swirling riversdense nearly impenetrable rainforests and endless tracts of swamplandThe terrain thus poses some genuine barriers to human social interactionand would certainly favour rather than inhibit linguistic diversityrdquo (Foley1986 9) Geographical barriers like these were often bolstered by socialbarriers Hostile relations were the rule between neighboring communitiesand the tendency of language to take on emblematic functions and to beconsidered as a mark of group identity throughout Melanesia is one sign ofcommunitiesrsquo desires to set themselves apart People often created linguis-tic differences or exaggerated differences that already existed in order topreserve their group membership

Kulick (1992 2ndash3) for example quotes the following observation madeby Ken McElhanon who worked among Selepet speakers in Papua NewGuinea ldquoThe people living in the Selepet-speaking village of Indu had gath-ered together for a meeting During this meeting a decision was reached tolsquobe differentrsquo from other Selepet speakers It was agreed that the villagers ofIndu would immediately stop using their usual word for lsquonorsquo bia which wasshared by all their fellow speakers of Selepet Instead they would begin say-ing buŋε which they did and have continued doing since that timerdquo Thereare many other similar examples In Buin (spoken in Bougainville) speakersof the Usai dialect have reversed all gender agreements masculine mark-ers in other dialects become feminine in Usai and feminine markers becomemasculine (Laycock 1982a) Similar phenomena can be observed in Oceaniclanguages Speakers of Ririo (Choiseul Solomon Islands) seem to have de-liberately transposed the last consonant and vowel of words to make themsound more different from their counterparts in the neighboring closely re-lated language of Babatana (Laycock 1982b 274ndash276)

Babatana Ririososole susuel lsquonakedrsquovumi vuim lsquobeardrsquopiru piur lsquowildrsquobose bues lsquomanrsquo

The Australian continent is in some ways less difficult geographicallythan New Guinea and physical barriers to long-distance communicationare generally much less extreme Though Australians belonged to distincttribal and linguistic groups there was much more social interaction be-tween those groups typically accompanied by transfer of vocabulary itemsfrom one group to another Rather that accentuating differences Austral-ians seem to have made an active effort to keep different languages frombecoming too different Dixon (1980 239) refers to ldquoa gradual but constant


shifting of tribal groupsrdquo through which people came into contact with dif-ferent languages He also mentions mergers of different tribal groups whosenumbers had been reduced by famine or disease Such factors conspired tokeep Australian languages more similar to each other than one might ex-pect especially in comparison to Papuan languages

Both Papuan and Australian languages have been in the Pacific region fora very long time indeed We know nothing of where they came from and littleof how their speakers moved around the region We do not know how far eastor west of the New Guinea mainland Papuan speakers might have originallysettled or much about their connections with Australian languages All we canreasonably deduce is that by the time speakers of Austronesian languagesarrived in this area about four to five thousand years ago or so speakers ofPapuan and Australian languages were very much entrenched

72 CHAPTER 4

PART TWO

Structure

CHAPTER

5

Sound Systems

The sound systems of languages in different parts of the Pacific vary enor-mously sometimes even when the languages themselves are closely relatedMajor similarities and differences exist between languages of the threebroad genetic groupsmdashAustronesian Papuan and Australian Below I dis-cuss the vowel systems consonant systems stress and tone and the way inwhich words are structured in each group touching briefly as well on thedevelopment of orthographies1

51 Oceanic Languages2

511 Vowel SystemsThe great majority of Oceanic languages have five vowel phonemes whichis also the commonest system found among the worldrsquos languages generallyA vowelrsquos position in the diagram corresponds to how it is described eg iis a high front vowel

i ue o

a

This system is universal in the languages of Polynesia and widespread inMelanesia though among Micronesian languages only Kiribati has fivephonemic vowels This same system has also been reconstructed for ProtoOceanic In many languages there is also a phonemic (significant) differencebetween short vowels and long vowels a long vowel being one that takesalmost twice as much time to articulate as a short vowel The examples

75

below show in various languages that vowel length alone is sufficient todistinguish two otherwise identical words A long vowel is marked with a fol-lowing colon a is long and a is short

Samoanmalo lsquoloinclothrsquo malo lsquohardrsquolulu lsquobarn owlrsquo lulu lsquoshakersquo

Nukuoronui lsquococonutrsquo nui lsquogreenrsquoahe lsquogo backrsquo ahe lsquowhenrsquo

Paamesemen lsquoitrsquos ripersquo men lsquohis tonguersquovati lsquohe stoppedrsquo vati lsquohersquoll bite ifrsquo

A handful of languages have fewer than five vowels One Micronesianlanguage Marshallese has been analyzed as having only four vowelphonemes These are written ię e and a but they have wide variations inpronunciation The vowel e for example is variously pronounced [ε] [ә] and[o] depending on the neighboring consonants Some languages in the Mo-robe Province of Papua New Guinea also have fewer than five vowels Marifor example has just i a u Adzera i a o u

Quite a few languages have more than five phonemic vowels Rotumanfor example has ten Almost all of the languages of Micronesia have morethan five vowels Kosraean has twelve Lagoon Trukese and Saipan Carolin-ian each have nine Yapese and Ulithian eight Mokilese seven and Nau-ruan Chamorro and Palauan six Some dialects of Ponapean have sevenvowel phonemes others six (See appendix 3 for the vowel inventories ofKosraean and Mokilese) Vowel length is also significant in Micronesian lan-guages as the example shows

Mokilesepaj lsquonestrsquo paj lsquohollow of canoersquoros lsquodarknessrsquo ros lsquoflowerrsquo

In Melanesia most languages with more than five vowels have just one ortwo extra ones In Tanna and Malakula (Vanuatu) as well as in New Ireland(Papua New Guinea) languages with six vowels generally add ә (the sound of ain English words like ago or sofa) Some languages in Melanesia have developedseven-vowel systems the basic five vowels plus either front rounded vowels (likethe vowels in French rue and heureux) or a contrast between two different e-sounds and two different o-sounds (e and ε o and ͻ)

The most complex Oceanic vowel systems however are almost cer-tainly those of New Caledonia (see appendix 3) Iaai in the Loyalty Islands

76 CHAPTER 5

for example has eleven short vowels all of which can also occur longwhile Xacircracirccugraveugrave on the mainland has ten oral and seven nasal vowelphonemes each of which can occur short or long yielding thirty-four vowelcontrasts

How do such complex vowel systems evolve out of an original five-vowelsystem The changes that took place in different Oceanic languages are verydifferent Here I give just two kinds of examples First phonemes often havemore than one pronunciation depending on their phonetic environmentImagine that the phoneme a was pronounced [aelig] (the sound representedby a in English cat) when the vowel in the next syllable was i but as [a] (likein father) elsewhere We would have pairs of words like

mati lsquosickrsquo [maeligti]mata lsquoeyersquo [mata]

The pronunciation of phonemic amdash[aelig] or [a]mdashis totally predictable Nowimagine that this language drops out all vowels at the end of words as hashappened in many Oceanic languages The following changes occur

[maeligti] gt [maeligt] lsquosickrsquo[mata] gt [mat] lsquoeyersquo

Now the contrast between [aelig] and [a] creates a minimal pair and aelig hasbeen added to the languagersquos phonemic (as opposed to phonetic) inventory

Rotuman illustrates a second kind of process Most Rotuman wordshave ldquolongrdquo and ldquoshortrdquo forms that are used in different grammatical con-texts3 In some cases the short form simply drops the final vowel of the longform (Note that the symbol ŋ represents the ng sound in English sing whileʔ represents the glottal stop)

RotumanLong form Short formhaŋa haŋ lsquofeedrsquoheleʔu heleʔ lsquoarriversquo

Metathesis howevermdashtwo phonemes exchanging placesmdashis more com-mon With some vowel combinations metathesis has no further phonologi-cal repercussions

RotumanLong form Short formhosa hoas lsquoflowerrsquotiko tiok lsquofleshrsquopepa peap lsquopaperrsquo

Sound Systems 77

But with other combinations the two vowels that came into contact havefused to produce a third different vowel (The vowel ouml is a bit like the vowelin French heureux while uuml is the vowel in French rue)

RotumanLong form Short formmose (gt moes gt) moumls lsquosleeprsquofuti (gt fuit gt) fuumlt lsquopullrsquo

Because of this Rotuman which originally probably had five vowels now hasten

512 Consonant SystemsPolynesian Languages

In general terms the Polynesian languages have the simplest consonantsystems of all the Oceanic languages Tongan has the largest inventoryof consonant phonemes of all of the Polynesian Triangle languages withtwelve A number of Polynesian languages for example Hawaiian have onlyeight consonants

Tongan HawaiianP t k ʔ P k ʔv wf s h hm n ŋ m n

l l

The consonant systems of the Polynesian Outlier languages are gener-ally slightly more complex (Krupa 1982) In some cases this is a result ofcontact with neighboring non-Polynesian languages First unlike any Poly-nesian Triangle language quite a few Outliers among them West FutunaIfira-Mele Emae and Takuu make a distinction between l and r Secondin addition to the normal Polynesian stop consonants p t k ʔ some Outliersshow a contrast with the aspirated stops ph th kh (eg Takuu and Kapinga-marangi) with the voiced stops b d g (Fagauvea) or with the prenasal-ized stops mb nd (eg Emae and Pileni) Third there is contrast betweenthe ordinary nasals m n ŋ and one or more of the voiceless nasals m n inKapingamarangi Fagauvea and Pileni

Micronesia

The consonant systems of the languages of Micronesia are quite differentfrom those of the Fijian and Polynesian languages Lagoon Trukese is fairly

78 CHAPTER 5

typical of the majority of these languages It has the following fourteen con-sonants (tʃ represents a sound something like ch in English church butwith the tongue turned back)

Lagoon Trukesepw P t tʃ kmw m n ŋ

f sr

w y

All consonants except w and y have both short and long forms

Lagoon Trukesesɨk lsquoappearrsquo sɨk lsquobleedrsquokamwe lsquoclamrsquo kamwet lsquosweetheartrsquotʃimw lsquoheadrsquo tʃin lsquospeedyrsquotakir lsquolaughrsquo takitʃ lsquotorch-fishingrsquo

Most other Micronesian languages have similar consonant systems (in-cluding the distinction between short and long consonants) although Kiri-bati has no phonemic fricatives A number have in addition to the trilled reither a flapped r or an l Some like Kosraean Nauruan and Yapese (seeappendix 3) have more complex systems of consonants

Melanesia

There is a considerable variety of consonant systems in Melanesia and al-though neighboring languages often have similar systems one cannot makebroad generalizations on a geographical basis It is fair to say however thatthe consonant systems of New Caledonia are considerably more complexthan those of the rest of this region

Some of the simpler consonant systems in this region are found in theNew Guinea area Below for example are the consonants of the Tigak lan-guage of New Ireland

Tigakp t kb g

svm n ŋ

rl

Sound Systems 79

Probably half of the Melanesian languages would fall into a category ofmedium complexity as far as any classification of consonant systems is con-cerned This complexity usually involves one or more of the following (1)contrast between oral and prenasalized stops (2) contrast between simpleand aspirated stops (3) contrast between voiced and voiceless fricativesand (4) contrast between simple and labialized or velarized consonantsStandard Fijian and the Tolsquoabalsquoita dialect of North Malaita (Solomon Is-lands) illustrate such phonological systems

Fijian Tolsquoabalsquoitap t k t k kw ʔmb nd ŋg mb nd ŋg ŋgw

f s f θ sv ethm n ŋ m n ŋ

l lr

w y w

An unusual phonological feature of some of the languages of north Malakulaand east Santo in Vanuatu are the apico-labial consonants p m whichare produced with the tip of the tongue touching the upper lip

Themostcomplexconsonantsystems inMelanesiaare thoseof the languagesof New Caledonia (see appendix 3 for two examples) The Drehu language of theLoyalty Islands has twenty-eight consonant phonemes including a contrast be-tween the alveolar stops t d and the retroflex stops ṭ ḍ (similar to that found inmany Indian languages)mdasha fairly rare contrast t d (similar to that found in manyIndian languages)mdasha fairly rare contrast in Oceanic languages Both Drehu andPijea languageofthenorthernmainlandthathasthirty-fiveconsonantphonemescontrast voicedandvoicelessnasal lateral andsemivowel phonemes

513 Prosodic FeaturesThe system of consonants and vowels in a language is often referred to asthe segmental phonology of the language since linguists break up (seg-ment) a stream of speech into discrete units Other features of speech thatdo not belong to individual segmentsmdashconsonants or vowelsmdashbut to sylla-bles or words are known as suprasegmental or prosodic features Stressand tone are two of the most important of these

Stress

The term stress refers to the relatively greater prominence given to onesyllable in a word through extra effort extra loudness a change in pitchor some combination of these factors The underlined syllables in the Eng-

80 CHAPTER 5

lish words temptation absolute absolutely and resist receive greater stressthan the other syllables in those words

In the majority of Oceanic languages the position of stress in a word ispredictable Let us take Samoan as an example The basic pattern in Samoanis one of penultimate stress Stress (marked here by an acute accent overthe vowel of the syllable) falls on the next-to-last syllable of the word

Samoantuacuteli lsquodismissrsquo taacutema lsquochildrsquotuliacuteŋa lsquodismissalrsquo tamaacuteʔi lsquoyoung of animalsrsquo

When a suffix is added to a word in Samoan the stress shifts to the right sothat it still falls on the penultimate syllable tuacuteli becomes tuliacuteŋa

When a Samoan word ends in a diphthong (like ae ai au for example)or in a long vowel stress falls on this final diphthong or long vowel

Samoanatamaacutei lsquocleverrsquo faifeʔaacuteu lsquopastorrsquotamaacute lsquofatherrsquo paʔuacute lsquofallrsquo

Most Oceanic languages seem to have a predictable pattern of penulti-mate stress but in some languages while stress is predictable the patternsare different One such language is Māori There are three rules involvedin the assignment of stress in Māori (a) The first long vowel in a word isstressed as in the examples in (a) below (b) if there are no long vowels thefirst vowel cluster is stressed as in (b) and (c) if there are no long vowels orvowel clusters as in (c) then the first vowel is stressed

Māori(a) manaacuteki lsquosupportrsquo paacutetutahi lsquoa villagersquo(b) tamaacuteiti lsquochildrsquo taacuteutau lsquobarkingrsquo(c) taacutemariki lsquochildrenrsquo hoacutero lsquofastrsquo

Languages with unpredictable stress patterns are relatively uncommonin the Pacific although they do exist In many languages of this type how-ever there seems to be one common stress pattern other patterns beingvery much in the minority The Big Nambas language of Malakula in Vanuatuis an example of this type of language In it the majority of words arestressed on the penultimate syllable

Big Nambasaacuteγau lsquogo awayrsquo patiraacuteni lsquoput it uprsquoipaacuteli lsquohersquoll burn itrsquo iputakmaacuteni lsquohersquoll spoil itrsquo

But sometimes stress falls on the final syllable Compare the two pairs be-low identical except for stress

Sound Systems 81

Big Nambasaacuteγau lsquogo awayrsquo aγaacuteu lsquochiefrsquos wifersquoipaacuteli lsquohersquoll burn itrsquo ipaliacute lsquohersquoll tie itrsquo

Further as is not the case in Samoan the stress remains in its original posi-tion even when suffixes are added

Big Nambasγaacutepat lsquochiefrsquo γaacutepatak lsquomy chiefrsquopraacutepar lsquosow (pig)rsquo praacuteparan lsquohis sowrsquo

Tone

Phonemic tone refers to contrasting pitch occurring at the word level Thesame string of consonants and vowels can mean different things if the pitchof the voice is high or low rising or falling While common in Asian andAfrican languagesmdashand in Papuan languages as wellmdashtone is fairly rare inthe rest of the Pacific Among Oceanic languages just a few in New Cale-donia (like Cegravemuhicirc) and a few more in the Morobe Province of Papua NewGuinea (like Yabecircm) have phonemic tone

Cegravemuhicirc has three tones high (marked here with an acute accent) mid(marked with a macron) and low (marked with a grave accent) as exempli-fied in the following words

Cegravemuhicirctiacute lsquodestroyrsquotī lsquogatherrsquotigrave lsquowritersquo

Yabecircm has two tones high and low

Yabecircmaacutewaacute lsquovaluablesrsquo agravewagrave lsquohisher mouthrsquowaacute lsquomangorsquo wagrave lsquocrocodilersquosaacute lsquoto hammerrsquo sagrave lsquoput on top ofrsquooacuteliacute lsquobodyrsquo ograveligrave lsquowagesrsquo

Because tone is a rare phenomenon in Oceanic we assume that the fewlanguages that have it have developed it some time after they split off frommost of their other relatives But how do languages develop tone systemsLet us look briefly at what seems to have happened in Yabecircm and closely re-lated languages (Bradshaw 1979 Ross 1993)

At one time there was probably a rule in Yabecircm that a syllable contain-ing a voiceless stop or fricative (like p t k s) would have high tone but onewith a voiced stop or fricative (b d g j) would have low tone4 For exam-ple kaacutepuacuteŋ lsquoI plantrsquo and kaacutetaacuteŋ lsquoI make a soundrsquo but gagravebugrave lsquoI insultrsquo and

82 CHAPTER 5

gagravedugraveʔ lsquoI bowrsquo Some consonants that conditioned high or low tone havesince changed their voicing (or even disappeared) but they have left theirtone ldquotracerdquo behind For example earlier s remained s in Yabecircm and be-cause it is and was voiceless it is associated with high tone

Yabecircmsipo gt seacutep lsquogo downrsquosaqit gt siacute lsquosewrsquo

On the other hand earlier j was voiced and it conditioned low tone on thefollowing syllable but later became voiceless s

Yabecircmjoacuteŋi gt soacuteŋ lsquostop up plugrsquojoRi gt sograve lsquotiersquolejan gt lέsέŋ lsquonitrsquo

514 Word StructureSome Oceanic languages allow only open syllables meaning that eachsyllable may begin with a consonant but may not end with one These lan-guages do not permit consonant clustersmdashtwo or more consonants com-ing together without an intervening vowel Using C for consonant V forvowel and ( ) to indicate that whatever is enclosed is optional the generalstructure of words in languages of this type is built on the pattern (C)V(C)Vhellip where vowels (and in some languages consonants) may be short or long

Languages that allow only open syllables occur in some parts of PapuaNew Guinea and Vanuatu the southeastern Solomons most of Fiji and Poly-nesia Examples

Mekeoakaikia lsquogreatrsquooisofai lsquooff you gorsquoekapaisau lsquohe made mersquo

Arositaroha lsquonewsrsquoamamu lsquoyour fatherrsquohaʔaheuheu lsquochange formrsquo

Fijianveitau lsquofriendsrsquovakasalataka lsquoadvisersquombatambata lsquocoldrsquo

Sound Systems 83

Hawaiianpauloa lsquoeverythingrsquohoahanau lsquocousinrsquokukonukonu lsquoexcessiversquo

Probably the majority of Austronesian languages however allow bothopen and closed syllables (syllables ending in a consonant) In some casesonly a few consonants (most frequently nasals) can close a syllable In suchcases there are few consonant clusters and they mainly occur across mor-pheme boundaries Here are some Banoni examples (note that ts repre-sents a single phoneme in Banoni not a consonant cluster)

Banonimatam lsquoyour eyersquoβatamumam lsquomake us eatrsquoteŋtapatsi lsquobroken off and scatteredrsquo

In other cases however consonant clusters are frequent and can occur insyllable-initial position as well as across syllable boundaries

Adzeratatariʔ lsquofowlrsquoromgam lsquoyourselfrsquotafa-ŋga-ŋʔ lsquoour ancestorsrsquo

Maringefnakno lsquofamousrsquokntildeaokntildearoo lsquobe stringyrsquosnaplu lsquoslip outrsquo

Big Nambasprapar lsquosow (female pig)rsquovənmaran lsquoold womanrsquokətəγsrasr lsquoyoursquove sweptrsquo

Most Oceanic languages have a large amount of reduplication aprocess wherein all or part of a word is repeated Look at the following ex-amples from Hawaiian

Hawaiianʔaki lsquoto take a nip and let gorsquoʔakiʔaki lsquoto nibble (as a fish)rsquoʔaʔaki lsquoto nip repeatedlyrsquo

84 CHAPTER 5

The basic verb is ʔaki The verb ʔakiʔaki shows complete reduplicationwith the whole verb root being repeated while the verb ʔaʔaki is an exam-ple of partial reduplication in which only part of the verb (in this casethe first syllable) is repeated Reduplication commonly has a number offunctions in the languages in which it is productive Take a look at these ex-amples

1 Repetition or continuous action

Māoripaki lsquopatrsquo pakipaki lsquoclaprsquokimo lsquowinkrsquo kimokimo lsquoblink wink repeatedlyrsquo

2 Intensity

Tahitianhiʔo lsquolook atrsquo hiʔohiʔo lsquostare atrsquoparau lsquoconversersquo parauparau lsquotalk a lotrsquo

3 Similarity or diminution The reduplicated word refers to some-thing similar to but often smaller or more moderate than itsunreduplicated counterpart

Tonganviku lsquowet all overrsquo vikuviku lsquodamprsquohavili lsquostrong windrsquo havilivili lsquogentle wind breezersquo

4 Change in part of speech eg making a noun into an adjective

KosraeanpΛk lsquosandrsquo pΛkpΛk lsquosandyrsquopweŋ lsquonewsrsquo pweŋpweŋ lsquofamousrsquo

5 Change from transitive to intransitive (In the transitive verbs be-low the suffix -i marks the third person singular object)

TigakTransitive Intransitive

nol-i lsquothink aboutrsquo nonol lsquobe thinkingrsquovis-i lsquohit himrsquo visvis lsquofightrsquokalum-i lsquosee itrsquo kalkalum lsquolook appearrsquo

6 Indication of plurality usually of the subject of a verb but some-times of some other aspect of the action (In the examples belowthe reduplicated form is used if the subject of the verb is plural)

Sound Systems 85

SamoanSingular Pluralʔai ʔaʔai lsquoeatrsquotu tutu lsquostandrsquoŋalue ŋalulue lsquoworkrsquo

Nearly all the examples so far have been from Polynesian and Microne-sian languages Here is a set of examples from a Melanesian language theNguna Island dialect of Nakanamanga (Vanuatu) The function of each ex-ample of reduplication is given in the right-hand column

Nakanamanga (Nguna dialect)kati lsquobitersquo katikati lsquonibblersquo diminutiontaki lsquothrowrsquo tataki lsquocontinually

throwrsquorepetition

namalo lsquopiecersquo namalomalo lsquopiecesrsquo pluralityvano lsquogorsquo vanovano lsquotravel aroundrsquo randomnesstare lsquowhitersquo tareare lsquovery whitersquo intensification

When reduplication is partial it may be prefixed suffixed or infixed oc-curring before after or in the middle of the root A rare example of infixedreduplication given above is Samoan ŋalue lsquowork (singular)rsquo ŋaluluelsquowork (plural)rsquo Below are four examples from Manam The first two showpartial prefixed reduplication and the last two partial suffixed reduplication

Manamsalaga lsquobe longrsquo sasalaga lsquolong (plural)rsquoeno lsquosleeprsquo eneno lsquoalways sleeprsquosapara lsquobranchrsquo saparapara lsquohaving branchesrsquoʔulan lsquodesirersquo ʔulanlaŋ lsquodesirablersquo

The last Manam example shows that there are often morphophonemicchanges involved with reduplication so that the reduplicated part of the wordis not always phonologically identical to the unreduplicated part In Tonganvowels undergo changes in many reduplicated words Some of these changesinvolve differences in length others differences in vowel quality

Tonganpoʔuli lsquobe darkrsquo popoʔuli lsquobe somewhat darkrsquomafi lsquopowerfulrsquo mafimafi lsquoalmightyrsquoteliŋa lsquoearrsquo taliŋeliŋa lsquofungusrsquomuʔa lsquofrontrsquo muʔomuʔa lsquogo in frontrsquo

In Ponapean when certain categories of consonants come togetheracross a morpheme boundary as a result of reduplication the first is re-

86 CHAPTER 5

placed by a nasal as in (a) below In other cases a vowel is introduced tobreak up the consonant cluster as in (b)

Ponapean(a) pap lsquoswimrsquo pampap

kak lsquoablersquo kaŋkaksas lsquostaggerrsquo sansastit lsquobuild a wallrsquo tintit

(b) tsep lsquobeginrsquo tsepitsepkatsore lsquosubtractrsquo katsikatsorekatek lsquobe kindrsquo katakatekmasukun lsquobe blindrsquo masamasukum

52 Papuan Languages521 Vowel SystemsThe majority of Papuan languages have the standard five-vowel systemfound among the Austronesian languages as well

i ue o

a

Although this is the most common system some Papuan languages in-cluding many of those in the Sepik area of Papua New Guinea have fewerthan five phonemic vowels while others have more Compare Iatmulrsquos threevowels to Vanimorsquos eight

Iatmul Vanimoɨ i uə e ə o

ɛ ͻa a

Foley (1986 54) says that no Papuan language with more than eight phone-mic vowels has been attested

A number of Papuan languages for example Pawaian contrast oral andnasalized vowels (The examples below are all low tone)

Pawaiansugrave lsquogingerrsquo yegrave lsquoancestorrsquosṹ lsquoroadrsquo yẽ lsquotype of nutrsquo

Distinctions of vowel length do occur in Papuan languages though this fea-ture is much rarer than it is in Oceanic languages

Sound Systems 87

512 Consonant SystemsConsonant inventories in many Papuan languages are relatively small (asample of Papuan consonant inventories is given in appendix 3) No lan-guage in the world has a smaller consonant inventory than Rotokas (spokenon Bougainville) which has only six consonant phonemes5

Rotokasp t kv r g

There are however Papuan languages with more complex consonantsystems A number of languages distinguish prenasalized and simple stopswhile some languages (like Kacircte for example) have coarticulated labial-ve-lar stops In addition to the labial stops p and b made by closing the lipsand the velar stops k and g made by putting the tongue up in the back ofthe mouth there are the coarticulated stops kp and gb produced by simul-taneously closing the lips and raising the tongue at the back of the mouth

Languages of the Highlands of Papua New Guinea are well known foramong other things their range of laterals (or l-like sounds) Kobon forexample has three laterals an alveolar lateral l rather like English l aretroflex lateral ḷ with the tip of the tongue turned back to the roof of themouth and a palatal lateral λ a bit like the ly in the English word hal-yard Melpa also has three laterals dental l (made with the tongue betweenthe teeth) velar ɫ (with the tongue raised at the back of the mouth) andflapped (where the tongue flaps against the tooth ridge) Both Kobon andMelpa also have an r phoneme that contrasts with all of these laterals

Perhaps the most complex Papuan phonological system however isfound in Yele (or Yeletnye) the language of Rossel Island In addition to aset of simple phonemes Yele also has labialized palatalized prenasalizedand postnasalized consonants plus in some cases coarticulated consonantsas well So in addition to simple p there is labialized pw palatalized pyprenasalized mp postnasalized pm and coarticulated tp and kp Andsimilar statements could be made about many other Yele consonants

523 Prosodic FeaturesMany descriptions of Papuan languages do not mention stress perhapsbecause it is often associated with tone and it is difficult to find general pat-terns In some languages stress appears to be predictable though there isa range of patterns Waskia for example tends to stress the last syllable ofa word whereas Kewa prefers the first

88 CHAPTER 5

Waskiakadiacute lsquomanrsquonauacuter lsquococonutrsquobagesaacuten lsquoit staysrsquonamerukoacute lsquohe must gorsquo

Kewa6

poacutena lsquocutrsquoruacutemaa lsquoportion outrsquoroacutegoma lsquoclayrsquo

In other Papuan languages though stress is not predictable as the fol-lowing examples from Koita illustrate

Koitaoacutemo lsquoheadrsquo omoacute lsquoadzersquoγuacutedi lsquodigging stickrsquo γudiacute lsquolimersquoγuacutema lsquopathrsquo γumaacute lsquoaxersquo

Quite a number of Papuan languages have phonemic tone Tone lan-guages are mainly found in the central Highlands and in parts of the Morobeand Sepik provinces of Papua New Guinea but they do occur in other partsof the Papuan region as well Most Papuan tone languages contrast only highand low tones

Pawaiansuacute lsquotoothrsquo sugrave lsquogingerrsquoyeacute lsquonewrsquo yegrave lsquoancestorrsquo

Foreagravesigraveyuacutewegrave lsquoI stand uprsquo agravesigraveyugravewegrave lsquoI peel itrsquonagraveyagraveneacute lsquomy hairrsquo nagraveyaacuteneacute lsquomy kidneyrsquo

Foley (1986 63) says that in many such languages tone is closely associatedwith the stress system with high tone correlating with accented syllablesand that these are not strictly speaking tone languages7

In some languagesmdashespecially in the Eastern Highlands of Papua NewGuineamdashtonal systems are more complex These seem to be true tonal sys-tems The following words in Awa which has four phonemic tones illustratethis8

Awapǎ lsquofishrsquo rising tonenacirc lsquotarorsquo falling tonenaacute lsquobreastrsquo high tonenagrave lsquohousersquo low tone

Sound Systems 89

524 Word StructureSome Papuan languages have only open syllables A number of these lan-guages allow combinations of vowels sometimes quite a few vowels appear-ing in sequence without any intervening consonant

Toaripipasisa lsquoladderrsquoeaso lsquofish spearrsquomaeamariti lsquoshamersquoeae lsquoerroneouslyrsquo

Mountain Koiarineinuvueabe lsquotheir mothersrsquoneiniai lsquoproperlyrsquosaiamo lsquoslowrsquoialelua lsquoconsequentlyrsquo

Some Papuan languages that generally have open syllables (see the firsttwo words in the example below) allow syllables to be closed with a nasal

Buinitaka lsquofreshwater shrimprsquotopituumoru lsquofish-killerrsquokuikuiŋ lsquodriftwoodrsquorempo lsquobattle axersquo

Probably the majority of Papuan languages allow fairly widespread conso-nant clustering Words may end in a range of consonants

Wahgiamŋa lsquoyawnrsquooksnal lsquoavoidrsquomolmŋe lsquothey werersquoendzmo lsquowastersquokopsnde lsquocut openrsquokandzIp lsquothey sawrsquo

Kamasauberyi lsquobeanrsquotorbiŋ lsquomouth harprsquofraŋgi lsquotomorrowrsquosuŋgrum lsquotype of grassrsquosurog lsquocaterpillarrsquowand lsquospeechrsquo

90 CHAPTER 5

Reduplication is a much less common feature of Papuan than of Oceaniclanguages

53 Australian LanguagesIn comparison with Oceanic and Papuan languages Australian languagesare probably of moderate phonological complexity None of them hasphonemic tone for example and in most stress is predictable occurringon the first syllable of the word Many have quite small vowel inventoriesthough a few Australian languages rival those of New Caledonia in theirlarge number of vowels Consonant inventories are neither small norlarge

531 Vowel SystemsMost Australian languages have just three vowel phonemes though many ofthese also distinguish vowel length for a total of six vowel contrasts

i u i ua a

Exceptions are generally of two kinds First there are a few languagesin Central Australia that have only two vowel phonemes Kaitij for examplehas just ɨ and a (though each of these has a number of different pronuncia-tions in different phonetic contexts) Second some languages in the northand northwest have a four-or five-vowel system for example Alawa andKunjen

Alawa Kunjeni u i ue e o

a a

But a few languages especially those in the Cape York area havedeveloped complex vowel systems from what was probably an ancestralthree-vowel system One such system that of Anguthimri appears in ap-pendix 3

532 Consonant SystemsIn discussing the consonants of Australian languages it is helpful to use twotechnical terms Apical refers to sounds made with the tip of the tongueand laminal describes sounds made with the blade of the tongue Many

Sound Systems 91

Australian languages distinguish apical and laminal stops and nasals andmany have two sets of apicals and two sets of laminals Apicals include theapico-alveolar (tongue tip on the tooth ridge) consonants d t n and theapico-postalveolar or retroflex (tip on the roof of the mouth) consonantsḍṭṇ Laminals occur as laminodentals (tongue blade on the teeth) namelydtn and laminopalatals (blade on the roof of the mouth) dy ty ntilde

Australian languages generally have bilabial (b p m) and velar (g kŋ) stops and nasals as well Along the east coast languages usually haveonly one lateral but elsewhere they have two or more Most Australian lan-guages have two rhotics or r-sounds One is usually a retroflex semivowelṛ (rather like English r) and the other a flapped or trilled r

Consonant inventories for four languages illustrate some general pat-terns Wargamay is an example of an east-coast language with no contrastbetween apicals or between laminals and with one lateral Kunjen is an east-ern language with a laminal contrast but no apical contrast and with onelateral Wajarri a western language exhibits apical contrast but no laminalcontrast and has more than one lateral Pitta-Pitta is a central Australian lan-guage that contrasts both apicals and laminals and has more than one lateral

Wargamay

b d d gm n n ŋ

lṛ

w y

Kunjen

p t t ty kb d d dy g

f eth γm n n ntilde ŋ

lṛ

w y

Wajarri

p t t ṭ km n n ṇ ŋ

l l ḷr ṛ

w y

92 CHAPTER 5

Pitta-Pitta

p t t ṭ ty km n n ṇ ntilde ŋ

l l ḷ λr ṛ

w y

Two other patterns emerge from an examination of the four consonantsystems given above First contrast between voiceless and voiced stops iebetween p t k and b d g is not common though it does occur in a minority oflanguages Second fricative phonemes are rare Of the languages above onlyKunjen has fricative phonemes (f eth γ) (But in some languages stops like bare pronounced as fricatives say [f] or [v] in some phonetic contexts)

533 Word StructureAustralian languages show remarkable similarity in the way in which conso-nant and vowel phonemes combine to form words As in other Pacific lan-guages words of one syllable are extremely rare Most words contain twosyllables some more than two Words seldom begin with a vowel and se-quences of vowels are also rare Two-consonant clusters are common in themiddle of words but not initially or finally Words may end in either a conso-nant or a vowel The typical pattern is CVC(C)V(C) and words of more thantwo syllables simply build on this pattern

There are commonly restrictions on where consonants occur Typicallylaterals and rhotics do not occur in word-initial position and stops do notoccur finally Rules also govern the formation of two-consonant clusters inmedial position Here are some examples from Bandjalang showing the dis-tribution of laterals rhotics and stops as well as a limited range of medialtwo-consonant clusters (rb ntildeb ŋb mb)

Bandjalangdyadyam lsquochildrsquo babaŋ lsquograndmotherrsquoburbi lsquokoalarsquo ŋuntildeba lsquosnakersquoguluŋbay lsquoflursquo yalantilde lsquotonguersquodyimbaŋ lsquosheeprsquo balaya lsquodiersquo

There are exceptions to these constraints Anguthimri mentionedabove as an atypical Australian language for its vowel system is excep-tional in other ways as well It contrasts voiceless and voiced prenasal-ized stops and possesses five fricative phonemes It also has a phonemicglottal stop (see appendix 3) Besides these phenomena Anguthimri has

Sound Systems 93

many monosyllabic words and allows word-initial vowels and consonantclusters It does not however allow word-final consonants (except wand y) Some examples

Anguthimripweke lsquogroperrsquo paeligŋa lsquoelbowrsquokyabara lsquoalligatorrsquo iγiti lsquobrownrsquoubu lsquored gumrsquo baw lsquotoothrsquodwa lsquoeyersquo drya lsquowingrsquo

Reduplication is often used in Australian languages to form the plural ofnouns and adjectives

Dyirbalbari lsquoaxersquo baribari lsquoaxesrsquobulgan lsquobig onersquo bulganbulgan lsquobig onesrsquo

It sometimes has such other functions as intensity (Kalkatungu)diminution (Diyari) or unreality (Western Desert)

Kalkatungujagabi lsquolistenrsquo jagabijagabi lsquolisten intentlyrsquobuyud lsquohotrsquo buyudbuyud lsquoVery hotrsquo

Diyarikintala lsquodogrsquo kintalakintala lsquopuppyrsquo

Western Desertwati lsquomanrsquo watiwati lsquochild playing at

being an adultrsquo

54 OrthographiesNo Pacific languages were written before European contact9 and even to-day not all Pacific languages are written This usually means that no mis-sionaries or linguists have done sufficient work on these languages to designan orthography Languages in this category are found almost exclusively inMelanesia and Australia

Many languages in Melanesia and Australia are used for a much nar-rower range of written purposes than are other Pacific languages The mainwriters are probably linguists One reason for this has to do with the rela-tively small numbers of speakers of these languages and the fact that theygenerally write in a more widely understood language (English French orMelanesian Pidgin for example)

94 CHAPTER 5

541 General IssuesThe Latin alphabet (in which English and most European languages are writ-ten) is universally applied to the writing of Pacific languages Orthographiesfor most of the written languages of the Pacific were developed by Chris-tian missionaries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries althoughlinguists have also made their contributions

In developing orthographies for Pacific languages missionaries andlinguists faced a number of problems that reliance on the spelling systemof say English or French could not always resolve The first of these ofcourse is that the spelling systems of these two European languages arethemselves not always consistentmdashor at least not transparently so In Eng-lish for example we now spell Fiji as Fiji but earlier explorers wrote it asFejee or Feejee the French write it as Fidji The ldquocorrectrdquo Fijian spellinghowever is Viti

There are also distinctive phonological features in Pacific languages thatlanguages like English or French do not have For these there is no ldquonaturalrdquoorthographic representation Two examples common to many parts of the re-gion are (1) the contrast between short and long vowels and (2) the glottalstop phoneme Different solutions were often found for these kinds of prob-lems in different areas For vowel length the macron (as in ā ē) has been usedin many Polynesian languages although double vowels (aa ee) are used inothers The glottal stop has most often been indicated in Polynesia by a quota-tion mark (as in Hawailsquoi) though in some parts of Melanesia letters like c or qwhich are not otherwise needed in the spelling system have been used

The problem with additional marks like apostrophes and macrons isthat because they are not perceived as ldquonormalrdquo letters they are veryoften left out by people when they are writing the language10 For examplealthough Hawaiian has both the glottal stop and the distinction betweenlong and short vowels many people do not indicate either of these distinc-tions when they write Hawaiian Thus the words pau lsquofinishedrsquo and paʔulsquolavalava sarongrsquo are often both written as pau although a more accuratewriting system (and the one recently officially re-endorsed) would write theword for lsquofinishedrsquo as pau and the word for lsquolavalavarsquo as pālsquoū

The problems have not only been technical however There are generalprinciples on the basis of which a good orthography can be developed butthere is often a certain amount of choice even after the application of thesescientific principles For example it makes equal scientific sense to write aas ā as aa or in a number of other ways (like ah in parts of Micronesia)Orthographic design in many parts of the Pacific has often revolved aroundthese areas of choice and reflects the fact that speakers of a languagemdashand

Sound Systems 95

outsidersmdashhave very strong feelings about how a language ought to be writ-ten regardless of any scientific approach to the situation

Factionalism of various kinds shows itself in spelling controversies allover the Pacific There has been a long debate in Kiribati over whether towrite brsquo and mrsquo or bw and mw for the phonemes bw and mw The NauruanLanguage Board is currently preparing a Nauruan dictionary in two differ-ent orthographies pending a final decision on spelling One of these systemsderives from the Protestant Bible translation while the other was developedby Catholics and endorsed by an earlier official body In the spelling of TokPisin in Papua New Guinea before the Second World War there were the fol-lowing competitive orthographic decisions11

g ŋLutherans g ŋCatholics g ngMethodists q g

There have also been other nonlinguistic factors at work English andFrench as international languages have considerable prestige in the Pa-cific Although linguists have their own phonetic symbols for sounds manyof these are not standard letters in the English or French writing systemsmdashβeth θ ʔ ə ŋ for example Attempts to use letters like these to represent soundsin Pacific languages are often met with resistance by speakers of those lan-guages who donrsquot want their languages to look ldquofunnyrdquo in comparison withEnglish or French

Other problems are also related to the orthographies of the prestige lan-guages In general a scientific approach to orthographic design requiresthat wherever possible each phoneme should be represented by a singleletter12 Following this principle the early missionaries used the single let-ter g to represent the phoneme ŋ (the sound written ng in English singer)in a number of Polynesian languages Pago Pago the capital of AmericanSamoa for example is pronounced paŋopaŋo This principle was extendedby Methodist and related missionaries to some other parts of Polynesia toFiji and to certain areas in Melanesia

But though this decision may follow scientific rationality there is aconflict with the spelling system of English where the letter g has a verydifferent value In Tongan for example original g was later changed tong since it was felt that Tongans learning English would be confusedby the two different values of the letter g in these two languages Manylanguages in Melanesia and Micronesia use ng for this sound but thishas led to problems of a different sort On the one hand English ngrepresents both the sound ŋ as in singer and the sounds ŋg as in fin-

96 CHAPTER 5

ger and outsiders often mispronounce words written in Pacific languageswith this letter combination (Tonga frequently being pronounced by Eng-lish speakers as if it were Tongga for example) On the other hand ifng is used for ŋ then designers of writing systems are often forced touse the somewhat unsightly three-letter combination ngg to representŋg There have then been a number of problems in the development ofspelling systems in the Pacific by no means all of them having to do withthe nature of the languages

542 Polynesia and FijiBecause of their relatively simple phonological structures the developmentof writing systems for the Polynesian languages has been a fairly straightfor-ward matter There have been different approaches to the velar nasalphoneme ŋ written g or ng and to long vowels written with macrons orwith double vowels Sometimes even in the same language some writershave used macrons and some double letters while others have ignoredvowel length altogether Māori Maaori and Maori have all had some cur-rency in New Zealand for example though the first seems now to be thepreferred spelling

The designers of the Fijian writing system fairly consistently applied theone-phoneme-one-letter principle although not without controversy13 In Fi-jian the prenasalized stops mb nd ŋg have been written with the singleletters b d and q rather than mb nd and ngg According to the same prin-ciple ŋ is written as g and eth as c (rather than the ng and th of English)Where vowel length is written the macron is used but many writers of Fi-jian ignore this feature

543 Melanesia and MicronesiaIn some parts of Melanesia the early missionaries made similar kinds of de-cisions as those made for Fijian and Polynesian languages In a number oflanguages in Vanuatu especially g is used for ŋ and in some c is used forγ Additional single symbols were created to try to adhere to this principlep and m being used to represent pw and mw Many of these languagesalong with those of the Solomons have only five vowels which caused noproblems Vowel length (where it was recognized) however was generallyrepresented by doubling vowels

Further west in the New Guinea area the Methodist traditions fromFiji and Polynesia had less influence and orthography designers have gen-erally kept fairy closely to English spelling at least as far as consonants

Sound Systems 97

are concerned In these languages for example the prenasalized stops mbnd ŋg tend to be written b d and g in word-initial position (where the pre-nasalization is fairly weak) and mb nd and ngg in other positions Thevelar nasal [ŋ] is usually written ng although in some areas where theLutheran church is strong the letter ŋ is used The occurrence of morethan one lateral in Highlands languages has required the use of two lettersto represent a single phoneme like tl dl gl and so on in addition to sim-ple l while gh is frequently used for the velar fricative γ In dealing withlanguages which have more than five phonemic vowels both digraphs(two-letter combinations) and diacritics (additional marks like accents)have been used Thus where there is a contrast between i I and e (asin English seat sit set) for example these vowels are written i icirc e or iecirc e or ii i e

The complex nature of the consonant and vowel systems of most NewCaledonian languages has forced linguists to use both diacritics and combi-nations of letters The vowels of Xacircracirccugraveugrave for example are a acirc auml e eacute egrave ecirc euml i icirc oocirc ouml u ugrave ucirc uuml and the long vowels are written by doubling these letters Writingthe consonant phonemes of Pije involves single letters (p m h w) digraphs(pw ph hm hw) and even trigraphsmdashcombinations of three letters repre-senting a single phonememdashlike phw hmw hny hng

In Micronesia digraphs are usually used to help represent complexvowel and consonant systems A number of Micronesian languages use oafor ͻ when this contrasts with o (written o) and h is often used to marklong vowels thus i represents i while ih represents i14 Digraphs and tri-graphs are also widely used in writing consonant phonemes Carolinian forexample distinguishes bw gh mw pw rh sch and tch from b g m p r sand t Long consonants are usually represented by doubling the consonant(as in ll for long l) In the case of digraphs only the first letter is doubled(mmw represents long mw)

544 AustraliaIn general the small number of vowel phonemes in Australian lan-

guages has not posed many problems for designers of orthographies Longvowels have sometimes been written as double vowels sometimes with a fol-lowing h thus a is written aa in some languages but ah in others

Decisions made about writing consonants vary but a common patternis to write retroflex sounds with a preceding r dentals with a following hand palatals with a following y palatal stops are sometimes written j InGooniyandi for example the stop and nasal phonemes given on the left be-low are written with the letters on the right

98 CHAPTER 5

Gooniyandi

Phonemes Letters

b d d ḍ dy g b th d rd j gm n n ṇ ntilde ŋ m nh n rn ny ng

Similarly multiple laterals are generally written lh l rl and ly (or lj) whilethe two rhotics are generally written r and rr

I have adopted these spelling conventions here and transliterated sym-bols in this way from sources that use phonetic symbols Note however thatthere is pressure to spell Australian languages following English conven-tions For example the Bandjalang (bantildedyalaŋ) people now choose to writetheir language name Bundjalung to avoid its possible mispronunciation asbaeligntildedyəlaeligŋ by English speakers

55 SummaryPacific languages show a great diversity of phonological systems Vocalicallythey range from Australian languages with just three short vowels to NewCaledonian languages with seventeen short vowels Consonant inventoriescan be very small and simple or extremely large and complex Some lan-guages have phonemic tone others do not Some allow a great deal ofconsonant clustering others allow none

Various social issues surround and affect the development of orthogra-phies for these languages In the remainder of this book I use the standardwriting system in italics for each language from which I give examples Inthe case of languages without a generally accepted writing system I use amodified set of phonetic symbols also in italics

Sound Systems 99

CHAPTER

6

Oceanic LanguagesGrammatical Overview

61 PronounsI use the term ldquopronounrdquo fairly loosely Oceanic languages generally haveonly one set of free pronouns but they also have one or more sets of pronom-inal forms that are more or less bound to nouns verbs or other morphemesWhile only the free forms might qualify as pronouns under a strict definitionI discuss the other forms here as well

611 PersonAlmost all Oceanic languages make a distinction between inclusive firstperson referring to the speaker and the addressee or addressees (ldquoI +yourdquo) and exclusive first person referring to the speaker and some otherindividual or individuals (ldquoI + hesheittheyrdquo) For example

Motu Mono-Alu Nakanamanga PuluwatSingular

I lau maha kinau ngaangyou oi maito niigo yeenhesheit ia elsquoa nae yiiy

PluralweINC ita maita nigita kiirweEXC ai maani kinami yaacuteaacutememyou umui maang nimu yaacuteaacutemithey idia relanalsquoi naara yiir

100

Exceptions to this general statement are found in a few languages that seemto have lost the inclusiveexclusive distinction These include the five lan-guages of the Siau family in the West Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea(Sera Sissano Ali Tumleo and Ulau-Suain) Kiribati and possibly also oneor two varieties of Fijian

Sissano KiribatiSingular

I ya ngngaiyou e ngkoehesheit i ngaia

Pluralwe eit ngairayou om ngkamiithey ri ngaiia

Very few Oceanic languages mark gender in pronouns In all the exam-ples above the third person singular refers to male or female animates aswell as to inanimates Maringe (Isabel Solomon Islands) is one of the fewOceanic languages that does have a gender distinction though it differsfrom the English one Female speakers use only one set of third personforms but male speakers use two setsmdashone referring to males and the otherin all other cases

Maringe

Male speaker Female speakerhe mana nalsquoasheit nalsquoa nalsquoathey (males) mare relsquoethey (non-males) relsquoe relsquoe

Some languages in Melanesia have no third-person pronouns at allMari (Morobe Province Papua New Guinea) is one such It uses demonstra-tives (roughly translated ldquothis onerdquo ldquothose onesrdquo) instead of pronouns likeldquohesheitrdquo or ldquotheyrdquo

612 NumberA three-way distinction between singular dual and plural number is per-haps the commonest pattern in Oceanic languages the dual number refer-ring to two and only two This pattern is found in Polynesian languages and

Oceanic Languages Grammatical Overview 101

Rotuman as well as in many languages in Melanesia and Micronesia For ex-ample

Yapese Nakanai Alsquojieuml SamoanSingular

I gaeg eau gegravenya alsquouyou guur eme gegravei lsquooehesheit qiir eia ce ia

Dualwe twoINC gadow etalua goumlrru tālsquouawe twoEXC gamow emilua goumlvu mālsquouayou two gimeew emulua goumlu lsquoouluathey two yow egirua curu lālsquoua

PluralweINC gadaed etatou gegraveveacute tātouweEXC gamaed emiteu gegraverreacute mātouyou gimeed emutou geumlveuml lsquooutouthey yaed egiteu ceacutereacute lātou

There are two common departures from this pattern A number of lan-guages in Melanesia and Micronesia show only a two-way distinction be-tween singular and plural The examples given in 611 above from MotuMono-Alu and Nakanamanga (in Melanesia) and Puluwat and Kiribati (inMicronesia) illustrate this

The other variation is quite common in Melanesia (including Fiji)though not elsewhere in the Pacific It involves a four-way distinction be-tween singular dual trial or paucal and plural Some of these languageshave a trial number which refers to three and only three

Tolai AnejomSingular hesheit ia aenDual they two dir aarauTrial they three dital aattajPlural they (gtthree) diat aara

Others have a paucal number which refers to a few (perhaps three to six orso) or to a small group in comparison with a larger group1

Paamese Nadrau FijianSingular hesheit kaie i kwayaDual they two kailue i kirau

102 CHAPTER 6

Paucal they (a few) kaitelu i kiratouPlural they (many) kaile i kira

613 FunctionsThe pronouns cited so far are known as independent pronouns They maystand alone as the answer to a question and may also act as subject of averb (though they often have an emphatic function in this usage) There arehowever other pronominal forms in many Oceanic languages although theymay not always be able to stand alone

Most Oceanic languages for example have a separate set of subjectmarkers which are formally different from the independent pronounsThese subject markers mark the person and number of the subject and usu-ally occur within the verb complex In some languages they are preverbalparticles in others prefixes to the verb In many of these languages the in-dependent pronoun is used in subject position only for emphasis Contrastthe following sentences in Lenakel

LenakelI-es-ol-aan

I-not-do-notlsquoI didnrsquot do itrsquo

Io i-es-ol-aanI I-not-do-notlsquoI didnrsquot do itrsquo lsquoIt wasnrsquot I who did itrsquo

In both sentences the person and the number of the subject are markedwithin the verb by the prefix i- lsquoIrsquo The first sentence with no independentpronoun is a neutral statement In the second however emphasis is placedon the subject lsquoIrsquo through the use of the independent pronoun io

Below are some examplesmdashin just singular and plural num-bersmdashillustrating the formal difference between independent pronouns andsubject markers The Nehan and Fijian subject markers are free preverbalparticles while the Trukese ones are verbal prefixes2

Nehan Trukese FijianIND SUBJ IND SUBJ IND SUBJ

SingularI ingo ku ngaang wuacute- o yau auyou inga ko een ke- o iko ohesheit git ke iiy e- o koya e


PluralweINC ingeg ki kiich si- o keda daweEXC ingam king aacuteaacutem eacutewuacute- o keimami keimamiyou ingam kung aacuteaacutemi wo- o kemunī nīthey gisit ka iir re- o ira ra

Rather fewer Oceanic languages have formally distinct object mark-ers many using the independent pronoun in this role Above for examplewe saw the use of the Lenakel independent pronoun io lsquoIrsquo as an emphaticsubject This same form is also used in object position

LenakelR-ɨs-aamh-aan io

he-not-see-not melsquoHe didnrsquot see mersquo

Languages with distinct object pronouns are found in Melanesia and Mi-cronesia In some of these languages (like Anejom in the example below)these are free forms while in others (like Kiribati) they are suffixed to theverb3

Anejom KiribatiIND OBJ IND OBJ

SingularI antildeak ntildeak ngngai -aiyou aek yic ngkoe -ikohesheit aen yin ngaia -ia

PluralweINC akaja caja ngaira -iiraweEXC ajama camayou ajowa cowa ngkamii -ingkamithey aara ra ngaiia -iia -i

For more about the functions of both subject and object markers see section64

Virtually all Oceanic languages also have a set of possessive affixes(normally suffixes) marking the person and number of the possessor Thesediffer from independent pronouns and subject markers (though they are fre-quently identical or similar to object markers) The grammar of possessionin Oceanic languages is quite complex (refer to section 63 below) For exam-ple the Fijian possessive suffix -qu lsquomyrsquo is attached directly to certain typesof possessed nouns (like tama lsquofatherrsquo in the example below) but when usedwith nouns of other types it is attached to a possessive marker or classifier(as with vale lsquohousersquo)

104 CHAPTER 6

Fijianna tama-qou but na no-qau valethe father-my the POSS-my houselsquomy fatherrsquo lsquomy housersquo

These affixes are almost always suffixes But in a few languages they occuras prefixes in some grammatical contexts

Wayan Fijiano mna-m but m-uluthe mother-your your-headlsquoyour motherrsquo lsquoyour headrsquo

A comparison between the singular and plural independent object andpossessive pronouns in Anejom and Kiribati is given below

Anejom KiribatiIND OBJ POSS IND OBJ POSS

SingularI antildeak ntildeak -k ngngai -ai -uyou aek yic -m ngkoe -iko -mhesheit aen yin -n ngaia -ia -n(a)

PluralweINC akaja caja -ja ngaira -iira -raweEXC ajama cama -mayou ajowa cowa -mia ngkamii -ingkami -miithey aara ra -ra ngaiia -iia -i -ia

It follows from all of this that while some Oceanic languages have apronoun system as simple as that of English many have pronoun systemsof considerable complexity Table 5 lists the full set of independent objectand possessive pronouns in Anejom along with the three sets of subjectmarkers used in the aorist past and inceptive tenses to illustrate thiscomplexity

62 NOUNS AND NOUN PHRASESThe notion of parts of speech as we understand it in English does not nec-essarily apply to Oceanic languages While some Oceanic languages clearlydistinguish nouns from other parts of speech in some formal or functionalway many others do not The Fijian word tagane for example can functionas a noun meaning lsquomanrsquo as a verb meaning lsquoto be malersquo and as an adjectivemeaning lsquomalersquo


Table 5 Anejom Pronouns

1 INC 1 EXC 2 3IndependentSingular mdash antildeak aek aak aen aanDual akajau ajamrau ajourau aarauTrial akataj ajamtaj ajoutaj aattajPlural akaja ajama ajowa aara

ObjectSingular mdash ntildeak yic -c yin -nDual cajau camrau courau rauTrial cataj camtaj coutaj ettajPlural caja cama cowa ra

PossessiveSingular mdash -k -m -nDual -jau -mrau -mirau -rauTrial -taj -mtaj -mitaj -ttajPlural -ja -ma -mia -ra

Subject (aorist)Singular mdash ek na etDual tau ekrau erau erauTrial taj ettaj ettaj ettajPlural ta ekra eka era

Subject (past)Singular mdash kis as isDual tus eris arus erusTrial tijis eris atijis etijisPlural eris ekris akis eris

Subject (inceptive)Singular mdash ki an intildeiyiDual tu ekru aru eruTrial tiji etiji atiji etijiPlural ti ekri aki eri

106 CHAPTER 6

FijianE lako mai na tagane oyā (tagane = noun)he come here the man thatlsquoThat man is comingrsquo

E tagane na vuaka oqō (tagane = verb)he male the pig thislsquoThis pig is malersquo

E mate na vuaka tagane (tagane = adjective)he die the pig malelsquoThe boar diedrsquo

In this and subsequent sections when I use the word ldquonounrdquo I am referringto words functioning as nouns in a particular context For our purposesthen tagane is a noun in the first Fijian sentence above though not in theother two

621 Form of the NounNouns in Oceanic languages are generally invariable in form That is a noundoes not change form to mark singular and plural nor generally do nounstake prefixes and suffixes (apart from possessive affixes discussed later) Fi-jian vuaka and Hawaiian pualsquoa for example both mean lsquopigrsquo or lsquopigsrsquo

In languages of this type plurality is expressed either by a separatemorpheme in the noun phrase (see 625) or by a subject or object marker inthe verb complex Often a combination of strategies is used as in the Vin-mavis example below in which the noun itself (matoro lsquoold manrsquo) remainsinvariable

VinmavisMatoro i-fwelemoldman he-comelsquoThe old man camersquo

Matoro ar at-fwelemoldman PL they-comelsquoThe old men camersquo

There are however some exceptions to the generalization that nounsare invariable in form First in some languages of Polynesia and Melanesiathere is a small set of nouns referring to human beings that form the pluralby a change in the position of stress or by partial reduplication as in Motuor by lengthening a vowel as in Māori and Hawaiian


Singular PluralMotutau lsquomanrsquo tatauhahiacutene lsquowomanrsquo haacutehinemero lsquoboyrsquo memerokekeacuteni lsquogirlrsquo keacutekeni

Māoritangata lsquomanrsquo tāngatatupuna lsquoancestorrsquo tūpunatuahine lsquosisterrsquo tuāhine

Hawaiianluahine lsquoold womanrsquo luāhinekahuna lsquopriestrsquo kāhunakupuna lsquograndparentrsquo kūpuna

In Kiribati vowel lengthening also occurs in nouns but it indicates genericreference rather than plurality

Kiribatite tina lsquo(the) motherrsquo tiina lsquomothers in generalrsquote ika lsquo(the) fishrsquo iika lsquofish in generalrsquote ben lsquo(the) coconutrsquo been lsquococonuts in generalrsquote bong lsquo(the) dayrsquo boong lsquodays in generalrsquote biti lsquo(the) knifersquo biiti lsquoknives in generalrsquo

In Rotuman the long form of a noun (see 511 above) marks a noun asdefinite Indefinite nouns occur in the short form4

RotumanFamori lsquoeapeople saylsquoThe people sayrsquo

Famoumlr lsquoeapeople saylsquo(Some) people sayrsquo

There are also some languages geographically and genetically fairlywidespread that mark plurality of nouns by a prefix or a suffix Among theseare the non-Oceanic languages Palauan and Chamorro

Singular PluralPalauanchad lsquopersonrsquo rę-chad

108 CHAPTER 6

kangkodang lsquotouristrsquo rę-kangkodangsęchel-ik lsquomy friendrsquo rę-sęchel-ik

Chamorroestudiante lsquostudentrsquo man-estudiantepalelsquo lsquopriestrsquo mam-alelsquosaina lsquoparentrsquo mantilde-aina

Some languages in Vanuatu have fairly complex pluralization strategiesIn Sye for example there is a general plural prefix ovn- (This varies slightlyaccording to the following consonant) Kinship terms without possessive suf-fixes (like namou lsquomotherrsquo) may take this prefix and also the suffix -me theymust take one of these Kinship terms with possessive suffixes (like asu-glsquomy husbandrsquo and ma-n lsquoher brotherrsquo) must take the suffix -me and may takethe prefix r(o)- Thus

Sye

Singular Pluralkuri lsquodogrsquo ovn-kurinakeh lsquoaxersquo ov-nakehneteme lsquopersonrsquo ovo-temenamou lsquomotherrsquo ov-namou namou-me ov-namou-measu-g lsquomy husbandrsquo asu-g-me r-asu-g-mema-n lsquoher brotherrsquo ma-n-me ro-ma-n-me

In Anejom nouns beginning with n or in drop this in the plural Nounsreferring to humans must take a plural prefix elpu- those referring to thehigher animates may take this prefix other nouns take no plural prefix

Anejom

Singular Pluralnatamantilde lsquomanrsquo elpu-atamantildenatimi lsquopersonrsquo elpu-atiminepcev lsquosharkrsquo elpu-epcev epcevincai lsquotreersquo caiinhat lsquostonersquo hat

Some Oceanic languages make no formal distinction between nounsand say verbs or adjectives Those that do make this distinction (and alsosome that do not) have one or more nominalizersmdashmorphemes that con-vert verbs or adjectives into nouns Some examples are presented below

Lenakelaklha lsquostealrsquo i-aklha lsquothiefrsquo


n-aklha-aan lsquotheft robberyrsquok-aklha lsquohouse-breaking toolrsquo

Mokilesekaraja lsquoexplainrsquo karaja-poa lsquoexamplersquowia lsquomakersquo wia-poa lsquoconstructionrsquowoaroai lsquoto lastrsquo woaroai-n lsquodurationrsquo

Māorikimi lsquoto seekrsquo kimi-hanga lsquoa searchrsquonoho lsquositrsquo noho-anga lsquoseatrsquoinu lsquoto drinkrsquo inu-manga lsquoa drinkrsquo

622 ArticlesArticles are morphemes marking the class or reference of a noun InEnglish the article the marks a noun as definite while aan marks it assingular indefinite in French un and le mark singular masculine nouns(indefinite and definite respectively) while une and la mark singularfeminine nouns

Generally speaking the languages of the New Guinea mainland and theislands of Papua and those spoken in Vanuatu have no articles5 Examples

ManamTamoata roa tolsquoa i-tilsquoin-iman hisspouse hisolderbrother he-show-herlsquoThe man showed his wife to his older brotherrsquo

KilivilaE seki Kilagola yena guyauhe give Kilagola fish chieflsquoThe chief gives Kilagola the fishrsquo

SyeNatmonuc y-omonki nacavechief heDISTANTPAST-drink kavalsquoThe chief drank (the) kavarsquo

Most of the remaining Oceanic languagesmdashthose of the islands to thenortheast of New Guinea the Solomon Islands New Caledonia MicronesiaFiji and Polynesiamdashdo have articles although there are some exceptions

Fijian languages generally have two articles In Standard Fijian o is theproper article and is used before pronouns proper nouns (names of specificpeople or places) and some kinship terms Na is the common article and is

110 CHAPTER 6

used before other nouns that are definite in some sense6 Indefinite nouns (likeyaqona in the second example below) are not marked by articles Examples

FijianE gunu-va na yaqona o Seruhe drink-TRANS the kava thePERSONAL SerulsquoSeru is drinking the kavarsquo

E gunu yaqona o Seruhe drink kava thePERSONAL SerulsquoSeru is drinking kavarsquo

Polynesian languages have a slightly larger number of articles InHawaiian for example the articles are

Hawaiianka ke7 definite article singular lsquothersquonā definite article plural lsquothersquohe indefinite article lsquoarsquoa personal article

Mokilese and Yapese provide illustrations of different kinds of Microne-sian article systems In Mokilese a noun may occur with no article (ordemonstrative) The reference is usually generic

MokileseMahnsang kin wia ahr paj in pohn suhkoabird HABITUAL make their nest in top treelsquoBirds build their nests in treetopsrsquo

A koah kak wiahda warQUESTION you can build canoelsquoCan you build canoesrsquo

When the reference is specific but indefinitemdashthe addressee does not knowwhich individual is being referred tomdashMokilese nouns take as a suffix the ap-propriate numeral classifier (see 625 below) in the singular and -pwi in theplural

MokileseNgoah kapang lih-men oI see woman-CLASSIFIER therelsquoI saw a woman therersquoNgoah kapang lih-pwi oI see woman-aPL therelsquoI saw women therersquo or lsquoI saw some women therersquo


When the reference is both specific and definite the suffix -o (sometimes-u)is used

MokileseNgoah kapang lih-oI see woman-thelsquoI saw the womanrsquo

Yapese is similar to Fijian or the Polynesian languages in that it hasthree articles all of which come before the noun fa definite ba indefinitesingular and ii which is used optionally before personal names

Yapesefa rea kaarroothe SG carlsquothe carrsquo

ba kaarrooa carlsquoa carrsquo

ii Tamag (or just Tamag)thePERSONAL TamaglsquoTamag (a manrsquos name)rsquo

Most languages of the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomon Islandsalso have a small number of articles that precede the noun Gender distinc-tion is not uncommon Tolsquoabalsquoita for example has a common article ngaand two personal articles tha (used with masculine names) and ni (usedwith feminine names)

Tolsquoabalsquoitanga lsquoai lakoo kithe wood this PLlsquothe firewoodrsquo

ai tha Gereawife theMASCULINE GerealsquoGerearsquos wifersquo

maka ni lsquoOinafather theFEMININE lsquoOinalsquoOinarsquos fatherrsquo

The most complex article systems are those of New Caledonia In theselanguages articles precede the noun and markmdashamong other featuresmdashdef-

112 CHAPTER 6

initeness number and gender Drehu has the following articles and article-like particles

Drehula definite near speaker visiblelai definite near addressee visiblelo definite not present or visibleketre indefinite singularxaa indefinite non-singularisa lsquoeachrsquoitre o paucalnoumljei pluralhaa collective

Cegravemuhicirc has an even more complex system Its articles distinguish gen-dermdashfeminine and nonfeminine which both treat the noun as a person orindividual as well as neuter which treats the noun as a thing or idea)numbermdashsingular dual and plural and referencemdashdefinite indefinite andneutral (Neutral reference marks the noun as a noun without specifyingwhether it is definite or indefinite)

CegravemuhicircNeutral Definite Indefinite

Singular Nonfeminine pā pācɛ pāliFeminine ɛ ɛcɛ ɛgiNeuter ā ācɛ āli

Dual Nonfeminine lūpwɔ lūpwɔcɛ lūpwɔliFeminine lū lū cɛ lū li

Plural Nonfeminine lēpwɔ lēpwɔcɛ lēpwɔliFeminine lē lēcɛ lēliNeuter ni cɛ li ili

623 DemonstrativesDemonstratives are words that locate the noun in space andor time gen-erally with reference to the speaker and the addressee though sometimeswith reference to some other focus English has a simple two-way distinction(between thisthese and thatthose) and this system is found in a fewOceanic languages in Melanesia

Manam Maringengae gne lsquothisrsquongaedi gre lsquothesersquo


ngara gno lsquothatrsquongaradi gro lsquothosersquo

Almost universal in Oceanic languages however is a three-way direc-tionallocationaltemporal distinction in demonstratives corresponding tothe three grammatical persons The three categories are often referred toas proximatemdashnear the speaker and corresponding to the first person (thespeaker) intermediatemdashnear the addressee and corresponding to the sec-ond person (the person spoken to) and distantmdashaway from both speakerand addressee and corresponding to the third person (some other person orthing)

Some languages simply mark this distinction without specifying number

Motu Fijian Māoriina (o)qō nei PROXIMATE lsquothisrsquoena (o)qori na INTERMEDIATE lsquothisthatrsquouna (o)yā ra DISTANT lsquothat (yonder)rsquo

Others however not only make the three-way contrast but also indicate sin-gular and plural

Nakanai Kiribati Rotumanaleie aei telsquoisi PROXIMATE lsquothisrsquoini aikai lsquoi lsquothesersquo

alele anne talsquoa INTERMEDIATE lsquothisthatrsquoene akanne lsquoo lsquothesethosersquo

aleio arei taelige DISTANT lsquothat (yonder)rsquounu akekei lsquoie lsquothose (yonder)rsquo

There are further complications in some languages Tolsquoabalsquoita for ex-ample has not only a regular distant demonstrative labaa but two othersspecifying vertical orientation loo lsquothat yonder and higher uprsquo and fuulsquothat yonder and lower downrsquo Anejom possesses not only the three-way dis-tinction noted above but also has a set of anaphoric demonstratives whichmark a noun as having been previously referred to Example

Anejomniom iyiikihouse thatlsquothat house (the one I was talking about before)rsquo

In addition Anejom distinguishes number in demonstratives and so has thefollowing

114 CHAPTER 6

AnejomSingular Dual Plural

Proximate inintildeki erantildeki ijintildekiIntermediate enaanai mdash ijeknaaDistant enaikou erantildekou ijeknaikouAnaphoric iyiiki eraaki ijiiki (recent)

ijekentilde (distant)

624 AdjectivesI mentioned earlier that there is often difficulty in rigidly assigning a wordto a specific part of speech in Oceanic languages This is especially apparentin the distinction or lack of it between verbs and adjectives

Words that translate into English as adjectives generally have two func-tional possibilities in most Oceanic languages First they may occur withina noun phrase almost always following the noun which they modify

Fijianna waqa levu

the canoe biglsquothe big canoersquo

Samoanlsquoo le teine putaFOCUS the girl fatlsquothe fat girlrsquo

Second and more frequently adjectives function as stative verbs That isthey function in the same way as other intransitive verbs (being marked forsubject tense and so on) but they express a state rather than an actionwith the subject being the experiencer of that state

FijianE levu na waqait big the canoelsquoThe canoe is bigrsquo

SamoanUa puta le teineSTATIVE fat the girllsquoThe girl is fatrsquo

Many languages in Melanesia however do have a category of adjectivesthat differs from the category of stative verbs although both of these cate-


gories include words that would translate as adjectives Lenakel for exam-ple has a set of stative verbs similar to those illustrated for Fijian andSamoan vɨt lsquogoodrsquo and esuaas lsquosmallrsquo may function as adjectives followingthe noun in a noun phrase

LenakelR-ɨm-aamh nimwa v ɨ t kerhe-PAST-see house good onelsquoHe saw a good housersquo

Kova esuaas ka r-ɨ s-apul-aanchild small that he-not-sleep-notlsquoThe small child is not asleeprsquo

They may also occur as the head of a verb complex taking prefixes markingsubject and tense aspect just like any nonstative verb (compare the behaviorof vɨt and esuaas in the examples below with that of aamh lsquoseersquo and apullsquosleeprsquo above)

LenakelNimwa taha-n r-ɨm-vɨt akɨnhouse POSS-his it-PAST-good verylsquoHis house wasused to be very nicersquo

Kova ka r-ɨs-esuaas-aanchild that he-not-small-notlsquoThat child is not smallrsquo

There is however a set of words that can only be adjectives like vi lsquonewrsquoand ituga lsquoforeignrsquo These also follow the noun in a noun phrase

LenakelR-ɨm-ol nimwa vihe-PAST=make house newlsquoHe built a new housersquo

Nɨkava ituga r-ɨs-vɨt-aankava foreign it-not-good-notlsquoAlcohol (lit foreign kava) is not goodrsquo

Words in this category never function as stative verbs and utterances likethe following ones are unacceptable

LenakelNimwa r-(ɨm)-vihouse it-(PAST)-new

116 CHAPTER 6

Nɨkava r-ɨs-ituga-aankava it-not-foreign-not

625 Numerals and QuantifiersTwo classes of words or morphemes relate to counting Numerals are exactnumbers in a counting system one two three four and so on Oceaniclanguages exhibit a range of numeral systems the commonest are simpledecimal (base 10) or quinary (base 5) systems but there are variations onthese systems and other systems are also represented (see chapter 11 fora detailed discussion) Quantifiers are morphemes that mark grammaticalnumber (singular dual plural) or express less mathematically exact quanti-ties like ldquosomerdquo ldquomanyrdquo ldquofewrdquo ldquoallrdquo and so forth

In many Oceanic languages numerals and quantifiers function as sta-tive verbs The following Fijian examples illustrate this

FijianE moce na gonehe sleep the childlsquoThe child sleptis sleepingrsquo

E dua na gonehe one the childlsquo(There is) one childrsquo

Two features of such systems are (1) that a noun modified by a numeraloccurs in what is effectively a relative clause in the sentence and (2)that numerals above one usually take singular rather than plural subjectmarkers

FijianErau moce e rua na gonetheytwo sleep he two the childlsquoThe two children sleptare sleepingrsquo

Such systems are common in Polynesia and are also found in some lan-guages in Melanesia

TahitianlsquoUa holsquoi mai na talsquoata lsquoe toruPAST return here thePL person itis threelsquoThree people came back herersquo


AnejomA noupan is ithii is amen a natimi is esejat time itPAST one itPAST live SUBJECT person PAST threelsquoOnce upon a time there were three peoplersquo

In most other Oceanic languagesmdashwhich tend to be those that distin-guish adjectives from stative verbs (like Lenakel in 624 immediatelyabove)mdashnumerals and quantifiers function much like adjectives That isthey occur within the noun phrase not as stative verbs For example

Manam Lenakelaine rua peravɨn (mil) kiuwoman two woman (DUAL) twolsquotwo womenrsquo lsquotwo womenrsquo

lsquoaleti lsquoolsquoolsquoo neram ituga asuul (miin)whiteman many people foreign many (PL)lsquomany Europeansrsquo lsquomany foreignersrsquo

This is perhaps the commonest pattern among the languages of Melanesiaand it is also found in a few Micronesian languages

There are in many of these languages however vestiges of an earliersystem in which the numerals were once stative verbs Compare the Vin-mavis and Lenakel numerals for two through five with the Proto Oceanicforms from which they originate8

Proto Oceanic Vinmavis Lenakellsquotworsquo rua iru kiulsquothreersquo tolu itl kɨsillsquofourrsquo vati ifah kuvɨrlsquofiversquo lima ilim katilum

Here we can see that the roots of the numerals have something in front ofthem i in Vinmavis k (+ vowel) in Lenakel In Vinmavis i- is a third personsingular non-future verbal prefix and in Lenakel k (+ vowel) is a third per-son non-singular verbal prefix Many languages of this type may once havetreated numerals as stative verbs but over time the verbal prefix has be-come attached to the numeral and the numeral has lost its verbal nature

The third kind of system involves what are known as numeral clas-sifiers Some Micronesian languages have an elaborate system of theseclassifiers and they are perhaps the best known representatives of this typealthough such classifiers also occur in the Admiralty Islands languages AsRehg says of Ponapean ldquoEvery concrete noun in Ponapean belongs to one ormore classes When we use a numeral with a noun an appropriate numeral

118 CHAPTER 6

classifier must be employed More simply stated the choice of the numeralsystem one uses is dependent upon what one is countingrdquo (Rehg 1981 125)

Here are three such numeral systems in Ponapean with the forms ofthe numerals one through nine The words in the second column are usedwith the word mwutin lsquoheap or pile ofrsquo Those in the third column are usedto count stalks of things And those in the last column are used for countingslices or chips of something

Ponapeanlsquoheaps ofrsquo lsquostalks ofrsquo lsquoslices ofrsquo

1 emwut osop edip2 riemwut riasop riadip3 silimwut silisop silidip4 pahmwut pahsop pahdip5 limmwut limisop limadip6 wenemwut wensop wenedip7 isimwut isisop isidip8 walimwut welisop welidip9 duwamwut duwasop duwadip

Examples

Ponapeanmwutin dihpw pahmwutpileof grass four-CLASSIFIERlsquofour piles of grassrsquo

sehu pah-sopsugarcane four-CLASSIFIERlsquofour stalks of sugarcanersquo

dipen mei pah-dipsliceof breadfruit four-CLASSIFIERlsquofour slices of breadfruitrsquo

As you can see from these examples the numeral is made up of a mor-pheme representing the number itself (sili- lsquothreersquo pah- lsquofourrsquo etc) anda suffix which is the classifier Ponapean has twenty-nine such classifierswhich include the following (the first three being those exemplified above)

-mwut used to count heaps or piles-sop used to count stalks-dip used to count slices chips or shavings of something-pak used to count times


-pit used to count strips or strands of something-mwodol used to count small round objects-pali used to count body extremities-pwoat used to count long objects-men used to count animate beings

It has as well a general classifier -u which can be used with a range of nounsThese classifiers may also be used without any numeral in which case they

functionas indefinitearticles (comparesection622 in relation toMokilese)

Ponapeanpwihk men tuhke pwoatpig CLASSIFIER tree CLASSIFIERlsquoa treersquo lsquoa pigrsquo

Other languages in Micronesia with elaborate systems of numeralclassifiers include Kiribati (with sixty-six classifiers) Ulithian (forty-three)Trukese Nauruan and Yapese In contrast Mokilese has only four classi-fiers and Marshallese only vestiges of a classifier system Kosraean mayhave never had a classifier system at all (See Bender and Wang [1985 79]for a brief discussion of this)

The languages of the Kilivila family in the Trobriand Islands in PapuaNew Guinea (Kilivila Muyuw and Budibud) have sets of classifiers like thoseof Ponapean but they are used with other items in noun phrases as well (seesection 626) Other Oceanic languages have numeral classifiers but thesesystems are more limited than the Micronesian ones Some Polynesian lan-guages fall into this category Tongan for example requires the classifiertoko when numerals refer to persons or animals

Tonganha kau faifekau lsquoe toko fitua PL minister itis CLASSIFIER sevenlsquoseven ministersrsquo

Other quantifiers behave similarly Compare the following Tongan phrasewith the one above

Tonganha kau faifekau lsquoe toko fihaa PL minister itis CLASSIFIER howmanylsquohow many ministersrsquo

626 Noun Phrase StructureAs a general rule articles (where they occur) precede the noun in a nounphrase in Oceanic languages while adjectives and demonstratives follow

120 CHAPTER 6

the noun The position of numerals and quantifiers is more variable In somelanguages these precede the noun in others they follow it In the examplesbelow the head noun is underlined to illustrate these patterns

Labugwa kege agravenigrave hanocirc anamocirc maipi lene

canoe small one house big five thislsquoa small canoersquo lsquothese five big housesrsquo

Banonina tavana kota numa ghoom bangana bubuPL person all house new big redlsquoall peoplersquo lsquothe big new red housersquo

Tolsquoabalsquoitaroo wela loo ki nga fau balsquoitatwo child this PL the stone biglsquothose two childrenrsquo lsquoathe big stonersquo

Port Sandwichnavuumls xavoi minac ngail pwici isa-n raibow real other PL all POSS-his onlylsquoall his other real bows onlyrsquo

Ponapeanpwutak reirei sili-men-oboy tall three-CLASSIFIER-thatlsquothose three tall boysrsquo

Kiribatiteni-ua te boki akannethree-CLASSIFIER the book thoselsquothose three booksrsquo

Fijianna wai batabatā na vinivō damudamu oqōthe water cold the dress red thislsquo(the) cold waterrsquo lsquothis red dressrsquo

Tahitiante mau pōtilsquoi purotu tē-ra talsquoata lsquoinothe PL girl beautiful the-that man badlsquothe beautiful girlsrsquo lsquothat bad manrsquo

The Kilivila language has a system of classifiers similar to but muchricher than the Bantu languages of Africa with close to two hundred dif-


ferent classifiers altogether Not only numerals but also demonstrativesand adjectives have to be attached to a classifier The examples belowillustrate the use of the classifiers to lsquomale humansrsquo and bwa lsquotrees orwooden thingsrsquo

Kilivilatau m-to-na to-kabitam

man this-CLASSIFIER-this CLASSIFIER-intelligentlsquothis intelligent manrsquo

ma-bwa-si-na bwa-tolu kaithis-CLASSIFIER-PL-this CLASSIFIER-three treelsquothese three treesrsquo

63 Possessive ConstructionsIn virtually all Oceanic languages the grammar of possession is more com-plex than it is in English (as mentioned briefly in chapter 2) In this discus-sion of possession we look first at those languages that most closely reflectthe reconstructed Proto Oceanic system then at major departures from thissystem

631 Possessive Constructions Similar to Proto OceanicThe languages most closely reflecting the original Proto Oceanic system ofpossession are found in parts of Island Melanesia especially the more east-erly parts of this region (including Fiji) These languages indicate whetherpossession is direct or indirect and then discriminate between several dif-ferent types of indirect possession

In direct possession the possessive pronoun is attached directly to thepossessed noun These constructions generally encode a semantic relation-ship between the possessor and the possessed noun that has been referredto as close or subordinate or inalienable They most commonly imply thatthe possessor has little if any control over the fact of possession and are typ-ically used with normally irremovable and integral parts of the body and ofthings and with all or some kinship terms For example

Paamesenati-n mete-nchild-hisher eye-hisheritslsquohisher childrsquo lsquohisherits eyersquo

122 CHAPTER 6

Fijianna tina-qu na ulu-quthe mother-my the head-mylsquomy motherrsquo lsquomy headrsquo

In indirect possession on the other hand the possessive pronoun isnot attached to the possessed noun but rather to a separate morphemethat I refer to as a possessive marker These constructions generally en-code a relationship between possessor and possessed that can be calledremote or dominant or alienable They most commonly imply that the pos-sessor has control either over the possession itself or at least over the fact ofpossession Such constructions are typically used with items of disposableproperty nominalized verbs of which the possessor is the underlying sub-ject and nouns that the possessor owns or controls in some way or another

The languages with which I am dealing in this section have a smallnumber of subclasses of indirect possession each with its own possessivemarker Paamese and Fijian for example have the following markers9

Paameseaa- food passivemo- drink or for domestic useso- social relationship determined by law or customono- general active

Fijianke- food passiveme- drinkno- general active

Some examples

Paameseauh aa-k ipu aa-myam POSSFOOD-my loss POSSPASSIVE-yourlsquomy yam (to eat)rsquo lsquoyour lossdisadvantagersquo

oai mo-m aisin mo-nwater POSSDRINK-your clothes POSSDOMESTIC-hislsquoyour water (to drink)rsquo lsquohisher clothesrsquo

meteimal so-m telai ono-mvillage POSSCUSTOM-your axe POSSGENERAL-yourlsquoyour villagersquo lsquoyour axersquo


Fijianna ke-mu madrai na ke-na itukutukuthe POSSFOOD-your bread the POSSPASSIVE-his reportlsquoyour bread (to eat)rsquo lsquohis report (the one made

about him)rsquo

na me-qu bia na no-na valethe POSSDRINK-my beer the POSSGENERAL-his houselsquomy beer (to drink)rsquo lsquohis housersquo

When the possessor is a noun what is known as a construct suffix(abbreviated here CS) is often added to the possessed noun in a directconstruction and to the possessive marker in an indirect construction InPaamese for example the construct suffix is -n

Paamesemete-n huli kailueye-CS dog DUALlsquothe two dogsrsquo eyesrsquo

vakili one-n iseicanoe POSSGENERAL-CS wholsquowhose canoersquo

The distinction between direct and indirect possession and between thevarious types of indirect possession depends partly on the semantics of thepossessed noun and partly on the nature of the relationship between the pos-sessor and the possessed It follows therefore that at least some nouns mayparticipate in more than one kind of possessive construction depending onthe nature of that relationship For example

Fijianna yaca-qu na no-qu yacathe name-my the POSSGENERAL-my namelsquomy namersquo lsquomy namesakersquo

na ke-na niu na me-na niuthe POSSFOOD-his coconut the POSSDRINK-his coconutlsquohis coconut (meat to eat)rsquo lsquohis coconut (water to drink)rsquo

na ke-mu itaba na no-mu itabathe POSSPASSIVE-your photo the POSSGENERAL-your photolsquoyour photo (the one taken ofyou)rsquo

lsquoyour photo (the one you tookor have)rsquo

124 CHAPTER 6

632 Simplification of Indirect PossessionOne common departure from this original system the loss of contrast betweensome or all of the half-dozen or so indirect possessive subtypes is widespreadin western Melanesia and occurs also in parts of Micronesia (for example inYapese and Kiribati) Many of the languages of New Guinea and Solomon Is-lands distinguish direct and indirect constructions but have only two indirectpossessive markers One of these refers to food and drink (and often to itemsinvolved in producing or cooking food) and the other to all other alienablepossessions In Manam the markers are lsquoana- (food and drink) and ne- (other)

Manam

mata-ng tama-gueye-your father-mylsquoyour eyersquo lsquomy fatherrsquo

bang lsquoana-gu suru lsquoana-θtaro POSSFOOD-my soup POSSFOOD-hislsquomy tarorsquo lsquohis souprsquo

uma lsquoana-ng lsquoaula lsquoana-gugarden POSSFOOD-your fishhook POSSFOOD-mylsquoyour gardenrsquo lsquomy fishhookrsquo

lsquousi ne-gu mata ne-dalavalava POSSGENERAL-my custom POSSGENERAL-ourINClsquomy lavalavarsquo lsquoour customrsquo

Other languagesmdashdistributed somewhat randomly throughout thisareamdashsimply contrast direct and indirect constructions with no subclassifi-cation of indirect possession

Syenoru-g etme-nhand-my father-hislsquomy handrsquo lsquohisher fatherrsquo

nimo horu-g nup horo-mhouse POSS-my yam POSS-yourlsquomy housersquo lsquoyour yamrsquo

Kiribatitina-na kuni-umother-his skin-mylsquohis motherrsquo lsquomy skinrsquo


a-na boki a-u benPOSS-his book POSS-my coconutlsquohis bookrsquo lsquomy coconutrsquo

633 Development of Classifier SystemsBy contrast some Oceanic languages have developed a complex systemof classifiers (similar to those discussed in relation to the numerals) tomark categories of indirect possession10 Many Micronesian languagesfall into this category as do a few in Melanesia (like Iaai in the LoyaltyIslands)

Ponapean like almost all Oceanic languages distinguishes direct andindirect constructions

Ponapeanmoange-i nime-i uhpwhead-my CLASSIFIER-my coconutlsquomy headrsquo lsquomy drinking coconutrsquo

Indirectly possessed nouns belong to a number of different classes in Pona-pean the members of each class usually having some semantic feature thatdistinguishes them from other nouns Possessive classifiers mark the nounas belonging to a particular class and possessive suffixes and the constructsuffix are attached to these classifiers There are more than twenty posses-sive classifiers in Ponapean some of which are

PonapeanClassifier Used with nouns referring tokene- edible thingsnime- drinkable thingssapwe- landwere- vehicleskie- things to sleep onipe- things used as coveringspelie- peers counterparts opponentsmware- garlands names titlesnah- small or precious things and people or things over

which the possessor has a dominant relationship

There is also a general classifier ah- which is used with nouns that do notfall into any other class Examples

Ponapeanah-i seht lsquomy shirtrsquoah-i pwutak lsquomy boyfriendrsquo

126 CHAPTER 6

ah-i mahi lsquomy breadfruit treersquoah-i rong lsquomy newsrsquo

Many nouns may occur with more than one classifier with slight seman-tic changes So the noun pwihk lsquopigrsquo may be possessed with the dominantclassifier nah- the general classifier ah- and the edible classifier kene- eachwith different meanings

Ponapeannah-i pwihk lsquomy (live) pigrsquoah-i pwihk lsquomy (butchered) pigrsquokene-i pwihk lsquomy pork my pig (as food)rsquo

The system in Iaai is similar to that of Micronesian languages like Pon-apean Kinship terms body parts and certain other nouns closely related tothe possessor are directly possessed

Iaaihinyouml-k ba-nmother-my head-hislsquomy motherrsquo lsquohisher headrsquo

hwakeci-m i-fuuc-incustom-your NOM-speak-hislsquoyour customrsquo lsquohisher way of speakingrsquo

But there is also quite a large number of markers used in indirect con-structions

Iaaia- foodbele- drinkhanii- something caught (eg through hunting or fishing)houmlne- a contributionhwa- a noiseiie- a piece of something to chewii- landdee- a roadhnacircacirc- something done to oneanyi- general (none of the above)

Examples include

Iaaianyi-k thaan a-n koumlnyingCLASSIFIER-my chief CLASSIFIER-his tarolsquomy chiefrsquo lsquohis taro (to eat)rsquo


bele-n trii hanii-ny wacircacircCLASSIFIER-his tea CLASSIFIER-his fishlsquoher tea (to drink)rsquo lsquohis fish (which he caught)rsquo

There are also specific possessive markers in Iaai These are derived fromnouns and are used to indicate possession of those same (or related) nouns

Iaaiumwouml-k uma lsquomy housersquonuu-k nu lsquomy coconut treersquohuu-k hu lsquomy boatrsquowaii-k wai lsquomy reefrsquo

634 Loss of Direct ConstructionsA few languages in the New Guinea area and Rotuman and all the Polyne-sian languages have for the most part lost the distinction between directand indirect constructions Only indirect constructions are used11 In Labufor example there is only one set of possessive pronouns and it is used withall nouns

Labuyecirc na ana yecirc na hanocircyou your mother you your houselsquoyour motherrsquo lsquoyour housersquo

Rotuman has two indirect possessive-markers lsquoe(n) used with possessednouns that refer to food drink a personrsquos turn at doing something and withsome nouns to do with contests and challenges and lsquoo(n) used with all othernouns including kinship terms and nouns referring to parts of things

Rotumanlsquoe-n lsquoalsquoana lsquoalsquoan lsquoe le FauholiPOSSFOOD-his taro taro POSSFOOD thePERSONAL Fauholilsquohis tarorsquo lsquoFauholirsquos tarorsquo

lsquoo-n lelelsquoa lsquoo-n lsquoalaPOSSGENERAL-his children POSSGENERAL-his teethlsquohis childrenrsquo lsquohis teethrsquo

lsquoo-n lsquoeap lsquoeap lsquoo le FauholiPOSSGENERAL-his mat mat POSSGENERAL thePERSONAL

Fauholilsquohis matrsquo lsquoFauholirsquos matrsquo

128 CHAPTER 6

Almost all Polynesian languages (except Niuean and Takuu) have re-tained the dichotomy between inalienable (or subordinate) and alienable(or dominant) possession but this is expressed by two different indirectconstructions Generally speaking inalienable or subordinate possessionis expressed by a possessive morpheme based on the vowel o whilealienable or dominant possession is expressed with the vowel a For ex-ample

Samoanlsquoo lo-lsquou tama lsquoo le ulu o TavitaFOCUS POSS-my father FOCUS the head POSS DAVIDlsquomy fatherrsquo lsquoDavidrsquos headrsquo

lsquoo la-lsquou talsquoavale lsquoo le naifi a TavitaFOCUS POSS-my car FOCUS the knife POSS Davidlsquomy carrsquo lsquoDavidrsquos knifersquo

Nukuoro12

to -no potu te potu o SoanPOSS-his wife the wife POSS Johnlsquohis wifersquo lsquoJohnrsquos wifersquo

ta-na naivi te naivi a SoanPOSS-his knife the knife POSS Johnlsquohis knifersquo lsquoJohnrsquos knifersquo

As in most other languages we have looked at there are many examplesof the same noun being possessed in both constructions with a concomitantsemantic difference

Nukuoroto-ku ngavesi ta-ku ngavesilsquoPOSS-my box lsquoPOSS-my boxlsquomy coffinrsquo lsquomy storage boxrsquo

to-no potopoto ta-na potopotoPOSS-his short POSS-his shortlsquohis shortness (perma-nent condition)rsquo

lsquohis shortness (temporary condition aswhen hunched over)rsquo

te kkai o Vave te kkai a Vavethe story POSS Vave the story POSS VavelsquoVaversquos story (told abouthim)rsquo

lsquoVaversquos story (that he tells)rsquo


Niuean has lost even this distinction using only a- forms in all cases

Niueanhaa-ku ihu haa-ku falePOSS-my nose POSS-my houselsquomy nosersquo lsquomy housersquo

64 Verbs and the Verb ComplexI use the term verb complex to refer to a phrase consisting of a verb whichmay be preceded and followed by particles of various kinds13 In someOceanic languages the verb itself is fairly simple in structure but numer-ous particles may occur in a verb complex In others a verb may take quitea number of prefixes and suffixes and the verb complex is usually simpler instructure

641 General Structure of the VerbIt is common in many Oceanic languages for the verb to consist simply of theverb root (underlined in the next set of examples) with no prefixes or suf-fixes This is particularly true of the Micronesian and Polynesian languagesbut is also common in languages of Melanesia

NehanA mahoh ene pak-e rikin wahthe old this should-heNONPAST lie restlsquoThis old man should lie down and restrsquo

TolsquoabalsquoitaNau ku bilsquoi fulaI I justnow arrivelsquoI arrived just nowrsquo

AlsquojieumlGouml yeacute vi koumlyoumlI will CONTINUOUS playlsquoI am going to go on playingrsquo

PonapeanSoulik kin pirida kuloak isuhSoulik HABITUAL getup clock sevenlsquoSoulik gets up at seven orsquoclockrsquo

130 CHAPTER 6

FijianE lailai na valeit small the houselsquoThe house is smallrsquo

RotumanlsquoEap ta la hoalsquomat the FUTURE takelsquoThe mat will be takenrsquo

MāoriI kai te rangatiraPAST eat the chieflsquoThe chief atersquo

Languages of this type do however have a fairly small set of verbalprefixes and suffixes The most frequently used prefixes mark causativity(see the Tolsquoabalsquoita example below) and reciprocality (Alsquojieuml) while suffixescommonly mark the person and number of the object (Tolsquoabalsquoita Alsquojieuml)transitivity (Fijian) or the passive (Māori)

TolsquoabalsquoitaNia lsquoe falsquoa-faalu-a rabolsquoahe he CAUSATIVE-clean-it bowllsquoHe cleaned the bowlrsquo

AlsquojieumlCuru vi-yalsquo-rutheytwo RECIPROCAL-hit-themtwo

lsquoThey hit each otherrsquo

FijianE rai-ci irahe see-TRANS themlsquoHe saw themrsquo

MāoriKa pūhi-a te poaka e waiINCEPTIVE shoot-PASSIVE the pig by wholsquoBy whom was the pig shotrsquo

Grammatical features that are marked by particles in languages likethese are marked by prefixes in another set of languages found mainly inMelanesia In these languages the verb root almost never occurs aloneWhen it does it marks the (singular) imperative


LenakelAmnuumwdrinklsquoDrink (it)rsquo

In such languages however verbs typically take prefixes and suffixes mark-ing subject tense-aspect and a range of other grammatical features In theexamples below the verb root is underlined

ManamlsquoU-lele-lsquoamayou-lookfor-usEXC

lsquoYou looked for usrsquo

Malsquoasi-lo i-ngara-ngaraocean-in he-CONTINUOUS-swimlsquoHe is swimming in the oceanrsquo

Natu i-laba-doichild he-big-COMPLETIVE

lsquoThe child has grown uprsquo

Robulsquoa i-ro-rolsquoalsquo-i-ramo-larubbish it-HABITUAL-throw-them-randomly-persistentlylsquoHe keeps throwing rubbish all over the placersquo

LenakelR-ɨm-kɨn mun akɨnhe-PAST-eat again verylsquoHe ate a lot againrsquo

K-n-ai-ami ru apus am nɨkomthey-COMPLETIVE-PL-urinate try extinguished just firelsquoThey just tried to put the fire out by urinating on itrsquo

K-ɨm-am-ai-akar-atu-pn kam ilar miinthey-PAST-CONTINUOUS-PL-talk-RECIPROCAL-there

to they PL

lsquoThey (pl) were talking to one anotherrsquo

K-ɨm-uɨni-uas to nahutothey-PAST-DUAL-say-together to crowdlsquoThey were both talking at once to the crowdrsquo

132 CHAPTER 6

642 Tense Aspect and MoodTense refers to the time of the action or state referred to by the verb Forexample in English one makes a basic tense distinction between past pre-sent and future Aspect refers to the way in which the action is carried outor is seen to be carried out English distinguishes completive habitual con-tinuous and punctiliar aspects in each tense14 In many languages there aresome markers of tense some of aspect and some that mark a combination oftense and aspect Descriptions of these languages often refer to the tense-aspect system

Some languages have tense systems similar to or simpler than that ofEnglish For example Fijian has only two markers of tense ā lsquopastrsquo and na lsquofu-turersquo which are particles coming before the verb The past tense marker isoptional once the time has been established as in the second example below

FijianE ā lako mai o Jonehe PAST go here thePERSONAL JohnlsquoJohn camersquo

E nanoa e (ā) lako mai o Joneon yesterday he (PAST) go here thePERSONAL JohnlsquoJohn came yesterdayrsquo

E na lako mai o Jonehe FUTURE go here thePERSONAL JohnlsquoJohn will comersquo

Rotuman has only one tense-marker la (sometimes taeligla) which marks thefuture The non-future is unmarked

RotumanIa lsquoea ia la leumhe say he FUTURE comelsquoHe says he will comersquo or lsquoHe said he would comersquo

Tͻn ta sun-lsquoiawater the hot-STATIVElsquoThe water is (now) hotrsquo

Fā ta leume-aman the COME-COMPLETIVElsquoThe man has already comersquo

Other languages have more complex tense systems than that of EnglishLenakel for example distinguishes four non-future tenses


Lenakeln-ak-ol lsquoyou do itrsquon-ɨm-ol lsquoyou did itrsquon-n-ol lsquoyou have done itrsquon-ep-ol lsquoyou did it (after you did something else)rsquo

A future prefix t- can be used in combination with two of the tense prefixesabove to produce two different future tenses

Lenakelt-n-ak-ol lsquoyou will do it soonrsquot-n-ep-ol lsquoyou will do it some time laterrsquo

In yet other languages tense is not really marked at all Let us considerwhat Rehg (1981 268) has to say about Ponapean

Ponapean may be described as a tenseless language This is not to saythat in Ponapean it is impossible to express notions of timehellip What ismeant by saying that Ponapean is tenseless is that it expresses consid-erations of time in a way different from English Rather than using atense system to signal time relations Ponapean employs what we willcall an aspect system The basic difference between these two sys-tems is this in a tense system when an event occurred is importantin an aspect system the time contour of the event is crucial

This idea of a time contour can be clarified by looking at four aspects markedin Ponapean

1 Habitual aspect is marked by the preverbal particle kin this im-plies that the action is or was a customary or habitual one which isor was done regularly

2 Continuous aspect (Rehg calls this ldquodurativerdquo) marked by redupli-cating the verb signals that the action or state of the verb iscarried out or takes place over some length of time

3 Completive aspect marked by the suffix -ehr indicates that theaction has reached or is on the way to reaching some kind of con-clusion or completion

4 Irrealis aspect marked by the preverbal particle pahn impliesthat the action is not complete or realized (often it corresponds toa future tense in other languages)

Some examples

PonapeanSoulik kin kang raisSoulik HABITUAL eat ricelsquoSoulik eats ricersquo

134 CHAPTER 6

Soulik kang-kang raisSoulik CONTINUOUS-eat ricelsquoSoulik is eating ricersquo

Soulik kang-ehr raisSoulik eat-COMPLETIVE ricelsquoSoulik has eaten ricersquo

Soulik pahn kang raisSoulik IRREALIS eat ricelsquoSoulik will eat ricersquo

A verb may also occur without any of these aspect markers as in

PonapeanSoulik kang raisSoulik eat ricelsquoSoulik is eating ricersquo lsquoSoulik ate ricersquo etc

This simply indicates that Soulik was involved in eating rice No time is spec-ified although this can of course be included if it is necessary

PonapeanSoulik kang rais nan sounpar samwalahroSoulik eat rice on year lastlsquoSoulik ate rice last yearrsquo

Soulik kang rais metSoulik eat rice nowlsquoSoulik is eating rice nowrsquo

Ponapean illustrates the use of an aspect rather than a tense system AsI mentioned above however many Oceanic languages have particles or af-fixes that mark both tense and aspect Here is the list of Māori tense-aspectparticles

Māorika inceptive Beginning of a new actioni past Action in the pastkua completive Action (fairly recently) completedkia desiderative Desirability of an actionme prescriptive Action should take placee non-past Present or future (when used with ana

following the verb indicates incompleteor continuous action)


kei warning lsquoDonrsquotrsquo or lsquolestrsquoina conditional lsquoIfrsquo or lsquowhenrsquo

Examples

MāoriKa takoto te tamaiti ka moeINCEPTIVE lie the child INCEPTIVE sleeplsquoThe child lay down and sleptrsquo

Kua mate ta-ku hoaCOMPLETIVE die POSS-my friendlsquoMy friend has diedrsquo

Me hoki te tamaiti ra ki te kāingaPRESCRIPTIVE return the child that to the homelsquoThat child should go homersquo

E haere ana te wahine ki te moanaNONPAST go CONTINUOUS the woman to the sealsquoThe woman is going to the searsquo

Kia āta kōrero tātou kei rongo mai a-ku hoaDESIDE-RATIVE

careful talk we INC LEST hear here POSSPL-my friend

lsquoWe should talk quietly lest my friends hearrsquo

A final set of examples from Nakanamanga illustrates a different fea-ture the concept of mood and shows a pattern of root-initial consonantalternation that is found in a few areas within Oceanic (particularly cen-tral Vanuatu and the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea) Mood(sometimes referred to as modality) does not relate so much to time asto actuality An actual state or event is said to be in the realis moodwhile a nonreal or non-actual state or event is in the irrealis moodRealis often refers to something that happened is happening or will def-initely happen whereas irrealis refers to something that only might takeplace Oceanic (and other) languages differ in the treatment of negativesIn some languages the negative is in the realis mode (because it actuallydid not happen) in others it is in the irrealis mode because the actionwas not real

Nakanamanga has a set of preverbal particles marking tense-aspectSome of these are used in realis mood others in irrealis mood It is alsoone of the many central Vanuatu languages in which there is alternation be-

136 CHAPTER 6

tween some initial consonants of verbs Verbs with initial v w k and r retainthese consonants in irrealis mood but change them to p p g and t re-spectively after any preverbal particle (The verb root is underlined in theexamples)

NakanamangaIrrealis mood Realis mooda ga vano e panoI INTENTIONAL go he golsquoIrsquom goingrsquo lsquohe goesrsquo

e pe rogo e poo togohe CONDITIONAL hear he COMPLETIVE hearlsquoif he hearsrsquo lsquohe has heardrsquo

643 SubjectMost Oceanic languages mark the person and the number of the subjectsomewhere in the verb complexmdasheither as a prefix to the verb or as a pre-verbal particle15 In some cases a single morpheme marks both person andnumber

PaameseNa-mū mon alokI-makeit puddinglsquoI made the puddingrsquo

Ro-mūmon alokweINC-makeit puddinglsquoWe (inclusive) made the puddingrsquo

Ma-mūmon alokweEXC-makeit puddinglsquoWe (exclusive) made the puddingrsquo

KiribatiE ata-aihe know-melsquoHe knows mersquo

A ata-aithey know-melsquoThey know mersquo


In other languages person and number are marked by separate mor-phemes

LenakelN-ak-am-kɨn menuk uayou-PRESENT-CONTINUOUS-eat chicken orlsquoAre you (singular) eating chickenrsquo

N-ak-am-ia-kɨn menuk uayou-PRESENT-CONTINUOUS-DUAL-eat chicken orlsquoAre you two eating chickenrsquo

N-ak-am-ar-kɨn menuk uayou-PRESENT-CONTINUOUS-PL-eat chicken orlsquoAre you (plural) eating chickenrsquo

In a number of languages in Melanesia the marking of tense-aspect ormood is combined with the marking of the subjectrsquos person and number ina single morpheme Manam for example has two sets of subject prefixes toverbs one used in realis mood and the other in irrealis mood

ManamSingular Plural

Realis Irrealis Realis Irrealis1 u- m- 1 INC tata-2 lsquou- go- 1 EXC lsquoi ga-3 i- nga- 2 lsquoa- lsquoama-

3 di- da-

For example

ManamEu i-matedog itREALIS-dielsquoThe dog diedrsquo

Eu nga-mate lsquoanadog itIRREALIS-die likelylsquoThe dogrsquos going to diersquo

In languages like these the subject marker occurs whether the subjectis a full noun phrase or a pronoun and whether that subject is expressed inthe sentence or not By contrast languages in western Polynesia use prever-bal subject-marking pronouns only when the subject is a pronoun

138 CHAPTER 6

TonganNalsquoe lsquoalu lsquoa e tangata (noun phrase subject)PAST go SUBJECT the manlsquoThe man wentrsquo

Nalsquoa ne lsquoalu (pronoun subject)PAST he golsquoHe wentrsquo

SamoanUa sau le alilsquoi (noun phrase subject)COMPLETIVE come the chieflsquoThe chief has comersquo

Ua lsquouo sau (pronoun subject)COMPLETIVE I comelsquoI have comersquo

Languages in eastern Polynesia have lost this preverbal subject-markingsystem altogether

TahitianlsquoUa tāpū te vahine lsquoi te vahie (noun

phrase subject)PAST cut the woman OBJECT the woodlsquoThe woman cut the woodrsquo

lsquoUa tāpū vau lsquoi te vahie (pronoun subject)PAST cut I OBJECT the woodlsquoI cut the woodrsquo

644 Object and TransitivityMost Oceanic languages have suffixes that mark a verb as transitive mdashthatis as having an object

NakanamangaA ga munuI INTENTIONAL drinklsquoIrsquoll drinkrsquo

A ga munu-gi noai nagaI INTENTIONAL drink-TRANS water thatlsquoIrsquoll drink that waterrsquo


FijianE buluhe burylsquoHesheit is buriedrsquo

E bulu-t-a na benuhe bury-TRANS-it the rubbishlsquoHeshe buried the rubbishrsquo

There are a number of features of the marking of transitive and objectThe first is the form of the transitive suffix In many languages this is simply-i

AnejomAdapo-i upni yin aakcover-TRANS good him youlsquoCover him up wellrsquo

In other languages however the transitive suffix is -Ci where C is a the-matic consonant This consonant (1) is not present when the root occurs byitself (2) is present when the suffix is added and (3) is different with differ-ent verbs Look at the following Fijian intransitive and transitive verbs (thetransitive is in the form used before a pronoun or proper noun)

FijianIntransitive Transitivebulu bulu-ti lsquoburyrsquorai rai-ci lsquoseersquotuku tuku-ni lsquotellrsquokaci kaci-vi lsquocallrsquoviri viri-ki lsquothrow atrsquokila kila-i lsquoknowrsquo

As you can see from the examples the form of the suffix (which is sometimessimply -i) is unpredictable One simply has to learn that bulu for exampletakes -ti but rai takes -ci16

The second feature is that many Oceanic languages in fact have twotransitive suffixes the first deriving from Proto Oceanic -i and the secondfrom -aki or -akini This second suffix is sometimes called the applicativeIt often refers to the instrument with which the action is carried out the rea-son for performing the action or some other more indirect transitive notionIn the Fijian examples below I have used the form of the suffix that incor-porates a third person singular object -a In Fijian -Ci-a becomes -Ca and-Caki-a becomes -Caka In some cases the thematic consonant is the same inboth suffixes

140 CHAPTER 6

FijianTransitive Applicativecici-va lsquorun for itrsquo cici-vaka lsquorun with itrsquocabe-ta lsquoascend itrsquo cabe-taka lsquoascend with itrsquooso-va lsquobark at itrsquo oso-vaka lsquobark because of itrsquouso-ra lsquopoke itrsquo uso-raka lsquopoke with itrsquo

In other cases the thematic consonants are different

FijianTransitive Applicativekaki-a lsquoscrape itrsquo kaki-taka lsquoscrape with itrsquoyaqa-va lsquocrawl to itrsquo yaqa-taka lsquocrawl with itrsquomasu-ta lsquopray to itrsquo masu-laka lsquopray for itrsquotala-a lsquosend himrsquo taka-vaka lsquosend itrsquo

Mention of the Fijian third person singular object suffix -a brings us toa third feature the specific marking of object Marking the objectrsquos personand number within the verb complex is less common than marking subjector transitivity For example although in Lenakel separate prefixes mark boththe person and the number of the subject and although some verbs take atransitive suffix the object is not marked in the verb complex at all Evenpronominal objects occur as free forms17

LenakelR-ɨm-eiua-in mun iikhe-PAST-lie-TRANS again youlsquoHe lied to you againrsquo

A large number of languages however do mark the person and the num-ber of the object within the verb complex either with a suffix to the verb (asin Manam and Kiribati) or as a postposed verbal particle (as in Fijian)

ManamBang u-naghu-serelsquo-itaro IREALIS-pierce-split-itlsquoI split the taro by piercing itrsquo

KiribatiE ata-a tama-uhe know-him father-mylsquoHe knows my fatherrsquo


FijianE ā rai-ci irau na yalewahe PAST see-TRANS themtwo the womanlsquoHe saw the two womenrsquo

Generally if a language has transitive and object suffixes both occur suf-fixed to the verb in that order18

UlithianYule-mi-ya cale leedrink-TRANS-it water thislsquoDrink this waterrsquo

Xa-si-ya doxo cale laacarry-TRANS-it here water thatlsquoBring that water herersquo

In other languages the object suffix occurs when the object is a pronounbut not when it is a noun or noun phrase

NakanamangaA ga munu-gi-aI INTENTIONAL drink-TRANS-it (pronoun object)lsquoIrsquoll drink itrsquo

A ga munu-gi noai nagaI INTENTIONAL drink-TRANS water that (noun object)lsquoIrsquoll drink that waterrsquo

645 The PassiveOnly a small number of Oceanic languages contrast active and passive voiceA couple of Micronesian languages mark the passive by means of a suffix tothe verb (eg Kosraean -yuhk) The example below contrasts an active sen-tence with the corresponding passive one

KosraeanTuhlihk sacn tuhlakihn pinsuhl nuhtih-k ahchild that snatch pencil CLASSIFIER-my thelsquoThat child snatched my pencilrsquo

Pinsuhl nuhtih-k ah tuhlakihn-yuhk (sin tuhlihk sacn)pencil CLASSIFIER-my the snatch-PASSIVE (by child that)lsquoMy pencil was snatched (by that child)rsquo

142 CHAPTER 6

Most languages of eastern Polynesia have a passive This is usually markedby the suffix -Cia where C once again represents a thematic consonant19

Examples

HawaiianUa lsquoai ka mākalsquoi i ka poiCOMPLETIVE eat the policeman OBJECT the poilsquoThe policeman ate the poirsquo

Ua lsquoai-lsquoia ka poi (e ka mākalsquoi)COMPLETIVE eat-PASSIVE the poi (by the policeman)lsquoThe poi was eaten (by the policeman)rsquo

MāoriI inu te tangata i te waiPAST drink the man OBJECT the waterlsquoThe man drank the waterrsquo

I inu-mia te wai (e te tangata)PAST drink-PASSIVE the water (by the man)lsquoThe water was drunk (by the man)rsquo

TahitianlsquoUa hohoni te uri lsquoi te tamaitiPAST bite the dog OBJECT the boylsquoThe dog bit the boyrsquo

Ua hohoni-hia te tamaiti (lsquoet e uri)PAST bite-PASSIVE the boy (by the dog)lsquoThe boy was bitten (by the dog)rsquo

In examples of the passive given so far I have put the agent in paren-theses In these languages a passive sentence may occur with or without anagent

TahitianlsquoUa hohoni-hia te tamaiti lsquoe te uriPAST bite-PASSIVE the boy by the doglsquoThe boy was bitten by the dogrsquo (agent specified)

lsquoUa hohoni-hia te tamaitiPAST bite-PASSIVE the boylsquoThe boy was bittenrsquo (no agent specified)


Very few languages in Melanesia have a passive Those that do are spo-ken in the western Solomons In these languages only the passive withoutagent is permitted Indeed in Roviana at least the passive is used only whenthe agent is generic or is not recoverable from the context

RovianaSeke-a sa tie sa sikihit-it the man the doglsquoThe man hit the dogrsquo

Ta-seke sa sikiPASSIVE-hit the doglsquoThe dog was hitrsquo

646 The Causative and the ReciprocalA very widespread causative prefix in Oceanic languages whose form de-rives from Proto Oceanic paka- expresses the notion that the subject makesor causes the action of the verb to happen The causative can convert a sta-tive or an intransitive verb into a transitive one

FijianE davo-r-ahe lie-TRANS-itlsquoHe lay on itrsquo

E vaka-davo-r-ahe CAUSATIVE-lie-TRANS-itlsquoHe made himherit lie downrsquo

Further examples of this function are

ManamDang i-alsquoa-gita-iwater he-CAUSATIVE-hot-itlsquoHe heated the waterrsquo

RovianaLopu va-mate tie si raunot CAUSATIVE-die person SUBJECT IlsquoI didnrsquot kill anybodyrsquo

144 CHAPTER 6

MokileseLih-o ka-loau-i mwingeh-uwoman-the CAUSATIVE-becooked-TRANS food-thelsquoThe woman made sure the food was cookedrsquo

West FutunaNe-i faka-sara aia ta vetokaPAST-he CAUSATIVE-beopen he the doorlsquoHe opened the doorrsquo

The causative prefix often has a number of other functions in these lan-guages One common one is to form ordinal or multiplicative numerals fromcardinal numerals which are stative verbs20

Kiribatiteniua lsquothreersquo ka-teniua lsquothirdrsquonimaua lsquofiversquo ka-nimaua lsquofifthrsquo

Samoanlua lsquotworsquo falsquoa-lua lsquotwicersquotolu lsquothreersquo falsquoa-tolu lsquothree timesrsquo

There is also a widespread reciprocal prefix deriving from ProtoOceanic paRi- that marks both reciprocality (the subjects perform the ac-tion on each other) and often also mutual common united or concertedaction The following pair of examples illustrates reciprocality

FijianE loma-ni koyahe love-TRANS shelsquoHe loves herrsquo

Erau vei-loma-nitheytwo RECIPROCAL-love-TRANSlsquoThey (two) love each otherrsquo

The next examples show concerted action

FijianEra butu-k-athey tread-TRANS-itlsquoThey trod on itrsquo

Era vei-butu-yak-athey CONCERTED-tread-TRANS-itlsquoThey trampled it all overrsquo


Samoan has taken this one step further There the reciprocal prefix fe- inaddition to normal reciprocal functions has also come to mark some verbsas having plural subjects (perhaps deriving from the idea of united or con-certed action)

Samoan

Singular Pluralalsquoa fe-alsquoa lsquokickrsquoinu fe-inu lsquodrinkrsquofefe fe-fefe lsquobe afraidrsquotagi fe-tagi-si lsquocryrsquooso fe-oso-fi lsquojumprsquo

647 The Structure of the Verb ComplexIn some Oceanic languages the verb root may take a fairly large numberof verbal affixes but the verb complex usually contains relatively few parti-cles Languages of this type are mainly found in Melanesia though not allMelanesian languages fit this pattern There is no clear correlation betweenthe morphological complexity of the verb and the geographical location orgenetic affiliation of the language

In other languagesmdashespecially those of Polynesia Micronesia Fiji andsome parts of Melanesiamdashthe verb is simpler morphologically The verbcomplex usually contains a number of particles marking tense aspect andvarious other adverbial features

This difference can best be illustrated by looking at a couple of verbcomplexes in two languages Fijian which uses a range of preverbal andpostverbal particles and Lenakel which relies heavily on affixes The Fijianexamples below are from Schuumltz (1985) while the Lenakel sentences aretranslations of these The verb root is underlined in each example

FijianE sā qai tau-r-a maishe ASPECT then bring-TRANS-it herelsquoThen she brought it herersquo

Eratou sā lako vata sara yanitheyfew ASPECT go together intensive therelsquoThey (few) went off there togetherrsquo

E ā wili-k-a talehe PAST read-TRANS-it againlsquoHe read it againrsquo

146 CHAPTER 6

LenakelR-ep-os-i-pashe-then-take-TRANS-herelsquoThen she brought it herersquo

K-ɨm-hal-vɨn-uasthey-PAST-TRIAL-gothere-togetherlsquoThey (three) went off there togetherrsquo

R-ɨm-avhi-in munhe-PAST-read-TRANS againlsquoHe read it againrsquo

One further complication in Oceanic languages as in members ofmany other language families around the world is that a single verb com-plex may consist of more than one verb through a process known as verbserialization Usually the same participants (like subject and if a verb istransitive object) are involved with each verb in the series The followingexamples illustrate simple intransitive serialization Each serialized verb isunderlined

RovianaTotoso ene nuguru la ghami hellipwhen walk enter go weEXClsquoWhen we walked in helliprsquo

Turu saghe pule mae si raustand rise return come SUBJECT IlsquoI stood back uprsquo

In a transitive sentence transitivity or an objectrsquos features are usuallymarked only once In the following example note that the transitive suffixappears not on the first verb in the series (the transitive verb seke lsquohitrsquo) buton the last verb (the intransitive verb mate lsquodiersquo)

RovianaLopu seke mate-i rau pa lima-gunot hit die-TRANSthem I with hand-mylsquoI didnrsquot kill them with my handsrsquo

Paamese is a language in which negation is marked by a discontinuousaffix (see 654 below) that is a verb in the negative must take both the pre-fix ro- and the suffix -tei


PaameseNi-ro-kan-tei ouhIFUTURE-not-eat-not yamlsquoI will not eat the yamrsquo

In serial constructions in Paamese the first verb in the series takes the pre-fix ro- while the last verb takes the suffix -tei

PaameseNi-ro-kan vīs-tei ouhIFUTURE-not-eat try-not yamlsquoI will not try to eat the yamrsquo

65 SentencesEnglish normally requires sentences to contain (at least) one verb butOceanic languages do not Below I follow Krupa (1982) in distinguishing be-tween verbal sentences and nominal sentences

651 Nominal SentencesNominal sentences have no verb They consist of a subject and a predicate(sometimes referred to as a topic and a comment about that topic) but thepredicate is usually a noun phrase specifying a person thing place andso on In languages in which the subject normally precedes the verb in averbal sentence (see below) the subjecttopic comes before the predicatecomment in nominal sentences

Subject Predicate

TolaiIau mamatiI fromherelsquoI am from herersquo

MotuIa na tau bada-nahe FOCUS man big-SGlsquoHe is a bigelderly manrsquo

TolsquoabalsquoitaThata-mu ni teiname-your thePERSONAL wholsquoWhat is your namersquo

148 CHAPTER 6

MokilesePediro kahdilik-menPediro Catholic-CLASSIFIERlsquoPedro is a Catholicrsquo

RotumanIa gagaja-the chief-alsquoHe is a chiefrsquo

In languages in which the verb normally precedes the subject (see below)the predicate in a nominal sentence comes before the subject

Predicate Subject

YapeseChitamngii-g Tamagfather-my TamaglsquoTamag is my fatherrsquo

RovianaVineki zingazingarana si asagirl lightskinned SUBJECT shelsquoShe is a light-skinned girlrsquo

FijianNa ke-na i-liuliu na kānalathe POSS-its NOM-lead the colonellsquoThe colonel is its leaderrsquo

TonganKo e faiako auFOCUS a teacher IlsquoI am a teacherrsquo

MāoriHe kātiro ātāhua a Māramaa girl beautiful thePERSONAL MāramalsquoMārama is a beautiful girlrsquo

Kiribati in which the verb comes first in a verbal sentence apparently al-lows either subject + predicate or predicate + subject with little if anydifference in meaning


KiribatiTe berititenti ngaia (subject + predicate)the president helsquoHe is the presidentrsquo

Ngaia te berititenti (predicate + subject)he the presidentlsquoHe is the presidentrsquo

The translations of all these sentences contain some form of the verbldquoto berdquo which is used in equational sentences (ldquoHe is the presidentrdquo) insome kinds of locational sentences (ldquoI am from hererdquo) and so on ManyOceanic languages have no such verb expressing equational and locationalsentences as nominal sentences

652 Accusative and Ergative LanguagesIn discussing the structure of verbal sentences in Pacific languages (Oceanicand other) we need to introduce a distinction between accusative struc-tures and ergative structures21 English for example is a wholly accusativelanguage The subjects of transitive and intransitive verbs are marked in thesame way but the object of a transitive verb is marked differently

For example

1 She is sleeping2 She saw the man3 The man saw her

Sentences (1) and (2) are intransitive and transitive respectively Both haveshe as subject In sentence (3) the form of the object is her not she

The majority of Oceanic languages are accusative languages In the fol-lowing examples the subject is underlined

AnejomEt amjeg a natamantilde iyiihe sleep SUBJECT man thatlsquoThat man is sleepingrsquo

Et ecta-i natamantilde iyii a kurihe see-TRANS man that SUBJECT doglsquoThe dog saw that manrsquo

Et ecta-i kuri a natamantilde iyiihe see-TRANS dog SUBJECT man thatlsquoThat man saw the dogrsquo

150 CHAPTER 6

Southwest TannaKɨmlu i-ɨmn-la-gɨnwetwoEXC we-PAST DUAL-afraidlsquoWe (two) were afraidrsquo

K ɨ mlu i-ɨ mn-la-hai pukahwetwoEXC we-PAST DUAL-stab piglsquoWe (two) stabbed the pigrsquo

Pa l- ɨ mn-hai amluwho he-PAST-stab ustwoEXClsquoWho stabbed us (two)rsquo

In Anejom the subject of intransitive and transitive sentences is markedwith a preceding a while the object is unmarked In Southwest Tanna thesubject pronoun in both intransitive and transitive sentences is the same inform (kɨmlu lsquowe two EXCrsquo) but it is amlu as the object of a transitive verb Inboth languages the subject is marked by its position in the sentencemdashat theend in Anejom at the beginning in Southwest Tanna

Some Oceanic languages however have ergative structures In thesestructures the subject of a transitive verb called the agent is marked inone way (by the ergative case) while the subject of an intransitive verb (thesubject) and the object of a transitive verb (the object) are marked differ-ently by the absolutive case

Look at the following examples from Samoan In thefirstmdashintransitivemdashsentence the subject is underlined while in the secondand thirdmdashtransitivemdashsentences the agent is underlined

SamoanSa malsquoi le fafineSTATIVE sick the womanlsquoThe woman is sickrsquo

Na manalsquoo-mia le fafine e le tamaPAST want-TRANS the woman ERGATIVE the childlsquoThe child wanted the womanrsquo

E salu-ina e le fafine le falePRESENT sweep-TRANS ERGATIVE the woman the houselsquoThe woman sweeps the housersquo

In Samoan the absolutive case is unmarked le fafine lsquothe womanrsquo is subjectof the intransitive verb in the first sentence and object of the transitive verb


in the second In the second and third sentences however le tama lsquothe childrsquoand le fafine are subjects of the transitive verb and are marked as such bythe ergative marker e

Note a similar pattern in Motu Morea is unmarked in the first two sen-tences where it is subject of the intransitive verb and object of the transitiveverb respectively But when it occurs as subject of the transitive verb as inthe third example it is marked by the following ergative marker ese

MotuMorea e-mahutaMorea he-sleeplsquoMorea is sleepingrsquo

Boroma ese Morea e-ala-iapig ERGATIVE Morea he-kill-itlsquoThe pig killed Morearsquo

Morea ese boroma e-ala-iaMorea ERGATIVE pig he-kill-itlsquoMorea killed the pigrsquo

653 Basic Structure of Verbal SentencesDifferent Oceanic languages have different basic phrase orders The orderof subject object and verb within the simple verbal sentence varies fromlanguage to language

SV(O) Languages

In the majority of Oceanic languages the subject (whether it is a pro-noun or a noun phrase) precedes the verb in both intransitive and transitiveclauses In transitive clauses the object follows the verb This order is foundin most languages of island Melanesia (including many of the PolynesianOutliers) as well as in nearly all languages of Micronesia For example

Subject Verb Object

NakanaiE pusi tetala eia parakukuruthe cat his it blacklsquoHisher cat is blackrsquo

E Baba kue-a la paiathe Baba hit-it the doglsquoBaba hit the dogrsquo

152 CHAPTER 6

LabuAse emewho comePASTlsquoWho camersquo

Ecircmaha mocirc-socirchocirc hanocircweEXC weEXC-build houselsquoWe built the housersquo

TolsquoabalsquoitaNau kwa-si matalsquoiI I-not sicklsquoI am not sickrsquo

Kini lsquoe ngali-a rediowoman she take-it radiolsquoThe woman took the radiorsquo

PaameseMail he-toMail heDISTANT-baldlsquoMail is going baldrsquo

Letau kail a-mūmo-n alokwoman PL they-make-TRANS puddinglsquoThe women madeare making the puddingrsquo

LenakelNakankɨp r-ɨm-am-apulNakankɨp he-PAST-CONTINUOUS-sleepldquoNakankɨp was sleepingrdquo

Pehe r-n-os nau kawho he-COMPLETIVE-take knife thatlsquoWho has taken that knifersquo

PonapeanLamp-o pahn pwupwidilamp-that FUTURE falllsquoThat lamp will fall downrsquo


Kidi-e ngalis Soulikdog-this bite SouliklsquoThis dog bit Soulikrsquo

S(O)V Languages

While the Oceanic languages of much of the mainland of Papua NewGuinea particularly the southern part also prefer subject + verb order inintransitive sentences in transitive sentences the preferred order is subject+ object + verb22

subject Object Verb



MaisinPita-ka i-maa-matuPeter-TOPIC he-CONTINUOUS-sleeplsquoPeter is asleeprsquo

Tamaate-seng sikoo-ka ti-fune-siMEN-ERGATIVE pig-TOPIC they-cut-itlsquoThe men cut up the pigrsquo

Verb-Initial Languages

Languages whose rules demand that the verb complex come first in thesentence are found in various parts of the Oceanic area23 Anejom in Vanu-atu many New Caledonian languages a few languages in Micronesia andmost Polynesian languages (especially those of the Polynesian Triangle) areverb-initial languages In some of these languages the normal order is verb+ object + subject

Verb Object Subject

AnejomEk hag antildeakI eat IlsquoI am eatingrsquo

154 CHAPTER 6

Is ecet Deto a ToseiPAST see Deto SUBJECT ToseilsquoTosei saw Detorsquo

IaaiA me walak wanakathe CONTINUOUS play childlsquoThe child is playingrsquo

A me kot wanakat thaanhe CONTINUOUS hit child chieflsquoThe chief is smacking the childrsquo

KiribatiE a mataku Itaiahe CONTINUOUS watch ItaialsquoItaia is watchingrsquo

E tenaa Itaia te kiriiit bite Itaia the doglsquoThe dog bit Itaiarsquo

In others verb + subject + object is the norm

Verb Subject Object

YapeseBea mool TamagPRESENT sleep TamaglsquoTamag is sleepingrsquo

Kea guy Tamag Tinaghe seeher Tamag TinaglsquoTamag saw Tinagrsquo


I inu te tangata i te rongoaPAST drink the man OBJECT the medicinelsquoThe man drank the medicinersquo


TahitianlsquoUa tāmālsquoa te vahinePAST eat the womanlsquoThe woman has eatenrsquo

lsquoUa tāpū te vahine lsquoi te vahiePAST cut the woman OBJECT the woodlsquoThe woman cut the woodrsquo

Flexibility of Phrase Order

To some extent all Oceanic languages like most other languages in theworld allow some flexibility in basic phrase order In English for exampleemphasis or contrast can be laid on the object by moving it to sentence-ini-tial position Compare I just canrsquot stand that fellow with That fellow I justcanrsquot stand

In Oceanic languages it is generally possible to focus attention on anynoun phrase by moving it to the beginning of the sentence In some lan-guages there is a pause (marked in the examples below by a comma) ora special focusing morpheme after this phrase The first set of examples isfrom languages that are normally verb-initial The focus is on the subject

Subject Verb Object

AlsquojieumlMeumllsquou wegrave na kaniyam FOCUS it growlsquoAs for the yam itrsquos growing wellrsquo

IaaiWanakat a me walakchild 3SG CONTINUOUS playlsquoAs for the child heshe is playingrsquo

MālsquooriKo Wahieroa kua moe i a KuraFOCUS Wahieroa COMPLETIVE marry OBJECT thePERSONAL KuralsquoWahieroa [not someone else] has married Kurarsquo

The next couple of examples show focus on the object

156 CHAPTER 6

Object Verb Subject

AnejomNev-atimi iyii na ecta-i aekwhich-man that you see-TRANS youlsquoWhich man was it that you sawrsquo

Object Subject Verb

FijianE dua na qito levu keimami ākī-tak-ait one the game big weEXCPL PAST do-TRANS-itlsquoItrsquos a big game we playedrsquo

The examples below are from normally subject-initial (either SVO or SOV)languages with attention focused on the object

Object Subject Verb

NakanaiLa paia taume eau kama hilo-athe dog your I not see-itlsquoAs for your dog I havenrsquot seen itrsquo

TolsquoabalsquoitaNiu nelsquoe ki na ku ngali-a maicoconut this PL FOCUS I carry-it herelsquoIt was these coconuts that I broughtrsquo

MotuBoroma Morea ese e-ala-iapig Morea ERGATIVE he-kill-itlsquoThe pig Morea killed itrsquo

LenakelNimwa aan nɨmataag-asuul r-ɨm-atakɨnhouse that wind-big it-PAST-destroylsquoThat house was destroyed by the cyclonersquo

The following extract from a Banoni story (Lincoln 1976 229) showshow discourse features influence word order in these languages The nounphrase we are interested in is natsu-ri lsquotheir childrsquo


BanoniVi natsu-ri ke vakekariana me-riathen child-their COMPLETIVE play with-themlsquoTheir child was playing with

na dzoko na kanisi Vi ka teviri na-riathe child the some then COMPLETIVE eat POSS-theirsome youngsters But they ate

borogho ke kota ke tai-ma natsu-ripig COMPLETIVE all COMPLETIVE come-here child-theirlsquoall the pork (before) their child camersquo

The story is about a man and his wife cooking pork When their child(natsu-ri) is introduced into the story it is obviously in focus It comes beforethe verb of which it is the subject (ke vakekariana lsquohe was playingrsquo) Oncethe child has been introduced however there is no necessity to focus on thechild again In the last clause in the above example natsu-ri follows the verbof which it is the subject (ke tai-ma lsquohe camersquo)

In some Oceanic languages however this variability in phrase order isa requirement of grammar Tolai for example has SV(O) in most sentencetypes but V(O)S in stative sentences Compare examples 1 and 2 with exam-ples 3 and 4

Tolai

Subject Verb Object1 A pap i pot

the dog it comelsquoThe dog camersquo

2 Iau gire ra papI see the doglsquoI saw the dogrsquo

Verb Object Subject3 I ga buka ra evu rat

it FARPAST full the two basketlsquoTwo baskets were filledrsquo

4 I ga tup dir a vinarubuit FARPAST tire themtwo the fightlsquoThe fight tired themrsquo

158 CHAPTER 6

Rotuman also has SV(O) as its normal order but this can change to VS incertain kinds of intransitive sentences (eg imperatives) Compare the firsttwo examples below with the last one

Rotuman

Subject Verb ObjectFā ta joni-enman the runaway-heSTATIVElsquoThe man ran awayrsquo

Iris tauɔki-a fuag tathey repair-TRANS breachinwall thelsquoThey are repairing the breach (in the wall)rsquo

Verb SubjectLeum lsquoaeligecome youlsquo(You) comersquo

654 NegationThere is some variety in the ways in which negation is marked in Oceaniclanguages The most widespread pattern is for negation to be marked by apreverbal negative particle

ManamTamoata tago nga-te-aman not heIRREALIS-see-melsquoThe man will not see mersquo

BanoniMa to tai no Ken ma to taiIRREALIS not go you Ken IRREALIS not golsquoIf you donrsquot go Ken wonrsquot go eitherrsquo

NakanamangaA ko taa munuI INCOMPLETE not drinklsquoI havenrsquot drunk yetrsquo


AlsquojieumlCeacutereacute daa teuml kalsquouthey not still biglsquoThey are not big yetrsquo

KiribatiE aki kiba te moait not fly the chickenlsquoThe chicken didnrsquot flyrsquo

NukuoroIa e te hanohe PRESENT not golsquoHe is not goingrsquo

TonganNalsquoe lsquoikai lsquoalu lsquoa SialePAST not go SUBJECT SialelsquoSiale didnrsquot gorsquo

In a considerable number of Oceanic languages negation is marked bya discontinuous morpheme Two separate particles must both occur butthey are separated by some other elements (compare French Je suis maladelsquoI am sickrsquo with Je ne suis pas malade lsquoI am not sickrsquo) Generally one of theseparticles occurs before the verb and the other after it

RagaRan hav gita-u tehetheyCOMPLETIVE not see-me notlsquoThey didnrsquot see mersquo

RotumanTaunaeliglsquo ta kat sok rameeting the notNON-FUTURE happen notlsquoThe meeting did not take placersquo

Taunaeliglsquo ta kal sok rameeting the notFUTURE happen notlsquoThe meeting will not take placersquo

West FutunaA tata ni se kauna ma avau ki ta skulthe parent PAST not send not me to the schoollsquoMy parents didnrsquot send me to schoolrsquo

160 CHAPTER 6

Special mention must be made of the Lewo language of Epi Island Vanuatuwhich is probably unique in the world in requiring (in some grammaticalcontexts) a triple marking of negation

LewoPe ne-pisu-li re Santo polinot I-see-try not Santo notlsquoIrsquove never seen Santorsquo

Sa-na puruvi lala pe ka-la kinan-ena re si poliPOSS-his brother PL not POSSFOOD-their eat-NOM not again notlsquoHis brothers didnrsquot have any more foodrsquo

In languages with complex verbal morphology the negative is oftenmarked by a verbal affix rather than by a particle In a number of cases (likePaamese and Lenakel below) this affix is a discontinuous morpheme incor-porating a prefix and a suffix to the verb

MotuB-asi-na-ita-iaFUTURE-not-I-see-itlsquoI wonrsquot see itrsquo

PaameseInau na-ro-mesai-teiI I-not-sick-notlsquoI am not sickrsquo

LenakelWusuaas ka r-ɨs-ho-aan peravɨn taha-mboy the he-not-hit-not woman POSS-yourlsquoThe boy didnrsquot hit your wifersquo

Other Oceanic languages mark negation with a negative word thatcomes at the beginning of the clause or sentence but is not part of the verbcomplex Discontinuous marking also occurs in some of these languages(Rapanui in the examples below)

TahitianlsquoAita te talsquoata lsquoi hohoni-hia lsquoe te lsquourinot the man COMPLETIVE bite-PASSIVE by the doglsquoThe man was not bitten by the dogrsquo


MāoriKāhore ngā wāhine e kōrero ananot thePL woman NONPAST talk CONTINUOUSlsquoThe women are not talkingrsquo

RapanuiIna matou kai malsquoa i te vānaga Magarevanot weEXC not know OBJECT the language MangarevalsquoWe ourselves donrsquot know the Mangareva languagersquo

In some Oceanic languages the negative is marked by a negative verbThe first Southwest Tanna sentence below is in the affirmative and the verb(asim lsquoto gardenrsquo) takes subject and tense prefixes

Southwest TannaMagau l-ɨmn-asim niɨvMagau he-PAST-garden yesterdaylsquoMagau worked in the garden yesterdayrsquo

In the negative equivalent of this sentence person and tense marking oc-curs on the negative verb apwah and the verb asim is nominalized

Southwest TannaMagau l-ɨmn-apwah n-asim-ien niɨvMagau he-PAST-not NOM-garden-NOM yesterdaylsquoMagau did not work in the garden yesterdayrsquo

Fijian behaves similarly with the negative verb sega

FijianE sega na kākanait not the foodlsquoThere is no foodrsquo

Au sega ni kilā na vosaI not that knowTRANSit the languagelsquoI donrsquot know the languagersquo

655 Prepositional and Postpositional PhrasesA preposition comes before a noun phrase and specifies that phrasersquosrelationship to the verb or to other phrases in the sentence Typicallyprepositions mark relationships like location time instrument cause

162 CHAPTER 6

and so on A prepositional phrase therefore is a noun phrase intro-duced by a preposition

Most Oceanic languages have a small closed set of prepositions Tolsquoaba-lsquoita and Samoan are typical

Tolsquoabalsquoitalsquoi location directionni purpose instrumentmala lsquolike asrsquolsquoana instrument goal comparison

Samoani location direction toward instrument causema comitative lsquowithrsquomā mō beneficiary lsquoforrsquo (the ao distinction paralleling

that ofpossessives)

mai ablative lsquofromrsquo

In the examples below the prepositional phrases are underlined

TolsquoabalsquoitaThaina-marelsquoa lsquoe nii lsquoi lumamother-ourtwoEXC she be in houselsquoOur mother is in the housersquo

Kasi-a lsquooko lsquoena lsquoana nini lsquoenacut it rope that with knife thatlsquoCut the rope with the knifersquo

SamoanUa sau le tama ma se lsquoau-falsquoiSTATIVE come the boy with a bunch-bananalsquoThe boy is coming with a bunch of bananasrsquo

lsquoO Malia oleā moe i le pōFOCUS Maria FUTURE sleep in the nightlsquoMaria will sleep in the eveningrsquo

As if to compensate for the fairly small number of basic prepositions mostof these languages make considerable use of compound prepositions Acompound preposition (underlined in the examples below) is composed of ageneral preposition plus a noun (often a body part) for greater specificity


TolsquoabalsquoitaKa takalo-a gano fuu lsquoi maa-na bilsquou fuuhethen scatter-it soil that in face-its house thatlsquoThen he scattered the soil in front of the housersquo

lsquoOno lsquoi ninima-kusitdown at side-mylsquoSit down beside mersquo

Ni lsquoOina lsquoe nii lsquoi laa lumatheFEMININE lsquoOina she belocated in inside houselsquoOina is inside the housersquo

Although the languages of Polynesia and Micronesia and the majority ofthe languages of Melanesia use prepositions many of the languages of theNew Guinea mainland and the nearby offshore islands use postpositions tomark the same kinds of grammatical functions As the name implies a post-position comes after the noun phrase to which it refers rather than beforeit This kind of phrase is known as a postpositional phrase There is a verystrong correlation among the worldrsquos languages between SOV basic sen-tence order and postpositions Within Oceanic as well the languages thathave postpositions are usually also those in which the object comes beforethe verb

Below are the postpositions of Manam and Sinagoro The last twoManam forms are suffixes the Sinagoro forms are clitics suffixed to thelast word in the noun phrase whatever its grammatical category

Manamzaiza comitative lsquowithrsquolsquoana causeane oti ono instrumentbolsquoana lsquolike asrsquo-lo location-o lsquoonrsquo

Sinagoroai location lsquoin atrsquona instrument ablativeγoti accompanimentγana direction toward

Below are some examples in these two languages of sentences containingpostpositional phrases

164 CHAPTER 6

ManamRoa-gu uma-lo i-malipi-lipiwife-my garden-in she-work-CONTINUOUSlsquoMy wife is working in the gardenrsquo

Tanepwa zaiza lsquoi-purachief with weEXC-comelsquoWe came with the chiefrsquo

SinagoroAu γe-γu koko-na a-kwari-a-toI POSS-my axe-with I-hit-it-PASTlsquoI hit it with my axersquo

Kila na kwayalu baraki-na-γana γio piu-a-toKila ERGATIVE dog old-SG-toward spear throw-it-PAST

lsquoKila threw a spear toward the old dogrsquo

As with their preposition-using relatives many of these languages havecompound postpositions like the following in Sinagoro

Sinagoronuma gabule-na-aihouse underneath-its-atlsquounder the housersquo

numa muli-na-aihouse back-its-atlsquobehind the housersquo

mimiga potiati-aihole gonethrough-atldquothrough the holerdquo

66 Similarities and DifferencesOceanic languages exhibit a number of areas of similarity but also many ar-eas of difference Given the period of time in which many of these languageshave been developing separately from their relatives the quite large degreeof similarity is perhaps more surprising than the differences


CHAPTER

7

Papuan Languages Gram-matical Overview

The seven hundred or so Papuan languages of the Pacific belong to a num-ber of distinct and apparently unrelated families For this reason alone it ismuch more difficult to make grammatical generalizations about them thanabout the Oceanic languages treated in chapter 6 I attempt here to give avery general feel for the diversity of Papuan languages focusing specificallyon differences between them and Oceanic languages The interested readeris referred to Foleyrsquos excellent survey of these languages (Foley 1986)

71 PronounsPronoun systems vary widely among Papuan languages but in general theyare not so complex as Oceanic systems Many Papuan languages distinguishonly singular and plural (sometimes only in some persons like Kuman in theexamples below) Some languages in Irian Jaya do not even do this Theysimply distinguish person though they usually have a special plural mor-pheme preceding or following (like king- in Manem)

Manem Kuman KoitaSingularI ga na dayou sa ene ahesheit angk ye au

Pluralwe king-ga no noyou king-sa ene yathey king-angk ye yau

166

Some Papuan languages however have a dual as well as a plural number inpronouns

Wiru AlamblakSingular

I no nanyou ne ninhesheit one reumlr

Dualwe two tota neumlnyou two kita nifɨnthey two kita reumlf

Pluralwe toto neumlmyou kiwi nikeumlmthey kiwi reumlm

The Wiru examples show another not uncommon feature of Papuan pro-nouns conflation of non-singular second and third persons

A number of Papuan languages distinguish gender in pronouns mostcommonly in the third person singular but occasionally in other persons aswell Note the following singular pronouns in Abelam

AbelamI wnǝyou masculine mǝ nǝyou feminine ntildeǝ nǝhe dǝshe lǝ

Very few Papuan pronominal systems distinguish inclusive and exclu-sive first person Nimboran in Irian Jaya is one language that makes thisdistinction though it does not distinguish singular and plural

Nimboranio I we inclusivengo I we exclusiveko you (singular and plural)no he she it they

The Papuan languages of Solomon Islands also have the inclusiveexclu-sive distinction All of them distinguish gender in the third person and somelanguages do so in other persons as well They also mark dual and in some

Papuan Languages Grammatical Overview 167

cases trial number The most complex of these pronoun systems is that of Ba-niata (see table 6)

Table 6 Baniata Independent Pronouns

Unspecifieda Masculine Feminine NeuterSingular

1 eei2 noe3 zo vo na ntildeo

Dual1INC be bebe1EXC eere eerebe2 bere berebe3 sere robe rede

Trial1INC meno menu1EXC eebeno eebenu2 mebeno mebenu3 nomo numo nafi

Plural1INC memo1EXC eebo2 mebo3 mo mo no

aGender is not distinguished in these persons and numbers

Many Papuan languages mark person and number of subject (and lessoften object) by verbal affixes usually suffixes but sometimes prefixes In-terestingly a number of languages make more distinctions in these affixesthan they do in free pronouns Kuman is one such language

Kuman

Independentpronouns

Subject suffixes

SingularI na -iyou ene -nhesheit ye -uw

168 CHAPTER 7

Dualwe two mdash -buglyou two mdash -bitthey two mdash -bit

Pluralwe no -munyou ene -iwthey ye -iw

Kuman (1) contrasts dual and plural in the subject pronoun suffixes (2) likeWiru it conflates non-singular second and third persons in the subject suf-fixes Neither of these features appears in the independent pronouns

Bilua on the other hand has subject prefixes One small class of verbsmarks the object by prefixes but most verbs take object suffixes Here are thesingular forms of these pronouns (along with the independent pronouns)

Bilua

Subject ObjectIndependent Prefixes Prefixes Suffixes

I anga a- l- -lyou ngo ngo- ng- -nghe vo o- v- -vshe ko ko- k- -k

72 Nouns and Noun Phrases721 Noun Class SystemsMany Papuan languages especially those in the central north of the main-land of New Guinea have elaborate noun class systems While a languagelike French for example grammatically distinguishes two genders (mascu-line and feminine) and a language like German three (masculine feminineand neuter) Abulsquo the language I use to exemplify this system in Papuan lan-guages (Nekitel 1986) has nineteen different noun classes These classesare based on a combination of semantic and phonological factors So whileclass 1 contains nouns referring to males and class 2 nouns referring to fe-males class 5 (which contains such diverse nouns as the words for ldquosongrdquoldquolegrdquo ldquosagordquo ldquovinerdquo and ldquotoothrdquo) is distinguished by the fact that the singu-lar form ends in h while the plural ends in lih

What is of interest in these systems is that other words in a clause that re-late to a nounmdashthe verb of which it is subject adjectives demonstratives andso onmdashare all marked morphologically to indicate that they refer to a noun of a


particular class The word order in the examples below is noun + demonstra-tive + adjective + verb The class marker is underlined in each case1

AbulsquoNoun Dem Adj VerbAleman ana afuni n-ahelsquo lsquoThis good man wentrsquoAlemam ama afumi m-ahelsquo lsquoThese good men wentrsquoNumatalsquo aulsquoa afulsquoi kw-ahelsquo lsquoThis good woman wentrsquoNumatawa awa afuweri w-ahelsquo lsquoThese good women wentrsquoAul ala afuli l-ahelsquo lsquoThis good eel wentrsquoAkuh akuha afukuhi h-ahelsquo lsquoThese good eels wentrsquoBahiataf afa afufi f-ahelsquo lsquoThis good river fish wentrsquoIhiaburuh aha afuhi h-ahelsquo lsquoThis good butterfly wentrsquo

722 Articles and DemonstrativesArticles are virtually nonexistent in Papuan languages As far as demonstra-tives are concerned some Papuan languages show the three-way distinctioncommon to Austronesian languages

Koitao PROXIMATE lsquothisrsquoe INTERMEDIATE lsquothis thatrsquovire DISTANT lsquothatrsquo

Other Papuan languages are more like English with a two-way contrast indemonstratives between proximate (near the speaker) and distant (not nearthe speaker) Barai though closely related to Koita is one such languagebut the demonstrative situation is complicated by the fact that other aspectsof the location of the noun referred to are also incorporated into the system

BaraiProximate Distantig- ij- generalmdash gar- gur- to the sidemdash gam- down at an anglemdash gaf- up at an anglemdash gum- straight downmdash guf- straight up

In languages with strongly developed noun class systems thedemonstratives usually incorporate a marker of the class membership of thenoun referred to The earlier examples from Abulsquo illustrate this

170 CHAPTER 7

723 Noun Phrase StructureAlthough there are exceptions in general the noun phrase in Papuan lan-guages has the head noun first and all modifying and descriptive wordsfollowing Below are a few examples with the head noun underlined in eachcase

Koitaata ahu inuhati vireman old all thatlsquoall those old menrsquo

Dagagutut otu ame uiwastory little that lastlsquothat last little storyrsquo

Abulsquoba-kuh a-kuha bia-kuh afu-kuhistick-CLASS this-CLASS two-CLASS good-CLASSlsquothese two good sticksrsquo

Engaakaacuteli eacutepeacute kituacutemende duacutepaman good four thoselsquothose four good menrsquo

73 Possessive ConstructionsPossessive constructions are less complex in Papuan languages than inOceanic languages Many Papuan languages simply mark a noun as beingpossessed with none of the various subtypes found in Oceanic languagesIn Koita for example the noun possessed is preceded by the independentpronoun and takes the suffix -Ce where the thematic consonant varies de-pending on the noun to which it is suffixed

Koitadi hete-re di ava-γeI chin-POSS I mouth-POSSlsquomy chinrsquo lsquomy mouthrsquo

di vaiγa-de di muni-veI spear-POSS I stone-POSSlsquomy spearrsquo lsquomy stonersquo


Other Papuan languages show a distinction between alienable and in-alienable nouns rather like that of the simplest systems in Oceanic In Dagafor example kinship nouns take possessive suffixes

Dagane goani-naI youngersibling-mylsquomy younger siblingrsquo

nu mama-nuwe father-ourlsquoour fatherrsquo

Other nouns do not take these possessive suffixes but are followed insteadby an independent pronoun plus a possessive marker

Dagane anu-t ne-gaI thing-NOM I-POSSlsquomy thoughtsrsquo

nu dugup nu-gawe clan we-POSSlsquoour clanrsquo

74 Verbs and the Verb Complex741 Person and Number Tense and AspectThe majority of Papuan languages mark person number and sometimesnoun class of the subject as well as tense-aspect and related categories bysuffixes to the verb stem In many cases this leads to complex strings of suf-fixes with concomitantly complex morphophonemics This complexity canalso mean that a clause or indeed a whole sentence may consist only of averb In the following examples from widely separated languages the verbroot is underlined

MagiOni-la-es-ago-IMPERFECTIVE-PRESENT-helsquoHe is goingrsquo

Oni-bi-ava-igo-CONDITINOAL-youtwo-IMPERATIVElsquoYou two gorsquo

172 CHAPTER 7

Oni-sa-lsquoa-i-deigo-FUTURE-I-IMPERATIVE-shorttimelsquoI will go now for a short timersquo

WahgiNa-pi-s-a-mbiɫ-monot-hear-CLASSIFIER-FUTURE-two-QUESTIONlsquoWill you two not hearrsquo

No-n-a-mb-uaeat-CLASSIFIER-FUTURE-they-QUESTIONlsquoCan they eatrsquo

Na-no-tang-e-r-indnot-eat-HABITUAL-COMPLETIVE-CLASSIFIER-IlsquoI do not always eatrsquo

Abelamwʌ-kʌ-wtǝ-kwʌtalk-FUTURE-I-NONPASTlsquoI will talkrsquo

gǝra-kʌ-ntildeǝnǝ-gwʌcry-FUTURE-you FEMININE-NONPASTlsquoYou (fem) will cryrsquo

kʌ-kʌ-wtǝ-kwʌ-yeat-FUTURE-I-NONPAST-notFUTURElsquoI will not eatrsquo

There are Papuan languages however in which at least some of thegrammatical information is carried by prefixes rather than suffixes In thefollowing examples from Yimas the verb root is again underlined

Yimasyan na-ka-kumprak-asa-ttree OBJECTCLASS-I-broken-CAUSATIVE-COMPLETIVElsquoI broke the treersquo

ka-n-wa-nlikely-he-go-PRESENTlsquoHersquos likely to gorsquo

antɨ-ka-wa-ntutmight-I-go-FARPASTlsquoI would have gonersquo


An almost bewildering variety of tense-aspect situations may be markedin the verbs of Papuan languages Let us take Korafe as an example Korafeverbs take one of a number of tense-aspect suffixes

Korafe-e present-are future-ete immediate past (something that happened today)-imuta very near past (something that happened yesterday)-a recent past (something that happened before yesterday

but not very long ago)-ise far past-erae habitual

These tense-aspect markers are followed by suffixes marking the subjectrsquosperson and number and then by a further set of suffixes markingmoodmdashindicative (statements) interrogative (yes-or-no questions) ques-tion (information questions) hortative subjunctive and imperative Theverb root is underlined in the examples

KorafeY-are-s-ago-FUTURE-you-STATEMENTlsquoYou will gorsquo

Re-da y-are-s-iwhat-to go-FUTURE-you-QUESTIONlsquoWhere will you gorsquo

Y-a-s-ago-RECENTPAST-you-STATEMENTlsquoYou went (recently)rsquo

Re-da y-a-s-iwhat-to go-RECENTPAST-you-QUESTIONlsquoWhere did you go (recently)rsquo

A further feature of the verb in Papuan languages is that complexmorphophonemic processes are involved It is often difficult to break downwhat follows a verb into its component suffixes Here are a few examplesfrom Kuman

KumanUnderlying form Surface formpit-i-ka-a gt prikahear-I-REALIS-STATEMENTlsquoI hearrsquo

174 CHAPTER 7

kumbt-uw-ka-a gt kumbrukwatwist-it-REALIS-STATEMENTlsquoIt twistsrsquo

ne-kit-mbugl-ka-a gt nekulkaeat-not-wetwo-REALIS-STATEMENTlsquoWe two didnrsquot eat (it)rsquo

kan-nagl-mba-t-a gt kanaglmbrasee-FUTURE-hopefully-EMPHATIC-STATEMENTlsquo(I) will hope to see itrsquo

742 Adjunct and Serial ConstructionsAdjunct and serial constructions a feature of many Papuan languages canbe introduced by examples from Kuman Look first at the following sen-tences (the relevant morphemes are underlined)

KumanBugla kinde suŋgwapig bad ithitlsquoThe pig is sickrsquo

Ambai giglaŋge duŋgwagirl song shesaylsquoThe girl is singingrsquo

These two sentences are examples of what are called adjunct con-structions in which the verb of the sentence is preceded by a morpheme ofsome other word class usually a noun or an adjective which is known as anadjunct Some other examples in Kuman are

Kumanka di gaugl ereword say laughter dolsquosayrsquo lsquolaughrsquo

kai ere nigl paitears do water lielsquocryrsquo lsquowash (self)rsquo

Serial constructions are similar but not identical to adjunct construc-tions as illustrated in the following examples


KumanYe mbo mbat narukwahe sugarcane cut hegivelsquoHe cut sugarcane for mersquo

Ye komboglo ake suŋgwashe stone hold shehitlsquoShe hit it with a stonersquo

In serial constructions the final verb is preceded by one or more otherverbs Some more examples include

Kumandi te di presay give say perceivelsquotellrsquo lsquoaskrsquosi bogl si goglhit cut hit dielsquosewrsquo lsquokillrsquoere kan pre pol sido see perceive undo hitlsquotryrsquo lsquounderstandrsquo

In all of these cases what other languages often view as a single state orevent and express by a single verb is broken up into components For exam-ple the sentence Ye komboglo ake suŋgwa is idiomatically translated lsquoShehit it with a stonersquo but is more literally lsquoShe held a stone and hit itrsquo In themore literal translation the two components of holding the stone and hittingsomething with it are separated

While many Papuan languages like Kuman make quite frequent use of ad-junct and serial constructions ldquothe closely related Kalam and Kobon are themost remarkable in applying this idea in the most thoroughgoing fashionhellipKalam immediately strikes one as a language in which the speakers are exces-sively specific in their description of eventsrdquo (Foley 1986 113) An example likethe following one gives an idea of just how specific these languages can be

KalamYad am mon pk d ap ay-p-ynI go wood hit hold come put-COMPLETIVE-IlsquoI fetched firewoodrsquo

While the sentence ldquotranslatesrdquo as ldquoI fetched firewoodrsquo the act of fetching isbroken down into its components in Kalam What the Kalam speaker is sayingis something like lsquoI went and chopped wood and got it and came and put itrsquo

176 CHAPTER 7

In languages with these kinds of constructions the number of actualverbs is often much smaller than in other languages ldquoKalam has under 100verb stems and of these only about twenty-five are commonly usedrdquo (Foley1986 115) The Kalam sentence above shows five verbs in a serial construc-tion Other serial constructions in Kalam include the following (The hyphenafter the last element indicates where subject and tense suffixes occur)

Kalamnb nŋ- ag tk-consume perceive sound severlsquotastersquo lsquointerruptrsquo

pwŋy md ay- d am yok-poke stay put take go displacelsquofix (by insertion)rsquo lsquoget rid ofrsquo

Kalam also uses adjunct constructions to a great degree

Kalamwdn nŋ- tmwd nŋ-eye perceive ear perceivelsquoseersquo lsquohearrsquo

kwnk g- joŋb tmey g-saliva do mouth bad dolsquospitrsquo lsquowhinersquo

ywg ntilde- mnm ag ntilde-lid give speech sound givelsquoput a lid onrsquo lsquoconfidersquo

75 Sentences751 Simple SentencesAny generalization about word order in Papuan languages would state thatthey tend to be verb-final languages The order of the core constituents is SVin intransitive clauses and SOV in transitive clauses2

Subject Object VerbBarai

Bu bajae fiad-iathey body pain-theylsquoThey (ie their bodies) are in painrsquo


Fu mave kana-ehe pig hit-PASTlsquoHe hit the pigrsquo

WahgiNa wo-tang-n-alI come-HABITUAL-CLASS-IwilllsquoI will always comersquo

Na mokine no-tang-indI food eat-HABITUAL-IhavelsquoI always ate foodrsquo

AnggorSonggo borǝ me-fe-ofowlegg broke-change-itSlsquoThe wildfowl egg brokersquo

Nindou ai songgo borǝma-r-ea-ndǝman he fowlegg broke-TRANS-itS-itOlsquoThe man broke the wildfowl eggrsquo

Grand Valley DaniAp nik-k-eman eat-REALIS-helsquoThe man atersquo

Ap palu na-sikh-eman python eat-FARPAST-helsquoThe man ate the pythonrsquo

While in many languages this is the usual order in others word order isnot significant for indicating functions like subject or object Many Papuanlanguages ldquomay be regarded as free word-order languages Although theverb is usually positioned clause-finally this rule is rigid only in some lan-guages In a great many Papuan languages peripheral nominals such aslocatives or temporals commonly occur after the verbhellip The general im-pression of clause structure in Papuan languages in comparison to Englishis its overall loosenessrdquo (Foley 1986 168)

Foley illustrates this statement using Yimas The following sentence fol-lows ldquostandardrdquo Papuan SOV order

178 CHAPTER 7

YimasSubject Object VerbPay-um nar-mang na-mpu-tayman-CLASSPL woman-CLASSSG her-theyMASCULINE-seelsquoThe men saw the womanrsquo

Each noun is marked as belonging to a particular noun class and the verbtakes prefixes corresponding to the noun class of the object and the subjectin that order In the verb namputay in the sentence above na- marks a third-person singular object of the human female noun class and mpu- marks athird-person plural subject of the human male noun class The verb nam-putay on its own means lsquoThey (male human) saw her (human)rsquo Conse-quently it is clear which noun is subject and which is object without relyingon word order The following Yimas sentences also mean lsquoThe men saw thewomanrsquo

YimasNarmang payum na-mpu-tay (object-subject-verb)Payum na-mpu-tay narmang (subject-verb-object)Narmang na-mpu-tay payum (object-verb-subject)

Nominal sentences are far less common in Papuan languages than inOceanic languages as many Papuan languages have existential verbs oftenmore than one Kuman for example has three yoŋgwa is used when thesubject is inanimate paŋgwa with animate and inanimate subjects that arein a specific place and molkwa with animate or inanimate subjects whoseexistence is being declared

KumanDi ta yoŋgwaaxe a itbelsquoThere is an axersquo

Usi gagl mina paŋgwacigarette bag in itbeinthatplacelsquoThere are cigarettes in the bagrsquo

Togoi ta molkwasnake a itexistlsquoThere is a snakersquo

Many of the languages of the Highlands are similar to Kuman Huli forexample has three existential verbs Sinasina four and Enga seven (Piau1981)


An extreme case is Anggor in the Sepik with eighteen verbs roughlytranslating ldquoberdquo What is important is the shape of the object its locationand its posture (Litteral 1981 128) So before choosing the appropriateverb one needs to know if the subject is masculine or feminine elongated orbunched up inside something else or not in a horizontal or vertical planehanging on something stuck to something and so on Some of the Anggorexistential verbs are

Anggoramar- be sitting on or insideanǝngg- be standing onenggor- be lying on a low planeanangg- be lying on a high planeapeningg- be attached flat toapaiyar- be attached and curling aroundapuiyar- used only of liquidsahetar- be hanging from a protrusion

This is not to say that there are absolutely no verbless sentences inPapuan languages They do occur in both subject-predicate and predicate-subject orders

Subject Predicate

KoitaAta bera yaga-uhu-geraman a house-in-thelsquoA man is in the housersquo

KumanYuŋgu-n awe

house-your wherelsquoWhere is your housersquo

Predicate Subject

DagaNe tata-na geI oldersibling-my youlsquoYou are my older siblingrsquo

752 Peripheral CasesPeripheral casesmdashrelations other than subject and objectmdashare generallymarked by postpositions or suffixes in Papuan languages More concretespatial notions tend to be expressed by postpositions

180 CHAPTER 7

KumanKagl-e mina yoŋgwafoot-her on itbelsquoIt is on her footrsquo

Komboglo pagl siŋgastone with IhitlsquoI hit it with a stonersquo

KewaAda ru-para paacute-luahouse inside-to go-IFUTURElsquoI will go inside the housersquo

Ada rolo-para paacute-luahouse underneath-to go-IFUTURElsquoI will go under the housersquo

But ldquothe more basic case relations are expressed directlyrdquo usually by suf-fixes (Foley 1986 93)

KumanMokona gagl-e krikagreens bag-in IpacklsquoI put the greens in the bagrsquo

Ye nigl-e molkwahe water-at hebetherelsquoHe is at the riverrsquo

KewaAda-para paacute-luahouse-to go-IFUTURElsquoI will go homersquo

Niacute-na meacuteaacuteaacute-riaI-for get-hePASTlsquoHe got it for mersquo

Many Papuan languages have a very wide range of morphemes markingperipheral case relations Koita which uses clitics to mark these relationsis a good example

Koita-γe lsquoto (rivers)rsquo-va lsquoto (things)rsquo-γasina lsquoto (persons)rsquo-he lsquoatrsquo


-da -na lsquoon torsquo-γore lsquowith (accompaniment) singularrsquo-ruta lsquowith (accompaniment) pluralrsquo-γahara lsquoforrsquo-ni lsquoforrsquo-γa -ma lsquowith (instrument)rsquo-ka partitive-Ce possessive (includes thematic consonant)

Some examples

Koitavani be-hetime some-atlsquosometimesrsquo

di dehiye-heI back-atlsquobehind mersquo

a-γoreyou-withlsquowith yoursquo

idi umuka-vatree root-tolsquonear the treersquo

753 Complex SentencesI discuss one syntactic feature of complex sentences in Papuan languagesswitch reference briefly here This feature is typical of most groups ofPapuan languages (and is also found for example in a number ofAmerindian language groups) but it is rare in the Pacific

The following examples from Enga illustrate what I am going to talkabout First here are some basic verbs3

EngaBaaacute p-eacute-aacutehe go-PAST-helsquoHe wentrsquo

Baa-meacute kalaacutei p-i-aacutehe-ERGATIVE work do-PAST-helsquoHe workedrsquo

182 CHAPTER 7

Nambaacute p-eacute-oacuteI go-PAST-IlsquoI wentrsquo

In each case the verb takes a suffix marking the tense and another markingthe subjectrsquos person and number

When two or more clauses are put together to form a complex sentencethe last verb in the clause (final verb) retains this subject-tense markingbut the other verbs (medial verbs) do not Rather they incorporate a suffixindicating whether the subject of the verb is the same as or different fromthe subject of the following verb Look now at the following Enga examples

EngaBaa-meacute paacute-o kalaacutei p-i-aacutehe-ERGATIVE go-SAMESUBJ work do-PAST-helsquoHe went and worked (at the same time)rsquo

Nambaacute p-e-oacute-pa baa-meacute kalaacutei p-i-aacuteI go-PAST-I-DIFFSUBJ he-ERGATIVE work do-PAST-helsquoI went and he workedrsquo

In both of these sentences the final verb lsquodorsquo has the suffix marking subjectand tense but the verb preceding it does not In the first example the verbpaacute lsquogorsquo takes the suffix -o which indicates that the subject of this verb is thesame as the subject of the next one and the actions happened at the sametime In the second case the verb lsquogorsquo (now with the form p) takes both tenseand subject markers and the suffix -pa which indicates that the subject ofthe next verb is going to be different from the subject of this verb This iswhat is meant by switch-reference

Languages with switch-reference systems are generally a little morecomplex than I have shown For example in the first sentence we find thesuffix -o which marked the verb as having the same subject as the next oneand indicated that the actions of the two verbs were roughly simultaneousIf the second action occurred after the first however we would have to usethe suffix -(a)la rather than -o Here are some suffixes found on Enga medialverbs

Enga-o same subject simultaneous action-(a)la same subject sequential action-pa different subject simultaneous or sequential action-nya same subject next verb expresses purpose or desire-niacute-mi same subject next verb expresses intense desire


Some other Papuan languages have even more complex switch-referencesystems

Languages with switch-reference systems generally have no or fewconjunctions The information that is carried by conjunctions in most Aus-tronesian languagesmdashand in languages like Englishmdashis carried by theswitch-reference verbal suffixes

184 CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER

8

Australian LanguagesGrammatical Overview

In attempting to make generalizations about the structure of the two hun-dred or so languages of the Australian continent we have to remember thatmany of them have disappeared virtually without trace while many othersbecame extinct after only a small amount of linguistic workmdashand that lit-tle usually the effort of linguistically untrained peoplemdashwas done on themTo some extent any general statement about Australian languages is anextrapolation from the languages for which we have reasonable amounts ofdata and an educated reanalysis of those languages recorded by amateursin the last century1

81 PronounsAlmost all Australian languages distinguish at least three numbers in pro-nounsmdashsingular dual and pluralmdashthough a few have a trial or a paucal aswell About half the languages of Australia have an inclusiveexclusive dis-tinction like nearly all Oceanic languages while the rest (like most Papuanlanguages) do not There appear to be no geographical correlates of thesedifferent systems They are scattered fairly randomly across the continent

Below are examples of the two most common types of pronoun systems2

Wargamay WajarriSingular

I ngayba ngajayou nginba nyintahesheit nyunga palu

185

Dualwe two ngali we two INC ngali

we two EXC ngalijayou two nyubula nyupalithey two bula pula

Pluralwe ngana we INC nganyu

we EXC nganjuyou nyurra nyurrathey jana jana

In many Australian languages the third person ldquopronounsrdquo are not reallypronouns at all especially in the singular but rather demonstratives with ameaning something like ldquothis onerdquo or ldquothat onerdquo as opposed to ldquohesheitrdquo

Apart from languages with two or four numbers there are some othervariations in these general patterns Pitta-Pitta for example distinguishesbetween masculine and feminine in the third person singular In addition allthird person pronouns have to take a locational suffix so the full range ofthird person pronouns is

Pitta-PittaSingular Dual Plural

lsquohe lsquoshersquo lsquothey tworsquo lsquotheyrsquoNear nhuwayi nhanpayi pulayi thanayiGeneral nhuwaka nhanpaka pulaka thanakaFar nhuwaarri nhanpaarri pulaarri thanaarri

Lardil is one of a number of languages in which non-singular pronounstake different forms depending on the relationship between the people in-volved One set is used for people of the same generation or two generationsapart the other for people who are one or three generations apart Here arethe dual pronouns

LardilSame generation or two

generations apartOne or three

generations apartwe two INC ngakurri ngakuniwe two EXC nyarri nyaankiyou two kirri nyiinkithey two pirri rniinki

Pronouns generally vary in form according to case that is their functionin the sentence These case suffixes are usually the same as those for nouns

186 CHAPTER 8

As well as the free or independent pronouns discussed above many Aus-tralian languages also have a set of bound pronouns which must be attachedto some other constituent in the sentence Bound pronouns typically marksubject or object and they are often attached to verbs

Western Desertpu-ngku-rna-ntahit-FUTURE-I-youOBJECTlsquoI will hit yoursquo

pu-ngku-rni-nhit-FUTURE-me-youSUBJECTlsquoYou will hit mersquo

In some languages bound pronouns are attached to an auxiliarymdasha specialword in the sentence whose main function is to carry these suffixesmdashratherthan to the verb In the Walmajarri example below the verb is yi- lsquogiversquo butthe bound pronouns are attached to the auxiliary ma-

WalmajarriYi-nya ma-rna-ny-pilangu-lu kakajigive-PAST AUXILIARY-weEXCPL-toyoutwo-DUALO-PLS goannalsquoWe gave the goanna to you tworsquo

82 Nouns and Noun PhrasesIn Australian languages nouns are sometimes reduplicated to mark plural-ity or other features The major feature of interest in the morphology ofnouns in Australian languages however is the marking of case

821 Case MarkingIn most Australian languages a noun phrase must take a suffix indicating itsfunction in the sentence Pronouns also take these case-marking suffixes

Yidiny illustrates the kinds of case-marking systems common in Aus-tralian languages3 It marks a number of cases as listed below (Differentforms of the same case marker occur after different noun-final phonemesSee the discussion of Wargamay on pp 189ndash190 below for an example ofthis)

Yidinyabsolutive oslashergative -nggu -du -bu -ju

Australian Languages Grammatical Overview 187

locative allative instrumental -la -da -ba -jaablative causal -mu -mdative -ndapurposive -gucausal -mu -maversive -jida -yidapossessive -ni

The absolutive case marks the subject of an intransitive verb and the ob-ject of a transitive verb The ergative case marks the agent (the subject of atransitive verb)

YidinyWagaal-du mujam wawa-lwife-ERGATIVE motherABSOLUTIVE lookat-PRESENTlsquo(My) wife is looking at Motherrsquo

The locative allative and ablative cases have to do with direction and loca-tion Locative refers to the location allative marks direction toward andablative marks direction from

YidinyMujam gali-ng digarra-mumotherABSOLUTIVE go-PRESENT beach-ABLATIVElsquoMother is going from the beachrsquo

Here are some examples of some of the other case suffixes

YidinyYingu gurnga mangga-ng waguja-ndathisABSOLUTIVE kookaburra

ABSOLUTIVElaugh-PRESENT man-DATIVE

lsquoThis kookaburra is laughing at the manrsquo

Mujam dubuurrji wuna-ng minya-mmotherABSOLUTIVE fullup lie-PRESENT meat-CAUSALlsquoMother is lying down satiated with meatrsquo

Yingu waguuja garba-ng bama-yidathisABSOLUTIVE manABSOLUTIVE hide-PRESENT people-AVERSIVElsquoThis man is hiding for fear of the peoplersquo

The possessive case suffix -ni marks the possessor A noun with this suf-fix also takes the case suffix of the possessed noun (since it functions like anadjective describing that noun)

188 CHAPTER 8

YidinyWagal-ni-nggu gudaga-nggu mujam baja-lwife-POSS-ERGATIVE dog-ERGATIVE mother

ABSOLUTIVEbite-PRESENT

lsquo(My) wifersquos dog is biting Motherrsquo

Case markers in Australian languages play the same kind of role asprepositions or postpositions in other languages of the Pacific They indicatevarious kinds of grammatical relations between a noun phrase and the verbor between the noun phrase and another noun phrase Because of this Aus-tralian languages have no prepositions or postpositions4

Nouns in Australian languages may also take other suffixes referred toas derivational suffixes Dyirbal illustrates some typical kinds of nominalsuffixes

Dyirbal-jarran plural-garra one of a pair-manggan one of a group-mumbay lsquoallrsquo-barra lsquobelonging to a placersquo-bila comitative lsquowithrsquo-ngarru similative lsquolike asrsquo

For example

Dyirbalgambil-barratablelands-belongingtolsquotablelands peoplersquo

mijiji-garrawhitewoman-oneofpairlsquoa white woman and someone elsersquo

Morphophonemic changes are common when suffixes are added tonouns and verbs Two patterns are particularly widespread First in manylanguages the initial consonant of some suffixes changes according to the fi-nal phoneme of the root to which it is suffixed In Wargamay for examplethe ergative suffix has (at least) five forms

Wargamay-nggu after a vowel bari-nggu lsquostonersquo-ndu after l maal-ndu lsquomanrsquo-dyu after ny munyininy-dyu lsquoblack antrsquo


-du after n rr gururr-du lsquobrolgarsquo-bu after m walam-bu lsquotickrsquo

Second in some languages there is vowel copying The vowel of a suf-fix mimics the final vowel of the root to which the suffix is attached Forexample Anguthimri has an ergative suffix on nouns of the form -gV withthe vowel repeating the final vowel of the root

AnguthimriRoot Ergativekyabara lsquocrocodilersquo kyabara-gaszliguumlyi lsquoashesrsquo szliguumlyi-giku lsquostickrsquo ku-gu

822 Noun ClassesQuite a number of Australian languages especially in the northern part ofthe continent have a gender or noun class system Nouns belong to one ofa number of classes determined partly at least on a semantic basis Theclass membership of a noun may be marked on the noun by an affix (a pre-fix in some languages a suffix in others) or a particle and it is often alsomarked on adjectives and other modifiers referring to the noun In prefix-ing languages the noun class membership of subjects or objects may also bemarked in the verb

Tiwi has a noun class system rather like that of French Nouns are eithermasculine or feminine Inherently masculine or feminine nouns may not beovertly marked as such but other nouns often take a suffix (What is inher-ently masculine or feminine is of course culturally defined Crocodiles forexample are thought of as masculine [some] crabs as feminine)

TiwiMasculine Feminine

tini lsquomale personrsquo tinga lsquofemale personrsquomatani lsquomale friendrsquo matanga lsquofemale friendrsquokirijini lsquoboyrsquo kirijinga lsquogirlrsquo

In Tiwi adjectives demonstratives and possessives have to agree with theclass membership of the noun they refer to


arikula-ni yirrikipayi arikula-nga kiripukabig-MASCULINE crocodile big-FEMININE crablsquoa big crocodilersquo lsquoa big crabrsquo

190 CHAPTER 8

ngi-nanki kirijini angi-nanki pilimungaMASCULINE-this boy FEMININE-this roadlsquothis boyrsquo lsquothis roadrsquo

ngini-wutawa alawura angi-wutawa pulagumokaMASCULINE-they boss FEMININE-they femaledoglsquotheir bossrsquo lsquotheir bitchrsquo

Yanyuwa has sixteen noun classes each one marked by a prefix that oc-curs also with adjectives and numerals (The class marker is underlined ineach example below)

Yanyuwa

rra-muwarda rra-walkurra rra-jakardaFEMININE-canoe FEMININE-big FEMININE-manylsquomany big dugout canoesrsquo

na-lungundu na-walkurra na-jakardaARBOREAL-shelter ARBOREAL-big ARBOREAL-manylsquomany big bark sheltersrsquo

ma-murala ma-walkurra ma-jakardaFOOD-wildcucumber FOOD-big FOOD-manylsquomany big wild cucumbersrsquo

narnu-yabi narnu-arrkulaABSTRACT-good ABSTRACT-onelsquoone good thingrsquo

nya-yabi nya-arrkulaMASCULINE-good MASCULINE-onelsquoone good manboyrsquo

The last two examples show how noun class prefixes can occur even withoutan accompanying noun The class marker makes the referent clear5

823 Modifiers to NounsDemonstratives

Australian languages have no articles but they do have a number of demon-stratives referring to spatial relations The complexity of the demonstrativesystem varies from language to language Here are the demonstratives inthree Australian languages


Gumbaynggiryaam lsquothis these herersquoyarang lsquothat those therersquo

Yaygiradyi ngadyi lsquothis these herersquoila yila lsquoherersquodyaadyi lsquothere (not too far away)rsquoalaara yalaara lsquothere (a long way off)rsquo

Djapudhuwai lsquothis these herersquodhuwali lsquothat those there (nearby)rsquongunha lsquothat those there (a long way off)rsquongunhi anaphoric lsquothe one we are talking aboutrsquo

Adjectives

Adjectives behave like nouns in many ways They take the same case suffixesand very often occur as the head of a noun phrase (In these examples fromGumbaynggir the ergative suffix takes the forms -du and -dyu)

GumbaynggirNiiga-du barway-dyu buwaa-ng giibar dyunuyman-ERGATIVE big-ERGATIVE hit-PAST childO smallOlsquoThe big man hit the small childrsquo

Barway-dyu buwaa-ng dyunuybig-ERGATIVE hit-PAST smallOlsquoThe big one hit the small onersquo

824 Noun Phrase StructureThe tendency in Australian languages is for possessives and demonstrativesto precede the head noun in the noun phrase while adjectives follow it Thefollowing examples illustrate this tendency (The head noun is underlined ineach case)

Pitta-Pittanganya-ri murra wimaI-POSS stick biglsquomy big stickrsquo

Guugu Yimidhirrnambal warrga-alstone big-withlsquowith a big stonersquo

192 CHAPTER 8

Yukultartathinta pirwanta ngawu pirtiyathat their dog badlsquothat nasty dog of theirsrsquo

This is however only a tendency As with other areas of grammar inAustralian languages word order in the noun phrase is usually relativelyfree In the Gumbaynggir sentence (repeated from the previous section) theadjectives follow the noun


But either or both could precede the noun in a noun phrase yielding thesepossibilities

GumbaynggirBarway-dyu niiga-du buwaa-ng giibar dyunuybig-ERGATIVE man-ERGATIVE hit-PAST childO smallOlsquoThe big man hit the small childrsquo

Barway-dyu niiga-du buwaa-ng dyunuy giibarbig-ERGATIVE man-ERGATIVE hit-PAST smallO childOlsquoThe big man hit the small childrsquo

This freedom of order sometimes extends beyond the phrase ldquoNot onlycan words occur in any order in a phrase and phrases in any order in asentence [but] in addition words from different phrases may be freely scat-tered through a sentencerdquo (Dixon 1980 442) Look first at the followingsentence

WargamayYibi-yibi ngulmburu-

ngguwurrbi-bajun-du

buudi-lganiy malan-gu

child-PL woman-ERGATIVE

big-very-ERGATIVE

take-CONTINUOUS river-to

lsquoThe very big woman is taking the children to the creekrsquo

In this sentence the adjective wurrbi-bajun-du lsquovery bigrsquo immediately fol-lows the noun ngulmburu-nggu lsquowomanrsquo and it also clearly refers to itbecause both adjective and noun are marked with the ergative suffix (mor-


phophonemically-nggu and -du) Because of this other orders are possibleThe same sentence could be said

WargamayNgulmburu-nggu buudi-lganiy malan-gu yibi-yibi wurrbi-bajun-duwoman-ERGATIVE

take-CONTINUOUS

river-to child-PL big-very-ERGATIVE


Here the noun subject ngulmburu-nggu lsquowomanrsquo is separated from its mod-ifying adjective wurrbi-bajun-du lsquovery bigrsquo by the verb the allative phraseand the object

83 Possessive ConstructionsOne case suffix added to nouns and pronouns in many Australian languagesis a possessive suffix

Djapudjamarrkurlilsquo Milyin-guchildren Milyin-POSSlsquoMilyinrsquos childrenrsquo

ngarra-ku-ny dhuway-lsquomirringu-nyI-POSS-EMPHATIC lsquomy husbandrsquo husband-kinship-EMPHATIC

Many Australian languages also distinguish between alienable and inalien-able possessive constructions Alienable possession is marked by thepossessive suffix as in the examples above and is used with all possessednouns except parts of wholes The part-to-whole relationship uses an in-alienable construction in which there is no specific marking Possessed andpossessor nouns are just put one after the other in that order

DjapuDharpu-ngal ngarra-n dhandurrung-dhu gatapanga-ypierce-COMPLETIVE

I-OBJECT horn-ERGATIVE buffalo-ERGATIVE

lsquoThe buffalorsquos horn has pierced mersquo

Rluku ngarra gara-thi-nfoot I spear-INCHOATIVE-COMPLETIVElsquoMy foot has been spearedrsquo

194 CHAPTER 8

84 Verbs and the Verb ComplexIn the verb system a major grammatical difference exists between Pama-Nyungan languages and those of the rest of Australia The Pama-Nyunganlanguages are nonprefixing They use suffixes exclusively to mark verbalcategories like tense aspect and the like Many of the languages of ArnhemLand and the Kimberleys use both prefixes and suffixes

841 Verbs in Pama-Nyungan LanguagesThe general structure of the verb in nonprefixing languages is root + (de-rivational suffixes) + inflection There may be one or more derivationalsuffixes following a root and there will definitely be an inflectional suffix

Derivational Suffixes

Some derivational suffixes convert a transitive verb into an intransitive oneor an intransitive verb into a transitive one Others mark continuous habit-ual and other aspects of the verb as well as expressing meanings for whichother languages often use adverbs

Below are some examples of a number of derivational suffixes in twolanguages Pitta-Pitta and Wargamay In each case only the verb root (plusderivational suffix) is given the final hyphen means that a tense-aspect in-flection needs to be added

Pitta-Pittakathi- lsquoclimbrsquo kathi-la- lsquoput uprsquomari- lsquogetrsquo mari-la- lsquoget forrsquomirrinta- lsquoscratchrsquo mirrinta-mali- lsquoscratch selfrsquongunytyi- lsquogiversquo ngunytyi-mali- lsquoexchangersquothatyi- lsquoeatrsquo thatyi-li- lsquowant to eatrsquothatyi- lsquoeatrsquo thatyi-linga- lsquogoing to eatrsquortinpa- lsquorunrsquo rtinpa-ma lsquorun aroundrsquothatyi- lsquoeatrsquo thatyi-yarnrta- lsquoeat while walking alongrsquo

Wargamaybaadi- lsquocryrsquo baadi-ma- lsquocry forrsquodyinba- lsquospearrsquo dyinba-ma- lsquospear withrsquomayngga- lsquotellrsquo mayngga-ba- lsquotell each otherrsquodyuwara- lsquostandrsquo dyuwara-bali- lsquobe standingrsquobimbiri- lsquorunrsquo bimbiri-yandi- lsquorun awayrsquo


Inflectional Suffixes

Inflectional suffixes to verbs mark tense (or tense-aspect) They often mark averb as being imperative or as occurring in a subordinate clause Most Aus-tralian languages like Latin have more than one conjugation or conjuga-tional class of verbs Verbs in the same conjugation take the same suffixesbut verbs in another conjugation take a different set of suffixes and thereis no semantic explanation for why a particular verb belongs to a particularconjugational class

To illustrate both the idea of conjugations and the kinds of grammaticalfunctions they mark here are some data from the Atampaya dialect ofUradhi which has four conjugations (labeled I II III and IV)

UradhiI II III IV

past -γal -kal -n -ntilde -npresent -ma -al -ntildea -oslashfuture -maŋka -awa -ntildeaŋka -ŋkaimperative -ethi -ti -ri -yi -γu

For the verb roots wa- lsquoburnrsquo rima- lsquotwirlrsquo lapu- lsquoblowrsquo and ruŋka- lsquocryrsquowhich belong to conjugations I II III and IV respectively the verb forms ineach tense are

UradhiI II III IV

lsquoburnrsquo lsquotwirlrsquo lsquoblowrsquo lsquocryrsquopast wa-γal rima-n lapu-ntilde ruŋka-npresent wa-ma rima-al lapu-ntildea ruŋkafuture wa-maŋka rima-awa lapu-ntildeaŋka ruŋka-ŋkaimperative wa-ethi rima-ri lapu-yi ruŋka-γu

842 Verbs in Prefixing LanguagesVerbs in the prefixing languages of Australia have a quite different and usu-ally more complex structure I take the Wunambal language as an examplehere

In Wunambal there are two classes of verbs which I call I and II Thereappears to be no good semantic explanation as to why any particular verbbelongs to one class rather than the other In class I verbs features of thesubject are marked by a prefix but features of the object are marked by asuffix In class II verbs prefixes mark both subject and object

196 CHAPTER 8

Class I verbs begin with one of the prefixes marking person of the sub-ject (and if third person noun class membership)6

Wunambalng- first persong- second personb- w- m- a- n- nj- third person different noun classes

The number of the subject is variously marked Non-singular is marked by aprefix but specifically dual and trial subjects take an additional suffix Forexample

Wunambalgu-r-wanban gu-r-wanban-miyayou-NONSG-fall you-NONSG-fall-DUALlsquoyou (pl) fallrsquo lsquoyou two fallrsquo

Some tense-aspects and moods are marked by prefixes others by suffixes

Wunambalgu-nu-ma gu-ma-yayou-not-come you-come-FUTURElsquoyou didnrsquot comersquo lsquoyou will comersquo

For class I verbs the objectrsquos person and number are indicated by a suffix

Wunambalba-nbun-bun-wuru ba-nbun-bun-nguhe-spear-PRESENT-them he-spear-PRESENT-itlsquohe spears themrsquo lsquohe spears itrsquo

Class II verbs have much the same tense-aspect marking system as classI verbs The difference lies in the fact that the objectrsquos person and numberare marked by prefixes (underlined in the examples below) which precedethe subject prefixes

Wunambalgu-nga-nbun gu-r-nga-nbunyouOBJECT-I-hit youOBJECT-PL-I-hitlsquoI hit yoursquo lsquoI hit you (pl)rsquo

bu-r-nga-nbun bu-r-nga-ru-nbunhim-PL-I-hit him-PL-I-PL-hitlsquoI hit themrsquo lsquowe hit themrsquo

Both classes of verbs also have a set of derivational suffixes along thelines of those found in nonprefixing languages


843 The Verb ComplexSo much semantic information is contained in the verb itself especiallybecause of the system of derivational suffixes that the verb complex in Aus-tralian languages often consists of no more than the fully inflected verb(Numerous examples of this have been given in preceding sections) But averb complex may include adverbs or locative demonstratives as in

GumbaynggirBirmading yilaamingrunPAST herePASTlsquo(She) ran over herersquo

Mudang giduudaming yaraang yilaaunablePAST onsandPAST there nearspeakerlsquo(He) was unable to go on the sand herersquo

85 Sentences851 Nominal SentencesEquational stative and locational sentences generally have no verb in Aus-tralian languages The most common order is subject + predicate

Subject Predicate

WajarriPakarli maparnpaman sorcererlsquoThe man is a sorcererrsquo

Warla parntiegg goodlsquoThe egg is goodrsquo

Kuwiyari marta-ngkagoanna rock-onlsquoThe goanna is on the rockrsquo

AnguthimriAngu rtalawatiI redlsquoI am redrsquo

Ma ngu-tyanaman clothes-withoutlsquoThe man is nakedrsquo

198 CHAPTER 8

852 Verbal SentencesIn discussing the structure of verbal sentences in Oceanic languages I intro-duced the distinction between accusative and ergative structures Most Aus-tralian languages have ergative structures so that the subject of a transitiveverb (the agent) is marked differently from the subject of an intransitiveverb The subject of a transitive verb is in the ergative case that of an intran-sitive verb in the absolutive case The object of a transitive verb is also in theabsolutive case

Look at the following examples from Wargamay

WargamaySubjectAgent Object VerbMaal gagaymanABSOLUTIVE golsquoThe man is goingrsquo

Maal-ndu ganal ngundayman-ERGATIVE frogABSOLUTIVE seelsquoThe man is looking at the frogrsquo

Ganal-ndu maal ngundayfrog-ERGATIVE manABSOLUTIVE seelsquoThe frog is looking at the manrsquo

In Wargamay the absolutive case is unmarked so the noun maal lsquomanrsquoappears as maal when it is the subject of an intransitive verb (as in the firstsentence) and also when it is the object of a transitive verb (as in the thirdone) The ergative case is marked by one of a number of suffixes (cf 821above) one of which is -ndu When maal lsquomanrsquo or ganal lsquofrogrsquo is the agent(the subject of a transitive verb) as in the last two sentences it must takethe ergative suffix

In many Australian languages however pronouns behave differentlyfrom nouns in marking subjects and objects Look now at the following set ofsentences

WargamaySubjectAgent Object VerbNgali gagaywetwo golsquoWe two are goingrsquo

Ngali ganal ngundaywetwo frogABSOLUTIVE seelsquoWe two are looking at the frogrsquo


Ganal-ndu ngali-nya ngundayfrog-ERGATIVE wetwo-OBJECT seelsquoThe frog is looking at us tworsquo

These sentences show that although the noun ganal lsquofrogrsquo behaves erga-tively the pronoun ngali lsquowe tworsquo behaves accusatively It has the same form(ngali) when it is subject either of an intransitive or a transitive verb but adifferent form (ngali-nya) when it is the object of a transitive verb In thisrespect it behaves exactly like its equivalent weus in English Australianlanguages like Wargamay that treat nouns and pronouns differently are re-ferred to as split-ergative languages7

Because Australian languages clearly mark the case or function of nounphrases in a sentence by affixes to the noun phrase (as in Wargamay) byaffixes to the verb or in both of these ways it is obvious from looking at anoun phrase what its function in a sentence is Because of this ldquothe orderof words and phrases can in most Australian languages be extraordinarilyfree it has little or no grammatical significance A preferred order can usu-ally be perceivedhellipBut there can be unlimited deviation from this preferredorder dictated partly by discourse considerations (lsquotopicrsquo and the like) andpartly by the whim of the speakerrdquo (Dixon 1980 441)

Where there is a preferred word order it is usually subject + verb in in-transitive sentences and agent + object + verb in transitive sentences asin the Wargamay examples above Object + agent + verb however is just asfrequent Both versions of this Wargamay sentence are acceptable

WargamayAgent Object VerbGanal-ndu ngali-nya ngundayfrog-ERGATIVE wetwo-OBJECT seelsquoThe frog is looking at us tworsquo

Object Agent VerbNgali-nya ganal-ndu ngundaywetwoOBJECT frog-ERGATIVE seelsquoThe frog is looking at us tworsquo

This is possible because (1) it is clear from the suffix -ndu that ganal-ndulsquofrogrsquo is the agent and (2) it is also clear from the suffix -nya that ngali-nyalsquous tworsquo is the object

Other phrases are also relatively free as far as their order is concernedsometimes occurring before the verb and sometimes after it It is rarehowever for the verb to occur in sentence-initial position In the followingexamples the verb complex is underlined

200 CHAPTER 8

BandjalangMali-yu ngagam-bu yalany-dyu giyay bunybeh-lathe-ERGATIVE dog-ERGATIVE tongue-with salt lick-PRESENTlsquoThe dog is licking salt with its tonguersquo

YidinyWaguuja-nggu wagal bunja-ng banggaal-daman-ERGATIVE wife hit-PRESENT axe-withlsquoThe man hit his wife with an axersquo

WajarriYamaji-lu kuka marlu ngura-ki kangkarni-manyaman-ERGATIVE meat kangaroo camp-to bring-PRESENTlsquoA man is bringing kangaroo meat to the camprsquo

Australian languages do not have a passive construction but they do havesomething similar In accusative languages the original object in an activesentence becomes the subject of the passive sentence and the original activesubject is either moved to a peripheral phrase (The man chopped down thetree gt The tree was chopped down by the man) or deleted altogether (Thetree was chopped down) Some Australian languages have what is called anantipassive Look first at the following normal ergative Dyirbal sentence

DyirbalObject Agent VerbBala yugu banggul yara-nggu gunba-nit tree heERGATIVE manERGATIVE cut-PASTlsquoThe man was cutting the treersquo

In the antipassive the agent (banggul yara-nggu lsquothe manrsquo) becomes thesubject of what is now an intransitive verb and the object (bala yugu lsquothetreersquo) becomes a peripheral phrasemdashin this case a dative phrase The verbis also marked differently Here is the antipassive form of the sentenceabove

DyirbalSubject Verb DativeBayi yara gunbal-nga-nyu bagu yugu-guhe man cut-ANTIPASSIVE-PAST itDATIVE tree-DATIVElsquoThe man was cutting the treersquo

Note that the translations of the two sentences are the same Dixon saysthat in Dyirbal at least ldquoa regular transitive sentence and its antipassivecorrespondent hellip have the same basic meaning and differ only in emphasis


rather like an active and its corresponding passive in Englishrdquo (Dixon 1980449) Like the peripheral agent in a passive sentence the peripheral dativephrase in an antipassive sentence can be deleted

DyirbalSubject VerbBayi yara gunbal-nga-nyuhe man cut-ANTIPASSIVE-PASTlsquoThe man was cuttingrsquo

A small group of languages mainly in Arnhem Land the Pilbara regionand the Kimberleys in the northwest of the continent offer exceptions tothese generalizations They are accusative not ergative in structure thepreferred order is frequently SVO (though OVS is also common) and somehave a passive Lardil illustrates these languagesrsquo structure

LardilSubject Verb ObjectOtherPirngen rikurwoman crylsquoThe woman is cryingrsquo

Pirngen rnethakun rtang-anwoman hit man-OBJECTlsquoThe woman hit the manrsquo

Rtangka rnethakun pirngen-inman hit woman-OBJECTlsquoThe man hit the womanrsquo

Rtangka rneyikun pirngen-inman hitPASSIVE woman-OBJECTlsquoThe man was hit by the womanrsquo

But these languages are in the minority and most Australian languages ad-here to the ergative model

202 CHAPTER 8

PART THREE

The Socialand Cultural Context

CHAPTER

9

Languages in Contact

Languages are normally not spoken in totally isolated communities Peoplespeaking one language usually come into contact either occasionally or ona more regular basis with speakers of one or more other languages and thesmaller the society that speaks a particular language the greater is the like-lihood of their being in contact with outsiders This social contact very oftenhas both major and minor linguistic effects

91 The Social Context of Language Contact911 Peaceful Contact between Settled SocietiesOne common kind of social contact between different language communi-ties in the Pacific is that between relatively equal and settled societiesIn many parts of the region for example marriage regulations require aman to marry a woman from outside his own clan and community Thispractice of exogamy often means that husband and wife speak differentlanguages Where a number of men in the same village choose wives fromthe same outside community a foreign-language enclave will form at leasttemporarily in the village Since women have the primary responsibility forlooking after younger children those children will often grow up hearingtwo languages spoken in the home The women may not much influencethe way the men speak but they do influence how their children speakThese children often end up incorporating some aspects of their mothersrsquolanguage into their own

A second kind of peaceful contact involves regular trade There are nu-merous cases in the Pacific where for example people of a coastal village

205

trade with inland villagersmdashthe former supplying fish and other marine pro-duce the latter vegetables and other non-maritime commodities Such asituation occurred in Central Papua where the coastal Motu traded with theinland Koita and Koiari people Many words for maritime concepts in Koitaare originally Motu words while the Motu have taken into their languageKoita words for non-maritime things

912 Peaceful Contact Involving TravelNot all trade takes place between sedentary peoples it may also involvesome or all of the parties traveling considerable distances In the westernPacific for example anthropologists have documented such large-scaletrading complexes as the hiri of the Gulf of Papua the kula of the islands ofthe Milne Bay area and the moka of the highlands of Papua New Guinea Agreat deal of long-distance trade in all kinds of commodities seems to haveoccurred in nearly every part of Australia and the Pacific

Such trading expeditions of course bring people speaking different lan-guages together at least for short periods and also often bring new thingsand ideas into at least one of the societies involved In such cases borrow-ing or copying often takes place That is the society into which somethingnew is introduced often takes the word for that thing from the language ofthose introducing it This is how English acquired such words as alcoholcurry tomato pasta tapioca sago and hundreds of others

Migrationmdasheither temporary or permanentmdashalso brings people speak-ing different languages together Temporary migration at least in the Pa-cific generally means that people leave their home area to work in townsor on plantations or ships for a period of time and then return home oftenbringing with them new things and ideasmdashalong with the words for them insome other language Permanent migration involves long-term settlementin a new area often because of overcrowding or sociopolitical problems athome or because of natural disasters like volcanic eruptions A smallishcommunity speaking one language may live in the middle of a larger com-munity speaking a different language and the potential exists for each lan-guage to influence the other

The whole of the Pacific region was settled from its western extremesand Australia was probably settled from the north Some of these migrantswould have been the first people to settle a particular area while otherswould have come into contact with descendants of the original settlersIn more recent times not only have rural people moved into urban areasbut whole communities have been relocated Mission stations all over theregion government settlements in Australia and the resettlement of the Ba-

206 CHAPTER 9

nabans on Rabi Island in Fiji represent three such cases There have alsobeen significant movements of populations from Micronesia and Polynesiainto the United States and New Zealand (see chapter 2) All of these situa-tions bring languages into contact with various degrees of closeness

913 Conquest Colonization and ConversionPolitico-military takeovers by one society of another represent a less peace-ful kind of social and linguistic contact Once again the Pacific aboundsin examples of which the Tongan domination of the Lau group in Fiji andthe warlike Orokaiva and Mailu in Papua New Guinea who enslaved con-quered peoples are three As with the Norman conquest of England athousand years ago these takeovers produced dramatic changes in lan-guage as the conquered peoples were forced to learn their conquerorsrsquolanguage to survive

European and Asian colonization of Australia and the Pacific rep-resents a more recent but thoroughgoing example of politico-militaryconquest The Spanish Dutch Germans French and Japanese as well asEnglish speakers from a number of nations have all made incursions intothe region over the last four centuries French and English currently beingthe dominant metropolitan languages in the Pacific These outsiders intro-duced new forms of government and education brought in a vast numberof new technological items and social customs and were responsible forthe establishment of plantations and urban centers English and Frenchhave been the major languages of government education and inter- andintraregional communication and are looked on in many parts of the Pa-cific as the prestige languages Because of both the attitudes toward thesetwo European languages and the new concepts introduced by EuropeansEnglish and French have had a considerable influence on most Pacific lan-guages

The founding of missions preceded colonization in some cases and fol-lowed it in others This process could be viewed as a conquest of a differentkindmdashthe displacement of traditional religious systems in favor of westernChristian beliefs and religious practices as missionaries aimed for a con-quest of the souls and minds of aboriginal Australians and Pacific IslandersThe establishment of churches and schools as well as the more or less suc-cessful abolition of some traditional customs resulted in the introduction ofnew words for new conceptsmdashin some cases even new ways of speaking asformal prayers and hymns were developed

In multilingual Melanesia particularly missions were responsible forsetting up certain vernaculars as church languages for example Tolai

Languages in Contact 207

Gedaged Yabecircm Kacircte Dobuan Suau and Wedau in Papua New GuineaRoviana in Solomon Islands and Mota in Vanuatu Faced with a multiplicityof languages in a relatively small area missionaries often chose one lan-guage as the language of the mission requiring speakers of neighboringand usually related languages to use the chosen language in religious con-texts This practice has helped create a complex situation in which bothEuropean and Pacific church languages influence other languages in theregion

92 The Linguistic Effects of Contact921 Lexical ChangeVirtually all languages borrow or copy words from other languages Englishis an excellent example as it has taken in thousands of words from verydiverse sources In the Pacific the influence of both local and intrusive lan-guages on other Pacific languages has led to the incorporation of new wordsinto those languages

Speakers of the non-Polynesian languages of Southern Vanuatu whohave probably been in the area for well over two thousand years came intocontact with speakers of the Polynesian language West Futuna about a thou-sand years ago These immigrant Polynesians introduced their neighbors tokava-drinking and refined their maritime skills especially those involvingdeep-sea fishing The words below are West Futuna loans into Kwamera aTanna language suitably adapted to Kwamerarsquos phonological and grammat-ical structure (Lynch 1994 1996)

Kwamera Loans from West Futuna

Kava terminologyKwamera West Futunanɨkava lsquokavarsquo kavatapuga lsquochiefrsquos kavarsquo tapugatamafa lsquoritual spitting of kavarsquo taumafanafunu lsquofood eaten after drinking kavarsquo fonoakona lsquodrunkrsquo konataporoka lsquokind of canoe-shaped

kava bowlrsquota poruku lsquokind of canoersquo

nafaacuteu lsquokava strainerrsquo fao lsquococonut branchused as a kavastrainerrsquo

208 CHAPTER 9

Maritime terminologyKwamera West Futunatira lsquomastrsquo shiranɨkiatu lsquooutrigger boomrsquo kiatokwan-metau lsquofishhookrsquo metaotakwarau lsquoprevailing windrsquo tokorautafra lsquowhalersquo taforatataua lsquobarracudarsquo tataotagarua lsquosea snakersquo tagaroa

Trukese provides a good example of the influence of succeeding colonialpowers Much of western and central Micronesia was under Spanish controlfrom the late seventeenth century until the Spanish-American War in 1898when Guam was ceded to the United States and the rest of Spainrsquos posses-sions went to Germany which had already colonized the Marshall Islands tothe east Japan succeeded Germany at the outbreak of World War I and theUnited States succeeded Japan at the end of World War II The influence ofeach of these colonial languages can be seen in borrowed words in Trukese(Goodenough and Sugita 1980)

Trukeseantiyos lsquofishing gogglesrsquo lt Spanish anteojoskoopwure lsquocorrugated ironrsquo lt Spanish cobre lsquocopperrsquopaatere lsquopriestrsquo lt Spanish padre

kiiwuacutefer lsquosuitcasersquo lt German Kofferkkumi lsquorubberrsquo lt German Gummimaak lsquomoneyrsquo lt German Mark (monetary unit)

kooyeng lsquoplaygroundrsquo lt Japanese kōen lsquoparkrsquoosiroy lsquobaby powderrsquo lt Japanese oshiroiramuacutene lsquomarblesrsquo lt Japanese ramune

miniyon lsquomillionrsquo lt English millionpinakpwoot lsquoblackboardrsquo lt English blackboardsekit lsquojacketrsquo lt English jacket

Samoan is a good example of missionary influence on a language Manynew words came into it from the biblical languages Greek Latin and He-brew

Samoanperitome lsquocircumcisersquo lt Greek peritomeagelu lsquoangelrsquo lt Greek angelos


tilsquoāpolo lsquodevilrsquo lt Greek diabolossātauro lsquocrossrsquo lt Greek stauroslsquoaila lsquodeer gazellersquo lt Hebrew lsquoayyallsquooreva lsquovulturersquo lt Hebrew lsquoorebh lsquoravenrsquolsquourosa lsquobearrsquo lt Latin ursus

922 Semantic ChangeContact may also bring about changes in the meanings of existing wordsin a language This may involve expanding the meaning of a word to referto something newly introduced For example Fijian dakai originally meantlsquobow (for shooting)rsquo and Lenakel kopwiel means lsquostonersquo but both have takenon the additional meaning lsquogun riflersquo In Ponapean sakau originally referredonly to kava but now it refers to any intoxicating beverage Nting meant lsquototattoorsquo in Ponapean but now also means lsquoto writersquo

Semantic change may also involve narrowing the meaning of a wordLenakel niko originally meant both lsquocanoersquo and lsquomoietyrsquo (since it was be-lieved that the first members of the two moieties arrived on the island in twodifferent canoes) But the form kenu (from English via Bislama) is now thecommon word for lsquocanoersquo and for most Lenakel speakers niko now meansonly lsquomoietyrsquo

923 Phonological ChangeWhen a language takes in words from another language it often adaptsthem to its own phonology The English words restaurant miracle princeroyal and court for example all derive from French but they are notpronounced as the French pronounce them They have been adapted toEnglish phonological patterns Sometimes however the copying of wordsfrom one language into another may bring about a change in the phonolog-ical system of the borrowing language either through the introduction of atotally new sound or through the reorganization of the existing sounds ina language

Dyirbal for example is typical of many Australian languages in thatthe phoneme l is not permitted at the beginning of words However theintroduction of words like lada lsquoladderrsquo and laymun lsquolemonrsquo from English hasbrought about a change in the phonological structure of Dyirbal which nowpermits word-initial l

Motu originally had no contrast between the sounds [t] and [s] [s] oc-curred before [i] and [e] while [t] occurred before other vowels Englishwords copied into Motu originally fit this pattern1

210 CHAPTER 9

Motu[sesi] lsquoshirtrsquo[makesi] lsquomarketrsquo[sini] lsquotinrsquo[tupu] lsquosouprsquo[topu] lsquosoaprsquo

Due to the persistent influence of English however younger generationsnow pronounce these words as follows

Motu[seti] lsquoshirtrsquo[maketi] lsquomarketrsquo[tini] lsquotinrsquo[supu] lsquosouprsquo[sopu] lsquosoaprsquo

What has happened here is that the distribution of [s] and [t] has changedand there is now contrast between them

In addition to changing the distribution of existing sounds in a languagecontact may also lead to the introduction of a new sound Samoan for exam-ple originally had an l but no r As the result of contact with other languageshowever a number of words with r have been introduced

SamoanlsquoAperila lsquoAprilrsquo lt Englishlsquoareto lsquobreadrsquo lt Greek artoslsquoario lsquosilverrsquo lt Tahitian ariofaresaio lsquophariseersquo lt Greek farisaiosmisionare lsquomissionaryrsquo lt Englishlsquooreva lsquovulturersquo lt Hebrew lsquoorebh lsquoravenrsquorosa lsquorosersquo lt Englishteropika lsquotropicsrsquo lt Englishlsquourosa lsquobearrsquo lt Latin ursus

924 Grammatical ChangeFinally contact between languages may also bring about changes in gram-matical structure Polynesian Triangle languages are normally verb-initial(see chapter 6)


TahitianVerb Subject ObjectlsquoUa tāpū te vahine lsquoi te vahiePAST cut the woman OBJECT the woodlsquoThe woman cut the woodrsquo

Polynesian Outlier languages however are much more flexible allowingboth VSO and SVO orders with SVO probably being more common

NukuoroVerb Subject ObjectNe kake ia te nuiPAST climb he the coconutlsquoHe climbed the coconutrsquo

Subject Verb ObjectIa ne kake te nuihe PAST climb the coconutlsquoHe climbed the coconutrsquo

This has almost certainly come about at least in part from contact withneighboring non-Polynesian languages which are almost exclusively SVO

A similar change seems to have occurred on the mainland of NewGuinea The original Oceanic languages spoken there almost certainly hadverb + object order (whether SVO or VOS is a matter of some discussionbut is irrelevant here) Then they came into contact with Papuan speakersfor whom SOV was the basic order and this contact led to a change in theOceanic languagesrsquo word order from SVO (or VOS) to SOV (Some examplesof languages with this order were given in chapter 6)

Let us look at one more example this time from the Papuan language Yi-mas

The formation of a negative verb from a positive one in Yimas is acomplicated affair involving alteration of the form and the positionof certain verbal affixes Many younger speakers do not know thismethod of negation but negate a verb by merely placing a particle inabefore it This is clearly a borrowing from Tok Pisin i no [= PREDICATEMARKER + NEGATIVE] but these speakers were totally unaware of its ori-gin regarding it as a native Yimas word until I pointed out its similarityto the Tok Pisin negative (Foley 1986 40)

212 CHAPTER 9

93 Three Case StudiesDirect and indirect inheritance of vocabulary in Rotuman borrowing as aresult of word taboo in Australia and contact between Austronesian andPapuan languages in northwest New Britain are three cases illustrating theeffects of language contact

931 RotumanThe Rotuman vowel system has undergone some interesting developments(chapter 5) But Rotuman is also a language where contact has led to a com-plex situation for the historical-comparative linguist

Rotuman words exhibit two sets of correspondences with proto-formshellip I propose to speak of directly [set I] and indirectly inheritedwords [set II] rather than inherited and loan words in order to em-phasize that all of the words with etymologies were once part of alanguage ancestral to Rotuman in the comparativistrsquos sense Some ofthem however re-entered Rotuman from a collateral related languageafter undergoing changes other than those which affected forms whichhad remained continuously in the Rotuman line (Biggs 1965389ndash390)

I am concerned here exclusively with the development of some of the conso-nants in Rotuman

What appears to have happened in Rotuman is this The original settlerswould have brought with them a version of Proto Central Pacific (PCP) Overtime some of the consonants changed their pronunciation with the resultthat the following regular developments can be identified (Biggsrsquo directly in-herited or Set I correspondences)2

PCP v pb t d r dr l k g ʔRotuman (Set I) h p f t r t l ʔ k oslash

Some examples of this set of sound correspondences are given below

Proto Central Pacific Rotuman (SetI)vitu lsquosevenrsquo hifukuli lsquoskinrsquo ʔuliʔatu lsquoline rowrsquo afuviri lsquoplaitrsquo hiri

Subsequent to the original settlement of Rotuma there seem to havebeen at least two later ldquoinvasionsrdquo by people speaking languages different


from but related to pre-Rotuman These invasions resulted in fairly large-scale borrowings of vocabulary Biggs (1965 411) sums up the situation asfollows ldquoIt is clear that Rotuman has borrowed extensively from a relatedlanguage or languageshellip Rotuman traditions are definite in associating atleast two occupations of their island with the Samoa-Tonga area particu-larly the islands of Savaiʔi [in Samoa] and Niuafoʔou [in Tonga]rdquo The lan-guages of the invaders had made somewhat different changes to the ProtoCentral Papuan consonant inventory Of Biggsrsquo corpus of Rotuman wordswith known etymologies 38 percent belong to Set I (as above) but 29 per-cent belong rather to the set of indirectly inherited correspondences (Set II)which are given below along with Set I for comparison3

PCP v pb t d r dr l k g ʔRotuman (Set I) h p f t r t l ʔ k oslashRotuman (Set II) f p t t roslash r r k k ʔ

Here are some examples of words containing Set II correspondencesin each case the expected but non-occurring Set I form is given as well(marked with a double asterisk)

Proto Central Pacific Rotuman (Set II)viti lsquospring uprsquo fiti (expected Set I hifi)tuki lsquopoundrsquo tuki (expected Set I fuʔi)kolo lsquodesirersquo koro (expected Set I ʔolo)robe lsquooverhangrsquo ope (expected Set I rope)

In some cases the same word has come into the language twice first di-rectly (Set I) and later indirectly (Set II) though with slight differences inmeaning For example

PCP RotumanSet I Set II

kuli lsquoskinrsquo ʔuli lsquoskinrsquo kiria lsquoleprosyrsquovidi lsquojump springrsquo hiti lsquostart with surprisersquo fiti lsquojumprsquotoka lsquocome ashorersquo foʔa lsquocome ashorersquo toka lsquosettle downrsquo

932 Word Taboo in AustraliaAustralian languagesmdashas well as many others in the Pacificmdashare character-ized by a system of word taboo This can take a number of forms One verycommon one is that ldquoa personrsquos name cannot be spoken for some time af-ter his death What is more any normal vocabulary itemmdashnoun adjectiveverb etcmdashthat is similar in form to the banned name must also be tabooedrdquo(Dixon 1980 28) Imagine if this were to apply in English When someone

214 CHAPTER 9

called Bill dies we could not use the word bill (meaning either lsquoaccountrsquo orlsquobeak of a birdrsquo) nor probably could we use phonologically similar words likebuild billet billy and perhaps pill We would have to find new wordshellip atleast for a time

In Australia the tabooed word is sometimes replaced by a synonym ornear synonym from within the language In our imaginary example abovebill could then be replaced by (1) check or account and (2) beak ldquoBut moreoften a new word will be borrowed from the language of a neighboring triberdquo(Dixon 1980 28) Examples

1 ldquoIn 1975 a man named Djaumlyila died at Yirrkala and as a result thecommon verb djaumll- lsquoto want to be desirous of was proscribed andreplaced by duktuk- probably a verb from another Yolŋu dialectthat did have this set of meaningsrdquo (Dixon 1980 28)

2 ldquoIn 1977 a Djapu man named Djewiny died and the loanword dhelsquotearsquo was at once tabooed at Yirrkala another loanword gopi lsquocof-feersquo had its meaning extended also to cover lsquotearsquo (little coffee is infact drunk at Yirrkala if disambiguation is necessary it can be re-ferred to as gopi yuwalk lsquoreal coffeersquo)rdquo (Dixon 1980 122)

933 Northwest New Britain

In a series of studies Thurston (1982 1987 1992) has documented the ef-fects of language contact among a number of languages spoken in the north-west of New Britain The area Thurston discusses is currently occupied by anumber of Oceanic languages (important to this discussion are the coastallanguages Kabana Amara Kove and Lusi) and the Papuan language AnecircmldquoThe Anecircm are now completely surrounded by speakers of Austronesian lan-guageshellip Evidence suggests that Anecircm is the sole surviving member of anon-Austronesian language family that once extended over much of whatis now West New Britain Province West of the Willaumez Peninsula all ofthese languages except Anecircm have been replaced by Austronesian lan-guages which retain features of a non-Austronesian substratumrdquo (Thurston1992 125)

Contact in this area between speakers of different languages related andunrelated has been going on for a long time with quite far-reaching effects

Generations of marriage and trade across linguistic boundaries thelongstanding tradition of regional multilingualism and the spread oflanguages by way of language shift have all conspired to produceregional similarity in phonology syntax semantics social structureeconomy cosmology and valueshellip Aside from lexical form the speak-


ers of Austronesian languages in northwestern New Britain sharemuch more with the Anecircm than they do with speakers of distant Aus-tronesian languages that are lexically more similar (Thurston 1992125)

There has been a large amount of lexical copying in both directions be-tween the Oceanic languages and Anecircm but of more interest are changesin grammar as a result of this prolonged contact Some of the grammaticalfeatures of Lusi (and some of the other Oceanic languages in the area) thatseem to have been introduced from Anecircm or its extinct relatives are de-scribed below

1 The reciprocal is marked by a suffix to the verb rather than by a pre-fix as is widespread in Oceanic languages (see 646 above)

LusiTi-rau-nga-rithey-hit-RECIPROCAL-themlsquoThey fought each otherrsquo

AnecircmI-pəl-akthey-hit-RECIPROCALlsquoThey fought each otherrsquo

2 Tenseaspect negation and similar categories are marked at the endof the verb phrase rather than by prefixes or preverbal particles asis common in Oceanic languages (see 642 above)

LusiI-rau γaea maohe-hit pig notlsquoHe didnrsquot kill a pigrsquo

I-la pa Rabaul γasilihe-go to Rabaul COMPLETIVElsquoHe has (already) gone to Rabaulrsquo

AnecircmU-b-ɨ aba mantuhe-kill-it Pig notlsquoHe didnrsquot kill a pigrsquo

U-k axɨ Rabaul bizanghe-go to Rabaul COMPLETIVElsquoHe has (already) gone to Rabaulrsquo

216 CHAPTER 9

3 Lusi has two postpositions aea purposive and iai locative as wellas a handful of prepositions Oceanic languages with postpositionstend to be restricted to the New Guinea mainland Although Anecircmdoes not have postpositions Thurston suggests that Lusi probablyacquired its postpositions as a result of contact with one of the nowextinct Papuan languages of the area

The contact has not been one way however An inclusiveexclusive dis-tinction in the first person is almost universal in Oceanic languages but isexceedingly rare among Papuan languages (see 71 above) Anecircm shows thisdistinction in possessive suffixes (though not in other pronominal forms)and it also has the inalienableedibleneutral contrast in possessive con-structions typical of western Oceanic languages but nonexistent in Papuanlanguages (Thurston 1987 91) The long-term intimate contact between lan-guages in this area has clearly produced major changes in the structure ofthese languages

934 ldquoMixedrdquo LanguagesThe Anecircm-Lusi situation just described gives rise to the following questionHow much can Language A be influenced by Language B and still remainLanguage A Or in different words can a language be truly ldquomixedrdquo notderiving from just one ancestor but in a sense from two There are numer-ous theoretical and philosophical questions involved here and they havegenerated considerable debatemdashnot to mention heat and acrimonymdashin thediscussion of certain languages in the Pacific especially in Melanesia4

I do not wish to go into these philosophical and theoretical questionshere There are however a number of cases where the influence of one ormore languages on another has led different reputable linguists to classifylanguages differently To take some extreme examples the following havebeen classified as Papuan by some linguists and as Austronesian by othersMaisin in the Oro Province of Papua New Guinea Magori and its neighbor-ing moribund relatives on the south coast of Papua the languages of SantaCruz and the Reef Islands in Solomon Islands and the languages of Ane-ityum New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands

In all except the Reefs-Santa Cruz situation the general view today is thatthe languages involved are originally Austronesian Maisin and Magori havebeen very heavily influenced by Papuan languages whereas Aneityum andthe New Caledonian languages are probably so aberrant in their phonologi-cal and grammatical histories that they happen not to look very AustronesianThe Reefs-Santa Cruz languages however were probably originally Papuanlanguages that have been very heavily influenced by Austronesian languages


These decisions have been reached by ignoring vocabulary for the most partand looking instead at the core of the languagesrsquo grammatical systems

Even languages like these are not truly mixed in the sense of having twoco-equal ancestors They are however cases where the influence of anotherlanguage has been so strong as to make genetic affiliation very difficult todetermine

94 Historical ImplicationsIn chapter 1 I discussed the way in which historical inferences can be drawnfrom an examination of the relationships between languages Borrowing ofvocabulary phonology and grammar does not constitute genetic relation-ship The fact that the Fijian words sitoa and sitaba have been copied fromEnglish ldquostorerdquo and ldquostamprdquo does not mean that Fijian is related to English

But although the relationship between Fijian and English is not a ge-netic one there is still a historical connection between them An examina-tion of English words copied into Fijian for example provides us with in-formation of a cultural-historical nature They indicate what kinds of thingswere introduced to Fijian society and culture by English colonials mission-aries and settlers and what kinds of changes took place in Fijian societyand culture as a result of external influence

Let us go back to the example of Kwamera loans from West Futuna toillustrate this in a bit more detail (Recall that this copying took place longbefore Europeans came to the area) The following words relating to kavaand kava-drinking were borrowed by Kwamera

Kwameranɨkava lsquokavarsquotapuga lsquochiefrsquos kavarsquotamafa lsquoritual spitting of kavarsquonafunu lsquofood eaten after drinking kavarsquoakona lsquodrunkrsquotaporoka lsquokind of canoe-shaped kava bowlrsquonafaacuteu lsquokava strainerrsquo

Clearly this indicates a significant change in Kwamera culture This list ofwords represents not just the random borrowing of a few items but the tak-ing over of a whole cultural complexmdashthe preparation and drinking of kavawith its attendant rituals and behaviors (Lynch 1996)

Nor is this the end of the story of cultural contact between the Polyne-sian and non-Polynesian societies of southern Vanuatu The non-Polynesian

218 CHAPTER 9

languages have also borrowed heavily from Futuna maritime vocabularyespecially where long-distance voyaging or deep-sea fishing is concerned(Lynch 1994) Futuna on the other hand has borrowed a number of wordsfor varieties of yam taro and breadfruit from their more horticulturallyinclined non-Polynesian neighbors And perhaps most interesting of all Fu-tuna speakers appear to have been responsible for introducing a moietysystem to neighboring Tanna This system fell into desuetude on Futuna butwas reintroduced hellip by the Tannese (Lynch and Fakamuria 1994) An exam-ination of borrowed items in a language can give us significant informationabout the nature of contact-induced cultural change The influence of non-Pacific languages on those of the Pacific has been considerable over the pastcouple of centuries or so but Pacific Islanders have been moving around theregion for thousands of years and contact between languages has been partof the linguistic scene in the Pacific for the whole period


CHAPTER

10

Pidgins Creoles and Koines

Contact may have quite drastic effects on a language But it may also lead tothe creation of totally new languages which in some senses at least qualifyas ldquomixedrdquo languages Three of these new languages are in terms of num-ber of speakers among the largest languages spoken in the Pacific today(although not all speakers of any of these languages speak them as theirmother tongue) I use the term Melanesian Pidgin as a cover term for thethree languagesdialects known as Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea Pijin inSolomon Islands and Bislama in Vanuatu spoken in all by perhaps three mil-lion people1 Hiri Motu is spoken in Papua New Guinea by about a quarter ofa million people And Fiji Hindi one of the two major languages of Fiji hasmore than 300000 speakers This chapter looks at these three languagesand at similar languages in various parts of the Pacific

101 Pidginization Creolization and KoineizationHow do languages like Melanesian Pidgin develop What is it about certainkinds of contact situations that gives rise to new languages

The term pidgin or pidgin language refers to a language that developsin a multilingual contact situation where the contact between the differentgroups is prolonged but relatively restricted Trade relationships planta-tions and shipsrsquo companies are typical breeding grounds for such lan-guages and in situations like these the process of pidginization begins totake place All speakers of a pidgin language use it as a second language tocommunicate with speakers of other languages when there is no other com-mon language In comparison with the first languages of its speakers a pid-

220

gin is usually simplified in pronunciation grammar and vocabulary In manycases especially in colonial situations the vocabulary of the pidgin is drawnmainly from the politically dominant (ie colonial) language whereas thegrammar is often based on the language(s) of the colonized people

Urbanization and marriage between people from different linguisticbackgrounds can turn a pidgin into peoplersquos first language especially whenthose people are the children of such mixed marriages growing up in townsIn these cases the pronunciation grammar and vocabulary of the originalpidgin language tends to expand rapidly and considerably The languagebecomes more complex because it is being used for all the communicativepurposes of a ldquonormalrdquo language This process of expansion is referred toas creolization A creole or a creole language is a language that has de-veloped from a pidgin but which is now the first language of many of itsspeakers

A different kind of mixingmdashwhat is known as dialect mixingmdashproducesa different kind of language When people speaking different geographicaldialects of a language are relocated and thrown together in a new commu-nity what is known as a koine often develops through a process known askoineization Each dialect contributes some elements and the resultantkoine is a blend of the original dialects While Melanesian Pidgin and HiriMotu are the result of the processes of pidginization and creolization FijiHindi is a koine2

102 Melanesian PidginMelanesian Pidgin and various Australian creoles are referred to asldquoEnglish-basedrdquo or ldquoEnglish-lexifierrdquo creoles This means simply that thebulk of their vocabulary is derived from English though some vocabularyand much of the grammar may have different origins (This does not meanthat these languages are ldquobroken Englishrdquo or ldquobaby-talkrdquo languages afterall although a very significant proportion of the vocabulary of Englishcomes from Romance languages like Latin and French we donrsquot considerEnglish to be ldquobroken Romancerdquo)

1021 Historical BackgroundThe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw the first prolongedand continuous contact between people living in the Pacific and outsiders Inthe Pacific Islands European explorers and missionaries were followed bywhalers sandalwooders pearlers becircche-de-mer3 fishermen and tradersall of whom had regular if sporadic contact with at least some people in

Pidgins Creoles and Koines 221

some Pacific islands In Australia and New Zealand of course contact wasmore intense in many areas as a result of European settlement This contactintensified during the nineteenth century as labor recruiters began recruit-ing Pacific Islanders to work on plantations in various parts of the regionespecially Samoa Fiji and Queensland In Queensland there was also somecontact between Pacific Islanders and aboriginal Australians who them-selves were often moved from their tribal homelands into situations wherethey lived and worked with speakers of other languages

In all of these situations numerous fairly unstable pidgins developedIn Melanesia and parts of Australia these unstable pidgins developed intorelatively stable languages as people who had learned different varietiesin different parts of the Pacific came into contact The contact betweenEuropeans mainly English speakers Pacific Islanders (almost exclusivelyspeakers of Oceanic languages) and aboriginal Australians was responsiblefor the very significant English input into the vocabulary of these creolesBut it was not just this contact that was significant in the development ofMelanesian Pidgin The contact between Pacific Islanders from different lin-guistic backgrounds was important from the beginning became even moreso later on and was probably responsible for the Austronesian contributionto the grammar of Melanesian Pidgin

By the latter part of the nineteenth century English-based pidgins werespoken in various forms and with various levels of sophistication in almostthe whole of the Pacific Basin from New Guinea to Pitcairn Island and fromthe Marshalls and Hawailsquoi to New Caledonia and New Zealand In most ofthese places however the pidgins died out4 In some places like New Cale-donia and the British colony of Papua (the southern half of what is now PapuaNew Guinea) this was as a result of government policy The governmentswere strongly opposed to a ldquobastardrdquo form of English being used thoughpossibly for different reasons (the British in Papua because they saw it as aldquobastardrdquo language the French probably because they saw it as a form ofEnglish) In other places like most of the countries of Polynesia the pidginsimply became unnecessary as people from other parts of the Pacific stoppedbeing recruited to work on plantations in these countries and as educationallevels improved In Samoa for example the cessation of labor recruiting andthe establishment of schools meant that pidgin English was no longer neededSamoan was the language of communication between Samoans while firstGerman and then English were used for communicating with foreigners

The situation in Melanesia and Australia was very different First thecountries are geographically larger and linguistically more diverse thanthose of Polynesia and Micronesia and it was more difficult for governmentsto exercise strong control over language use Second although recruitment

222 CHAPTER 10

of Melanesian laborers to overseas plantations stopped soon after 1900 thissimply meant that laborers began moving around their own country work-ing on newly established plantations frequently outside their own languagecommunities Any plantation might have a labor force drawn from a largenumber of different language groups Third as a result of this internal mo-bility men often married women who spoke a different language and thepidgin would have been the only language used in the home Finally theestablishment of urban centers attracted people speaking a multiplicity oflanguages from far and wide

Social conditions in Melanesia and in parts of Australia therefore wereripe not just for the preservation and retention of the pidgin but also forits development into a creole Children grew up speaking it as their firstlanguage adults who had not returned to their traditional homes for manyyears found that they were using the pidgincreole more and more and theirown language less and less As the twentieth century progressed Melane-sian Pidgin became the language of the people in what were to become theindependent states of Papua New Guinea Solomon Islands and VanuatuAustralian creoles and varieties of English spoken by Aboriginal people ac-quired similar importance

1022 Different HistoriesThe Melanesian Pidgin spoken by Papua New Guineans Solomon Islandersand ni-Vanuatu is recognizably the same languagemdashwith recognizable dif-ferences between how it is spoken in each of these three countries Thefollowing examples show both the similarities and the differences betweenthese three varieties

Tok PisinDispela pikinini i sindaun i stap na kaikai kiau wantaim kek

PijinDesfala pikinini i sidaon an kaekae eg weitim kek

BislamaPikinini ya i stap staon mo kakae eg wetem gatolsquoThis child is sitting down and eating eggs and cakersquo

Where do these kinds of differences come from To answer this question weneed to look more closely at the historical development of this language

Men from Vanuatu were first recruited to work on plantations inQueensland and Fiji in the 1860s and a little later men from the Solomon Is-


lands were recruited for the same work so there was considerable contactbetween ni-Vanuatu and Solomon Islanders at this time Only a few peoplefrom this part of the Pacific however were recruited to work in Samoa andthen only for a short time

Men from the German colony of New Guinea however did not go toQueensland or to Fiji which were British colonies Rather starting in the1880s they went to work on the plantations in Samoa then a Germancolony For a few years they were in contact with ni-Vanuatu and SolomonIslanders from whom they would have learned the basics of Melanesian Pid-gin but for the next few decades the New Guinea version of MelanesianPidgin known today as Tok Pisin developed in isolation both from othervarieties of the language and from English The German and Samoan lan-guages contributed some words to early Tok Pisin although many of thesehave disappeared The major contributing languages (other than English)have been Tolai (cf kiau lsquoeggrsquo in the example above) and other Austronesianlanguages of New Britain and New Ireland since Rabaul (where Tolai is spo-ken) was the headquarters of German New Guinea and the place wheremost of the laborers were recruited from or returned to

Pijin and Bislama did not undergo any of these influences However be-cause the French jointly ruled the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) with theBritish for most of the twentieth century Bislama has incorporated a num-ber of words of French origin (like gato lsquocakersquo in the example above) It hasalso taken in quite a few words from local languages Neither French (forobvious reasons) nor local languages (for less obvious reasons) have madeany significant contribution to Pijin in Solomon Islands however The differ-ent colonial histories of each country along with different labor-recruitmentpatterns meant that there were significant differences in the contact situa-tions while each version of the language was developing

1023 The Structure of Melanesian PidginIn recent years the influence of English on Melanesian Pidgin has becomeeven more dominant than in the past not only in terms of vocabulary but tosome extent also in pronunciation and grammar as well At the same timethere is considerably more contact today between Melanesians from differ-ent countries and interdialectal influence is also beginning to be seen Oneof the features of a language undergoing creolization is that different peo-ple speak it with different degrees of fluency For some people it is theirfirst language For others it is very much a second language and the waythey speak it is often influenced by their first language Those who havebeen educated in English often incorporate words and other linguistic fea-

224 CHAPTER 10

tures from English into their Pidgin while less educated speakers do thismuch less frequently And although all languages are changing languageslike Melanesian Pidgin are changing much faster than others

Hence it is often difficult to say exactly what is or is not ldquoinrdquo a languagelike Melanesian Pidgin I try to describe the variety spoken by fluent but nothighly educated speakers but comment from time to time on common vari-ations from these patterns

Sound System

Melanesian Pidgin has the same five-vowel system as is found in the major-ity of the languages of the Pacific

i ue o

a

Educated speakers however sometimes incorporate English vowels intotheir speech An educated Papua New Guinean might say baeligŋ or baeligŋkfor lsquobankrsquo whereas someone less educated will say beŋ

The basic consonant system is also similar to that found in many of theOceanic languages of Melanesia

P t kb d gf s hv ʤm n ŋ

lr

w y

Notable omissions as a result of the pidginization process are the commonMelanesian fricatives x and γ which donrsquot occur in English and the Eng-lish fricatives θ eth z ʃ ʒ which are rare in Melanesian languages Both openand closed syllables may occur and consonant clusters are common

Variation in the pronunciation of consonants is of two kinds Pidginspeakers who also speak English often introduce phonemic distinctions fromthat language that are not made by less educated speakers So an educatedspeaker might say ʃu lsquoshoersquo and tʃetʃ or tʃətʃ lsquochurchrsquo whereas an unedu-cated speaker would be more likely to say su and sios


The other kind of variation is probably related to first-language interfer-ence Many speakers ldquoconfuserdquo similar sounds probably because thesesounds are not phonemically distinct in their own languages Among thepairs of sounds commonly confused by some speakers of Melanesian Pidginare p and b t and d k and g p and f t and s h and absenceof a consonant b and v s and ʤ f and v l and r v and wand n and ŋ For example some speakers of Tok Pisin say pis lsquofishrsquo andothers fis tasol lsquoonlyrsquo is often heard as tatol and while some speakerssayhaumas lsquohow muchrsquo others would say aumas or aumat

The orthography is fairly straightforward with ng being used to repre-sent ŋ (and j for ʤ in Pijin and Bislama) For most speakers voiced stopsdo not occur word-finally but etymological spellings are used in Pijin andBislama pik lsquopigrsquo and gut lsquogoodrsquo are written pig and gud in Pijin and Bis-lama but pik and gut in Tok Pisin The diphthongs ai oi and au arewritten ai oi and au in Tok Pisin but ae oe and ao in Pijin and Bislama sothe words for lsquorightrsquo lsquoboyrsquo and lsquohousersquo are rait boi haus in Tok Pisin butraet boe haos in Bislama

Sentence Structure

Melanesian Pidgin is a subject-predicate language and has both verbal andverbless sentences In verbal sentences the phrase order is SV in intransi-tive sentences and SVO in transitive sentences

Tok PisinSubject Verb ObjectWanpela man i kam 0one man PREDICATE come 0lsquoA man cameis comingrsquo

Maria i kilim pik bilong miMaria PREDICATE kill TRANS pig POSS melsquoMaria killedis killing my pigrsquo

Although there is no passive attention can be focused on the object of atransitive clause by moving it to the front of the sentence where it can be fol-lowed by the particle ia and a pause This often translates a passive Englishsentence Here is the object-focused version of the second sentence above

Tok PisinObject Subject VerbPik bilong mi ia Maria i kilimpig POSS me FOCUS Maria PREDICATE

killTRANS

226 CHAPTER 10

lsquoAs for my pig Maria killedis killing itrsquolsquoMy pig was killedis being killed by Mariarsquo

Verbless sentences follow a pattern similar to verbal sentences withsubject preceding predicate

PijinSubject PredicateHem i man blong mihe PREDICATE man POSS melsquoHe is my husbandrsquo

Pronouns

Pronouns in Melanesian Pidgin follow the Austronesian pattern They distin-guish at least three numbers and also show the inclusiveexclusive distinc-tion in the first person non-singular While the dual is common the trial isconsiderably rarer Here are the pronouns of Bislama

BislamaSingular

I miyou yuhesheit hem

Dualwe two INC yumituwe two EXC mitufalayou two yutufalathey two tufala

Trialwe three INC yumitrifalawe three EXC mitrifalayou three yutrifalathey three trifala

Pluralwe INC yumiwe EXC mifalayou yufalathey olgeta

There is virtually no morphophonemic variation in the pronouns5 Thesame form is used as an independent pronoun as subject or object or aftera preposition


BislamaMi hang-em ol klos blong mi long laenI hang-TRANS PL clothes POSS me on lineldquoI hung my clothes on the linerdquo

Hem i givim gato ya long yufala fromhe PREDICATE giveTRANS cake this to youPL becausehem i laekem yufala tumashe PREDICATE likeTRANS youPL verylsquoHeshe gave the cake to you (pl) because heshe likes you a lotrsquo

Nouns Noun Phrases and Prepositions

Nouns are almost universally invariable in form There are no articles andonly a small number of demonstratives Tok Pisin has dispela and Pijin des-fala lsquothisrsquo (sometimes lsquothatrsquo) both of which precede the noun Bislama yalsquothis thatrsquo follows the noun The following sentences all mean much thesame thing

Tok PisinDispela man i laik-im dispela merithis man PREDICATE like-TRANS this woman

PijinDesfala man i laek-em desfala womanthis man PREDICATE like-TRANS this woman

BislamaMan ya i laekem woman yaMan this PREDICATE likeTRANS woman thislsquoThis man likes thisthat womanrsquo

Adjectives numerals and other quantifiers normally precede the nounin a noun phrase6 although there are some modifiers that follow the headIn Tok Pisin all monosyllabic adjectives and numerals as well as some thathave two or more syllables must occur with the suffix -pela in this contextIn Pijin and Bislama the corresponding suffix -fala is less frequently usedoften occurring only when the adjective is emphasized Here are some ex-amples of noun phrases The head noun is underlined

Tok Pisintupela liklik meritwo small girllsquotwo little girlsrsquo

228 CHAPTER 10

ol gutpela pikininiPL good childlsquothe good childrenrsquo

dispela tripela bikpela popo tasolthis three big pawpaw onlylsquojust these three big pawpawsrsquo

Pijintufala boe nomoatwo boy onlylsquoonly two boysrsquo

wanfala pua womanone poor womanlsquoa poor womanrsquo

Bislamatu big haos yatwo big house thislsquothese two big housesrsquo

tu big-fala haos yatwo big-EMPHATIC house thislsquothese two particularly big housesrsquo

wan smol blu trak nomoone small blue car onlylsquojust a small blue carrsquo

There is only a small number of prepositions (but not so small a numberas some writers would have us believe) The following are the commonestprepositions in Bislama

Bislamalong location direction source instrument timeblong possession purpose beneficiaryolsem lsquolike aswetem accompaniment instrumentfrom cause

Examples

BislamaMi kam long Vila from wan kosI come to Vila becauseof one courselsquoI came to Vila for a coursersquo


Papa blong yu i stap wok wetem huiafather POSS you PREDICATE CONTINUOUS work with wholsquoWho is your father working withrsquo

Fis olsem hemia yu mas kat-em hem longfish like thisone you must cut-TRANS it withsap-fala naefsharp-EMPHATIC knifelsquoFor a fish like this one you have to cut it with a sharp knifersquo

The other two dialects are slightly different From does not occur inTok Pisin which uses the compound form bilong wanem lsquofor whatrsquo to markcause instead Pijin has the same prepositions as Bislama plus fo which isused to indicate purpose or tendency

PijinMifala laek fo goweEXC want for golsquoWe want to gorsquo

Hem i man fo dringhe PREDICATE man for drinklsquoHe is a drunkardrsquo

There are no special possessive pronouns in Melanesian Pidgin Thepossessive preposition (Tok Pisin bilong Pijin and Bislama blong) may be fol-lowed by either a noun or a pronoun possessor

Pijinnem blong yu belo blong siosname POSS you bell POSS churchlsquoyour namersquo lsquothe church bellrsquo

Verbs and the Verb Complex

Verbs are morphologically quite simple in Melanesian Pidgin The only com-mon affix is the transitive suffix

Tok PisinEm i rit i staphe PREDICATE read PREDICATE belsquoHeshe is readingrsquo

Em i rit-im dispela buk i staphe PREDICATE read-TRANS this book PREDICATE belsquoHeshe is reading this bookrsquo

230 CHAPTER 10

With certain verbs while the transitive form takes the suffix the intran-sitive form is often reduplicated

Tok PisinMama i was-im ol pikininimother PREDICATE wash-TRANS PL childlsquoMom washed the childrenrsquo

Ol pikinini i was-wasPL child PREDICATE INTRANSITIVE-washlsquoThe children washedswamrsquo

The verb complex does however contain a number of particles markingtense-aspect and other functions Verbs (and nonverbal predicates) take apreverbal particle i which marks what follows as a predicate This use of ican be seen in almost every example above7 In recent years however theuse of this predicate marker has become more and more optional especiallyin Tok Pisin and Pijin Thus the two Tok Pisin sentences above are just as of-ten heard as Mama wasim ol pikinini and Ol pikinini waswas

The verb is very often unmarked for tense and lack of marking canindicate either present or past Other tenses and aspects are marked byparticles some preverbal others postverbal

Tok PisinPREVERBAL POSTVERBALbai future pinis completedbin incomplete past i stap continuousken optative potentialinap abilitylaik intentionsave habitual

Three of these particles are or derive from verbs laik from laikim lsquolikewantrsquo save which as a verb means lsquoknow know how torsquo and i stap which asa verb means lsquoto be (in a place)rsquo Some examples of these tense-aspect par-ticles (plus the negative preverbal particle no) follow

Tok PisinEm i no save kaikai mithe PREDICATE not HABITUAL eat meatlsquoHeshe doesnrsquot eat meatrsquo

Yu bai wok-im pinisyou FUTURE do-TRANS COMPLETIVElsquoYou will have done itrsquo


Pita i inap karim ol kago bilong yuPeter PREDICATE able carryTRANS PL cargo POSS youlsquoPeter can carry your thingsrsquo

Mamok i no bin kamMamok PREDICATE not PAST comelsquoMamok didnrsquot comersquo

Reduplication of the verb for other purposes than to indicate intransitiv-ity is relatively common especially in Bislama There reduplication can havethe following functions reciprocal action random action repeated actionplurality intensity and the distributive

BislamaLeg blong hem i solapleg POSS he PREDICATE swelllsquoHisher leg is swollenrsquo

Leg blong hem i sol-solapleg POSS he PREDICATE INTENSITY-swelllsquoHisher leg is really swollenrsquo

Ol lif oli foldaonPL leaf PLPREDICATE falllsquoThe leaves fell downrsquo

Ol lif oli fol-foldaon long harikenPL leaf PL PREDICATE RANDOM-fall in cyclonelsquoThe leaves fell all over the place in the cyclonersquo

103 The Pidgins of the Motu TradersThe Motu people who live around Port Moresby speak an Oceanic lan-guage The western Motu particularly ldquoat the time of European contact(and for an unknown number of years before) hellip were involved in a complexnetwork of trading relationships with linguistically related and unrelatedgroups east west and inland of their present position The most spectac-ular and important part of this trade hellip was the hiri or annual tradingvoyage to the Gulf of Papua some 300 kilometres away to the westrdquo (Dut-ton 1985 20)

In the course of the hiri expedition two separate (and apparently un-named) pidgins developed One was based mainly on the Koriki language ofthe western Gulf of Papua the other on the Eleman languages of the east-ern part of the Gulf Dutton (1985) calls these the Hiri Trading Language

232 CHAPTER 10

(Koriki variety) and the Hiri Trading Language (Eleman variety) respec-tively

That however is by no means the end of the story The Motu also used apidginized version of their own language (Dutton calls this Simplified Motu)with other foreignersmdashoriginally probably in trade with their Oceanic-speaking neighbors and later with newcomers to the area After Europeancontact in the late nineteenth century they also used a variety of MelanesianPidgin with early colonial officials and other outsiders

The two Hiri Trading Languages were restricted to use on the hiri andwhen that trading expedition finally ceased toward the middle of the twen-tieth century the languages also died a natural death The English-basedpidgin died a less natural death it was proscribed by the British govern-ment which adopted instead the pidginized version of Motu as the languageof contact

The first British police force in Papua consisted of Fijians Solomon Is-landers and Kiwais from the Daru area of western Papua By the time thepolice force was being established there were a number of other foreignersof various origins settling in the Port Moresby area Simplified Motu soonbecame the lingua franca of this motley collection of people It was spreadoutside Port Moresby mainly by the police on their patrols along the coastand into the interior but also by released prisoners who were given posi-tions of authority as village constables The language acquired the namePolice Motu but in the 1970s as the connotations of the word ldquopolicerdquo weredeemed pejorative the name Hiri Motu was chosenmdashin the mistaken beliefthat Police Motu was a continuation of the language(s) spoken on the hiri

The differences between the Hiri Trading Languages and Hiri (or Po-lice) Motu can be seen in the following sentences (from Dutton 198533ndash34)

Hiri Trading Language (Koriki Variety)Enane pu miai anea Na okuaigo sago get come me givelsquoGo and bring some sagorsquo lsquoGive it to mersquo

Hiri Trading Language (Eleman Variety)Abuari pai avaia abusi Ara porohalaiago sago get come me givelsquoGo and bring some sagorsquo lsquoGive it to mersquo

Hiri (Police) MotuOi lao rabia oi mailaia Lau oi heniayou go sago you bring me you givelsquoGo and bring some sagorsquo lsquoGive it to mersquo


Two features give an idea of the simplified nature of Hiri Motu incomparison with Motu itself First Motu has the normal Oceanic contrastbetween direct and indirect possessive constructions and in indirect pos-session contrasts food (marked with a-) and other possessions (markedwith e-)

Motu(lau) tama-gu(I) father-mylsquomy fatherrsquo

(lau) a-gu aniani(I) POSSFOOD-my foodlsquomy foodrsquo

(lau) e-gu ruma(I) POSSGENERAL-my houselsquomy housersquo

Hiri Motu simply uses the general possessive form for all nouns lauegutamana8 lsquomy fatherrsquo lauegu aniani lsquomy foodrsquo lauegu ruma lsquomy housersquo

Second Motu has independent pronouns as well as subject prefixes andobject suffixes to verbs Hiri Motu uses free pronouns in all of these environ-ments

Motu Hiri MotuIndependent Subject Object All environments

SingularI lau na- -gu lauyou oi o- -mu oihesheit ia e- -(i)a ia

Pluralwe INC ita ta- -da itawe EXC ai a- -mai aiyou umui o- -mui umuithey idia e- -dia idia

Hiri Motu was once widely spoken in Papua (although virtually not atall in New Guinea the northern half of Papua New Guinea) and it is oneof the three official languages of Papua New Guinea (alongside English andTok Pisin) In recent years however the number of its speakers and conse-quently its status have tended to decline partly as a result of inroads intoPapua by Tok Pisin and partly because people who have been educated tendto use English in preference to Hiri Motu

234 CHAPTER 10

104 Fiji HindiBeginning in the late nineteenth century more than sixty thousand in-

dentured laborers were recruited from India to work on plantations in FijiInitially these recruits came mainly from northern India where languagesof the Indo-European family are spoken Many laborers spoke various di-alects of Hindi but many also spoke what was probably a pidgin knownas Bazaar Hindustani By the early part of the twentieth century howeveralmost half the laborers were being recruited from South India These work-ers spoke the quite unrelated languages of the Dravidian family The plan-tation environment brought into contact Hindi speakers from different di-alects (numerically the largest group of Indians) speakers of Hindi andother Indian languages (related and unrelated) speakers of Indian lan-guages Fijian and English and finally Indians and some of the twenty-seven thousand Pacific Islanders who were also recruited to work on Fijianplantations

A number of languages developed or were used on the Fiji plantationsan early variety of Melanesian Pidgin a pidginized variety of Fijian and apidginized variety of Hindi among them The first of these has died out inFiji but the other two are still used to some extent between people of differ-ent ethnic groups who have no other common language

In addition however another language also developed among Indians inFiji Through koineization Fiji Hindi or Fiji Bāt (= lsquolanguagersquo) evolved espe-cially among ethnic Indians born in Fiji Fiji Hindi incorporates elements froma number of Hindi dialects Some examples of the mixture of dialects involvedin the development of Fiji Hindi can be seen in the pronoun system

Fiji Hindi Hindi dialect sourceI ham Bhojpuri hamyou (intimate) tum Awadhi Braj tumyou (formal) āp Awadhi āp(u)hesheit (near) ī Bhojpuri Awadhi īhesheit (remote) ū Awadhi Bhojpuri ū

The formation of plural pronouns by the addition of log lsquopeoplersquo to the singu-lar as in ham log lsquowersquo is characteristic of Magahi

There were other contributors to Fiji Hindi as well Bazaar Hindustanithe Pidgin Hindi spoken on the plantations English (as one might expect)and also Fijian Some examples from Fijian follow

Fiji Hindi Fijian sourcedakāu lsquoreefrsquo cakaukūmāla lsquosweet potatorsquo kumalanangonā lsquokavarsquo na yaqona


tabāle lsquowifersquos brotherrsquo tavale lsquobrother-in-lawrsquotāmabūā lsquowhalersquos toothrsquo tabua

The result of this koineization process is a new form of Hindi different fromany spoken in India

A final complicating factor in the Hindi situation in Fiji has been thefact that although Fiji Hindi is the first language of virtually all Fiji In-dians who speak it in informal contexts it is not the language of formalsituations Standard (Indian) Hindi is used in schools on radio in printand in other formal contexts A situation of diglossia has developed inwhich people use one variety (Standard Hindi) in public meetings for reli-gious occasions and in other formal situations and the other variety (FijiHindi) in informal situations

236 CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER

11

Language Society and Cul-ture in the Pacific Context

111 The Vocabulary of Pacific LanguagesWesterners often evaluate people and their societies on the basis of theirtechnology People without advanced technology are considered primitivenot just technologically but intellectually as well

Linguists studying Australian and Pacific languages are often asked howmany words there are in those languages Underlying such a question is theassumption that such ldquoprimitiverdquo people must speak simple languages ldquoByand large the white population of present-day Australia has little knowledgeof the structure or nature of Aboriginal Australian languages Moreoverthey have serious misconceptions about them If you strike up a conversa-tion with even well-educated white Australians you may hear that hellip lsquo[Abo-riginal languages] have only a few score wordsmdashnames for common ob-jectsrsquordquo (Dixon 1980 4)

Nothing could as we have seen be further from the truth The gram-mars of Pacific languages are by no means simple or primitive How doPacific languages stand in terms of lexicon

1111 How Many WordsWhen linguists are asked how many words there are in a particular languagethe idea seems to be that the more words a language has the more sophisti-cated it is By implication Pacific languages probably have many fewer wordsthan English does and so are less sophisticated or more primitive

Even trying to compare dictionaries of two languages for this purpose isfraught with difficulties

237

How do we measure the number of words in a language First what isa word For instance should the compound lsquofirehosersquo be treated as asingle word different from lsquofirersquo and lsquohosersquo Languages differ widely asto what is considered a word Second are we talking about all wordsever used by any speakers of that language Or about all words usedcurrently Or about all the words used by an individual speaker andpresumably stored somehow in that speakerrsquos mind Or about all thewords ever recorded of the language These questions show how hardit is to compare languages with respect to the number of words inthem (Simpson 1993 123)

The other aspect of this problem relates to what forms the basis of ourcomparison The simplest way to compare languages in this way is to countthe entries in a dictionary (ignoring for the moment all the other problemsSimpson has pointed out) But some languages (like English) have a muchlonger and more intensive history of dictionary compilation than do others(like those of the Pacific) So even if this were a valid way of making com-parisons it would not be a particularly productive one

Let us pursue this a little further Crystal (1987 108) notes that the 1987edition of the Random House Dictionary of the English Language for ex-ample contains some 260000 headwords (ldquothe bold-face items that occurat the beginning of each entryrdquo) No dictionary of a Pacific language comesanywhere near that figure The monolingual Fijian dictionary currently inpreparation has considerably fewer than twenty thousand entries (Paul Ger-aghty personal communication) and this will probably be one of the largestPacific dictionaries when it is published Does this mean that Pacific lan-guage vocabularies are considerably more limited than those of Europeanlanguages

In a sheer numerical sense of course it does But we need to look a littlemore deeply into this question Let us do a quick experiment Below are thirtyconsecutive words beginning with the letter q as listed on pages 1415ndash1416of the 1981 edition of the Macquarie Dictionary How many of these do youthink are in common use How many could you give the meaning of1

quincuncial quinoline quinquepartitequincunx quinone quinqueremequindecagon quinonoid quinquevalentquindecennial quinoxaline quinsyquinella quinquagenerian quintquinic acid Quinquagesima quintainquinidine quinque- quintalquinine quinquefoliate quintan

238 CHAPTER 11

quinoid quinquennial quintequinol quinquennium quintessence

Dictionaries of languages like English include a vast number of highly tech-nical obsolete or obscure words (like many of those listed above) nearly allof which are not known to the ordinary speaker of the language

The average speaker of any language probably knows and uses some-where between five and ten thousand words in everyday life and mayvaguely recognize a few thousand more2 People in a particular professionor people who have a particular hobby or interest will have another set ofvocabulary related to that profession or interest but other speakers of thelanguage may probably not know those wordsmdashor at least not know how touse them accurately Most of the 260000 words in the Random House dictio-nary for example are probably unknown to almost all speakers of English

When we take all of this into account Pacific languages are not so differ-ent from English as might at first be assumed The average speaker of aPacific language also probably knows and uses between five and ten thou-sand words People who specialize in fishing weaving or other professionsand crafts will of course know additional technical terms not familiar toother people The difference with European languages lies in the fact thatmost Australian and Pacific societies are relatively small-scale ones Therange of specialization of professions crafts and hobbies is much smallerand hence the size of the technical or specialized vocabulary in those lan-guages tends to be much smaller as well

1112 Specialization Classification and AbstractionA second common misconception about Australian and Pacific languagesconcerns the degrees of abstraction they are capable of I quote Dixon(1980 5) again ldquoSome missionaries and amateur linguists who attempted tostudy an Australian language have contributed to the misconceptions [aboutthem] They have put it about that although there may be a superfluity ofterms for particular objects the languages are totally lacking in genericterms such as lsquofishrsquo or lsquofowlrsquo this is of course taken as a lack of mentalsophistication The fact is that Australian languages do have quite as manygeneric terms as European languagesrdquo

Specific Terms

Things of cultural importance are usually obvious from a languagersquos lexiconThe motor vehicle for example is of vital importance to western society andin English we have a large number of words referring to kinds of motor ve-hicles (car truck lorry van bus) to brands of vehicles (Toyota Cadillac

Language Society and Culture in the Pacific Context 239

Mercedes-Benz Rolls-Royce) to models (Toyota Corolla Toyota CressidaToyota Camry) as well as many hundreds of words referring to componentsof motor vehicles In many Pacific languages in contrast there is often justone word meaning lsquomotor vehicle (of any kind)rsquo

But in English we have just the one word yam to describe a particularroot-crop3 and we have had to borrow the word taro to describe anotherroot-crop Because these are not important food crops in English-speakingsociety one word for each is probably adequate In the Anejom language ofVanuatu where these are important sources of food there are accordingto my count so far names for forty different varieties of yam and words forover sixty named varieties of taro

A languagersquos vocabulary reflects what is important to its speakersWhere fine degrees of specialization are necessary or desirable they willshow up in the lexicon Stages of growth are one common area of specializa-tion in these languages The coconut of course is perhaps the prototypicalPacific plant and one should not be surprised to find lexical specialization inthis area In Kwamera for example the generic term for coconut is napueithe fruit itself goes through the following named stages of development

Kwameraiapwas small coconut coconut fruit budkwanapuirahaacutekw larger coconut fruit budkwatigɨs small coconut (about four inches in diameter)kapkapeki (intermediate stage between kwatig ɨs and tafa)tafa young coconut before meat has begun to formnafweruk nut with soft meat and effervescent waterkahimaregi nut with hard well-developed meatnapuei mhia ripe nut with developed flesh which falls from

the treekwarumahaacutekw fallen nut which has begun to sproutnuvera sprouted nut

In addition to these terms there are terms for different parts of the nut ofthe tree and of the fronds as well as for different varieties of coconuts anddifferent coconut products

The existence of areas of lexical specialization like this is not surprisingWe would expect coastal people to have numerous words for different kindsof fish and fishing equipment horticulturalists to have specialist terms forplants and their parts and growth stages warriors to have detailed vocabu-lary relating to weapons and so on But there are also a few less expectedareas of lexical specialization like the following set of names for differentkinds of noises in Yidiny

240 CHAPTER 11

Yidinydalmba sound of cuttingmida the noise of a person clicking his tongue against the

roof of his mouth or the noise of an eel hitting the wa-ter

maral the noise of hands being clapped togethernyurrugu the noise of talking heard a long way off when the

words cannot quite be made outyuyurunggul the noise of a snake sliding through the grassgangga the noise of some person approaching for example

the sound of his feet on leaves or through thegrassmdashor even the sound of a walking stick beingdragged across the ground

Generic Terms

Why have even the more charitably disposed observers held the view thatPacific languages have no generic terms There are a few possible explana-tions One is that ldquowhen objects are being named one is generally expectedto be as specific as possible If say a snake is seen it should be describedby its species name the generic term lsquosnakersquo would only be employed if justthe tail were noticed and the species could not be identified or in similarcircumstancesrdquo (Dixon 1980 5) A second factor is that certain abstractconcepts grounded in western philosophy and culture are foreign to Pacificcultures In a society without money for example terms like money povertyinterest devaluation and so on are rare or nonexistent

A third point is that while abstractions do occur in Pacific languages theirnature or the concepts they represent may be quite different from similar con-cepts in European languages because the way people look at and classify theworld is different Kinship terms are a good example of this (see 113)

Pacific languages also classify the natural world taxonomically (al-though as we should by now expect this classification might not necessarilyexactly match a classification of the same items in a European language) Ataxonomy is a way of classifying things or concepts in a hierarchical orga-nization At the ldquotoprdquo is a general term the further down the hierarchy onegoes the more specific the terms become and each lower term is includedin the meaning of a higher term If we take the generic term fish then tunamackerel snapper mullet and so on are all kinds of fish skipjack bluefinyellow-fin and so on are all kinds of tuna (which is a kind of fish) and so on

Figure 8 shows a very partial classification of terms for marine life in Ane-jom The generic term numu refers to all fish crustaceans sea-urchins seasnakes shellfish etc (though in common speech numu often means simply


nepcevshark

nepcev-apentildenepcev-awarajinepcev-legentildehapnepcev-umudejnowodouyac

inharstingray

farfaroainher-edejinher-mejcapinmatin-namtednerenaranerenhau

nedumtriggerfish

nedm-alisnedm-asin-nomntildeacnedum-hocounedum-huoc

numu-sgan(sea) fish

inmokomparrotfish

inmokm-arakeiinmokm-ilcaiinmokm-odidinmokom-ma

numu-ntildewaifreshwaterfish

(numerous) (numerous)

nijvantildecrayfishlobster

inhaklin-najisnahnajis-alpasnalawontildenap-mehenijvantilde-dec

numanhermit crab

numan-amidaenuman-hol

numu-taregitcrustaceans

ledceicoconutcrab

nesgaamushellfish


numumarinelife

(numerous)Figure 8 Partial Classification of Anejom Terms for Marine Life

242 CHAPTER 11

lsquofishrsquo) There are a number of first-order specific terms among them numu-sgan lsquofish in the sea including sharks whales stingrays etcrsquo numuntildewailsquofreshwater fishrsquo numu-taregit lsquocrustaceansrsquo nesgaamu lsquoshellfishrsquo nahaulsquoturtlesrsquo and so on Each of these has a number of subvarieties In addition tothe words given in the third column as subvarieties of sea fish (nepcev lsquosharkrsquoinhar lsquostingrayrsquo etc) there are hundreds more inhet lsquoneedlefishrsquo inhos lsquosil-versidersquo necna lsquosea mulletrsquo najaj lsquoflatfishrsquo nilcam lsquowrassersquo and so on Manyof these third-order terms are further divided into more specific terms still aspartially illustrated in figure 8 Similar taxonomies could be presented in allPacific languages for flora and fauna especially those of economic or ritual im-portance to the people who speak that language

These taxonomies reflect peoplersquos perceptions of nature and they donot always correspond with the perceptions held by speakers of other lan-guages In parts of the highlands of New Guinea for example the cassowaryis classified as an animal not as a bird because it does not fly In manycultures bats and flying foxes are classified as birds because they do flyIndeed ldquothe criteria for defining a generic term will [often] vary betweenneighbouring languages in Dyirbal yugu lsquotreersquo does not include within itsscope stinging trees hellip or trees like pandanus which are less than a certainheight whereas the [cognate] Yidiny noun jugi hellip does include pandanusand stinging trees and in fact appears to be roughly coextensive with theEnglish lexeme treerdquo (Dixon 1980 113)

Let us look briefly at the noun classes of an Australian languageMurrinh-Patha (M Walsh 1993) Murrinh-Patha has ten noun classes eachmarked with a particle preceding the noun These are

Murrinh-Pathakardu- Aboriginal people and spiritsku- Non-Aboriginal people animals birds fish insects

and their products (like nests meat eggs and honey)kura- fresh watermi- food and food plants including their products (like fe-

ces)thamul- spearsthu- things used for striking offensive weapons (other than

spears) along with thunder lightning and playingcards (which are thrown into the center of a group)

thungku- fire firewood matches etcda- times and placesmurrinh- speech and languagenanthi- everything else


There are a number of features of interest in this system Let us look atthe first two classes first ldquoAs in English the category of lsquohigher animatesrsquois culturally conceived In Murrinh-Patha the category of lsquohigher animatesrsquois often thought of as just involving Aboriginal people while non-Aboriginalpeople are classified along with other animates like snakes birds and fishrdquo(M Walsh 1993 114) The ku-class of other animates includes the word kuthis means lsquomeatrsquo (the product of animals) but it also has come to meanlsquomoneyrsquo (the product of non-Aboriginal people)

Each of the next five Murrinh-Patha classesmdashthose marked by kurami thamul thu and thungkumdashincludes things with a prominent place inMurrinh-Patha culture fresh water and its sources fire and fire-makingspears boomerangs and clubs and so on The da-class groups togetherplaces and times (seasons and the like) while the murrinh-class also sug-gests that speech and language are important to the culture The final classmarked by nanthi is a residual class and includes nouns that do not fit intoany of the other classes

112 Counting SystemsSome Oceanic languages have an elaborate system of numeral classifiers (seechapter 6) Other aspects of counting systems in Pacific languages providean example of the variety of semantic systems within this region As Laycock(1975a 219) says ldquoNumber systems can be studied as philosophical systemsin their own right or as guides to ethnic thinking on number conceptsrdquo

1121 Decimal SystemsI will begin with the system with which English speakers are most familiarthe true decimal system in which there are separate individual words forthe numbers one to ten each composed of only a single morpheme4 andwhich may also have separate individual words for hundred and thousand(and perhaps higher multiples of ten as well)

The majority of the Oceanic languages have this system although noAustralian language does (at least natively)5 and ldquodecimal systems do notappear to exist at all in the non-Austronesian languages of the New Guineaareardquo (Laycock 1975a 224) True decimal systems are found throughoutPolynesia and Micronesia in the majority of southeastern Solomons andnorthern Vanuatu languages and in a minority of mainland New GuineaOceanic languages Some examples of decimal systems are given below(the Kiribati numerals one through nine incorporating the general classi-fier ua)

244 CHAPTER 11

Tongan Fijian Kiribati Arosi Nakanai1 taha dua te-ua-na talsquoai isasa2 ua rua uo-ua rua ilua3 tolu tolu teni-ua oru itolu4 fā vā a-ua hai ivaa5 nima lima nima-ua rima ilima6 ono ono ono-ua ono iuolo7 fitu vitu iti-ua biu ivitu8 valu walu wani-ua waru iualu9 hiva ciwa ruai-ua siwa ualasiu

10 hongofulu tini tabuina tangahuru savulu-sa100 teau drau tebubua tangarau salatu-sasa

1000 afe udolu tengaa meru salatu-savulu

Micronesian languages are unusual in the world context in having dis-tinct numerals for ten-power bases in some cases as high as 109 (Harrisonand Jackson 1984) For example

Kiribati Ponapean Woleaian100 tebubua epwiki sebiugiuw

1000 tengaa kid songeras10000 terebu nen sen

100000 tekuri lopw selob1000000 teea rar sepiy

10000000 tetano dep sengit100000000 tetoki sapw sangerai

1000000000 lik

In many languages with decimal systems there are special ways ofcounting certain things especially food produce and other things of valueFor example

Fijianbola lsquoten fishrsquo lsquoa hundred canoesrsquobewa lsquoten bunches of bananasrsquovulo lsquoten tabua (whalersquos teeth)rsquouduudu lsquoten canoesrsquokoro lsquoa hundred coconutsrsquoselavo lsquoa thousand coconutsrsquo

Rotumanasoa lsquotwo coconutsrsquosavalsquoa lsquoten pigs cows fowls eggs cuttlefishrsquo


sͻiga lsquoten fishrsquopoa lsquotwenty ͻlili (kind of shellfish)rsquokatolsquoa lsquoa hundred fishrsquo

Motu and its close relatives show a system that might be referred to asan imperfect decimal system in which some numerals represent multiplica-tions Here are the numerals from one through ten in Motu

Motu1 ta 6 taura-toi2 rua 7 hitu3 toi 8 taura-hani4 hani 9 taura-hani-ta5 ima 10 gwauta

Although there are separate words for seven and ten six and eight appear tobe lsquo(one) two-threesrsquo and lsquo(one) two-foursrsquo and nine is lsquo(one) two-fours-onersquo

There are also imperfect decimal systems that involve subtraction Hereare the numerals one through ten in Titan (Oceanic) and Buin (Papuan) (TheBuin numerals are those used with the noun class referring to things)

Titan Buin1 si nonumoi2 luo kiitako3 talo paigami4 ea korigami5 lima upugami6 wono tugigami7 ada-talo paigami tuo8 ada-lua kiitako tuo9 ada-si kampuro

10 akou kiipuro

In Titan and Buin there are normal numerals from one through six and tenIn Titan seven is ada-3 8 is ada-2 and 9 is ada-1 Clearly subtraction is in-volved although ada is not the word for ten In Buin seven is lsquothree lessrsquo andeight is lsquotwo lessrsquo nine however means something like lsquocompletedrsquo

1122 Quinary SystemsThe other common numeral system in Pacific languages is a quinary sys-temmdashone based on five These systems have individual morphemes for thefirst five numerals (five may be the same word as hand) The numerals six tonine however are compounds whose underlying meaning is five-plus-one

246 CHAPTER 11

five-plus-two and so on The numerals ten and twenty may be compoundsas well or may be separate morphemes Such systems are found in muchof New Guinea (among both Oceanic and Papuan languages) as well as inparts of Solomon Islands Vanuatu and New Caledonia The examples beloware from Oceanic languages with the exception of Daga which is Papuan

Lenakel Tigak Jawe Daga1 karena sakai siic daiton2 kiu pauak seluk dere3 kɨsil potul seen yampo4 kuvɨr poiat phoec bayabayapa5 katilum palmit nim nani yamunaet6 katilum-karena palmit sakai ni-siic nani yamu daiton7 katilum-kiu palmit pauak ni-seluk nani yamu dere8 katilum-kɨsil palmit potul ni-seen nani yamu yampo9 katilum-kuvɨr palmit poiat ni-phoec nani yamu

10 katilum-katilum sangaulung paidu aonagaet

Lenakel and Tigak form numerals above five by compounding on the actualnumeral five while Jawe and Daga use a modified version of the form forfive Tigak Jawe and Daga have independent morphemes for ten but theLenakel form involves addition

Expansions of these systems are interesting Lenakel simply continuesbuilding on the base katilum until nineteen (which is katilum-katilum-katilum-kuvɨr= 5ndash5ndash5ndash4 = 19)6 Twenty is expressed as

Lenakelieramiacutem karena r-ɨkaperson one he-isnotlsquotwentyrsquo

which is similar to the system in Jawe where the word for twenty is siic kaclsquoone manrsquo Both of these derive from counting all fingers and toesmdashldquocom-pletingrdquo a single person

Daga is different Here the form given above for five is nani yamu-naetlsquohand other-nothingrsquo so seven is nani yamu dere lsquotwo on the other handrsquoTen is ao-na-gaet lsquoup-my-INTENSIFIERrsquomdashie lsquoonly my upper appendagesrsquo orin other words lsquomy two handsrsquo Counting from one to ten proceeds on thefingers counting from eleven to nineteen on the toes and twenty representsa complete person

Dagaaonagaet pusinawan daitonten myfoot onelsquoelevenrsquo


aonagaet pusin yamunaetten myfoot fivelsquofifteenrsquo

aonagaet pusin yamunaet pusin yamu daitonten myfoot five myfoot other onelsquosixteenrsquo

apane daitonman onelsquotwentyrsquo

Drehu shows an interesting variation on the standard quinary systemsThe Drehu numerals one through twenty are given below

Drehu1 caa 6 caa-ngoumlmen 11 caa-ko 16 caa-hwaihano2 lue 7 lue-ngoumlmen 12 lue-ko 17 lue-hwaihano3 koumlni 8 koumlni-ngoumlmen 13 koumlni-ko 18 koumlni-hwaihano4 eke 9 eke-ngoumlmen 14 eke-ko 19 eke-hwaihano5 trii-pi 10 lue-pi 15 koumlni-pi 20 caatr

In Drehu the numerals five ten and fifteen are trii-pi lue-pi and koumlni-piThere seems to be a unit of five based on a form pi and these numerals areThere seems to be a unit of five based on a form pi and these numerals areeffectively 1-pi 2-pi and 3-pi Between these units the numerals one to fourtake suffixes -ngoumlmen is used between six and nine -ko between eleven andfifteen and -hwaihano between sixteen and nineteen The Drehu word fortwenty caatr is actually caa atr lsquoone manrsquo

1123 Other SystemsHuli (Cheetham 1978) spoken in the Southern Highlands Province ofPapua New Guinea is quite unusual in having a base of 15 although ldquothelast three numerals of the series 13 14 and 15 are also the words for bodyparts even though these body parts are not referred to when counting andthe words now appear to be true numeralsrdquo (Smith 1988 13) The Kapauku(Ekagi) of Irian Jaya (Price and Pospisil 1966) have an even more com-plex systemmdasha decimal system as far as the base of 60 with higher unitsof 600 and 3600 similar to the system of the ancient Babylonians (Smith1988 12) But most other systems that are neither decimal nor quinaryhave bases smaller than five

Oceanic languages are almost exclusively decimal or quinary The ma-jor exceptions to this generalization are some of the Oceanic languages ofthe Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea which have presumably been

248 CHAPTER 11

influenced by their Papuan-speaking neighbors (Smith 1988) Adzera forexample has only two numerals Counting above two proceeds by additionto the base lsquotworsquo Mapos has numerals for only one two and three withfour being a compound (2 + 2) and five involving the word orund lsquohandrsquoExamples

Adzera Mapos1 bits ti2 iruc lu3 iruc da bits lal4 iruc da iruc lu-mba-lu5 iruc da iruc da bits orund vandu6 iruc da iruc da iruc etc orund vandu mb-ti etc

Australian languages tend to have quite simple numeral systems ldquoTheone obvious gap in Australian vocabularies is the lack of any system of num-bers It is usually said that there are only numbers lsquoonersquo lsquotworsquo lsquoseveralrsquoand lsquomanyrsquo some languages appear also to have lsquothreersquo although this is fre-quently a compound formhellip No special significance attaches to the absenceof numeral systems in Australian languages it is simply a reflection of theabsence of any need for them in traditional culturerdquo (Dixon 1980 107ndash108)Here are some examples from three widely separated Australian languages

Margany Wajarri Wargamay1 wakanyu kurriya yunggul2 ura kujarra yaga3 mdash marnkurr garbumany dhiwala yalypa dyaginy

As in so many other ways the Tiwi language is an exception to general-izations about Australian languages having a quinary system7

Tiwi1 yati 6 kiringarra (yati)2 yirrara 7 kiringarra yirrara3 yirrajirrima 8 kiringarra yirrajirrima4 yatapinti 9 kiringarra yatapinti5 punginingita 10 wamutirrara

Papuan languages exhibit a great variety of numeral systems There arequite a few languages with a binary system with numerals greater than twoformed by compounding Wantoat exemplifies the classical type while Nu-manggang uses the word for hand to express five Salt-Yui allows both waysof representing fivemdashana holulu meaning roughly lsquoone fistrsquo while sui sui taidire = lsquotwo two one togetherrsquo


Wantoat Numanggang Salt-Yui1 tapatu kutnung taniga2 tapaya lufom sutani3 tapaya tapatu lufom kutnung sui tai dire4 tapaya tapaya lufom lufom sui sui dire5 tapaya tapaya

tapatukafong ko ana holulu sui sui

tai dire6 tapaya tapaya

tapayakafong ko kutnung sui sui sui dire

Other Papuan languages have a ternary system with three basic numer-als In Som the system simply involves addition (so seven is 3ndash3ndash1 etc) whilein Guhu-Samane the word for boto lsquohandrsquo occurs in the numeral five

Som Guhu-Samane1 koweran tena2 yarə eseri3 kabmə tapari4 oyarə oyarə eseri sa eseri5 oyarə oyarə kowe boto tena6 okabmə okabmə boto tena ma tena

Kewa is one of the few Papuan languages with a base-four system

Kewa1 pameda2 laapo3 repo4 ki (= lsquohandrsquo)5 (kina) kode (= lsquo[handrsquos] thumbrsquo)6 kode laapo (= lsquothumb + tworsquo)7 kode repo (= lsquothumb + threersquo)8 ki laapo (= lsquotwo handsrsquo)9 ki laapona kode (pameda) (= lsquotwo hands one thumbrsquo)

10 ki laapona kode laapo etc (= lsquotwo hands two thumbsrsquo)

Laycock (1975a 224) reports that there are also a few languages with abase-six system

1124 Tally SystemsOne other type of counting system needs mentioning here This is a tallysystem Based on body parts it counts the fingers of one hand up the arm

250 CHAPTER 11

across the face or the chest and down to the fingers of the other hand theseare often used for counting valuablesmdashpigs shell-money or other thingsgivenmdashand also calendrical events such as the preparations needed for afestival Tally systems ldquoare used only for direct counting or lsquomappingrsquo of aset of objects against some other measuring code There are no lsquonumeralsrsquoin a tally system so that one may not receive a reply to the question lsquohowmanyrsquo or find the points of the tally-system qualifying nouns as do true nu-meralsrdquo (Laycock 1975a 219)

As well as having a base-four numeral system Kewa also has a tally sys-tem involving a counting cycle called a paapu Counting begins with thelittle finger on the left hand goes through the other fingers (1ndash5) from theheel of the thumb up to the upper arm (6ndash14) the shoulder and neck (15ndash18)the jaw (19) the left ear (20) cheek (21) eye (22) the inside of the left eye(23) until the mid point is reached rikaa lsquobetween the eyesrsquo = 24 Countingthen proceeds in the reverse order ending with the little finger on the righthand which is 47

113 KinshipKinship systems are intricately bound up with the system of social relationsof a particular society They show very clearly how language is tied in withsocial life and social behavior

1131 Njamal Kinship TermsIn Njamal society of northwestern Australia (Burling 1970 21ndash27) as in mostAustralian societies every person belongs to a moiety one of two units intowhich a society is divided on the basis of descent In Njamal moieties are pa-trilineal A person belongs to the same moiety as his or her father In additionthey are exogamousmdasha person must marry someone from the opposite moi-ety Figure 9 shows the implications in relation to a man (labeled ldquoEgordquo fromthe Latin word meaning lsquoIrsquo) his grandparents his parents and their siblingshis siblings and their spouses his wife and his children and their spouses Inthis figure and the next triangles represent males circles represent femalesand the equals sign indicates marriage Members of Egorsquos moiety are shadedblack while members of the other moiety are unshaded

Now let us see how a system of social organization like a moiety systemwhich is quite different from the system English speakers are used to re-lates to the kinship terminology of a society Figure 10 is the same set ofrelatives as in figure 9 but with a few additions It shows the terms a maleNjamal speaker uses to refer to each of those relatives


Figure 9 A Moiety System

There are a number of very significant differences between the Njamalsystem and that of English Some examples follow

1 In Egorsquos parentsrsquo generation four terms are usedmama all males in this generation of the same moietymdashEgorsquos fa-

ther fatherrsquos brother and motherrsquos sisterrsquos husbandkarna all males in this generation of the other moietymdashEgorsquos

motherrsquos brother and fatherrsquos sisterrsquos husbandmidari all females in this generation of the same moietymdashEgorsquos fa-

therrsquos sister and motherrsquos brotherrsquos wifengardi all females in this generation of the opposite moietymdashEgorsquos

mother and her sister and his fatherrsquos brotherrsquos wife2 The moiety system is reflected again in kinship terms for Egorsquos

grandparentsrsquo generation The paternal grandfather (maili) for ex-ample is called by a different term from the maternal grandfather(mabidi) since they belong to different moieties

3 For Egorsquos grandchildrenrsquos generation the terms maili and mabidiare used again Maili refers to any grandchild or any grandchildrsquos

252 CHAPTER 11

Figure 10 Njamal Kinship Terms

spouse irrespective of sex who is of the same moiety as EgoMabidi applies to any grandchild or grandchildrsquos spouse again ir-respective of sex who is of the other moiety

Moiety membership is one of the major criteria in classifying kin ldquoA Nja-mal can apply one of these kinship terms to any Njamal however distantlyhe may be related They recognize no boundary beyond which people are nolonger counted as kinsmenrdquo (Burling 1970 23) The term maili for examplenot only applies in the grandparental generation to onersquos fatherrsquos father butalso to onersquos fatherrsquos fatherrsquos brother motherrsquos motherrsquos brother motherrsquosfatherrsquos wifersquos brother fatherrsquos motherrsquos husband fatherrsquos motherrsquos sisterrsquoshusband fatherrsquos motherrsquos wifersquos brother that is to any male of this gener-ation belonging to the same moiety


One other feature of Njamal kinship terms is widespread in the Pacificthe reciprocal use of terms between kin two generations apart In Njamalfor example a man and his fatherrsquos father call each other maili There isoften both a close bond and a fairly relaxed relationship between grandpar-ents and grandchildren in Pacific societies whereas the relationship be-tween onersquos own generation and onersquos parentsrsquo (or childrenrsquos) is often char-acterized by greater social tension Hence the use of nonreciprocal termswhich imply more of a relationship of domination and subordination Njamalalso presents additional complications

1 Figure 10 shows the terms for lsquobrotherrsquo and lsquosisterrsquo as kurda andturda respectively These terms are used to refer only to brothers orsisters who are older than the speaker Younger brothers and sistersare both referred to by the term maraga Relative age is a factor in de-termining which term should be used within Egorsquos generation

2 Differences in the referent of some terms may depend on the sex ofthe speaker8

Male speaker Female speakernjuba wife brotherrsquos wife husband sisterrsquos husbandngarbari wifersquos brother sisterrsquos

husband[not used]

julburu [not used] husbandrsquos sister brotherrsquos wifengaraija sisterrsquos daughter brotherrsquos daughtertjilja brotherrsquos daughter sisterrsquos daughter

The social facts of moiety membership relative age and the sex of thespeaker are all important in Njamal society as the system of kinship termi-nology indicates

1132 Kinship and Marriage in AnejomThe regulation of marriage often has a great effect on the system of kinshipterminology This short case study deals with Aneityum society and the Ane-jom language (Tepahae and Lynch 1998)

Figure 11 shows some kinship terms in Anejom9 A man calls his wifeegak and this term also applies to his motherrsquos brotherrsquos daughter and hismotherrsquos sisterrsquos daughter The reason for this is that in traditional Ane-jom society a man was supposed to marry one of these cross-cousins Theterm egak is probably better translated as lsquomarriageable female relativeof the same generationrsquo The father of egak is called matak meaning notonly lsquomaternal unclersquo but also lsquofather-in-lawrsquo since one of onersquos maternal un-

254 CHAPTER 11

cles would also be onersquos father-in-law The kinship terminology of Anejom isvery intricately involved with the regulation of marriage in traditional Ane-ityumese society

There is a further interesting twist to this system No system works theway it should a hundred percent of the time A young man becomes smittenwith a young woman who is not one of his prescribed marriage partners andthe elders reluctantly agree for them to marry Suppose for example thatone of the boys in my grandchildrenrsquos generation marries my daughter Be-cause he is of that generation I should call him mapok lsquomy grandchildrsquo Butbecause he is now my son-in-law I should also call him nohowanig untildeak lsquomyson-in-lawrsquo Neither of these sits well with me the grandfather and father-in-law How can the dilemma be resolved

Figure 11 Anejom Kinship Terms


The Aneityumese have resolved it by developing a new term numulaiThis term comes from numu lsquoa living personrsquo + lai lsquoto grow or develop in anunexpected wayrsquo10 By referring to my grandson and son-in-law as numulaiI am very specifically recognizing the fact that our relationship has changeddue to an ldquoirregularrdquo marriage

Kinship systems have fascinated anthropologists and linguists for overa century There is a finite number of possible kinship systems Each systemhowever has developed the way it has in order to express a complex networkof social relations and a complex system of social organization Although Ihave looked at just two systems here these demonstrate how wholly lan-guage is bound up with other aspects of the life of a society

114 Languages in UseSince most Pacific languages are spoken by a few thousand people at mostone might expect them to be used in a fairly simple and uncomplicated man-nermdashno frills no special styles just straightforward down-to-earth face-to-face communication This view however is a gross oversimplification

1141 Language and GenderIn the discussion of Njamal kinship terms in 1131 above we saw that someterms are used differently depending on whether a man or a woman is speak-ing The same is true of Anejom (see 1132) For example the term etwakmeans lsquomy same-sex siblingrsquomdashmy brother if I am a man but my sister if Iam a woman There are two other Anejom terms for siblings and each is re-stricted to one sex Natahentilde erak lsquomy sisterrsquo can be used only by men whilenatamantilde erak lsquomy brotherrsquo can be used only by women Most Pacific lan-guages probably express some distinctions in kin terms based on the sex ofthe speaker

Men and women in all societies use language differently Some differ-ences are based on sex differences like those of the glottis and vocal foldswhich result in menrsquos generally having a lower-pitched voice than womenI am not interested in these differences here Of much greater interest aredifferences based on gender or the social roles of men and women

The traditional division of labor between men and women leads in most so-cieties to a difference in the vocabulary with which a speaker is familiar In amaritime Pacific society for example men probably know and use more wordsrelated to house building deep-sea fishing hunting warfare and kava prepa-ration women tend to have a wider (active or passive) vocabulary than men inareas like basket-making and mat-weaving shellfish and food preparation

256 CHAPTER 11

Often however differences go deeper than this On the island of Ngatik(near Pohnpei in Micronesia) there is reported to be a special ldquomenrsquos lan-guagerdquo that incorporates quite a number of words from an early variety ofPacific Pidgin English (Clark 1979ndash1980 35)11 Among the Big Nambas in Van-uatu on the other hand there is a special ldquowomenrsquos languagerdquo Women couldnot traditionally say the name of the chief or any senior male relative and hadto substitute other words for these names or for any word that sounded likethem If a chief or other senior male had a name that sounded like tau or naueithen the verb tau lsquoputrsquo would be replaced by uln lsquolet go ofrsquo and the word naueilsquowaterrsquo by the special replacement term tarah (H Fox 1997)

Many Australian societies have special secret languages taught by oldermen to boys during their initiation and used only by men in certain ceremoniesBecause of their ritual importance such secret registers are not supposed to beused in front of women or uninitiated boys ldquoOf these registers it can in generalbe said that they are brilliant creations in which a very small stock of specialwords is made to do all the work of framing any proposition that a speaker wantsto expressrdquo (Alpher 1993 102) These secret male registers use either totallydifferent words or else operate on a kind of ldquopig Latinrdquo basis turning a normalword into something quite different In some cases the secret register involvessounds that do not occur in the standard language (Dixon 1980 66ndash67)

1142 The Language of RespectIn all Pacific languages there is a right way to speak depending on the partic-ular context in which one is speaking There are obscene words which can usu-ally only be used in the most informalmdashor insultingmdashcontexts There are eu-phemisms which are used in more public circumstances or in mixed companyAnd there are oratorical styles in which the underlying meanings of what is saidare often obscured (at least to the uninitiated) by a series of metaphors

In the chiefly societies of western Polynesia there are rather more dra-matically distinct speech styles depending on whom one is talking to orabout Tongan for example has three stylesmdashone for commoners anotherfor nobles and the third for the kingmdashdistinguished by different vocabularyitems for the same thing (Philips 1991) For example

TonganCommoners Nobles Kingkai lsquoilo taumafa lsquoeatrsquomate pekia hala lsquodiersquofa lsquoitoka mala lsquoe molsquounga lsquocemeteryrsquokaukau tākele fakamālū lsquobathersquolsquoalu melsquoa hālsquoele lsquogorsquo


These words are supposed to be used to and about a member of the socialcategory concerned ldquoThus [Tongan] people will say that when using Tonganwords for lsquogorsquo lsquoalu is used to and about Commoners melsquoa is used to andabout Nobles and hālsquoele is used to and about the Kingrdquo (Philips 1991 374)

This is what Tongans say should happen In practice however thingsare a little different Philips notes for example that kingly terms are alsoused when addressing God in prayers Noble terms are used not only to andabout nobles but also to and about people in nontraditional positions of au-thority She documents one case for example where a magistrate and thepublic prosecutor use noble terms to each other but commoner terms to wit-nesses Noble terms are however used ldquoto raise the level of formality andpoliteness in public discourse generallyrdquo (378) and also in poetry ldquoto en-hance the beauty and persuasiveness of what is saidrdquo (379) The system isnot rigid It can be manipulated

Samoan is similar to Tongan in that there are different registers thoughonly two used depending on whether one is talking to or about a matai (achief an orator or some other titled person) or a commoner It is also sim-ilar in the way in which one can manipulate these registers ldquoWhen we testthe accuracy of statusrank features to account for the actual use of RWs [re-spectful words] in everyday interaction we realize that such features of thecontext are good predictors of performance only in some contextsrdquo (Du-ranti 1992 83 emphasis in the original) Formality and politeness can besignaled by the use of the respect register even when those involved do notmerit this by virtue of their status On the other hand intimacy or commonpurpose can be conveyed by using the ordinary register even if one or moreof the participants is matai

In addition to this lexical marking all Samoan words that contain t or nhave two quite different pronunciations depending on whether one is talk-ing in a formal or an informal context Formal Samoan t and n become k andg (=ŋ) in informal or colloquial speech The word meaning lsquoburyrsquo is tanu inmore formal contexts but kagu in informal contexts

The fairly widespread Australian and Pacific practice of word taboo orreplacement by some other term of a word that is or sounds like the nameof a recently dead person or of a chief is one example of an avoidancestyle There are other kinds of avoidance styles in the Pacific as well Twosuch styles relate to the way one behaves linguistically (1) in the presence ofcertain relatives usually in-laws and (2) during certain kinds of food gath-ering and preparation For example ldquoIn every Australian community thereare certain kin relations that demand special behaviour typically two peo-ple in mother-in-lawson-in-law relationship should avoid close contact andsometimes may not address one another directly Most (perhaps all) Aus-

258 CHAPTER 11

tralian tribes have or had a special lsquoavoidancersquo speech style which must beused in the presence of a taboo relativerdquo (Dixon 1980 58ndash59) In Dyirbalperhaps the most extreme case of this kind in Australia there are two wordsfor almost every concept one in the Guwal (everyday) style and another inthe Jalnguy (avoidance) style (Dixon 1980 61) Thus for example buynyjulmeans lsquored-bellied lizardrsquo but in the presence of a taboo relative one has touse the term jijan instead for midin lsquoring-tail possumrsquo one must substitutejiburray and so on

The Maisin of Papua New Guinea have a similar avoidance style Thereit is not just the presence of the in-law that is important In Maisin one is notallowed to use the name of an in-law in any circumstances nor can one useany word that sounds like that in-lawrsquos name One must substitute anotherword instead This necessitates the generation of many pairs of words refer-ring to the same thing Speakers choose the one that is not like the name ofan in-law For example

Maisinisu gungguti lsquonosersquoikosi dobong lsquococonutrsquomimisi jenje lsquosandflyrsquowo iriri lsquofirersquogaiti sisari lsquodirtyrsquoborung ombi lsquorainrsquokimi damana lsquostarrsquo

If one has an in-law whose name is or is like kimi one cannot use this wordbut must use damana to mean lsquostarrsquo instead

The Kalam of Papua New Guinea have a similar in-law avoidance styleIn addition however they have what has come to be called ldquoPandanus Lan-guagerdquo in the literature

Pandanus Language is used in two ritually restricted contexts bothconnected with the forest and with the preparation and consumptionthere of a special category of food When people go to the forest tocollect and cook alxaw [pandanus] nuts it is essential that they avoidOrdinary Languagemdashotherwise the Kalam say the nuts will turn out tobe rotten watery or empty or the skins too hard to eat Pandanus Lan-guage must be used throughout such expeditions which at least untilvery recently often lasted for about three weeks Ordinary Languagemust also be avoided when cassowaries which were once fairly com-mon in the forest are being cut up cooked and eaten (Pawley 1992315ndash316)


Some examples of the differences between Ordinary Language and Pan-danus Language are given below12

Kalam

Ordinary Language Pandanus LanguageYakt magi ki-p Wjblp mdup yok-pbird egg excrete-it bird egg put-it

lsquoThe bird has laid eggsrsquo

Kantildem ntildeb-sp-un Sml ntildeab g-sp-unbanana consume-

PRESENT-webanana consuming do-PRESENT-

welsquoWe are eating bananasrsquo

The Kalam are not unusual in this Many Pacific languages have specialvarieties that must be used in collecting forest produce in hunting or fish-ing in initiations and other rituals and so on In many of these casespeople believe that if they use ordinary language the spirits guardingtheir prey will be alerted and the hunting or fishing expedition will beunsuccessful They disguise their intentions from these protective spiritsby speaking in a special language in order to ensure the success of theirexpeditions

1143 Language and SocializationChildren learn their first language from the people around themmdashparentssiblings and other members of the extended family As Edith Bavin pointsout in her discussion of language and socialization among the Warlpiri ofcentral Australia however

Not all cultures have the same expectations of children For examplein white middle-class society preverbal children are generally consid-ered to be potential conversation partners and a care-giver carries onlsquoconversationsrsquo with a child When the child starts producing wordsthe care-giver often points to things and asks the child to name theobject or picture Or the care-giver helps the child to develop com-municative skills by telling the child what to say to a third personHowever in other cultures children are not necessarily encouragedto speak until they have some knowledge to give and question-answerroutines are not part of the adult-child interaction (Bavin 1993 86ndash87)

The Taiap-speakers of Gapun village in the East Sepik Province of PapuaNew Guinea evidence similar behavior and attitudes In discussing Taiap

260 CHAPTER 11

views of social behavior Kulick (1992) says that they distinguish betweenhed and save Hed (Tok Pisin for lsquoheadrsquo) refers to personal will and auton-omy but often has the negative connotations of unacceptable individualismor selfishness save (Tok Pisin lsquoknow knowledgersquo) on the other hand refersto the ability to behave appropriately and to fulfill onersquos roles in society Chil-dren are born with hed Save so the people of Gapun say ldquobreaks openrdquoin a child somewhere in the second or third year ldquoTeaching and learningare two distinct processes and hellip one can occur independently without theother Parents consider that they can tell their children to lsquocall the names ofthingsrsquo but that the children will only lsquostart to learnrsquo once their save breaksopen inside of themrdquo (Kulick 1992 120) Much of the talk Taiap villagersdirect toward young children is what Kulick calls a ldquodistraction routinerdquoParents do not have conversations with children they seem simply to wantto stop them from crying

Like adults in most societies Taiap adults have a set of baby-talk wordsthey use to children because the proper words are ldquotoo hardrdquo Among themare the following (Kulick 1992 197)

TaiapAdult form Baby-talk formmambrag mamak lsquospiritrsquokakamatɨk kakam lsquomillipedersquomin mimi lsquobreastrsquoyewɨr pipi lsquoexcrementrsquonok soso lsquourinersquomin atukun mimi naka lsquodrink the breastrsquoatɨtɨŋgarana puparəŋgarana lsquoyoursquod better not fallrsquo

This concept of proper words being too hard however is taken muchfurther in Gapun village Adults believe that the Taiap language is hardBecause children have no save they will not be able to learn it well Theytherefore very often use Tok Pisin in talking to children since it is a muchldquoeasierrdquo language Children learn Taiap from older siblings rather thanfrom adults13

115 Language Use in Pacific NationsEuropean colonization of the Pacific brought new religions new social andpolitical institutions new fashions foods and recreational pursuits It alsobrought new languages and new ways of using language widening the lin-guistic repertoires of Pacific Islanders and aboriginal Australians (and beingwidened by them)


1151 Colonial and Other Intrusive LanguagesThe major colonial powers in the Pacific in recent times have been theBritish Americans Australians New Zealanders (all of whom speak Eng-lish) and the French English and French are the two most important in-trusive languages in the Pacific today French is the official language inthe French overseas territories of New Caledonia Wallis and Futuna andFrench Polynesia and is one of the official languages (alongside Bislama andEnglish) in Vanuatu In almost all other Pacific countries or territories Eng-lish is the major language of externalmdashand often internalmdashcommunicationIt is also the major language of regional organizations in the Pacific (thoughFrench is sometimes used as well)

In all of these countries some or all formal education is carried on in Englishor French Educated Pacific Islanders have a reasonable knowledge of one orboth of these languages and they use them in official and often also informalsituations In many Pacific countries a dialect of English (or French) is devel-oping that differs from the varieties of that language spoken in metropolitancountries These Pacific dialects often incorporate vocabulary items from ver-nacular languages or from languages like Melanesian Pidgin (eg Papua NewGuinea English bilum lsquostring bagrsquo or Vanuatu English nakamal lsquomeeting placekava barrsquo) and they also show phonological differences often as a result of theeffects of the first languages of their speakers More interesting however is thedevelopment of grammatical differences from neighboring first-language vari-eties of English used in a highly consistent manner by virtually all well-educatedand fluent speakers of English in these countries For example

Papua New Guinea English Metropolitan EnglishDid he come or Did he comeI read it on the newspaper I read it in the newspaperHe canrsquot cope up with it He canrsquot cope with itLetrsquos discuss about it Letrsquos discuss itDo it sometimes tomorrow Do it some time tomorrowWherersquos the book which you readit

Wherersquos the book which youread

In the region I have been dealing with there are now only two other intru-sive or colonial languages in use at the national level Spanish is the officiallanguage of Easter Island which is a territory of Chile while Bahasa Indone-sia is the official language of the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya Othercolonial powers used their own languages in their Pacific colonies before theywere displaced Spanish German and Japanese were used in parts of Mi-cronesia German also in New Guinea and Samoa and Dutch in Irian Jaya

262 CHAPTER 11

In addition to the languages of colonial powers other languages haveentered the area Indian laborers coming to Fiji for example spoke not onlyvarieties of Hindi but a wide range of other Indian languages many of which(like Gujarati Tamil and Telugu) are still spoken there Various Chinese lan-guages are spoken by the small Chinese populations of almost all Pacificcountries There are immigrant communities speaking Vietnamese in Vanu-atu and New Caledonia Javanese in New Caledonia and Japanese KoreanPortuguese Lao Vietnamese and various Philippine languages in HawailsquoiAnd the large numbers of European and more recently Asian immigrantsinto Australia and New Zealand have brought numerous ethnic languages tothose two countries

There have also been substantial movements of people within the Pa-cific One can hear Kiribati being spoken in Solomon Islands Tuvaluan inNauru East Uvea (Wallisian) and Tahitian in Vanuatu Samoan and Tonganin Hawailsquoi and most Polynesian languages in New Zealand In a sense thesePacific languages are also intrusive in that they have come from somewhereelse

From the point of view of speakers of Pacific languages languages likeMelanesian Pidgin Australian creoles and so on could also be classed asintrusive These languages are often used between speakers of different Pa-cific languages and they are probably the primary source of borrowingsinto those languages In urban areas particularly their intrusions have pro-gressed so far that they have become the first (and often only) language ofmany people

1152 MultilingualismThe arrival of these intrusive languages and the increased social mobility ofpeople in recent times has led to quite complex sociolinguistic situations inthe Pacific Most people in the Pacific are at least bilingual they use two lan-guages on a fairly regular basis Many people are in fact multilingual usingthree or more languages regularly

Bilingualism and multilingualism are not new in the Pacific Particularlyin Melanesia but also to some extent in Australia peoplemdashespeciallythough not exclusively menmdashhave always been exposed to languages otherthan their own and have often used foreign languages in certain contextsThere was often considerable kudos to be gained by being multilingual Sal-isburyrsquos (1962) classic study of the Siane of the Eastern Highlands Provincein Papua New Guinea for example showed that the overt use of a foreignlanguage Chuave on formal and even informal occasions was a way ofachieving and maintaining high social status


In modern times the use of two or more languages has become more com-mon and is no longer a male preserve In general terms we can differentiatebetween Australia Polynesia and Micronesia where people tend to be bilin-gual and Melanesia where they tend to be multilingual On most Polynesianand Micronesian islands only one language is spoken People speak this astheir vernacular it is the language they use within their own community butnormally not outside it These people speak some other language as their lin-gua franca the language used when dealing with (at least certain types of)outsiders The lingua franca throughout almost all of Polynesia and Microne-sia is English except in French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna where it isFrench Similarly many aboriginal Australians know one Australian vernacu-lar and use a creole or some variety of English as a lingua franca

By contrast most islands in Melanesia contain more than one languageand each country or territory contains a large number Many Melanesianstherefore speak their own vernacular and often one or more neighboringvernaculars as well (particularly if there is a vernacular that has acquiredsome prestige as the result of missionary activity) Except in Irian Jaya andNew Caledonia they can usually also speak the national variety of Melane-sian Pidgin (or Hiri Motu) to communicate with people from other parts ofthe country And if they have been educated they speak Bahasa Indonesia(in Irian Jaya) English (in Papua New Guinea Solomon Islands and Vanu-atu) or French (in Vanuatu and New Caledonia) both to other citizens oftheir country and to outsiders (Some educated ni-Vanuatu in fact speakboth English and French as well as Bislama and one or more vernaculars)

Fiji falls somewhere between Most Fijians speak their own dialect ofFijian plus the standard dialect many also speak English Similarly mostIndians speak Fiji Hindi and Standard Hindi and many speak English Notmany Fijians speak Hindi and not many Indians speak Fijian English or insome contexts Pidgin Fijian or Pidgin Hindi is the language of interethniccommunication

In these kinds of multilingual situations various aspects of the context de-termine the appropriate language to use In the market in Vila for examplea ni-Vanuatu would use the vernacular if the person selling vegetables camefrom the same language community (or possibly a nearby one) but Bislama ifshe didnrsquot During a coffee break in a Honiara office the staff would probablytalk in Pijin if they were all Solomon Islanders but would most likely use Eng-lish if some expatriates were taking part in the conversation

Another feature of these multilingual situations is what is known ascode-switching Very often even in the same conversation people switchfrom one language to another This may be because certain topics are easierto talk about in one of the languages all the participants know rather than in

264 CHAPTER 11

another or it may be because something just sounds better in one languagethan in another Whatever the reason code-switching is a very common fea-ture of social interaction in the multilingual Pacific

Conversations are often carried out in two languages when the partici-pants understand both languages fairly well but each speaks only one ofthem fluently In a Port Moresby office for example a Papuan worker (forwhom Hiri Motu rather than Tok Pisin would be the lingua franca) might welllisten to a conversation in Tok Pisin but make his or her contribution to it inEnglish

1153 Language in the National ContextVery few Pacific constitutions make specific reference to which language isthe national language and which is the official language Generally the clos-est one gets to such a statement are sections in the constitution definingwhich language is authoritative or which one(s) may be used in parliamentConstitutional provisions like the two below (from the constitutions of Kiri-bati and Fiji) are common

127 The provisions of this constitution shall be published in a Kiribatitext as well as this English text but in the event of any inconsistencybetween the two texts this English text shall prevail (Kiribati)

56 The official language of Parliament shall be English but any mem-ber of either house may address the chair in the House of which he is amember in Fijian or Hindustani [ie Hindi] (Fiji)

The only reference to language in the Constitution of Papua New Guineais the following statement in ldquoNational Goals and Directive Principlesrdquoldquo2(11) All persons and governmental bodies to endeavour to achieve univer-sal literacy in [Tok] Pisin Hiri Motu or English and in tok ples or ita eda tanogado [ie vernaculars]rdquo

In most Pacific countries the metropolitan language (usually English)functions as the official language although there may be no constitutionalprovision for this It is the language of government of the law and the highercourts of higher education and of sections of the media The vernacular lan-guage functions as a de facto national language It is used by the people indaily communication in stores and offices on public transport and in sec-tions of the media and often in early education and the lower courts

This is even more true of Australia where aboriginal vernaculars andthe languages of immigrants have no official constitutional status English isthe official and national language though there have recently been some ef-forts to give minority languages some limited status


In Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands vernaculars also have noofficial place in the national life of the country English is the official lan-guage and it is very much also a de facto national language as it is often thelanguage people use to talk to each other English is the language of govern-ment of the law and the courts of the media and of all levels of educationMelanesian Pidgin has some status as an additional national language as itis commonly used in daily communication and gets some exposure in the me-dia but its status is not comparable with that of say Tongan or Samoan inTonga and Samoa

Vanuatu is different It is one of the few Pacific states where the nationaland official languages are spelled out in the constitution

3 (1) The national language of the Republic is Bislama The officiallanguages are Bislama English and French The principal lan-guages of education are English and French

(2) The Republic shall protect the different local languages whichare part of the national heritage and may declare one of them as anational language

Pre-independence Vanuatu (then known as the New Hebrides) was in therather unusual position of having two colonial masters the British and theFrench who ruled jointly Some ni-Vanuatu were educated in French othersin English and the political lines were drawn as much on the basis of lan-guage as anything else at the time of independence Bislama was the neutrallanguage in this situation and it still remains the only common languageeven among educated ni-Vanuatu Although Bislama is not used in the edu-cational system and although laws and official government correspondenceare in English and French Bislama is used in parliament in churches in themedia and in other areas of daily communication

1154 Formal EducationMelanesia differs from the rest of the Pacific in terms of the languages usedin the educational system In Melanesia schools start from the first grade inthe official language and students begin learning a totally foreign languageFrench or English as soon as they enter school14 One major reason for thisis the multiplicity of languages in these countries Christian missions usedvernaculars to some extent in primary education in the past but now thateducation is a governmental concern this no longer happens And althoughthere are some vernacular preschools and primary schools in some areas ofPapua New Guinea they are still in the early stages of being set up

266 CHAPTER 11

One interesting consequence of these policies is that almost no speakersof the largest nonmetropolitan language in the Pacific Melanesian Pidginhave learned to read and write their language through any formal educa-tional system A few have learned it through adult literacy classes manyothers have taught themselves having first learned to read and write insome other language But the Pacific language with the largest number ofspeakers continues to have no place in formal education

The Australian situation is slightly different Some use is made of Aus-tralian languages in some areas often through bilingual programs whereEnglish and an Australian language are used side-by-side For two centurieshowever there have been only negative attitudes toward aboriginal Aus-tralians and their languages As a result many people of aboriginal ancestryknow only a variety of English and teaching them in an Australian languageis not of much help to their education

Much more use is made of vernaculars in Polynesia and Micronesia Inmany of these countries students begin their schooling in the vernacularnot in English English is only one subject until the middle (in Samoa or ruralFiji) or the end (in Tonga) of the primary curriculum and vernaculars oftenremain subjects after the switch to English-language instruction has beenmade In these countries since the educational system has to deal with onlyone or at most just a few vernaculars taking such an approach is relativelyeasy The status of vernaculars in different parts of the Pacific relates verymuch to this issue of education

1155 LiteracyLiteracy is often achieved through the formal educational system In Polyne-sia and Micronesia literacy rates are generally quite high and people haveusually learned to read and write their own language often adding Englishlater In Melanesia by contrast literacy rates tend to be much lower andthose who have learned to read and write through formal education do so inEnglish or French

The Christian missions and the Summer Institute of Linguistics havesponsored literacy training in vernacular languages in at least some parts ofMelanesia and Australia More recently however there has been a burgeon-ing interest in vernacular literacy Preschool programs have been estab-lished in many parts of Papua New Guinea to teach children basic literacy intheir own language before they go to school In many cases these have op-erated totally or almost totally outside government education agencies

Adult vernacular literacy has also undergone a major expansion espe-cially in the last few years There are for example over fifteen hundred


community-based literacy programs operating in Papua New Guinea anda number of similar programs have begun in Solomon Islands and Vanuatu(Faraclas 1994) The success of these programs has caused the governmentof Papua New Guinea to subject its English-only policy for formal educationto a critical review

1156 The MediaAlmost all Pacific countries make some use of vernaculars in the mediaalthough metropolitan languages also get considerable exposure The bal-ance depends on a number of factors including how much foreign newsand other material is printed or broadcast and whether there are enoughtrained translators to translate foreign material into local languages Evenin Australia where English dominates the media minority languages stillget some exposure

The Papua New Guinea media show an interesting mixture of languagesfrom all levels While television is almost exclusively in English (apart froma few commercials in Tok Pisin) radio is different National radio stationsmainly use English but have some programs in Tok Pisin and Hiri MotuProvincial stations use mainly Tok Pisin or Hiri Motu (depending on whichpart of the country the station is in) but also make some use of the larger ormore prominent vernaculars in the province The two national daily newspa-pers are in English and there are two weeklies one in English and one inTok Pisin In the provinces some attempt is made to use both Tok Pisin anda vernacular in provincial newsletters

116 Shift Survival Death RevivalThe fourteen hundred languages of Australia and the Pacific are spoken bytiny populations in world terms In addition they have been subjected to in-vasionmdashfrom without by such languages as English and French and fromwithin by such languages as Melanesian Pidgin and Kriol Australians andPacific Islanders have incorporated these new languages into their tradi-tional communication systems There are of course a number of indigenousPacific people who do not speak an Oceanic Papuan or Australian languageBut for most people in the Pacific the vernacular language exists side byside with widespread lingua francas like English or Melanesian Pidgin Atthe same time some languages have already died out as a result of depop-ulation population movements and pressure from other languages At thebeginning of the last century for example there were five languages spo-ken on the island of Erromango in Vanuatu Today there is only one with a

268 CHAPTER 11

few remnants of another The situation in Australia is even more dramaticMost of the languages spoken there two hundred years ago will not survivethe next fifty years as people of Aboriginal descent shift to English for theirmain or sole means of communication

Linguists and other outside observers generally view such situationswith alarm The loss of a language is seen as a bad thing and efforts shouldbe made to preserve these languagesmdashto the extent of running languagemaintenance programs teaching children to speak their motherrsquos tongue(which is not their mother tongue) and so on This attitude may be an al-truistic one or a paternalistic one depending on onersquos point of view But itis very much an outsiderrsquos view What do speakers of these threatened lan-guages themselves think of the imminent loss of their languages

Up until the Second World War New Zealand Māori was a dynamic lan-guage even though it was mainly spoken in rural areas But the war andthe movement of rural Māori to towns after it changed all that Englishcame to be seen as the language with which one could get thingsmdasheduca-tion jobs better living conditionsmdashand the urban Māori began to abandontheir language There is evidence that this was a fairly conscious anddeliberate act Parents chose to speak English rather than Māori to theirchildren to give them as much of a head start as possible A fairly recentsurvey by the New Zealand Department of Statistics showed that therewere about 270000 New Zealanders who claimed at least 50 percentMāori ancestry and almost 100000 more who claimed some Māori an-cestry Of those 370000 people only about 70000 said they were fluentspeakers of the Māori language although another 45000 said they couldunderstand but not speak it

Although the number of Māori speakers looks large from a Melanesianpoint of view there was very serious concern in the Māori community notleast because very few of those fluent speakers of Māori were children oryoung people It seemed likely that the number of speakers would dimin-ish rapidly in the next couple of generations So a number of Māori-lan-guage kindergartens called Kōhanga Reo (lsquolanguage nestsrsquo) were estab-lished Preschool children in these did just what other preschoolers do butthrough the medium of Māori rather than English This step combined witha resurgence of pride and interest in the language among the Māori commu-nity more generally has probably arrested the decline and the language willprobably survive

Similar revival programs have taken place in other parts of the PacificThe Hawaiian language was and probably still is in far greater danger thanMāori of totally disappearing but intensive efforts there are also beginningto see the decline arrested


The interesting point about these two casesmdashand similar cases else-where in the regionmdashis that the languages involved are spoken by peoplewho were the traditional sole occupiers of their territory who have beeninvaded and colonized but who are now reasserting their rights and identi-ties Following a century or more of not particularly successful assimilationthe Māori and the Hawaiians are becoming increasingly vocal on the po-litical stage in their own country The emblematic function of language towhich I referred in part 1 is perhaps operative here To be a Māori ratherthan just a New Zealander involves a number of things and one of these isthe ability to speak the Māori language

These are cases where there are active programs to revive dying lan-guages Some areas of Melanesia show the opposite trend Many of thelanguages concerned have very small populations In Papua New GuineaSolomon Islands and Vanuatu there are over 160 languages spoken by twohundred people or fewer and many of these are under threat of extinctionAs people from these societies intermarry as children go to school outsidetheir home areas and as young men and women drift to the towns lookingfor paid employment the chances that they and their children will continueto speak their language are fairly remote But the attitudes of these peo-ple toward the impending death of their languages seem to be somewhatdifferent Speaking of parts of the Sepik area of Papua New Guinea forexample Foley (1986 27ndash28) says ldquoTok Pisin hellip is seen as an avenue bywhich to acquire the goods of this [Western] culture hellip with the result thatin certain areas the vernacular indigenous languages are being abandonedin favour of Tok Pisin which is being acquired as a first language This isoccurring not just in urban areas but also in rural areas Murik a languageof the lake country west of the mouth of the Sepik river hellip is dying and isnot spoken by younger people in the villages It is being replaced by TokPisinrdquo

I have already referred to Kulickrsquos (1992) important study of the Taiapspeakers of Gapun village in the Sepik Tok Pisin was introduced into the vil-lage by men returning from working on plantations and for some years itwas a menrsquos language only Christianization and other social changes afterthe Second World War exposed women to Tok Pisin with the result that alladults now know both Taiap and Tok Pisin

But this in itself is no explanation for the fact that children in Gapun vil-lage as in some other parts of Papua New Guinea are learning Tok Pisinrather than (in this case) Taiap as their first language In many parts of thePacific people retain their own vernacular even though they use another lan-guage on a daily basis Why are Gapun children growing up speaking TokPisin rather than Taiap as their first language ldquoThe reasons for the enthusi-

270 CHAPTER 11

asm toward and the spread of Tok Pisin throughout the verbal repertoires ofall villagers eventually even those who rarely if ever left Gapun were notso much lsquopragmaticrsquo or lsquosocioeconomicrsquo as those terms are commonly usedin the sociolinguistic literature as they were lsquocosmologicalrsquo in the broadestanthropological sense of that wordrdquo (Kulick 1992 249) That is the arrivalof Europeans or new conditions and of a new religion was seen as ldquotheharbinger of a new way of life Their presence in New Guinea came to be un-derstood in terms of an impending metamorphosis that would transform everyaspect of the villagersrsquo lives including their physical beingshellip In their ea-gerness for the metamorphosis to occur villagers immediately seized uponlanguage as a lsquoroadrsquo a way of making it happenrdquo (Kulick 1992 249)

To some extent of course these attitudes are similar to those of thepostwar urban Māori The new language is seen as the key to change to ad-vancement to success however measured and perceived The difference isthat the people Foley and Kulick are talking about see themselves as PapuaNew Guineans as citizens of a country with the same rights as other citi-zens A shift from one language to another does not really threaten thisidentity In contrast the Māori and the Hawaiians view language as a marknot only of cultural but also of ethnic identity and they manipulate languageas a political tool


CONCLUSION

Ideas about Pacific Languages

When I first went to see the man who has become our family doctor in PortVila he asked what I did and then said that he had visited the universitylibrary here and had seen rows and rows of dictionaries and grammars oflanguages spoken by just a few hundred speakers ldquoFascinatingrdquo he saidldquofascinating hellip but bloody uselessrdquo

Attitudes like these are held by both westerners and many Pacific Is-landers though perhaps for different reasons Many westerners see PacificIsland languages as not being really serious subjects of study They do nothave a ldquoliteraturerdquo they are not used in education they have no real place inthe nationalmdashlet alone the internationalmdashdomain Linguists who study theselanguages are seen as dilettantes who should be doing something more ldquose-riousrdquo Many Pacific Islanders have slightly different views For examplethey often look on a dictionary as an important archive or museum piecerecording ldquooldrdquo words that are dropping out of the language But they feelthat their language really does not have much of a future when faced withcompetition from international languages

Most Pacific languages have neither been vilified to the extent thatMelanesian Pidgin or Fiji Hindi have nor subjected to the extreme pressuresof survival that Māori Hawaiian Murik or Taiap have felt Virtually all ofthem however have well and truly entered the twentieth century and arespoken side-by-side with introduced languages or other recently developedlingua francas

Rapid social changes in the Pacific have affected Pacific languages noless rapidly This is perhaps most evident in the area of lexical borrowingas discussed in chapter 9 Grandparents shudder when their grandchildreninterlard their vernacular with English-derived termsmdashand are sure thattheir language will not survive another generation

272

To a large extent this could be construed as just the typical conser-vatism of the elderly ldquoThings were better in our time these modern fadsand fashions are no goodrdquo But there are some cases where the grandpar-ents may have a point Clark (1982) in studying words of English originborrowed into Ifira-Mele1 distinguishes between necessary and unneces-saryrsquo borrowings A necessary borrowing is one where the thing or conceptto which the word refers is new to the culture and even though the possi-bility of a compound using existing words a monomorphemic loan is usuallysimpler Some examples of necessary borrowings are

Ifira-Meleaeani lsquoironrsquo fooko lsquoforkrsquomarseni lsquomedicinersquo laemu lsquolemon limersquonakitae lsquonecktiersquo peelo lsquobellrsquo

Unnecessary borrowings are those that replace an already existing word inthe language This has happened in Ifira-Mele with most of the numeralspossibly because of the constant use of EnglishBislama numerals in count-ing money telling time and in mathematics classes and partly also becausethe higher numerals in Ifira-Mele are longer than their EnglishBislamaequivalents But there are other cases like the following

Ifira-MeleBorrowing Original wordtaemu lsquotimersquo malostaaji lsquostartrsquo tuulakeinsaiji lsquoinsidersquo irotoauji lsquogo outrsquo tavepuroomu lsquobroomrsquo niisarawooka lsquoworkrsquo wesiwesi

In discussing the replacement of wesiwesi lsquoworkrsquo by wooka Clark (1982139) says that his middle-aged informants ldquocondemned wooka as an abusiveborrowing when a perfectly good indigenous synonym existedrdquo In a senseolder speakers of the language have in many cases come reluctantly to ac-cept necessary change But they often also see the unnecessary incorporationof foreign words into their language as a sure sign that the language is not go-ing to survive As one elderly ni-Vanuatu man said to me ldquoMy grandchildrenthink theyrsquore speaking our language but theyrsquore really speaking Bislamardquo

Change has of course been taking place for millennia The Pacific regionhas had a long and complex history When the first settlers came and wherethey came from we donrsquot really knowmdashbut we can be fairly sure that it wasat least fifty thousand years ago By the time the Anglo-Saxons were subduing

Ideas about Pacific Languages 273

the Celtic people of Britain virtually all the islands of the Pacific had been set-tled many by successive waves of people speaking different languages

Many westernersmdashand indeed many Pacific Islanders as wellmdashhold theview that once a particular island or area was settled the inhabitants re-mained in place Only with the coming of Europeans were their eyes openedto the outside world But of course the Pacific region was not like this at allContact of various kindsmdashwarfare invasion trade intermarriage ceremo-nial exchange and so onmdashtook place between near neighbors or betweenpeoples whose homes were thousands of kilometers apart between peoplewho spoke similar or at least related languages and between those whoselanguages were unrelated The European intruders who entered this regionin the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were really just the latest of a se-ries of ldquoforeignersrdquo who contacted Pacific peoples Pacific languages havebeen changing throughout this whole period as a result of external pres-sures and internal processes They have survived these changes and willcontinue to survive others

When the first Fiji Hindi dictionary ever published appeared some yearsago (Hobbs 1985) it was greeted with howls of protest and derision from theFiji Hindi-speaking community ldquoThere is no such language as Fiji Hindirdquosaid one writer to a newspaper ldquoHindi in Fiji is a sub-standard Bhojpuriwhich has been corruptedrdquo said another

Attitudes like these toward creoles and similar languages are commonthroughout the world Such languages are often seen by outsiders as ldquobro-kenrdquo ldquobastardizedrdquo or ldquobaby-talkrdquo versions of proper languages Speakingof what is now known as Tok Pisin for example Sir Hubert Murray (192410) an Australian colonial administrator said ldquoIt is a vile gibberish hellip andshould be discouragedrdquo Major Eustace Sanders a British colonial official whoserved on Malaita in Solomon Islands had similar views about Pijin ldquoThe onlylingua franca [is] pigeon English which consists of the English word in theMelanesian context It is a queer sounding garbled business and not in anyway satisfactoryrdquo (quoted in Keesing 1990 156) Even the names of these lan-guagesmdashPidgin Pijin Broken and so onmdashhave negative connotations2

This could all be simply dismissed as another example of western ethno-centrism if many speakers of these languages did not share the sameviewsmdashas the case of Fiji Hindi illustrates Speaking of Solomon IslandsKeesing (1990 162) says

It is perhaps surprising hellip that so many Solomon Islanders have ac-cepted uncritically an ideology depicting Pijin as a bastardized formof Englishhellip Many well educated Solomon Islanders echo the colonial

274 Ideas about Pacific Languages

view that Pijin has lsquono grammarrsquo even though in speaking and under-standing Pijin those who express this view use (unconsciously) agrammar so complex and intricate and powerful that (like the gram-mars of all languages) it defies formal description

The attitude of many speakers of Melanesian Pidgin toward their languagecould be described as schizophrenic On the one hand they use it frequentlyin all kinds of situations on the other they see it as not a ldquorealrdquo language

This schizophrenia is perhaps most pronounced in Vanuatu Bislama hashigher constitutional status in Vanuatu than any nonmetropolitan languagein any other Pacific country It is the language of parliament of churches ofgovernment offices and of social functions Because half the educated pop-ulation is English-educated and the other half French-educated Bislama isthe linguistic cement holding the nation of Vanuatu together Highly edu-cated ni-Vanuatu from different islands prefer to speak to each other inBislama rather than in English3 and there is a distinct feeling of nationalpride in the public use of Bislama

But Bislama is not used in the school system either as a medium of in-struction or as a subject and attempts to introduce it have met with the kindof attitudes expressed in Keesingrsquos description of the Solomon Islands situ-ation ldquoitrsquos not a real languagerdquo ldquoit has no grammarrdquo ldquoitrsquos only a languagefor casual conversationrdquo Vanuatu may be unique among the countries of theworld in allowing a child to be punished for speaking the constitutionallyrecognized national language on school grounds

Yet another aspect of this complex issue concerns the replacement ofvernaculars by Melanesian Pidgin in parts of Melanesia People in someparts of Papua New Guinea are abandoning their vernacular in favor of TokPisin They see Tok Pisin as the key to the future rather than as a ldquorubbishrdquolanguage to be used only where no other can serve

The situation in Fiji is somewhat different Fiji Indians grow up speakingFiji Hindi at home At school they are exposed to two prestige languagesStandard Hindi and English Unlike Melanesian Pidgin Fiji Hindi is neverwritten Literacy is taught in Standard Hindi and the association of thestandard language with the sacred books of Hinduism gives Standard Hindigreat prestige English too is obviously a prestigious language in Fijimdashthelanguage of higher education the international language the language ofbusiness and increasingly the language Fiji Indians need to know to emi-grate from post-coup Fiji The result has been that Fiji Hindi has very lowstatus in Fiji especially among its native speakers

Pacific Islands languages whether indigenous or more recently devel-oped are worthy subjects of study in their own right A language represents


a culture of a people Even if that people is numerically small and does notplay an important part on the world stage its culture and by implication itslanguage are no less worthy of study than the languages of larger or moreinfluential peoples It is true that the usefulness in a global sense of even lan-guages like Fijian or Samoan pales into insignificance beside the usefulnessof English or French But that does not mean that these languages should bediscounted altogether

Change in the languages of Pacific Islanders as in all languages isinevitable natural and not something to be universally deplored Certainchanges may be undesirable for all sorts of reasons but it is in the nature oflanguage to change and resisting change is counterproductive

What of the future Dixon (1990 230ndash231) in suggesting that every lan-guage with fewer than ten thousand speakers is at risk of extinction rathergloomily predicts that 80 percent of the languages in the Pacific and Asiamay have died out by the end of the twenty-first century Even languages likeMelanesian Pidgin are seen by some as being under threat from English ldquoItwould seem that in the future Tok Pisin has nowhere to go but downhellip Thisdoes not mean that Tok Pisin will die a rapid or even an easy deathhellip Butit does mean that in perhaps 50 yearsrsquo time Tok Pisin will most likely bebeing studied by scholars among a small community of old menrdquo (Laycock1985 667) Although the potential for language death is a serious one forsome Pacific languages I feel that Dixon and Laycock are unnecessarily pes-simistic The vast majority of Pacific languages are not or not yet moribundAs long as a community is sufficiently viable to remain a community (irre-spective of absolute size) and as long as such a community has pride in itslanguage as part of its overall cultural heritage the language will survive Itwill change as internal and external mechanisms cause it to develop differ-ent words pronunciations and expressions and these changes will be ruedby the older generationmdashas they always are But change is endemic to lan-guage and is an element of its vitality

There are of course languages that have died out or are currently underserious threat For some threatened languages there are programs of reinvig-oration and resurgence Hawaiian and Māori are probably the best known ofthese Both involve serious attempts to teach young children the language in astructured or semistructured environment in the hope that unlike their par-ents they will become fluent in the language of their ancestors

Arguments rage of course about the worth of such programs At oneend of the spectrum are those who feel that all languages should be pre-served and if possible used more widely than they are now and who pro-pose programs to encouragemdashand even almost to forcemdashyoung people andoften adults to learn their ldquoownrdquo language At the other end are those who


say that languages should be left alone If people want to shift to another lan-guage that they think is more useful it is their right to do so Very often thisdebate is held in the rarefied circles of academe without much input fromthe speakers of the languages themselves Those speakers will of coursehave the final say (and perhaps the last laugh) by choosing the course of ac-tion that seems most sensible and practical from their perspective

The Pacific area has probably seen more change taking place in its lan-guages than any other part of the worldmdashcertainly than any other regionwith a comparable population The multiplicity of different languages andlanguage types with different histories has always been one of the intrigu-ing features of this region for both Pacific Islanders and outsiders alike Aslong as Pacific Islanders continue to recognize that their languages are boththeir past and their future the unity in diversity so characteristic of the Pa-cific will continue to make this region unique


Suggestions for Further Reading

Chapter 1Crystalrsquos Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (1987 2d ed 1998) pro-vides a wealth of information on many of the topics covered in this chapterin a very readable and accessible format

There are hundreds of general introductions to descriptive linguis-tics Aitchison (1978) provides a good readable general introduction Fine-gan and Besnier (1979) and Crowley Lynch Siegel and Piau (1995) go intorather more technical detail these are useful because many of their exam-ples are from Pacific languages

Aitchison (1981) is a very readable discussion of language changewhile Crowley (1992 3d ed 1997) not only provides perhaps the clearest in-troduction to historical and comparative linguistics currently availablebut also uses Pacific examples to illustrate many technical concepts

Chapter 2Sebeok (1971) and Wurm (1975 1976) contain a number of articles relevantto the distribution of and history of research into Pacific languages Schuumltz(1972 1994) provides thorough and sensitive treatments on the history ofresearch into Fijian and Hawaiian respectively Schuumltz (1994) is a particu-larly fine piece of scholarship The language atlas of the Pacific region editedby Wurm and Hattori (1981) is worth detailed examination

Chapter 3Various aspects of the establishment of the Austronesian family and its sub-groups are covered by Blust (1978a 1984a 1984b) Clark (1979) Dem-

279

pwolff (1934ndash1938) Geraghty (1983) Grace (1955 1959 1968) Jackson(1983) Lynch Ross and Crowley (1998) Lynch and Tryon (1985) Pawley(1972) Pawley and Ross (1995) Ross (1988) Tryon (1976 1995) Tryon andHackman (1983) and Wurm (1976) (References to some of the classics ofthe nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth can be found inthe bibliography of Ross 1988)

Readers interested in cultural reconstruction should consult Blust(1980) Chowning (1991) Pawley and Ross (1995) and a number of papersin Geraghty (1998) Lynch and Pat (1996) and Pawley and Ross (1994)

Chapter 4The major general comprehensive works on the history of Papuan lan-guages are Foley (1986) and Wurm (1975 1982) McElhanon and Voorhoeve(1970) provides an illustration of the kinds of techniques used in estab-lishing a Papuan phylum while Pawley (1995) shows how the comparativemethod can be applied to these languages

Good general works on Australian languages include Dixon (1980) andYallop (1981) OrsquoGrady and Tryon (1990) is a collection of articles in whichthe comparative method is applied to a number of Australian languagegroups

Chapter 5There is no single volume dealing with the sound systems of the Austrone-sian languages such descriptions generally being incorporated in largercomparative or grammatical studies Haudricourt et al (1979) provides con-siderable information on New Caledonian phonologies as does Krupa(1982) for Polynesian Tryon (1994) and Lynch Ross and Crowley (1998)give briefer outlines of the phonologies of a wide range of Austronesian lan-guages

Foley (1986 chap 3) and Dixon (1980 chaps 6 and 7) provide generaloverviews of the phonology of Papuan and Australian languages respec-tively A fairly representative sample of Australian phonologies can be foundin the handbooks edited by Dixon and Blake (1979 1981 1983)

Chapter 6Lynch Ross and Crowley (1998) provides a general coverage of Oceanicgrammar as well as sketch grammars of almost four dozen Oceanic lan-guages Ross (1988) contains general information on the grammars of West-ern Oceanic languages while Blust (1978b) Tryon (1973) and Haudricourt(1971) contain general grammatical information on the languages of the Ad-

280 Suggestions for Further Reading

miralties Vanuatu and New Caledonia respectively Bender (1971 1984)provide general information on Micronesian languages as does Krupa(1982) for Polynesian languages For further details on any specific Oceaniclanguage consult appendix 1 below

Chapter 7The best general introduction to the structure of Papuan languages is Foley(1986) Wurm (1975 1982) also provide useful general information on arange of Papuan languages Collections of articles on a number of languagesinclude Dutton (1975) and Franklin (1973 1981) More detailed informationon individual languages can be found in the bibliographies to these works orin appendix 1 below

Chapter 8Dixon (1980) is a very good general survey of Australian languages andit contains as well quite a detailed description of grammatical structureSketch grammars of particular languages or treatments of particular gram-matical categories across a range of Australian languages may be found inDixon (1976) and in Dixon and Blake (1979 1981 1983) Appendix 1 belowgives sources for a number of individual languages

Chapter 9Apart from the studies by Biggs on Rotuman and Thurston in northwestNew Britain mentioned in this chapter there are a number of other usefulworks about this topic Collections of articles include Dutton (1992) Duttonand Tryon (1994) and Pawley and Ross (1994) Implications for prehistoriccontact on the classification of modern languages are discussed by Lynch(1981a 1981b) and Pawley (1981) Among case studies of individual lan-guages or language communities those by Siegel (1987) on Fiji and J Lee(1987) on the Tiwi of Australia are of considerable interest

Chapter 10Verhaar (1990) is a collection of articles on Melanesian Pidgin For specificvarieties of Melanesian Pidgin the following should be consulted

1 Tok Pisin Dutton with Thomas (1985) Mihalic (1971) Muumlhlhaumlusler(1979) Verhaar (1995) and Wurm and Muumlhlhaumlusler (1985)

2 Pijin Simons and Young (1978)3 Bislama Crowley (1990a 1990b) Tryon (1987)


On Hiri Motu and the Hiri Trading Languages Dutton (1985) is thebest historical source Grammatical treatments may be found in Wurm andHarris (1963) and Dutton and Voorhoeve (1974)

For Fiji Hindi and other contact languages in Fiji Siegel (1987) is theauthoritative source Siegel (1977) is a brief introduction to the grammar ofFiji Hindi and Hobbs (1985) is a dictionary of the language

Among discussions of Australian creoles the following are of interestfor Broken (Torres Strait Creole) see Schnukal (1988) for Kriol (NorthernTerritory Creole) see Harris (1986) and Sandefur (1986)

Chapter 11General coverages of the relationship between language culture andsocial organization and the nature of the lexicons of Pacific languagescan be found in Dixon (1980) Foley (1986) Walsh and Yallop (1993) andWurm (1975 1976 1977) Smith (1988) provides a good discussion of therange of numeral and counting systems found in parts of the region

There is a growing literature on languages in use in both traditionaland modern societies Important studies on socialization include Kulick(1992) and Schieffelin (1990) on New Guinea societies and Ochs (1988) onSamoa There are a number of Pacific-oriented studies in Duranti and Good-win (1992) dealing with various aspects of the context of language use

As far as language and education are concerned Baldauf and Luke(1990) Benton (1981) Brumby and Vaacuteszolyi (1977) and Mugler and Lynch(1996) provide a fairly wide coverage

ConclusionMost of the general surveys I have referred to above contain some referenceto attitudes toward and ideas about Pacific languages There are a numberof articles specifically on this topic in the Handbook of Tok Pisin (Wurm andMuumlhlhaumlusler 1985)


Appendices

APPENDIX 1

Data Sources

Below is a list of all languages from which data have been quoted in thebook arranged on a broad genetic basis together with their general loca-tions (see the maps in chapter 2) and the sources from which the data weretaken JL indicates that some or all of the data are from my own knowledgeor unpublished research PNG = Papua New Guinea

Location Sources

Austronesian Languages

Non-OceanicChamorro Micronesia Topping (1973)Palauan Micronesia Josephs (1975)

OceanicAdzera PNG Holzknecht (1989)

Smith (1988)Alsquojieuml New Caledonia Fontinelle (1976) Lichtenberk

(1978)Anejom Vanuatu Lynch (1982a 1998) JLAroma PNG Crowley (1992) JLArosi Solomon Is Capell (1971) Lynch and Horoi

(1998)Banoni PNG Lincoln (1976)Big Nambas Vanuatu G Fox (1979)Carolinian Micronesia Jackson and Marck (1991)Cegravemuhicirc New Caledonia Rivierre (1980)

285

Drehu New Caledonia Moyse-Faurie (1983) Tryon(1968a)

Fijian Fiji Geraghty (1983)Milner (1972)Schuumltz (1985) Schuumltz andKomaitai (1971) JL

Hawaiian Polynesia Elbert and Pukui (1979)Hula PNG Crowley (1992)Iaai New Caledonia Ozanne-Rivierre (1976) Tryon

(1968b)Ifira-Mele Vanuatu Clark (1982)Jawe New Caledonia Haudricourt and Ozanne-Rivierre

(1982)Kilivila PNG Senft (1986)Kiribati Micronesia Groves Groves and Jacobs

(1985)Kosraean Micronesia K Lee (1975)Kwamera Vanuatu Lindstrom (1986) Lindstrom and

Lynch (1994)Labu PNG Siegel (1984)Lagoon Trukese Micronesia Dyen (1965) Goodenough and Sugita

(1980)Lenakel Vanuatu Lynch (1978) JLLewo Vanuatu Early (1994)Lusi PNG Thurston (1982 1987 1992)Maisin PNG Ross (1984) JLManam PNG Lichtenberk (1983)Māori Polynesia Bauer (1993) Biggs (1969) Ho-

hepa (1967)Mapos PNG Smith (1988)Mari PNG Holzknecht (1989)Maringe Solomon Is Ross (1988) White (1988)Marshallese Micronesia Bender (1969)Mekeo PNG Jones (1992)Mokilese Micronesia Harrison (1976)Mono-Alu Solomon Is Fagan (1986) Ross (1988)Motu PNG Lister-Turner and Clark (nd)

Crowley (1992) JLNadrau Fijian Fiji Geraghty (1983)Nakanai PNG Johnston (1980)Nakanamanga Vanuatu Schuumltz (1969)

286 APPENDIX 1

Nauruan Micronesia Kayser (1936) Rensch (1993)Nehan PNG Ross (1988) Todd (1978)Niuean Polynesia McEwen (1970)Nukuoro Micronesia Carroll (1965)Paamese Vanuatu Crowley (1982)Pije New Caledonia Haudricourt and Ozanne-Rivierre

(1982)Ponapean Micronesia Rehg (1981)Port Sandwich Vanuatu Charpentier (1979)Puluwat Micronesia Elbert (1974)Raga Vanuatu D Walsh (1966)Rapanui Polynesia Krupa (1982) Langdon and

Tryon (1983)Rarotongan Polynesia Savage (1980)Ririo Solomon Is Laycock (1982b)Rotuman Fiji Churchward (1940)

Biggs (1965)Roviana Solomon Is Ross (1988) Corston (1998)Samoan Polynesia Duranti (1992)

Marsack (1962)Milner (1966)Pawley (1966b)

Sinagoro PNG Crowley (1992) Kolia (1975)Sissano PNG Laycock (1973)Southwest Tanna Vanuatu Lynch (1982b)Sye Vanuatu Crowley (1995) Lynch (1983)Tahitian Polynesia Tryon (1970)Tigak PNG Beaumont (1979)Titan PNG Ross (1988)Tolsquoabalsquoita Solomon Is Lichtenberk (1984)Tolai PNG Mosel (1980 1984)

Ross (1988)Tongan Polynesia Churchward (1953) Philips

(1991)Trukese (see Lagoon Trukese)Ulithian Micronesia Sohn and Bender (1973)Vinmavis Vanuatu Crowley (1998)Wayan Fijian Fiji Pawley and Sayaba (1990)West Futuna Vanuatu Dougherty (1983)Woleaian Micronesia Harrison and Jackson (1984)Xacircracirccugraveugrave New Caledonia Haudricourt et al (1979)

Data Sources 287

Yabecircm PNG Bradshaw (1979) Ross (1993)Yapese Micronesia Jensen (1977)

Papuan Languages

Abelam PNG Laycock (1965)Abulsquo PNG Nekitel (1986)Alamblak PNG Bruce (1984) Foley (1986)Anecircm PNG Thurston (1982 1987 1992)Anggor PNG Litteral (1981)Awa PNG Loving and Loving (1975)Baniata Solomon Is Todd (1975)Barai PNG Olson (1975)Bilua Solomon Is Todd (1975)Buin PNG Laycock (1975b 1982a)Daga PNG Murane (1974)Enga PNG Lang (1973)Fore PNG Scott (1978)Grand ValleyDani Irian Jaya Foley (1986)Guhu-Samane PNG Smith (1988)Huli PNG Cheetham (1978)Iatmul PNG Foley (1986)Kalam PNG Pawley (1966a 1992) Foley

(1986)Kamasau PNG Sanders and Sanders (1980)Kapauku (Ekagi) Irian Jaya Price and Pospisil (1966) Smith

(1988)Kacircte PNG Foley (1986)Kewa PNG Franklin (1971) Franklin and

Franklin (1978)Kobon PNG Davies (1980)Koita PNG Dutton (1975)Korafe PNG Farr and Farr (1975)Kuman PNG Piau (1981 1985) JLMagi PNG Thomson (1975)Manem Irian Jaya Foley (1986)Melpa PNG Cochran (1977)Mountain Koiari PNG Garland and Garland (1975)Nimboran Irian Jaya Foley (1986)Numanggang PNG Smith (1988)Pawaian PNG Trefry (1969)Rotokas PNG Firchow and Firchow (1969)

288 APPENDIX 1

Salt-Yui PNG Irwin (1974)Selepet PNG Kulick (1992)Som PNG Smith (1988)Taiap PNG Kulick (1992)Toaripi PNG Franklin (1973)Vanimo PNG Ross (1980)Wahgi PNG Phillips (1976)Wantoat PNG Smith (1988)Waskia PNG Ross and Paol (1978)Wiru PNG Foley (1986)Yeletnye PNG Henderson (1975)Yimas PNG Foley (1986)

Australian Languages

Alawa Sharpe (1972)Anguthimri Crowley (1981)Bandjalang Crowley (1978 1992)Diyari Dixon (1980)Djapu Morphy (1983)Dyirbal Dixon (1980)Gooniyandi McGregor (1994)Gumbaynggir Eades (1979)Guugu Yimidhirr Haviland (1979)Kaitij Dixon (1980)Kalkatungu Dixon (1980)Kunjen Sommer (1969)Lardil Dixon (1980)Margany Breen (1981)Murrinh-Patha M Walsh (1993)Njamal Burling (1970)Pitta-Pitta Blake (1979)Tiwi J Lee (1987)Uradhi Crowley (1983)Wajarri Douglas (1981)Walmajarri Dixon (1980)Wargamay Dixon (1981)Warlpiri Bavin (1993)Western Desert Dixon (1980)Wunambal Vaacuteszolyi (1976)Yanyuwa Bradley (1992)Yaygir Crowley (1979)

Data Sources 289

Yidiny Dixon (1980)Yukulta Keen (1983)

Creoles Pidgins and Koines

Bislama Vanuatu Crowley (1990a 1990b)Tryon (1987) JL

Fiji Hindi Fiji Siegel (1977 1987)Hiri Trading

LanguagesPNG Dutton (1985)

Hiri Motu PNG Dutton (1985)Melanesian Pidgin (see Bislama Pijin Tok Pisin)Pijin Solomon Is Simons and Young

(1978)Police Motu (see Hiri Motu)Tok Pisin PNG Dutton with Thomas

(1985) Mihalic(1971) JL

290 APPENDIX 1

APPENDIX 2

Phonetic Symbols

As much as is possible in this book I use the standard orthographies of thelanguages I describe In discussing the sound systems of these languageshowever phonetic symbols representing the sounds are used In additionsome Pacific languages do not have a standardmdashor anymdashorthography sophonetic symbols are used in quoting data from these languages

The symbols I use are given in the following charts with a brief descrip-tion of some of the sounds they represent Different linguists occasionallyuse different symbols to represent the same sound I have tried to be asconsistent as possible with the use of phonetic symbols in this book oftenchanging the orthography of some of the original sources for this purposeThe system used here is based on the International Phonetic Alphabet butdeviates from it in a number of respects

Symbols not on these charts usually representing sounds referred toonly once in this book are explained when they are used

Vowel SymbolsFront Central Back

Unrounded Rounded Unrounded RoundedHIGH

Close i uuml ɨ uOpen I U

MIDClose e ouml ə oOpen ɛ ɔ

291

LOWClose aelig œ ʌOpen a ɒ

Length is marked by a colon following the vowel a is a vowel of normallength whereas a is a long vowel Nasalization is marked by a tilde abovea vowel atilde is the nasalized version of a

The technical terms used in describing consonants and vowels may befound in the glossary at the end of the book A very brief guide to the pro-nunciation of the sounds symbolized above especially the vowels and someof the unfamiliar consonant symbols follows

Vowels

Approximate pronunciations of some of these vowels are as follows(Pronunciation is in educated Australian English unless otherwise indi-cated)

Front Vowels

[i] as in heed [uuml] as in French rue lsquostreetrsquo[I] as in hit[e] as in French eacuteteacute lsquosummerrsquo [ouml] as in French feu lsquofirersquo[ɛ] as in bet [aelig] as in French peur lsquofearrsquo[aelig] as in bat

Central Vowels Back Vowels

[ɨ] as in New Zealand English this [u] as in pool[U] as in pull

[ə] as in ago father [o] as in saw[ɔ] as in pot

[Λ] as in but[a] as in bard [ɒ] as in BBC English party

Consonants

Symbols that look like and are pronounced roughly like thecorresponding English letter are not discussed here Less familiar symbolsare briefly explained below

292 APPENDIX 2

Cons

onan

tSy

mbo

ls vela

rize

dbi

labi

albi

labi

alla

bio

dent

alde

ntal

alve

o-la

rre

tro-

flex

alve

opa

lata

lpa

lata

lve

lar

labi

ove

lar

glot

tal

voic

eles

sst

ops

oral

PwP

tt

ṭty

ck

kwɁ

pren

asal

ized

mpw

mP

n tn t

n ṭn ty

ntilde cŋ k

ŋ kwŋ Ɂ

voic

edst

ops

oral

bwb

dd

ḍdy

jg

gw

pren

asal

ized

mbw

mb

n dn d

n ḍn dy

n jŋ g

ŋ gw

voic

eles

saff

rica

tes

tsts

tʃvo

iced

affri

cate

sdz

dzdʒ

voic

eles

sfr

icat

ives

fwΦ

fθ

sṣ

ʃx

xwh

voic

edfr

icat

ives

vwβ

veth

zẓ

ʒγ

γw

voic

edna

sals

mw

mn

nṇ

ntildeŋ

ŋw

voic

edla

tera

lsl

lḷ

λɫ

voic

edfla

pr

voic

edtr

ill

oral

rpr

enas

aliz

edn r

voic

edse

miv

owel

sw

ry

Phonetic Symbols 293

English Sounds with Unfamiliar SymbolsThe following are English sounds though the symbols are not always fa-

miliar

[tʃ] as in church [dʒ] as judge[θ] as in think [eth] as in they[ʃ] as in shirt [ʒ] as in rouge[ŋ] as in singing [ṛ] as in run

Non-English SoundsStops Prenasalized stops are made with a nasal sound at the same time asthe stop [mb] for example is a bit like the mb in timber but is a singlesound rather than two Dental stops have the tongue tip touching the teethretroflex stops have the tongue tip curled back to the roof of the mouthand palatal stops are made with the blade of the tongue on the roof of themouth

Fricatives The bilabial fricatives [β ϕ] are very similar to English [f v] ex-cept that both lips are used and the teeth are not The velar fricatives [x γ]parallel the stops [k g] except that a little air is allowed to escape

Nasals [ntilde] is pronounced as in Spanish sentildeor

Laterals [λ] is pronounced like ly run quickly together while [ɫ] is pro-nounced like gl run together

Flaps and trills [r] is a single flap as in Spanish pero lsquobutrsquo while [r] is a trillor roll as in Spanish perro lsquodogrsquo

294 APPENDIX 2

APPENDIX3

Sample Phoneme Systems

Vowel Systems

Micronesia

Kosraean Mokilesei ɨ u i ue ǝ o e oɛ Λ ɛ ɔaelig a ɒ a

Melanesia Austronesian

Port Sandwich Labui uuml u i ue ouml o e o

ɛ ɔa a

Iaai Xacircracirccugraveugrave

i uuml u i ĩ ɨ ɨ u ũe ouml ǝ o e ǝ oɛ œ ɔ ɛ ɛ ɔ ɔ

a a atilde

295

AustraliaAnguthimri

i i ĩ uuml u ue e ẽ ouml oaelig aelig aelig

a a atilde

Consonant SystemsMicronesia

Note The symbol R is used here to refer to a Nauruan consonant describedas ldquoa kind of r whose exact nature is unknown It may be palatalizedhellip Itsounds partially devoiced and appears to be quite fortisrdquo (Nathan 1973 482)

Nauruanpw p t k kw

bw b d g gw

mw m n ŋ ŋw

mw m n ŋ ŋwrR

w y

Kosraeanpw p tw t kw kfw f s ʃw ʃmw m nw n nw ŋ

lw lr

Yapesep p t t ṭ k k ʔb d ḍ gf fʼ θ θʼ ṣ hm m n n ŋ ŋ

l lr

w w y y

296 APPENDIX 3


Port Sandwich Banoni

Pw P t c k P t ts kbw b d g b d dz gmbw mb nr ŋg

s x s hvw v v γmw m n ŋ m n ŋ

l rr

Ririo Adzera

p t ts k ʔ P t c k ʔmP nt ntildec ŋk ŋʔb d j g

mb nd ndz ŋg ntildejs f s h

v z γm n ŋ m n ŋ

lr r

w y

Pije Drehu

Phw Ph th kh

pw p t c k p t ṭ c kmbw mb nd ntildej ŋg b d ḍ g

ɸ f s x f θ s x hv eth z

mw m n ntilde ŋ m n ntilde ŋmw m n ntilde ŋ m n ntilde ŋ

l ll l

w y ww y w

Sample Phoneme Systems 297

Melanesia Papuan

Awa AbauP t k ʔ p kb g

s s hm n m n

r rw y w y

Kobon Kacircte

p t k kpb d g b d g gbf s x h f s h

vts tsdz dz

m n ntilde m n ŋl ḷ λr r

w y ŋ y

Wahgi

P t kmb nd ng

ndzs

m n n ŋl l ɫ

w y

AustraliaAnguthimri

P t t tr ty k ʔmb nd nd ndr ndy gv eth Ʒ γm n n ntilde ŋ

lr

w y

298 APPENDIX 3

APPENDIX 4

Glossary of Technical Terms

This glossary of technical terms used in the text is intended to assist thegeneral reader to understand the basic meanings of those terms For thisreason many technicalities and intricacies have been deliberately omitted

ablative A case marking the direction from which the action proceedsabsolute dating In prehistory the assignment of an actual (approxi-

mate) date for a particular event (say the breakup of a language family)See also relative dating

absolutive The case of the object and the intransitive subject in an erga-tive language

accusative language A language (like English) where the subjects oftransitive and intransitive verbs are marked in the same way and theobject of transitive verbs is marked differently Also called nominative-accusative languages

active voice A sentence is in the active voice when the subject of theverb is also the performer of the action as in John hit the dog See alsopassive voice

adjective A class of words whose function is to describe nounsadjunct adjunct construction A construction common in Papuan lan-

guages in which a noun or an adjective (an adjunct) is bound closelywith a verb expressing an idea that is often expressed by a single verbin other languages

affix A morpheme attached to a root An affix may not occur by itself Seealso infix prefix suffix

affricate A consonant combining a stop with a fricative release like thesound of ch [tf] in English chin

299

agent (1) The performer of an action often the semantic (but not the gram-matical) subject in a passive sentence like Fred in The window was brokenby Fred (2) The subject of a transitive verb in an ergative language

alienable possession A construction in which the possessor is in con-trol of the relationship with what is possessed See also inalienablepossession

allative A case marking the direction toward which action proceedsalveolar Made by the tip of the tongue touching the ridge behind the top

teeth as for [t d]alveopalatal Made with the front part of the tongue touching the front

of the roof of the mouth as far forward as the alveolar ridge as for [ʃ]anaphoric Referring to something already mentionedantipassive A structure found in ergative languages to derive intransi-

tive sentences from underlying transitive onesaorist A tense that marks an action as non-future but does not specify

whether it is present or pastapical Made with the tip of the tongue like [t]apicolabial A sound produced with the tip of the tongue touching the

top lipapplicative Marking the instrument with which the action was per-

formed the reason for the performance of the action and similar rolesOften referred to as the ldquoremote transitiverdquo

article A morpheme that marks some aspect of the class or reference ofa noun The English articles a and the for example mark a noun as in-definite and definite respectively

aspect Expresses the duration of the event or state referred to by theverb or the manner in which the action or state is carried out The dif-ference between He went and He was going in English is one of aspect(punctiliar vs continuous) See also tense

aspiration The puff of air accompanying the production of certainsounds English p and t in words like peach and tick are aspirated inwords like speech and stick they are not aspirated

asterisk () Symbol used to mark an utterance as not (normally) occur-ring either (1) because it is ungrammatical eg They will went today or(2) because it is a reconstruction for a particular protolanguage and hasnot actually been attested eg Proto Oceanic paka- lsquocausative prefixrsquo

Australian A language family consisting of nearly all aboriginal lan-guages of Australia

Austronesian A large family of languages whose members are found ina few areas on the Asian mainland in island Southeast Asia Madagas-

300 APPENDIX 4

car parts of the New Guinea area most of the rest of Melanesia and inMicronesia and Polynesia

auxiliary A morpheme with little semantic content that functions tocarry tense and sometimes other grammatical information in the verbphrase like did in Did you see it

avoidance style A variety of a language in which the speaker has toavoid certain terms (eg names of recently dead people or of in-laws)

back vowel A vowel made with the highest part of the tongue in the backof the mouth like those in English sue and saw

benefactive A case marking the beneficiary of an actionbinary numeral system A system of counting based on twobilabial A consonant made with both lips like [m]borrowing A process whereby speakers of one language adopt some

features of another language Sometimes called copyingbound morpheme See affixcase An indication of the role of a noun phrase in a clause or sentencecausative Bringing about the action of a verb or the quality of a noun or

adjective Compare Tongan mohe lsquoto sleeprsquo and fakamohe lsquoto put (some-one) to sleeprsquo with the causative prefix faka-

central vowel A vowel in which the highest part of the tongue is in thecenter of the mouth as in English bird and bard

classifier A morpheme marking a noun as belonging to a particular classclause A group of phrases containing one predicateclitic An affix attached to a phrase rather than a word like the English

possessive suffix rsquos which is attached to the last word in the possessornoun phrase as in the President of the United States of Americarsquos hat

close vowel A vowel made with more tension than its open equivalentthe vowel in English seat is close but the vowel in sit is open

closed syllable A syllable ending in a consonant See open syllablecoarticulated sound A single sound involving two simultaneous but dif-

ferent articulations The labial-velar stop kp is an examplecode-switching A situation in a bilingual or multilingual context where

people switch from using one language to using another onecognate Words in different languages whose meanings correspond and

whose forms are related through regular sound correspondences Cog-nates by implication all derive from a single protoform

comitative A marker of accompaniment like with in He came with mecommonancestor The language ancestral to a group of related languages A

common ancestor may be either known through documentary records or elsehypothesizedorinferred(inwhichcaseitisreferredtoasaprotolanguage)

Glossary of Technical Terms 301

common article An article used with common nounscommon noun A noun that is not the name of a specific individualcomparative linguistics See historical-comparative linguisticscompletive An aspect that marks an action as completedcompound prepositionpostposition A compound of a locational noun

and a preposition (or postposition) introducing a prepositional (or post-positional) phrasemdashfor example in back of compared with behind

conjugation A set of verbal affixes Different verbs take different af-fixes which thus distinguish different conjugational classes or conjuga-tions (as in Latin)

conjunction A morpheme joining two clauses like and if orconsonant cluster Two or more consonants coming together with no in-

tervening vowelconsonant length A long consonant takes almost twice as long to ar-

ticulate as a short consonant Difference in consonant length is phone-mic in many languages

construct suffix A suffix added to a directly possessed noun or to a pos-sessive marker when the possessor is a noun phrase

continuous An aspect marking action as continuing over a period of timecopying See borrowingcreole A pidgin language that becomes the first language of a signifi-

cant number of people and that (in comparison with the pidgin) is muchless simplified The process by which creoles develop is known as cre-olization

dative A case marking the receiver of the object or the person spoken todaughter language A descendant of a protolanguagedecimal numeral system A system of counting based on tendemonstrative A morpheme locating a noun in space (or time) often

with reference to its position with respect to the speaker and the ad-dressee like English this that

dental Made by the tongue touching the top teeth like the two Englishth-sounds [θ eth]

derivational affix An affix that turns one part of speech into anotherlike English -ize which turns nouns into verbs

descriptive linguistics The branch of linguistics that deals with theanalysis and description of the grammars of languages

diacritic Any mark added to a letter Accents are the most common dia-critics

dialect Differences between communitiesrsquo ways of speaking the samelanguage that are not great enough to prevent normal communication

302 APPENDIX 4

between the communities concerned Dialectal differences may bephonological grammatical or lexical

dialect chain A series of dialects without any clear language boundarybetween any two neighboring dialects although people whose dialectsare not neighboring speak what seem to be different languages

dialect mixing See koinediglossia A situation in which two quite different dialects of a language

are used side by side one in formal contexts and the other in informalcontexts (such as Standard Hindi and Fiji Hindi in Fiji)

digraph Two letters representing a single phoneme In English (andmany other languages) for example the digraph ng represents the sin-gle sound [ŋ]

direct possession A type of construction in which a possessive pronounis directly attached to the possessed noun eg Motu tama-gu lsquomy fa-therrsquo where -gu lsquomyrsquo is directly suffixed to tama lsquofatherrsquo See also indi-rect possession

directional particle A particle marking the direction of the action orsome other spatial or contextual reference

discontinuous morpheme A morpheme occurring in two separate partslike the French negative ne preceding the verb and pas following it

distant demonstrative A demonstrative referring to someone or some-thing distant from both speaker and addressee

dual number Referring to two and only twoemblematic function of language The use of linguistic fea-

turesmdashoften deliberately exaggerated or createdmdashto mark a grouprsquosidentity and to accentuate its differences from other groups

ergative (or ergative-absolutive) language A language in which thesubject of a transitive verb is marked in one way and the subject of anintransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb are marked in a dif-ferent way The ergative case is the case of the transitive subject

exclusive first person A pronoun referring to the speaker and someother person or persons but not the person(s) being spoken to for ex-ample Bislama mifala lsquowe (he and I they and I)rsquo See also inclusivefirst person

family tree A schematic representation of the subgroups of a languagefamily and thus of the degrees of relationship between member lan-guages

final verb The last verb in the sentence In a language with aswitch-reference system this is the verb fully marked for tense-aspectand features of the subject


flap AconsonantmadebyoneveryfaststrikeofthetongueonthealveolarridgeInfastcasualspeechthedd inEnglish ladder isoftenpronouncedasaflap[r]

free morpheme A morpheme that may stand on its own as a wordfricative A consonant made by allowing a small amount of air to escape

under considerable friction as with English [f v s z]front vowel A vowel made with the highest part of the tongue in the

front of the mouth as in English seat and setgenetic inheritance genetic relationship Descended from a com-

mon ancestor (said of languages) Deriving from phonemes or words inthe ancestor language (said of phonemes words and so on)

glottal Made in the glottis like [h]glottal stop A consonant symbolized [ʔ] in which the stream of air is

completely stopped in the glottis (Cockneys are supposed to substitutea glottal stop for tt in words like butter and better)

glottalization Simultaneous closure of the glottis in the production of anonglottal consonant

glottochronology A technique now shown to be unreliable for datingthe splits in a protolanguage

goal The noun phrase at which the action of the verb is aimedhabitual An aspect indicating that an action is performed regularly as a

habit or customhead The main word in a phrasehigh vowel A vowel made with the tongue high in the mouth like the

vowels in English see and suehistorical-comparative linguistics The branch of linguistics that

seeks to discover the history of a group of languages through comparingthem Sometimes referred to as comparative linguistics

imperative The modality of a commandimperfective An aspect indicating that action is not seen as completedinalienablepossession Aconstruction inwhich thepossessordoesnotcontrol

possessionOftenusedofbodypartsorrelativesSeealienablepossessioninceptive An aspect indicating that action is seen as beginninginchoative Inceptiveinclusive first person A pronoun including the speaker and the person

or persons spoken to eg Bislama yumi lsquowe (you and I)rsquo See alsoexclusive first person

independent pronoun A pronoun that may occur alone as opposed toother types of pronouns which occur only as prefixes or suffixes

indirect possession A construction in which a possessive pronoun is notattached to the possessed noun (as in direct possession) but to some

304 APPENDIX 4

other morpheme eg Motu e-gu ruma lsquomy housersquo where -gu lsquomyrsquo is at-tached to the possessive marker e- and not to the noun ruma lsquohousersquo

infix An affix inserted inside a root Tolai for example changes verbs intonounswith the infix -in-as inmat lsquodiersquom-in-at lsquodeathrsquoSeealsoprefixsuffix

instrumental A case marking the instrument with which the action isperformed

intentional An aspect marking the fact that the subject intends to per-form the action

intermediate demonstrative A demonstrative referring to someone orsomething near the addressee but not near the speaker

interstage language An intermediate protolanguage which is both adaughter of the common ancestor of a whole family and the ancestor ofone subgroup of that family

intransitive A verb with no object a clause or sentence containing sucha verb as the main verb eg They are sleeping See also transitive

irrealis An aspect or mood marking an action or state as not real ienot having taken place or existing See also realis

isolate A language that appears to be related to no other languagekoine A language that develops (through a process known as koineiza-

tion sometimes called dialect mixing) out of contact between andmixing of a number of dialects

labiodental Consonants produced by touching the top teeth to the bot-tom lip like [f v]

labiovelar Velar consonants produced with simultaneous lip-roundinglike [kw]

laminal Made with the blade of the tongue like sh in English (phoneti-cally [ʃ])

language family A group of related languages deriving from a commonancestor (actual or hypothesized)

Lapita A distinctive pottery style found in the Pacific Lapita culturerefers to the culture associated with this pottery style assumed to bethe culture of speakers of Proto Oceanic and its immediate descendants

lateral A sound made when air passes around the sides of the tongue [l]is a typical lateral

lexicostatistics A statistical technique for measuring the degree of re-lationship between languages by comparing similarities in basic or non-cultural vocabulary

lingua franca A language used as a common language between peo-ple who speak different vernaculars

linguistics The systematic study of language


locative A case marking the place where an action takes placelong consonant See consonant lengthlong vowel See vowel lengthlow vowel A vowel made with the tongue low in the mouth like the vow-

els in English back and barkmacron A bar over a vowel used in many Pacific (and other) languages

to indicate vowel length eg ā = [a]medial verb In a language with a switch-reference system any but the

last verb in a sentence Medial verbs usually do not mark tense or sub-ject but do indicate whether the next subject is the same or different

Melanesian Pidgin Cover term for the different English-lexifier pid-ginscreoles spoken in Melanesia specifically Tok Pisin (Papua NewGuinea) Pijin (Solomon Islands) and Bislama (Vanuatu)

metathesis A morphophonemic process by which phonemes changeplaces Adding the Lenakel trial suffix -hel to the pronoun kami- lsquoyoursquoproduces kamhiel lsquoyou threersquo (not kamihel) with metathesis of i and h

mid vowel A vowel made with the tongue between the high and low po-sitions like the vowels in English bed and bird

ldquomixedrdquo language A language that has been so heavily influenced by-one or more unrelated languages that its family membership is notobvious

modality See moodmoiety One of two units into which is a society is divided all members of

the society belonging to one or the other moietymood Marker of whether the event or state described by the verb is seen

as being actualrealized or non-actualunrealizedmorpheme The smallest meaningful unit in a language The English

word ungodly contains three morphemes the prefix un- the root godand the suffix -ly

morphology (1) The study of morphemes (2) the way in which mor-phemes combine to form words in a language

morphophonemics The study of sound changes that take place whenmorphemes combine to form words

nasal A sound produced through the nose Consonants like [m n] arenasals and vowels like those in French vin blanc are nasal vowels

nominal sentence A sentence in which the predicate is not a verbphrase See also verbal sentence

nominalizer A morpheme that converts a verb into a noun the processis called nominalization

non-Austronesian See Papuan

306 APPENDIX 4

non-Pama-Nyungan Languages in the north-west of Australia distin-guished from Pama-Nyungan languages by having prefixes as well assuffixes

noun class Nouns that take a different set of affixes for the same func-tions belong to different noun classes (like the Latin declensions)

noun phrase A phrase in which the head is a nounnumber The marking in a noun verb or some other word of linguisti-

cally recognized categories relating to the number of participantsmdashlikesingular dual plural

numeral An exact number (two three seventeen etc) See quantifiernumeral classifier A classifier used with a numeral in a noun phrase to

mark the class of the head of the phraseobject The goal of the action of an active verb In the sentence The boy

hit the dog the object is the dogobject marker A form of a pronoun that occurs within a verb complex to

mark the person and number of the objectOceanic A subgroup of the Austronesian family It includes all the lan-

guages of Polynesia and almost all the Austronesian languages ofMelanesia and Micronesia

open syllable A syllable ending in a vowel See closed syllableopen vowel See close vowelorthography The letters used to represent the sounds or phonemes of a

language spellingpalatal Produced by touching the blade of the tongue to the palate The

y sound of many languages is a palatal consonantPama-Nyungan Cover term for a large group of Australian languages

distinguished mainly by a suffixing morphologyPapuan Cover term for a number of language families in Melanesia not

belonging to the Austronesian familyparticle Words whose principal function is grammatical Particles are

pronounced andor written as separate words rather than as affixespassive voice A sentence is in the passive voice when the subject of the verb

is the goal of the action eg The dog was hit by John See active voicepaucal Referring to a small number though more than twopenultimate stress Stress applied to the next-to-last syllable of wordsphoneme A significant unit of sound in a particular languagephonemics See phonologyphonetics The study of the sounds used in languagesphonology (1) The study of the significant sounds and the sound pat-

terns of a particular language (2) the sound system of a language


phrase A group of words functioning as a unit in a clausephylum A group of related stockspidgin A simplified language usually no onersquos first language which de-

velops (through the process of pidginization) in a multilingual contactsituation to allow for intergroup communication

Polynesian Outliers Genetic members of the Polynesian linguistic sub-group that are spoken outside geographical Polynesia

possessive affix A pronominal form marking the person and number ofthe possessor

possessive classifier A classifier used in a possessive construction tomark the class of the possessed noun

possessive marker A marker used in an indirect possessive construc-tion to which pronoun affixes are attached

postpositions Grammatical markers that follow noun phrases markingthem as postpositional phrases and that either indicate the relationshipbetween them and other noun phrases or mark their function in the sen-tence See preposition

predicate That part of a clause that comments on the topic or subject Ina verbal sentence the predicate is a verb phrase but in a nominal sen-tence it may be a noun phrase an adjective phrase etc

prefix An affix that precedes the root like re- in rewrite See also infixsuffix

prehistory That part of the past before the period covered by writtenrecords

prenasalization The production of a nasal immediately before and aspart of the production of a following sound For example both the d andb in Fijian dabe lsquositrsquomdashphonetically [ndambe]mdashare prenasalized

prepositions Grammatical markers that precede a noun phrase and in-dicate the relationship between it and other noun phrases or mark itsfunction in the sentence Prepositions in English include in to for fromby with at and so on See also postpositions

prepositional phrase A noun phrase introduced by a preposition egIn the morning they walked to the store

proper article An article used with proper nounsproper noun The name of a specific individualprosodic features See suprasegmental phonologyProto Australian The protolanguage from which all Australian lan-

guages are presumed to have derivedProto Austronesian The protolanguage from which all members of the

Austronesian family are presumed to have derived

308 APPENDIX 4

protolanguage The hypothesized common ancestor of a group of lan-guages that on the basis of comparative evidence appear to be geneti-cally related

Proto Oceanic The protolanguage from which all members of theOceanic subgroup of Austronesian are presumed to have derived

proximate demonstrative A demonstrative referring to someone orsomething near the speaker

quantifier Amorphememarkingapproximatenumber (like some fewmany)quinary numeral system A system of counting based on fiverealis An aspect or mood marking the fact that the action or state actu-

ally happened or existed See also irrealisreciprocal Performing an action on each other as in They kissed each

otherreconstruction A procedure by which through comparison of cognate

forms an educated guess is made about the phonemes words or gram-matical structures of a protolanguage

reduplication A process whereby all (complete reduplication) or part(partial reduplication) of a word or root is repeated usually involvinga different grammatical function or a slight change in meaning egHawaiian lsquoaki lsquoto take a nip and let gorsquo lsquoaki-lsquoaki lsquoto nibble (as a fish)rsquolsquoa-lsquoaki lsquoto nip repeatedlyrsquo

regular sound correspondence In cognate words in two or more lan-guages the systematic and predictable correspondence of a particularsound in one language to a particular sound in the other language(s)

related languages Languages descended from a common ancestorrelative dating In prehistory a statement that one event took place

before (or after) another without the assignment of an actual date to ei-ther event See absolute dating

relative pronoun The pronoun that takes the place of a noun when onesentence is embedded in another like who in The man who came yester-day will come again today

retroflex Produced with the tip of the tongue turned back to the roof ofthe mouth

rhotic Any r- like soundroot A morpheme to which affixes can be attachedrounded vowel A vowel made with the lips rounded like [u] in do and

[o] in shortsegmental phonology That area of phonology dealing with the seg-

ments of speechmdashconsonants and vowels See also suprasegmentalphonology


semivowel A consonant with vowel-like qualities like [w] and [y] whichare similar in some ways to [u] and [i]

sentence A group of one or more clauses that can stand alone withoutrequiring the addition of any more phrases

sequential An aspect indicating that an action follows the action of theprevious verb

serial construction A construction involving the stringing together oftwo or more verbs in a single clause

shared innovation A change from the protolanguage shared only bycertain members of the family Shared innovations are one of the criteriafor delimiting a subgroup

short consonant See consonant lengthshort vowel See vowel lengthsound correspondence See regular sound correspondencesplit-ergative language One in which certain nouns function erga-

tively and others (including pronouns) function accusativelystative Expressing a state rather than an event or an actionstock A group of related families See also phylumstop A sound whose production involves the complete blockage of the air

flow like English [p t k]stress Emphasis placed on one of the syllables of a word making it more

prominent than the others as in the third syllable of universitysubgroup A group of languages within a family more closely related to

each other than any is to any other languagesubject The topic in a nominal sentence or the doer of the action or ex-

periencer of the state in a verbal sentencesubject marker A form of a pronoun occurring within a verb complex to

mark the person and the number of the subjectsuffix An affix following the root like -ing in raining See also infix prefixsuprasegmental phonology The area of phonology that deals with as-

pects of speech that cannot be segmented like stress tone and intona-tion See also segmental phonology

switch-reference A grammatical category marked on verbs that indi-cates whether the subject of a verb is the same as or different from thesubject of some other verb

taxonomy A classification of words in which there is a generic overarch-ing term and a number of levels of specific terms The lower-level termsare members of the higher-level termsrsquo families

tense The time of the action or state referred to by the verb in relation tothe time of speaking or writing (or occasionally in relation to some other

310 APPENDIX 4

time) The difference between I went I am going and I will go is one oftensemdashpast present and future In many cases a marker of tense alsomarks aspect such markers are referred to as tense-aspect markers

ternary numeral system A system of counting based on threethematic consonant (vowel) A consonant (or vowel) not present when

the root occurs alone but which surfaces when an affix is added egin Palauan char lsquopricersquo one must add the thematic vowel a before anypossessive suffix Historically thematic vowels or consonants may havebeen part of the root that were lost except in such environments

tone For our purposes changes in pitch that causes changes in mean-ings of a word Such tone is phonemic tone

transitive Having an object (of a verb) containing such a verb as themain verb (of a clause or a sentence) Example They are eating icecream See intransitive

trial number Referring to three and only threetrigraph Three letters representing a single phonemetrill A series of very fast flaps giving a rolling sound (phonetically [r])

found for example in Scots Englishunrounded vowel A vowel made with the lips not rounded like the vow-

els of seed and sadvelar Made in the back of the mouth like [k]velarized bilabial A bilabial sound produced by simultaneously raising

the tongue at the back of the mouth giving an accompanying w-soundeg [mw]

verb A class of words expressing actions and statesverb complex A phrase in which the head is a verbverb root The form of the verb with no affixesverb serialization See serial constructionverbal sentence A sentence whose predicate is a verb complex See

also nominal sentencevernacular The language of a community which is little used outside

that communityvoice See active voice passive voicevoiced and voiceless sounds A sound is voiced if the vocal folds vibrate

during its production and voiceless if they do not The voiced sounds [bv z] have voiceless equivalents [p f s]

vowel copying Occurs in an affix whose vowel is a complete copy ofsome other vowel in the root In Bislama when the verbs kuk lsquocookrsquo killsquohitrsquo and sem lsquoshamersquo take the transitive suffix vowel +m the vowel is acopy of the vowel of the root kuk-um kil-im sem-em


vowel length A long vowel takes almost twice as long to articulate asa short vowel Difference in vowel length is phonemic in many lan-guages

word The smallest freely pronounceable unit in a languageword taboo A practice whereby the name of a relative of a particular

category or of a recently dead person or any word that sounds like thatname may not be uttered A synonym or a borrowed word must be usedin its place

312 APPENDIX 4

Notes

CHAPTER 1

1 Some linguists use the term ldquoverb phraserdquo to represent this type of unit butothers use it to refer to the verb complex together with the object I do not use theterm in this book

2 The first and third sentences could stand on their own with the assistance ofcontext that is they would both be acceptable answers to the question ldquoWho werekilling the catsrdquo They could not however stand in isolation or as say the first sen-tence in a conversation

3 See section 21 in the next chapter for a discussion of the concept of dialect

CHAPTER 2

1 In the absence of other evidence the number of speakers in the region wouldlead us to predict the existence of about six languages not fourteen hundred as-suming that all the worldrsquos languages had an equal number of speakers

2 The points of the Polynesian Triangle are Hawailsquoi to the north New Zealandto the southwest and Easter Island to the southeast

3 Crowley (1994) estimates that Paamese currently has about 4750 speakers al-thoughTryonandCharpentier (1989)put thenumberof speakers ataround2400Evenwith changes of this order in the figures for some other languages however no Vanuatulanguage has anywhere near 10000 speakers

4 The Western Desert language has a variety of local dialect names but no in-digenous name for the whole language

5 The name Nakanamanga both widely and commonly used by speakers of the lan-guage may have been avoided by missionaries who had some experience with Fijiansince this term is obscene in that language

313

CHAPTER 3

1 The family was for a long time called ldquoMalayo-Polynesianrdquo but because thisterm appeared to exclude the languages of Melanesia and Micronesia most schol-ars have adopted the term ldquoAustronesianrdquo (lit southern islands)

2 Most of the groups mentioned here correspond to those listed in Pawley andRoss 1995 an admirable summary of the current state of research (Exactly howa small group of Oceanic languages in northeast Irian Jaya is related to the restof the languages of the subgroup is still not clear) In a few cases I have incorpo-rated more recent research In such cases I have specified the source Lynch Rossand Crowley (1998) suggest that groups five through eight may belong to a singleCentral-Eastern Oceanic group

3 For a brief discussion of lexicostatistics see 133 above4 I do not list the actual terms here For both a list and more detailed discus-

sion see Chowning (1991) and Pawley and Ross (1995)

CHAPTER 5

1 Recall from the discussion in chapter 1 that the sounds of languages areorganized into a number of sound units or phonemes In discussing individual pro-nunciations of words linguists use square brackets [ ] while phonemes are writtenbetween slant lines I use italics for single letters Appendix 2 provides a chart ofthe phonetic symbols used in this book and appendix 3 gives some examples of thevowel and consonant systems of a number of Pacific languages

2 I make occasional reference in this section to the two non-Oceanic languagesspoken in Micronesia Palauan and Chamorro

3 The contexts need not concern us here But see 621 below and Churchward(1940 14)

4 The phonetic explanation for this seems to be that the production of voice-less obstruents involves greater muscle tension and a higher larynx than does theproduction of voiced obstruents and greater muscle tension and a higher larynxare associated with higher pitch (Clark and Yallop 1990 282ndash283)

5 The Rotokas voiced phonemes v r g are pronounced as nasals [m n ŋ] insome phonetic environments

6 Tone marking has been omitted from these examples so as not to obscure theplacement of stress

7 ldquoOn the whole these [tonal systems] seem better analyzed as pitch-accentsystems rather than as genuine tonal systems The vast majority of such Papuanlanguages have a single contrast between high and low tone and this suggests apitch-accent system with a contrast between accented syllables and unaccentedonesrdquo (Foley 1986 63)

8 Unfortunately the sources do not show full contrast as there appears to beno word nǎ that would contrast with the other three words listed here

9 The Rapanui (Easter Island) rongorongo may be an exception to this althoughit was apparently a system of mnemonics rather than a writing system per se

314 Notes

10 Many nonlinguists do not conceive of the glottal stop as a proper consonantbut more as a ldquobreakrdquo between two vowels In his grammar of Tongan Churchwardis at pains to correct this misconception and to stress the consonantal nature of theglottal stop ldquoTo call it the break as is sometimes done is convenient but is rathermisleadingrdquo (Churchward 1953 1)

11 The Catholic forms have eventually been adopted partly because they cor-respond most closely to the English system and partly due to the influence ofWantok newspaper the first Tok Pisin newspaper which was originally produced bythe Catholic Church

12 This principle was taken to its ridiculous extreme in Erromango (Vanuatu)where early missionaries wrote au as x and oi as c

13 The only violation of this principle has been the use of the digraph dr to rep-resent nr The controversy which surfaces every so often usually takes the form ofpressure to revise Fijian orthography more in the direction of English and to writemb th and so on for what are currently written as b and c

14 This convention is based on German orthography

CHAPTER 6

1 Note that the Fijian pronouns given here (and elsewhere) have a preposedpersonal article (see 622 below) which is i in the Nadrau dialect given here and oin Standard Fijian and some other dialects I sometimes refer to Standard (Bauan)Fijian simply as ldquoFijianrdquo but specify other varieties by name (eg ldquoNadrau Fijianrdquo)

2 The Nehan forms are those used in past tense Non-past forms are slightlydifferent involving the loss of initial k in most persons and the replacement of kwith m in the first person exclusive and the second person plural

3 The variation in the third person plural in Kiribati is between animate (-iia)and inanimate (-i) objects

The forms given for the subject markers in table 5 are what appear to be theunderlying forms There is considerable variation in current usage as a result ofchanges in progress in this system (see Lynch 1995)

4 In citing Rotuman data I use standard orthographic symbols for consonantsbut phonetic symbols for vowels since the system of vowel diacritics in Rotumanorthography is somewhat unwieldy

5 Many of these languages probably once did have at least one article derivingfrom the Proto Oceanic common article na In Vanuatu especially however this ar-ticle has become attached to the noun and now forms part of the noun root thoughit may be removed in certain contexts (cf the discussion on pluralization in Anejomin the previous section)

6 In Fijian ko tends to be used quite often in writing where o is used in speechwhile a is sometimes used instead of na This variation is not important for ourpurposes here I will continue to gloss articles as ldquoardquo or ldquotherdquo adding additional in-formation (personal plural etc) where relevant

7 Ke is most often used before words beginning with a e o and k while katends to precede words beginning with i u and any consonant except k

Notes 315

8 The numeral for one does not usually follow the same pattern in these lan-guages

9 The vowels of some of the possessive markers in both languages undergomorphophonemic changes in various environments Note that in both Paameseand Fijian the markers for food and for passivity are formally identical As somelanguages mark these two categories differently there is good reason for believingthat these were distinct in Proto Oceanic

10 Generally however the form function and semantics of possessive classi-fiers are different from those of numeral classifiers Some languages like Kiribatiand Kilivila for example have elaborate numeral classifier systems but no corre-spondingly elaborate possessive classifier systems

11 I say ldquofor the most partrdquo because there are vestiges of the direct construc-tion in some of these languages (cf Wilson 1982 35ndash40)

12 The Nukuoro orthography used here differs slightly from that in the originalsource (Carroll 1965) I write the simple stops p t k and the long stops pp tt kk Car-roll writes the simple stops b d g and the long stops p t k

13 I use the term ldquoverb complexrdquo in place of ldquoverb phraserdquo which has differentmeanings in different theoretical approaches to linguistics The term ldquoparticlerdquorefers to words that have a grammatical function (marking tense or negation forexample) rather than a lexical one (denoting some thing action or quality in thereal world) but which are pronounced and written as separate words and not asprefixes or suffixes

14 Thus I had drunk (completive) I used to drink (habitual) I was drinking(continuous) and I drank (punctiliar) illustrate different aspects of the English verbin the past tense

15 Rotuman is somewhat unusual in having no preverbal subject markers andin marking the person and number of the subject of a stative verb by a suffix

Iris la joni-eristhey FUTURE runaway-theySTATIVEldquoThey will run awayrdquo

16 To some extent this consonant reflects an earlier morpheme-final conso-nant that has been lost in word-final position Take for example Fijian kini lsquopinchrsquowhose transitive form is kini-ti This verb derives from Proto Oceanic gintildeit and theintransitive form kini has lost the final -t quite regularly The transitive form kini-tiderives from gintildeit-i from which -t- was not lost because it was no longer word-fi-nal By no means all thematic consonants however can be explained in this wayOn the basis of comparative evidence one would expect the transitive form of theFijian verb gunu lsquodrinkrsquo to be gunu-mi but it is in fact gunu-vi

17 The fact that the pronoun object is not part of the verb complex but a sep-arate phrase can be seen from sentences that emphasize the object by placing itfirst

Iik ka r-ɨm-eiua-in munyou that he-PAST-lie-TRANS againlsquoHe lied to you againrsquo

316 Notes

18 In some of these languages both transitive and object marking occur to-gether only when the object is human or animate

19 Passive and transitive are closely linked concepts and this suffix is presum-ably the same historically as the -Ci transitive suffix There has been considerabledebate in the literature over whether the -Ci suffix marks passive or transitive inother Polynesian languages a matter I do not take up here See for example Biggs(1974) Chung (1977 1978) Clark (1973 1981) Hohepa (1969) Lynch (1972) Mil-ner (1973) and Tchekhoff (1973)

20 The Kiribati numerals given here include the general classifier -ua21 ldquoAccusativerdquo here is short for ldquonominative-accusativerdquo (subject in the

nominative case object in the accusative case) ldquoErgativerdquo is short for ldquoergative-ab-solutiverdquo defined later

22 This is probably a result of influence from one or more neighboring non-Austronesian languages (most of which have SOV preferred order) on a languageancestral to the Oceanic languages of southern mainland Papua New Guinea Seechapter 9 for further discussion

23 Verb-initial languages do allow some flexibility when the subject or object isemphasized Some Oceanic languages have flexible phrase order but certain gram-matical contexts may require one order and others another

CHAPTER 7

1 The marking on nouns and other noun phrase constituents varies for number(aleman n-ahelsquo lsquothe man wentrsquo alemam m-ahelsquo lsquothe men wentrsquo) and in some classesthe markers are not phonologically identical in all environments (numatalsquo kw-ahelsquolsquothe woman wentrsquo)

2 The Anggor verbs in the examples below are more complex morphologicallythan illustrated here but I have simplified the analysis for purposes of illustration

3 The numerous morphophonemic changes in Enga verb roots and suffixesneed not concern us here but note that the root meaning ldquogordquo appears as both p-and as paacute-in the examples

CHAPTER 8

1 Given my lack of first-hand experience with Australian languages I haverelied very heavily in this chapter on Dixonrsquos The Languages of Australia (1980)which is an excellent introduction to the topic and I am grateful to Terry Crowleyand Nick Thieberger for their assistance

2 Pronouns may take case suffixes and in many cases the combination pro-noun + case suffix has fused to produce a pronoun form impervious to analysis Insuch cases I give the intransitive subject form of the pronoun

3 This discussion of case marking relies heavily on the discussion in Dixon(1980) especially his treatment of case in Yidiny (294ndash301)

4 The Tiwi language of Bathurst and Melville Islands is an exception Dixon(1980 488) says that Tiwi ldquois probably unique in Australia in having no case inflec-tions of any type local relations are shown by prepositionsrdquo

Notes 317

5 The last example is the version used by female speakers Male speakers dis-pense with the prefix nya- with nouns of this class saying simply yabi arrkula ldquoonegood manboyrdquo

6 When the consonant-initial prefixes are followed by a consonant a vowel in-tervenes

7 In some split-ergative languages proper nounsmdashor even all nouns referringto humansmdashbehave like pronouns while other nouns behave ergatively

CHAPTER 9

1 Note also that these words have adapted to another phonological feature ofMotumdashthe fact that every syllable must be open (Examples are from Crowley 199285)

2 Not all consonants are included in these tables In order not to clutter thepicture I have concentrated only on those pertinent to the point I am making

3 A third of his correspondences are classed as indeterminate There are nodiagnostic differences between the two sets (since for example phonemes like mand n are reflected as m and n in both set I and set II)

4 Readers interested in this debate might wish to consult in the first instancethe summaries in Lynch (1981b) or Thurston (1987 89ndash93) and the more detaileddiscussions in Capell (1976) for mixed languages and Biggs (1972) against them

CHAPTER 10

1 Recall the discussion in chapter 2 relating to the indeterminacy of the termsldquolanguagerdquo and ldquodialectrdquo This is another case in point Tok Pisin Pijin and Bislamaare mutually intelligible and under this criterion should be classified as dialects ofa single language Each however functions as the national language of the countryin which it is spoken and under this sociopolitical criterion each could be viewedas a separate language

2 As to the origin of these terms the term ldquopidginrdquo may derive from the ChinaCoast Pidgin English word pijin meaning lsquobusinessrsquo thus Pidgin English meantlsquobusiness (trading) Englishrsquo The term ldquocreolerdquo comes originally from Portuguesecrioulo meaning a person of European descent brought up in the colonies Koineis the Greek word meaning lsquocommonrsquo and was used to refer to the standard AtticGreek that replaced other Greek dialects

3 Becircche-de-mer is sometimes translated lsquosea-cucumberrsquo The name Bis-lamamdashthe Vanuatu variety of Melanesian Pidginmdashultimately derives from the wordldquobecircche-de-merrdquo ldquoBecircche-de-mer Englishrdquo was one name given to this early tradelanguage

4 One exception to this statement is Hawailsquoi Because of the recruitment ofAsian laborers the need for a pidgin remained

5 There are one or two very minor exceptions to this statement most notablythe widespread pronunciation of the third person singular pronoun em as en aftera preposition in Tok Pisin as in Em i givim long en lsquoHe gave it to himrsquo

318 Notes

6 A notable exception is the adjective meaning lsquobadrsquo which follows the nounas in Pijin Mi kaekae fis nogud lsquoI ate asome bad fishrsquo

7 If the subject is mi lsquoIrsquo yu lsquoyoursquo or yumi lsquowe (inclusive)rsquo i is not used In Bis-lama i is replaced by oli if the subject is third person plural

Ol pikinini oli spolem garen blong yuPL child PLPREDICATE damageTRANS garden POSS youlsquoThe kids have messed up your gardenrsquo

8 The Hiri Motu word tamana lsquofatherrsquo derives from the Motu form tama-na lsquohisher fatherrsquo The Motu third person suffix -na has become part of the Hiri Motu rootHiri Motu has also fused the (optional) Motu free pronoun and the possessive pro-noun as a single form (lau) e-gu gt lauegu lsquomyrsquo (oi) e-mu gt oiemu lsquoyourrsquo etc

CHAPTER 11

1 Even the spellcheck on my computer doesnrsquot recognize four of these wordsquinic (acid) quinquagenerian quinque- and quinquefoliate

2 In a study of German children aged between eighteen months and elevenyears Wagner (1985 quoted in Crystal 1987 244) found that they used on averagethree thousand different words in a single day with the eleven-year-old using fivethousand words in a day

3 In fact in some dialects of English yam refers to the sweet potato an en-tirely different root-crop

4 In some languages with a decimal system the word for ldquotenrdquo includes theword for ldquoonerdquo ldquoone-tenrdquo = ldquotenrdquo parallelling ldquotwo-tenrdquo = ldquotwentyrdquo ldquothree-tenrdquo =ldquothirtyrdquo and so on

5 Many languages have borrowed numerals from other languages either be-cause they do not have higher ones because their own higher numerals are incon-veniently long compounds or simply because such numerals are used mainly inldquomodernrdquo contexts (money time airline flight numbers and so on)

6 The length of such compounds is one reason for borrowing numerals MostLenakel speakers today do not express the numeral nineteen by the long-windedcompound katilum-katilum-katilum-kuvɨr but instead use the much more conciseBislama borrowing naintin

7 Forms for numerals vary depending on what is counted Where there is vari-ation I have cited the forms for (male) humans

8 Even though all kinship terms can be extended almost without limit mytranslations include only the more immediate relatives

9 The suffix -k on some of these kin terms means lsquomyrsquo Note that some kinshipterms are directly possessed (grandparents all relatives in the parentsrsquo generationsame-sex siblings wife and grandchildren) but others are indirectly possessed(opposite-sex siblings and children are the most notable of these)

10 The verb lai is generally used of plants and trees that are much shorter ortaller than the norm or that have developed flowers of the ldquowrongrdquo color or leavesof the ldquowrongrdquo shape

Notes 319

11 Clark cites Fischerrsquos (1957 27) report that all the male inhabitants ofNgatik are said to have been massacred by some European sailors (who presum-ably spoke some variety of Pidgin English) These sailors then married the localwomen and remained on the island

12 Kalam words like wjblp lsquobirdrsquo look unpronounceable because Kalam orthog-raphy does not mark the neutral vowel ə which occurs predictably between anytwo consonants Wjblp is phonemically something like wəjəbələp

13 This behavior has obvious implications for a shift in language-use patternsSee 116 below

14 In Vanuatu some schools are English medium others French medium

CONCLUSION

1 I say ldquowords of English originrdquo because in many cases in Ifira-Mele as inmost parts of Melanesia the immediate source is much more likely to be the localvariety of Melanesian Pidgin (in this case Bislama)

2 There ought perhaps to be an attempt to find some less negatively loadedname for languages like Melanesian Pidgin Gillian Sankoff for example has re-ferred to the varieties of Melanesian Pidgin as ldquothe Bislamic languagesrdquo and cer-tainly the name Bislama does not have the negative connotations to an Englishspeaker that names like Pijin or Broken might have

3 Interestingly French-educated ni-Vanuatu tend to use French with eachother much more than English-educated ni-Vanuatu use English in these situationsThis may however have more to do with attitudes emanating from metropolitanFrance than from any local view of Bislama

320 Notes

References

Aitchison Jean1978 Teach yourself linguistics 2d ed Sevenoaks UK Hodder and

Stoughton1981 Language change Progress or decay Bungay UK Fontana Paper-

backs

Alpher Barry1993 ldquoOut-of-the-ordinary ways of using a languagerdquo In Language and

culture in Aboriginal Australia edited by Michael Walsh and ColinYallop 97ndash106 Canberra Aboriginal Studies Press

Baldauf Richard and Allan Luke eds1990 Language planning and education in Australasia and the South Pa-

cific Clevedon UK Multilingual Matters

Bauer Winifred1993 Maori London Routledge

Bavin Edith1993 ldquoLanguage and culture Socialisation in a Warlpiri communityrdquo In

Language and culture in Aboriginal Australia edited by MichaelWalsh and Colin Yallop 85ndash96 Canberra Aboriginal Studies Press

Beaumont Clive H1979 The Tigak language of New Ireland Canberra Pacific Linguistics

B-58

Bellwood Peter1978 Manrsquos conquest of the Pacific The prehistory of Southeast Asia and

Oceania Auckland Collins

321

1995 ldquoAustronesian prehistory in Southeast Asia Homeland expansionand transformationrdquo In The Austronesians Historical and compara-tive perspectives edited by Peter Bellwood James J Fox andDarrell Tryon 96ndash111 Canberra Dept of Anthropology ResearchSchool of Pacific Studies Australian National University

Bender Byron W1969 Spoken Marshallese Honolulu University of Hawailsquoi Press1971 ldquoMicronesian languagesrdquo In Current trends in Linguistics Vol 8

Linguistics in Oceania edited by Thomas A Sebeok 426ndash465 TheHague Mouton

mdashmdash ed1984 Studies in Micronesian Linguistics Canberra Pacific Linguistics

C-80

Bender Byron W and Judith W Wang1985 ldquoThe status of Proto-Micronesianrdquo In Austronesian linguistics at the

15th Pacific Science Congress edited by Andrew Pawley and LoisCarrington 53ndash92 Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-88

Benton Richard A1981 The flight of the amokura Oceanic languages and formal education

in the South Pacific Wellington New Zealand Council for Educa-tional Research

Biggs Bruce1965 ldquoDirect and indirect inheritance in Rotumanrdquo Lingua 14 383ndash4151969 Letrsquos learn Maori Wellington A H and A W Reed1972 ldquoImplications of linguistic subgrouping with special reference to

Polynesiardquo In Studies in Oceanic culture history edited by Roger CGreen and Marion Kelly 3 143ndash152 Pacific AnthropologicalRecords no 13 Honolulu Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum

1974 ldquoSome problems of Polynesian grammarrdquo Journal of the PolynesianSociety 83 401ndash426

Blake Barry J1979 ldquoPitta-Pittardquo In Handbook of Australian languages edited by R M

W Dixon and Barry J Blake 183ndash242 Canberra Australian NationalUniversity Press

Blust Robert A1978a ldquoEastern Malayo-Polynesian A subgrouping argumentrdquo In Second

International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics Proceedingsedited by S A Wurm and Lois Carrington 181ndash234 Canberra Pa-cific Linguistics C-61

1978b The Proto-Oceanic palatals Wellington Polynesian Society

322 References

1980 ldquoEarly Austronesian social organization The evidence of languagerdquoCurrent Anthropology 21 205ndash247 415ndash419

1984a ldquoMalaita-Micronesian An Eastern Oceanic subgrouprdquo Journal ofthe Polynesian Society 93 2 99ndash140

1984b ldquoMore on the position of the languages of Eastern IndonesiardquoOceanic Linguistics 22ndash23 1ndash28

Bradley John (with Jean Kirton and the Yanyuwa Community)1992 ldquoYanyuwa wuka Language from Yanyuwa countryrdquo Unpublished

computer file

Bradshaw Joel1979 ldquoObstruent harmony and tonogenesis in Jabecircmrdquo Lingua 49 189ndash205

Breen J G1981 ldquoMargany and Gunyardquo In Handbook of Australian languages edited

by R M W Dixon and Barry J Blake 2 275ndash393 Canberra Aus-tralian National University Press

Bruce Les1984 The Alamblak language of Papua New Guinea (East Sepik) Can-

berra Pacific Linguistics C-81

Brumby Ed and Eric Vaacuteszolyi eds1977 Language problems and Aboriginal education Mount Lawley West-

ern Australia Mount Lawley College of Advanced Education

Burling Robbins1970 Manrsquos many voices Language in its cultural context New York

Holt Rinehart and Winston

Capell A1971 Arosi grammar Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-201976 ldquoAustronesian and Papuan lsquomixedrsquo languages General remarksrdquo In

New Guinea area languages and language study Vol 2 Austrone-sian languages edited by S A Wurm 527ndash579 Canberra PacificLinguistics C-39

Carroll Vern1965 An outline of the structure of the language of Nukuoro Polynesian

Society Reprints Series No 10 Wellington Polynesian Society

Charpentier Jean-Michel1979 La langue de Port-Sandwich (Nouvelles-Heacutebrides) Introduction

phonologique et grammaire Langues et Civilisations agrave TraditionOrale 34 Paris Socieacuteteacute drsquoEtudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiquesde France

References 323

Cheetham Brian1978 ldquoCounting and number in Hulirdquo Papua New Guinea Journal of Edu-

cation 14 16ndash27

Chowning Ann1991 ldquoProto Oceanic culture The evidence from Melanesiardquo In Currents

in Pacific linguistics Papers on Austronesian languages and ethno-linguistics in honour of George W Grace edited by Robert Blust43ndash75 Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-117

Chung Sandra L1977 ldquoMaori as an accusative languagerdquo Journal of the Polynesian Soci-

ety 86 355ndash3701978 Case marking and grammatical relations in Polynesian Austin Uni-

versity of Texas Press

Churchward C Maxwell1940 Rotuman grammar and dictionary Sydney Australasian Medical

Publishing1953 Tongan grammar Nukulsquoalofa Tonga Vavalsquou Press

Clark John and Colin Yallop1990 An introduction to phonetics and phonology Oxford Blackwell

Clark Ross1973 ldquoTransitivity and case in Eastern Oceanicrdquo Oceanic Linguistics 12

559ndash6051979 ldquoLanguagerdquo In The prehistory of Polynesia edited by Jesse D Jen-

nings 249ndash270 Canberra Australian National University Press1979ndash1980ldquoIn search of Beach-la-mar Towards a history of Pacific Pidgin Eng-

lishrdquo Te Reo 22ndash23 3ndash641981 Review of Case marking and grammatical relations in Polynesian by

Sandra L Chung Language 57 198ndash2051982 ldquolsquoNecessaryrsquo and lsquounnecessaryrsquo borrowingrdquo In Papers from the

Third International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics Vol 3Accent on variety edited by Amran Halim Lois Carrington and S AWurm 137ndash143 Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-76

Cochran Anne M1977 ldquoAlphabet design for Papua New Guinea languagesrdquo Unpublished

masterrsquos thesis University of Papua New Guinea

Codrington R H1885 The Melanesian languages Oxford Clarendon Press

Corston Simon1998 ldquoRovianardquo In The Oceanic languages edited by John Lynch Mal-

colm Ross and Terry Crowley London Curzon Press

324 References

Crowley Terry1978 The Middle Clarence dialects of Bandjalang Canberra Australian

Institute of Aboriginal Studies1979 ldquoYaygirrdquo In Handbook of Australian languages edited by R M W

Dixon and Barry J Blake 363ndash384 Canberra Australian NationalUniversity Press

1981 ldquoThe Mpakwithi dialect of Anguthimrirdquo In Handbook of Australianlanguages edited by R M W Dixon and Barry J Blake 2 147ndash194Canberra Australian National University Press

1982 The Paamese language of Vanuatu Canberra Pacific LinguisticsB-87

1983 ldquoUradhirdquo In Handbook of Australian languages edited by R M WDixon and Barry J Blake 3 307ndash428 Canberra Australian NationalUniversity Press

1990a Beach-la-Mar to Bislama The emergence of a national language inVanuatu Oxford Clarendon Press

1990b An illustrated Bislama-English and English-Bislama dictionary VilaVanuatu Pacific Languages Unit and Vanuatu Extension CentreUniversity of the South Pacific

1992 An introduction to historical linguistics 2d ed Auckland OxfordUniversity Press

1993 ldquoTasmanian Aboriginal language Old and new identitiesrdquo In Lan-guage and culture in Aboriginal Australia edited by Michael Walshand Colin Yallop 51ndash71 Canberra Aboriginal Studies Press

1994 ldquoLinguistic demography in Vanuatu Interpreting the 1989 censusresultsrdquo Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 151 1ndash16

1995 ldquoThe Erromangan (Sye) language of Vanuaturdquo Unpublished type-script

1998 ldquoVinmavisrdquo In The Oceanic languages edited by John Lynch Mal-colm Ross and Terry Crowley London Curzon Press

Crowley Terry John Lynch Jeff Siegel and Julie Piau1995 The design of language An introduction to descriptive linguistics

Auckland Longman

Crystal David1987 The Cambridge encyclopedia of language Cambridge Cambridge

University Press

Davies H J1980 Kobon phonology Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-68

Dempwolff Otto1934ndash1938 Vergleichende Lautlehre des austronesischen Wortschatzes

Zeitschrift fuumlr Eingeborenen-Sprachen 15 17 19 (full issues)

References 325

Dixon R M W1980 The languages of Australia Cambridge Cambridge University

Press1981 ldquoWargamayrdquo In Handbook of Australian languages edited by R M

W Dixon and Barry J Blake 2 1ndash144 Canberra Australian NationalUniversity Press

1991 ldquoThe endangered languages of Australia Indonesia and Oceaniardquo InEndangered languages edited by R H Robins and E M Uhlen-beck 229ndash255 Oxford BERG

mdashmdash ed1976 Grammatical categories in Australian languages Linguistic Series

no 22 Canberra Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies

Dixon R M W and Barry J Blake eds1979 Handbook of Australian languages Canberra Australian National

University Press1981 Handbook of Australian languages Vol 2 Canberra Australian Na-

tional University Press1983 Handbook of Australian languages Vol 3 Canberra Australian Na-

tional University Press

Dougherty Janet W D1983 West FutunandashAniwa An introduction to a Polynesian Outlier

language University of California Publications in Linguistics vol102 Berkeley University of California Press

Douglas Wilfred H1981 ldquoWatjarrirdquo In Handbook of Australian languages edited by R M W

Dixon and Barry J Blake 2 197ndash272 Canberra Australian NationalUniversity Press

Duranti Alessandro1992 ldquoLanguage in context and language as context The Samoan respect

vocabularyrdquo In Rethinking context Language as an interactivephenomenon edited by Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin77ndash99 Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language11 Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Duranti Alessandro and Charles Goodwin eds1992 Rethinking context Language as an interactive phenomenon Stud-

ies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language 11Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Dutton T[om] E1975 ldquoA Koita grammar sketch and vocabularyrdquo In Studies in languages of

central and south-east Papua edited by T E Dutton 281ndash412 Can-berra Pacific Linguistics C-29

326 References

1985 Police Motu Iena sivarai [Port Moresby] University of Papua NewGuinea Press

mdashmdash ed1975 Studies in languages of central and south-east Papua Canberra Pa-

cific Linguistics C-291992 Culture change language change Case studies from Melanesia

Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-120

Dutton T[om] E with Dicks Thomas1985 A new course in Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin) Canberra Pacific

Linguistics D-67

Dutton Tom [E] and Darrell T Tryon eds1994 Language contact and change in the Austronesian world Trends in

LinguisticsmdashStudies and Monographs 77 Berlin Mouton deGruyter

Dutton T[om] E and C L Voorhoeve1974 Beginning Hiri Motu Canberra Pacific Linguistics D-24

Dyen Isidore1965 A sketch of Trukese grammar New Haven Conn American Orien-

tal Society

Eades Diana1979 ldquoGumbaynggirrdquo In Handbook of Australian languages edited by R

M W Dixon and Barry J Blake 244ndash361 Canberra Australian Na-tional University Press

Early Robert1994 ldquoA grammar of Lewo Vanuaturdquo Unpublished PhD thesis Aus-

tralian National University

Elbert Samuel H1974 Puluwat grammar Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-29

Elbert Samuel H and Mary Kawena Pukui1979 Hawaiian grammar Honolulu University Press of Hawailsquoi

Fagan Joel L1986 A grammatical analysis of Mono-Alu (Bougainville Straits Solomon

Islands) Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-96

Faraclas Nicholas1994 ldquoSuccessful language maintenance in Papua New Guineardquo Paper

delivered to the Australian Language Institute Workshop on Lan-guage Shift and Maintenance in the Asia Pacific Region Melbourne

References 327

Farr James and Cynthia Farr1975 ldquoSome features of Korafe morphologyrdquo In Studies in languages of

central and south-east Papua edited by T[om] E Dutton 731ndash769Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-29

Finegan Edward and Niko Besnier1979 Language Its structure and use San Diego Harcourt Brace Jo-

vanovich

Firchow Irwin B and Jacqueline Firchow1969 ldquoAn abbreviated phoneme inventoryrdquo Anthropological Linguistics

119 271ndash276

Fischer J L1957 The Eastern Carolines New Haven Conn Human Relations Area

Files

Foley William A1986 The Papuan languages of New Guinea Cambridge Cambridge Uni-

versity Press

Fontinelle Jacqueline de la1976 La langue de Houaiumllou (Nouvelle-Caleacutedonie) Langues et Civilisa-

tions agrave Tradition Orale 17 Paris Socieacuteteacute drsquoEtudes Linguistiques etAnthropologiques de France

Fox G J1979 Big Nambas grammar Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-60

Fox Helen1996 ldquoAn honorific sub-dialect used among Big Nambas womenrdquo In

Oceanic studies Proceedings of the First International Conferenceon Oceanic Linguistics edited by John Lynch and Falsquoafo Pat Can-berra Pacific Linguistics C-133

Franklin Karl J1971 A grammar of Kewa New Guinea Canberra Pacific Linguistics

C-16

mdashmdash ed1973 The linguistic situation in the Gulf District and adjacent areas

Papua New Guinea Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-261981 Syntax and semantics in Papua New Guinea languages Ukarumpa

Papua New Guinea Summer Institute of Linguistics

Franklin Karl J and Joice Franklin1978 A Kewa dictionary with supplementary grammatical and an-

thropological materials Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-53

328 References

Gabelentz H C von der1861ndash1873Die melanesischen Sprachen nach ihrem grammatischen Bau und

ihrer Verwandschaft unter sich und mit den malaiisch-polynesis-chen Sprachen Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen Classeder koumlniglich saumlchsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften 2 volsLeipzig S Hirzel

Garland Roger and Susan Garland1975 ldquoA grammar sketch of Mountain Koialirdquo In Studies in languages of


Geraghty Paul A1983 The history of the Fijian languages Oceanic Linguistics Special Pub-

lication no 19 Honolulu University of Hawailsquoi Press

mdashmdash ed1998 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Oceanic Lin-

guistics Canberra Pacific Linguistics

Goodenough Ward H and Hiroshi Sugita1980 Trukese-English dictionary Philadelphia American Philosophical

Society

Grace George W1955 ldquoSubgrouping Malayo-Polynesian A report of tentative findingsrdquo

American Anthropologist 57 337ndash3391959 The position of the Polynesian languages within the Austronesian

(Malayo-Polynesian) language family International Journal of Amer-ican Linguistics Memoir 16

1968 ldquoClassification of the languages of the Pacificrdquo In Peoples and cul-tures of the Pacific edited by Andrew P Vayda 63ndash79 New YorkNatural History Press

1981 An essay on language Columbia SC Hornbeam

Greenberg Joseph H1971 ldquoThe Indo-Pacific hypothesisrdquo In Current trends in linguistics Vol

8 Linguistics in Oceania edited by Thomas A Sebeok 807ndash871The Hague Mouton

Groves Terablsquoata R Gordon W Groves and Roderick Jacobs1985 Kiribatese An outline description Canberra Pacific Linguistics

D-64

Harris J W1986 Northern Territory pidgins and the origin of Kriol Canberra Pacific

Linguistics C-89

References 329

Harrison Sheldon P1976 Mokilese reference grammar Honolulu University Press of Hawailsquoi

Harrison Sheldon P and Frederick H Jackson1984 ldquoHigher numerals in several Micronesian languagesrdquo In Studies in

Micronesian languages edited by Byron W Bender 61ndash79 Can-berra Pacific Linguistics C-80

Haudricourt Andreacute-G1971 ldquoNew Caledonia and the Loyalty Islandsrdquo In Current trends in

linguistics Vol 8 Linguistics in Oceania edited by Thomas A Se-beok 359ndash396 The Hague Mouton

Haudricourt Andreacute-G and Franccediloise Ozanne-Rivierre1982 Dictionnaire theacutematique des langues de la reacutegion de Hienghegravene

(Nouvelle-Caleacutedonie) Langues et Civilisations agrave Tradition OraleAsie-Austroneacutesie 4 Paris Socieacuteteacute drsquoEtudes Linguistiques et Anthro-pologiques de France

Haudricourt Andreacute-G Jean-Claude Rivierre Franccediloise Rivierre C Moyse-Fau-rie and Jacqueline de la Fontinelle

1979 Les langues meacutelaneacutesiennes de Nouvelle-Caleacutedonie Collection Eveilno 13 Noumea D E C Bureau Psychopeacutedagogique

Haviland J B1979 ldquoGuugu Yimidhirrrdquo In Handbook of Australian languages edited by

R M W Dixon and Barry J Blake 27ndash180 Canberra Australian Na-tional University Press

Hazlewood David1850a A Feejeean and English and an English and Feejeean dictionary

Vewa [Viwa] Wesleyan Mission Press1850b A compendious grammar of the Feejeean language Vewa [Viwa]

Wesleyan Mission Press

Henderson J E1975 ldquoYeletnye the language of Rossell Islandrdquo In Studies in languages

of central and south-east Papua edited by T[om] E Dutton817ndash834 Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-29

Hobbs Susan1985 Fiji HindindashEnglish EnglishndashFiji Hindi dictionary Suva Ministry of

Education

Hohepa Patrick W1967 A profile generative grammar of Maori Supplement to International

Journal of American Linguistics 332 International Journal of Amer-ican Linguistics Memoir 20 Indiana University Publications inAnthropology and Linguistics

330 References

1969 ldquoThe accusative-to-ergative drift in Polynesian languagesrdquo Journalof the Polynesian Society 78 295ndash329

Holzknecht Susanne1989 The Markham languages of Papua New Guinea Canberra Pacific

Linguistics C-115

Irwin Barry1974 Salt-Yui grammar Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-35

Jackson Frederick H1983 ldquoThe internal and external relationships of the Trukic languages of

Micronesiardquo Unpublished PhD diss University of Hawailsquoi

Jackson Frederick H and Jeffrey C Marck1991 Carolinian-English dictionary Honolulu University of Hawailsquoi Press

Jensen John Thayer1977 Yapese reference grammar Honolulu University Press of Hawailsquoi

Johnston R L1980 Nakanai of New Britain The grammar of an Oceanic language Can-


Jones Alan A1992 ldquoTowards a lexicogrammar of Mekeordquo Unpublished PhD thesis

Australian National University

Josephs Lewis S1975 Palauan reference grammar Honolulu University Press of Hawailsquoi

Kayser Alois1936 Nauru grammar Mimeograph Nauru Administration of Nauru

Reprinted with introductory notes as Karl H Rensch ed Naurugrammar (Canberra Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany1993)

Keen Sandra1983 ldquoYukultardquo In Handbook of Australian languages edited by R M W


Keesing Roger M1990 ldquoSolomons Pijin Colonial ideologiesrdquo In Language planning and

education in Australasia and the South Pacific edited by RichardBaldauf Jr and Allan Luke 150ndash165 Clevedon U K MultilingualMatters

References 331

Kolia J A1975 ldquoA Balawaia grammar sketch and vocabularyrdquo In Studies in lan-

guages of central and south-east Papua edited by T[om] E Dutton107ndash226 Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-29

Krupa Viktor1982 The Polynesian languages A guide London Routledge and Kegan

Paul

Kulick Don1992 Language shift and cultural reproduction Socialization self and

syncretism in a Papua New Guinean village Studies in the Socialand Cultural Foundations of Language 14 Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press

Lang Adrienne1973 Enga dictionary with English index Canberra Pacific Linguistics

C-20

Langdon Robert and Darrell Tryon1983 The language of Easter Island Its development and Eastern Polyne-

sian relationships Laie Hawailsquoi Institute for Polynesian Studies

Laycock D C1965 The Ndu language family (Sepik District New Guinea) Canberra

Pacific Linguistics C-11973 ldquoSissano Warapu and Melanesian pidginizationrdquo Oceanic Linguis-

tics 12 245ndash2771975a ldquoObservations on number systems and semanticsrdquo In New Guinea

area languages and language study Vol 1 Papuan languages andthe New Guinea linguistic scene edited by S A Wurm 219ndash233Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-38

1975b ldquoThe Torricelli Phylumrdquo In New Guinea area languages and lan-guage study Vol 1 Papuan languages and the New Guinealinguistic scene edited by S A Wurm 767ndash780 Canberra PacificLinguistics C-38

1982a ldquoMelanesian linguistic diversity A Melanesian choicerdquo In MelanesiaBeyond diversity edited by R J May and H N Nelson 33ndash38 Can-berra Australian National University Research School of PacificStudies

1982b ldquoMetathesis in Austronesian Ririo and other casesrdquo In Papers fromthe Third International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics Vol1 Currents in Oceanic edited by Amran Halim Lois Carringtonand S A Wurm 269ndash281 Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-74

1985 ldquoThe future of Tok Pisinrdquo In Handbook of Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pid-gin) edited by S A Wurm and P Muumlhlhaumlusler 665ndash668 CanberraPacific Linguistics C-70

332 References

Lee Jennifer1987 Tiwi today A study of language change in a contact situation Can-


Lee Kee-dong1975 Kusaiean reference grammar Honolulu University Press of Hawailsquoi

Leenhardt Maurice1946 Langues et dialectes de lrsquoAustro-Meacutelaneacutesie Travaux et Meacutemoires

46 Paris Institut drsquoEthnologie

Lichtenberk Frantisek1978 A sketch of Houailou grammar Honolulu University of Hawailsquoi

Working Papers in Linguistics 102 74ndash1161983 A grammar of Manam Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication no

18 Honolulu University of Hawailsquoi Press1984 Tolsquoabalsquoita language of Malaita Solomon Islands Working Papers in

Anthropology Archaeology Linguistics Maori Studies no 65 Auck-land Department of Anthropology University of Auckland

Lincoln Peter C1976 ldquoDescribing Banoni an Austronesian language of southwest

Bougainvillerdquo Unpublished PhD diss University of Hawailsquoi

Lindstrom Lamont1986 Kwamera dictionarymdashNɨkukua sai nagkiariien Nɨninɨfe Canberra

Pacific Linguistics C-95

Lindstrom Lamont and John Lynch1994 Kwamera Languages of the WorldMaterials 02 Munich Lincom

Europa

Lister-Turner R and J B Clarknd A grammar of the Motu language of Papua 2d ed Edited by Percy

Chatterton Sydney New South Wales Government Printer

Litteral Shirley1981 ldquoThe semantic components of Anggor existential verbsrdquo In Syntax

and semantics in Papua New Guinea languages edited by Karl JFranklin 125ndash149 Ukarumpa Papua New Guinea Summer Insti-tute of Linguistics

Loving Richard and Aretta Loving1975 Awa dictionary Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-30

Lynch John1972 ldquoPassives and statives in Tonganrdquo Journal of the Polynesian Society

81 5ndash181978 A grammar of Lenakel Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-55

References 333

1981a ldquoAustronesian lsquoloanwordsrsquo () in Trans-New Guinea Phylum vocabu-laryrdquo Pacific Linguistics A-61 165ndash180

1981b ldquoMelanesian diversity and Polynesian homogeneity The other sideof the coinrdquo Oceanic Linguistics 20 95ndash129

1982a ldquoAnejom grammar sketchrdquo Pacific Linguistics A-64 93ndash1541982b ldquoSouth-west Tanna grammar outline and vocabularyrdquo Pacific Lin-

guistics A-64 1ndash911994 ldquoMelanesian sailors on a Polynesian sea Maritime vocabulary in

southern Vanuaturdquo In Austronesian terminologies Continuity andchange edited by A K Pawley and M D Ross 289ndash300 CanberraPacific Linguistics C-127

1995 ldquoThe Anejom subject marking system Past present and futurerdquoOceanic Linguistics 341 13ndash26

1996 ldquoKava-drinking in southern Vanuatu Melanesian drinkers Polyne-sian rootsrdquo Journal of the Polynesian Society 105 1 27ndash40

1998 ldquoAnejomrdquo In The Oceanic languages edited by John Lynch MalcolmRoss and Terry Crowley London Curzon Press

1998 ldquoLinguistic subgrouping in Vanuatu and New Caledonia Some pre-liminary hypothesesrdquo In Proceedings of the Second InternationalConference on Oceanic Linguistics edited by Paul Geraghty Can-berra Pacific Linguistics

mdashmdash ed1983 Studies in the languages of Erromango Canberra Pacific Linguis-

tics C-79

Lynch John and Kenneth Fakamuria1994 ldquoBorrowed moieties borrowed names Sociolinguistic contact be-

tween Tanna and Futuna-Aniwa Vanuaturdquo Pacific Studies 17179ndash91

Lynch John and Rex Horoi1998 ldquoArosirdquo In The Oceanic languages edited by John Lynch Malcolm

Ross and Terry Crowley London Curzon Press

Lynch John and Falsquoafo Pat eds1996 Oceanic studies Proceedings of the First International Conference

on Oceanic Linguistics Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-133

Lynch John Malcolm Ross and Terry Crowley1998 The Oceanic languages London Curzon Press

Lynch John and D T Tryon1985 ldquoCentral-Eastern Oceanic A subgrouping hypothesisrdquo In Austrone-

sian Linguistics at the 15th Pacific Science Congress edited byAndrew Pawley and Lois Carrington 31ndash52 Canberra Pacific Lin-guistics C-88

334 References

McElhanon Kenneth A and C L Voorhoeve1970 The Trans-New Guinea phylum Explorations in deep-level genetic

relationships Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-16

McEwen J M1970 Niue dictionary Wellington Department of Maori and Island Affairs

McGregor William1994 ldquoGooniyandirdquo In Aboriginal words edited by Nick Thieberger and

William McGregor 193ndash213 Sydney Macquarie Library

Marsack C C1962 Teach yourself Samoan London English Universities Press

Mihalic F1971 The Jacaranda dictionary and grammar of Melanesian Pidgin Mil-

ton Queensland Jacaranda Press

Milner G B1966 Samoan dictionary (Samoan-English English-Samoan) Auckland

Polynesian Press1972 Fijian grammar 3d ed Suva Government Press1973 ldquoIt is aspect (not voice) which is marked in Samoanrdquo Oceanic Lin-

guistics 12 621ndash639

Morphy Frances1983 ldquoDjapurdquo In Handbook of Australian languages edited by R M W


Mosel Ulrike1980 Tolai and Tok Pisin The influence of the substratum on the de-

velopment of New Guinea Pidgin Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-731984 Tolai syntax and its historical development Canberra Pacific Lin-

guistics B-92

Moyse-Faurie Claire1983 Le drehu Langue de Lifou (Iles Loyauteacute) Langues et Cultures du

Pacifique 3 Paris Socieacuteteacute drsquoEtudes Linguistiques et Anthro-pologiques de France

Mugler France and John Lynch eds1996 Pacific languages in education Suva Institute of Pacific Studies

University of the South Pacific

Muumlhlhaumlusler Peter1979 Growth and structure of the lexicon of New Guinea Pidgin Can-


References 335

Murane Elizabeth1974 Daga grammar Norman Oklahoma Summer Institute of Linguis-

tics

Murray J H P1924 Notes on Colonel Ainsworthrsquos report on the Mandated Territory of

New Guinea Port Moresby Government Printer

Nathan Geoffrey S1973 ldquoNauruan in the Austronesian language familyrdquo Oceanic Linguistics

12 479ndash501

Nekitel Otto1986 ldquoA sketch of nominal concord in Abulsquo (an Arapesh language)rdquo Pacific

Linguistics A-70 177ndash205

Ochs Elinor1988 Culture and language development Language acquisition and

language socialization in a Samoan village Studies in the Social andCultural Foundations of Language 6 Cambridge Cambridge Uni-versity Press

OrsquoGrady G N and D T Tryon eds1990 Studies in comparative Pama-Nyungan Canberra Pacific Linguis-

tics C-111

Olson Mike1975 ldquoBarai grammar highlightsrdquo In Studies in languages of central and

south-east Papua edited by T[om] E Dutton 471ndash512 CanberraPacific Linguistics C-29

Ozanne-Rivierre Franccediloise1976 Le iaai Langue meacutelaneacutesienne drsquoOuveacutea (Nouvelle-Caleacutedonie)

Langues et Civilisations agrave Tradition Orale 20 Paris SocieacuteteacutedrsquoEtudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France

Pawley Andrew [K]1966a ldquoThe structure of Kalam A grammar of a New Guinea Highlands lan-

guagerdquo Unpublished PhD diss University of Auckland1966b ldquoSamoan phrase structurerdquo Anthropological Linguistics 85 1ndash631972 ldquoOn the internal relationships of the Eastern Oceanic languagesrdquo In

Studies in Oceanic culture history edited by Roger C Green andMarion Kelly 3 1ndash142 Pacific Anthropological records no 13 Hon-olulu Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum

1981 ldquoMelanesian diversity and Polynesian homogeneity A unified expla-nation for languagerdquo In Studies in Pacific languages and cultures inhonour of Bruce Biggs edited by Jim Hollyman and Andrew Pawley269ndash309 Auckland Linguistic Society of New Zealand

336 References

1992 ldquoKalam Pandanus language An old New Guinea experiment in lan-guage engineeringrdquo In The language game Papers in memory ofDonald C Laycock edited by Tom Dutton Malcolm Ross and Dar-rell Tryon 313ndash334 Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-110

1995 ldquoC L Voorhoeve and the Trans New Guinea hypothesisrdquo In Talesfrom a concave world Liber amicorum Bert Voorhoeve edited byConnie Baak Mary Bakker and Dick van der Meij 83ndash123 LeidenLeiden University

Pawley Andrew [K] and Malcolm Ross1995 ldquoThe prehistory of the Oceanic languages A current viewrdquo In The

Austronesians Historical and comparative perspectives edited byPeter Bellwood James J Fox and Darrell Tryon 39ndash74 CanberraAustralian National University Research School of Pacific StudiesDepartment of Anthropology

mdashmdash eds1994 Austronesian terminologies Continuity and change Canberra Pa-

cific Linguistics C-127

Pawley Andrew [K] and Timoci Sayaba1990 ldquoPossessive-marking in Wayan a western Fijian language Noun

class or relational systemrdquo In Pacific Island languages Essays inhonour of G B Milner edited by Jeremy H C S Davidson 147ndash171London and Honolulu School of Oriental and African Studies Uni-versity of London and University of Hawailsquoi Press

Philips Susan U1991 ldquoTongan speech levels Practice and talk about practice in the cul-

tural construction of social hierarchyrdquo In Currents in Pacificlinguistics Papers on Austronesian languages and ethnolinguisticsin honour of George W Grace edited by Robert Blust 369ndash382 Can-berra Pacific Linguistics C-117

Phillips Donald J1976 Wahgi phonology and grammar Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-36

Piau Julie Anne1981 ldquoKuman classificatory verbsrdquo Language and Linguistics in Melane-

sia 131ndash23ndash311985 ldquoThe verbal syntax of Kumanrdquo Unpublished masterrsquos thesis Aus-


Price D J de Solla and Leopold Pospisil1966 ldquoA survival of Babylonian arithmetic in New Guineardquo Indian Journal

of the History of Science 130ndash33

References 337

Ray S H1926 A comparative study of the Melanesian island languages Cam-

bridge Cambridge University Press

Rehg Kenneth L1981 Ponapean reference grammar Honolulu University Press of Hawailsquoi

Rensch Karl H ed1993 Nauru grammar Reprint of Alois Kayser Nauru grammar (1936)

with introductory notes Canberra Embassy of the Federal Republicof Germany

Rivierre Jean-Claude1980 La langue de Touho Phonologie et grammaire du cegravemuhicirc (Nou-

velle-Caleacutedonie) Langues et Civilisations agrave Tradition Orale 38 ParisSocieacuteteacute drsquoEtudes Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France

Ross M[alcolm] D1980 ldquoSome elements of Vanimo a New Guinea tone languagerdquo Pacific

Linguistics A-56 77ndash1091984 ldquoMaisin A preliminary sketchrdquo Pacific Linguistics A-69 1ndash821988 Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melane-

sia Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-981993 ldquoTonogenesis in the North Huon Gulf chainrdquo In Tonality in Austrone-

sian languages edited by Jerold A Edmondson and Kenneth JGregorson 133ndash150 Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication no24 Honolulu University of Hawailsquoi Press

1995 ldquoIs Yapese Oceanicrdquo Paper presented to the Second InternationalConference on Oceanic Linguistics Suva Fiji July

1996 ldquoOn the genetic affiliation of the Oceanic languages of Irian JayardquoOceanic Linguistics 352 259ndash271

Ross Malcolm and John Natu Paol1978 A Waskia grammar sketch and vocabulary Canberra Pacific Lin-

guistics B-56

Salisbury Richard1962 ldquoNotes on bilingualism and language change in New Guineardquo An-

thropological Linguistics 47 1ndash13

Sandefur J R1986 Kriol of North Australia A language coming of age Darwin Sum-

mer Institute of Linguistics

Sanders Arden G and Joy Sanders1980 ldquoPhonology of the Kamasau languagerdquo Pacific Linguistics A-56

111ndash135

338 References

Savage Stephen1980 A dictionary of the Maori language of Rarotonga 2d ed Suva Insti-

tute of Pacific Studies University of the South Pacific and CookIslands Ministry of Education

Schieffelin Bambi B1990 The give and take of everyday life Language socialization of Kaluli

children Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Lan-guage 9 Cambridge Cambridge University Press

Schnukal Anna1988 Broken An introduction to the creole language of Torres Strait Can-


Schuumltz Albert J1969 Nguna grammar Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication no 5

Honolulu University of Hawailsquoi Press1972 The languages of Fiji Oxford Clarendon Press1985 The Fijian language Honolulu University of Hawailsquoi Press1994 Voices of Eden A history of Hawaiian language studies Honolulu

University of Hawailsquoi Press

Schuumltz Albert J and Rusiate T Komaitai1971 Spoken Fijian Honolulu University Press of Hawailsquoi

Scott Graham K1978 The Fore language of Papua New Guinea Canberra Pacific Linguis-

tics B-47

Sebeok Thomas A ed1971 Current trends in linguistics Vol 8 Linguistics in Oceania The

Hague Mouton

Senft Gunter1986 Kilivila The language of the Trobriand Islanders Berlin Mouton de

Gruyter

Sharpe Margaret C1972 Alawa phonology and grammar Australian Aboriginal Studies no

37 Linguistic Series no 15 Canberra Australian Institute of Abo-riginal Studies

Siegel Jeff1977 Say it in Fiji Hindi Sydney Pacific Publications1984 ldquoIntroduction to the Labu languagerdquo Pacific Linguistics A-69

83ndash1591987 Language contact in a plantation environment A sociolinguistic

history of Fiji Cambridge Cambridge University Press

References 339

Simons Linda and Hugh Young1978 Pijin blong yumi A guide to Solomon Islands Pijin Honiara

Solomon Islands Christian Association

Simpson Jane1993 ldquoMaking dictionariesrdquo In Language and culture in Aboriginal Aus-

tralia edited by Michael Walsh and Colin Yallop 123ndash144Canberra Aboriginal Studies Press

Smith Geoffrey P1988 ldquoMorobe counting systemsrdquo Pacific Linguistics A-76 1ndash132

Sohn Ho-min and B W Bender1973 A Ulithian grammar Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-27

Sommer Bruce A1969 Kunjen phonology Synchronic and diachronic Canberra Pacific

Linguistics B-11

Spriggs Matthew1995 ldquoThe Lapita culture and Austronesian prehistory in Oceaniardquo In The


Tchekhoff Claude1973 ldquoVerbal aspects in an ergative construction An example in Tonganrdquo

Oceanic Linguistics 12 607ndash620

Tepahae Philip and John Lynch1998 ldquoThe language of family in Aneityumrdquo In Violence in Paradise Pro-

ceedings of the Conference on Violence and the Family in Vanuatuedited by Andonia Piau-Lynch Canberra Research School of Pacificand Asian Studies Australian National University

Thomson N P1975 ldquoMagi phonology and grammarmdashfifty years afterwardsrdquo In Studies

in languages of central and south-east Papua edited by T[om] EDutton 599ndash666 Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-29

Thurston William R1982 A comparative study in Anecircm and Lusi Canberra Pacific Linguis-

tics B-831987 Processes of change in the languages of north-western New Britain

Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-991992 ldquoSociolinguistic typology and other factors effecting change in

northwestern New Britain Papua New Guineardquo In Culture change

340 References

language change Case studies from Melanesia edited by Tom Dut-ton 123ndash139 Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-120

Todd Evelyn M1975 ldquoThe Solomon language familyrdquo In New Guinea area languages and

language study Vol 1 Papuan languages and the New Guinea lin-guistic scene edited by S A Wurm 805ndash846 Canberra PacificLinguistics C-38

1978 ldquoA sketch of Nissan (Nehan) grammarrdquo In Second International Con-ference on Austronesian Linguistics Proceedings edited by S AWurm and Lois Carrington 1181ndash1239 Canberra Pacific Linguis-tics C-61

Topping Donald M1973 Chamorro reference grammar Honolulu University Press of Hawailsquoi

Trefry David1969 A comparative study of Kuman and Pawaian Canberra Pacific Lin-

guistics B-13

Tryon D[arrell] T1968a Dehu grammar Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-71968b Iai grammar Canberra Pacific Linguistics B-81970 Conversational Tahitian Canberra Australian National University

Press1973 ldquoLinguistic subgrouping in the New Hebrides A preliminary ap-

proachrdquo Oceanic Linguistics 12 303ndash3511976 New Hebrides languages An internal classification Canberra Pa-

cific Linguistics C-501987 Bislama An introduction to the national language of Vanuatu Can-

berra Pacific Linguistics D-721995 ldquoProto-Austronesian and the major Austronesian subgroupsrdquo In The


mdashmdash ed1994 Comparative Austronesian dictionary Berlin Mouton de Gruyter

Tryon D[arrell] T and J-M Charpentier1989 ldquoLinguistic problems in Vanuaturdquo Ethnies 48ndash10 13ndash17

Tryon D[arrell] T and B D Hackman1983 Solomon Island languages An internal classification Canberra Pa-


References 341

Vaacuteszolyi E1976 ldquoWunambalrdquo In Grammatical categories in Australian languages

edited by R M W Dixon 629ndash646 Linguistic Series no 22 Can-berra Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies

Verhaar John W M1995 Toward a reference grammar of Tok Pisin An experiment in corpus

linguistics Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication no 26 Hon-olulu University of Hawailsquoi Press

mdashmdash ed1990 Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin Amsterdam John Benjamins

Wagner K R1985 ldquoHow much do children say in a dayrdquo Journal of Child Language 12

475ndash487

Walsh D S1966 ldquoThe phonology and phrase structure of Ragardquo Unpublished mas-

terrsquos thesis University of Auckland

Walsh Michael1993 ldquoClassifying the world in an Aboriginal languagerdquo In Language and


Walsh Michael and Colin Yallop eds1993 Language and culture in Aboriginal Australia Canberra Aboriginal

Studies Press

White Geoffrey M1988 Cheke Holo (MaringeHograno) dictionary Canberra Pacific Lin-

guistics C-97

Wilson William H1982 Proto-Polynesian possessive marking Canberra Pacific Linguistics

B-85

Wurm S A1982 The Papuan languages of Oceania Tuumlbingen Gunther Narr Verlag

mdashmdash ed1975 New Guinea area languages and language study Vol 1 Papuan

languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene Canberra PacificLinguistics C-38

1976 New Guinea area languages and language study Vol 2 Austrone-sian languages Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-39

342 References

1977 New Guinea area languages and language study Vol 3 Languageculture society and the modern world Canberra Pacific Linguis-tics C-40

1979 New Guinea and neighbouring areas A sociolinguistic laboratoryThe Hague Mouton

Wurm S A and John B Harris1963 Police Motu An introduction to the trade language of Papua

(New-Guinea) for anthropologists and other fieldworkers CanberraPacific Linguistics B-1

Wurm S A and Shirocirc Hattori eds1981 Language atlas of the Pacific area Part 1 New Guinea area Ocea-

nia Australia Canberra Pacific Linguistics C-66

Wurm S A and P Muumlhlhaumlusler eds1985 A handbook of Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin) Canberra Pacific Lin-

guistics C-70

Yallop Colin1981 Australian Aboriginal languages London Andreacute Deutsch

References 343

Index

The following do not appear in this index1 Names of authors listed in the References2 Names of languages listed in Appendix 1 or located on Maps 3ndash113 Names of Papuan language families which appear only in Table 44 Technical terms listed alphabetically in Appendix 45 English French etc where these languages are used to illustrate a pointof grammar

General categories (such as Polynesia languages of) are indexed onlywhere a generalization is made about that category and not when a specificmember of the category (eg Hawaiian or Tongan) is referred to

Abau 298Abelam 167 173ablative case 188absolutive case 151 187ndash188 199ndash200Abulsquo 169ndash170 171 317accusative structures 150 317

in Australian languages 200 202in Oceanic languages 150ndash151

active (voice) 6adjectives 6ndash7

adjectives vs verbs 6ndash7 115ndash117in Australian languages 190 192in Melanesian Pidgin 228ndash229in Oceanic languages 115ndash117

adjunct constructions 175ndash177Admiralty Islands group 48

Adzera 76 84 249 297affix 3agent (in ergative structures) 151

199ndash200Aitchison Jean 279Alsquojieuml 102 130 131 156 159Alamblak 167Alawa 91Ali 101alienable possession 9 122ndash123 172

194 217allative case 188Alpher Barry 257Amara 215AmtondashMusian family 67anaphoric demonstratives 114ndash115

345

Anejom 7 102 104 105 106 109114ndash115 118 140 150 154 156217 240 241ndash243 256 315

Anecircm 215ndash217Anggor 178 179ndash180 317Anguthimri 91 93ndash94 190 296 298anitpassive 200ndash201apicals 91ndash93apico-labials 80Apma 34applicative 140Arai family 67Aroma 12ndash13 15ndash16Arosi 83 245articles 110

absence ofin Australian languages 191in Melanesian Pidgin 228in Papuan languages 170

common 110ndash111gender marking in 112ndash113in Oceanic languages 110ndash113proper 110ndash111

aspect 133 See also tense-aspectasterisk use of xviiAustralia

languages of 39ndash40death of 269demography of 28 39ndash40external relatives of 69ndash70history of research into 43ndash44origins of 69ndash70orthographies of 98ndash99relationships between 68ndash69word taboo in 214ndash215See also names of individual lan-

guages as per Map 12settlement of 60ndash61 70 206

Australian creoles 221 223 263 282Australian family 68ndash69Austronesian family 45 279ndash280 314

dispersal of 53distribution of 45ndash46external relatives of 53origins of 51 53ndash54subgroups of 46ndash47

auxiliary 187aversive case 188

avoidance styles 258ndash260Awa 89 298Awadhi 235

Babatana 71baby-talk words 261Bahasa Indonesia 25 262 264Baldauf Richard 282Banaban people 206Bandjalang 93 99 200Baniata 41 168Banoni 84 121 157ndash158 159 297Barai 170 177ndash178Bareke 41Bauan Fijian 315Bauer Winifred 286Bavin Edith 260 289Bazaar Hindustani 235Beaumont Clive H 287Becircche-de-mer English See BislamaBellwood Peter 53 56Bender Byron W 30 42 120 281

286 287Benton Richard A 282Bhojpuri 235 274Biak-Numfor 38Biggs Bruce 213ndash214 281 286 287

317 318Big Nambas 81ndash82 84 257bilingualism See multilingualismBilua 169binary numeral system 249ndash250Bislama 8 25 210 220 223ndash224 226

227ndash230 232 264 273 281 304311 318 319 320

status of 262 266 275See also Melanesian Pidgin

ldquoBislamic languagesrdquo 320Blake Barry J 280ndash281 289Blust Robert A 279 280borrowing See copyingBradley John 289Bradshaw Joel 82 288Braj 235Breen J G 289Broken 25 274 282 320Bruce Les 288Brumby Ed 282

346 Index

Budibud 120Bughotu 48Buin 71 90 246Burling Robbins 251 253 289

Capell Arthur 44 285 318Carolinian 76 98Carroll Vern 287 316case 180

ablative 188absolutive 151 187ndash188 199ndash200allative 188in Australian languages 187ndash190aversive 188causal 188dative 188 201ergative 151 187ndash188 199ndash200instrumental 188locative 188peripheral cases 180ndash182possessive 188ndash189 194in pronouns 186ndash187 317purposive 188

causal case 188causative 131 144ndash145Cegravemuhicirc 82 113Cenderawasih Bay family 67Central-Eastern Oceanic group 50 314Central Pacific group 50Chamorro 46 50 76 108ndash109 314change in language 9ndash12

deliberate 71rate of 57ndash58

Charpentier Jean-Michel 34 287 313Cheetham Brian 248 288China Coast Pidgin English 318Chinese in the Pacific 25 263Chowning Ann 280 314Chuave 263Chung Sandra L 317church languages 207ndash208Churchward C Maxwell 287 314 315Clark JB 286Clark John 314Clark Ross 257 273 279 286 317 320

classifiers 9 121ndash122numeral 9 111 118ndash120possessive 9 126ndash128

clause 5Cochran Anne M 288code-switching 264ndash265Codrington RH 43cognate 15common ancestor 10ndash11compound postpositions 165compound prepositions 163conjugation(al class) 196ndash197conjunctions

absence of in Papuan languages 184consonant cluster 83ndash84 90 93ndash94consonant length 79 98consonant systems

in Australian languages 91ndash93in Oceanic languages 78ndash80in Papuan languages 88

constitutional status of languages265ndash266

construct suffix 124copying 11ndash12 206 272ndash273

lsquonecessaryrsquo and lsquounnecessaryrsquo 273of numerals 319

Corston Simon 287counting systems See numeralscreole (language) 221

origin of term 318creolization 221 223Crowley Terry 50 69 278 279 280

285 286 287 289 290 313 314317 318

Crystal David 238 279 319

Daga 171 172 180 247ndash248Dani

Grand Valley Dani 38 178Western Dani 38

dating 55ndash57archaeological 56ndash57relative vs absolute 55

dative case 188 200ndash201daughter language 10Davies HJ 288decimal numeral systems 244ndash246demonstratives 113

in Australian languages 191ndash192kinds of 114ndash115in Melanesian Pidgin 228

Index 347

in Oceanic languages 113ndash115in Papuan languages 169 170

Dempwolff Otto 46 279ndash280derivational suffixes 189 195diacritics 98dialect 10 25ndash27 313 318

dialect chain 26ndash27dialect mixing See koineization

diglossia 236digraph 98direct possessive constructions 8ndash9

122ff 234distant demonstratives 114ndash115 170Dixon R M W 39ndash40 44 68 69

71ndash72 193 200ndash201 214ndash215237 239 241 243 249 257258ndash259 276 280 281 282289 290 317

Diyari 94Djapu 192 194 215Dobuan 208Dougherty Janet W D 287Douglas Wilfred H 289Drehu 33 80 113 248 297dual (number) 8 101ndash102 167

169Duranti Alessandro 258 282 287Dutch in the Pacific 207 262Dutton Tom 232ndash233 281 282 288

290Dyen Isidore 286Dyirbal 94 189 200ndash201 210 243

259

Eades Diana 289Early Robert 286East Birdrsquos Head family 67Easter Island See RapanuiEast Futuna 50East Papuan phylum 67East Uvea 28 30 50 263education system 266ndash268 282Ekagi 38 248Elbert Samuel Hsbquo 286 287Eleman languages 232ndash233Emae 78emblematic function of language

57ndash58 71 270

Enga 34 171 179 182ndash184 317English in the Pacific 25 207

221ndash223 224 234 235 262 264275 320

constitutional status of 265ndash266in education 266ndash268 320influence on Australian languages

210influence on Melanesian Pidgin

224ndash225influence on Oceanic languages 209

210ndash211 272ndash273in the media 268Pacific dialects of 262

equational sentence 5 198ergative case 151 187ndash188 199ndash200ergative structures 151 317

in Australian languages 199ndash200in Oceanic languages 151ndash152split-ergative languages 199ndash200

318Erromango language death on

268ndash269exclusive first person See inclusiveex-

clusive distinction

Fagan Joel L 286Fagauvea 78Fakamuria Kenneth 219family tree 10Faraclas Nicholas 268Farr Cynthia 288Farr James 288Fiji

languages of 32ndash33language use in 264ndash265See also Fijian Fiji Hindi Rotumansettlement of 55ndash56

Fijian xiv 7ndash8 11 17 26ndash27 42 83101 103ndash105 107 110ndash111 114115 117 121 123ndash124 131 133140ndash142 144 145 146 149 157162 210 218 245 264 308 313315 316

Bauan Fijian 315dictionary of 238Eastern vs Western 32ndash33history of research 42 278

348 Index

influence on Fiji Hindi 235ndash236Nadrau Fijian 102 315orthography of 97 315pidginized 235 264Standard Fijian 33 80 110ndash111 315status of 265 276Wayan Fijian 105

Fiji Hindi 25 220ndash221 235ndash236 264272 274ndash275 282 303

Firchow Irwin B 288Firchow Jacqueline 288Fischer J L 320flaps 294Foley William A 61 67 69 71 89

166 176ndash177 178 270 280 282288 289 314

Fontinelle Jacqueline de la 285Fore 89Fox G J 285Fox Helen 257Franklin Joicesbquo 288Franklin Karl J 281 288 289French in the Pacific 25 207 262 264

268 275 320constitutional status of 266in education 266ndash267 320influence on Bislama 224Pacific dialects of 262

fricatives 79 80 93 294Futuna See East Futuna West Futuna

Gabelentz H C von der 43Gapun village 260ndash261 270ndash271Garland Roger 288Garland Susan 288Gedaged 208gender (grammatical) 7

in articles 112ndash113in pronouns 101 167ndash168 186

gender (sociological) 256ndash257and kinship terms 254 256

genetic inheritance 12genetic relationship 10ffGeraghty Paul 238 280 286German in the Pacific 207 222 262

influence on Oceanic languages 209influence on Tok Pisin 224

Gilbertese See Kiribati

glottal stop 93 315and orthography design 95

glottochronology 55ndash56Goodenough Ward H 209 286Goodwin Charles 282Gooniyandi 98ndash99Grace George W 57 280Grand Valley Dani 38 178Greek influence on Oceanic languages

209ndash210 211Greenberg Joseph H 69Groves Gordon W 286Groves Terabrsquoata R 286Guhu-Samane 250Gujarati 263Gumbaynggir 192 193 198Guugu Yimidhirr 192Guwal style (in Dyirbal) 259

Hackman B D 34 280Hagen 34Harris J W 282Harris John B 282Harrison Sheldon P 245 286 287Hattori Shirocirc 34 38 279Haudricourt Andreacute-G 280 286 287Haviland JB 289Hawaiian 78 84 95 107ndash108 111

143 309history of research 279language shift and revival 269ndash271

272 276Hawaiian Creole 25 318Hazlewood David 42Hebrew influence on Oceanic lan-

guages 210 211Henderson JE 289Hindi 235ndash236 263

constitutional status of in Fiji 265pidginized 235 264Standard 236 264 275 303See also Fiji Hindi

Hiri Motu 25 220ndash221 232ndash234264ndash265 282 319

constitutional status of 265in the media 268

hiri trading complex 206 232ndash233Hiri Trading Languages 232ndash233 282

Index 349

Hobbs Susan 274 282Hohepa Patrick W 286 317Holzknecht Susanne 285 286Horoi Rex 285Hula 12ndash13 15ndash16Huli 34 179 248hyphen use of 3ndash4

Iaai 76ndash77 126 127ndash128 155 156 295Iatmul 87identity social 26Ifira-Mele 78 273 320inalienable possession 9 122ndash123

172 194 217inclusiveexclusive distinction 7ndash8

100ndash101 167ndash168 185ndash186 217227

inclusive first person See inclusiveex-clusive distinction

independent pronouns 8 103ndash105168ndash169 185ndash187

indirect possessive constructions 8ndash9122ff 234

Indo-Pacific Hypothesis 69infix 4

infixed reduplication 86inflectional suffixes 196instrumental case 188intermediate demonstratives 114ndash115

170interstage language 14intransitive 6ndash7 231

See also transitivetransitivityIrian Jaya languages of 38

See also names of individual lan-guages as per Map 10

irrealis (aspectmood) 134 136ndash137138

Irwin Barry 289isolate 61

Jackson Frederick H 245 280 285287

Jacobs Roderick 286Jalnguy style (in Dyirbal) 259Japanese in the Pacific 207 262 263

influence on Oceanic languages 209Javanese 263

Jawe 247Johnston R L 286Jones Alan A 286Josephs Lewis S 285

Kabana 215Kalam 176ndash177 259ndash260 320Kalkatungu 94Kamano 34Kamasau 90Kapauku See EkagiKapingamarangi 30 50 78Kacircte 88 208 298Kayser Alois 287Keen Sandra 290Keesing Roger M 274Kewa 34 88ndash89 181 250 251Kilivila 110 120 121ndash122 316

Kilivila family 120kinship 241 251ndash256

Anejom kinship terms 254ndash256distinctions in pronouns 186Njamal kinship terms 251ndash254reciprocal use of kin terms 254

Kiribati 30 75 79 96 101 102 104105 108 114 120 121 125ndash126137 141 145 149ndash150 155 159244ndash245 263 315 316 317

constitutional status of 265Kobon 88 176 298Koiari people 206koine 221

origin of term 318koineization 221 235Koita 89 166 170 171 180 181ndash182

206Koita people 206

Kolia J A 287Komaitai Rusiate T 286Korafe 174Korean 263Koriki 232ndash233Kosraean 76 79 85 120 142 295

296Kove 215Kriol 25 268 282Krupa Viktor 78 280 281 287kula trading complex 206

350 Index

Kulick Don 71 261 270ndash271 282289

Kuman 34 166 168ndash169 174ndash175176 179 180 181

Kunjen 91 92Kwamera 208ndash209 218ndash219 240Kwaralsquoae 34Kwomtari family 67

Labu 121 128 152ndash153 295Lagoon Trukese See Trukeselaminals 91ndash93Lang Adrienne 288Langdon Robert 287language contact

in Australia 72 206 214ndash215between Austronesian and Papuan

languages 53ndash54 57 67 206 212215ndash218 317

effects on grammar 211ndash212effects on lexicon 208ndash210effects on phonology 210ndash211effects on semantics 210between intrusive and indigenous lan-

guages 209ndash211 218between Melanesian Pidgin and in-

digenous languages 212between Pacific and Indian languages

235ndash236between Polynesian and non-Polyne-

sian languages 78 208ndash209211ndash212 218ndash219

See also Chapter 9language family 10language revival programs 269ndash271language vs dialect 25ndash27 318Lao 263Lapita 56

culture 56people 56ndash57pottery 56

Lardil 186 202laterals 88 92ndash93 98 99 294Latin influence on Oceanic languages

210 211Laycock D C 40 71 244 250 251

276 287 288Lee Jennifer 281 289

Lee Kee-dong 286Leenhardt Maurice 43Lenakel 5 8 34 41 103 104

109ndash110 116ndash117 118 132133ndash134 138 141 146ndash147153 157 161 210 247 306316 319

Lewo 160lexicostatistics 15 55ndash56 314Lichtenberk Frantisek 285 286

287Lincoln Peter C 157 285Lindstrom Lamont 286lingua francas 264linguistic rules 1ndash2linguistics 1

comparative-historical 16ndash19 4258ndash59 279

descriptive 1 42 279salvage 44theoretical 42See also Chapter 1

Lister-Turner R 286literacy 267ndash268Litteral Shirley 180 288locative case 188long consonant See consonant lengthlong vowel See vowel lengthLoving Aretta 288Loving Richard 288Loyalty Islands See New CaledoniaLuke Allan 282Lusi 215ndash217Lynch John 48 50 208 218ndash219 254

279 280 281 285 286 287 314315 317 318

macron use of 95Magahi 235Magi 172ndash173Magori 57 217Mailu people 207Maisin 57 154 217 259Malayo-Polynesian 314

See AustronesianManam 86 110 113ndash114 118 125

132 138 141 144 159 164Manem 166

Index 351

Māori (New Zealand) 30 81 85107ndash108 110 114 131 135ndash136143 149 155 156 161

language shift and revival 269ndash271272 276

Mapos 249Marck Jeffrey C 285Margany 249Mari 76 101Maringe 84 101 113ndash114marriage in Aneityum 254ndash256Marsack C C 287Marshallese 30 76 120McElhanon Kenneth A 71 280McEwen J M 287McGregor William 289media languages in 268Mekeo 83Melanesia

languages of 30ndash38articles presence or absence of

110ndash113consonant systems of 79ndash80demography 28 30ndash38history of research 43 279interrelationships between 50ndash51missionchurch languages in

207ndash208multilingualism in 263ndash265numeral systems in 244ndash251orthographies of 97ndash98passive presence or absence of

143ndash144vowel systems of 76ndash77See also under individual countries

linguistic diversification in 57ndash5870ndash71

settlement of 51 53ndash57Melanesian Pidgin 212 220ndash221 233

235 262 263 264ndash265 267 268272 275 276 280 320

differences between varieties of223ndash224ff 230

first-language interference in 226history of 221ndash224orthography of 96 226phonology of 225ndash226pronouns of 227ndash228

status of 223structure of 224ndash232See also Bislama Pijin Tok Pisin

Melpa 88Mendi 34merger (of phonemes) 13Meso-Melanesian subgroup 48Micronesia

languages ofarticles in 111ndash112consonant systems of 78ndash79demography of 28 30 31history of research into 42ndash43

279interrelationships between 50numeral classifiers in 118ndash120numeral systems in 244ndash245orthographies of 97ndash98passive in 142possessive classifiers in 126ndash127vowel systems of 76See names of individual languages

as per Map 4settlement of 54ndash57

Micronesian group 48 50Mihalic F 280 290Milner G B 286 287 317mission languages See church lan-

guagesldquomixedrdquo languages 217ndash218 220modality See moodmoiety 210 219 251ndash254moka trading complex 206Mokilese 76 110 111ndash112 120 144

148 295Mono-Alu 41 100 102mood 136ndash137 174Moriori 27morpheme 3ndash4

free morpheme 3morphology 3morphophonemics 4

in case-markers 189ndash190of reduplication 86ndash87in verbs 172 174ndash175 317

Morphy Frances 289Mosel Ulrike 287Mota 40 208

352 Index

Motu 8ndash9 11 40 100 102 107ndash108114 148 151ndash152 154 157 161206 210ndash211 232ndash234 246 303305 318 319

Motu people 206 232ndash233Simplified Motu 233ndash234

Mountain Koiari 90Moyse-Faurie Claire 286Mugler France 282Muumlhlhaumlusler Peter 281 282multilingualism 263ndash265Murane Elizabeth 288Murik 270 272Murray Sir Hubert 274Murrinh-Patha 243ndash244mutual intelligibility 25ndash26Muyuw 120

Nadrau Fijian 102 315Nakanai 102 114 152 157 245Nakanamanga 40sbquo 41 86 100 102

136ndash137 139 142 159 313Namonuito 30nasal 78 294

nasalized vowels 87voiceless nasals 78 80

national languages 266Nauruansbquo 48 50 76 79 96sbquo 120

296negation negativessbquo 136sbquo 212sbquo 216

discontinuous 160ndash161in Melanesian Pidgin 231ndash232negative verbs 161ndash162in Oceanic languages 159ndash162in serial constructions 147ndash148

Nehansbquo 103ndash104 130 315Nekitel Ottosbquo 169 288New Caledonia

languages of 33 57articles in 112ndash113consonant systems of 80history of research into 43orthographies of 98phonemic tone in 82vowel systems of 76ndash77See also names of individual lan-

guages as per Map 6settlement of 55ndash56

New Guinea arealinguistic diversification in 70ndash71settlement of 53ndash57 60ndash61 69ndash70See also Irian Jaya Papua New

GuineaNgatikese 30

menrsquos language 257 320Ngunese See NakanamangaNimboran 167Niuafolsquoou 50Niuean 30 50 129 130Njamal 251ndash254 256nominalizers 109ndash110nominal sentences 148

in Australian languages 198in Melanesian Pidgin 227in Oceanic languages 148ndash150in Papuan languages 179

Non-Austronesian See PapuanNon-Pama-Nyungan group 68

195ndash197North-Central Vanuatu subgroup 48North Malaita 34 79North New Guinea subgroup 48Northeast Ambae 34noun classes 126 169ndash170 179

190ndash191 243ndash244noun phrase structure 5

in Australian languages 192ndash194in Melanesian Pidgin 228ndash230in Oceanic languages 120ndash122in Papuan languages 171

nouns 105 107plurality in 107ndash109 187

Nuclear Polynesian subgroup 50Nukuoro 30sbquo 50sbquo 76 129 159 212 316Numanggang 249ndash250number (grammatical)sbquo 7ndash8

in demonstratives 114ndash115in pronouns 101ndash103 166ndash167

185ndash186 227in verbs 197

numeral classifiers 9 111 118ndash120numerals 117ndash120 228ndash229 244ndash251

319binary systems 249ndash250decimal systems 244ndash246formation of ordinals 145

Index 353

quinary systems 246ndash248tally systems 250ndash251ternary systems 249ndash250

object 5ndash6in ergative structures 151

object marker object pronoun104ndash105 131 140ndash142 169 187196ndash197 227 234

Oceanic subgroupdispersal of members of 53ndash57distribution 46origins of 51 53subgroups of 46ndash51 56

Ochs Elinor 282official languages 265ndash266OrsquoGrady G N 280open syllable 83ndash84 90Orokaiva people 207orthography 3 94ndash99

orthography design 96ndash99in Australia 98ndash99in Melanesia and Micronesia

97ndash98in Polynesia and Fiji 97

problems in development of 95ndash97Ozanne-Rivierre Franccediloise 286 287

Paamese 40 76 102 122 123 137147ndash148 153 161 313 316

Paicicirc 33Palauan 46 50 76 108ndash109 311

314Pama-Nyungan group 68 195ndash196ldquoPandanus Languagerdquo 259ndash260Paol John Natu 289Papua New Guinea

language in the media 268languages of 34 37

constitutional status of 265national and official languages 266orthographies of 97ndash98phonemic tone in 82ndash83 88ndash89See also names of individual lan-

guages as per Map 9literacy programs in 267ndash268

Papuan languages 60 61 280external relatives of 69ndash70

families of 45location of 60 62ndash64relationships between 61 64ndash67

origins of 69ndash70See also names of individual lan-

guages as per Map 9Papuan Tip subgroup 48passive (voice) 6

absence of in Australian languages200

absence of in Melanesian Pidgin 226in Oceanic languages 142ndash144 317

Pat Falsquoafo 280paucal (number) 8 102ndash103Pawaian 87 89Pawley Andrew 55 67 259 280 281

287 288 314person 7ndash8 100ndash101 166ndash168Philippine languages 263Philips Susan U 257ndash258 287Phillips Donald J 289phoneme 2ndash3 314phonemics See phonologyphonetics 2phonology 2

segmental phonology 80phrase 4ndash5phylum 67Piau Julie Anne 179 279 288pidgin (language) 220ndash221 222

origin of term 318pidginization 220 222 225Pije 80 98 297Pijin 25 220 223ndash224 226 227ndash230

264 274ndash275 281 318 319 320See also Melanesian Pidgin

Pileni 78Pitjantjatjara 40Pitta-Pitta 92ndash93 186 192 195plural (number) 8 101ndash103 107ndash109

146 187Police Motu see Hiri MotuPolynesia

languages ofarticles in 110ndash111chiefly styles in 257ndash258consonant systems of 78demography of 27ndash30

354 Index

history of research into 42 279interrelationships between 50numeral systems in 244ndash245orthographies of 97passive in 142ndash143possessive constructions in

128ndash130vowel systems of 75ndash78See also names of individual lan-

guages as per Map 3 and Table 2settlement of 55ndash56

Polynesian Outliers 50ndash51 78 212Polynesian subgroup 50

internal subgrouping 50 52Ponapean 9 30 76 86ndash87 118ndash120

121 126ndash127 130 134ndash135 153210 245

Port Sandwich 121 295 297Portuguese 263Pospisil Leopold 248 288possessive case 188ndash189 194possessive classifiers 9 126ndash128possessive constructions 8ndash9

alienable vs inalienable 9 122ndash123172 194 217

in Australian languages 194direct vs indirect 8ndash9 122ff 234in Melanesian Pidgin 230in Oceanic languages 122ndash130in Papuan languages 171ndash172

possessive markers 123ff 172possessive pronoun possessive affix

104ndash105 171ndash172 194postpositional phrases 163ndash165

in Oceanic languages 164ndash165in Papuan languages 180ndash182

postpositions 163ndash164in Oceanic languages 163ndash165

216ndash217in Papuan languages 180ndash181

predicate 5prefix 3

prefixed reduplication 86prehistory 16ndash19prepositional phrases 5 162

in Oceanic languages 163prepositions 5 162 317

compound prepositions 163

in Melanesian Pidgin 229ndash230in Oceanic languages 162ndash163

Price D J de Solla 248 288pronouns 7ndash8

in Australian languages 185ndash187199ndash200

in Fiji Hindi 235independent pronouns 8 103ndash105

167ndash168 185ndash186 217 227 234in Melanesian Pidgin 227ndash228object pronouns 104ndash105 131

140ndash142 169 187 196ndash197 227234


possessive pronouns 104ndash105subject pronouns 8 103ndash104 132

137ndash139 168ndash169 172ndash174 187196ndash197 227 234 316

prosodic features 80in Australian languages 91in Oceanic languages 80ndash83in Papuan languages 88ndash89

Proto Austronesian 47 58Proto Central Pacific 213ndash214Proto Oceanic 316

article 315causative 144 300location of 53ndash54numerals 118possessive constructions in 122ff

316reciprocal 145reconstruction of 58ndash59transitive and applicative 140

protolanguage 11proximate demonstratives 114ndash115

170Pukapuka 17 50Pukui Mary Kawena 286Puluwat 100 102purposive case 188

quantifiers 117ndash120quinary numeral systems 246ndash248

Raga 41 160Rapanui 17 161 314

Index 355

Rarotongan 7 30Ray S H 43realis (aspectmood) 136ndash137 138reciprocal 131 145ndash146 216reconstruction

of culture 18of Proto Oceanic culture 58ndash59

of languages 12ndash14 17ndash18Australian languages 70Papuan languages 70Proto Oceanic 58ndash59

reduplication 84ndash87 91 94 231 232functions of 85ndash86 94 187 231 232kinds of 85ndash86morphophonemics of 86ndash87

Reef Islands language 217regular sound correspondences 12ndash13Rehg Kenneth L 118ndash119 134 287Rennellese 41Rensch Karl H 287respectful styles 257ndash258rhotics 92ndash93 99Ririo 71 297Rivierre Jean-Claude 285root 3Ross Malcolm 48 50 55 82 280

281 286 287 288 289 314Rotokas 88 314Rotuman 32 76 77ndash78 102 108 114

128 131 133 149 160 212ndash214245ndash246 281 315 316

Roviana 4 143ndash144 147 149 208

Saint Matthias Islands group 48Salisbury Richard 263Salt-Yui 249ndash250Samoan 28 30 50 76 81 86 102

115 129 139 145 146 151162ndash163 209ndash210 211 258 263

influence on Melanesian Pidgin 224influence on Rotuman 214status of 266 276

Sandefur J R 282Sanders Arden G 288Sanders Joy 288Sanders Major Eustace 274Sankoff Gillian 320Santa Cruz languages 217

Sarmi-Jayapura subgroup 48Satawalese 30Savage Stephen 287Sayaba Timoci 287Schieffelin Bambi B 282Schnukal Anna 282Schuumltz Albert J 146 279 286Scott Graham K 288Sebeok Thomas A 279secret languages 257Selepet 71Senft Gunter 286sentence 5Sepik-Ramu phylum 67Sera 101serial constructions See verb serializa-

tionshared innovations 15ndash16 55Sharpe Margaret C 289short vowel See vowel lengthSiane 263Siau family 101Siegel Jeff 279 281 282 286 290Simons Linda 281 290Simpson Jane 238Sinagoro 12ndash13 15ndash16 164ndash165Sinasina 179singular (number) 8Sissano 101Sko family 67Smith Geoffrey P 248 249 282 285

286 288 289socialization 260ndash261Sohn Ho-min 287Solomon Islands

languages of 34 36national and official languages 266See also names of individual lan-


Som 250Sommer Bruce A 289Sonsorolese 30sounds 2ndash3Southeast Solomons group 48Southern Melanesian subgroup 48Southern Oceanic group 48Southwest Tanna 150ndash151 161ndash162

356 Index

Spanish in the Pacific 25 207 262influence on Oceanic languages 209

split-ergative languages 199ndash200 318Spriggs Matthew 55 56stative verb 7 115ndash116stock 64stops 78 80 92ndash93 294

aspirated 78 80coarticulated 88glottal 93 315prenasalized 78 80 97ndash98 294retroflex 80 92ndash93 294voicing distinction in 78 93

stress 80ndash82 88ndash89 91Suau 208subgroup 15ndash17subject 5ndash6

in ergative structures 151subject-marker subject pronoun 8

103ndash104 132 137ndash139 168ndash169172ndash174 187 196ndash197 227 234316

and switch reference 182ndash184suffix 3

suffixed reduplication 86Sugita Hiroshi 209 286Summer Institute of Linguistics 43 44

60 267suprasegmental features See prosodic

featuresswitch reference 182ndash184Sye 109 110 125

Tahitian 17 30 85 117 121 139 143155ndash156 161 212

loans in Samoan 211Taiap 260ndash261 270 272Takuu 78 129tally systems of counting 250ndash251Tamil 263Tasmania languages of 68ndash69 70taxonomies 241ndash244Tchekhoff Claude 317Telugu 263tense 133tense-aspect 132 216

in Australian languages 196ndash197in Melanesian Pidgin 231ndash232

in Oceanic languages 133ndash137 138in Papuan languages 172ndash175

182ndash184Tepahae Philip 254ternary numeral system 249ndash250thematic consonantvowel 140ndash141

142 171Thieberger Nicholas 317Thomas Dicks 281 290Thomson N P 288Thurston William R 215 217 281

286 288 318Tigak 79 85 247Titan 246Tiwi 190ndash191 249 281 317 318Tolsquoabalsquoita 80 112 114 121 130 131

148 153 157 162ndash163Toaripi 90Todd Evelyn M 287 288Tok Pisin 2ndash3 25 96 212 220

223ndash224 226ndash232 234 261270ndash271 274 275 276 281 282315 318

constitutional status of 265in the media 268See also Melanesian Pidgin

Tokelauan 50Tolai 34 40 102 148 158 207 305

influence on Tok Pisin 224tone 80 82ndash83 89 91 314Tongan 17 28 30 40 50 78 85 86

96 120 139 149 160 245257ndash258 263 301 315

influence on the Lau group 207influence on Rotuman 214status of 266

Tongic subgroup 50topic and comment 148Topping Donald M 285Torricelli phylum 40 67transitivetransitivity 6

accusative vs ergative 150ndash152in Melanesian Pidgin 230ndash231in Oceanic languages 139ndash142 317

TransndashNew Guinea phylum 67Trefry David 288trial (number) 8 102trigraph 98

Index 357

trills 294Trukese 30 76 78ndash79 103ndash104 120 209Trukic languages 30Tryon D T 34 280 281 286 287

290 313Tumleo 101Tuvaluan 263

Ulau-Suain 101Ulithian 76 120 142Uradhi 196Uvea See Fagauvea East Uvea

Vanimo 87Vanuatu

languages of 34 35consonant alternation in verbs

136ndash137constitutional status of 266orthographies of 97See also names of individual lan-


Vaacuteszolyi Eric 282 289verb 6ndash7

existential verbs 179ndash180final verb 183internal structure

in Australian languages 195ndash197in Melanesian Pidgin 230ndash232in Oceanic languages 130ndash132in Papuan languages 172ndash175

medial verb 183stative verb 7verb root 130

verb complex 5 130 313 316in Australian languages 198in Melanesian Pidgin 230ndash232in Oceanic languages 146ndash148

verb phrase 313See also verb complex

verb serialization 147ndash148 175ndash177verbal sentence structure 152ff 177ff

199ndash202 317Verhaar John WM 281vernaculars 264

constitutional status of 265

in education 266ndash267in the media 268

Vietnamese in the Pacific 25 263Vinmavis 107 118vocabulary

of Pacific languages 237ndash244specializedtechnical 239specific vs generic 239ndash244taxonomic classification of

241ndash244Voorhoeve C L 280 282vowel copying 190vowel length 75ndash76 87 91

and orthography design 95 98vowel systems

in Australian languages 91in Oceanic languages 75ndash78in Papuan languages 87

Wagner K R 319Wahgi 34 90 173 178 298Wajarri 92 185ndash186 200 249Wallisian See East UveaWalmajarri 187Walsh D S 287Walsh Michael 243ndash244 282 289Wang Judith W 30 120Wantoat 249ndash250Wargamay 92 185ndash186 189ndash190

193ndash194 195 199ndash200 249Warlpiri 260Waskia 88ndash89Wayan Fijian 105Wedau 208West Futuna 78 145 160 208ndash209

218ndash219West Guadalcanal 41West Papuan phylum 64 67West Uvea See FagauveaWestern Dani 38Western Desert language 39 94 187

313Western Oceanic group 48White Geoffrey M 286Whitesands 34 41Wilson William H 316Wiru 167 169Woleaian 245

358 Index

word structurein Australian languages 93ndash94in Oceanic languages 83ndash87in Papuan languages 90ndash91

word taboo 214ndash215 258ndash260Wunambal 196ndash197Wurm S A 34 38 64 67 279 280

281 282

Xacircracirccugraveugrave 77 98 295

Yabecircm 82ndash83 208

Yallop Colin 280 282 314Yanyuwa 191Yapese 48 50 76 79 102 112 120

125 155 296Yaygir 192Yele (or Yeletnye) 88Yidiny 187ndash189 200 240ndash241 243

317Yimas 173 178ndash179 212Yolŋu 215Young Hugh 281 290Yukulta 193

Index 359

About the Author

John Lynch is professor of Pacific languages at the University of the SouthPacificrsquos Emalus Campus in Vanuatu He is the author of Lenakel DictionaryA Grammar of Lenakel and An Annotated Bibliography of Vanuatu Lan-guages He is co-author of The Design of Language and The Oceanic Lan-guages and co-editor of Pacific Languages in Education

Pacific Languages

Pacific Languages

Contents

Illustrations

Tables

Figures

Maps

Preface

Acknowledgments

Terms Used

Linguistics Some Basic Concepts

11 The Structure of Language

111 The Sounds of Language

112 The Composition of Words

113 Above the Word Level

12 Common Grammatical Categories and Functions

121 Subject and Object

122 Transitivity and Voice

123 Adjectives and Verbs

124 Person Number and Gender

125 Possessives and Classifiers

13 Reconstructing Linguistic History

131 Genetic Relationship

132 Reconstructing a Protolanguage

133 Families and Subgroups

134 Reconstructing Linguistic and Cultural History

135 Time Depths


The Languages of the Pacific

21 How Many Languages

22 Linguistic Demography

221 Polynesia and Micronesia

222 Melanesia

Fiji and Rotuma


Vanuatu

Solomon Islands

Papua New Guinea

Irian Jaya

223 Australia

23 Language Names

24 A Brief History of Pacific Language Research

241 Fiji and Polynesia

242 Micronesia

243 Melanesia

244 Australia

The History of the Austronesian Languages

31 The Austronesian Family

32 The Oceanic Languages

321 Internal Relationships of the Oceanic Languages

322 Oceanic Subgroups and Geographical Regions

33 The Settlement of Oceania

331 Origins of Oceanic Speakers

332 The Dispersal of Oceanic Speakers

333 Dating Dispersals The ldquoLapita Peoplerdquo

334 Rapid Diversification in Melanesia

34 Reconstructing Culture

The History of the Papuan and Australian Languages

41 Interrelationships of Papuan Languages

411 Papuan Language Families

412 Possible Wider Groupings of Papuan Families

42 Interrelationships of Australian Languages

421 Mainland Australia

422 Tasmania

43 Possible External Links

44 Implications for Prehistory

441 Origins

442 Diversification

Structure

Sound Systems


511 Vowel Systems

512 Consonant Systems

Polynesian Languages

Micronesia

Melanesia

513 Prosodic Features

Stress

Tone

514 Word Structure

52 Papuan Languages

521 Vowel Systems



524 Word Structure

53 Australian Languages

531 Vowel Systems


533 Word Structure

54 Orthographies

541 General Issues

542 Polynesia and Fiji

543 Melanesia and Micronesia

544 Australia

55 Summary

Oceanic Languages Grammatical Overview

61 Pronouns

611 Person

612 Number

613 Functions

62 NOUNS AND NOUN PHRASES

621 Form of the Noun

622 Articles

623 Demonstratives

624 Adjectives

625 Numerals and Quantifiers

626 Noun Phrase Structure

63 Possessive Constructions

631 Possessive Constructions Similar to Proto Oceanic

632 Simplification of Indirect Possession

633 Development of Classifier Systems

634 Loss of Direct Constructions

64 Verbs and the Verb Complex

641 General Structure of the Verb

642 Tense Aspect and Mood

643 Subject

644 Object and Transitivity

645 The Passive

646 The Causative and the Reciprocal

647 The Structure of the Verb Complex

65 Sentences

651 Nominal Sentences

652 Accusative and Ergative Languages

653 Basic Structure of Verbal Sentences

SV(O) Languages

S(O)V Languages



654 Negation

655 Prepositional and Postpositional Phrases

66 Similarities and Differences

Papuan Languages Grammatical Overview

71 Pronouns

72 Nouns and Noun Phrases

721 Noun Class Systems

722 Articles and Demonstratives




741 Person and Number Tense and Aspect

742 Adjunct and Serial Constructions

75 Sentences

751 Simple Sentences

752 Peripheral Cases

753 Complex Sentences

Australian Languages Grammatical Overview

81 Pronouns


821 Case Marking

822 Noun Classes

823 Modifiers to Nouns

Demonstratives

Adjectives




841 Verbs in Pama-Nyungan Languages



842 Verbs in Prefixing Languages

843 The Verb Complex

85 Sentences


852 Verbal Sentences

The Social and Cultural Context


91 The Social Context of Language Contact

911 Peaceful Contact between Settled Societies

912 Peaceful Contact Involving Travel

913 Conquest Colonization and Conversion

92 The Linguistic Effects of Contact

921 Lexical Change

922 Semantic Change

923 Phonological Change

924 Grammatical Change

93 Three Case Studies

931 Rotuman

932 Word Taboo in Australia

934 ldquoMixedrdquo Languages

94 Historical Implications


101 Pidginization Creolization and Koineization

102 Melanesian Pidgin

1021 Historical Background

1022 Different Histories

1023 The Structure of Melanesian Pidgin

Sound System

Sentence Structure

Pronouns



103 The Pidgins of the Motu Traders

104 Fiji Hindi

Language Society and Culture in the Pacific Context

111 The Vocabulary of Pacific Languages

1111 How Many Words

1112 Specialization Classification and Abstraction

Specific Terms

Generic Terms

112 Counting Systems

1121 Decimal Systems

1122 Quinary Systems

1123 Other Systems

1124 Tally Systems

113 Kinship

1131 Njamal Kinship Terms

1132 Kinship and Marriage in Anejom

114 Languages in Use

1141 Language and Gender

1142 The Language of Respect

1143 Language and Socialization

115 Language Use in Pacific Nations

1151 Colonial and Other Intrusive Languages

1152 Multilingualism

1153 Language in the National Context

1154 Formal Education

1155 Literacy

1156 The Media

116 Shift Survival Death Revival



Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Conclusion

Appendices

Data Sources

Phonetic Symbols

Vowels

Consonants

English Sounds with Unfamiliar Symbols

Non-English Sounds


Consonant Systems

Micronesia

Australia


Notes

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CONCLUSION

References

Index

About the Author

PacificLanguages

AN INTRODUCTION

John Lynch



98 99 00 01 02 03 5 4 3 2 1





CIP







To

AndoniaBrendan

andSteven

Contents

Illustrations x

Preface xiii


Terms Used xix





VII



Part 2 Structure 73





VIII Contents







Appendices 283


Notes 313

References 321

Index 345

Contents IX

Illustrations

Tables


Figures



X

Maps



Illustrations XI

Preface




XIII










XIV Preface





Preface XV

Acknowledgments





XVII

Terms Used




XIX

CHAPTER

1







1










2 CHAPTER 1



















4 CHAPTER 1





















6 CHAPTER 1






















8 CHAPTER 1

















10 CHAPTER 1














12 CHAPTER 1












14 CHAPTER 1















16 CHAPTER 1












18 CHAPTER 1






PART ONE


CHAPTER

2






23

Map

2Th

ePa

cific

24 CHAPTER 2












A B C D E F G H I J


26 CHAPTER 2













Australia 200b



28 CHAPTER 2







30 CHAPTER 2


Fiji and Rotuma



32 CHAPTER 2






Vanuatu


Solomon Islands


Papua New Guinea





34 CHAPTER 2



36 CHAPTER 2


Irian Jaya





38 CHAPTER 2

223 Australia











40 CHAPTER 2















42 CHAPTER 2









44 CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER

3





45






46 CHAPTER 3


















48 CHAPTER 3







50 CHAPTER 3







Rennellese


Tikopia-Anuta


West Futuna








52 CHAPTER 3












54 CHAPTER 3















56 CHAPTER 3















58 CHAPTER 3









CHAPTER

4






60













Merahwestern 4


Baywestern 4


Island3



Guineacentral 54


62 CHAPTER 4



48


ern6


homMadang 28



42





New Ireland8


Islands5





64 CHAPTER 4


66 CHAPTER 4












68 CHAPTER 4














70 CHAPTER 4








72 CHAPTER 4

PART TWO

Structure

CHAPTER

5

Sound Systems




i ue o

a


75










76 CHAPTER 5











Sound Systems 77







l l


Micronesia


78 CHAPTER 5



f sr

w y




Melanesia



Tigakp t kb g

svm n ŋ

rl

Sound Systems 79




l lr

w y w




Stress


80 CHAPTER 5












Sound Systems 81




Tone








82 CHAPTER 5










Sound Systems 83










84 CHAPTER 5




2 Intensity










Sound Systems 85











86 CHAPTER 5






i ue o

a



ɛ ͻa a





Sound Systems 87


Rotokasp t kv r g





88 CHAPTER 5


Kewa6










Sound Systems 89









90 CHAPTER 5




i u i ua a



a a



Sound Systems 91




Wargamay

b d d gm n n ŋ

lṛ

w y

Kunjen



lṛ

w y

Wajarri


l l ḷr ṛ

w y

92 CHAPTER 5

Pitta-Pitta


l l ḷ λr ṛ

w y






Sound Systems 93









being an adultrsquo



94 CHAPTER 5






Sound Systems 95







96 CHAPTER 5






Sound Systems 97







98 CHAPTER 5

Gooniyandi

Phonemes Letters






Sound Systems 99

CHAPTER

6







100






Maringe















102 CHAPTER 6




LenakelI-es-ol-aan


















104 CHAPTER 6


















106 CHAPTER 6





















108 CHAPTER 6




Sye



Anejom















110 CHAPTER 6























112 CHAPTER 6






















114 CHAPTER 6






Fijianna waqa levu



















116 CHAPTER 6




















118 CHAPTER 6





Examples

















120 CHAPTER 6





















122 CHAPTER 6






Some examples






about him)rsquo










124 CHAPTER 6


Manam



















126 CHAPTER 6









Examples include













128 CHAPTER 6




Nukuoro12


















130 CHAPTER 6























to they PL



132 CHAPTER 6






















Some examples


134 CHAPTER 6














Examples










136 CHAPTER 6


















3 di- da-

For example




138 CHAPTER 6





















140 CHAPTER 6




















142 CHAPTER 6


Examples




















144 CHAPTER 6














Samoan








146 CHAPTER 6
















Subject Predicate




148 CHAPTER 6




Predicate Subject












For example







150 CHAPTER 6


















SV(O) Languages


Subject Verb Object



152 CHAPTER 6












S(O)V Languages


subject Object Verb







Verb Object Subject


154 CHAPTER 6







Verb Subject Object











Subject Verb Object





156 CHAPTER 6

Object Verb Subject


Object Subject Verb



Object Subject Verb












Tolai







158 CHAPTER 6


Rotuman


















160 CHAPTER 6





















162 CHAPTER 6





that ofpossessives)

















164 CHAPTER 6












CHAPTER

7






166






















Kuman

Independentpronouns

Subject suffixes


168 CHAPTER 7





Bilua













170 CHAPTER 7



















172 CHAPTER 7























174 CHAPTER 7




















176 CHAPTER 7





















178 CHAPTER 7













Subject Predicate


KumanYuŋgu-n awe


Predicate Subject



180 CHAPTER 7














Some examples









182 CHAPTER 7












184 CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER

8







185














186 CHAPTER 8























188 CHAPTER 8







For example
















190 CHAPTER 8




Yanyuwa













Adjectives







192 CHAPTER 8









ngguwurrbi-bajun-du



big-very-ERGATIVE







take-CONTINUOUS












194 CHAPTER 8












UradhiI II III IV



UradhiI II III IV




196 CHAPTER 8


















Subject Predicate






198 CHAPTER 8



















200 CHAPTER 8


















202 CHAPTER 8

PART THREE


CHAPTER

9





205






206 CHAPTER 9














208 CHAPTER 9
















210 CHAPTER 9

















212 CHAPTER 9



















214 CHAPTER 9




















216 CHAPTER 9















218 CHAPTER 9



CHAPTER

10





220











222 CHAPTER 10














224 CHAPTER 10



Sound System


i ue o

a




lr

w y






Sentence Structure






killTRANS

226 CHAPTER 10




Pronouns


BislamaSingular
















228 CHAPTER 10










Examples














230 CHAPTER 10




















232 CHAPTER 10




















234 CHAPTER 10













236 CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER

11







237






238 CHAPTER 11






Specific Terms










240 CHAPTER 11






Generic Terms






nepcevshark


inharstingray


nedumtriggerfish


numu-sgan(sea) fish

inmokomparrotfish






numanhermit crab



ledceicoconutcrab

nesgaamushellfish


numumarinelife


242 CHAPTER 11















244 CHAPTER 11









1000000000 lik











10 akou kiipuro



246 CHAPTER 11



















248 CHAPTER 11




















250 CHAPTER 11
















252 CHAPTER 11









husband[not used]





254 CHAPTER 11











256 CHAPTER 11












258 CHAPTER 11









Kalam










260 CHAPTER 11












262 CHAPTER 11












264 CHAPTER 11
















266 CHAPTER 11












268 CHAPTER 11











270 CHAPTER 11




CONCLUSION






272






































279

























Appendices

APPENDIX 1

Data Sources


Location Sources







285











286 APPENDIX 1









Data Sources 287


Papuan Languages





288 APPENDIX 1




Data Sources 289








(1985) Mihalic(1971) JL

290 APPENDIX 1

APPENDIX 2

Phonetic Symbols








291




Vowels


Front Vowels






Consonants


292 APPENDIX 2

Cons

onan

tSy

mbo

ls vela

rize

dbi

labi

albi

labi

alla

bio

dent

alde

ntal

alve

o-la

rre

tro-

flex

alve

opa

lata

lpa

lata

lve

lar

labi

ove

lar

glot

tal

voic

eles

sst

ops

oral

PwP

tt

ṭty

ck

kwɁ

pren

asal

ized

mpw

mP

n tn t

n ṭn ty

ntilde cŋ k

ŋ kwŋ Ɂ

voic

edst

ops

oral

bwb

dd

ḍdy

jg

gw

pren

asal

ized

mbw

mb

n dn d

n ḍn dy

n jŋ g

ŋ gw

voic

eles

saff

rica

tes

tsts

tʃvo

iced

affri

cate

sdz

dzdʒ

voic

eles

sfr

icat

ives

fwΦ

fθ

sṣ

ʃx

xwh

voic

edfr

icat

ives

vwβ

veth

zẓ

ʒγ

γw

voic

edna

sals

mw

mn

nṇ

ntildeŋ

ŋw

voic

edla

tera

lsl

lḷ

λɫ

voic

edfla

pr

voic

edtr

ill

oral

rpr

enas

aliz

edn r

voic

edse

miv

owel

sw

ry



miliar







294 APPENDIX 2

APPENDIX3


Vowel Systems

Micronesia




ɛ ɔa a



a a atilde

295

AustraliaAnguthimri


a a atilde



Nauruanpw p t k kw

bw b d g gw

mw m n ŋ ŋw

mw m n ŋ ŋwrR

w y


lw lr


l lr

w w y y

296 APPENDIX 3





l rr

Ririo Adzera



v z γm n ŋ m n ŋ

lr r

w y

Pije Drehu

Phw Ph th kh




l ll l

w y ww y w


Melanesia Papuan


s s hm n m n

r rw y w y

Kobon Kacircte


vts tsdz dz


w y ŋ y

Wahgi

P t kmb nd ng

ndzs

m n n ŋl l ɫ

w y

AustraliaAnguthimri


lr

w y

298 APPENDIX 3

APPENDIX 4












299
















300 APPENDIX 4



































302 APPENDIX 4



































304 APPENDIX 4







































306 APPENDIX 4



































308 APPENDIX 4


































310 APPENDIX 4



















312 APPENDIX 4

Notes

CHAPTER 1




CHAPTER 2






313

CHAPTER 3





CHAPTER 5










314 Notes






CHAPTER 6









Notes 315













316 Notes







CHAPTER 7




CHAPTER 8





Notes 317




CHAPTER 9





CHAPTER 10






318 Notes





CHAPTER 11











Notes 319





CONCLUSION




320 Notes

References



backs









B-58



321





C-80













322 References





computer file
















References 323


cation 14 16ndash27




















324 References















Auckland Longman


University Press




References 325





















326 References






Linguistics D-67





tal Society











References 327




vanovich


119 271ndash276


Files


versity Press







C-16






328 References










Society









D-64


Linguistics C-89

References 329


















Education



330 References



Linguistics C-115

















References 331




Paul




C-20











332 References















Europa








References 333











tics C-79










334 References
















guistics B-92







References 335


tics




12 479ndash501






tics C-111









336 References

















References 337















guistics B-56






111ndash135

338 References












tics B-47


Hague Mouton


Gruyter






References 339








Linguistics B-11













340 References







guistics B-13











References 341







475ndash487






Studies Press


guistics C-97


B-85





342 References








guistics C-70


References 343

Index











345















227ndash230 232 264 273 281 304311 318 319 320



346 Index
















285 286 287 289 290 313 314317 318







Index 347










259


57ndash58 71 270


221ndash223 224 234 235 262 264275 320









clusive distinction





348 Index




166 176ndash177 178 270 280 282288 289 314





















Index 349

























206Koita people 206



350 Index

Kulick Don 71 261 270ndash271 282289














210 211Laycock D C 40 71 244 250 251

276 287 288Lee Jennifer 281 289








279 280 281 285 286 287 314315 317 318



132 138 141 144 159 164Manem 166

Index 351










235 262 263 264ndash265 267 268272 275 276 280 320














352 Index














GuineaNgatikese 30













Index 353









Paamese 40 76 102 122 123 137147ndash148 153 161 313 316




















354 Index






121 126ndash127 130 134ndash135 153210 245









predicate 5prefix 3









140ndash142 169 187 196ndash197 227234











Raga 41 160Rapanui 17 161 314

Index 355







128 131 133 149 160 212ndash214245ndash246 281 315 316

Roviana 4 143ndash144 147 149 208


115 129 139 145 146 151162ndash163 209ndash210 211 258 263









356 Index











Tahitian 17 30 85 117 121 139 143155ndash156 161 212










Tokelauan 50Tolai 34 40 102 148 158 207 305


96 120 139 149 160 245257ndash258 263 301 315





Index 357




Vanimo 87Vanuatu























358 Index



281 282






Index 359

About the Author


Pacific Languages

Pacific Languages

Contents

Illustrations

Tables

Figures

Maps

Preface

Acknowledgments

Terms Used

















135 Time Depths






222 Melanesia

Fiji and Rotuma


Vanuatu

Solomon Islands

Papua New Guinea

Irian Jaya

223 Australia

23 Language Names



242 Micronesia

243 Melanesia

244 Australia


















422 Tasmania



441 Origins

442 Diversification

Structure

Sound Systems


511 Vowel Systems



Micronesia

Melanesia


Stress

Tone

514 Word Structure

52 Papuan Languages

521 Vowel Systems



524 Word Structure


531 Vowel Systems


533 Word Structure

54 Orthographies

541 General Issues



544 Australia

55 Summary


61 Pronouns

611 Person

612 Number

613 Functions



622 Articles

623 Demonstratives

624 Adjectives











643 Subject


645 The Passive



65 Sentences




SV(O) Languages

S(O)V Languages



654 Negation




71 Pronouns









75 Sentences





81 Pronouns


821 Case Marking

822 Noun Classes


Demonstratives

Adjectives









85 Sentences










921 Lexical Change

922 Semantic Change




931 Rotuman










Sound System

Sentence Structure

Pronouns




104 Fiji Hindi



1111 How Many Words


Specific Terms

Generic Terms




1123 Other Systems

1124 Tally Systems

113 Kinship












1155 Literacy

1156 The Media




Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Conclusion

Appendices

Data Sources

Phonetic Symbols

Vowels

Consonants


Non-English Sounds


Consonant Systems

Micronesia

Australia


Notes

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CONCLUSION

References

Index

About the Author



98 99 00 01 02 03 5 4 3 2 1





CIP







To

AndoniaBrendan

andSteven

Contents

Illustrations x

Preface xiii


Terms Used xix





VII



Part 2 Structure 73





VIII Contents







Appendices 283


Notes 313

References 321

Index 345

Contents IX

Illustrations

Tables


Figures



X

Maps



Illustrations XI

Preface




XIII










XIV Preface





Preface XV

Acknowledgments





XVII

Terms Used




XIX

CHAPTER

1







1










2 CHAPTER 1



















4 CHAPTER 1





















6 CHAPTER 1






















8 CHAPTER 1

















10 CHAPTER 1














12 CHAPTER 1












14 CHAPTER 1















16 CHAPTER 1












18 CHAPTER 1






PART ONE


CHAPTER

2






23

Map

2Th

ePa

cific

24 CHAPTER 2












A B C D E F G H I J


26 CHAPTER 2













Australia 200b



28 CHAPTER 2







30 CHAPTER 2


Fiji and Rotuma



32 CHAPTER 2






Vanuatu


Solomon Islands


Papua New Guinea





34 CHAPTER 2



36 CHAPTER 2


Irian Jaya





38 CHAPTER 2

223 Australia











40 CHAPTER 2















42 CHAPTER 2









44 CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER

3





45






46 CHAPTER 3


















48 CHAPTER 3







50 CHAPTER 3







Rennellese


Tikopia-Anuta


West Futuna








52 CHAPTER 3












54 CHAPTER 3















56 CHAPTER 3















58 CHAPTER 3









CHAPTER

4






60













Merahwestern 4


Baywestern 4


Island3



Guineacentral 54


62 CHAPTER 4



48


ern6


homMadang 28



42





New Ireland8


Islands5





64 CHAPTER 4


66 CHAPTER 4












68 CHAPTER 4














70 CHAPTER 4








72 CHAPTER 4

PART TWO

Structure

CHAPTER

5

Sound Systems




i ue o

a


75










76 CHAPTER 5











Sound Systems 77







l l


Micronesia


78 CHAPTER 5



f sr

w y




Melanesia



Tigakp t kb g

svm n ŋ

rl

Sound Systems 79




l lr

w y w




Stress


80 CHAPTER 5












Sound Systems 81




Tone








82 CHAPTER 5










Sound Systems 83










84 CHAPTER 5




2 Intensity










Sound Systems 85











86 CHAPTER 5






i ue o

a



ɛ ͻa a





Sound Systems 87


Rotokasp t kv r g





88 CHAPTER 5


Kewa6










Sound Systems 89









90 CHAPTER 5




i u i ua a



a a



Sound Systems 91




Wargamay

b d d gm n n ŋ

lṛ

w y

Kunjen



lṛ

w y

Wajarri


l l ḷr ṛ

w y

92 CHAPTER 5

Pitta-Pitta


l l ḷ λr ṛ

w y






Sound Systems 93









being an adultrsquo



94 CHAPTER 5






Sound Systems 95







96 CHAPTER 5






Sound Systems 97







98 CHAPTER 5

Gooniyandi

Phonemes Letters






Sound Systems 99

CHAPTER

6







100






Maringe















102 CHAPTER 6




LenakelI-es-ol-aan


















104 CHAPTER 6


















106 CHAPTER 6





















108 CHAPTER 6




Sye



Anejom















110 CHAPTER 6























112 CHAPTER 6






















114 CHAPTER 6






Fijianna waqa levu



















116 CHAPTER 6




















118 CHAPTER 6





Examples

















120 CHAPTER 6





















122 CHAPTER 6






Some examples






about him)rsquo










124 CHAPTER 6


Manam



















126 CHAPTER 6









Examples include













128 CHAPTER 6




Nukuoro12


















130 CHAPTER 6























to they PL



132 CHAPTER 6






















Some examples


134 CHAPTER 6














Examples










136 CHAPTER 6


















3 di- da-

For example




138 CHAPTER 6





















140 CHAPTER 6




















142 CHAPTER 6


Examples




















144 CHAPTER 6














Samoan








146 CHAPTER 6
















Subject Predicate




148 CHAPTER 6




Predicate Subject












For example







150 CHAPTER 6


















SV(O) Languages


Subject Verb Object



152 CHAPTER 6












S(O)V Languages


subject Object Verb







Verb Object Subject


154 CHAPTER 6







Verb Subject Object











Subject Verb Object





156 CHAPTER 6

Object Verb Subject


Object Subject Verb



Object Subject Verb












Tolai







158 CHAPTER 6


Rotuman


















160 CHAPTER 6





















162 CHAPTER 6





that ofpossessives)

















164 CHAPTER 6












CHAPTER

7






166






















Kuman

Independentpronouns

Subject suffixes


168 CHAPTER 7





Bilua













170 CHAPTER 7



















172 CHAPTER 7























174 CHAPTER 7




















176 CHAPTER 7





















178 CHAPTER 7













Subject Predicate


KumanYuŋgu-n awe


Predicate Subject



180 CHAPTER 7














Some examples









182 CHAPTER 7












184 CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER

8







185














186 CHAPTER 8























188 CHAPTER 8







For example
















190 CHAPTER 8




Yanyuwa













Adjectives







192 CHAPTER 8









ngguwurrbi-bajun-du



big-very-ERGATIVE







take-CONTINUOUS












194 CHAPTER 8












UradhiI II III IV



UradhiI II III IV




196 CHAPTER 8


















Subject Predicate






198 CHAPTER 8



















200 CHAPTER 8


















202 CHAPTER 8

PART THREE


CHAPTER

9





205






206 CHAPTER 9














208 CHAPTER 9
















210 CHAPTER 9

















212 CHAPTER 9



















214 CHAPTER 9




















216 CHAPTER 9















218 CHAPTER 9



CHAPTER

10





220











222 CHAPTER 10














224 CHAPTER 10



Sound System


i ue o

a




lr

w y






Sentence Structure






killTRANS

226 CHAPTER 10




Pronouns


BislamaSingular
















228 CHAPTER 10










Examples














230 CHAPTER 10




















232 CHAPTER 10




















234 CHAPTER 10













236 CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER

11







237






238 CHAPTER 11






Specific Terms










240 CHAPTER 11






Generic Terms






nepcevshark


inharstingray


nedumtriggerfish


numu-sgan(sea) fish

inmokomparrotfish






numanhermit crab



ledceicoconutcrab

nesgaamushellfish


numumarinelife


242 CHAPTER 11















244 CHAPTER 11









1000000000 lik











10 akou kiipuro



246 CHAPTER 11



















248 CHAPTER 11




















250 CHAPTER 11
















252 CHAPTER 11









husband[not used]





254 CHAPTER 11











256 CHAPTER 11












258 CHAPTER 11









Kalam










260 CHAPTER 11












262 CHAPTER 11












264 CHAPTER 11
















266 CHAPTER 11












268 CHAPTER 11











270 CHAPTER 11




CONCLUSION






272






































279

























Appendices

APPENDIX 1

Data Sources


Location Sources







285











286 APPENDIX 1









Data Sources 287


Papuan Languages





288 APPENDIX 1




Data Sources 289








(1985) Mihalic(1971) JL

290 APPENDIX 1

APPENDIX 2

Phonetic Symbols








291




Vowels


Front Vowels






Consonants


292 APPENDIX 2

Cons

onan

tSy

mbo

ls vela

rize

dbi

labi

albi

labi

alla

bio

dent

alde

ntal

alve

o-la

rre

tro-

flex

alve

opa

lata

lpa

lata

lve

lar

labi

ove

lar

glot

tal

voic

eles

sst

ops

oral

PwP

tt

ṭty

ck

kwɁ

pren

asal

ized

mpw

mP

n tn t

n ṭn ty

ntilde cŋ k

ŋ kwŋ Ɂ

voic

edst

ops

oral

bwb

dd

ḍdy

jg

gw

pren

asal

ized

mbw

mb

n dn d

n ḍn dy

n jŋ g

ŋ gw

voic

eles

saff

rica

tes

tsts

tʃvo

iced

affri

cate

sdz

dzdʒ

voic

eles

sfr

icat

ives

fwΦ

fθ

sṣ

ʃx

xwh

voic

edfr

icat

ives

vwβ

veth

zẓ

ʒγ

γw

voic

edna

sals

mw

mn

nṇ

ntildeŋ

ŋw

voic

edla

tera

lsl

lḷ

λɫ

voic

edfla

pr

voic

edtr

ill

oral

rpr

enas

aliz

edn r

voic

edse

miv

owel

sw

ry



miliar







294 APPENDIX 2

APPENDIX3


Vowel Systems

Micronesia




ɛ ɔa a



a a atilde

295

AustraliaAnguthimri


a a atilde



Nauruanpw p t k kw

bw b d g gw

mw m n ŋ ŋw

mw m n ŋ ŋwrR

w y


lw lr


l lr

w w y y

296 APPENDIX 3





l rr

Ririo Adzera



v z γm n ŋ m n ŋ

lr r

w y

Pije Drehu

Phw Ph th kh




l ll l

w y ww y w


Melanesia Papuan


s s hm n m n

r rw y w y

Kobon Kacircte


vts tsdz dz


w y ŋ y

Wahgi

P t kmb nd ng

ndzs

m n n ŋl l ɫ

w y

AustraliaAnguthimri


lr

w y

298 APPENDIX 3

APPENDIX 4












299
















300 APPENDIX 4



































302 APPENDIX 4



































304 APPENDIX 4







































306 APPENDIX 4



































308 APPENDIX 4


































310 APPENDIX 4



















312 APPENDIX 4

Notes

CHAPTER 1




CHAPTER 2






313

CHAPTER 3





CHAPTER 5










314 Notes






CHAPTER 6









Notes 315













316 Notes







CHAPTER 7




CHAPTER 8





Notes 317




CHAPTER 9





CHAPTER 10






318 Notes





CHAPTER 11











Notes 319





CONCLUSION




320 Notes

References



backs









B-58



321





C-80













322 References





computer file
















References 323


cation 14 16ndash27




















324 References















Auckland Longman


University Press




References 325





















326 References






Linguistics D-67





tal Society











References 327




vanovich


119 271ndash276


Files


versity Press







C-16






328 References










Society









D-64


Linguistics C-89

References 329


















Education



330 References



Linguistics C-115

















References 331




Paul




C-20











332 References















Europa








References 333











tics C-79










334 References
















guistics B-92







References 335


tics




12 479ndash501






tics C-111









336 References

















References 337















guistics B-56






111ndash135

338 References












tics B-47


Hague Mouton


Gruyter






References 339








Linguistics B-11













340 References







guistics B-13











References 341







475ndash487






Studies Press


guistics C-97


B-85





342 References








guistics C-70


References 343

Index











345















227ndash230 232 264 273 281 304311 318 319 320



346 Index
















285 286 287 289 290 313 314317 318







Index 347










259


57ndash58 71 270


221ndash223 224 234 235 262 264275 320









clusive distinction





348 Index




166 176ndash177 178 270 280 282288 289 314





















Index 349

























206Koita people 206



350 Index

Kulick Don 71 261 270ndash271 282289














210 211Laycock D C 40 71 244 250 251

276 287 288Lee Jennifer 281 289








279 280 281 285 286 287 314315 317 318



132 138 141 144 159 164Manem 166

Index 351










235 262 263 264ndash265 267 268272 275 276 280 320














352 Index














GuineaNgatikese 30













Index 353









Paamese 40 76 102 122 123 137147ndash148 153 161 313 316




















354 Index






121 126ndash127 130 134ndash135 153210 245









predicate 5prefix 3









140ndash142 169 187 196ndash197 227234











Raga 41 160Rapanui 17 161 314

Index 355







128 131 133 149 160 212ndash214245ndash246 281 315 316

Roviana 4 143ndash144 147 149 208


115 129 139 145 146 151162ndash163 209ndash210 211 258 263









356 Index











Tahitian 17 30 85 117 121 139 143155ndash156 161 212










Tokelauan 50Tolai 34 40 102 148 158 207 305


96 120 139 149 160 245257ndash258 263 301 315





Index 357




Vanimo 87Vanuatu























358 Index



281 282






Index 359

About the Author


Pacific Languages

Pacific Languages

Contents

Illustrations

Tables

Figures

Maps

Preface

Acknowledgments

Terms Used

















135 Time Depths






222 Melanesia

Fiji and Rotuma


Vanuatu

Solomon Islands

Papua New Guinea

Irian Jaya

223 Australia

23 Language Names



242 Micronesia

243 Melanesia

244 Australia


















422 Tasmania



441 Origins

442 Diversification

Structure

Sound Systems


511 Vowel Systems



Micronesia

Melanesia


Stress

Tone

514 Word Structure

52 Papuan Languages

521 Vowel Systems



524 Word Structure


531 Vowel Systems


533 Word Structure

54 Orthographies

541 General Issues



544 Australia

55 Summary


61 Pronouns

611 Person

612 Number

613 Functions



622 Articles

623 Demonstratives

624 Adjectives











643 Subject


645 The Passive



65 Sentences




SV(O) Languages

S(O)V Languages



654 Negation




71 Pronouns









75 Sentences





81 Pronouns


821 Case Marking

822 Noun Classes


Demonstratives

Adjectives









85 Sentences










921 Lexical Change

922 Semantic Change




931 Rotuman










Sound System

Sentence Structure

Pronouns




104 Fiji Hindi



1111 How Many Words


Specific Terms

Generic Terms




1123 Other Systems

1124 Tally Systems

113 Kinship












1155 Literacy

1156 The Media




Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Conclusion

Appendices

Data Sources

Phonetic Symbols

Vowels

Consonants


Non-English Sounds


Consonant Systems

Micronesia

Australia


Notes

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CONCLUSION

References

Index

About the Author

To

AndoniaBrendan

andSteven

Contents

Illustrations x

Preface xiii


Terms Used xix





VII



Part 2 Structure 73





VIII Contents







Appendices 283


Notes 313

References 321

Index 345

Contents IX

Illustrations

Tables


Figures



X

Maps



Illustrations XI

Preface




XIII










XIV Preface





Preface XV

Acknowledgments





XVII

Terms Used




XIX

CHAPTER

1







1










2 CHAPTER 1



















4 CHAPTER 1





















6 CHAPTER 1






















8 CHAPTER 1

















10 CHAPTER 1














12 CHAPTER 1












14 CHAPTER 1















16 CHAPTER 1












18 CHAPTER 1






PART ONE


CHAPTER

2






23

Map

2Th

ePa

cific

24 CHAPTER 2












A B C D E F G H I J


26 CHAPTER 2













Australia 200b



28 CHAPTER 2







30 CHAPTER 2


Fiji and Rotuma



32 CHAPTER 2






Vanuatu


Solomon Islands


Papua New Guinea





34 CHAPTER 2



36 CHAPTER 2


Irian Jaya





38 CHAPTER 2

223 Australia











40 CHAPTER 2















42 CHAPTER 2









44 CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER

3





45






46 CHAPTER 3


















48 CHAPTER 3







50 CHAPTER 3







Rennellese


Tikopia-Anuta


West Futuna








52 CHAPTER 3












54 CHAPTER 3















56 CHAPTER 3















58 CHAPTER 3









CHAPTER

4






60













Merahwestern 4


Baywestern 4


Island3



Guineacentral 54


62 CHAPTER 4



48


ern6


homMadang 28



42





New Ireland8


Islands5





64 CHAPTER 4


66 CHAPTER 4












68 CHAPTER 4














70 CHAPTER 4








72 CHAPTER 4

PART TWO

Structure

CHAPTER

5

Sound Systems




i ue o

a


75










76 CHAPTER 5











Sound Systems 77







l l


Micronesia


78 CHAPTER 5



f sr

w y




Melanesia



Tigakp t kb g

svm n ŋ

rl

Sound Systems 79




l lr

w y w




Stress


80 CHAPTER 5












Sound Systems 81




Tone








82 CHAPTER 5










Sound Systems 83










84 CHAPTER 5




2 Intensity










Sound Systems 85











86 CHAPTER 5






i ue o

a



ɛ ͻa a





Sound Systems 87


Rotokasp t kv r g





88 CHAPTER 5


Kewa6










Sound Systems 89









90 CHAPTER 5




i u i ua a



a a



Sound Systems 91




Wargamay

b d d gm n n ŋ

lṛ

w y

Kunjen



lṛ

w y

Wajarri


l l ḷr ṛ

w y

92 CHAPTER 5

Pitta-Pitta


l l ḷ λr ṛ

w y






Sound Systems 93









being an adultrsquo



94 CHAPTER 5






Sound Systems 95







96 CHAPTER 5






Sound Systems 97







98 CHAPTER 5

Gooniyandi

Phonemes Letters






Sound Systems 99

CHAPTER

6







100






Maringe















102 CHAPTER 6




LenakelI-es-ol-aan


















104 CHAPTER 6


















106 CHAPTER 6





















108 CHAPTER 6




Sye



Anejom















110 CHAPTER 6























112 CHAPTER 6






















114 CHAPTER 6






Fijianna waqa levu



















116 CHAPTER 6




















118 CHAPTER 6





Examples

















120 CHAPTER 6





















122 CHAPTER 6






Some examples






about him)rsquo










124 CHAPTER 6


Manam



















126 CHAPTER 6









Examples include













128 CHAPTER 6




Nukuoro12


















130 CHAPTER 6























to they PL



132 CHAPTER 6






















Some examples


134 CHAPTER 6














Examples










136 CHAPTER 6


















3 di- da-

For example




138 CHAPTER 6





















140 CHAPTER 6




















142 CHAPTER 6


Examples




















144 CHAPTER 6














Samoan








146 CHAPTER 6
















Subject Predicate




148 CHAPTER 6




Predicate Subject












For example







150 CHAPTER 6


















SV(O) Languages


Subject Verb Object



152 CHAPTER 6












S(O)V Languages


subject Object Verb







Verb Object Subject


154 CHAPTER 6







Verb Subject Object











Subject Verb Object





156 CHAPTER 6

Object Verb Subject


Object Subject Verb



Object Subject Verb












Tolai







158 CHAPTER 6


Rotuman


















160 CHAPTER 6





















162 CHAPTER 6





that ofpossessives)

















164 CHAPTER 6












CHAPTER

7






166






















Kuman

Independentpronouns

Subject suffixes


168 CHAPTER 7





Bilua













170 CHAPTER 7



















172 CHAPTER 7























174 CHAPTER 7




















176 CHAPTER 7





















178 CHAPTER 7













Subject Predicate


KumanYuŋgu-n awe


Predicate Subject



180 CHAPTER 7














Some examples









182 CHAPTER 7












184 CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER

8







185














186 CHAPTER 8























188 CHAPTER 8







For example
















190 CHAPTER 8




Yanyuwa













Adjectives







192 CHAPTER 8









ngguwurrbi-bajun-du



big-very-ERGATIVE







take-CONTINUOUS












194 CHAPTER 8












UradhiI II III IV



UradhiI II III IV




196 CHAPTER 8


















Subject Predicate






198 CHAPTER 8



















200 CHAPTER 8


















202 CHAPTER 8

PART THREE


CHAPTER

9





205






206 CHAPTER 9














208 CHAPTER 9
















210 CHAPTER 9

















212 CHAPTER 9



















214 CHAPTER 9




















216 CHAPTER 9















218 CHAPTER 9



CHAPTER

10





220











222 CHAPTER 10














224 CHAPTER 10



Sound System


i ue o

a




lr

w y






Sentence Structure






killTRANS

226 CHAPTER 10




Pronouns


BislamaSingular
















228 CHAPTER 10










Examples














230 CHAPTER 10




















232 CHAPTER 10




















234 CHAPTER 10













236 CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER

11







237






238 CHAPTER 11






Specific Terms










240 CHAPTER 11






Generic Terms






nepcevshark


inharstingray


nedumtriggerfish


numu-sgan(sea) fish

inmokomparrotfish






numanhermit crab



ledceicoconutcrab

nesgaamushellfish


numumarinelife


242 CHAPTER 11















244 CHAPTER 11









1000000000 lik











10 akou kiipuro



246 CHAPTER 11



















248 CHAPTER 11




















250 CHAPTER 11
















252 CHAPTER 11









husband[not used]





254 CHAPTER 11











256 CHAPTER 11












258 CHAPTER 11









Kalam










260 CHAPTER 11












262 CHAPTER 11












264 CHAPTER 11
















266 CHAPTER 11












268 CHAPTER 11











270 CHAPTER 11




CONCLUSION






272






































279

























Appendices

APPENDIX 1

Data Sources


Location Sources







285











286 APPENDIX 1









Data Sources 287


Papuan Languages





288 APPENDIX 1




Data Sources 289








(1985) Mihalic(1971) JL

290 APPENDIX 1

APPENDIX 2

Phonetic Symbols








291




Vowels


Front Vowels






Consonants


292 APPENDIX 2

Cons

onan

tSy

mbo

ls vela

rize

dbi

labi

albi

labi

alla

bio

dent

alde

ntal

alve

o-la

rre

tro-

flex

alve

opa

lata

lpa

lata

lve

lar

labi

ove

lar

glot

tal

voic

eles

sst

ops

oral

PwP

tt

ṭty

ck

kwɁ

pren

asal

ized

mpw

mP

n tn t

n ṭn ty

ntilde cŋ k

ŋ kwŋ Ɂ

voic

edst

ops

oral

bwb

dd

ḍdy

jg

gw

pren

asal

ized

mbw

mb

n dn d

n ḍn dy

n jŋ g

ŋ gw

voic

eles

saff

rica

tes

tsts

tʃvo

iced

affri

cate

sdz

dzdʒ

voic

eles

sfr

icat

ives

fwΦ

fθ

sṣ

ʃx

xwh

voic

edfr

icat

ives

vwβ

veth

zẓ

ʒγ

γw

voic

edna

sals

mw

mn

nṇ

ntildeŋ

ŋw

voic

edla

tera

lsl

lḷ

λɫ

voic

edfla

pr

voic

edtr

ill

oral

rpr

enas

aliz

edn r

voic

edse

miv

owel

sw

ry



miliar







294 APPENDIX 2

APPENDIX3


Vowel Systems

Micronesia




ɛ ɔa a



a a atilde

295

AustraliaAnguthimri


a a atilde



Nauruanpw p t k kw

bw b d g gw

mw m n ŋ ŋw

mw m n ŋ ŋwrR

w y


lw lr


l lr

w w y y

296 APPENDIX 3





l rr

Ririo Adzera



v z γm n ŋ m n ŋ

lr r

w y

Pije Drehu

Phw Ph th kh




l ll l

w y ww y w


Melanesia Papuan


s s hm n m n

r rw y w y

Kobon Kacircte


vts tsdz dz


w y ŋ y

Wahgi

P t kmb nd ng

ndzs

m n n ŋl l ɫ

w y

AustraliaAnguthimri


lr

w y

298 APPENDIX 3

APPENDIX 4












299
















300 APPENDIX 4



































302 APPENDIX 4



































304 APPENDIX 4







































306 APPENDIX 4



































308 APPENDIX 4


































310 APPENDIX 4



















312 APPENDIX 4

Notes

CHAPTER 1




CHAPTER 2






313

CHAPTER 3





CHAPTER 5










314 Notes






CHAPTER 6









Notes 315













316 Notes







CHAPTER 7




CHAPTER 8





Notes 317




CHAPTER 9





CHAPTER 10






318 Notes





CHAPTER 11











Notes 319





CONCLUSION




320 Notes

References



backs









B-58



321





C-80













322 References





computer file
















References 323


cation 14 16ndash27




















324 References















Auckland Longman


University Press




References 325





















326 References






Linguistics D-67





tal Society











References 327




vanovich


119 271ndash276


Files


versity Press







C-16






328 References










Society









D-64


Linguistics C-89

References 329


















Education



330 References



Linguistics C-115

















References 331




Paul




C-20











332 References















Europa








References 333











tics C-79










334 References
















guistics B-92







References 335


tics




12 479ndash501






tics C-111









336 References

















References 337















guistics B-56






111ndash135

338 References












tics B-47


Hague Mouton


Gruyter






References 339








Linguistics B-11













340 References







guistics B-13











References 341







475ndash487






Studies Press


guistics C-97


B-85





342 References








guistics C-70


References 343

Index











345















227ndash230 232 264 273 281 304311 318 319 320



346 Index
















285 286 287 289 290 313 314317 318







Index 347










259


57ndash58 71 270


221ndash223 224 234 235 262 264275 320









clusive distinction





348 Index




166 176ndash177 178 270 280 282288 289 314





















Index 349

























206Koita people 206



350 Index

Kulick Don 71 261 270ndash271 282289














210 211Laycock D C 40 71 244 250 251

276 287 288Lee Jennifer 281 289








279 280 281 285 286 287 314315 317 318



132 138 141 144 159 164Manem 166

Index 351










235 262 263 264ndash265 267 268272 275 276 280 320














352 Index














GuineaNgatikese 30













Index 353









Paamese 40 76 102 122 123 137147ndash148 153 161 313 316




















354 Index






121 126ndash127 130 134ndash135 153210 245









predicate 5prefix 3









140ndash142 169 187 196ndash197 227234











Raga 41 160Rapanui 17 161 314

Index 355







128 131 133 149 160 212ndash214245ndash246 281 315 316

Roviana 4 143ndash144 147 149 208


115 129 139 145 146 151162ndash163 209ndash210 211 258 263









356 Index











Tahitian 17 30 85 117 121 139 143155ndash156 161 212










Tokelauan 50Tolai 34 40 102 148 158 207 305


96 120 139 149 160 245257ndash258 263 301 315





Index 357




Vanimo 87Vanuatu























358 Index



281 282






Index 359

About the Author


Pacific Languages

Pacific Languages

Contents

Illustrations

Tables

Figures

Maps

Preface

Acknowledgments

Terms Used

















135 Time Depths






222 Melanesia

Fiji and Rotuma


Vanuatu

Solomon Islands

Papua New Guinea

Irian Jaya

223 Australia

23 Language Names



242 Micronesia

243 Melanesia

244 Australia


















422 Tasmania



441 Origins

442 Diversification

Structure

Sound Systems


511 Vowel Systems



Micronesia

Melanesia


Stress

Tone

514 Word Structure

52 Papuan Languages

521 Vowel Systems



524 Word Structure


531 Vowel Systems


533 Word Structure

54 Orthographies

541 General Issues



544 Australia

55 Summary


61 Pronouns

611 Person

612 Number

613 Functions



622 Articles

623 Demonstratives

624 Adjectives











643 Subject


645 The Passive



65 Sentences




SV(O) Languages

S(O)V Languages



654 Negation




71 Pronouns









75 Sentences





81 Pronouns


821 Case Marking

822 Noun Classes


Demonstratives

Adjectives









85 Sentences










921 Lexical Change

922 Semantic Change




931 Rotuman










Sound System

Sentence Structure

Pronouns




104 Fiji Hindi



1111 How Many Words


Specific Terms

Generic Terms




1123 Other Systems

1124 Tally Systems

113 Kinship












1155 Literacy

1156 The Media




Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Conclusion

Appendices

Data Sources

Phonetic Symbols

Vowels

Consonants


Non-English Sounds


Consonant Systems

Micronesia

Australia


Notes

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CONCLUSION

References

Index

About the Author

Pacific Languages: An Introduction (OA)

Documents

Transcript of Pacific Languages: An Introduction (OA)