Recently added articles from Oceanic Linguistics:

Universal uses of demonstratives: evidence from four Malayo-Polynesian languages.(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Cleary-Kemp, Jessica ... Across the languages of the world, elements recognized as "demonstratives" perform a wide range of functions, including reference tracking, discourse deixis, and recognitional functions, as well as simple pointing in the immediate physical context. It has long been assumed that this last ...

Typology and the linguistic macrohistory of Island Melanesia.(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Donohue, Mark ... Recent years have seen much discussion on the use and meaning of typological argumentation when reconstructing language history and language relations. We address the conclusions and methodology of a paper "Structural phylogenetics and the reconstruction of ancient language history" ...

Statistical reasoning in the evaluation of typological diversity in Island Melanesia.(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Dunn, Michael ... This paper builds on a previous work in which we attempted to retrieve a phylogenetic signal using abstract structural features alone, as opposed to cognate sets, drawn from a sample of Island Melanesian languages, both Oceanic (Austronesian) and (non-Austronesian) Papuan (Science 2005 ...

Proto-oceanic * mana revisited.(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Blust, Robert ... Few linguistic terms in the history of anthropology have had greater currency than mana. While anthropological debate about this term has tended to center on the correct interpretation of the native concept, little attention has been given to the etymology of the word. When this is ...

Lexical perspectives on voice constructions in Tsou.(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Huang, Huei-ju ... Very few verbs in Formosan languages are known to carry a full set of voice affixes, but it remains unclear how and to what extent the lexical meaning of a verb influences constructional variability. In this study we sort out where the gaps may he, and probe the complex and interwoven ...

An Oceanic origin for Aiwoo, the language of the Reef Islands?(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Ross, Malcolm ... Whether the languages of the Reefs-Santa Cruz (RSC) group have a Papuan or an Austronesian origin has long been in dispute. Various background issues are treated in the introductory section. In section 2 we examine the lexicon of the RSC and Utupua-Vanikoro languages and show that there ...

Imperfective aspect and the interplay of aspect, tense, and modality in Torau.(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Palmer, Bill ... Torau displays a highly complex system of aspect, tense, and modal marking. One of the most complex elements of this system is the marking of imperfective aspect. Imperfective in Torau is marked by a construction employing a choice of two overt imperfective markers and the possible ...

The Papuan language of Tambora.(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Donohue, Mark ... I present data from Tambora, a now extinct language of central Sumbawa, and argue from the lexical data and the inferred phonology, compared with areal norms, that it was a Papuan language spoken by a trading population of southern Indonesia. The existence into historical times of a large ...

Definiteness and specificity in Mavea.(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Guerin, Valerie ... Specificity and definiteness are universal semantic categories, but not all languages express these categories morphologically. In this paper, I present data from Mavea, a language spoken in northern Vanuatu, which show morphological expressions of these two semantic categories. I argue ...

Cebuano passives revisited.(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Tanangkingsing, Michael ... The view that the gi-clauses and/or their equivalents in other Philippine-type languages, specifically in Cebuano and closely related Bisayan languages, are active constructions has been widely accepted by a number of Austronesian linguists. In a recent study on the gi-verb clauses in ...

Conjunctive reduction and its origin: a comparative study of Tsou, Amis, and Squliq Atayal.(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Tsai, Wei-tien Dylan ... This paper discusses the issue of how coordinate structures evolve into subordinate structures in both syntactic and semantic terms. I call this type of process "conjunctive reduction." It is well established in the literature on Chinese historical syntax that some modifier-head and ...

A typologically unusual interrogative word in Toqabaqita and other oceanic languages.(Squib)(Report)

Dec 01, 2007; Lichtenberk, Frantisek ... In Toqabaqita and some other Oceanic languages the reflexes of Proto-Oceanic *sapa 'what?, which?' are used to inquire about parts of whole and/or about kinship relations; for example, Toqabaqita tafa 'which part of person's or animal's body?'. While these interrogative functions may be ...

Nicholas Thieberger. 2006. A grammar of South Efate: An Oceanic language of Vanuatu.(Book review)

Dec 01, 2007; Malau, Catriona Hyslop ... Nicholas Thieberger. 2006. A grammar of South Efate: An Oceanic language of Vanuatu. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication No. 33. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. xxviii + 384 pp., ill., maps + 1 DVD-ROM. ISBN-13: 978-0-8248-3061-8. $39.00, paper. The publication of ...

Gabriele H. Cablitz. 2006. Marquesan: A grammar of space.(Book review)

Dec 01, 2007; Bennardo, Giovanni ... Gabriele H. Cablitz. 2006. Marquesan: A grammar of space. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. xx + 682 pp. ISBN-13: 978-3-11-018949-0. $172.80, hardcover. When I finished reading this book I tried to make sense of the many reactions that were crowding my mind First and foremost, there ...

Carl R. Galvez Rubino. 2006. Intensive Tausug: A pedagogical grammar of the language of Jolo, Philippines.(Book review)

Dec 01, 2007; Wolff, John U. ... Carl R. Galvez Rubino. 2006. Intensive Tausug: A pedagogical grammar of the language of Jolo, Philippines. Springfield, VA: Dunwoody Press. xv + 419 ISBN 1-931546-17-7. $55.00. This book is intended as a learner's manual for Tausug, a language spoken in parts of the Sulu ...

K. Alexander Adelaar. 2005. Salako or Badamea, sketch grammar; texts and lexicon of a Kanayatn dialect in West Borneo.(Book review)

Dec 01, 2007; Kaufman, Daniel ... K. Alexander Adelaar. 2005. Salako or Badamea, sketch grammar; texts and lexicon of a Kanayatn dialect in West Borneo. Frankfurter Forschungen zu Sudostasien 2. Berlin: Harrasowitz Verlag. vii + 328 pp. ISBN 3-447-051012-7. 78 [euro], hardcover. The Salako language, spoken in ...