Numbers -Austronesian

[Malcolm Ross]

Dear Richard,

> I hope that these two maps will support my hypothesis that  
> Austronesian languages were long entrenched in Near Oceania, before  
> a later intrusion (by Meso-Melanesians - Western Malayo-Polynesian  
> speakers).
>
> The 'seam-line' in New Britain does not seem to represent a point  
> of origin for the reconstructed proto-Oceanic language, thereafter  
> splitting between two very different groups, but more, a front-line  
> for a later intrusion.
>
>
Your maps are spectacular, and outdo anything I have ever produced.  
However, I don't think they provide the kind of evidence that you  
suggest they do. The Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian is the best  
established of all Austronesian groupings, because of the set of  
shared innovations reflected in Oceanic languages. Dempwolff drew  
attention to these in the late 1930s, and they have been the subject  
of a good deal more work since. There is no evidence I know of for  
the claim that Meso-Melanesian languages are WMP, and plenty of  
evidence that both they and North New Guinea are groupings within  
Oceanic.

I think that number systems have culturally acquired lives of their  
own, and that (on non-numerical evidence) quite closely related  
languages may develop rather different number sets. Sissano and Sera  
have been discussed here before in this connection. It seems fairly  
clear that an ancestor of all MP languages had a full set of words  
for the numerals from 1 to 10, and that these words are retained in  
some Oceanic languages but replaced in others. It is, I think, no  
coincidence that the number systems of Austronesian languages on  the  
New Guinea mainland are the most altered, and I take it that this  
reflects calquing on the basis of systems in neighbouring Papuan  
languages (but I don't have the evidence for that at my disposal).

All the best,

- Malcolm

_____________________________________

Emeritus Professor Malcolm Ross
Department of Linguistics
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Building No. 9, The Australian National University
CANBERRA A.C.T. 0200, Australia

http://rspas.anu.edu.au/people/personal/rossm_ling.php
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/linguistics/projects/biomdr.html

ANU CRICOS Provider Number is 00120C




On 09/06/2008, at 10:16 PM, Richard Parker wrote:

> I have posted to the web two number systems maps of the Papua New  
> Guinea area.
>
> The first shows the distribution of parts of the numbering system:
>
> http://coconutstudio.com/Papua%20New%20Guinea%20x%20shaded%205.jpg
>
>
> The second (apologies to Andrew Pawley and Malcolm Ross for  
> plagiarising their maps and terms) shows language groups, and the  
> remarkable correspondence between 'Meso-Melanesian' and 'advanced  
> numbers' against the 'North New Guinea Cluster' that has a lot of  
> 'early experiments'.
>
> http://coconutstudio.com/Papua%20New%20Guinea%20languagefinal% 
> 20maybe.jpg
>
>
> I hope that these two maps will support my hypothesis that  
> Austronesian languages were long entrenched in Near Oceania, before  
> a later intrusion (by Meso-Melanesians - Western Malayo-Polynesian  
> speakers).
>
>
> The 'seam-line' in New Britain does not seem to represent a point  
> of origin for the reconstructed proto-Oceanic language, thereafter  
> splitting between two very different groups, but more, a front-line  
> for a later intrusion.
>
>
> regards
>
> Richard
>
> PS There will be a lot of minor errors in these maps - please  
> advise if you find some.
>
> _______________________________________________
> An-lang mailing list
> An-lang at anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/an-lang

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