<div>I would like to express my personal appreciation <BR>to the authors of the the Emira-Mussau grammar paper<BR>(and to John Bowden for telling us about it) <BR>and to the PNG branch of SIL for making so much useful <BR>language documentation available on the internet, <BR>in one spot (others please follow). </div> <div> </div> <div>It's quite difficult to study anything without access <BR>to paper documents, and I've learned a lot from this <BR>particular open source. <BR></div> <div>(I'm getting very fed up with Springer Link, Muse, <BR>JStor and so on for making access to their knowledge <BR>almost impossible).</div> <div>---------------------------------------------------</div> <div>On the Emira-Mussau grammar paper:<BR><A href="http://www.sil.org/pacific/png/abstract.asp?id=538">http://www.sil.org/pacific/png/abstract.asp?id=538</A></div> <div> </div> <div>I was particularly interested in their quotation of <BR>number names from 1-8192 (others
please follow), <BR>and their discussion of number classifiers (7 prenominal <BR>and 7 postnominal), and puzzled that the Emira-Mussauans <BR>didn't follow the example of nearby (and far-away) <BR>island languages. </div> <div> </div> <div>Ere-Lele-Gele'-Kuruti on Manus Island (only some 200 <BR>miles from Mussau) has (or had, in the 1940s) 43 separate <BR>postnominal numeral classifiers for different types of objects. <BR>This idiosyncracy is common to most Manus languages, together <BR>with an almost unique subtraction system for numbers 7-9, <BR>and in one case, from 6-9.<BR><A href="http://www.uog.ac.pg/glec/thesis/thesis.htm">http://www.uog.ac.pg/glec/thesis/thesis.htm</A></div> <div><BR>Woleai, in Micronesia, miles away from anywhere, in the <BR>Carolines, has 57 postnominal number classifiers, covering <BR>everything from coconuts to testicles.<BR><A href="http://www.ethnomath.org/resources/sohn1976.pdf">www.ethnomath.org/resources/sohn1976.pdf</A></div>
<div>----------------------------------------------------<BR>In my amateur analysis of number names and systems, I've been <BR>ignoring prenominal numeral classifiers quoted in number <BR>wordlists, not realising before, at all, that they might <BR>be significant. </div> <div> </div> <div>They obviously are.</div> <div> </div> <div>I would appreciate any help or information on the following <BR>(possible) prenominal classifier:</div> <div> </div> <div>wo- </div> <div> </div> <div>Very prevalent in number wordlists from the SW Malukus <BR></div> <div>(Kisar - wo'neme = 6, Luang - wo'nema).</div> <div>What does it mean?</div> <div> </div> <div>This (preposition?) seems to occur first in New Ireland, where <BR>it's attached to a '2' morpheme (iwolo = 6 in Nakanai), <BR>then spreads west to the Admiralties, where it is expressed in <BR>6 = wono, mawono, wonof, wonop, etc.</div> <div> </div> <div>In the Papuan Tip An languages, it's
doubled up with another <BR>(preposition?): </div> <div>Tagula/Sudest - ghewona = 6, <BR>Nimowa ho-woni = 6<BR>but I think these are secondary developments.</div> <div> </div> <div>It doesn't appear to get attached to an identifiable 'hand' <BR>morpheme (nim, nem) until around Cenderawasih Bay <BR>(Kawe - wonom) <BR>- but those languages have been messed around by <BR>Tidore slave traders relatively recently. </div> <div> </div> <div>Then it seems to occur more obviously in the Malukus <BR>Imroing - 6 = wo'lemu<BR>Masela East - 6 = 'wolem</div> <div>or gets dropped altogether<BR>Teun - 'nemu<BR>Dawera-Dawelor -'lem</div> <div>----------------------------------------<BR>In most early finger-hand tally systems, there's an obvious<BR>break between counting the fingers of one hand, and then <BR>transferring to the other: </div> <div> </div> <div>Bibling - New Britain <BR>5 = elme (hand) <BR>6 = lome kapuk (hand &-one). </div>
<div> </div> <div>In some PNG An languages, the hand-counting survives <BR>even more obviously: </div> <div> </div> <div>In Maisin (An - Huon Gulf) </div> <div>5 = faketi tarosi = hand on-the-one-side</div> <div>6 = faketi tarosi taure sese <BR>= hand-on-the one side - other-side - one </div> <div>And so on: <BR>27 = tamati seseina tamati itere faketi tarosi taure sandi <BR>= man-one DEM man-another hand-one-side other-side two</div> <div> </div> <div>In one attic of Austronesian languages, New Caledonia <BR>(and in most of Vanuatu), 6 survives as hand+1 </div> <div>Tinrin 6 = anoro me sa<BR>Pije 6 = ni-bweec <BR>Nindi - tomusoi<BR>Namakura - lateh</div> <div><BR>In the other attic, Taiwan, the same construction survives in:</div> <div>Saisyat - 6 = sayboshi = aseb (5) ?aha? (1) </div> <div>Pazeh 6 = xasebuza? = xaseb (5) and (1) <BR>(but not quite,because their word for 1 is only recorded as ?ida?)</div> <div> </div> <div>In Sediq
(Taiwan), the word for 6 seems to reflect the New Ireland <BR>Nakanai i-wo-lo (in system if not in name) as materu = hand-ta-2, <BR>where 5 is the familiar 'hand = rima'.</div> <div> </div> <div>Somewhere, along the language development chain, some bright spark <BR>put those more cumbersome combinations of words into shorthand: </div> <div>wo-'hand - nim, lem' = other hand or 2nd hand, or first-on-the <BR>other-hand, and thus: </div> <div> </div> <div>the combination finally developed into the familiar <BR>6 = *enem in Proto-Austronesian<BR>6 = *onom in Proto-Oceanic.</div> <div> </div> <div><BR>I would also like to thank the late Dr Glendon Lean, whose<BR>work I discovered only 2 weeks ago at:</div> <div><A href="http://www.uog.ac.pg/glec/thesis/thesis.htm">http://www.uog.ac.pg/glec/thesis/thesis.htm</A></div> <div>where he analysed Papuan NAN and local An number systems <BR>in great detail.</div> <div> </div> <div>I am very grateful to have
found his work, done over a quarter-century, <BR>in the jungles, swamps, and fly blown libraries of New Guinea, <BR>and for giving me some very good guidance on how I should <BR>proceed with my own 'work'. </div> <div> </div> <div>regards</div> <div>Richard Parker<BR>Siargao Island, The Philippines. </div> <div>My website at <A href="http://www.coconutstudio.com">www.coconutstudio.com</A> is about the island and its people, <BR>coastal early humans, fishing, coconuts, bananas and <BR>whatever took my fancy at the time.<BR></div>