<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; "><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; "><p><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Lucida Grande'">Dear Richard,</font></p></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 13px; "><p><blockquote type="cite"><p><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Lucida Grande'">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).</font></p><p><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Lucida Grande'">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 </font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 221); font-size: 12px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: -1; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Lucida Grande'">very different groups, but more, a front-line for a later intrusion.</font></span></p></blockquote></p></span></span><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Lucida Grande'">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.</font></p><p><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'Lucida Grande'">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 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; ">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).</span></font></p><p>All the best,</p><p>- Malcolm</p></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div>_____________________________________</div><div><br></div><div>Emeritus Professor Malcolm Ross</div><div>Department of Linguistics</div><div>Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies</div><div>Building No. 9, The Australian National University</div><div>CANBERRA A.C.T. 0200, Australia</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><a href="http://rspas.anu.edu.au/people/personal/rossm_ling.php">http://rspas.anu.edu.au/people/personal/rossm_ling.php</a><div>http://rspas.anu.edu.au/linguistics/projects/biomdr.html</div><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div>ANU CRICOS Provider Number is 00120C </div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br><div><div>On 09/06/2008, at 10:16 PM, Richard Parker wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" background="none" style="font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); width: 100%; "><tbody><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><p>I have posted to the web two number systems maps of the Papua New Guinea area.</p><p>The first shows the distribution of parts of the numbering system:</p><p><a href="http://coconutstudio.com/Papua%20New%20Guinea%20x%20shaded%205.jpg">http://coconutstudio.com/Papua%20New%20Guinea%20x%20shaded%205.jpg</a></p><div> <br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><p>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'. </p><p><a href="http://coconutstudio.com/Papua%20New%20Guinea%20languagefinal%20maybe.jpg">http://coconutstudio.com/Papua%20New%20Guinea%20languagefinal%20maybe.jpg</a></p><div> <br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><p>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).</p><div> <br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><p>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 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 221); font-size: 12px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: -1; ">very different groups, but more, a front-line for a later intrusion.</span></p><div> <br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><p>regards</p><p>Richard </p><p>PS There will be a lot of minor errors in these maps - please advise if you find some.<br></p></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">An-lang mailing list</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="mailto:An-lang@anu.edu.au">An-lang@anu.edu.au</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/an-lang">http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/an-lang</a></div> </blockquote></div><br></body></html>