[Lingtyp] Grammatical diversity of Oceania, suggestions for features?
Martin Haspelmath
haspelmath at shh.mpg.de
Wed Apr 5 08:55:49 UTC 2017
I must say that I find the question ("what are interesting grammatical
typological features for capturing the diversity of Oceania?") a bit odd.
Reesink & Dunn were specifically concerned with inferring prehistory,
and one might ask which grammatical features are the most conservative
(or stable). But this would hardly be an Oceania-specific question.
I'm not sure what is meant by "capturing the diversity of" something.
When an area is relatively uniform in salient features (e.g. with
respect to word order, or vowel systems), then one needs less salient
features to see internal diversity. But are there salient features with
respect to which "Oceania" is relatively uniform?
In other words, which feature would NOT be "interesting"?
And here's another question: What is "Oceania"? This term has so many
different meanings that I'm confused by it (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania). Do at least the specialists in
Oceanic languages agree to use it in the sense of "the language area of
Oceanic languages (i.e. including New Zealand and parts of New Guinea),
i.e. in a sense that is not even mentioned by the Wikipedia article.
Best,
Martin
On 05.04.17 10:32, Kilu von Prince wrote:
> Hi Hedvig,
>
> what an intriguing proposal! I'm working on a comparative project on
> Oceanic languages of Melanesia, so there are quite a number of things
> that come to my mind. For the time being, I'd suggest the following:
>
> * Portmanteau subject-agreement markers that simultaneously encode TMA
> information (y/n)
> * Modes of negation: simple marker, circumfix/ circumclitics, or
> portmanteau TMA markers that simultaneously encode polarity
> * Using "finish", "it is finished" etc. frequently to structure a
> narrative, or more generally as a marker of perfectifity (y/n)
> * Using serial verb "go" to indicate passage of time in a narrative (y/n)
>
> These are not necessarily the only or most interesting things to look
> at from our perspective, I'll have to think about it some more. Feel
> free to contact me directly for further exchange of ideas.
>
> Best,
> Kilu
>
> On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 10:28 AM, Kilu von Prince
> <kilu.von.prince at hu-berlin.de <mailto:kilu.von.prince at hu-berlin.de>>
> wrote:
>
> Hi Hedvig,
>
> what an intriguing proposal! I'm working on a comparative project
> on Oceanic languages of Melanesia, so there are quite a number of
> things that come to my mind. For the time being, I'd suggest the
> following:
>
> * Portmanteau subject-agreement markers that simultaneously encode
> TMA information (y/n)
> * Modes of negation: simple marker, circumfix/ circumclitics, or
> portmanteau TMA markers that simultaneously encode polarity
> * Using "finish", "it is finished" etc. frequently to structure a
> narrative, or more generally as a marker of perfectifity (y/n)
> * Using serial verb "go" to indicate passage of time in a
> narrative (y/n)
>
> These are not necessarily the only or most interesting things to
> look at from our perspective, I'll have to think about it some
> more. Feel free to contact me directly for further exchange of ideas.
>
> Best,
> Kilu
>
> On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 4:21 AM, Hedvig Skirgård
> <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com <mailto:hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Dear typologists,
>
> What are interesting grammatical typological features for
> capturing the diversity of Oceania? I sent this message
> earlier to the mailing list for pacific linguistics, but I
> thought I'd try here as well since I didn't get any response
> there yet.
>
> I work with a grammatical survey of the world's languages,
> Grambank, and I'm also personally interested in Oceania in
> particular for my PhD project. I've been doing some thinking
> as to what features would be interesting to cover to more
> accurately capture the grammatical diversity of Oceania in
> particular, besides the feature set that we already have for
> the world-sample.
>
> One guide are the features that Reesink, Dunn et al used in
> their publications on Sahul and Melanesia (see attachments and
> references listed below). They've taken in input from a lot
> of previous literature and commentary, so it's a good set.
>
> Besides those, do you have other suggestions?
>
> From a rather Samoan-centric perspective, I'd be inclined to
> add features like these:
>
> * Is there a "neutral" choice in attributive possession,
> i.e. not alienable/inalienable, dominant/subordinate?
> * Can the agent be expressed as the possessor of the verb
> instead of encoded in the more canonical
> ergative/nominative manner?
> * Can TA markers be entirely dropped in main clauses?
> * Is number of absolute arguments expressed by reduplication
> on the verb?
>
> Clearly these need further refinement, I just wanted to give
> some examples. Looking forward to more suggestions!
>
> *Tōfā soifua,
> **Hedvig Skirgård*
>
> *
> References:
> *Dunn, Michael, Angela Terrill, Ger Reesink, Robert A. Foley &
> Stephen C. Levinson. 2005. Structural phylogenetics and the
> reconstruction of ancient language history. Science 309.
> 2072–2075.
>
> Dunn, Michael, Robert A. Foley, Stephen C. Levinson, Ger
> Reesink & Angela Terrill. 2007. Statistical reasoning in the
> evaluation of typological diversity in Island Melanesia.
> Oceanic Linguistics 46(2). 388-403.
>
> Dunn, Michael, Stephen C. Levinson, Eva Lindström, Ger
> Reesink, & Angela Terrill. 2008. Structural phylogeny in
> historical linguistics: Methodological explorations applied in
> Island Melanesia. Language 84(4). 710-759
>
> Reesink, G., Singer, R., & Dunn, M. (2009). Explaining the
> linguistic diversity of Sahul using population models. PLoS
> Biology, 7(11), e1000241. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000241
>
> Reesink, Ger & Michael Dunn (2012) Systematic typological
> comparison as a tool for investigating language history. in
> Nicholas Evans and Marian Klamer (eds) Language Documentation
> & Conservation Special Publication No. 5 Melanesian Languages
> on the Edge of Asia: Challenges for the 21st Century. pp. 34–71
>
>
> *
> *
>
> *****
>
> *Hedvig Skirgård*
>
> *
> *PhD Candidate
> The Wellsprings of Linguistic Diversity
>
> ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language
>
> School of Culture, History and Language
> College of Asia and the Pacific
>
> Rm 4203, H.C. Coombs Building (#9)
> The Australian National University
>
> Acton ACT 2601
>
> Australia
>
> Co-chair of Public Relations
>
> Board of the International Olympiad of Linguistics
>
> www.ioling.org <http://www.ioling.org>
>
> Blogger at Humans Who Read Grammars
> http://humans-who-read-grammars.blogspot.
> <http://humans-who-read-grammars.blogspot.>
>
>
>
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>
> --
> Dr. Kilu von Prince
>
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>
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>
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>
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--
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10
D-07745 Jena
&
Leipzig University
IPF 141199
Nikolaistrasse 6-10
D-04109 Leipzig
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