<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">I rather interpreted the question as meaning “what features might indicate that Oceania forms a distinctive linguistic area?”<div class="">since essentially a list of shared features was being put forward which were presumed not to be so common elsewhere. Hence</div><div class="">the nature of my comment that more retracted articulation for voiced coronals is quite common elsewhere (see also</div><div class="">contributions from Olle Engstrand and Mark Donohoe).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">“Oceania” is certainly an ambiguous term: I agree that in any specific case its scope needs to be made explicit.</div><div class="">In my own work I use the term to refer <b class=""><i class="">geographically</i></b> to the area east of Wallace’s line and west of the </div><div class="">western coastline of the Americas. <b class=""><i class="">Linguistically</i></b> I use it to refer to the languages in this area</div><div class="">that do not belong to families which are more “at home” in another area; in this case it means that Oceania</div><div class="">includes Australian and the various “Papuan” groups, but excludes Austronesian since this family is anchored in </div><div class="">South-East Asia and Aleut and the “Eskimo” languages since these relate to language families the majority of </div><div class="">whose members are in North America. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Ian</div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Apr 5, 2017, at 02:55, Martin Haspelmath <<a href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de" class="">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
<meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type" class="">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" class="">
I must say that I find the question ("what are interesting
grammatical typological features for capturing the diversity of
Oceania?") a bit odd.<br class="">
<br class="">
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.<br class="">
<br class="">
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?<br class="">
<br class="">
In other words, which feature would NOT be "interesting"?<br class="">
<br class="">
And here's another question: What is "Oceania"? This term has so
many different meanings that I'm confused by it (see
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania</a>). 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.<br class="">
<br class="">
Best,<br class="">
Martin<br class="">
<br class="">
<br class="">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 05.04.17 10:32, Kilu von Prince
wrote:<br class="">
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:CAK3VzU=NpT4Lmqy5GqE0gk=tHhLnP5QpmCL87NSbn-6X8iDuuQ@mail.gmail.com" type="cite" class="">
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<div dir="ltr" class=""><span style="font-size:12.8px" class="">Hi Hedvig,</span>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class="">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:</div>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class="">* Portmanteau subject-agreement
markers that simultaneously encode TMA information (y/n)</div>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class="">* Modes of negation: simple
marker, circumfix/ circumclitics, or portmanteau TMA markers
that simultaneously encode polarity</div>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class="">* Using "finish", "it is finished"
etc. frequently to structure a narrative, or more generally as
a marker of perfectifity (y/n)</div>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class="">* Using serial verb "go" to
indicate passage of time in a narrative (y/n)</div>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class="">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.</div>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class="">Best,</div>
<div style="font-size:12.8px" class="">Kilu</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br class="">
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 10:28 AM, Kilu
von Prince <span dir="ltr" class=""><<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:kilu.von.prince@hu-berlin.de" target="_blank" class="">kilu.von.prince@hu-berlin.de</a>></span>
wrote:<br class="">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr" class="">Hi Hedvig,
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">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:</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">* Portmanteau subject-agreement markers that
simultaneously encode TMA information (y/n)</div>
<div class="">* Modes of negation: simple marker, circumfix/
circumclitics, or portmanteau TMA markers that
simultaneously encode polarity</div>
<div class="">* Using "finish", "it is finished" etc. frequently to
structure a narrative, or more generally as a marker of
perfectifity (y/n)</div>
<div class="">* Using serial verb "go" to indicate passage of time
in a narrative (y/n)</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">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.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Best,</div>
<div class="">Kilu</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br class="">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div class="">
<div class="h5">On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 4:21 AM, Hedvig
Skirgård <span dir="ltr" class=""><<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:hedvig.skirgard@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">hedvig.skirgard@gmail.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br class="">
</div>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="">
<div class="h5">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div class="">
<div class="m_-4326409139743084763m_-305663611913455126gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div dir="ltr" class=""><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small" class="">Dear typologists,</span><br class="">
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="">
<div class=""><p class="m_-4326409139743084763m_-305663611913455126m_1554752280181880654gmail-p1">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.</p><p class="m_-4326409139743084763m_-305663611913455126m_1554752280181880654gmail-p1">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.</p><p class="m_-4326409139743084763m_-305663611913455126m_1554752280181880654gmail-p1">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.</p><p class="m_-4326409139743084763m_-305663611913455126m_1554752280181880654gmail-p1">Besides
those, do you have other suggestions?</p><p class="m_-4326409139743084763m_-305663611913455126m_1554752280181880654gmail-p1">From
a rather Samoan-centric perspective, I'd
be inclined to add features like these:</p>
<ul class="">
<li class="">Is there a "neutral" choice in
attributive possession, i.e. not
alienable/inalienable,
dominant/subordinate?</li>
<li class="">Can the agent be expressed as the
possessor of the verb instead of
encoded in the more canonical
ergative/nominative manner?</li>
<li class="">Can TA markers be entirely dropped
in main clauses?</li>
<li class="">Is number of absolute arguments
expressed by reduplication on the
verb?<br class="">
</li>
</ul><p class="m_-4326409139743084763m_-305663611913455126m_1554752280181880654gmail-p1">Clearly
these need further refinement, I just
wanted to give some examples. Looking
forward to more suggestions!</p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;" class=""><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica,
sans-serif" class=""><b class="">Tōfā soifua,<br class="">
</b></font><b class=""><font size="2" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif" class="">Hedvig
Skirgård</font></b></div>
<b class=""><br class="">
References:<br class="">
</b>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. <br class="">
<br class="">
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. <br class="">
<br class="">
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 <br class="">
<br class="">
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.10002<wbr class="">41<br class="">
<br class="">
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</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
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<div dir="ltr" class="">Dr. Kilu von Prince</div>
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</div>
<div class="">Dorotheenstr. 24</div>
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<div dir="ltr" class="">Postanschrift:<br class="">
<div class="">Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin</div>
<div class="">Unter den Linden 6</div>
<div class="">10099 Berlin</div>
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<br class="">
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10
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&
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