Pacific Linguistics: new publications

[Malcolm Ross]

PACIFIC LINGUISTICS is happy to announce the publication of the three
works described below.

Prices are in Australian dollars (one Australian dollar is currently
equivalent to about US$ 0,55.).

Orders may be placed by mail, e-mail or telephone with:

The Publications Administrator
Pacific Linguistics
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
The Australian National University
Canberra   ACT   0200   Australia

Tel:	+61 (0)2 6249 2742
Fax:	+61 (0)2 6249 4896

mailto://jmanley@coombs.anu.edu.au


Credit card orders are accepted.

For our catalogue and other materials, see:

http://pacling.anu.edu.au (under construction)

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Topics in Polynesian Language and Culture History

Jeff Marck

PL 504
The present volume first reexamines Polynesian language subgrouping from
the point of view of shared sporadic sound changes. The main conclusion of
those chapters is to support Bill Wilson's idea that East Polynesian
languages might be most closely related to the languages of Tuvalu
northwest of Samoa, along with the "Ellicean" Outliers. Later chapters
cover cosmogony and kin terms for the various Polynesian subgroups,
traditional interests of culture historians that were not much investigated
prior to the work of this thesis. The volume ends with a discussion of how
language and ethnicity transformed over time in early Western Polynesia,
both becoming more focused on particular island groups at about the time
population pressures were first being felt in the larger island groups
(Samoa and Tonga).

2000	ISBN 0 85883 468 5	281 + xxi pp.
AUS $59.95	($54.50 international) 	Weight 600g



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Constraints on null subjects in Bislama (Vanuatu):
Social and linguistic factors

Miriam Meyerhoff

PL 506
	How can developments in a contact language inform the inquiry into the
structural nature of language?  How do they help us better understand the
nature of language change and the processes of  grammaticisation?
       Using data from everyday conversations in Bislama (the national
language of Vanuatu), this book focuses on one variable, the alternation
between overt pronominal and phonetically null subjects. It shows how an
emergent system of subject-verb agreement in Bislama interacts with
functional constraints on the interpretability of a subject; this
interaction accounts for much of the alternation between the two forms of
subject. The rich array of social functions that Bislama serves in the
communities studied is examined in some detail, and yet it is shown that as
Bislama becomes increasingly elaborate morphosyntactically, this kind of
structural innovation takes place largely independently of social factors.
By adopting the methods of sociolinguistics grounded in participant
observation, and being grounded in theoretical treatments of subject
agreement, this volume shows how the study of change in a contact language
helps to bridge issues in different subfields of linguistics.

2000	ISBN 0 85883 522 3		206 + xi pp.
AUS $41.80	($38.00 international)	Weight 500g



_______________________________________________________________
A grammar of Anejom~

John Lynch

PL 507
Anejom~ is spoken on the island of Aneityum and is a member of the Southern
Vanuatu subgroup of Oceanic Austronesian languages.  It is unusual
among Vanuatu languages in having VOS as its normal phrase order.
Its phonology is somewhat different from the phonologies of other
members of the subgroup, and it is also in the process of making a
number of morphosyntactic changes.  This grammar provides a thorough
treatment of the phonology and morphology of the
language, as well as a solid outline of its syntax, and includes three texts.

2000	ISBN 0 85883 484 7		xiii +180 pp.
AUS $41.80	($38.00 international)	Weight 500g



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--
_____________________________________
Dr Malcolm D. Ross
Senior Fellow
Department of Linguistics
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Australian National University
CANBERRA ACT 0200