Numbers yet again - Re: New Book from SIL PNG

[Malcolm Ross]

I haven't been following this discussion, but perhaps I can offer  
some clarification with regard to comments I have just seen. If I'm  
going over previously trodden ground, please excuse me.

> >(Arop Sissano - N New Guinea).
> >This information, that Arop and Sissano only had 1 and 2, is an
> >illegal inference from the fact that only 1, 2 were published in  
> >a wordlist in a book by Churchill. That he only listed 1 and 2 is  
> >understandable as he was doing a comparative study, and there is  
> >no statement there to say that there were only two numbers.

No, Chan has it right. Sissano counts 1, 2, 2_1, 2+2, 2+2+1 (at  
least, it did when I collected data from native speakers in the  
1970s). Arop and Sissano are dialects of the same language, spoken in  
the large village on Sissano Lagoon that was destroyed by a tsunami  
some years ago.

> The only data I currently have is from Eugene Chan’s list of  
> numbers at http://www.zompist.com/numbers.shtml
> It shows 1 and 2 used for all numbers from 1-10. Chan was careful,  
> and didn’t infer or claim numbering sequences that he hadn’t seen  
> in authoritative sources. Many of his numbering systems stop, at,  
> say, 6.
>
> The related Sera, next door, certainly does have morphemes for 3  
> and 5, but similar morphemes for 1 & 2.
>
> >Anyone seeing the actual number morphemes, which are not
> >Austronesian and not obviously cognate with any close Papuan
> > language, in Arop and Sissano would have to ask if they are  
> really linear Austronesian descendants!?
>
> They are probably not linear Austronesian descendants!?. Should  
> they be?

What is a 'linear Austronesian descendant'? If you mean that these  
languages represent continuity from generation to generation, rather  
than masses of Austronesian borrowings into a Papuan language, then,  
yes, they are clearly Austronesian, but have undergone a striking set  
of changes (especially Sera). According to Laycock, if I remember  
correctly, speakers of Arop claimed to be descended from Papuan  
speakers from somewhere inland (Olo, I think) who had been given  
asylum at Sissano and acquired the language, retaining just a few Olo  
words.

> The two morphemes, /pontanen/ and /entin/, certainly don’t look  
> like conventional An numbers, but they could, just possibly, be An  
> hand parts, like finger, or thumb, or even ordinal numbers – first  
> and second – where the use of visible hand tallying made the  
> voicing of numbers almost redundant. Or they could even be special  
> names for counting certain objects. I will need to wait for more  
> information, before I get myself into even more illegalities.

As far as I know, these are not inherited Austronesian words. At some  
point, shared ancestors of Arop/Sissano and Sera speakers lost the  
quinary system of their earlier ancestors and replaced it with a  
Papuan-like system. I don't know where the words came from. They  
don't crop up elsewhere in wordlists for these languages.

- Malcolm Ross

_____________________________________

Malcolm D. Ross
Professor, Department of Linguistics
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
Building No. 9, The Australian National University
CANBERRA A.C.T. 0200, Australia

http://rspas.anu.edu.au/people/personal/rossm_ling.php
http://rspas.anu.edu.au/linguistics/projects/biomdr.html

ANU CRICOS Provider Number is 00120C




On 30/06/2007, at 2:37 PM, Richard Parker wrote:

> >>  The old documents preserve a lot. I know of only one An language
> >>that had only 2 words, 1 and 2, for their entire counting system
>
>
>
>
> >Also, what seems not be widely known, body-tally systems are  
> >attested in the torres straits and mainland australia. There are  
> >some refs (though Bill McGregor should have a bigger database of  
> the Australian cases):
> >http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~harald2/rarapaper.pdf
>
> Many thanks for your paper (and your others) – very useful.
>
> >>  eg: many Vanuatu languages still retain hand+1,2,3,4 for 6-9,
> >> so those  islands must have been first settled before the full
> >> An decimal system was conceived. It's possible, even, to detect  
> >> sequential waves of Vanuatu settlement as the number systems
> >> grow more sophisticated.
> >> There's an alternative, of course, that they were too stupid,  
> >>or too conservative, to accept a simple new system brought in by  
> >> Austronesian-speakers ready-equipped with the PAn decimal >>system.
>
> >This account is wrong in two places. The Vanuatu lgs could not have
> >_retained_ an old hand+1,2,3,4-system if they are Oceanic (or you'd
> >have to revise the POc-numeral reconstruction considerably).
>
> You said it! Something really should be done about large
> quantities of linguistically illegal number systems scattered
> around Oceania.
> I was using retained in the ‘normal’ way, not realising its
> implications as a linguistic technical term.
>
> But most Vanuatu languages use recognisable POc morphemes to
> construct 6-9. (I have next to no data on Vanuatu numbers above
> 10). The number systems noticeably ‘degrade’ from north to south,
> until, in New Caledonia, POc morphemes are almost unrecognisable.
>
> POc: *sa-kai, *ta-sa, *tai, *kai  *rua  *tolu  *pat, *pati, *pani   
> *lima,  *onom,  *pitu,  *walu,  *siwa,  *sa (nga) puluq
>
> Now, are the following examples retentions of older systems in the  
> normal sense, or innovations in the narrow linguistic sense?
>
> Motlav (Banks Islands, N Vanuatu): Bi-twagh, Bo-yo, Be-tel, Be-Bet,  
> teBe-lem, leBe-te, liBi-yo, leBi-tel, leBe-Bet, songwul
>
> Katbol (Malekula): sapm, i-ru, i-tl, i-Bat, i-lim, sout, so-ru, se- 
> tl, se-Bat, langal
>
> Iaai (Loyalty Islands): xacha, lo, kun, wak, thabung, thabung ke  
> nua xacha, thabung ke nua lo, thabung ke nua kun, thabung ke nua  
> wak, li benita
>
> Orowe (New Caledonia): rrake, keehru, kerrere, kevwe, keni, keni me  
> rrake, keni me keehru, keni me kerrere, keni me kevwe, keni me keni.
> (4 types of accented e omitted, for clarity)
>
> It looks quite obvious (to me) that the Oroweans have a less
> developed system, where 10 = 5 & 5, than the Motlavians, who use a  
> single, freestanding word, and all of them have systems that are  
> less developed than proto-Oceanic, which has a single ‘meaning-
> free’ word for all the 1-10 digits.
>
> How can comparative theory linguistics accommodate this paradox?
>
> >  Second, languages switch back and forth between decimal, quinary
> > and vigesimal systems with little correlation to stupidity. See a
> > recent OL article by Bender and Beller called classifiers and
> > counting systems or similar).
>
> I’ve read most of their articles available on the web, and can
> readily accept that people could retain a traditional system,
> possibly with substantial numeral classifiers, for counting things  
> that are culturally important to them, alongside a new (usually
> decimal) system for new things, just as they still do on this
> island, where Spanish applies to some things, Surigaonon to
> others, and Americano when you’re not quite sure.
>
> And we English count dozens of eggs, and scores of years. The  
> special counting system for tennis is said to be preserved in a  
> small temple at Wimbledon.
>
> I’ve yet to see any proven demonstration (although plenty of
> inferences) that whole groups of people have actually changed
> their systems back to something ‘more primitive’.
>
> Who would want to order thabung ke nua lo (say,cigarettes)in Iaai,  
> when he could just say *pitu in his ancestral proto-Oceanic?
>
> I’m actively hunting for examples of change of system and
> morphemes,together, either way, but, so far, I’ve only come across  
> loans of some isolated words, as in Swahili, where Arabic names
> have only been adopted for 6,7, and 9: moja, mbili, tatu, nne,
> tano, sita, saba, nane, tisa, kumi, but Bantu retained (sorry –
> kept) for everything else.
>
> Some of it is truly baffling:
>
> The Papuan languages of Halmahera seem to use one (and only one)
> An word in their 1-10 words - /siwo/ for nine, yet their close An
> neighbours, Patani and Sawai, use /fapolo/ and /popet/.
>
> This kind of 9 morpheme ‘1 before 10’ is rare, and usually seems
> to be symptomatic of a ‘suppressed’ base 4 system, where 8=2x4, as  
> in some groups in Flores and Sumba, others in Aru Island, Enggano,  
> Wuvulu, and almost half of the Taiwanese languages.
>
> The only straightforward An base 4 systems I can find are Biem and  
> Wogeo in the New Guinea Schouten family.
>
> (In none of the above do I have any data for numbers above 10, so
> I can’t yet tell if they go on from 4-8 to call 12 a dozen. I’m
> hoping somebody can help me out on this).
>
> The construction of 9 in Nghada (Flores) - /ta esa/ is almost the
> same as Taokas (Taiwan) /tanaso/. Both have an combination phrase
> 8 involving 4 morphemes, /zua butu/ and / mahalpat/. They’re 2200
> miles apart, and there’s nothing comparable on the straight line
> between them.
>
> Here is a comparativist’s view of it:
> ‘An interesting set consists of Thao tanacu , Favorlang tannacho ,
>  Taokas tanaso '9', which point to an earlier *[st]a[nng]aCu. The
> first syllable might reflect *sa- 'one', in which case we are
> perhaps dealing with a subtractive form.’
> Laurent Sagart ‘The Higher Phylogeny Of Austronesian And The  
> Position Of Tai-Kadai’
> http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/09/09/06/PDF/ 
> THE_HIGHER_PHYLOGENY_OF_AUSTRONESIAN.pdf
>
> It actually seems to be the start of a new (suppressed) base 4
> count, from two 4s, and maybe the reconstruction puts the 1 at the  
> wrong end.
>
> >Yes there are such cases. When I said there is no other etymology
> >for 5 than 'hand', I should have said 'hand' or 'some part of the  
> >hand'.
> >But I didn't, so you can have the 10 dollars if you want.
> No way would I claim a prize in such a specious way. But it is  
> worth noting that ‘whole hand’ is not always the morpheme.
>
> Regards
>
> Richard
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