[Lingtyp] Grammatical diversity of Oceania, suggestions for features?

Wed Apr 5 03:14:54 UTC 2017

Hi Hedvig,

in Gil (2015) I define a Mekong-Mamberamo area extending from Mainland 
Southeast Asia through the Indonesian archipelago and into western new 
Guinea, characterized by 17 features which I've listed below.  In the 
final section of the paper, I briefly discuss the extent to which these 
17 features "overflow" from the Mekong-Mamberamo area into Oceania, due 
to the spread of Austronesian languages from New Guinea into the 
Pacific.  So you may wish to follow up on this and examine the extent to 
which the languages of Oceania exhibit these features.

Best,

David

Gil, David (2015) "The Mekong-Mamberamo Linguistic Area", in N.J. 
Enfield and B. Comrie eds., /Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia, The 
State of the Art/, Pacific Linguistics, DeGruyter Mouton, Berlin, 266-355.

/17 Mekong-Mamberamo Properties/

1.passing gesture

2.repeated dental clicks expressing amazement

3.conventionalized greeting with 'where'

4.'eye day' > 'sun' lexicalization

5.d/t place-of-articulation asymmetry

6.numeral classifiers

7.verby adjectives

8.basic SVO word order

9.iamitive perfects

10.'give' causatives

11.low differentiation of adnominal attributive constructions

12.weakly developed grammatical voice

13.isolating word structure

14.short words

15.low grammatical-morpheme density

16.optional thematic-role flagging

17.optional TAM marking

On 05/04/2017 10:21, Hedvig Skirgård 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.>
>
>
>
>
> 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.>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp

-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany

Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816

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