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

[Guillaume Jacques]

Dear Hedvig,

I am not working in this part of the world, but from my reading of the
literature, I am thinking of two topics that could be interesting to
typologize upon:

(a) Directionals:
https://www.academia.edu/1330228/Reconstructing_the_geocentric_system_of_Proto_Oceanic
https://www.academia.edu/1330234/Of_men_hills_and_winds_Space_directionals_in_Mwotlap

(b) Verbal suppletion for number:
https://www.academia.edu/8403922/Verbal_number_and_Suppletion_in_Hiw_Vanuatu_

Guillaume




2017-04-05 4:21 GMT+02:00 Hedvig Skirgård <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com>:

> 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
>
> Blogger at Humans Who Read Grammars
> http://humans-who-read-grammars.blogspot.
>
>
>
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>


-- 
Guillaume Jacques
CNRS (CRLAO) - INALCO
http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques
http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
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