[Lingtyp] "Oceania" and "gender"
Martin Haspelmath
haspelmath at shh.mpg.de
Fri Apr 7 06:57:23 UTC 2017
This discussion exemplifies a general problem: We use many terms that
have very unclear reference, and as a result we don't understand each other.
Semantic change is of course familiar from other aspects of language, so
it's natural that it occurs with more technical terminology as well.
But it shouldn't.
The whole point of technical terminology is that it has the same meaning
everywhere, and there are many standardization bodies. For geographical
regions, it seems that the most authoritative terminology is the United
Nations M.49 geoscheme (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_M.49).
According to the UN standard, Oceania includes not only "Trinesia"
(Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia), but also Australia (and New
Zealand, which is anthropologically part of Polynesia, but politically
probably best grouped with Australia as "Australasia").
Thus, if we as linguists want a term that includes Melanesia, Micronesia
and Polynesia, we should NOT use "Oceania", but perhaps come up with
something new, such as "Trinesia". ("Pacific" is definitely too vague,
as it also includes Japan etc.).
Of course, these geographical groupings are not necessarily "natural",
but mostly based on geographers' traditions, and they are fairly
arbitrary – this of course reminds me of the term "gender", which is
also a traditional term that seems to be definable only in a somewhat
arbitrary way (unless we want to change its meaning and thus create even
more confusion). It seems that we cannot do without such traditional and
arbitrary terms, because the world is so complex that it does not lend
itself to clear natural groupings at this level granularity.
Best,
Martin
On 06.04.17 01:23, Hedvig Skirgård wrote:
> Apologies, I should have been clearer. This idea was conceived of
> within a group of colleagues and I failed to express myself clearly
> outside of that group. I just wanted some more suggestions as input
> for discussions later on in the project at ANU, and I know that the
> LINGTYP-crowd is often very helpful with commentary.
>
> The sample would include languages of the entire Oceania-region, i.e.
> also non-AN languages of Melanesia.
>
> Thank you all for your engagement and comments. I apologise if I'm not
> as responsive as usual these coming days, two colleagues and I wrote
> an article that is getting some media attention and I need to see to that.
>
> All the best,
> Hedvig
>
> *
> *
>
> *****
>
> *Tōfā soifua,*
>
> *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.
>
>
> On 6 April 2017 at 03:49, Mary Walworth <maryewalworth at gmail.com
> <mailto:maryewalworth at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hi Hedvig,
>
> Quick clarification question since "Pacific" could also be
> ambiguous: do you mean to include only AN languages? or, do you
> mean to include all indigenous languages, both AN and non-AN
> languages, of these three geographic areas?
>
> Best,
> Mary
>
> Mary Elizabeth Walworth, PhD
> Postdoctoral Researcher in Linguistics
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
> Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
> http://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/51452/25522
> <http://www.shh.mpg.de/employees/51452/25522>
>
> Visiting Researcher and Instructor
> Université de la Polynésie française
> http://www.upf.pf/fr
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 10:37 AM, Hedvig Skirgård
> <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com <mailto:hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hello again!
>
> Thanks for those who have been sending comments and
> suggestions, let's keep the thread going.
>
> Just to clarify, when I wrote "oceania" above I did actually
> refer to the geographic area, i.e. Polynesia + Micronesia +
> Melanesia. Apologies for the confusion. (In fact, when I was
> growing up in Sweden, I was taught to also include Australia
> in this region, but I've since learned that that's not
> commonly done.) I realise that something like "pacific region"
> might have been better. Apologies.
>
> Either way, I'm interested to include languages of Melanesia,
> Polynesia and Micronesia in this set.
>
> I'll be working together with colleagues at ANU and in the
> Grambank project. I'm a PhD student at ANU and one of the
> researchers at Glottobank.
>
> /Hedvig
>
> *
> *
>
> *****
>
> *Tōfā soifua,*
>
> *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.>
>
>
> On 30 March 2017 at 16:34, Hedvig Skirgård
> <hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com <mailto:hedvig.skirgard at gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> Dear pacific linguists,
>
> What are interesting grammatical typological features for
> capturing the diversity of Oceania? (Please respond with
> concrete examples, and respond to the full list :).)
>
> 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.>
>
>
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--
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10
D-07745 Jena
&
Leipzig University
IPF 141199
Nikolaistrasse 6-10
D-04109 Leipzig
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