[Lingtyp] Temporal features? - Space systems

Alex Francois francois at vjf.cnrs.fr
Thu Oct 4 16:41:05 UTC 2018 

dear colleagues,

For those interested in the discussion of absolute space systems:

Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre wrote a nice comparison of spatial orientation in
Bali with a number of Oceanic languages, especially from New Caledonia:

   - Ozanne-Rivierre, Françoise. 1997. Spatial references in New Caledonian
   languages. In Gunter Senft (ed.), *Referring to space. Studies in
   Austronesian and Papuan languages *84-100. Oxford: Oxford University
   Press.
   - ——  1999. Spatial Orientation in some Austronesian Languages. In
   Catherine Fuchs & Stéphane Robert (eds.), *Language Diversity and
   Cognitive Representations*, 73-84. Amsterdam/Philadephia: John Benjamins.

Her publications inspired me in my own research on geocentric directionals
in Oceanic languages:

   - François, Alexandre. 2003. Of men, hills and winds: Space directionals
   in Mwotlap
   <https://www.academia.edu/1330234/Of_men_hills_and_winds_Space_directionals_in_Mwotlap>.

   *Oceanic Linguistics* 42 (2): 407-437. Dec 2003.
   - ——  2004. Reconstructing the geocentric system of Proto Oceanic
   <http://alex.francois.online.fr/data/AlexFrancois_GeocentricPOC_OL2004.pdf>.

   *Oceanic Linguistics* 43 (1), 1-32. June 2004.
   - ——  2015. The ins and outs of *up* and *down*: Disentangling the nine
   geocentric space systems of Torres and Banks languages
   <http://alex.francois.online.fr/data/AlexFrancois_2015_North-Vanuatu-space-directionals.pdf>
   .
   In *The Languages of Vanuatu: Unity and Diversity*, ed. by A. François,
   S. Lacrampe, M. Franjieh & S. Schnell.
   Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia, 5. Canberra: Asia Pacific
   Linguistics Open Access. 137–195.

As already mentioned in this thread, Oceanic languages mostly resort to
absolute space reference for all scales, including for locating objects on
a table. I've hardly ever heard egocentric strategies ('left'/'right', 'in
front'/'behind') used in Vanuatu, at least in the islands where I did
fieldwork. Even Port-Vila, a medium-sized city, was a place where speakers
from rural areas are able to adapt their own geocentric system and map it
into the city landscape.

Oceanic space systems are generally based on two axes:

(1) one cardinal axis used on the horizontal plane, yet lexified
'up'–'down';
    'up' points southeast and 'down' northwest — originally, from
'up[wind]' vs. 'down[wind]';
(2) one topographic axis contrasting inland vs. seawards.  The topographic
axis is sometimes lexified 'up'–'down' (as noted by Mike), but in quite a
few languages those 2 terms are already preempted by the cardinal axis on
the horizontal plane, so other lexical strategies are used instead (e.g.
'in'–'out', 'bush'–'ocean'…).


Even though all Oceanic languages work essentially along the same lines,
there is quite a lot of variation when it comes to detail — variation at
the scale of the whole Oceanic family (Senft ed. 1997, Palmer 2002,
François 2004) or even at the scale of the small group of islands in
northern Vanuatu, with as many as nine different systems for 17
languages (François 2015: 151).  The situation is even more complex on
atolls — as has been shown by Bill and his colleagues. (refs below)

It is common to encounter the sort of axis rotation mentioned by Peter for
Sasak:  the cardinal axis is routinely twisted up to 90° so as to remain
parallel to the shoreline – i.e. orthogonal to the land–sea axis. This can
make the systems confusing in some locations, for the linguist but
sometimes even for the speakers themselves:  I've often heard speakers
hesitate, or negociate with each other, how to name a particular direction
(up? down? in?), either because the setting was unfamiliar, or because one
of the participants was still learning the intricacies of the system.  The
potential complexity probably explains the variability of these systems
over time, and also their fragility when confronted with totally unfamiliar
places such as modern cities.  It does make sense — as proposed by Jürgen —
to imagine that the prevalence of geocentric vs. egocentric spatial
strategies may have evolved along human history.

Some further references:

   - Hyslop, Catriona. 2002. Hiding behind trees on Ambae: Spatial
   reference in an Oceanic language of Vanuatu. *In G. Bennardo
   (ed.), Representing space in Oceania: Culture in language and mind*,
   47-76.
   - Palmer, Bill. 2002. Absolute spatial reference and the
   grammaticalisation of perceptually salient phenomena. In G.
Bennardo (ed.), *Representing
   space in Oceania: culture in language and mind*. Canberra: Pacific
   Linguistics.
   - Palmer, Bill. 2007. Pointing at the lagoon: directional terms in
   Oceanic atoll-based languages. In J. Siegel, J. Lynch, & D. Eades
(eds.), *Language
   description, history and development*. London: Benjamins.
   - Palmer, B., Lum, J., Schlossberg, J., & Gaby, A. 2017. How does the
   environment shape spatial language? Evidence for sociotopography.*
   Linguistic Typology*, 21(3), 457-491.

best,
Alex
------------------------------

Alex François

LaTTiCe <http://lattice.cnrs.fr/Francois-Alexandre?lang=en> — CNRS–
<http://www.cnrs.fr/index.html>ENS
<https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>
–Sorbonne nouvelle
<http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
Australian National University
<https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/francois-a>
Academia page <https://cnrs.academia.edu/AlexFran%C3%A7ois> – Personal
homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
------------------------------

On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 15:42, Peter Austin <pa2 at soas.ac.uk> wrote:

> Dear colleagues
>
> I have worked on the deictic system of Sasak, spoken on Lombok island,
> east of Bali, which also has a prominent volcano like Bali island.
>
> Sasak has 4 systems for cardinal directional terms, involving 180 degree
> flip of 'towards the mountains' and 'towards the sea' like in Balinese, but
> also rotation of timuq 'east' and baret 'west' through 90 degrees in two of
> the systems. Therefore, geographic north can be any of lauq, daye, baret or
> timuq depending on where on Lombok one is located.
>
> If you are interested I can share a draft discussion paper with you. Best
> wishes,
>
> Peter
>
>
> On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 03:50, Bill Palmer <bill.palmer at newcastle.edu.au>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Mike
>>
>>
>>
>> Alice beat me to it with those refs. The 1998 Wassmann & Dasen paper
>> contains a detailed account including mapping of directional axes at the
>> eastern tip of Bali, which does cause various reocnfigurations of the
>> system you described.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *On Behalf
>> Of *Alice Vittrant- Villejuif
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, 3 October 2018 10:37 PM
>> *To:* Mike Morgan <mwmbombay at gmail.com>
>> *Cc:* <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org> <
>> LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Temporal features?
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>>
>>
>> About Balinese orientation device, you may read Wassermann & Dasen papers.
>>
>>
>>
>> - Balinese Spatial Orientation: Some Empirical Evidence of Moderate
>> Linguistic Relativity
>>
>> Author(s): Jurg Wassmann and Pierre R. Dasen
>>
>> Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 4, No. 4
>> (Dec., 1998), pp. 689- 711
>>
>> Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and
>> Ireland  (accessible on JSTOR)
>>
>>
>>
>> - Dasen, P. R., & Wassmann, J., 2008,  « *A cross-cultural comparison of
>> spatial language and encoding in Bali and Geneva ».* In N. Srinivasan,
>> A. K. Gupta & J. Pandey (Eds.), *Advances in cognitive science* (pp.
>> 264-276). New Delhi: Sage.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>
>>
>> Alice
>>
>> Le 3 oct. 2018 à 09:31, Mike Morgan <mwmbombay at gmail.com> a écrit :
>>
>>
>>
>> In South Bali, north and south are kaja and kelod respectively; on the
>> north (Denpasar for example) of the island (Singaraja for example) it is
>> the opposite; east and west however are the same (sunrise and sunset don't
>> change directions based on whether one is on the north or south of the
>> central peak(s).
>>
>> I have never spent enough time in the eats or west ends of the island to
>> know what their system is (since applying the standard Balinese system
>> would make, for example, Kaja (mountainward) ALSO the direction of sunset.
>>
>>
>>
>> -------------------
>>
>> Alice Vittrant
>> Université d'Aix-Marseille / CNRS-DDL (UMR 5596)
>>
>>
>>
>> alice.vittrant at univ-amu.fr
>>
>> alice.vittrant at cnrs.fr
>>
>>
>>
>> *Site personnel *:
>>
>> http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/AliceVittrant
>>
>> https://univ-amu.academia.edu/AliceVittrant
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Prof Peter K. Austin
> Marit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics
> MA Convenor (Term 1, 2018-19)
> Foundation Editor, EL Publishing
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> Department of Linguistics, SOAS
> Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
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>
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