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Typological issues in Austronesian
and Papuan languages

Ger Reesink

Contact

ger.reesink@hccnet.nl; g.reesink@let.ru.nl

c/o EPLC, MPI, P.O. Box 310, 6500 AH Nijmegen

Course level

Introductory/intermediate

Course description

Together, the 900-1200 Austronesian languages and more than 800 Papuan languages make up one third of the world’s languages. This course provides a general overview of the Austronesian family, especially the Oceanic subgroup, and of the large heterogeneous group of Papuan languages. Some specific focus will be on the lesser-known Austronesian and Papuan languages spoken in Eastern Indonesia. The aim is to introduce students to grammatical patterns and typological features found in these languages. We also consider how primary language data connect to more general insights about alignment patterns, the grammaticalization of verbs into functional items for reporting speech, and the information structure exemplified by clause chaining and switch-reference mechanisms on the one hand and ‘domain-creating’ constructions on the other. Special attention will be given to contact phenomena between languages of the different lineages.

Day-to-day program

Monday

Introduction: The Austronesian and Papuan linguistic landscape: Distribution, classification, lingua franca, some cultural observations & genetic data.

Tuesday

Papuan typology: Clause chaining & Switch-reference, complementation; Nominal classification, gender; Information structure: Tail-Head linkage & Domain-creating constructions.

Wednesday

Austronesian typology: Word order in clause and nominal constituent; verbal marking.

Thursday

Control & affect: Who is responsible for what? Exploring active/stative, optional ergativity and reported speech.

Friday

Contact phenomena and phylogeny: AN vocabulary & Papuan morphosyntax vs Papuan vocabulary & AN morphosyntax

Reading materials


Background and preparatory readings

Course readings

Monday
Introduction: The Austronesian and Papuan linguistic landscape

  • Foley, William A. 2000. The languages of New Guinea. Annual Review of Anthropology, 2000: 357-404.
  • Lynch, John, Malcolm Ross and Terry Crowley. 2002. The Oceanic Languages, Chapter 1-3. London: Curzon.

Tuesday
Papuan typology

  • Foley, William A.1998. Towards understanding Papuan languages. Perspectives on the Bird’s Head of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, ed. by Jelle Miedema, Cecilia Odé, and Rien A.C. Dam, 503-518. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Wednesday
Austronesian typology

  • Himmelmann, Nikolaus. 2005. The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar: typological characteristics. The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar, ed. by   Alexander Adelaar and Nikolaus Himmelmann, 110-173. London: Routledge.
  • Lynch, John, Malcolm Ross and Terry Crowley. 2002. The Oceanic Languages, Chapter 3. London: Curzon.

Thursday
Control and affect: semantic alignment & reported speech

  • Klamer, Marian. 2008. The semantics of Semantic Alignment in eastern Indonesia. The typology of active-stative languages, ed. by Mark Donohue and Søren Wichmann, 221-251. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Fedden, Sebastian. In press. Ditransitives in Mian. Studies in Ditransitive Constructions. ed. by Andrej Malchukov, Martin Haspelmath and Bernard Comrie (eds.). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Reesink, Ger P., 1993. ‘Inner speech’ in Papuan languages. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 24, pp. 217–225.

Friday
Contact phenomena and phylogeny

  • Ross, Malcolm. 2001. Contact-induced Change in Oceanic Languages in North-West Melanesia. Areal diffusion and genetic inheritance, ed. by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & Robert M.W. Dixon, 134-166. Oxford: University Press.
  • Klamer, Marian, Ger Reesink and Miriam van Staden. 2008. Eastern Indonesia as a linguistic area. From linguistic areas to areal linguistics, ed. by Pieter Muysken, 95-149. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Reesink, Ger. 2005. Sulka of East New Britain: a mixture of Oceanic and Papuan traits. Oceanic Linguistics Vol. 44, no. 1 (June 2005):145-193

Further readings

Aikhenvald, Alexandra and Tonya Stebbins. 2007. Languages of New Guinea. Vanishing languages of the Pacific Rim, ed. by Miyaoka, Osahito, Osamu Sakiyama, Michael E. Krauss, 239-266. Oxford University Press.

Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2008. Semi-direct speech: Manambu and beyond. Language Sciences 30, 4: 383-422.

Anderson, Neil and Wade, Martha. 1988. Ergativity and control in Folopa. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 19, pp. 1-16.

Bellwood, Peter, Fox, James J., & Tryon, Darrell. (eds.) 1995. The Austronesians: Historical and comparative perspectives. Canberra: ANU, Department of Anthropology.

Blust, Robert. 2009. The Austronesian languages. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Dunn, Michael, Ger P. Reesink, and Angela Terrill. 2002. The East Papuan Languages: A Preliminary Typological Appraisal. Oceanic Linguistics 41:28-62.

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.

Foley, William A. 2005. Semantic parameters and the unaccusative split in the Austronesian language family. Studies in Language 29,2: 385-430.

Friedlaender, Jonathan S. (ed.) 2007. Genes, language and culture history in the Southwest Pacific. New York: Oxford University Press. De Vries, Lourens. 2005. Areal pragmatics of New Guinea: Thematization, distribution and recapitulative linkage in Papun narratives. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(11), 811-828.

Klamer, Marian. 2002. Report constructions in Kambera (Austronesian). Reported discourse, ed. by Tom Güldemann and Manfred von Rucador, 323-340. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Loughnane, Robyn. 2005. Reported speech constructions in Golin. Materials on Golin, Grammar, Texts and Dictionary, ed. by Nicholas Evans, Jutta Besold, Hywel Stoakes, and Alan Lee, 129-152. Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, The University of Melbourne.

Reesink, Ger. 1983. Switch reference and topicality hierarchies. Studies in Language 7(2):215-246.

Reesink, Ger. 1994. Domain creating constructions in Papuan languages. Topics in Descriptive Papuan Linguistics, ed. by Ger P. Reesink, 98-121. Semaian 10. Leiden: Vakgroep Talen en Culturen van Zuidoost Azië en Oceanië, Leiden University.

Reesink, Ger. 2005. West Papuan languages: Roots and development. Papuan Pasts, Studies in the cultural, linguistic and biological history of the Papuan-speaking peoples, ed. by Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Jack Golson and Robin Hide, 185-218. Canberra, Pacific Linguistics.

Reesink, Ger. 2008. Lexicon and syntax from an emic viewpoint. Studies in Language 32:4, 866-893.

Reesink, Ger. 2009. A connection between Bird’s Head and (Proto) Oceanic. Discovering history through language, papers in honor of Malcolm Ross, ed. by Bethwyn Evans, 181-192. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

Reesink, Ger, Ruth Singer and Michael Dunn. 2009. Explaining the linguistic diversity of Sahul using population methods. PloS Biology November 2009, Volume 7, Issue 11, e1000241.

Roberts, John R. 1997. Switch-reference in Papua New Guinea: a preliminary survey. Papers in Papuan linguistics, No.3, ed. by Andrew Pawley, 101-241. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics (Series A-87).

Ross, Malcolm D. 1996. Contact-induced Change and the Comparative method: Cases from Papua New Guinea. The Comparative method revisited, ed. by Mark Durie and Malcolm Ross, 180-217. Oxford: University Press.

Ross, Malcolm. 2005. Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages. Papuan Pasts, Studies in the cultural, linguistic and biological history of the Papuan-speaking peoples, ed. by Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Jack Golson and Robin Hide, 15-65. Canberra, Pacific Linguistics.

Rumsey, Alan. 2010. ‘Optional’ ergativity and the framing of reported speech. Optional Ergative Marking, ed. by William B. McGregor and Jean-Christophe Verstraete; Lingua, Volume 120,7:1652-1676.

Terrill, Angela. 2002. Systems of nominal classification in East Papuan languages. Oceanic Linguistics 41:63-88. Van Staden, Miriam and Reesink, Ger. 2008. Serial verb constructions in a linguistic area. Serial verb constructions in Austronesian and Papuan languages, ed. by Gunter Senft, 17-54. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.