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A Constraint-Based Analysis of Obligatory Contour Principle in Anaang Morphological Constructions
ISSN 1798-4769 Journal of Language Teaching and Research, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 466-476, May 2021 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1203.17 A Constraint-based Analysis of Obligatory Contour Principle in Anaang Morphological Constructions Unwana Akpabio Department of Linguistics, Igbo and Other Nigerian Languages, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria Olusanmi Babarinde Department of Linguistics, Igbo and Other Nigerian Languages, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria George Iloene Department of Linguistics, Igbo and Other Nigerian Languages, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria Abstract—The obligatory contour principle forbids identical consecutive features in the underlying representation. This work undertakes a description of the Anaang tonal structure, the tonal behaviour of compounds and reduplicates in the language, bearing in mind their sensitivity to the OCP and the environments that trigger the adherence. An adapted Ibadan wordlist of 400 Basic Items (Trial) English version was used via interview for data collection from six men and six women within Abak Local Government Area in Akwa Ibom State. The data were analysed using optimality theoretical framework. The analysis shows that Anaang compounds as well as reduplicates exhibit cases of tonal modifications in line with OCP. For compounds, the tone of the second noun changes depending on the tonal sequence. In the HH noun base, the second-high tone of the second noun changes to a low tone, in the LH noun base, the tone of the second noun is raised to a down-stepped high tone, the LL noun base sees the tone of the second noun being raised to a high tone. -
SCHAPPER, Antoinette and Emilie WELLFELT. 2018. 'Reconstructing
Reconstructing contact between Alor and Timor: Evidence from language and beyond a b Antoinette SCHAPPER and Emilie WELLFELT LACITO-CNRSa, University of Colognea, and Stockholm Universityb Despite being separated by a short sea-crossing, the neighbouring islands of Alor and Timor in south-eastern Wallacea have to date been treated as separate units of linguistic analysis and possible linguistic influence between them is yet to be investigated. Historical sources and oral traditions bear witness to the fact that the communities from both islands have been engaged with one another for a long time. This paper brings together evidence of various types including song, place names and lexemes to present the first account of the interactions between Timor and Alor. We show that the groups of southern and eastern Alor have had long-standing connections with those of north-central Timor, whose importance has generally been overlooked by historical and linguistic studies. 1. Introduction1 Alor and Timor are situated at the south-eastern corner of Wallacea in today’s Indonesia. Alor is a small mountainous island lying just 60 kilometres to the north of the equally mountainous but much larger island of Timor. Both Alor and Timor are home to a mix of over 50 distinct Papuan and Austronesian language-speaking peoples. The Papuan languages belong to the Timor-Alor-Pantar (TAP) family (Schapper et al. 2014). Austronesian languages have been spoken alongside the TAP languages for millennia, following the expansion of speakers of the Austronesian languages out of Taiwan some 3,000 years ago (Blust 1995). The long history of speakers of Austronesian and Papuan languages in the Timor region is a topic in need of systematic research. -
Some Principles of the Use of Macro-Areas Language Dynamics &A
Online Appendix for Harald Hammarstr¨om& Mark Donohue (2014) Some Principles of the Use of Macro-Areas Language Dynamics & Change Harald Hammarstr¨om& Mark Donohue The following document lists the languages of the world and their as- signment to the macro-areas described in the main body of the paper as well as the WALS macro-area for languages featured in the WALS 2005 edi- tion. 7160 languages are included, which represent all languages for which we had coordinates available1. Every language is given with its ISO-639-3 code (if it has one) for proper identification. The mapping between WALS languages and ISO-codes was done by using the mapping downloadable from the 2011 online WALS edition2 (because a number of errors in the mapping were corrected for the 2011 edition). 38 WALS languages are not given an ISO-code in the 2011 mapping, 36 of these have been assigned their appropri- ate iso-code based on the sources the WALS lists for the respective language. This was not possible for Tasmanian (WALS-code: tsm) because the WALS mixes data from very different Tasmanian languages and for Kualan (WALS- code: kua) because no source is given. 17 WALS-languages were assigned ISO-codes which have subsequently been retired { these have been assigned their appropriate updated ISO-code. In many cases, a WALS-language is mapped to several ISO-codes. As this has no bearing for the assignment to macro-areas, multiple mappings have been retained. 1There are another couple of hundred languages which are attested but for which our database currently lacks coordinates. -
The Status of the Least Documented Language Families in the World
Vol. 4 (2010), pp. 177-212 http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/ http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4478 The status of the least documented language families in the world Harald Hammarström Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig This paper aims to list all known language families that are not yet extinct and all of whose member languages are very poorly documented, i.e., less than a sketch grammar’s worth of data has been collected. It explains what constitutes a valid family, what amount and kinds of documentary data are sufficient, when a language is considered extinct, and more. It is hoped that the survey will be useful in setting priorities for documenta- tion fieldwork, in particular for those documentation efforts whose underlying goal is to understand linguistic diversity. 1. InTroducTIon. There are several legitimate reasons for pursuing language documen- tation (cf. Krauss 2007 for a fuller discussion).1 Perhaps the most important reason is for the benefit of the speaker community itself (see Voort 2007 for some clear examples). Another reason is that it contributes to linguistic theory: if we understand the limits and distribution of diversity of the world’s languages, we can formulate and provide evidence for statements about the nature of language (Brenzinger 2007; Hyman 2003; Evans 2009; Harrison 2007). From the latter perspective, it is especially interesting to document lan- guages that are the most divergent from ones that are well-documented—in other words, those that belong to unrelated families. I have conducted a survey of the documentation of the language families of the world, and in this paper, I will list the least-documented ones. -
Abstract of Counting Systems of Papua New Guinea and Oceania
Abstract of http://www.uog.ac.pg/glec/thesis/ch1web/ABSTRACT.htm Abstract of Counting Systems of Papua New Guinea and Oceania by Glendon A. Lean In modern technological societies we take the existence of numbers and the act of counting for granted: they occur in most everyday activities. They are regarded as being sufficiently important to warrant their occupying a substantial part of the primary school curriculum. Most of us, however, would find it difficult to answer with any authority several basic questions about number and counting. For example, how and when did numbers arise in human cultures: are they relatively recent inventions or are they an ancient feature of language? Is counting an important part of all cultures or only of some? Do all cultures count in essentially the same ways? In English, for example, we use what is known as a base 10 counting system and this is true of other European languages. Indeed our view of counting and number tends to be very much a Eurocentric one and yet the large majority the languages spoken in the world - about 4500 - are not European in nature but are the languages of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific, Africa, and the Americas. If we take these into account we obtain a quite different picture of counting systems from that of the Eurocentric view. This study, which attempts to answer these questions, is the culmination of more than twenty years on the counting systems of the indigenous and largely unwritten languages of the Pacific region and it involved extensive fieldwork as well as the consultation of published and rare unpublished sources. -
Sociological Factors in Reefs-Santa Cruz Language Vitality: a 40 Year Retrospective
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by RERO DOC Digital Library Sociological factors in Reefs-Santa Cruz language vitality: a 40 year retrospective BRENDA H. BOERGER, ÅSHILD NÆSS, ANDERS VAA, RACHEL EMERINE, and ANGELA HOOVER Abstract This article looks back over 40 years of language and culture change in the region of the Solomon Islands where the four Reefs-Santa Cruz (RSC) lan- guages are spoken. Taking the works of Davenport and Wurm as a starting point, we list specific linguistic changes we have identified and discuss the so- ciological factors which have both promoted and undermined the vitality of these languages. We then determine the level of vitality for each language through the recently proposed Extended Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale — EGIDS (Lewis and Simons 2010), and based on our results for the RSC languages, we provide a short evaluation of the usefulness of EGIDS for prioritizing language documentation efforts. Keywords: Solomon Islands; Solomon Islands Pijin; Reefs-Santa Cruz; Natügu; Nalögo; Nagu; Äiwoo; EGIDS; language documenta- tion; language vitality. 1. Introduction Forty years ago, two authors wrote extensively about the anthropological and linguistic situation in the RSC language communities. Davenport (1962, 1964, 1975, 2005) described the cultural and sociological properties of both the Santa Cruz and Reef Islands cultures, Figure 1, including a description of trade rela- tionships within the Santa Cruz archipelago. At the same time Wurm (1969, 1970, 1972, 1976, 1978) analyzed the linguistic characteristics of the RSC languages. In his later work, Wurm (1991, 1992a, 1992b, 2000, 2002, 2003) also discussed language vitality in the region. -
Emmanuel Nicholas Abakah. Hypotheses on the Diachronic
1 Hypotheses on the Diachronic Development of the Akan Language Group Emmanuel Nicholas Abakah, Department of Akan-Nzema, University of Education, Winneba [email protected] Cell: +233 244 732 172 Abstract Historical linguists have already established the constituent varieties of the Akan language group as well as their relationships with other languages. What remains to be done is to reconstruct the Proto- Akan forms and this is what this paper sets out to accomplish. One remarkable observation about language is that languages change through time. This is not to obscure the fact that it is at least conceivable that language could remain unchanged over time, as is the case with some other human institutions e.g. various taboos in some cultures or the value of smile as a nonverbal signal. Be that as it may, the mutually comprehensible varieties of the codes that constitute the Akan language group have evidently undergone some changes over the course of time. However, they lack adequate written material that can take us far back into the history of the Akan language to enable any diachronic or historical linguist to determine hypotheses on their development. Besides, if empirical data from the sister Kwa languages or from the other daughters of the Niger-Congo parent language were readily available, then the reconstruction of the Proto-Akan forms would be quite straightforward. But, unfortunately, these are also hard to come by, at least, for the moment. Nevertheless, to reconstruct a *proto-language, historical linguists have set up a number of methods, which include the comparative method, internal reconstruction, language universals and linguistic typology among others. -
IALL2017): Law, Language and Justice
Proceedings of The Fifteenth International Conference on Law and Language of the International Academy of Linguistic Law (IALL2017): Law, Language and Justice May, 16-18, 2017 Hangzhou, China and Montréal, Québec, Canada Chief Editors: Ye Ning, Joseph-G. Turi, and Cheng Le Editors: Lisa Hale, and Jin Zhang Cover Designer: Lu Xi Published by The American Scholars Press, Inc. The Proceedings of The Fifteenth International Conference on Law, Language of the International Academy of Linguistic Law (IALL2017): Law, Language, and Justice is published by the American Scholars Press, Inc., Marietta, Georgia, USA. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © 2017 by the American Scholars Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-9721479-7-2 Printed in the United States of America 2 Foreword In this sunny and green early summer, you, experts and delegates from different parts of the world, come together beside the Qiantang River in Hangzhou, to participate in The Fifteenth International Conference on Law and Language of the International Academy of Linguistic Law. On the occasion of the opening ceremony, it gives me such great pleasure on behalf of Zhejiang Police College, and also on my own part, to extend a warm welcome to all the distinguished experts and delegates. At the same time, thanks for giving so much trust and support to Zhejiang Police College. Currently, the law-based governance of the country is comprehensively promoted in China. As Xi Jinping, Chinese president, said, “during the entire reform process, we should attach great importance to applying the idea of rule of law and the way of rule of law to play the leading and driving role of rule of law”. -
Consonant Insertions: a Synchronic and Diachronic Account of Amfo'an
Consonant Insertions: A synchronic and diachronic account of Amfo'an Kirsten Culhane A thesis submitted for the degree of Bachelor ofArts with Honours in Language Studies The Australian National University November 2018 This thesis represents an original piece of work, and does not contain, inpart or in full, the published work of any other individual, except where acknowl- edged. Kirsten Culhane November 2018 Abstract This thesis is a study of synchronic consonant insertions' inAmfo an, a variety of Meto (Austronesian) spoken in Western Timor. Amfo'an attests synchronic conso- nant insertion in two environments: before vowel-initial enclitics and to mark the right edge of the noun phrase. This constitutes two synchronic processes; the first is a process of epenthesis, while the second is a phonologically conditioned affixation process. Which consonant is inserted is determined by the preceding vowel: /ʤ/ occurs after /i/, /l/ after /e/ and /ɡw/ after /o/ and /u/. However, there isnoregular process of insertion after /a/ final words. This thesis provides a detailed analysis of the form, functions and distribution of consonant insertion in Amfo'an and accounts for the lack of synchronic consonant insertion after /a/-final words. Although these processes can be accounted forsyn- chronically, a diachronic account is also necessary in order to fully account for why /ʤ/, /l/ and /ɡw/ are regularly inserted in Amfo'an. This account demonstrates that although consonant insertion in Amfo'an is an unusual synchronic process, it is a result of regular sound changes. This thesis also examines the theoretical and typological implications 'of theAmfo an data, demonstrating that Amfo'an does not fit in to the categories previously used to classify consonant/zero alternations. -
'Undergoer Voice in Borneo: Penan, Punan, Kenyah and Kayan
Undergoer Voice in Borneo Penan, Punan, Kenyah and Kayan languages Antonia SORIENTE University of Naples “L’Orientale” Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology-Jakarta This paper describes the morphosyntactic characteristics of a few languages in Borneo, which belong to the North Borneo phylum. It is a typological sketch of how these languages express undergoer voice. It is based on data from Penan Benalui, Punan Tubu’, Punan Malinau in East Kalimantan Province, and from two Kenyah languages as well as secondary source data from Kayanic languages in East Kalimantan and in Sawarak (Malaysia). Another aim of this paper is to explore how the morphosyntactic features of North Borneo languages might shed light on the linguistic subgrouping of Borneo’s heterogeneous hunter-gatherer groups, broadly referred to as ‘Penan’ in Sarawak and ‘Punan’ in Kalimantan. 1. The North Borneo languages The island of Borneo is home to a great variety of languages and language groups. One of the main groups is the North Borneo phylum that is part of a still larger Greater North Borneo (GNB) subgroup (Blust 2010) that includes all languages of Borneo except the Barito languages of southeast Kalimantan (and Malagasy) (see Table 1). According to Blust (2010), this subgroup includes, in addition to Bornean languages, various languages outside Borneo, namely, Malayo-Chamic, Moken, Rejang, and Sundanese. The languages of this study belong to different subgroups within the North Borneo phylum. They include the North Sarawakan subgroup with (1) languages that are spoken by hunter-gatherers (Penan Benalui (a Western Penan dialect), Punan Tubu’, and Punan Malinau), and (2) languages that are spoken by agriculturalists, that is Òma Lóngh and Lebu’ Kulit Kenyah (belonging respectively to the Upper Pujungan and Wahau Kenyah subgroups in Ethnologue 2009) as well as the Kayan languages Uma’ Pu (Baram Kayan), Busang, Hwang Tring and Long Gleaat (Kayan Bahau). -
African Successes, Volume I: Government and Institutions
This PDF is a selection from a published volume from the National Bureau of Economic Research Volume Title: African Successes, Volume I: Government and Institutions Volume Author/Editor: Sebastian Edwards, Simon Johnson, and David N. Weil, editors Volume Publisher: University of Chicago Press Volume ISBNs: 978-0-226-31622-X (cloth) Volume URL: http://www.nber.org/books/afri14-1 Conference Dates: December 11–12, 2009; July 18–20, 2010; August 3–5, 2011 Publication Date: September 2016 Chapter Title: New Tools for the Analysis of Political Power in Africa Chapter Author(s): Ilia Rainer, Francesco Trebbi Chapter URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c13390 Chapter pages in book: (p. 145 – 212) 5 New Tools for the Analysis of Political Power in Africa Ilia Rainer and Francesco Trebbi 5.1 Introduction The study of autocratic and weakly institutionalized regimes has long been plagued by scarcity of reliable information useful for furthering their understanding (Tullock 1987). Lewis (1978, 622) appropriately states that “It is more difficult to study dictatorships than democracies because the internal politics of the former are deliberately hidden from the public view.” This chapter identifies in the ethnic composition of the executive branch an important and systematic source of information on the dynamics of power sharing within a sample of fifteen sub-Saharan African countries. Since in- dependence from European colonization, Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia,1 Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo, Kenya, and Uganda have all experienced widely different political dynamics and often deep political crises. -
The Membership and Internal Structure of Bantoid and the Border with Bantu
TheThe membershipmembership andand internalinternal structurestructure ofof BantoidBantoid andand thethe borderborder withwith BantuBantu 7-9th April, 2011 Roger Blench Kay Williamson Educational Foundation This PowerPoint can be found on my website http://www.rogerblench.info/Language%20data/Niger- Congo/Bantoid/Bantoid%20page.htm Individual papers covering branches of Bantoid are also posted as well as considerable amounts of raw data Among the prodigious mass of narratives, from which has been formed the general history of Voyages and Travels, and an infinity of others published every day, no mention is made of the languages which are spoken in the different countries, the manners and usages of which are described to us; and if the authors did not from time to time put into the mouths of the inhabitants of those distant regions, some words of which they know the meaning, we should be tempted to believe that only dumb people had travelled among those nations. All will agree at least that whatever relates to the language, its genius, its relation to other known languages, even its mechanism and flow, are not traits which would look misplaced in the historical picture of a nation. L’Abbé Proyart History of Loango.. (1776)I The Bantoid languages are some 150 languages positioned geographically between Nigeria and Cameroun and ‘between’ Benue-Congo and Bantu in terms of their position within Niger- Congo. Often referred to as Bantu, for example in the term ‘Ekoid Bantu’, their classificatory position remains uncertain. Their noun morphology is not that of classic Bantu, although their prefixes are often ascribed its class numbers in a misleading way.