Atolls, Islands, and Endless Suburbia: spatial reference in Marshallese
Jonathan Schlossberg
BA(Hons)(Monash University)
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics
June 2018
This research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship I hereby certify that the work embodied in the thesis is my own work, conducted under normal supervision.
The thesis contains no material which has been accepted, or is being examined, for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to the final version of my thesis being made available worldwide when deposited in the
University’s Digital Repository, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 196 8 and any approved embargo.
Printed name: Jonathan Schlossberg
Signed: ______
Date: 16/06/2018
ii Acknowledgements
This work would not have been possible without the support of many people and institutions. I thank the Australian Research Council for providing the funds which supported both my scholarship and research funds (Discovery Project G1100293). I am also very grateful to the CIs of the Discovery Project: my primary supervisor Dr. Bill Palmer and my secondary supervisor Dr. Alice Gaby, both for the faith they showed in me in selecting me to carry out this research in the first, but also for their continued support and advice along the way. I also wish to particularly thank Jonathon Lum, the other PhD student on this Discovery Project. We started our PhDs together and have been in constant communication throughout the length of this project. We have collaborated extensively on aspects of research design and on academic outputs and have shared hundreds of hours of both high-minded theoretical discussion and low-minded drunken kvetching about the trials and vicissitudes inherent to the life of a PhD student in linguistics. There are many people in the Marshall Islands and Springdale without whom this work would not have been possible. Firstly, I must thank Matt Riding at the Historic Preservation Office in Majuro, for assisting me in securing an anthropological research permit and Coffee Kiluwe for translating the elicitation task instructions. I would also like to thank the various Mayors and other community leaders at each of my field sites who kindly invited me into their communities: Bila Jacklick on Jaluit; Jack Niedenthal and Wilson Note for Kili, and Albious Latijor in Springdale. I am particularly grateful to all my consultants, who helped me recruit participants, transcribe and translate data, and were generally patient with me while I stumbled awkwardly in my attempts to learn Kajin Majel and Mantin Majel. These include: Peter Peter, Juni Nimoto, Gastro Ajri, and Paul Ned Benkim on Jaluit Atoll; Almon Leviticus, Junjun Leer, and Robin on Kili, and Sharlynn Uluitavuki and Timothy Alik in Springdale. There were a few people who made my stay in Jaluit in particular who made my stay there feel less like a fieldwork trip and more like a home away from home. These include Peter Peter and his wife Mintha Peter, in whose home I was always welcome and who were always ready with an offering of pancakes or coconuts. Kukki and Dillon, who I would play cards with almost nightly and unfailingly responded with extreme amusement when I would try to shock them with all the Marshallese rude expressions I knew. Father Ariel and the two sisters at the Catholic Church who would always invite me to their celebrations and feasts despite my evident unfamiliarity with the inside of a church. All of the children on Jabor who took joy in my hurling them metres through the air into the lagoon off the town jetty. Presley and Kellen, two brothers of three and four, who took unending delight in being carried through town like little lordlings while sitting on my shoulders. Most of all, I thank all of the 222 Marshallese people who took time out of their busy lives for me to record them playing strange and esoteric games for purposes unknown to them. On Kili, I wish to particularly Fred for his kindness in helping me get set up and Almon Leviticus for being not only my consultant, but also my guide, purveyor of coconuts, and friend. The kindness and patience of all these people is a true reflection of the Marshallese spirit for compassion and generosity. Many others helped in various ways. I would like to thank Mehmet Özmen for the statistical support and Peter Johnson for the cartographical assistance. All of the maps in this work are thanks to him. Bertrand Tomachot kindly assisted with development of some of the elicitation stimuli. Diego Schlossberg, Dr. Esther Ginsberg and Dr. Catriona Malau iii helped proofread parts of the manuscript. Finally, I am grateful to my family and my partner Rachel Yam, for their love and support over the past several years.
iv
v
Abstract
Spatial language and non-linguistic spatial cognition have been found to be correlated. However, there is debate as to the nature of this correlation. Some have suggested that these correlations are evidence for linguistic relativity, the proposition that arbitrary variation in linguistic preferences influences cognition. Others have suggested that spatial language and spatial cognition are similar because they both result from external environmental pressures.
This thesis is an exploration of spatial Frames of Reference in Marshallese, an Austronesian language of the Marshall Islands. Marshallese is used as a case study to examine the relationship between spatial language, spatial cognition, and the physical environment. This study presents evidence from data collected using both established and innovative techniques in three field sites in the Marshall Islands and one in the United States. Together, these four sites represent three distinct topographies: an atoll, a singleton island, and an inland suburban area. These data are used to inform an extensive description of the structure of spatial reference in Marshallese more broadly. In addition, the spatial referencing strategies of the four sites are compared, not only qualitatively, but also quantitatively in the form of a frequency analysis of a corpus of 48 director-matcher ‘Man and Tree’ space games. Furthermore, data on non-linguistic aspects of spatial cognition are collected by means of the spatial memory tasks ‘Animals-in-a-Row’ and ‘Scout Game’.
On the basis of this mixed-methods analysis of Marshallese, as well as a survey of recent studies on other languages, it is concluded that both linguistic relativity and environmental determinism have some explanatory power, but neither is sufficient for explaining the range of variation observed cross-linguistically, or in Marshallese specifically. Instead, the data points to a more complex ‘Sociotopographic Model’, where diversity in spatial reference emerges from speakers’ interaction with both one another, and their local physical environment.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ...... iii Abstract ...... vi Table of Contents ...... vii Figures ...... xiii Tables ...... xv Symbols and Abbreviations ...... xviii In main text ...... xviii In interlinearised examples ...... xix 1 Introduction ...... 1 Motivation for project...... 2 The Marshallese language and its speakers ...... 3 1.2.1 Geography of the Marshall Islands ...... 3 1.2.2 Marshallese in the United States ...... 8 1.2.3 The sociolinguistic status of Marshallese...... 8 Why Marshallese? ...... 9 Aims and research questions ...... 10 Fieldwork and data ...... 11 1.5.1 Elicitation tasks ...... 11 1.5.2 Field sites...... 12 1.5.3 Interpreting Marshallese language data ...... 13 Structure of thesis ...... 14 2 Classifying frames of reference ...... 16 Defining ‘frame of reference’ ...... 16 2.1.1 Frame of reference and topological relations ...... 17 Classifying Frames of Reference ...... 19 2.2.1 The intrinsic frame of reference ...... 20 2.2.2 The relative frame of reference ...... 25 2.2.3 The absolute frame of reference ...... 28 2.2.4 Logical and rotational properties of the FoRs ...... 29 2.2.5 Alternative approaches ...... 32 2.2.6 A revised classification ...... 50 3 Language, environment, and cognition: a tangled web ...... 55
vii
Space in language and cognition ...... 55 3.1.1 Assumptions of universal anthropomorphism ...... 55 3.1.2 Uncovering diversity ...... 56 3.1.3 Cognitive correlations ...... 58 3.1.4 Summary ...... 61 Causes of diversity: linguistic relativity ...... 61 3.2.1 Background ...... 62 3.2.2 The colour naming debate ...... 66 3.2.3 Colour and space: domain-centred approaches to relativity ...... 71 3.2.4 Arbitrariness of structural categories and semantic domains ...... 74 3.2.5 Proposed mechanisms for linguistic relativity ...... 76 Environmental determinism and other causes of diversity ...... 79 3.3.1 Li & Gleitman (2002) and Levinson et al.’s (2002) reply ...... 80 3.3.2 Palmer’s Topographic Correspondence Hypothesis ...... 84 3.3.3 Urbanisation ...... 87 3.3.4 Majid et al.’s (2004) study on ecological determinism ...... 88 Potential variables beyond language and environment...... 96 3.4.1 Literacy and schooling ...... 96 Discussion and Conclusion...... 98 4 A Marshallese grammar of space ...... 100 Preliminary matters ...... 100 4.1.1 Interpreting Marshallese examples ...... 101 Phonology ...... 101 4.2.1 Consonants ...... 101 4.2.2 Vowels ...... 103 4.2.3 A note on orthography ...... 104 4.2.4 Phonotactics ...... 104 Pronouns ...... 104 4.3.1 Subject pronouns ...... 105 4.3.2 Object pronouns ...... 106 4.3.3 Independent pronouns ...... 106 Nouns and noun phrases ...... 108 4.4.1 Nominalisation ...... 108 4.4.2 Types of noun ...... 109 viii
4.4.3 Articles and demonstratives ...... 109 4.4.4 Numerals, quantifiers and number-marking ...... 109 4.4.5 Attributive modifiers ...... 111 4.4.6 Possession ...... 111 Verbs and Verb Phrases ...... 114 4.5.1 Stative vs dynamic verbs ...... 115 4.5.2 Preverbal particles ...... 116 4.5.3 Verbal morphology ...... 121 4.5.4 Basic verb phrase structure ...... 123 Clause Structure ...... 123 4.6.1 Verbal clauses: core arguments ...... 123 4.6.2 Prepositional phrases ...... 124 4.6.3 Imperative clauses ...... 127 4.6.4 Interrogative clauses ...... 127 Complex sentences ...... 130 4.7.1 Coordination ...... 130 4.7.2 Subordination ...... 132 Static spatial relations ...... 134 4.8.1 The general oblique construction ...... 134 4.8.2 The local construction ...... 135 4.8.3 Local nouns ...... 137 4.8.4 Proper place nouns ...... 141 4.8.5 Common nouns in the local construction ...... 142 4.8.6 The locative particle ņa(i) ...... 142 4.8.7 The anaphoric locative pronoun ie ...... 143 4.8.8 The Basic Locative Construction ...... 144 4.8.9 Topological Relations ...... 147 Spatial deixis ...... 157 4.9.1 Articles and demonstratives ...... 157 4.9.2 Deictic directional enclitics ...... 163 Motion events ...... 167 4.10.1 Motion event typology: verb vs satellite-framing languages ...... 167 4.10.2 Marshallese: a satellite-framing language ...... 169 4.10.3 The expression of path in Marshallese ...... 171 ix
Summary ...... 177 5 Frame of reference in Marshallese ...... 178 Geocentric directional system of Proto Oceanic ...... 178 Modern Oceanic languages ...... 180 Marshallese geocentric references across domains ...... 184 5.3.1 Navigational domain: cardinals ...... 185 5.3.2 Intermediate domain: land-sea ...... 189 5.3.3 Local domain ...... 190 The intrinsic and relative Frames of Reference ...... 195 5.4.1 Sagittal axis terms ...... 195 5.4.2 Transverse axis terms ...... 197 Spatial strategies across sites ...... 199 5.5.1 Jabor, Jaluit Atoll...... 199 5.5.2 Jaluit Island, Jaluit Atoll ...... 200 5.5.3 Kili Island ...... 203 5.5.4 Springdale ...... 205 More on cardinal directions ...... 207 6 The Man and Tree task ...... 209 Aims of the Man and Tree task...... 209 Methodology of the Man and Tree task ...... 210 6.2.1 Materials ...... 210 6.2.2 Procedure ...... 212 6.2.3 Participants ...... 213 6.2.4 Data management ...... 216 6.2.5 Coding data ...... 217 6.2.6 Analysis ...... 221 Results of the Man and Tree ...... 221 6.3.1 Results across sites ...... 222 6.3.2 Demographic variables in the RMI ...... 232 6.3.3 Situational variables ...... 235 6.3.4 Orientation vs location descriptions...... 237 6.3.5 Correlations between strategies ...... 240 Conclusion ...... 245 7 The Object Placement Task ...... 247 x
Aims of the Object Placement Task ...... 247 Methodology ...... 248 7.2.1 Materials ...... 248 7.2.2 Experiment site ...... 248 7.2.3 Experimental procedure ...... 248 7.2.4 Participants ...... 252 OPT Results ...... 252 7.3.1 OPT Condition 1: testing relative subtype preference...... 253 7.3.2 OPT Condition 2: occlusion and relative subtype preference ...... 255 7.3.3 OPT Condition 3: testing relative vs intrinsic preference ...... 256 7.3.4 Discussion of results ...... 257 7.3.5 Strengths and limitations of the OPT ...... 258 7.3.6 Future applications of the OPT ...... 261 8 Non-linguistic spatial cognition in Marshallese ...... 262 Experiment 1: Animals-in-a-Row ...... 262 8.1.1 Aims ...... 263 8.1.2 Methodology ...... 263 8.1.3 Results ...... 272 8.1.4 Discussion ...... 281 Experiment 2: Scout game ...... 284 8.2.1 Aims ...... 284 8.2.2 Methodology ...... 284 8.2.3 Results ...... 288 Comparing Scout Game and AR task results ...... 289 Discussion ...... 291 9 Theoretical findings and conclusions ...... 294 Summary ...... 294 Returning to the environmental determinism hypothesis ...... 297 9.2.1 Implications for the Topographic Correspondence Hypothesis ...... 297 The Sociotopographic Model ...... 299 Conclusions ...... 305 9.4.1 Avenues for further research ...... 306 9.4.2 Final thoughts ...... 308 References ...... 309 xi
Appendix 1: Instructions ...... 319 1.1 Man and Tree task ...... 319 1.2 Animals-in-a-Row ...... 320 1.3 Scout Game: methodology and instructions ...... 320 Appendix 2: Sample Man and Tree text ...... 321 Appendix 3: Man and Tree statistical analysis ...... 332 3.1 Location: RMI vs Springdale...... 332 3.2 Age (RMI only) ...... 332 3.3 Gender: male vs female (RMI only) ...... 333 3.4 Education: low vs high (RMI only) ...... 333 3.5 Literacy: frequent vs infrequent (RMI only) ...... 334 3.6 Employment type: white collar vs not white collar (RMI only) ...... 334 3.7 Setting: indoors vs outdoors (Jabor only) ...... 335 3.8 Orientation: parallel vs perpendicular to iar-lik (RMI only) ...... 335 3.9 Location vs orientation descriptions ...... 336
xii
Figures
Figure 1: The position of the Marshall Islands within the Pacific ...... 6
Figure 2: The location of Jaluit and Kili within the Marshall Islands ...... 7
Figure 3: From topology to frame of reference (Levinson 2003: 44) ...... 18
Figure 4: The intrinsic frame of reference ...... 21
Figure 5: Facet assignment strategies (Levinson 2003: 78) ...... 22
Figure 6: The relative frame of reference ...... 25
Figure 7: Subtypes of the relative frame of reference (adapted from Poulton 2016) ...... 27
Figure 8: The absolute frame of reference ...... 29
Figure 9: Transitivity as a property of frame of reference (adapted from Levinson 2003: 51) .. 32
Figure 10: Egocentric binary relations: the direct FoR...... 33
Figure 11: Diagnostic criteria for Levinson's tripartite FoR classification (Lum 2018: 64) ...... 37
Figure 12: The relationship between Landmark and Ground in head-anchored FoRs ...... 48
Figure 13: How to assess a spatial description for FoR type using rotational tests ...... 53
Figure 14: Levinson's (2003: 140) Maze Completion Task ...... 60
Figure 15: Relationship between environmental interaction and relative FoR usage ...... 96
Figure 16: Hierarchy of scenes most likely to be coded by a BLC (Levinson & Wilkins 2006b) 148
Figure 17: Pictures from the Topological Relations Picture Series ...... 149
Figure 18: Configuration of Figure (F), speaker (S), and addressee (A) and deictic directionals use ...... 164
Figure 19: The owl emerges from the tree (Mayer 1969:12-13) ...... 168
Figure 20: Proto Oceanic directionals on the local domain (François 2004)...... 180
Figure 21: Proto Oceanic directionals on the navigational domain (François 2004)...... 180
Figure 22: Map of New Caledonia (CartoGIS Services, Australian National University) ...... 183
Figure 23: Geocentric spatial reference on Jabor, Jaluit Atoll ...... 200
Figure 24: Geocentric spatial reference on Jaluit Island, system 1 ...... 202 xiii
Figure 25: Geocentric spatial reference on Jaluit Island, system 2 ...... 203
Figure 26: Geocentric spatial reference on Kili Island ...... 204
Figure 27: The 'Ann Senghas' Man and Tree card set (Terrill & Burenhult 2008) ...... 211
Figure 28: Two participants playing the Man and Tree task (Jabor, Jaluit Atoll, RMI) ...... 213
Figure 29: Rate of use of different cardinals in Jabor ...... 225
Figure 30: Landmark-based strategies in Jabor M&T games (by no. of tokens) ...... 226
Figure 31: Geocentric versus other strategies in Man and Tree across field sites ...... 227
Figure 32: Ascribed intrinsic response in the OPT ...... 253
Figure 33: Stimulus materials from the Animals-in-a-Row task ...... 264
Figure 34: Animals-in-a-Row task experimental setup...... 266
Figure 35: Egocentric versus geocentric responses in the Animals-in-a-Row task ...... 269
Figure 36: Mixed responses in the Animals-in-a-Row task ...... 270
Figure 37: AR results according to orientation with respect to island topography ...... 275
Figure 38: RMI Animals-in-a-Row participants according to age and RA-gradient ...... 277
Figure 39: Comparison of Animals-in-a-Row results between genders ...... 278
Figure 40: Comparison of Animals-in-a-Row results across education levels ...... 279
Figure 41: Springdale Animals-in-a-Row participants by time lived in USA and RA-gradient ... 280
Figure 42: Stimulus materials in Scout Game ...... 285
Figure 43: Comparison of Scout Game and Animals-in-a-Row results within Jabor ...... 289
Figure 44: Comparison of results between tasks by individuals according to RA-gradient ...... 290
Figure 45: AR task gradient minus Scout Game gradient by participant ...... 291
Figure 46: Towards a Sociotopographic Model (Palmer et al. 2017) ...... 301
Figure 47: How the STM models landmark use differences between Jabor and Jaluit Island .. 302
Figure 48: Using the STM to model the use of iar on Jaluit Atoll and Kili ...... 304
xiv
Tables
Table 1: Linguistic elicitation tasks and their functions ...... 12
Table 2: Field sites and duration of fieldwork ...... 12
Table 3: Constancy of FoR types under rotation according to Levinson (2003: 52) ...... 30
Table 4: Constancy of Levinson's (2003) FoR types under rotation (simplified) ...... 31
Table 5: Danziger's (2010:170) classification of Levinson’s FoRs by anchor type (adapted)...... 35
Table 6: Danziger's (2010:172) revised classification of FoRs by anchor type...... 35
Table 7: Rotational properties of FoRs according to Danziger's (2010) classification...... 36
Table 8: Revised classification of Frames of Reference ...... 52
Table 9: Relationship between grammar and conceptual representations of time according to
Whorf ...... 64
Table 10 Frame of reference selection and ecological determinism (Majid et al. 2004:112). ... 91
Table 11: Reformulation of Table 10 categories for FoR preference and subsistence mode .... 95
Table 12: The consonant phonemes of Marshallese with orthographic representations ...... 102
Table 13: Marshallese vowel allophones (per Willson 2003) ...... 103
Table 14: Person pronouns in Marshallese ...... 105
Table 15: Common preverbal particles in the Marshallese verb complex ...... 116
Table 16: Basic adnominal demonstratives (adapted from Rudiak-Gould 2004:121) ...... 159
Table 17: Emphatic demonstratives (adapted from Rudiak-Gould 2004:173) ...... 162
Table 18: Allocentric directionals in Rālik Marshallese...... 174
Table 19: The four diachronic stages of geocentric reference in Oceania (François 2004) ...... 181
Table 20: Terms for cardinal directions in Marshallese with their etymologies ...... 185
Table 21: Profile of Directors in Man and Tree task ...... 215
Table 22: Metadata from the Man and Tree task ...... 216
Table 23: Coding of spatial strategies in Man and Tree task ...... 218
Table 24: Spatial strategies in the Man and Tree task across field sites ...... 222 xv
Table 25: Relationship between location and spatial strategy selection in Man and Tree ...... 223
Table 26: Relative, intrinsic and SAP-landmark strategies in the Man and Tree ...... 229
Table 27: Relationship between gender and FoR selection in Man and Tree ...... 233
Table 28: Relationship between age and FoR selection in Man and Tree ...... 234
Table 29: Relationship between sociocultural variables in Man and Tree...... 235
Table 30: Relationship between participant orientation and spatial strategy selection in Man and Tree ...... 236
Table 31: Differences in use of strategies between averages of total location and orientation descriptions ...... 238
Table 32: Correlations between FoR strategies (n=39)...... 242
Table 33: Conditions in the Object Placement Task ...... 249
Table 34: Order of conditions in the Object Placement Task ...... 251
Table 35: Results from Condition 1 of the OPT ...... 254
Table 36: The effect of occlusion on relative subtype selection ...... 255
Table 37: FoR preferences in Condition 3 of the Object Placement Task ...... 256
Table 38: FoR selection amongst native English speakers across studies ...... 259
Table 39: Participants in the Animals-in-a-Row task ...... 267
Table 40: Example of participant coding in Animals-in-a-Row task ...... 271
Table 41: Tokens of Animals-in-a-Row responses across sites ...... 273
Table 42: Classification of participants according to Strong MPI criteria ...... 273
Table 43: Results across sites according to Weak MPI Criteria ...... 274
Table 44: AR results according to participants' orientation with respect to island topography
...... 275
Table 45: AR results in Jabor according to setting (indoors vs outdoors) ...... 276
Table 46: RMI Animals-in-a-Row results according to gender ...... 277
Table 47: Results of Animals-in-a-Row task by education levels ...... 278
xvi
Table 48: Average % of lifetime spent in USA by coder type (n = 19) ...... 280
Table 49: Monodirectional responses in Springdale...... 281
Table 50: Results from the Scout Game (Jabor, Jaluit Atoll) ...... 289
Table 51: Self-reported array memorisation strategy among AR task participants ...... 292
xvii
Symbols and Abbreviations
In main text // Phonemic transcription <> Orthographic transcription AR Animals-in-a-Row ARG Atolls Research Group FBLR Front-Back-Left-Right FoR Frame of reference GST General Spatial Term SST Specific Spatial Term LMRK Landmark M&T Man and Tree task MOD Marshallese-English Online Dictionary (Abo et al. 1998) MPI Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen NSEW North-South-East-West PCMc Proto Central Micronesian PMc Proto Micronesian POc Proto Oceanic RA Relative to Absolute Rlk Rālik dialect (Western) Rtk Ratak dialect (Eastern) RMI Republic of the Marshall Islands SAP Speech-Act Participant STM Sociotopographic Model TCH Topographic Correspondence Hypothesis TRM Topological Relation Marker TRPS Topological Relations Picture Series
xviii
In interlinearised examples All morphemic glosses in interlinearised examples follow Leipzig glossing rules (Comrie,
Haspelmath & Bickel 2008) with the exception of those below.
CLF.BUILDING Relational classifier for buildings
CLF.CHILD Relational classifier for children, pets, electronic devices
CLF.GEN Relational classifier (general)
CLF.VEHICLE Relational classifier for vehicles
CNEG Continuative negative
CSTR Construct
DEM1 Demonstrative, near speaker
DEM2 Demonstrative, near addressee
DEM1+2 Demonstrative, near both speaker and addressee
DEM3 Demonstrative, away from both speaker and addressee
DEM3+ Demonstrative, far away from both speaker and addressee
DIR1 Directional, towards speaker
DIR2 Directional, towards addressee
DIR3 Directional, away from both speaker and addressee, or to a third party
H Human
L.ANA Locative anaphor
O Object/oblique
P Possessive pronoun
S Subject
XST Existential demonstrative
xix
1 Introduction
Until the 1990s, it was presumed that the manner in which English speakers and other
Europeans talk about and understand spatial relationships was more or less universal, with only comparatively minor differences between different languages and cultures. (c.f. Levelt 1989: 49-
50; Miller & Johnson-Laird 1976: 381-394). However, beginning in the 1990s with the research of Stephen Levinson and other scholars associated with the Max Planck Institute for
Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen (henceforth MPI), more recent research into a wide variety of languages and cultures around the world has revealed a significant amount of variation in both the linguistic expression, and conceptualisation, of space.
If one were to ask the average English speaker for directions to the post office, one might receive a reply like the following:
“Go straight ahead about 200 metres, when you get to the bakery turn left and then it will
be right in front of you.”
However, this sort of description is far from universal. A speaker of Pirahã (Brazil; Everett
2009: 216) or Jaminjung (Australia; Schultze-Berndt 2006) might tell you to walk upriver, a speaker of Tzeltal (Mexico; Brown & Levinson 1993a; Brown 2006) or Yupno (Papua New Guinea,
Cooperrider, Slotta & Núñez 2016) might tell you to walk uphill, a speaker of Manam (Papua
New Guinea; Lichtenberk 1983: 569–584) might tell you to walk clockwise (around an island) or a speaker of Guugu Yimidhirr (Australia; Haviland 1998; Levinson 1997) might tell you to turn east. While on the surface, this does not seem unusual, what is more surprising is that speakers of these languages will even use these strategies within the narrow confines of tabletop space
(e.g. move the cup a little upriver/uphill/clockwise/east). Some of these languages do not even have the linguistic resources with which to give a description like the English one above, reserving terms for ‘left’ and ‘right’ only to describe handedness, which are never extended for
1 spatial relations. Furthermore, even speakers of languages which do have terms ‘left’ and ‘right’, might use them in very different ways to speakers of major European languages (§2.2.2.1).
Speakers of these languages do not merely talk about space differently, they also think about it differently. Speakers of languages which prefer using topography-based spatial referencing strategies, will also remember scenes differently (§3.1). Therefore, research into spatial language is not only valuable to document and describe the various linguistic resources that societies around the world use to talk about space, but is also invaluable for shedding light on questions relating to the nature of the relationship between language, culture and cognition.
Motivation for project While more recently inquiry into the diversity of systems of spatial reference and the relationship between space in language and spatial cognition has been comparatively robust, little attention has been paid into the effect that environment has on spatial frame of reference preferences. Prima facie, it seems obvious that there must be some sort of causal relationship.
After all, it is not surprising that languages with riverine-based systems of spatial reference are spoken in areas where rivers dominate the landscape, or that languages with incline-based systems are spoken in mountainous geographies. This is not unacknowledged by Levinson (2003:
48), but nevertheless, he and many of his colleagues have sought to emphasise the question of the nature of the relationship between spatial language and cognition (i.e. the Linguistic
Relativity or Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis), de-emphasising other possible factors such as topography or culture in the process. In response, Palmer (2015) formulated the Topographic
Correspondence Hypothesis (TCH) which makes strong positive causal claims about the effect of the topography in which people live, and the type of spatial referencing system employed in their linguistic practice (§3.3.2). The purpose of this work is to use a language, Marshallese, as a case study to examine the claims Levinson, Palmer and others have made about the nature of the relationship between space in language, cognition, and culture, as well as how and to what
2 extent these various facets of the human understanding of space are motivated by the topography in which people reside.
The Marshallese language and its speakers Marshallese is an Oceanic language of the Micronesian subgroup, spoken primarily in the
Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), located in the Pacific (
Figure 1), but also in expatriate communities spread across various parts of the United States of
America.
1.2.1 Geography of the Marshall Islands While the Marshallese archipelago covers a large area of the Pacific, the country has only
181.3km2 of land area, spread across 29 atolls, 20 of which are inhabited, and five singleton islands, four of which are inhabited. An atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef which encircles a lagoon. 3
Each atoll/singleton island generally forms a distinct administrative region, with some minor exceptions. As of 2015, the RMI includes a population of approximately 72,191 people (The
World Factbook 2016), most of whom live on atolls. The country is geographically, culturally, and linguistically divided into two chains of atolls, the Rālik chain, constituting the western half of the archipelago, and the Ratak chain which constitutes the eastern half of the archipelago (
Figure 2).
The capital, Majuro Atoll, while technically within the Ratak chain, has been the target of a high amount of internal migration from all around the country, and as such, both dialects are in common use. To a lesser extent, this is also the case with Kwajalein Atoll and Jaluit Atoll, both in the Rālik chain, which were historical capitals of the RMI. The atolls other than Majuro and Kwajalein, the second most populated, are commonly referred to as the outer atolls/islands. 4
The outer atolls are generally significantly less urbanised, industrialised, educated and populated than Majuro and Kwajalein. Though generally also referred to as outer atolls, Jaluit and Wotje are regional centres, with levels of development intermediate between those of
Majuro and the other outer atolls.
5
Figure 1: The position of the Marshall Islands within the Pacific
6
Figure 2: The location of Jaluit and Kili within the Marshall Islands
7
1.2.2 Marshallese in the United States The Marshall Islands were part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands under governance by the United States of America. The country achieved self-governance in 1979 and full sovereignty in 1986. Since this time, the RMI, along with Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia, has been in a Compact of Free Association with the United States, providing Marshallese citizens, among other benefits, free movement between the two countries. This has resulted in the majority of Marshallese emigration being to the United States. According to the US Census
(Hixson, Hepler & Kim 2012), there were 22,434 Marshallese people residing in the country as of 2010, more than doubling the population present in 2000. Due to this rapid acceleration in migration, as well as a high birth rate and census under-reporting, the current population is likely to be much larger. The states with the highest Marshallese populations as of 2010 were Hawaii,
Arkansas, and Washington. There are also significant communities in California, Oregon,
Oklahoma and Texas.
1.2.3 The sociolinguistic status of Marshallese Marshallese is the native language of the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the
Marshall Islands as well as the majority of Marshallese in the US. In the RMI, it is used across most domains, though some domains like higher education and politics are shared with English.
English is commonly also spoken in the capital, Majuro, and some other regions of the country, but fluency is uncommon in the outer atolls. With approximately 80,000 speakers, more than most other Oceanic languages, Marshallese is comparatively robust and in the immediate future is in no danger. However, as a nation comprised primarily of low-lying coral atolls, the RMI is amongst the most vulnerable countries to climate change in the world (Barnett & Adger 2003).
It may be that in the relatively near future, the Marshallese will have to abandon their island home and relocate elsewhere. In such a situation, the long-term viability of the language is less clear. Furthermore, as the relationship between language and topography can only be studied in situ, the opportunity to investigate this issue is time-sensitive. While the Marshallese language
8 may survive translocation of its speakers, such an event will nevertheless sever the link the
Marshallese have had with their atoll-based ancestral homes.
Why Marshallese? There are two possible ways to test the relationship between spatial referencing system and topography (Palmer, 2015). Firstly, one may compare the spatial referencing systems of different languages spoken in similar environments. Alternatively, one can study a single language spoken in different topographies. This study focuses on the latter, examining the spatial referencing system of Marshallese as spoken on an atoll, a singleton island and an inland urban centre (see §1.5; §5.5).
The topographical locus of the atoll has been identified by Palmer (2007; 2015) as an ideal test case for the TCH given its highly distinctive physical features. An atoll is a narrow strip of land and fringe reef encircling a large central lagoon. Human habitation is restricted to these strips of land, and in many cases, especially where vegetation has been cleared for human settlement, both the lagoon and ocean are visible. The lagoon side of an island is typically much calmer than the rougher ocean side, and for this reason activities such as sailing and fishing are typically conducted in the lagoon. The calm side of the island affords for the anchoring of boats, and thus is normally used as the starting and finishing points of oceanic travel. The ocean is generally accessed through a channel connecting it to the atoll lagoon. Given the relative utility of the lagoon compared to that of the rough ocean, settlements on atoll islands are generally located on the side of the island nearest the lagoon. Thus the different qualities of the lagoon and the ocean affect the physical organisation of the village community, and also the cultural associations speakers have with each side. For example, Tokelauans conceptualise the ocean side of the island as being outside of social control (Hoëm 1993). Maldivian men and women use opposite shores for performing bodily excretions (Jonathon Lum, p.c.). Given the high visual and cultural salience of the atoll landscape, it is natural to expect the directional systems employed by people dwelling in these sorts of topographies to reflect their environments. 9
This project is one of two subprojects within a larger Australian Research Council-funded study: Thinking and talking about atolls: the role of environment in shaping language and our understanding of physical space, headed by CIs Dr Bill Palmer (University of Newcastle) and Dr
Alice Gaby (Monash University). The other subproject is Dr Jonathon Lum’s (2018) study of spatial reference in Dhivehi (Indo-Aryan, Maldives). Collectively, this group of four researchers is referred to throughout this work as the Atolls Research Group (ARG). Dhivehi is typologically and phylogenetically distinct to Marshallese, but is similar in that it too is primarily spoken on atolls. The parallel methodologies used in this study on Marshallese and the Dhivehi study allow for testing of the TCH. However, this comparison of the two languages is not the focus of the present study, which focuses on Marshallese. Some of the comparative results have been published in Palmer et al. (2017) and will also be the subject of a forthcoming monograph by the
ARG.
Aims and research questions The primary motivation of this study is to explore the spatial referencing practices of
Marshallese speakers across a variety of environments. More specifically, the following research questions are to be addressed:
• What linguistic resources (structural, semantic, pragmatic) do Marshallese speakers use
to refer to space?
• How do Marshallese spatial referencing practices differ between individuals and
communities and what factors (social, environmental, etc.) influence these differences?
• How do Marshallese speakers talk about space in inland suburban areas far away from
their home atolls?
• What is the relationship between spatial reference and non-linguistic spatial cognition
in Marshallese?
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• What can the answers to the above questions tell us about the relationship between
spatial language, non-linguistic spatial cognition and the physical environment? Will the
evidence support the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis, or the Topographic
Correspondence Hypothesis?
Fieldwork and data The data were collected with an anthropological research permit from the Marshall Islands
Historic Preservation Office and human research ethics approval from the University of
Newcastle Human Research Ethics Committee (protocol number H-2013-0312). In accordance with Marshallese cultural norms, informal approval was also sought and obtained from the
Mayor of Jaluit Atoll, Bila Jacklick; the Deputy Mayor of Kili Island, Wilson Note, and from Albious
Latior, a community leader in Springdale, Arkansas.
Data collection consisted primarily of various spatial elicitation tasks, as well as more traditional language documentation and description methods (collecting narratives, elicitation, etc.). Both audio and video were recorded. These media were then linked, transcribed and translated using the language annotation software ELAN, resulting in a corpus of over 22 hours of Marshallese language data.
1.5.1 Elicitation tasks Two elicitation tasks, the Man and Tree task and the Object Placement Task have been subjected to quantitative analysis and are presented in Chapters 6 and 7. Data from the other elicitation tasks form the body of linguistic data upon which the linguistic analyses in Chapters 4 and 5 are based. These include the Route Description Task (Wilkins 1993), the Virtual Atoll Task (Lum &
Schlossberg 2014), the Frog Story (§4.10), the Topological Relations Picture Series (Bowerman
& Pederson 1992), and the Verbal Animals task (Lum 2018: 267–268). In addition to this linguistic elicitation, two tasks were run in order to elicit spatial frame of reference preferences in non-
11 linguistic cognition. There were the Animals-in-a-Row task and the Scout Game, discussed in
Chapter 8.
Task Code Domain targeted Man and Tree MT static relations; orientation descriptions Route Description RD motion descriptions Verbal Animals-in-a-Row VAR static relations; orientation descriptions Virtual Atoll Task VAT large(r)-scale space; wayfinding Topological Relations TRPS topological relations Picture Series Frog Story FROG coding of manner/path in motion events Narratives NAR free-form narratives yielding general language data Table 1: Linguistic elicitation tasks and their functions
Table 1 above lists all the elicitation tasks which produced Marshallese language data, along with their file name code (see §1.5.3) and the type of data they targeted. In addition, there was also the Object Placement Task (Chapter 7), Animals-in-a-Row task (Chapter 8) and Scout
Game (Chapter 8) which do not yield recorded language data.
1.5.2 Field sites The findings presented in this thesis are based on the analysis of data collected over 7.5 months of fieldwork in four distinct field sites.
Field site Code Duration of fieldwork
Jabor, Jaluit Atoll, RMI JAB 4 months Jaluit Island, Jaluit Atoll, RMI JI Sporadic data collection visits from Jabor Kili, RMI KILI 1 month Springdale, Arkansas, USA SPR 2.5 months
Table 2: Field sites and duration of fieldwork
Table 2 shows the four field sites, with their file name codes (see §1.5.3) and the duration of fieldwork. The geographic and demographic features of these sites are discussed in
§5.5.
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1.5.3 Interpreting Marshallese language data In Chapters 4 and 5, Marshallese language data are often presented in a format consisting of three lines: a transcription of the Marshallese utterance using the standard Marshallese script
(§4.2), an inter-linearised gloss,1 and a free translation. In addition, while examples are very occasionally constructed or taken from a secondary source, the overwhelming majority of
Marshallese language examples come from primary data collected for this study. These examples are marked through the inclusion of a file name showing basic metadata about the text from which the utterance was taken, as illustrated in the following annotated file name:
Language Field site Director Subtask no. Time of utterance
MAR_RD_JAB_20141127_DA1_BR1_3_S: 00:04:06.300
Cardinal orientation
Text type Date (YMD) Matcher of participants
The codes for text types and field sites can be found respectively in Table 1 and Table 2 above.
The above file name shows all the possible metadata categories, but not all of these are present in all files. For example, narratives and Frog Stories have only one participant and do not have subtasks. This particular file name indicates that the utterance was in Marshallese (as opposed to Dhivehi, the other language in the broader ARG study); the text comes from a Route
Description played in Jabor on the 27th of November, 2014; the participants DA1 and BR1 were playing their third route while facing south, and that the time of the relevant utterance was at four minutes and six seconds into the recording.
These metadata will enable the reader to look up the text once the dataset is archived with the Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC).2
1 Following the Leipzig Glossing Rules (Comrie, Haspelmath & Bickel 2008), except for those glosses listed on page xviii. 2 See http://www.paradisec.org.au. Note however that the majority of the dataset contains only transcriptions and free translations of the utterances and not morphemic glosses. 13
Structure of thesis This thesis is divided into nine chapters and three appendices. Chapter 2 introduces spatial frames of reference and the ways in which they have been classified. It discusses some of the problematic aspects of Levinson’s (1996; 2003) influential typology and some of the ways different scholars have sought to improve upon it. Finally, it argues for a typology closely based on that of the ‘MesoSpace’ research group based on three primary logical attributes: nature of
Anchor, relationship between Anchor and Ground, and relationship between Anchor and search domain.
Chapter 3 reviews the literature on the relationship between spatial reference, spatial cognition and the environment. It presents evidence which has been adduced to show correlations between spatial frames of reference in language and in non-linguistic cognition. It then discusses two competing hypotheses which have been suggested to account for these observed correlations: linguistic relativity or environmental determinism.
Chapters 4 and 5 present the linguistics of spatial reference in Marshallese. Chapter 4 opens with a very brief grammatical sketch of the language, before presenting the structural resources Marshallese speakers employ to refer to space, both when describing static location and when describing motion events. Chapter 5 examines the semantic and structural aspects of frame of reference in Marshallese. Furthermore, it describes the geocentric spatial referencing system of the four sites under investigation in this study: Jabor, Jaluit Island, Kili, and Springdale.
Chapter 6 presents quantitative findings on frame of reference selection from an analysis of a corpus of 48 Man and Tree tasks. It examines how a variety of different predictors including location, demographic (age, sex, education), and situational (participant orientation; indoors vs outdoors) affect frame of reference selection in Marshallese.
Chapter 7 presents results from the Object Placement Task, designed to elicit semantics of body axis terms. The OPT was run only in Springdale to test under which conditions
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Marshallese speakers are likely to interpret body axis terms in the intrinsic frame of reference
(§2.2.1) vs one of the relative frame of reference subtypes (§2.2.2.1).
Chapter 8 shows results from two tasks, Animals-in-a-Row and the Scout Game. These tasks are designed to elicit frame of reference preferences in non-linguistic spatial cognition.
Location and demographic variables are discussed for Animals-in-a-Row and then the differences in results from the two tasks are compared to reveal task-specificity effects. These findings are then discussed in terms of the implications they have for the Linguistic Relativity
Hypothesis.
Finally, Chapter 9 summarises the key findings of this study and discusses their theoretical implications, particularly in terms of the nature of cross-linguistic diversity in spatial referencing practices. It then introduces the ARG’s Sociotopographic Model and argues against the absolutism of some arguments for and against linguistic relativity and environmental determinism.
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2 Classifying frames of reference
Frames of reference (FoRs) are a key aspect of spatial language and cognition, whose exact nature are not universally agreed upon.3 Researchers across different disciplines have used different terminology for discussing spatial frames of reference and even researchers within the same field may not agree on how to define a given term. In this chapter, I discuss what a frame of reference is (§2.1), how FoRs have been defined through the literature on space (§2.2), the implications FoR research has for questions of linguistic relativity and human cognitive diversity, and finally present the FoR typology I will be adopting for the purposes of this thesis (§2.2.6).
Defining ‘frame of reference’ The description the man is in front of the house is ambiguous. It can either be interpreted to mean that the man is between the speaker and the house (in which case if the speaker moved, the proposition would no longer hold true), or it could mean that the man is in front of a facet of the house with windows and doors which we conventionally label the front (in which case the location of the speaker is irrelevant). Which way we understand the statement depends on the frame of reference we choose to adopt.
The term ‘frame of reference’ has its origins in Gestalt psychology, in theories of perception from the 1920s (Levinson 2003: 24). Rock (1992: 404) summarises the Gestaltist understanding of frame of reference as follows: “a coordinate system with respect to which certain properties of objects, including the phenomenal self, are gauged”. This notion of FoRs as involving a coordinate system of some sort is still key to the modern understanding of the frame of reference concept, as can be observed in the definition by Majid et al. (2004: 108):
“Frames of reference are coordinate systems use to compute and specify the
locations or trajectories of objects with respect to other objects.”
3 In writing this chapter, I am particularly indebted to Jonathon Lum, with whom many hours were spent discussing and debating the issues herein. Any mistakes are of course my own. 16
Similar definitions have been adopted in recent works by Terrill & Burenhult (2008),
Beller et al. (2015), and Palmer (2015), inter alia. A more specific definition, emphasising how the frame of reference concept is operationalised, is given by Bohnemeyer & O’Meara (2012b):
“[S]patial frames of reference are coordinate systems that partition space into
distinct regions that serve as search domains for the interpretation of spatial
relators in language and cognition”.
These definitions are complementary, rather than mutually exclusive, and both can be comfortably adopted for the purposes of this thesis. A frame of reference is a strategy for locating – or identifying the orientation or trajectory of – one entity, the Figure (F), with respect to another entity, the Ground (G), on the basis of a search domain projected from G to F.
2.1.1 Frame of reference and topological relations It is important to distinguish frame of reference from mere topological relations. On the surface, the two are quite similar – both involve locating a Figure (or referent) with respect to a Ground
(or relatum). However, they are different in that topological relations do not involve a projection of a search domain. For example, to locate the man in the description the man is in front of the house a search domain is projected from either the house (G) to the man (F). In the case of a topological relation, such as the man is on top of the house, F is simply co-located with a named facet of G (its top) and there is no projection required.
However, while the distinction is principled in theory, in practice there are many situations where the distinction is not as clear-cut. Take the sentence the man is at the front of the house. One could also interpret this as meaning that the man is co-located with the front facet of the house, with no projection required. This ambiguity is unsurprising, given that frame of reference descriptions tend to evolve from topological relations (Figure 3).
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Figure 3: From topology to frame of reference (Levinson 2003: 44)
Although English speakers tend to associate the more grammaticalised prepositions such as in front or behind with frame of reference, and the preposition at with topological relations – e.g. the man is at the front of the house – the distinction is far from clear-cut (Poulton
2016). Similarly Marshallese tends to strongly favour the use of relational nouns for topological relations but the use of locative nouns for frame of reference (§4.8.3; §4.8.9; §5.3). On the other hand, there are languages which barely, if at all, grammatically distinguish topological relations from frame of reference.
This ambiguity is particularly noteable when it comes to the vertical dimension, where all prepositions are often treated as encoding topological relations regardless of the existence of projection of a search domain. This is discussed further in §4.8.9.1.
2.1.2 Frame of reference and deixis Levinson (2003: 66-68) also distinguishes frame of reference from deixis, in that according to him, deixis – like topology – does not invoke a co-ordinate system but simply specifies a region.
He gives the example spatial description in English of “It is here”, which specifies that the entity is near the speaker but does not yield a specific direction, there is no explicit angle of direction of where “it” is with respect to the speaker. Of course a deictically invoked region can then be used in a frame of reference description, such as in the relative frame of reference, described in
§2.2.2 below.
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Classifying frames of reference Various scholars have sought to classify different frames of reference in different ways, depending on their theoretical background and orientation, or their research direction at a given time. Psychologists in particular have privileged the status of the ego, yielding a binary egocentric – allocentric distinction, which has also sometimes referred to as viewer-centred vs object-centred. Some have split the allocentric category into two in order to distinguish whether the anchor (A) of the co-ordinate system is derived from the ground entity (the intrinsic frame of reference) or from some feature of the external world (a geocentric or environment-centred
FoR). The terms used have tended to vary slightly between fields and individual researchers, as have their definitions. Though I do not adopt these classifications as the primary FoRs in this study, these terms are important in that they describe one factor, namely the entity anchoring the FoR, upon which FoRs are classified in the more detailed typology adopted here (§2.2.6).
Additionally, while ‘egocentric’ and ‘geocentric’ are perhaps more common in the literature compared to ‘viewer-centred’ and ‘environment-centred’, the latter are perhaps more accurate.
As we shall see, the viewer in egocentric FoRs need not necessarily be the ego (§2.2.2) and
‘environment-centred’ is more inclusive, accounting for climatologically-based systems such as those motivated by the place and passage of the sun or by the prevailing wind direction.
However, because egocentric and geocentric are the simpler, more frequently used terms, they are employed throughout this work. Therefore, while egocentric and geocentric are not strictly speaking identical to viewer-centred and environment-centred, they should be assumed as such for the purposes of this study.
In this section I will begin by describing Levinson’s (2003) ternary classification of FoRs which has become influential throughout the literature on spatial frames of reference. I will then describe some recent critiques of this approach, along with alternatives which have been proposed.
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The research program developed by Stephen C. Levinson and colleagues associated with the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen (see e.g. Levinson 1996; Pederson et al. 1998; Levinson 2003; Majid et al. 2004; Levinson & Wilkins 2006a; inter alia) distinguishes three primary frames of reference: the intrinsic FoR such as in The man is in front of the house
(where front refers to a given distinguishable facet of the house), the relative FoR such as in The man is in front of the house (between the speaker and the house, regardless of which actual facet of the house the man is standing near) and the absolute FoR such as in The man is north of the house. This typology has become highly influential, not just in linguistics, but for the whole interdisciplinary field of study involving spatial frames of reference in language and cognition
(e.g. psychology, anthropology, GIS science, etc.).4
2.2.1 The intrinsic frame of reference The intrinsic frame of reference relies on an asymmetry in the Ground object. To invoke the intrinsic FoR, one must project a search domain off a named facet of the Ground. The figure is found along this search domain. For example, in Figure 4 we can only compute the position of the ball based on an assumed shared cultural understanding that the house has a distinct facet which we conventionally label front (and likewise a back, left and right).
4 It should be noted that several scholars of varying theoretical outlooks have been associated with the Language and Cognition Group at the MPI, some of whom have gone on to propose their own revisions to this typology. Thus, when referencing the MPI’s approach to FoR classification here, I mean this ternary classification most closely associated with Stephen Levinson. 20
G = A
The ball is in front of the house. F
Figure 4: The intrinsic frame of reference
It should be noted that while Figure 4 shows a ‘prototypical’ intrinsic scene according to how the intrinsic FoR is canonically defined, MPI-associated researchers (e.g. Levinson et al.
2002; Levinson 2003: 199) also describes several other relationships as intrinsic, using the category as a grab-bag for frames of reference which cannot be easily categorised as absolute, relative or (canonical) intrinsic, even when they do not meet the stipulated criteria for being defined as intrinsic. These issues are discussed in §2.2.5.
2.2.1.1 Ascribing facets to objects As Levinson points out (2003: 41-42), which objects have an ‘inherent’ front and back is culturally constructed. He shows that while, in English, fronts are assigned primarily on the basis of function (the front of a television being the side most attended to, or the front of a car being the facet on the side of the direction of motion), in other languages like Tzeltal (Mayan, Mexico), fronts are primarily assigned on the basis of shape (Levinson 1994). This point is also made by
Heine (1997: 12–13), who notes that in Kikuyu and other Bantu languages of Kenya, the steeper side of the mountain is the ‘back’ and the opposite side is the ‘front’ and that for the Chamus, also of Kenya, the front of a tree is the side towards which the trunk leans.
Levinson (2003: 76-80) identifies three distinct strategies through which objects are assigned facets by speakers of different languages: through an object-centred geometry, a fixed armature,
21 or according to functional criteria (Figure 5). For facets assigned via an object-centred geometry, it is the shape of the object rather than the orientation which influences how the facet is labelled. These facets are often assigned on analogy with the human form, or sometimes that of another animal. Languages which use this strategy include Tzeltal (Levinson 1994) and Yucatec
Maya (Bohnemeyer & Tucker 2013). A fixed armature strategy involves assigning facets according to the orientation of the object. For example, Zapotec has a vertically fixed armature wherein the ‘head’ of an object is the part at the top and the ‘foot’ is the part at the bottom. If the object is rotated, the facets change. It is arguable to what extent FoR descriptions which invoke facets determined via a fixed armature strategy are even intrinsic. If the coordinate system is anchored to a vertical axis external to the ground object, then such descriptions must be part of the absolute frame of reference. Indeed, vertical descriptions motivated by the gravitational axis are elsewhere described by Levinson (2003: 75) as absolute.
Fixed armature strategy
Object-centred geometry
Figure 5: Facet assignment strategies (Levinson 2003: 78)
On the other hand, languages like English assign facets primarily on functional criteria.
This leads to a kind of fixed-armature, except rather than being dependent on the orientation 22 of the object at any given time, facets are permanently fixed based on a perceived canonical orientation. For example, the side which gets labelled as the front is generally the side accessed or interacted with, the side visible or canonically oriented towards the viewer, or the side facing the direction of motion. The concept of ‘front’ in English is generally a gestalt of these motivating factors. Descriptions such as ‘the front door is on the side of the house’ throw access and habitual interaction into conflict with visibility and canonical orientation (from the street) yielding a seeming contradiction.
Additionally, Pederson (2003a) has discussed cases of a so-called ‘ascribed’ intrinsic frame of reference which is dependent on human orientation. He gives the example of the inside of a church, wherein one would generally call the end where the priest gives mass and to which the pews are oriented ‘the front’, though for an observer outside the church, that same end is the back. However, this terminology is problematic because as established, so-called ‘inherent’ facets are always ascribed by someone on the basis of some criteria, even if those criteria are opaque. When we stand outside a church, we ascribe the front upon the basis of the side from which we canonically access it (the ‘front’ door), or visibility (the side we see from the street).5
On the inside of the church, we ascribe ‘front’ and ‘back’ to it on the basis of similar criteria. The fact that parishioners are canonically oriented towards a certain location within the church – where the priest stands – is not materially different to the fact that we canonically view houses from the side facing the street.
In addition, other cultural factors may influence which side is ascribed a given facet. In
Tongan, the front of the house is the side where the chief sits when he is visiting. Bennardo
(2000: 529) recalls one occasion where upon being asked which side of the house was the ‘front’, the Tongan informant was unable to answer, explaining that he had not been to the house when
5 Access and visibility may also explain the aforementioned Kikuyu assignment of ‘front’ to the less steep side of the mountain, as that is the side from where one generally begins climbing a mountain. 23 the chief was present. Brown (1983) also discusses languages where the words for ‘front’ and
‘back’ are used to describe the east and west sides of an object, blurring the distinction between the intrinsic and absolute frames of reference (see also Núñez & Cornejo (2012), who provide a detailed description of such a system in Aymara). Perhaps some of these cultural factors are also at play in Pederson’s church example, where, as with Tongan, the front of the church is where the priest stands. Pederson (1993; 2006) also uses ascribed intrinsic to refer to a situation occurring in Tamil, and this has since also been identified to occur in Iwaidja (Australia;
Edmonds-Wathen 2014). When these speakers are presented with a picture depicting an array in which a tree is in front (i.e. on the head side) of a horse, they describe the horse as being
‘behind’ the tree because the tree is metaphorically perceived as another animate entity standing in line with the horse. It is possible that in this case there is also some sort of canonical orientation occurring, e.g. pack animals walking in file while travelling. However, this is unexplored. Nevertheless, this situation resembles the church example. Again, the front of the tree is ascribed on the basis of other objects or participants in the scene, even if the rationale motivating this ascription is somewhat opaque. It just so happens that this scene is perhaps less conventional, and more ad hoc. The church example is predicated on the canonical orientation of the viewer and other humans. However, if canonical orientation is indeed involved in the tree and horse picture, it is that of a non-human third party. This would explain why systems such as that which Pederson has described for Tamil and Iwaidja are rare (assuming they are so). Despite some of the studies mentioned above, a cross-linguistic or ethnological typology of facet- assignation is yet to be undertaken. However, since the intrinsic FoR requires that speakers ascribe an asymmetry onto the Ground, it is not clear upon what operational basis Pederson distinguishes ascribed intrinsic from non-ascribed intrinsic FoRs. Any object which has a ‘front’ only does so because we as speakers have ascribed one to it. It is true that the front of some objects may be more universal than others, but this is not a principled reason to distinguish them.
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2.2.2 The relative frame of reference The relative frame of reference differs from the intrinsic FoR in that it introduces a third participant, the viewpoint (V) and does not rely on a perceived asymmetry in the ground object in order to derive a co-ordinate system. Instead, to invoke the relative FoR, the speaker must map the internal co-ordinates of the Viewpoint (usually, but not necessarily themselves) onto the Ground object or the entire Figure-Ground array). Therefore, to understand the sentence
The ball is to the left of the house (from the speaker’s point of view, see Figure 6) it is essential that one know not only the location of both Figure and Ground, but also the location and orientation of the Viewpoint.
F G
The ball is to the left of the house
V=A
Figure 6: The relative frame of reference
This differs from the intrinsic FoR, for which one need only know the location of the figure and ground, as well as the internal composition of the ground. Due to this, Levinson (2003:
37,42) describes intrinsic FoR relationships as binary, distinguishing it from the relative FoR which constitutes a ternary relationship between three elements: figure, ground and viewpoint.
The relative FoR is sometimes mistakenly called – or equated with – an ‘egocentric’ frame of reference. While it is true that relative FoR is by prototypically used egocentrically, it need not necessarily be, as the Viewpoint may be displaced onto a third party, e.g. ‘the book is to the left
25 from Sofia’s point of view’. In addition, the ‘direct’ subtype of the intrinsic FoR is also egocentric, but it is not relative FoR (§2.2.5.1).
2.2.2.1 Subtypes of the relative frame of reference Three subtypes of the relative frame of reference have been identified, depending on how the coordinates of the viewpoint are mapped onto the ground (Levinson 2003: 84-89). For example, the viewer may translate their coordinates directly across to the ground object, such that the front is on the far side of the object from the viewer’s perspective, and the back is on the near side, with the left and right still aligned with the viewer. On the other hand, the viewer may reflect their coordinates off the ground, such that the front of the ground is on the side nearest the viewer and the back is on the opposite side, as if the ground were the viewer’s reflection in a mirror. This is the strategy perhaps most familiar to speakers of English and other European languages. Alternatively, the viewer might rotate their coordinates onto the ground, as if the ground object were another person or animate entity facing the viewer: the ‘front’ of the ground is on the near side of the viewer, the ‘right’ side of the ground is on the viewer’s left and vice- versa. These have been referred to as the translation(al), reflection(al) and rotation(al) subtypes
(Bennardo 2000), analyses (Levinson 2003: 84–89), or variants (Beller, Bohlen, et al. 2015) of the relative FoR (Figure 7).
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Translation Rotation Reflection
L G R R G L L G R
L V R
Figure 7: Subtypes of the relative frame of reference (adapted from Poulton 2016)
Just as the relative FoR was assumed to be universal (Chapter 1), so too has the reflectional relative FoR assumed to be the default, or only, way of forming the relative FoR.
While this is likely due to its presumed predominance among speakers of English and other
European languages, recent studies show that the translational relative subtype is also a common strategy amongst English speakers, accounting for approximately one quarter of array descriptions (Beller, Singmann, et al. 2015; Poulton 2016). In a pioneering study, Hill (1982) showed that speakers of Hausa prefer the translational relative subtype, which he calls the aligned strategy. However, no further exploration into relative subtypes preferences between languages/cultures was conducted until Bennardo (2000) on Tongan, who also demonstrated that Tongan speakers prefer the translational relative, calling this preference ‘extremely rare’
(Bennardo 2000: 513). This view was contradicted by Levinson (2003: 86) who calls the translational relative ‘widespread’ but adduces no examples of its existence beyond Hausa.
However, in more recent times, the translational relative has also been shown to be preferred to the reflectional relative by speakers of Marquesan (Cablitz 2006), Yélî Dnye (Levinson 2006),
Mandarin Chinese (Beller, Singmann, et al. 2015), Dhivehi (Schlossberg et al. 2015; Lum 2018)
27 and Marshallese (Schlossberg et al. 2015; Chapter 7), among others. This seems to validate
Levinson’s view contra that of Bennardo, that it is in fact widespread.
So far, there is no community documented preferring the rotational subtype. Levinson
(2003: 86) does claim that it ‘can be found’ in some English-speaking children between approximately six and nine years of age, as well as in a dialect of Tamil (this claim is also made in Levinson & Wilkins 2006: 546), but does not adduce any evidence for either case. As research into relative subtypes is relatively recent, there are still several questions to explore. For example, while Hausa and Tongan speakers generally employ the translational relative, speakers may be induced to use a reflectional relative in situations where the Ground occludes the Figure from view (Hill 1982; Bennardo 2000). An experimental elicitation task designed to determine relative subtype preferences – as well as relative vs intrinsic preferences –according to both configurational variations in the figure-ground array, as well as demographic variation within a given community, is described in Chapter 7.
2.2.3 The absolute frame of reference As with the relative frame of reference, the absolute frame of reference also introduces a third element to the scene, the Slope (S). Unlike the relative FoR, in which the coordinates projected onto the scene are anchored to an animate viewer, the co-ordinates in the absolute FoR are anchored in this conceptual slope, whose bearings are fixed, arbitrary and abstract. This slope can be based on celestial azimuths, such as cardinal directions (see Figure 8); features of the topography such as inclination of the land (‘uphill-downhill’), river flow (‘upriver-downriver’), the land-sea boundary (‘landward-seaward’), etc.; or sometimes climatological, like wind direction (‘upwind-downwind’). In order to produce or interpret an absolute FoR, one must project a search domain from the Ground to the Figure along this slope.
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F S = A G
The ball is to the west of the house
Figure 8: The absolute frame of reference
Like the relative FoR, the absolute FoR is useful in that it can be invoked without having to assign facets to the Ground object. Interpreting an absolute FoR description also does not require knowledge of the location or orientation of a Viewpoint, nor does it involve the cognitively complex task (see Levinson 2003: 84–88) of mapping the viewer’s coordinates onto the ground. However, unlike the relative and intrinsic FoRs, it does require that the speaker maintain their orientation with respect to the bearings of the slope at any given moment
(Levinson 2003: 48). Note that Bohnemeyer & O’Meara (2012) distinguish a ‘true’ absolute system which extends infinitely across the landscape and a ‘geomorphic’ system which is limited in scope to a particular region, but this distinction is not adopted here as the two FoRs are difficult to distinguish in practice and of limited applicability to describing Marshallese data.
2.2.4 Logical and rotational properties of the FoRs Thus far, I have defined the Levinsonian typology of FoR classification in terms of the conceptual structure of each. However, for Levinson, it is not merely the case that the absolute, intrinsic and relative FoRs are conceptually distinct, it is also important that they are operationally distinct, i.e. that they have distinct rotational properties (or as Bohnemeyer & O’Meara 2012 puts it ‘truth conditions’) under which descriptions invoking them either remain true or are
29 falsified (Levinson 1996b; 2003: 50-53,314). Levinson considers three such properties: rotation of the viewer,6 rotation of the Ground, and rotation of the entire Figure-Ground array.
Rotation of viewer Rotation of ground Rotation of F-G array
Intrinsic
Relative
Absolute
Table 3: Constancy of FoR types under rotation according to Levinson (2003: 52)
As demonstrated in Table 3 for the FoRs as defined by Levinson (2003), the intrinsic and absolute FoRs hold true under rotation of viewer (because they are allocentric) while the relative
FoR does not (because coordinates are anchored to viewer); The relative and absolute FoRs hold true under rotation of the ground (because the coordinate system is not anchored to the
Ground) while the intrinsic FoR does not (because coordinate system is anchored to the
Ground), and the intrinsic holds true under rotation of the Figure-Ground array (because F and
G do not move with respect to the coordinate system, since the coordinate system is anchored to the Ground and therefore rotates with the array) while the relative and absolute FoRs do not
(as F and G both move locations with respect to a stationary external coordinate system).
However, having ‘rotation of Ground’ and ‘rotation of Figure-Ground array’ as distinct criteria is superfluous, as the two are inherently complementary. Either the coordinate system is anchored to the Ground, in which case it rotates along with the Ground, or it is anchored outside of the
Ground, in which case rotation of the Ground has no effect (Danziger 2010). Thus we can simplify
Levinson’s table down to two key rotational properties and their underlying causes, namely what the coordinate system is anchored to. This relationship can be observed in Table 4, which
6 Note that while Levinson (1996; 2003) describes the test as rotation of viewer around the array, most subsequent studies (including some co-authored by Levinson) treat the test as consisting of rotation of viewer on its own axis (e.g. Majid et al. 2004; Danziger 2010; Bohnemeyer & O’Meara 2012) and it is this test which is adopted here. 30 illustrates that, for example, the fact that the intrinsic FoR is constant under rotation of viewer necessarily implies that the anchor is not the viewer.
Constant under… Rotation of viewer Rotation of Ground
Logical properties: Anchor is not viewer Anchor is not Ground
Intrinsic Yes No
Relative No Yes
Absolute Yes Yes7
Diagnostic for: Allocentric vs egocentric Binary vs ternary
Table 4: Constancy of Levinson's (2003) FoR types under rotation (simplified)
Note however, that there is a logical possibility not expressed, namely a FoR which does not hold constant under either rotation of the viewer or the ground. For this to occur, the coordinate system would need to be anchored to both the viewer and the ground. This is of course possible when the viewer and the ground are in fact the same entity, e.g. in a sentence such as The book is in front of me. For this reason, Danziger (2010) proposes adding a fourth frame of reference to Levinson’s typology, which is discussed in the next section.
In addition to rotational properties, Levinson also identifies two other properties of the various FoRs, converseness and transitivity. Converseness holds for the relative FoR, where, for example, if the Figure is in front of the Ground, then the Ground is necessarily also behind the figure. Or, for example, in Figure 6, the ball is to the left of the house, therefore the house is necessarily to the right of the ball. Similarly in the absolute FoR, if the Figure is west of the
Ground, then the Ground is necessarily east of the Figure. On the other hand, converseness does not necessarily apply in the intrinsic FoR. In Figure 4, the ball is in front of the house, but the house is not behind the ball, indeed the ball does not have a named front or back.
7 See §2.2.5.3. 31
The transitivity test applies to cases such as the situation illustrated by Figure 9 below.
Transitivity fails for the intrinsic FoR because while Jack is at Jill’s left and Bill is further to Jill’s left, Bill is at Jack’s right. Note that if Jack were facing the same way as Bill and Jill, the transitivity test would succeed. Thus, while the intrinsic FoR does not necessarily pass the transitivity test, it can providing all the entities in the array are oriented towards the same direction. On the other hand, transitivity is successful under the relative frame of reference providing the
Viewpoint is not moved and is always successful in the absolute FoR.
Figure 9: Transitivity as a property of frame of reference (adapted from Levinson 2003: 51)
The converseness test and particularly the transitivity test are complex and yield the same results as the rotation of Ground test, because they too rely on whether the coordinate system is anchored to the ground or not. Therefore, they will be pursued no further here.
2.2.5 Alternative approaches According to Levinson (2003: 53), languages use ‘just three frames of reference: absolute, intrinsic, and relative’. Of course, Levinson does not deny that these classifications are superordinate, with each FoR consisting of different subtypes. Levinson’s (1996; 2003) tripartite classification of frames of reference has been critiqued on multiple grounds. Some have sought to redefine or modify the criteria for a given frame of reference, as Palmer (2015) has with the absolute. Others have found a ternary classification insufficient, and have attempted to introduce more frames of reference, for a more fine-grained typology (e.g. Danziger 2010;
Bohnemeyer & O’Meara 2012a). In this section, I examine some of the alternative approaches to FoR classification beyond Levinson’s typology.
32
2.2.5.1 Egocentric binary relations There is a clear relationship between the relative and intrinsic FoRs. In most languages they tend to employ the same vocabulary, e.g. front, back, left and right (body axis terms). The difference between the two is that the Ground object in the intrinsic FoR is perceived as having inherent
F
The ball is in front of me.
G = A
asymmetries ultimately motivated by analogy to our own internal asymmetries. On the other Figure 10: Egocentric binary relations: the direct FoR hand, the relative FoR simply maps the viewer’s coordinates onto the Ground object regardless of its inherent properties.
However, this has led to some debate over how to treat frames of reference where the viewer is the Ground, e.g. The tree is in front of me. On the one hand, these descriptions involve a binary relationship between Figure and Ground (the viewer), and appear to be intrinsic, thus being classified as such by Levinson who notes that “the intrinsic system is typically, but not definitionally, non-egocentric” (Levinson 2003: 54). On the other hand, these descriptions rely on the body axes of the viewer, like the relative FoR. This tension is noted by Pederson (2003:
189), who states:
“While distinguishing transposed relative from speaker-as-reference-object is
reasonable, the lumping of the speaker with all other reference objects in the
33
intrinsic [FoR] downplays the central importance of the speaker in language
production.”
This has led to differing ways of classifying egocentric binary distinctions. For Bennardo
(2000), these descriptions constitute a subtype of the relative frame of reference, which he calls the basic relative subtype. His reasons for doing so are as follows:
“What basically differentiates intrinsic systems from relative systems is that, with
intrinsic systems, the axes are not centred on the speaker, but on an object.”
Thus we see that although Bennardo uses Levinson’s terminology, his method for classifying frames of reference is predicated not on the logical and rotational properties emergent from the relationship between Figure, Ground and Anchor, but rather is simply a rebranded iteration of the egocentric vs object-centred dichotomy. However, in the classification system described by Levinson, a key feature of the relative FoR is that there is a mapping of the coordinates of the viewer onto the ground, or entire scene. No such mapping occurs in Bennardo’s ‘basic relative’ and thus it should not be called relative at all.
Like Levinson, Danziger (2010) typologises the intrinsic-relative-absolute distinction according to their logical and rotational properties. However, she goes a step further in explicitly determining what features of the relationship between F, G and A form the basis of these differences. Danziger notes that Levinson’s FoRs may be typologised according to two properties of the Anchor: whether it is part of the Ground or separate (i.e. whether the FoR is binary or ternary, see §2.2.5.3), and whether it is anchored to the speaker (egocentric)8 or to a different entity (allocentric). This yields a four cell typology (Table 5) for Levinson’s approach to FoR classification we have been discussing thus far.
8 Note that Danziger erroneously uses the term ‘speech participant’ rather than ‘viewer’, but this is imprecise, as she does not mean to include addressees. 34
Allocentric Egocentric
Ternary Absolute Relative
Binary Intrinsic
Table 5: Danziger's (2010: 170) classification of Levinson’s FoRs by anchor type (adapted).
Note that the bottom right cell is conspicuously left blank. In order to fill this space,
Danziger identifies a fourth frame of reference, which she calls the ‘direct’ FoR. She also uses the term ‘object-centred’ in lieu of ‘intrinsic’ to describe allocentric binary relations, where the anchor is centred on an entity other than the speaker, removing ambiguity between her classification and that of Levinson.
Allocentric Egocentric
Ternary Absolute Relative
Binary Object-centred Direct
Table 6: Danziger's (2010: 172) revised classification of FoRs by anchor type.
As established in §2.2.4, the location of the anchor affects the truth conditions of the
FoR under rotation. Thus, the direct FoR affords an update to the information presented in Table
5:
35
Constant under… Rotation of viewer Rotation of ground
Logical properties: Anchor is not viewer Anchor is not ground
Direct No No
Object-centred Yes No
Relative No Yes
Absolute Yes Yes9
Diagnostic for: Allocentric vs egocentric Ternary vs binary
Table 7: Rotational properties of FoRs according to Danziger's (2010) classification.
As Table 7 shows, inclusion of a fourth ‘direct’ FoR exhausts all possible combinations of constancy under rotation of viewer and Ground. Though for Levinson the direct FoR would fall under the intrinsic, it is important to note that it behaves differently under the rotational criteria that he himself stipulates. Thus, it seems at first as though our choices are to either accept the direct FoR as a fourth FoR, or else reject the proposition that FoRs can be defined in terms of constancy under rotation of viewer, which would then leave no means of distinguishing the absolute from the relative FoR.
Lum (2018) argues against the direct FoR as a major FoR type on the basis of conceptual structure of the FoR, rather than its rotational properties. The conceptual structure of the intrinsic and direct FoRs is the same, namely a binary relationship between Figure and Ground in which a search domain is projected from G to F. The nature of the Ground is irrelevant here, whether an object or the viewer. Of course, the direct FoR does not hold under rotation of the viewer, but that is merely epiphenomenal because the viewer happens to be the Ground.
Extending on this argument, one could equally distinguish a separate ‘house-based’ FoR for descriptions such as in Figure 4 which are falsified upon the rotation of the house, but that would be unhelpful because it does not matter what entity the Ground happens to be, the fact is that
9 See §2.2.5.3. 36 the statement is falsified under its rotation regardless. This is different to the relative FoR, whose conceptual structure necessarily requires a Viewpoint to impose their coordinates onto the scene.
This argument is persuasive and thus the direct FoR is not treated here as a major FoR type. However, given the importance of the viewer in (particularly psychological) classifications of FoRs in language and cognition, the direct FoR is maintained as a subtype of the intrinsic FoR.
Arguably, on this basis one could go further and treat the absolute and relative FoRs as subtypes of a ‘ternary’ FoR in that they are both angular anchored FoRs in which the coordinates of an array-external entity are mapped onto the Ground, but due to a long and uncontroversial history of the two being regarded as distinct, as well as the a large body of cross-linguistic evidence that the two are conceptualised differently and preferred by different communities, the distinction between absolute and relative as primary FoR types is maintained.
Figure 11: Diagnostic criteria for Levinson's tripartite FoR classification (Lum 2018: 64)
Still felicitous Still felicitous under rotation under rotation FoR of Ground? of viewer?
No Intrinsic
Description No Relative
Yes
Yes Absolute
Figure 11 shows a decision tree for diagnosing which of Levinson’s three FoRs are being invoked. Note that unlike Levinson’s diagnostic criteria in Table 3, rotation of viewer is not relevant for assessment of intrinsic FoR. The intrinsic FoR is diagnosed solely by whether it is still felicitous under rotation of the Ground.
37
2.2.5.2 Criticism of Levinson’s criteria for the absolute frame of reference According to Levinson (2003: 50), the absolute frame of reference is distinct from mere landmarks due to invoking a Slope, which has unique properties that distinguish it from more ad hoc landmarks. For Levinson, this means that the Slope is arbitrary, abstract, and fixed. All three of these definitional criteria are challenged by Palmer (2015).
Firstly, it is important to note that Levinson does not explicitly define what a landmark is, but seems to take it as self-evident. At one point, Levinson (2003: 66) uses the term ‘landmark systems’ as a subtype of the absolute FoR, distinct from cardinals, the second subtype. However, by this Levinson seems to mean that these systems are based on landmarks, not actual landmarks in and of themselves, since at other points, he is keen to emphasise the abstractedness of the absolute FoR (e.g. Levinson 2003: 48–49, 91, 148–149). Though he does acknowledge in-between cases, such as various Austronesian languages or the riverine systems of Alaska (Levinson 2003: 49), for Levinson, this concept of abstractedness is key in delineating the absolute frame of reference from just any spatial description which invokes some feature of the landscape as the Ground. Indeed, the Slope is categorically and conceptually different from the Ground because the Ground is necessarily a physical entity and the Slope is necessarily abstract, and therefore not a physical entity (see Figure 8). According to Levinson (2003: 39, 90), the Slope may be envisioned as an ‘infinite sequence of parallel lines […] across the environment’. Cardinal directions like ‘north’ and ‘south’ are perhaps the prototypical examples of an absolute FoR system, in this regard, at least for English speakers. However, systems such as the ‘uphill-downhill’ system of Tzeltal, spoken by Tenejapan Mayans, also make use of a slope, because the inclination of the land is abstracted out to cover the entire landscape, regardless of the actual incline in a given location (Brown & Levinson 1993a). This slope across the landscape exists and is applicable even when on flat land, or inside a dark house. However, Tzeltal speakers can also use the same ‘uphill-downhill’ vocabulary to talk about actual inclinations in the land as well. For Levinson, these more ‘concrete’ invocations of landscape inclination are actually a type
38 of intrinsic frame of reference since they are is allocentric, but there is no abstracted conceptual slope. However, this use is still quite different to definitions of the intrinsic FoR as commonly used in the space literature as well as to how Levinson explicitly defines the intrinsic FoR (§2.2.1).
For Levinson, the fact that Tzeltal speaker can choose to use ‘downhill’ to describe the location of the ball with respect to the house is evidence that there is a conceptual slope which has been entirely abstracted away from the physical lay of the land. However, a simpler explanation may simply be that whether the Tzeltal speaker chooses to use ‘uphill’ or ‘downhill’ depends on the degree of granularity they adopt when analysing the scene. There does not appear to be a principled reason for distinguishing a slope-based downhill from a ‘landmark-based’ downhill
(Palmer 2015).
We have seen that despite calling the absolute frame of reference ‘abstract’ and
‘arbitrary’, Levinson does not deny that instantiations of the absolute FoR are – at least initially
– motivated by features of the landscape and climate. Even cardinals are usually motivated by features such as celestial azimuths or prevailing winds, and are indeed often etymologically derived from names for these features (see Brown 1983) Also, as Palmer (2015) points out, features of the landscape are regularly used by speakers to orient themselves according to these
‘abstract’ bearings, even in cases such as ‘east’ or ‘west’ in English. For example, in Calgary,
Canada, speakers orient themselves west by means of a highly salient mountain range. For the people of Calgary, ‘west’ is functionally identical to ‘mountainward’. An obvious counterargument to this is that the use of landmarks to find ones bearings in order to use an absolute frame of reference is simply a mnemonic device useful for orienting oneself with respect to these abstract bearings. After all, if one moved an average Calgarian to the other side of the mountain range, they would probably acknowledge that towards the mountain is no longer west. However, this may not always necessarily be the case, and in §5.5.4 I describe a situation where, for at least one Marshallese speaker, ‘north’ did not exist outside the confines of their indigenous environment (see also, Terrill & Burenhult 2008). Furthermore, it is not at all 39 clear what Levinson means by ‘arbitrary’, given that we have established that the absolute frame of reference is motivated by, and utilised according to, local features of the landscape and climate (see Palmer 2015 for further discussion on the problematic nature of arbitrariness as a property of the absolute FoR).
The other criterion which, according to Levinson and others, distinguishes the absolute
FoR from other landmark descriptions is ‘fixedness’. Again, Levinson does not explicitly define what is meant by this, but the following quote regarding the geocentric directional system of
Balinese (see Wassmann & Dasen 1998) is revelatory:
‘On the island of Bali […] one axis is determined by monsoons, and is a fixed,
abstracted axis, but the other is determined by the location of the central
mountain, and thus the one bearing varies continuously when one
circumnavigates the island’ (Levinson 2003: 49).
Leaving aside the fact that this description of the use of the monsoon-determined axis is inaccurate, given the monsoon axis rotates according to one’s location with respect to the mountain, forming a cross axis approximately perpendicular to the mountainward-seaward axis
(Wassmann & Dasen 1998; for similar phenomena in Marshallese and other Austronesian languages, see §5.3.3.3), this concept of fixedness is problematic. As Palmer (2015) points out, one can only regard cardinal directions like ‘east’ and ‘west’ as fixed and other geocentric directions as not fixed if one privileges the European cardinal system above all others. For example, the Balinese mountainward-seaward axis, lexified as kaja-kelod in the Balinese language, is regarded by Levinson as not being fixed. This is certainly true for a European observer holding their conceptual system of cardinals as sacrosanct. On the north side of Bali, where the mountain is to the south, kaja is southward, but on the east side of Bali kaja is westward, and so on. But for a Balinese speaker, it is the European cardinals which are not fixed.
Sometimes ‘north’ is kaja, sometimes it is kelod, depending on where one is located, but kaja is
40 always kaja. Thus, we can only regard the Balinese directions as not fixed if we “privilege the
English cardinal system over all others” (Palmer 2015: 188).
2.2.5.3 Absolute frame of reference: binary or ternary? Levinson also characterises the absolute frame of reference as binary, like the intrinsic FoR but unlike the relative FoR which is ternary because it invokes a viewpoint, though Levinson in later work does also describe it as ternary (Levinson & Wilkins 2006b: 542). The analysis of the absolute FoR as binary has been disputed by both Bohnemeyer (2012) and Palmer (2015) on different bases. Palmer’s argument is simple: given that invoking or understanding the absolute
FoR requires knowledge of not only the location of the Figure and Ground, but also a Slope anchored in features of the external world, the absolute FoR therefore constitutes a ternary relationship between Figure, Ground and Slope. This to some extent follows logically from previous arguments against the abstractness of the slope. If the slope is a concrete entity, then it is easier to refer to it as a third participant in the absolute FoR. Even if we choose to regard the slope as abstract, there is still a powerful argument for treating the absolute FoR as a ternary relationship, because it, like the relative FoR, operationally depends on an anchor point outside the Figure-Ground dyad (Palmer 2015). As we have seen, this is also the rationale Danziger
(2010) gives for describing the absolute FoR as ternary, adducing Levinson (1996a) and Majid et al. (2004) in the process, though neither treat it as such. For Danziger and Palmer, a FoR may be classified as ternary if the anchor point is not located within the Ground entity, but instead outside the Figure-Ground array.
Bohnemeyer (2012) goes a step further, rejecting the binary-ternary distinction entirely.
They give several reasons for doing so, but here we shall just examine the most powerful one, which lies in the fact that any frame of reference requires knowing the location of three independent entities: the Figure, Ground, and Anchor of the coordinate system. It just so happens in the intrinsic frame of reference that the anchor is located within the ground, but for
Bohnemeyer (2012: 22) this is merely incidental: 41
“If relative place functions are ternary, intrinsic place functions ought to be
ternary, too. Both designate regions defined with respect to grounds in a
reference frame derived from an anchor. The anchor is the observer’s body in
the case of relative interpretations and the ground itself in intrinsic ones. But
the roles of anchor and ground in the truth conditions of spatial representations
are distinct […]”
From a purely conceptual perspective this is perhaps a valid point. However, the binary- ternary distinction espoused by Danziger (2010) and Palmer (2015) is still useful in that it provides a principled means of classifying different FoRs, depending on the ontological nature of the relationship between the Figure, Ground and Anchor. This is not merely arbitrary, for whether a FoR is binary or ternary affects its truth conditions under certain types of manipulation of the elements in the scene. For example, the intrinsic FoR, as a binary relationship between Figure and Ground, still holds under rotation of the Figure-Ground array, whereas this is not the case for the absolute or relative frames of reference, because in the latter case, the positions of the Figure and Ground have moved with respect to the anchor point of the coordinate system (see §2.2.4).
2.2.5.4 The status of the absolute frame of reference Thus far I have problematised all three of the criteria by which Levinson distinguishes the absolute frame of reference from other geocentric spatial descriptions, which Levinson treats as subtypes of the intrinsic FoR.
Given that the distinction between a landmark and a slope not categorical – as exemplified by the Balinese kaja-kelod axis – and that even the most ‘prototypical’ example of the absolute FoR – cardinals – are not always as abstract as they first appear, it is not clear why
Levinson chooses to regard landmarks as not part of the absolute FoR. It is important to keep in mind that, though often not made explicit, a central goal of the MPI’s research program was to use the diversity present in spatial systems across languages as a testing ground for relativistic 42 inquiries into the relationship between language and thought. A central focus of this program involved not only describing linguistic performance, but also cognitive ability, cultural practice, and the correlations between them (see §3.1). For example, the fact that Guugu Yimidhirr speakers primarily employ the absolute frame of reference linguistically (in the form of a cardinal system) is used to explain differences in spatial memory, cognition, and wayfinding ability, between them and speaker of languages such as English or Dutch (Levinson 1997, 1998, 2003: chapter 4; Pederson et al. 1998; Majid et al. 2004; inter alia). Therefore, we might assume that for this research program to be meaningful, a way of clearly demarcating and delineating between cognitively demanding situations requiring skills such as dead-reckoning even in the absence of cues in the landscape and simply remembering situations according to prominent objects in the local environment. The former is certainly likely to require greater spatial awareness and memory than the latter. In light of the aims of the MPI research program, lumping together landmarks and cardinal directions would be muddying the waters.
Having established that that Levinson’s criteria for the distinction between landmark and absolute FoR is problematic, we must now decide whether there is an important distinction to be made, and if so, upon what criteria ought this distinction to be based.
2.2.5.5 Palmer’s (2015) grammatical criteria for expressions of frames of reference On the basis of the above arguments, Palmer (2015) argues that there is no principled reason to distinguish ‘classically absolute’ FoRs from systems such as mountainward-seaward or even completely ad hoc referents like treeward, as operationally, they behave identically.
However, Palmer does employ the term ‘landmark’ as distinguished from FoRs on the level of linguistic structure. Using English as an example, Palmer argues that expressions such as
(1a,c) are in the absolute frame of reference whereas sentences such as those in (2) are landmarks.
(1) a. The man is east of the tree.
43
b. *The man is boat of the tree.
c. The man is beachward from the tree.
d. ?The man is boatward from the tree.
(2) a. The man is on the east side of the tree.
b. The man is towards the east from the tree.
c. The man is on the boat side of the tree.
d. The man is towards the boat from the tree.
This is because in the sentences in (2), the NP expressing the anchor of the coordinate system is a generic NP, which can be headed by any noun. On the other hand, anchors of the coordinate system employed in (1a,b) are expressed by directional adverbs, which Palmer (2015) regards as grammaticised members of a spatial referencing system. Note in particular the use of the derivational suffix –ward(s) which is used to productively derive new directional adverbs from nominals. However, as Palmer (2015: 196) points out, its scope is somewhat limited, for example one cannot say *The boat sailed treacherous uncharted reefward. Furthermore, the introduction of these grammatical criteria does not only serve to distinguish landmarks from an absolute FoR, but from other FoRs as well. For example, a sentence such as The man is left of the man remains the relative FoR in Palmer’s perspective because left is used as a directional adverb, but a sentence in which left is used as generically as the head of a full NP such as The man is to the left side of the man, expresses a proposition which encodes the relative FoR, but linguistically does not contain an expression of FoR at all, here ‘left’ is merely a landmark.
This typological formulation of the encoding of space in linguistic structure is useful in that it allows those interested in using the domain of space for Neo-Whorfian inquiries into linguistic relativity to have a principled way of distinguishing habitual linguistic behaviour from more ad hoc references to the immediate environment. Generally, one would expect directional adverbs, being members of a more grammaticised, less open word class, to be used with higher
44 frequency than common nouns (Bybee & Hopper 2001). Thus one could potentially treat membership of a grammaticised class, if not necessarily as a proxy for habitual linguistic use, then at least as the first place in which to look. Also, it has been argued (Heine 1997; Enfield
2002; Everett 2012) that features of a language’s structure reflect the cultural values, practices, or beliefs that a given language community holds prominent. Thus Palmer’s distinction between
FoR and landmark expressions affords a valuable opportunity for those interested in relativistic questions to marry the domain-centred approach as initially fostered by the research program at the MPI to a structure-centred approach as espoused by Lucy (2011; see §3.2.3).
However, this typology is not without its problems. Firstly, though what is grammaticised in a language generally corresponds to habitual patterns of use, it need not necessarily be so. One need look no further than English, where cardinals may be used as a directional adverbs but are not all that commonly used by most speakers in modern day. Thus, grammaticised forms can only ever be indicative of conceptual salience of their referents to speakers, but this still must be tested for by other means. Secondly, the frame of reference vs landmark dichotomy operates based on whether the spatial terms are ‘grammaticised’ in the language in question. Palmer illustrates what this means for English but does not formalise the criteria so that they are universally applicable.
Furthermore, while Palmer is far from the only person to use expressions like ‘frame of reference’ in terms of linguistic structure, this terminological overlap with the more typical conceptual or operational definition has the potential for ambiguity and confusion. Such a classification has the possibility of contributing towards this confusion. For example, it has been common in linguistics to misleadingly use language-centred, rather than speaker-centred ways of talking about spatial topics (3a,b), though this occurs in other fields too (e.g. Psychology, (3c).
(3) a. “Although there are languages, like the Australian language Guugu Yimidhirr […] that
use [the intrinsic FoR] minimally […]” (Levinson 2003: 81).
45
b. “Children learning an Absolute language acquire the relevant linguistic expressions just
as early as children learning a Relative language” (Majid et al. 2004: 112).
c. “In sum, the acquisition of FoR terms follows a protracted time course for both absolute
and relative languages […]” (Shusterman & Li 2016: 120)
Statements like the above which metaphorically treat languages as objects in their own right, divorced from the speech context are by no means restricted to spatial literature and indeed are a common rhetorical device throughout the field of linguistics. However, in the case of the MPI-associated linguists interested in Whorfian views of language, this phraseology can reflect theoretical biases. For Whorfian effects to be occurring, FoRs must be a property of the language qua language, distinct from the conceptual categories of the speakers themselves.
However, despite calling English a ‘relative language’ (3b), there is no structural property of
English which favours the relative FoR over the absolute FoR, as both cardinals and body axis terms are grammaticised in the similar ways (e.g. they may both be used as directional adverbs).
The only way in which English is a ‘relative language’ is that its speakers habitually use – or prefer to use – the relative FoR. Similarly with Guugu Yimidhirr speakers, the fact that Levinson states that they use the intrinsic FoR “minimally” (3a) indicates that they are capable of using it. Again, the designation of Guugu Yimidhirr as an ‘absolute language’ merely indicates preference for its habitual use.
Given this potential for confusion, it is preferable to reserve the term ‘frames of reference’ for real-world conceptual and experiential phenomena rather than a structural category within language. Nonetheless, given we have established that there is often a relationship between how a phenomenon is represented in linguistic structure and what is conceptually important/salient to the speaker, Palmer’s observation is important. Thus in subsequent work
Palmer, together with the rest of the ARG group, has elaborated and refined on the idea of the relevance of what concepts are grammaticised in language from a strictly spatial understanding
46 to a more broadly applicable typological classification, nevertheless still relevant to the spatial domain (see Palmer et al. 2015).
2.2.5.6 Landmarks as head-anchored Frames of Reference In more recent research, particularly that coming out of the ‘MesoSpace’ research program headed by Jürgen Bohnemeyer at the University at Buffalo (O’Meara & Pérez Báez 2011; Polian
& Bohnemeyer 2011; Bohnemeyer 2012; Bohnemeyer & O’Meara 2012b; Bohnemeyer & Tucker
2013), a terminological distinction between ‘landmarks’ on the one hand and the absolute (or intrinsic) frame of reference on the other is maintained. However, unlike the definitions used by
Levinson or Palmer, the MesoSpace distinction relies solely on the formal properties emergent from the relationship between Figure, Ground and Anchor.
Thus far three FoRs have been identified on the basis of whether the truth conditions of the FoR hold under constancy of either the viewer, or the Ground. All the FoRs discussed can be thought of as angular-anchored. In the direct, relative and intrinsic FoRs, the coordinates – based on the (perceived) inherent axes of the Ground/Viewpoint – project outwards axially along a vector extending from the volumetric centre of the Ground/Viewpoint. Similarly, with the absolute FoR as defined by Levinson, even though the Slope extends infinitely across the landscape, the coordinates of the Slope are nevertheless centred on the Ground object. In a FoR description such as The man is north of the tree, the coordinate system of the FoR is anchored to the tree such that a different cardinal axis projects outwards in each direction from the tree’s volumetric centre.
Bohnemeyer & O’Meara (2012) introduce the concept of a head-anchored FoR, in which the constitutive element derived from the anchor is not an axis, but rather the end-point of a vector. They call this a ‘landmark-based’ FoR, and describe it thus:
“Both egocentric and geocentric FoRs can be either angular-anchored, in which
case their axes are derived through transposition or abstraction from axes or
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gradients of the anchor, or head-anchored, in which case their axes point
towards the anchor.”
(Bohnemeyer & O’Meara 2012: 219, original emphasis)
Or to put it another way: a FoR is angular-anchored if the search domain has only a defined source, but is head-anchored if it has an explicit goal as well, which is the Landmark. In the descriptions in (4), a search domain is projected from the Ground to the Landmark, and the
Figure may be found along this search domain. This Landmark functions as the goal, or ‘head’ of the vector, towards which the search domain is projected.
(4) a. The ball (F) is towards the house (L) from the hill (G).
b. The ball (F) is on my side (L)10 of the house (G). (Figure 12)
c. The ball (F) is seaward (L) from me (G).
The ball is on my side of the house The ball is towards the house from me
G L = A
F F
L = A G
Figure 12: The relationship between Landmark and Ground in head-anchored FoRs
Note that the egocentric (4c) – object-centric (4b) – geocentric (4a) trichotomy may still be applied to the head-anchored FoR, yielding three subtypes. Angular-anchored FoRs are
10 Here “my side” is used spatially to refer to the side of the house facing the speaker. 48 affected by rotation of the anchor; therefore what entity anchors the coordinate system is relevant (see Table 7). Conversely, the landmark-based FoR, being head-anchored, is not affected by rotation of the anchor, but it is affected by the movement of the anchor
(Bohnemeyer & O’Meara 2012). Of course, angular-anchored FoRs are affected by movement of the anchor too, but comparatively less so than head-anchored FoRs. For the descriptions in
(4) any lateral movement (with respect to the direction of the search domain) of the anchor (i.e. the landmark) results in violation of the truth conditions of the description. On the other hand, angular-anchored descriptions such as those in (5) permit lateral movement of the anchor to some extent (see also Figure 4; Figure 10).11
(5) a. The man is in front of house. (object-centred)
b. The man is to the left of the tree. (relative)
c. The man is north of the tree. (absolute)
d. The tree is in front of me. (direct)
Descriptions which fall under Bohnemeyer’s head-anchored frame of reference had previously been the subject of varied and inconsistent analysis. This is exacerbated by the fact that in head-anchored descriptions, the nature of the anchor is irrelevant in terms of the truth conditions of the array under manipulation. However, perhaps understandably, the nature of the anchor has nevertheless influenced the classification of these sorts of constructions.
Oceanicists (e.g. Bennardo 2000; François 2004; Senft 2001; Palmer 2015) especially have tended to classify systems with geocentric anchors as absolute, whereas many members of the
MPI have tended towards classifying object-centred head-anchored descriptions as intrinsic, and similar geocentric descriptions as either intrinsic (Levinson 2003: 199) or in a liminal area between the absolute and the intrinsic FoR (Levinson 2003: 91; Levinson et al. 2002: 173;
11 Though note that under the strict Levinsonian definition of the absolute, lateral movement of the anchor is an incoherent proposition, because the slope is immobile, stretching infinitely across the landscape. 49
Pederson 2003a: 290–291). In terms of the rotational properties Levinson identifies, the head- anchored FoR is more similar to the absolute FoR, showing constancy under rotation of both the
Ground and the viewer. Arguably, they are also constant under rotation of the ‘whole array’ depending on whether one considers the landmark as part of the array. If one accepts the landmark as part of the array, then in that respect head-anchored descriptions are more similar to the intrinsic. Of course, one is more likely to be consider the landmark as part of the array if it is of a similar scale, proximal and ‘movable’ which goes some way to explaining the classificational ambiguity. Additionally, as previously discussed (§2.2.5.4), interpreting even geocentric head-anchored descriptions as intrinsic fits in with the research goals of the MPI space research program. However, typologising head-anchored descriptions as a distinct FoR from the absolute has the same effect with the bonus of removing ambiguity.
2.2.6 A revised classification So far we have discussed the Levinsonian approach to typologising frames of reference, as well as several of the prominent critiques and revisions suggested. Here the typology to be adopted for this work is presented. This typology is broadly similar to that adopted by the MesoSpace project (e.g. O’Meara & Pérez Báez 2011; Bohnemeyer & O’Meara 2012a; Bohnemeyer & Tucker
2014; inter alia) and is similar to that of Lum (2018). The key difference between the classification of Lum compared to that of the MesoSpace group is that Lum regards viewer- landmarks (which he calls SAP-landmarks) as a subtype of the landmark-based FoR whereas the
MesoSpace group regards them as a subtype of the direct FoR. Given that viewer-landmarks behave in essentially the same way as allocentric landmarks (there is still a search domain projected from the ground along a vector pointing towards the anchor), I follow Lum in regarding viewer-landmarks as subtypes of the landmark-based FoR. However, while Lum makes a bipartite distinction between viewer-landmarks and object-landmarks, here Lum’s ‘object- landmark’ subcategory is split with the inclusion of an additional environment-landmark category, creating a tripartite distinction with the landmark-based FoR. This is useful in that it 50 makes the head-anchored FoRs parallel the angular-anchored FoRs, which are egocentric
(relative, direct intrinsic), object-centred (object-centred intrinsic) or geocentric (absolute). This distinction is valuable, because for some linguistic communities, the environment-centred distinction might be more conceptually salient, and hence the community may choose to use the absolute FoR in conjunction with environment-landmarks, but disprefer object-anchored or egocentric FoRs, whether head or angular-anchored. Section §6.3.1.1 shows this to be true for different Marshallese communities, with the Marshall Islands sites showing a preference for geocentric strategies and the Springdale community preferring object-centric and egocentric
FoRs. Note that the distinction between object-centric and geocentric is not always simple.
Some landmarks like trees or houses may be conceptualised as mobile or fixed, depending on a variety of factors (e.g. size, cultural practices such as nomadic vs settled communities, etc.).
According to Bohnemeyer & O’Meara (2012) the head vs angular-anchored dichotomy is intended to exist alongside and complement previous typologies. However, given Levinson’s
(2003: 314) own claim that frames of reference “are distinguished by their logical (inferential) and rotational properties”, it does not seem useful, or indeed coherent, to retain the intrinsic
FoR as a catch-all category for FoRs which do not easily fit in the other categories. Rather, the term ‘intrinsic’ will henceforth be reserved for the primary FoR type consisting of direct and object-centred subtypes. These two are grouped together (as Levinson does but contra
Bennardo (2000; 2009) for whom the direct FoR is a subtype of the relative FoR, as well as
Danziger (2010) for whom it is a primary FoR type alongside the object-centred intrinsic) because operationally they function the same way, the only difference is the status of the ground
(egocentric vs object-centric). Table 8 below shows the typology adopted for this study, contrasted with that adopted by the MPI program (as outlined in Levinson 2003) and the
MesoSpace project. The major FoR type is motivated by the conceptual structure of the frame of reference (whether head or angular-anchored, binary or ternary, slope or viewpoint) as well as the rotational properties of the various FoRs. 51
Primary FoR Subtypes Classification according Head- or Example MPI MesoSpace type to nature of Anchor angular- anchored
Reflectional; Angular- The ball is in front of the chair.* Relative Translational; Egocentric Relative Relative anchored *from the viewer’s perspective Rotational
Angular- The ball is in front of the chair.* Object- Object-centered Object-centric anchored *with respect to the chair’s own front centered Intrinsic Angular- Direct Egocentric The ball is in front of me. anchored Direct Head- Viewer-landmark Egocentric The ball is toward me from the chair. Intrinsic anchored Head- Landmark- Object-landmark Object-centric The ball is toward the door from the chair. anchored based Landmark- based Environment- Head- Geocentric The ball is seawards from the chair. landmark anchored
Angular- Absolute, Absolute Geocentric The ball is north of the chair. Absolute anchored Geomorphic12
Table 8: Revised classification of Frames of Reference
12 The MesoSpace group distinguishes the absolute FoR which is abstract and extends through all of space from the geomorphic FoR which is restricted in space. This distinction is useful in some situations, but not so much for describing Marshallese, so it is not taken up here. 52
Additionally, Figure 13 shows a decision tree which can be used to assess the FoR subtype of a given spatial description, using rotational tests for angular-anchored FoRs, or if the description is head-anchored then simply according to the nature of the landmark in question.
Note that this tree does not show all the identified subtypes in Table 8 as some do not depend on qualities of the Anchor itself, rather other distinctions such as mapping strategy in the case of the relative subtypes.
Felicitous under Frame of rotation of viewer Reference
No Direct
No
Object- Yes Centred No Felicitous under rotation of Ground? No Relative
Yes
Felicitous under Yes Absolute Description rotation of Anchor?
Environmental Environment- feature landmark Goal of search domain is... Viewer- Yes Viewer landmark
Object- Other landmark
Figure 13: How to assess a spatial description for FoR type using rotational tests
Though Levinson’s tripartite typology of FoRs has been influential and captures important differences in how the FoRs operate, its use of an ill-defined, overly broad ‘intrinsic’
FoR as a dump category for any FoR not clearly relative or absolute has also led to confusion, as shall be seen in §3.3.1. The MesoSpace distinction of landmark-based vs true intrinsic FoRs goes
53 some way towards remedying this and the typology adopted here improves on the MesoSpace typology in some small ways, primarily by distinguishing viewer-landmarks from the direct intrinsic FoR. While only some of the FoR types shown in Table 8 are likely to be relevant in any given situation, the expanded typology above gives the option of distinguishing between potentially relevant features when necessary.
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3 Language, environment, and cognition: a tangled web
One of the primary aims of this thesis is to explore the nature of the relationship between language, culture, cognition and environment as pertains to linguistic spatial reference, as well as spatial reasoning and cognition. Chapter 2 reviewed how spatial frames of reference have been classified in previous literature. This chapter discusses the nature and causes of diversity in spatial referencing and reasoning strategies in cultures around the world (§3.1). It focuses on two different hypotheses, the linguistic relativity (or Sapir-Whorf) hypothesis (§3.2) primarily championed by Stephen Levinson and others at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics
(MPI) at Nijmegen (e.g. Pederson et al., 1998; Levinson, 2003; Majid et al., 2004), contrasting it with hypotheses of environmental (or ecological) determinism (§3.3) such as those proposed by
Li & Gleitman (2002), and by Palmer (2015). Finally, in §3.5 I conclude that the evidence points towards a holistic analysis which treats spatial reference and cognition as emergent from interaction with one another as well as from pressures exerted by the physical environment and the human behavioural patterns fosters. This idea is explored in Chapter 9.
Space in language and cognition This section describes the background and motivations of the MPI research program, before going onto discuss some of its key findings in terms of linguistic diversity and its non-linguistic correlates.
3.1.1 Assumptions of universal anthropomorphism In several places, Levinson (1992; 2003; Brown & Levinson 1992) situates his research as a reaction to the universalist, anthropomorphic understandings of the nature of spatial language and cognition which had been assumed in psychological and psycholinguistic research until that point. Received wisdom held that human conceptualisation of space is universally and innately modelled on the human body, and as such discussion on spatial reference and cognition revolved around the body axes (up, down, front, back, left right) (c.f. Clark, 1973; Levelt 1989;
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Miller & Johnson-Laird 1976; inter alia). Levinson (1992) states during the beginning of the MPI space program that this view reflects the ‘fairly extreme rationalism’ that pervaded the cognitive sciences during the latter half of the 20th century, which had tended to minimize or ignore observations about cultural or linguistic differences. Thus Levinson positions the MPI space program as primarily motivated uncovering and demonstrating linguistic and cognitive diversity.
This sentiment is also expressed in the closing line of Brown & Levinson (1992: 605), which calls for a resurgence of the empiricism which characterised the first half of the 20th century:
“We may thank Tzeltal for reminding us of the older view that languages may
reveal startling differences in conceptualization of the world.”
In the early days, Levinson was more interested in calling attention to linguistic and cognitive diversity and stimulating empirical research in this direction. Under this research paradigm, it was assumed that given this diversity in linguistic and cognitive patterns exists, they will correlate together, and the mechanism underlying this correlation would be a form of linguistic relativity (see §3.2).
3.1.2 Uncovering diversity By the mid-1990s, a large team of researchers affiliated with the MPI were studying the linguistics of spatial reference in their respective languages of interest, as well as performing various types of cognitive tests and experiments in order to ascertain speakers’ spatial reasoning and cognition.
This research uncovered a large variety of spatial referencing techniques. While some cultures had interesting variations on the relative and intrinsic frames of reference (Chapter 2), attention was primarily directed towards languages whose speakers mainly employed the absolute frame of reference (§2.2.3; §2.2.5.2) in order to counter the predominance of anthropomorphist views. This research program was extremely successful, unearthing several linguistic communities which preferred to navigate using coordinate systems centred not on the
56 human body, as was previously supposed to be universal, but rather were either centred on certain features within the local environment, such as the mountainward-seaward system of
Balinese, or else were more abstract, stretching infinitely across the environment, such as cardinal directions in Guugu Yimidhirr, which are clearly motivated by environmental features such as the rising and setting locations of the sun, prevailing wind direction, etc. (see Levinson
2003: 129), but are not specifically tied to any in particular. The following section discusses the spatial systems and spatio-cognitive abilities of speakers of Guugu Yimidhirr and speakers of
Tzeltal, two languages which have been the subject of extensive study by Levinson and colleagues.
3.1.2.1 Evidence from Guugu Yimidhirr and Tzeltal Guugu Yimidhirr is a Pama Nyungan language spoken in Cape York Peninsula at the northern end of the state of Queensland, Australia. It has become well-known in the spatial reference literature due to studies by Levinson (1997) and John Haviland (1993; 1998), which revealed a total lack of the relative FoR and only marginal use of the intrinsic FoR. Instead, Guugu
Yimidhirr speakers primarily utilise the absolute FoR, by means of a subclass of nominal roots which can also be used adverbially. While the language does have terms for one’s left and right hands, these are not extended spatially. As the community was in a state of sociolinguistic flux and the language was changing rapidly, Levinson performed the majority of his research with older males who were indicated by the community to have particular traditional linguistic knowledge and skill (Levinson 1997; Levinson 2003:chap. 4). Thus it is important to note that despite the fact that Levinson and other authors refer to the linguistic and cognitive expression of space in ‘Guugu Yimidhirr’, in actuality these findings cannot be generalised beyond a small subsection of the entire community of Guugu Yimidhirr speakers. In fact, unpublished research by de León (1995) shows that the spatial referencing practices of younger speakers have diverged significantly from previous generations.
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Tzeltal is a Mayan language spoken by communities living in the valleys of the Mexican province of Chiapas. Along with Guugu Yimidhirr, the dialect of Tzeltal spoken in Tenejapa was one of the primary linguistic communities initially studied by Levinson – along with Penelope
Brown – in order to explore issues relating to the relationship between language and cognition in the spatial domain (see Brown & Levinson 1992; Brown & Levinson 1993a; Levinson 2003).
These studies demonstrate that while speakers of Tzeltal have morphologically complex expressions to refer to left and right hands (much like Marshallese, §5.4.2), they are not extended to the spatial domain. Instead, Tzeltal speakers primarily use an ‘uphill-downhill’ system of spatial reference, which relies on the prevailing incline, as well as the intrinsic FoR (for a detailed account of the spatial grammar of Tzeltal, see Brown, 2006). The functionality of this system is made possible due to the mountainous topography speakers of Tzeltal inhabit.
3.1.3 Cognitive correlations A battery of experiments designed to test various aspects of non-linguistic spatial cognition demonstrate that people who habitually use the absolute FoR in language (Guugu Yimidhirr,
Tzeltal) also think and reason using the absolute FoR. This can be contrasted with speakers of languages like Dutch, who use the relative FoR both linguistically and non-linguistically.
For example, comparing dead-reckoning abilities, Levinson (2003: 241-43) notes that the
Guugu Yimidhirr-speaking sample was only off an average of 17° from the target. The Tzeltal- speaking Tenejapan Mayans also performed relatively well, with a mean derivation of only 30°.
However, British English speakers were off by an average of 54°.
Several spatial memory tasks were also performed. These tasks, which include Animals in a Row and Scout Game (Chapter 8), are designed to test whether participants remember scenes according to absolute or relative coordinates. A detailed account of the methodologies involved, as well as the results for the Marshallese sample, may be found in Chapter 8.
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Levinson (2003, pp. 157-59) compares results from the animals in a row game between a Tzeltal-speaking community and a Dutch-speaking community. In the Tzeltal-speaking community, 75% of participants were judged to be ‘consistent’ absolute coders (i.e. produced an absolute response on at least four out of five trials), while the rest were inconsistent coders.
Conversely, 95% of the Dutch-speaking subjects were found to be consistent relative coders.13
In another task, the ‘Maze-Completion task’, speakers of Guugu Yimidhirr were asked to first observe an uncompleted circuit and, after being rotated 180°, select the card showing the path to complete the circuit from three options which included paths derived from a relative mapping, an absolute mapping, and a distractor (Figure 14).14
13 Methodology for coding of participants discussed in Chapter 8. 14 This task was later refined and renamed the ‘Scout Game’ or ‘Steve’s Maze’. Results from its application on a Marshallese-speaking community are discussed in Chapter 8. 59
Figure 14: Levinson's (2003: 140) Maze Completion Task
The results from these and several other non-linguistic tasks are described in detail by
Levinson (2003: chapters 4–5). Suffice to say that these tasks with GY and Tzeltal showed correlations between each language’s dominant FoR strategy and its speakers spatial reasoning strategies, and these findings have been repeatedly demonstrated (see Pederson et al. 1998 for results from other linguistic communities). However, these findings have been disputed, particularly the Animals in a Row results. Li & Gleitman (2002) argue that the differences in results between populations can be put down to a simple environmental determinism, whereby subjects with immediate perceptual access to the environment, due to the
60 experiment being held outdoors, utilise an absolute coding strategy and conversely, subjects indoors prefer relative coding strategies. These arguments are discussed further in §3.3.1.
3.1.4 Summary The MPI research program has been resoundingly successful in demonstrating correlations between spatial language and spatial cognition. The explanation put forward to account for this correlation has been linguistic relativity, the proposition that the language one speaks influences one’s cognitive processes and cultural worldview (see Pederson et al., 1998; Levinson, 2003;
Majid et al., 2004; inter alia). The following section discusses the history of the hypothesis before presenting Levinson’s arguments for relativistic processes in the spatial domain.
Causes of diversity: linguistic relativity The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that the structure of a language affects the cognitive patterns of its speakers. It is often discussed in terms of a ‘strong’ and a ‘weak’ version. The ‘strong’ version holds that language constrains – or at least has a powerful deterministic effect – on thought. The ‘weak’ version holds that language structure and use only influence thought. The strong version is sometimes referred to as linguistic determinism. Whorf originally called his theory the ‘linguistic relativity principle’ and today the term linguistic relativity is used either to refer to weaker forms of the hypothesis, or as an all-encompassing synonym for the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis generally.
As stated above, a central aim of the MPI research program from the outset was to use space as a domain in which to test the relativity hypothesis:
“Since the demise of strong claims about linguistic relativity, the subject is often
either circumvented, or it is assumed without demonstration that the
differences between the semantic structure of languages are relatively small,
allowing translation into a universal conceptual level, the 'language of thought'.
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One of the reasons for studying a domain like space is that it may throw light on
this difficult, but not unstudiable, subject.” (Levinson 1992)
This section gives a brief and abridged overview of the history of relativistic approaches to the relationship between language and thought, followed by discussing and evaluating the claims made about the domain of space, and the empirical bases for these claims.
3.2.1 Background The history of Western scholarship dating back at least to Plato has acknowledged a relationship between language and thought. For Plato, both language and thought shared their origin in abstract definitions or concepts called ‘forms’ which reflect an objective reality (Gill 1997: 132–
133). However, relativistic ideas about the relationship between language and world-view only began to develop in the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries, not coincidentally coinciding with the birth of both cultural anthropology and structural linguistics.
Based upon several decades study of the language and culture of the Inuit and other
Native American societies, Franz Boas (2011) made three claims about the nature of language:
(i) that language classifies experience; (ii) that different languages classify experience differently, and (iii) that linguistic phenomena are unconscious in character (Lucy 1992: 11–13). Though Boas did not himself claim that language affected thought, these claims form the scaffolding upon which Sapir and Whorf would build their theoretical orientations.
Boas’ ideas were further developed by one of his students, Edward Sapir, who believed that given languages encode and categorise one’s experience of reality into distinct categories in different ways, it therefore follows that speakers of different languages would perceive reality in different ways, i.e. he argued for a version of linguistic relativity:
“[…] Once abstracted from experience, [linguistic categories] are systematically
elaborated in language and are not so much discovered in experience as imposed
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upon it because of the tyrannical hold that linguistic form has upon our orientation
in the world.”
(Sapir 1931: 578)
These statements show a belief in a deterministic effect of language on interpretation and experience of reality, but Sapir also argued that differences in linguistic structures and the experiential world-view built upon them could be stripped away to a ‘common psychological ground’ (Sapir & Swadesh 1946: 104). Therefore, while language does influence how one experiences reality, it is nevertheless possible to peer through the linguistic veil and observe a universal psychological base (Lucy 1992: 17–24).
3.2.1.1 Benjamin Lee Whorf Benjamin Lee Whorf was a fire prevention engineer and amateur linguist who was a student of
Sapir. Aside from linguistic relativity, he published several papers on Native American culture and linguistics and invented the term ‘allophone’ (Carroll 1956). A detailed account of Whorf’s biography or theoretical outlook is beyond the scope of this study, but see Carroll (1956), Lee
(1996), or Lucy (1992: chapter 2). Instead I shall only briefly discuss his motivations before introducing the hypothesis, or rather ‘principle’, as he formulated it.
Like Boas and Sapir, Whorf was interested in differences in cross-linguistic patterns of categorisation. He published several detailed case studies demonstrating how different languages differed in their categorisation of certain phenomena (collected in Whorf 1956a).
Perhaps the most famous example is his account of time and temporality in Hopi (Uto-Aztecan,
USA) and how it differs from that of ‘Standard Average European’ (SAE) (Whorf, 1956a [1936]).
A key concept of Whorf is what he termed ‘fashion of speaking’, wherein the cultural world-view of speakers is integrated into their language and reflected across several linguistic domains
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(Whorf, 1956c [1939]: 158).15 For example, in his discussions of temporality in Hopi, Whorf claims several ways in which it differs from Standard Average European languages in terms of its linguistic encoding, arguing that these linguistic differences are tied to a fundamentally different way in which it is conceptualised by speakers of the respective languages (Table 9).
Standard Average European Hopi
‘temporals’ and ‘tensors’ Part of speech of time nominals (e.g. day, month, (equivalent to verbs and segments minute, second) adverbs)
Counting time (cardinal number +) plural noun ordinal number + singular
Inflectional verbal Tense, aspect ‘assertions’ (i.e. mood) categories
Spatiotemporal metaphors, e.g. Sources of temporal a ‘length’ of time No spatiotemporal or motion vocabulary and Motion metaphors, e.g. ‘days metaphors expressions passing’
Analysis: Time is an object, discrete, Time is duration, unspecified,
(fashion of speaking) countable cyclical
Table 9: Relationship between grammar and conceptual representations of time according to Whorf
Furthermore, (Whorf 1956c [1939]) argued that these differences in temporal cosmology between the two linguistic communities were responsible for differences in their cultural practices and artefacts, or non-linguistic behaviour. For example, SAE speakers’
‘objectified view of time’ leads to a focus on chronology: clocks, calendars, dating events, record-
15 The idea that linguistic structure has pervasive cultural correlates has more recently undergone a resurgence, e.g. (Perkins 1992; Enfield 2002; Everett 2012). However, these authors do not necessarily share Whorf’s ideas about the directionality of influence. 64 keeping, etc., whereas the Hopi view of time leads to a focus on preparedness and persistence which may appear excessive to Westerners. Both Whorf’s linguistic analysis of time in Hopi and his conclusions about their relationship to cultural practices and beliefs have since been debated extensively (see e.g. Malotki 1983; Lee 1991; Lee 1996) but these debates have little bearing on the truth-value of his conclusions of a ‘principle of linguistic relativity’, which he described thus:
“We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do,
largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way – an
agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the
patterns of our language. […] [W]e cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the
organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees. This fact is
very significant for modern science, for it means that no individual is free to
describe nature with absolute impartiality but is constrained to certain modes of
interpretation even while he thinks himself most free. […] We are thus
introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not
led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless
their linguistic backgrounds are similar […].”
(Whorf, 1956b [1940]: 213–214, emphases added)
While some (e.g. Pinker 1994: chapter 3; Wolff & Holmes 2011) have taken this and other of
Whorf’s statements as an indication that Whorf supported a strong linguistic determinism, some of his other writings suggest a belief in perceptual universalism (see Lee 1996; Levinson 2012).
To summarise, Whorf argues that different languages’ structures arbitrarily partition and categorise reality in different ways. Therefore, while there may be an objective reality, we are forced to interpret it through a subjective lens (i.e. language). Given this, speakers of different languages will have different conceptualisations and understandings of reality.
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3.2.2 The colour naming debate In 1950s, over a decade after the deaths of both Sapir and Whorf, interest in the relativity principle was heightening. However, despite advancing the view that language influences thought, neither Sapir nor Whorf ever attempted to test this position experimentally, nor even did either overtly formulate it as an empirically-testable hypothesis in the scientific sense. For
Sapir and Whorf, the relativity principle was simply axiomatic, but others were not so easily convinced.
3.2.2.1 Eric Lenneberg: initial studies One such person was Lenneberg (1953) who first proposed testing the relativity hypothesis, by means of a methodology which he termed the intracultural approach:
“Ethnolinguistic research based on cross-cultural comparison must endeavour
to isolate data, both on codification and on cognition, that are general enough
to have comparable equivalents in at least two different languages and
cultures.”
(Lenneberg, 1953, p. 468; emphasis added)
So according to Lenneberg, one can test the hypothesis by isolating how a domain is linguistically ‘codified’ as well as cognitive processes applicable to that domain. Note that this
‘psychologised’ definition of the relativity principle with its emphasis on cognition and cognitive processes is quite different to Whorf’s which relies on the content of habitual thought, or aspects of cultural worldview (Lucy 1992: chapter 5).
Lenneberg provided an example of potential application of the intracultural approach in the domain of colour, with a specific research question:
“To be more specific, in English obviously not all colours are named with equal
ease and unambiguity. Do English-speaking people therefore recognize easily-
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named (i.e. highly codeable) colors with greater facility than colors not so easily
named?”
(Lenneberg 1953: 469)
In other words, Lenneberg identifies a case where languages codify reality differently, namely variation in how ‘easily-named’ a colour is (e.g. a monolexeme versus a compound or phrase) and a parallel cognitive process or ability: recognisability of colours.
While Whorf and Sapir assumed the arbitrariness of all linguistic categorisation,
Lenneberg did not, instead arguing that the experimenter had to find a domain where linguistic categorisation was arbitrary:
“It is necessary that the codification criterion should be the ONLY criterion by
which the stimuli can be grouped in this way. If now the non-linguistic behavior
in response to the stimuli thus classified varies systematically in accordance with
the class to which the individual stimulus has been assigned, we may attribute
such regular variation in non-linguistic behavior to the regular variation in the
speech correlates.”
(Lenneberg 1953: 461)
Lenneberg proceeded to apply his methodology in experiments performed with English speakers (Brown & Lenneberg 1954) and speakers of Zuni (isolate, USA). Lenneberg & Roberts
(1956) found that the results supported the relativity hypothesis. Both English and Zuni speakers were more adept at recognising the colours which matched closer to the colour names in the respective languages. Zuni, which has a colour term which corresponds to both of English
‘yellow’ and ‘orange’ confused the yellow and orange colours in the stimulus set. Furthermore,
Zuni who were bilingual with English fell between the monolingual Zuni and the English-speaking sample in frequency of errors.
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3.2.2.2 A universalist challenge to arbitrariness: Berlin & Kay (1969) For Lenneberg and colleagues, the intralinguistic method allowed for the testing of effects of language on thought within a single language. Later, Brown (1976: 128) would admit that this was at least in part because they had “neither the means nor inclination to travel to one of the
Indian reservations in the Southwest”. Furthermore, Brown (1976: 133–34) goes on to admit that – despite Lenneberg’s above stipulation as to the importance of arbitrariness – they simply took it as axiomatic that other linguistic communities would produce different codifiability scores for the same array of colours. So while arbitrariness of categorisation system was considered critical to the validity of the experiment, no attempt was made to demonstrate its existence.
Famously, Berlin and Kay (1969) performed a similar study to that of Lenneberg across a large sample of cultural-linguistic groups. They attempted to better operationalise the codifiability criteria by creating a categorical dichotomy between ‘basic colour terms’ (BCTs) and non-basic colour terms. According to Berlin & Kay, in addition to being monolexemic, BCTs must not be hyponyms of another colour term (as ‘scarlet’ to red), nor may they be restricted to a certain class of objects (as ‘blond’ is to hair and furniture), or be recent borrowings. For doubtful cases, several ancillary criteria are also discussed.
There were two principal findings from this study. The first: that while the boundaries of the colour spectrum encoded by each BCT across languages did differ, sometimes greatly, their foci, the points within that spectrum most easily codifiable, were very similar across languages. Therefore, if two languages have a BCT encompassing RED, its exemplar will be a similar point in the spectrum for both languages. Secondly, that there appeared to be a systematic relationship in the form of an implicational scale between the number of BCTs in a language, and the locations of their foci within the colour spectrum.
1. All languages contain terms for white and black.
2. If a language contains three terms, then it contains a term for red. 68
3. If a language contains four terms, then it contains a term for either green or yellow (but
not both).
4. If a language contains five terms, then it contains terms for both green and yellow.
(Berlin & Kay 1969: 3)
From this synchronic typological observation, they extrapolate a diachronic pathway of
BCT acquisition within any given language, wherein each begins with a black-white (i.e. dark- light) distinction and progressively add more BCTs in compliance with the above hierarchy.
Since the publication of this study cross-linguistic research into colour semantics and terminology has been a rich field of research. Many subsequent studies have challenged, or amended several findings from Berlin and Kay’s (1969) original research, including some by the authors themselves, for example: the revision of above implicational scale and its categories into a dark and light > warm > cool hierarchy (Kay & Maffi 1999), challenging validity of BCTs (e.g.
Davies & Corbett 1995), and exceptions to the stages (e.g. Maclaury (1987) shows Shuswap has a category encompassing yellow and green, with a distinct blue category), all of which required re-evaluation of several of Berlin & Kay’s original claims.
Nevertheless, Berlin & Kay’s work, along with other subsequent studies with universalist findings (e.g. Heider 1972) was found to be persuasive by much of the field of cognitive science and its strong universalist position along with the increasing popularisation of a nativist conception of a ‘language faculty’ dampened enthusiasm for relativity research until the early
1990s.
3.2.2.3 Relativist critiques of Berlin & Kay and the universalist program After some time, several studies emerged having found relativistic effects in various areas of the colour domain (see Regier & Kay 2009; Everett 2013: chapter 7 for overview). Furthermore, some have challenged the foundations of the colour research enterprise as pioneered by Berlin
& Kay (1969). Lucy (1997a) has several critiques. Firstly, that the colour research is Eurocentric
69 in that it assumes that semantic categories across languages necessarily categorises a psychophysical reality. While speakers of many languages may produce a term when forced to in the face of a stimulus, this does not mean that these terms form a cross-linguistically valid category. In many languages terms which lexify colours, also colexify other non-colour concepts such as dryness or ripeness.
“If you begin convinced that you know what reality is and you go to see how
languages "map" it, you will find, inevitably, that they map the very same reality.
Why? Because the research procedure essentially presupposes this common
reality at every interpretive juncture. This radical realism yields a radical
universalism, because the universal finding is packed into the assumptions; it is
definitional.”
(Lucy 1997: 338; original emphasis)16
Lucy’s second argument is that research into BCTs has, in focusing on lexicalisation, ignored their morphosyntactic distribution. Therefore, in many cases it is doubtful whether they form a meaningful class. He shows that even in English BCTs do not have the same distributional properties; e.g. only black, white, and red may take the inchoative suffix -en; like BCTs and unlike other non-BCTs, blond can take the suffix -ish.
Thus Lucy’s arguments are that colour stimuli are an ethnocentric, that their use elicits a variety of forms which may not be solely or even primarily dedicated to the colour domain, which are then judged against Eurocentric grammatical criteria on whether they are a BCT or not. The end result of which, according to Lucy, is to fit the lexicon elicited by colour stimuli into an artificial BCT ‘box’.
16 Kay (1999) responds to this argument by claiming that BCTs in these languages are possibly simply polysemous, in the same way that green can be used to mean ‘ripe’ in English. 70
Levinson (2000) in his analysis of colour terms in Yélî Dnye, discusses the above concerns and outlines his criteria for ‘ameliorating the defects of the Berlin & Kay paradigm of research’
(p. 7). These are comprised of cross-cultural research in both the linguistic (a-c) and cognitive
(d-e) domain.
a) An in-depth exploration of the syntax, morphology and structural semantics of the word
classes with terms related to hue.
b) Discussion of both the typical use and full referential range of the terms in question,
without constraints imposed by a colour stimulus array.
c) A clear definition and delineation of the domain in question, based on sampling
d) More understanding on colour vision variation in different human populations.
e) Latency and classification tasks of the sort already performed on English speakers and
a limited amount of other societies.
3.2.3 Colour and space: domain-centred approaches to relativity As Levinson is the originator of the research paradigm into cross-cultural variation in spatial reference and spatial cognition, we may take the criteria expressed above as indicative of the approach espoused and endorsed by him and his collaborators. Indeed, one may contrast Lucy’s above critiques of the enterprise of using colour as a domain in which to test relativity with his praise of Levinson’s program:
“Indeed, it is fair to say that one of the most important contributions of [the MPI’s]
research effort has been to create a new kind of linguistic typology, a typology of
referential practice, that inventories and characterises systematically all the ways a
given domain can be referred to by each language and then builds a series of
typological generalizations from a comparison of these systems.”
(Lucy 2011: 51)
71
Unlike the colour research program, which was initially formulated by psychologists during a time where cross-cultural variation was less attended to or understood, Levinson and the bulk of his colleagues come from a tradition of anthropological linguistics. Thus one finds an emphasis on wide cross-linguistic sampling, with in-depth descriptions of linguistic structure and semantics (c.f. studies in Levinson & Wilkins 2006; inter alia), an undoubted improvement.
However, like the colour program, the space research program is what Lucy (1997a, 2011) has referred to as a ‘domain-centred’ approach to the linguistic relativity hypothesis.
The domain-centred approach to linguistic relativity involves taking a certain domain of experienced reality and asking how speakers of various languages encode or construe it. Its strength lies in that it facilitates large-scale cross-cultural comparison. One can assume that speakers of all languages need to talk space or colour and thus one can broadly apply the same techniques to eliciting the relevant linguistic terms or structures over a wide array of linguistic varieties. However, in selecting an avenue of inquiry, researchers are likely to select domains and devise elicitation strategies for these domains according to knowledge and beliefs derived from their own culture and ethnolinguistic background. This has the potential to lead to some of the methodological concerns outlined above for colour. Eliciting colour terms on the basis of a colour spectrum will necessarily fail to capture the semantic richness of systems where the terms are used for other concepts such as dryness or ripeness. Additionally, a targeted search for expressions used in a given domain will almost necessarily yield expressions for that domain, even if they are not salient or in habitual use. For example, Everett (2012: chapter 10) describes documenting a variety of ‘colour terms’ in Pirahã which on further investigation turned out to be only semi-conventionalised phrases, e.g. ‘it is like blood’ for RED. Everett goes on to argue that
Pirahã does not have basic colour terms according to the criteria stipulated by Berlin & Kay
(1969). This is Lucy’s central point; that if one goes looking for linguistic expressions applicable to a semantic domain, one can always find them. However, to ignore the linguistic structure and referential scope of these expressions is to ignore precisely the diversity where one might find 72 relativistic effects. This is not to say that the various universalist findings in the colour domain are not interesting or important. However, there exists a potentially infinite number of relativity experiments one could conduct. A positive finding in any given experiment forms evidence for linguistic relativity in at least one case, and therefore evidence for the existence of linguistic relativity as a whole. However, a universalist finding does not rule out relativistic effects in other areas. In this light it is surprising that Berlin & Kay’s findings had such a strong impact on the trajectory of relativistic research. After all, even with all the universalist findings, their results still displayed variation between languages and cultures, it is only that this variation was constrained by universal parameters (biological constraints on human visual perception). This finding is unexpected only if ones assumes utterly unconstrained variation. This point is also made Everett (2013: 175):
“In short, even if linguistic variation vis-à-vis color terms is constrained by
universal factors, that variation nevertheless exists. The natural question is
whether the linguistic variation that does exist impacts the nonlinguistic
processing of color terms. Surprisingly perhaps, given how Berlin and Kay’s
(1969) work was sometimes championed as the death knell for linguistic
relativity, until recently few attempts were made to systematically address this
question.”
Aside from the domain-centred approach, Lucy (1997a, 2011) also identifies two other approaches for investigating relativity: the structure-centred approach and the behaviour- centred approach (which will not be discussed further here). Rather than beginning with a domain of observable reality, the structure-centred approach takes structural differences between languages as the test variable. Whorf’s discussion of time in Hopi is one such example, as is Lucy’s (1996) more empirical study of the cognitive consequences of differences in number marking between Yukatek and English. The structure-centred approach has historically been less common than the domain-centred approach, but has recently become more popular with such 73 studies as Boroditsky, Schmidt & Phillips (2003) on perception of gendered qualities of inanimate objects on the basis of their gender marking in sex-based gender systems and studies on the cognitive consequences of languages with different types of spatio-temporal mapping
(Casasanto & Boroditsky 2008).
The structure-centred approach does not allow for large-scale linguistic comparison as easily as the domain-centred approach, because it requires a much deeper, more emic understanding of a language’s grammatical and semantic organisation. Lucy (1997b) points out that this can be remedied by means of a typological approach in characterising the linguistic structures. However, since typological categories are etic theoretical constructs (or
“comparative concepts”, per Haspelmath 2010) used to group sometimes disparate language- specific phenomena based on some shared feature or function, this runs the risk of essentially turning the structure-centred approach into a version of the domain-centred approach.
3.2.4 Arbitrariness of structural categories and semantic domains As shown in §3.2.4 above, for Sapir and Whorf the arbitrariness of linguistic categories was axiomatic. Whether Hopi or English did or did not employ spatio-temporal metaphors, or whether units of time were counted by means of ordinal or cardinal numbers, depended not on some cultural predilection or physiological difference of the members of either respective linguistic community, but was entirely coincidence, or historical happenstance.
As we have seen, Lenneberg too in choosing colour as the domain to test the relativity hypothesis, was motivated by belief that colour categorisation is arbitrary. Much of the universalist response hinged on demonstrating that colour categorisation is not arbitrary but rather emerges out of universal psychophysical responses to visual stimuli. Thus in terms of the colour debate, the universalist view essentially implies that variations in systems of colour categorisation are superficial manifestations of an underlyingly homogenous psychological response to external reality.
74
Given the importance of the arbitrariness criterion, it seems odd that colour, space, or indeed any semantic domain should become test cases for relativity. Prima facie, one would assume that the more abstract a category is, the more likely variation within that category is due to chance. It is difficult to argue that a table belongs to the masculine gender in German and the feminine in Spanish because of a cultural predilection for identifying tables with their respective genders (this is the basis of a study by Boroditsky, Schmidt & Phillips 2003). Especially in the case of languages like Spanish where lexemes are allocated gender relatively straightforwardly according to phonological patterning.17
It is a general advantage of the structure-centred approach that structural facts about language are much less accessible to the average speaker than semantic categorisation. While speakers regularly debate whether an object is a shade of blue or green, or whether or not a whale is a fish, rarely do speakers debate the gender of a noun. Given that semantic categorisation is more accessible to speakers, they are therefore more likely to be influenced extralinguistic facts compared to structural differences, which are more likely to be outside the consciousness of speakers.
For organisation within a category or domain to be arbitrary, it cannot be influenced by an external cause. Therefore, it is unsurprising that relativists rarely go to any significant effort to demonstrate the arbitrariness of their test category, as it is difficult to demonstrate a negative. An exception to this generalisation is Majid et al. (2004), discussed in §3.3.4 below.
Therefore, it has generally been up to the universalists to respond to relativists by searching for language-external causes for observed phenomena. In terms of the literature on the relationship between spatial reference and spatial cognition, the response to linguistic relativity has primarily been environmental determinism (§3.3).
17 In contrast to languages such as those in the Bantu family, where gender systems are much more transparently rooted in semantic categorisation. 75
3.2.5 Proposed mechanisms for linguistic relativity
One issue which has so far been neglected is the mechanism through which a proposed relativistic effect of language on thought would operate. Levinson (2003) argues that in order to speak a language with a geocentric co-ordinate system, an individual must constantly be oriented with respect to the orientation of these co-ordinates, since they never know when they may be required to produce or comprehend spatial information. Thus according to
Levinson (2003: 243) Guugu Yimidhirr forces its speakers to engage in dead-reckoning on a
“more or less constant basis”, which explains GY speakers’ exemplary dead-reckoning skills
(see §3.1.3). According to Levinson, this type of influence of language on thought is stronger than hypotheses such as thinking-for-speaking, an idea originally advanced by Slobin (1996) which holds that in order to linguistically communicate a concept, speakers must think in such a particular way in order be able encode the information in the linguistic mode the speaker is using. Under thinking-for-speaking, language effects on thought are only activated when speakers have to use language. There is empirical support for thinking-for- speaking in the related domain of motion event encoding. There are some languages which typically code the manner of the motion event in the main verb and path in a variety of other more peripheral linguistic structures (e.g. English I drove to school whereas there are other languages which do the opposite, coding path in the main verb and manner on a peripheral structure (e.g. Spanish Vine a la escuela en auto, lit. ‘I came to school by car’)(see
§4.10.1). Various studies of motion events have shown a relationship between linguistic mode of coding and non-linguistic features such as gestural coding (Kita & Özyürek 2003) and attention in the form of eye-tracking (Papafragou, Hulbert & Trueswell 2008). In
Papafragou et al.’s study, a relativistic effect was only observed when participants were told
76 in advance of watching the scene that they would then be required to verbally describe it.18
This, together with similar findings in the motion event domain (e.g. Gennari et al. 2002) supports a thinking-for-speaking form of linguistic relativity, but does not support the more persistent effects claimed by Levinson.
However, these observations do not explain the language-thought correlations observed in purely non-linguistic tasks such as Animals-in-a-Row (Chapter 8), which are purely memory tasks where there is no requirement for further linguistic coding. Of course,
Levinson’s explanation for Guugu Yimidhirr dead-reckoning abilities could be argued to apply here too. Since a speaker may at some point be required to describe a scene from memory, it is coded in memory in such a way to facilitate some future linguistic coding. If true, this explanation argues for language-on-thought effects beyond thinking-for-speaking.
Wolff & Holmes (2011) refer to this more long-term influence of language on thought as
‘thinking after language.’
Levinson’s thinking after language claims contradict the thinking-for-speaking findings above that state that language-on-thought effects only occur in anticipation of linguistic performance. One explanation could be that, as proposed by Wassmann & Dasen
(1998: 704), tasks like Animals-in-a-Row afford subvocalised mnemonic representations of the arrays. Therefore, while the AR task purports to be non-linguistic, it can be a linguistic task in disguise, as participants remember an array as something like “horse, tiger, turtle, all facing north/left”, in which case it follows logically that participants recreate the array in a manner consistent with their preferred linguistic FoR. Some evidence for this is found in the
Marshallese Animals-in-a-Row results (§8.4) Other tasks such as the Scout Game (§8.2) do not afford such simple linguistic mnemonics and accordingly often yield quite high rates of
18 Cardini (2010) finds similar when comparing English and Italian speakers. 77 egocentric coding, even amongst linguistically geocentric coders, though this task might bias egocentric coding for other reasons (see §8.3). If the linguistic mnemonic hypothesis is correct however, it would support categorisation studies in the colour domain where linguistic categorisation (in the form of basic colour terms) has been shown to improve colour distinction times, but only when language is online. Verbal interference tasks where participants were made to vocalise non-relevant information while performing the task remove the relativistic effect (Winawer et al. 2007; Gilbert et al. 2006). These studies show a thinking-with-language effect rather than a thinking-for-speaking effect (Wolff & Holmes
2011), suggesting that in these tasks spatial scenes are memorised and recalled linguistically, at least in part. Indeed, Majid et al. (2004: 109) come very close to making this point explicitly:
“[In order to speak a language like Guugu Yimidhirr, y]ou must code all
percepts that you might later want to talk about in terms of [geocentric] fixed
bearings, so you can say (or for that matter, think) ‘I must have left my glasses
to the north of the telephone’.” [Emphasis added]
It is important to note that none of these proposed ‘Neo-Whorfian’ forms of linguistic relativity presuppose that linguistic encoding must be arbitrary in the first place, as early scholars such as Lenneberg do. Nevertheless, these later Neo-Whorfians often stipulate that linguistic categorisation – e.g. spatial frames of reference preferences – is arbitrary (e.g. Levinson (2003: 173) where they are referred to as a “local arbitrary convention”) and occasionally argued strongly that this is so (Majid et al. 2004; Levinson
2003: chapter 5). However, given that arbitrariness is not a necessary condition for these proposed forms of influence of language on thought, the door is left open for other causes of variation. The next two sections will look at some of these proposed alternative causes of diversity in spatial language and cognition. 78
Finally, more recently Bohnemeyer et al. (2014: 215) propose a Linguistic
Transmission Hypothesis (LTH), which the frame as follows:
“Using any language or linguistic variety – independently of its structures – may
facilitate the acquisition of cultural practices of nonlinguistic cognition shared
among the speakers of the language.”
Many would not consider this idea of language as a transmission system for cognitive
practices a form of linguistic relativity at all, but the LTH nevertheless functions as an
explanation for diversity in spatial cognition. The LTH will be put aside for now, but will be
returned to in more detail in Chapter 9.
Environmental determinism and other causes of diversity Some have challenged claims of linguistic relativity on the one hand by seeking to demonstrate that the linguistic and/or cognitive representations of that domain are subject to universal constraints. However, as the Everett (2012: 175) quote above shows, just because there are biological constraints on the variation space, it does not follow that linguistic relativity cannot account for the heterogeneity which does exist. Thus, universalist counters to relativity must explain variation in terms of other causes. One proposed cause is the environment, which is broadly defined here as not only just the physical environment, but also the material culture.
In the colour debate, several such arguments have been advanced. For example, Lindsay
& Brown (2002) find that increased exposure to sunlight, and therefore UV-B light has caused peoples dwelling near the equator to be less capable of perceiving differences between blue and green due to physiological changes to the lens, thereby leading living in the tropics to be correlated with speaking languages which assign a single term to the blue-green colour space.
Therefore the correlation between perception and language can be explained as stemming from a third, environmental cause. Similarly, in an early review of Berlin & Kay, Conklin (1973) points out that the introduction of colour terms which are currently considered ‘basic’ into English is
79 connected to the incorporation of new items and technologies into the material culture. For example, purple is transparently derived from Latin purpura, a mollusc which was used to create the purple-coloured dye. The connection between the basic colour term orange and the fruit, which was only popularised in England in the 17th century, is readily accessible. Therefore, the new prominence of these visually distinct artefacts influences the development of the lexicon to facilitate categorisation of their properties. This suggestion that new technology stemming from industrialisation is responsible for increasing colour differentiation has been recently tested by Gibson et al. (2017), who find strong support for it. We shall see later that this argument in the colour domain is similar to those made by Palmer (2015) in the domain of space.
While the UV-B light argument and the technology argument are very different in their particulars – the former argues for an environmental effect on the perceptual apparatus itself while the latter argues for a cultural-linguistic adaptation in categorisation as a response to changes in the material environment – they both share the fact that variation in the environment speakers inhabit are argued to cause changes to systems of categorisation.
However, until recently comparatively few environmental arguments have been advanced in the domain of space. Two exceptions are Li & Gleitman (2002) and Palmer (2015), though these arguments are also quite different from one another. In the following sections we shall examine each in turn. Then, we shall discuss Majid et al.’s (2004) counter-arguments to environmental determinism.
3.3.1 Li & Gleitman (2002) and Levinson et al.’s (2002) reply Rather than explaining cross-cultural variation in performance on cognitive tasks as stemming from differences in language, Li & Gleitman (2002) argue that this variation can be explained in terms of their being simply ad hoc surface-level responses to the physical environment.
Specifically, they claim that the presence of salient landmarks in the vicinity of the experimental site influences the use of geocentric coding amongst many of the populations tested by MPI- affiliated researchers. In order to investigate this hypothesis, they endeavour to show that 80
English speakers may be induced to solve cognitive tasks in an allocentric manner when primed by the presence of salient landmarks.
Li & Gleitman conducted a version of the Animals-in-a-Row task (§8.1) with English- speaking participants in the United States. These participants were tested in three different condition: indoors, with blinds down (no visual access to outside); indoors with blinds up (visual access to outside), and outdoors. In both the blinds up and outdoors condition, participants had visual access to prominent buildings which they could use as landmarks. They found that subjects in the blinds-down condition produced significantly fewer geocentric responses compared to those in the outdoors condition, leading them to conclude that the presence of salient landmarks influences the adoption of geocentric FoRs.
Li & Gleitman (2002) also conducted a variant of the Animals-in-a-Row task where a duck pond was placed on both stimulus and test tables such that it could be used as a landmark by participants. For half the participants, the duck pond’s geocentric location was maintained between tables and for the other half, the duck pond’s egocentric location was maintained. It was found that subjects overwhelmingly oriented the animals towards the duck pond when present. This is interpreted by Li & Gleitman as being evidence that responses in spatial cognition tasks are context dependent, derived not on account of some difference in language or culture, but rather constitute situational responses to a given experimental context. Thus, the differences Levinson finds between Dutch and Tzeltal (see §3.1.3) can be explained by the simple fact that the Dutch experiment was conducted indoors while the Tzeltal experiment was conducted outdoors. Differences in behaviour between populations is not due to linguistic relativity, but rather is accounted for by the differing environments these populations find themselves in.
This proposal explains differences in behaviour in the Animals-in-a-Row task, but does not explain the high variation cross-linguistically in how communities express frame of
81 reference through language. For Li & Gleitman (2002), this is explained much the same as the variation in experimental behaviour previously described. Different communities live in different environments which are reflected in the ways people talk about space. They argue that small, tight-knit communities inhabiting mutually familiar geographical areas, such as is the case with the Tenejapan Tzeltal speakers, are more likely to have highly salient environmental features known to all interlocutors which can be employed as landmarks.
Conversely, much larger, more geographically mobile linguistic communities such as exist for speakers of Dutch or English, do not have such a shared pool of detailed knowledge of the local environment, and thus prefer egocentric strategies for spatial reference. We shall see later that this point is not too different to that made by Palmer (2015). Li & Gleitman
(2002: 290) conclude:
“Linguistic systems are merely the formal and expressive medium that speakers
devise to describe their mental representations and manipulations of their
reference world. Depending on the local circumstances in which human beings
find themselves, they select accordingly from this linguistically available pool of
resources for describing regions and directions in space.”
Levinson et al. (2002) object to Li & Gleitman’s arguments on several dimensions. Firstly, they point out that the Tzeltal data was collected outdoors, but under a low veranda, with visual access to the outdoors “not too dissimilar to Li & Gleitman’s indoors with windows condition.”
Furthermore, some of the experiments on the linguistic communities reported on in Pederson et al.’s (1998) study were conducted indoors and still produced strong geocentric responses.
They also criticise Li & Gleitman for methodologically deviating from the original Animals-in-a-
Row experiment in several respects, including using a swivel chair to rotate between tables rather than having them get up and walk from one table to another, and only using three animals
82 instead of four.19 Levinson et al. claim that these methodological differences between their earlier work and Li & Gleitman’s study meant that, in the latter’s study, the cognitive demand was reduced, making it more likely for participants to attempt to second-guess at the nature of the task. Levinson et al. point out that the purpose of the task is to assess participants’ spatial cognition preferences, not their beliefs about the experimenter’s intent in conducting the task and that therefore, the fact that 70% of Li & Gleitman’s (2002: 278) participants queried the nature of the task shows that they were performing a different experiment entirely.
Levinson et al. (2002) therefore ran their own experiment testing whether indoors vs outdoors effects FoR preference on a Dutch-speaking population in Nijmegen (presumed to be linguistically relative encoders, like the English-speaking population in Li & Gleitman’s study), but otherwise following the methodology they had used in their previous studies, rather than the methodological changes made by Li & Gleitman. They found that setting made no significant difference to FoR preference and attribute the difference found by Li & Gleitman to the distractions posed by passers-by leading errors to look like geocentric responses.20
Levinson et al. also dispute the conclusions Li & Gleitman derive in the basis of their duck pond experiment. They argue that orienting the array towards the duck pond does not constitute an absolute frame of reference but rather an ‘intrinsic’ frame of reference
(henceforth ‘landmark-based’, as this use of ‘intrinsic’ is somewhat imprecise, see Chapter 2).
Levinson et al. argue that their research has been on absolute coders, whose system of spatial reference is abstract and large-scale, which is very different to the situation presented by the duck-pond, which is a small-scale landmark which arguably can be interpreted as part of the
19 Levinson et al. (2002:163) also claim Li & Gleitman did not leave a 30 second delay between presentation of stimulus array and recreation of array on test table. However, Li & Gleitman (2002: 276) claim that the subject studied the array “as long as they liked, followed by a 30s delay”. 20 This explanation is somewhat unsatisfying, so I offer an alternate explanation here that the outdoor setting was highly marked for these Western participants who are much more accustomed to being tested or experimented on indoors. Participants who are already second-guessing the nature of the task and have successfully evaluated the intent of the experiment to study FoR choice may also question the intent behind being experimented on outdoors. 83 experimental array. As using landmarks is part of English speakers’ linguistic behaviour, it should therefore be unsurprising that when given the option, speakers also use landmarks in spatial cognition. Levinson et al. support this hypothesis with a new experiment which disambiguates between the landmark-based solution and a true absolute solution by running a new version of
Animals-in-a-Row on Dutch speakers with an otherwise identical methodology to that of Li &
Gleitman, but with a 90° rotation instead of a 180° rotation of the participants. They found that participants chose the egocentric or landmark-based solutions, but not the absolute solution.
For Levinson et al., their experiments support their original hypothesis. While experimental methodology to a large extent and one’s immediate environment to a lesser extent can influence frame of reference preference in a given task, the range of these preferences is constrained by the possible range of linguistic expressions of frame of reference in language and reflects how they are habitually employed.
3.3.2 Palmer’s Topographic Correspondence Hypothesis Like Li & Gleitman, Palmer (2002; 2007; 2015) seeks to demonstrate that spatial reference and cognition is a reflection of environmental factors. However, while Li & Gleitman primarily argue that spatial cognition varies according to whatever environment a speaker happens to find themselves at a given moment, Palmer argues that speakers’ conceptualisations of space are developed as a response to the topography of the language locus. Under this view, frame of reference choice in both language and non-linguistic cognition emerges as a response to the features of the surrounding topography which speakers have become accustomed to over time.
To support this hypothesis, Palmer points to several documented correlations between the topography of the language locus and the system of geocentric (or ‘absolute’) frame of reference employed by the speech community. Some examples adduced by Palmer include descriptions of similarities in the geocentric referencing systems of languages spoken on long islands (Palmer
2002), and how these systems change on round islands (Palmer 2002: 137-139, citing
Lichtenberk’s (1983) description of Manam, spoken in Papua New Guinea) or on atolls (Palmer 84
2002; 2007; 2015). Furthermore, Palmer (2002; 2015) demonstrates extensive similarities in the geocentric systems of otherwise typologically and phylogenetically diverse languages spoken in mountainous environments, as well as those spoken in riverine environments.
These observations lead Palmer (2015: 210) to postulate a Topographic Correspondence
Hypothesis (TCH), which makes two predictions:
(i) [T]hat languages spoken in diverse topographic environments, even
when they are closely related, will tend to have systems of absolute
spatial reference that differ in ways that correlate to topographic
variation, and further that individual languages spoken in a range of
environments will show similar diversity.
(ii) [T]hat languages spoken in similar topographic environments will tend to
have similar systems of absolute spatial reference, regardless of
phylogenetic, areal or typological affiliation, and that similar
environment will lead to similar spatial systems, even in entirely
unrelated languages spoken in completely separate parts of the world.
As Palmer (2015: 214-215) points out, prediction (i) can be tested by examining closely related languages – or indeed, preferably the same language – in topographically disparate environments. This is a primary purpose of this study. Similarly, the corollary prediction (ii) can be tested by comparing the spatial referencing systems of typologically, genetically, and areally disparate languages spoken in similar topographic environments. This prediction is being tested by the ARG through comparison of Marshallese as spoken on Jaluit and Dhivehi as spoken on
Laamu (Palmer et al. 2017; Lum 2018) Palmer (2015) collectively dubs the two parallel methodologies the Environmental Variable Method. The comparisons drawn by Palmer across the three studies in which he presents these arguments are compelling. It is certainly striking how similar the geocentric systems of Aralle-Tabulahan (Austronesian, Indonesia), Samo (Trans New
85
Guinea, Papua New Guinea), Dyirbal (Pama-Nyungan, Australia) and Florutz German (Indo-
European, Italy) are to one another, as demonstrated by Palmer (2015). All four languages are spoken in mountainous, riverine environments, and speakers of all four languages use a hybrid river-based/mountain-based directional system for navigating their surrounding environments.
However, to some extent these arguments are tangential to the MPI space program’s points, as they do not seek to argue that the relationship between a language’s particular system of geocentric spatial reference and the surrounding topography is arbitrary, rather that at a more macro level, whether (speakers of) a language employ a geocentric frame of reference – or relative, or intrinsic – is arbitrary. As Palmer (2015: 191) points out, MPI researchers of course acknowledge the fact that systems of geocentric spatial reference tend to reflect the topographic domains in which they are spoken:
“Absolute coordinates can be based on many different sources – solar compass,
sidereal motion, wind direction, river drainage, mountain slopes … For example,
the Tenejapan Tzeltal system is transparently based on mountain slope, and the
Jaminjung system on river drainage”
(Levinson & Wilkins 2006b: 22)
However, there is one topographical domain where Palmer, MPI space researchers, and other scholars have debated the influence of environment on geocentric vs egocentric frame of reference preference – urbanisation, discussed in the following section. For now, it must be acknowledged that Palmer’s work has been crucial in highlighting the role of the environment in influencing variation in how spatial referencing systems are realised cross-linguistically, and the formulation of the TCH and EVM provide a methodology for exploring these hitherto neglected questions.
86
3.3.3 Urbanisation In a series of studies comparing spatial reference and cognition between two Tamil-speaking
(Dravidian, India) populations – one urban, and one rural – Pederson (1993; 1995; 2006) finds that the urban Tamils (even relatively recent arrivals from rural areas) exhibit a preference for using an egocentric system of spatial reference, as opposed to the rural Tamils who prefer a geocentric system of spatial reference (cardinal directions). These linguistic preferences are also reflected in their behaviour on cognitive tasks. Similar results were later found by Dasen & Mishra
(2010) in their case studies on speakers of Balinese (Austronesian, Indonesia), Nepali (Indo-Aryan,
Nepal),21 and Hindi (Indo-Aryan, India), where urban living was found to correlate with egocentric
FoR preference.
In a seminal review paper, Majid et al. (2004) compare findings across 20 languages – including Tamil – in order to assess the likely causes of cross-linguistic diversity in absolute vs relative FoR preference. One of the variables explored is the ‘dwelling type’ of the community
(i.e. urban vs rural); however, the urban and rural Tamils are collapsed into a single linguistic category, ‘Tamil’, which is described as employing both absolute and relative frames of reference with equal frequency. Similarly, while many of the communities studied are small and are confined to a rural setting, several of the larger languages included in the study, such as English,
Dutch, and Japanese, are treated only as ‘urban’, despite the existence of several large rural communities of speakers of these languages. In the original studies these findings are collated from, the subjects may have only been urban-dwellers;22 however, the manner in which the results are presented at least implies a one-to-one relationship between language and the dwelling type of its speakers. Again, these simplifications are perhaps necessary to perform a
21 Though in this case, Nepali was not the first language of all the participants (Dasen & Mishra 2010:190–191). 22 At least in the source listed for Japanese, Kita (2006) states that the findings for spatial reference in table-top space are derived from only 3 pairs of Man and Tree task (see Chapter 6) participants whose demographic metadata is not presented. 87 typological study, but it seems strange to derive strong conclusions about the effect of variables such as dwelling type without examining urban vs rural living in speakers of a single language.
Despite this, Majid et al. nevertheless find a correlation between dwelling type and egocentric FoRs, noting that “not all rural societies use an Absolute frame of reference, but urban languages appear to use a Relative frame of reference.” (p. 113). They do not suggest a cause for this at the time, but in a later study Burenhult & Levinson (2008: 136) state:
“The Western mode of navigation, based on turns to the left or right, is adapted
to dense systems of existing streets, roads and paths. Hunter-gatherers and
others who live in less constructed landscapes tend to use non-egocentric
systems of navigation, e.g., absolute directions like north, south, east and west”
This quote suggests that despite earlier arguments against environmental determinism
(Levinson 2003: chapter 5; Majid et al. 2004), Levinson later acknowledges evidence for some form of environmental determinism.
Palmer (2015: 211) suggests a complementary cause for this observed correlation – that the dense network of streets and buildings blocks visual access to features of the natural landscape such as sea or mountains, rendering it difficult to monitor one’s location and orientation with respect to these natural features. These same points are also made by Dasen &
Mishra (2010: 116), who concur that cities do not afford their inhabitants perceptual access to the environmental cues necessary to utilise geocentric spatial reference, contrary to the wide open spaces of plains or deserts.
3.3.4 Majid et al.’s (2004) study on ecological determinism Aside from urban vs rural, Majid et al. (2004) include two other variables in their typological study: ecological zones and subsistence mode and rapidly dismiss these variables as having no strong influence on FoR selection:
88
“The variation in cultural and environmental factors within groups is as large as
the variation between groups: Absolute and Relative languages are spoken in a
variety of different ecological environments, with people of different subsistence
modes (see [Table 10]).” (Majid et al. 2004: 111)
Their results are shown in Table 10 below. This study is an impressive collation of the findings of various researchers researching the spatial referencing systems of linguistic communities around the world and their data merits deeper examination.
3.3.4.1 The utility of ‘ecological zones’ As stated above, Majid et al.’s (2004) findings showing a distinction between urban vs rural dwelling types are highly indicative of some sort of environmental determinism. However, the urban vs rural categorisation suffers perhaps from being overly blunt. There are many different ways in which humans live in urban or rural environments, which affect visual access to landscape features. For example, though arguably both are ‘urban’, there is considerable difference between low-density suburbia and a high-density skyscraper city. The former affords far more visual access to the landscape than the latter. Similarly, though both are rural, open plains and dense rainforest are very different.23 Majid et al. (2004) classify languages according the ecological zone in which they are spoken, where one of the categories is ‘tropical rainforest’.
This categorisation cross-cuts their categorisation of urban vs rural. However, such a blunt categorisation can still obscure many important facts about the environment in which these languages are spoken and thus are of limited utility. For example, Guugu Yimidhirr (Northeastern
Australia) and Longgu (Solomon Islands) both mainly employ geocentric FoRs and are classified as being spoken in tropical rainforests, but they are also spoken on the coast. As Palmer (2002,
2015) shows, the coast is a highly-salient feature of the landscape upon which many geocentric systems of spatial reference are based. Conversely, Mopan (Guatemala and Belize) and Tiriyó
23 Arguably, tropical rainforests are not ‘rural’ at all, but in the literature on environmental determinism, ‘rural’ tends to be used to mean simply non-urban. 89
(Brazil and Suriname) are spoken in tropical rainforests inland. Mopan speakers use geocentric
FoRs only in limited situations and Tiriyó speakers use intrinsic, geocentric and egocentric strategies equally as often as one another.24 While Majid et al. (2004: 112) hypothesise as to possible effects dwelling type or subsistence mode (as a proxy for habitual action) may have on cross-cultural FoR preferences, no such hypothesis is given for ecological zone. Admittedly, perceptual access to salient landscape features is likely a variable which would prove difficult to operationalise, but nevertheless would be more meaningful than the ecological zones included.25 It is unsurprising therefore that Majid et al. do not find any deterministic relationship between ecological zone and FoR preference. The categories are too broad to be meaningful.
24 I do not necessarily intend to claim here that proximity to the coast is strictly responsible for differences between these languages; I merely seek to illustrate the real possibility that these broad etic categories are obfuscating the true environmental variables influencing differences in FoR preferences between languages. 25 Palmer (2015) expresses similar scepticism regarding the utility of ecological zones as categorised by Majid et al. as a fruitful avenue for investigating ecological determinism in spatial referencing systems. Shapero (2017:1294) also criticises the categories for being too broad. 90
Table 10 Frame of reference selection and ecological determinism (Majid et al. 2004: 112).26
26 “Frame of reference: x indicates that the corresponding FoR is used by a language. (x) indicates that the FoR is only used in restricted circumstances, i.e. not in table-top space. X indicates the preferred FoR for describing spatial relationships between small-scale, manipulable objects. Ecological zone: A = alpine; D = desert; deN = denuded tropical rain forest; H = humid; S = savannah; SubT = subtropical; St = steppe; T = tropical; TRF = tropical rain forest; Temp = temperate. Dwelling: R = rural; U = urban; Subsistence mode: H = hunting; H-G = hunter-gatherer; ShA = shifting agriculture; StA = stable agriculture; I = industrial.” Data sources: Wassmann & Dasen (1998), Levinson (2003), Levinson & Wilkins (2006a). 91
3.3.4.2 Subsistence modes Majid et al. include subsistence mode in their study as a proxy for the ‘habitual action’ of a linguistic community, for the following stated reason:
“[D]ifferent actions might call for different FoRs, so differences in habitual action,
perhaps reflected in subsistence patterns, could give rise to differential use of
FoRs in both language and cognition.” (Majid et al. 2004: 112)
With this somewhat vague stated aim and no specific causal mechanism in mind, it is not surprising that Majid et al. (2004: 111) do not observe a relationship between subsistence mode and frame of reference preference. However, I will argue here that on a more detailed analysis of Majid et al.’s data as presented in , there is a clear relationship between subsistence mode and FoR preference. Furthermore, I argue that the urban vs rural differences observed by Majid et al. (and Dasen & Mishra 2010; and Palmer 2015) are best explained in terms of habitual action, rather than solely due to static material difference in the physical environment speakers inhabit.
Majid et al. categorise the languages in their study by subsistence mode according to five categories: hunters, hunter-gatherers, shifting agriculturists, stable agriculturalists, and industrialised societies (see Table 10). Each linguistic population is classified according to a single subsistence mode category, with the exception of Tiriyó who are assigned as both hunters, and stable agriculturalists.
Again, the stated purpose of this typologisation is as a proxy for habitual action, but it is not stated exactly what habitual action is expected. It is noteworthy (and strangely not commented upon) that all the languages classified as ‘urban’ according to dwelling type are also classified as ‘industrialised’ according to subsistence mode. The only exception is Tamil, which is classified as both urban and rural according to dwelling type, and as stable agriculturalists by subsistence mode. It is evident that this dual categorisation for dwelling type is due to Pederson’s
(1993; 1995) studies showing that Tamil speakers display a different preferred FoR depending on
92 whether they are rural or urban (discussed above in §3.3.4). Given that Pederson’s work finds exactly what Majid et al.’s study is purporting to examine – a correlation between environment and spatial reference – it is remarkable that these two populations are conflated in the dataset, and thus the significance of their associated findings obscured.
Similarly, the entire Tamil sample is categorised as displaying a stable agriculturalist subsistence mode, but it is difficult to believe that most of Pederson’s urban Tamils were stable agriculturists.27
Notably, though unremarked upon by the authors, all three of the linguistic communities
– English, Japanese, and Dutch – which employ the relative FoR as their sole preferred strategy
(as marked by the X in Table 10), are not only urban dwellers, but also practice an industrialised subsistence mode. The Tamil urban dwellers can presumably be added to this group. Of the other six communities which include the relative FoR as one of their preferred strategies, with at least one other FoR equally dominant, five subsided on solely agriculture, neither hunting or hunter- gathering. The other community, the Tiriyó of Brazil, practiced hunting alongside stable agriculture. Conversely, of the five pure hunter-gatherer societies in the sample three did not employ the relative FoR at all (Arrernte, Guugu Yimidhirr, Warwa), while two only use it in restricted circumstances (Hai//om, Jaminjung).
The only interpretation of the subsistence mode data Majid et al. (2004: 111) offer is
“Absolute and Relative languages are spoken in a variety of different ecological environments, with people of different subsistence modes (see [Table 10]).” It is evident that while perhaps true in a strictly literal sense, this statement is nevertheless deeply misleading, as there is a fairly robust correlation between subsistence mode and preferred FoR.
27 Pederson (2006: 401) states that the urban population was based in the city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu between 1992-1995, which at the time had a population of approximately 1 million people. 93
Having established the apparent existence of a continuum, wherein industrialised societies display strongest preference for the relative FoR, hunter-gatherers the weakest relative
FoR preference, and agriculturists somewhere in-between, I shall now endeavour to explain this observed continuum’s existence. Earlier in this section, I have been critical of the categories chosen by Majid et al. to represent dwelling type and ecological zones on the basis that they obscure the true underlying causes of environmental determinism. As stated previously, Majid et al. include subsistence mode as a proxy for habitual action, without stating what specific habitual actions might be involved in influencing a linguistic community’s FoR preference. With no apparent clear motivation for the selection the subsistence modes in mind, habitual action is thus treated as a categorical variable. However, I submit here that there is a clear relationship between subsistence mode and degree of environmental interaction. People in industrialised societies tend to be employed more indoors, without visual access to topography upon which geocentric FoRs rely. They also tend to live in urban environments, which afford less perceptual access to the wider environment. They rarely have to engage in long-distance wayfinding, and when they do, they often have access to technology such as maps and GPS devices which have become increasingly available over the past few centuries to assist them, meaning they rarely have to compute or maintain their relative position to various environmental cues. On the other hand, hunter-gatherers often have to travel long distances, and engage in wayfinding practices which require skills such as dead-reckoning. They must pay close attention to the climate and the local topography as their lifestyles are wholly dependent on its vicissitudes. Agriculturists probably lie between these two extremes, presumably with shifting agriculturists closer to the hunter-gatherers and stable agriculturists closer to the industrialised societies.
Thus, I submit here that the true variable affecting FoR selection is degree of environmental interaction and that Majid et al.’s four way categorical distinction of subsistence
94 mode can instead be reframed as an ordinal variable of ‘environmental interaction’.28 Similarly,
Majid et al.’s (2004) FoR categorisation in Table 10 (represented by null, (x), x, and X) can be straight-forwardly represented as an ordinal variable if reframed in terms of degree of relative
FoR usage. This reformulation of Majid et al.’s dataset is represented in Table 11 below.
Original New categorisation: Original New categorisation: categorisation: degree of categorisation: degree of relative subsistence mode environmental relative FoR usage FoR usage (ordinal) (categorical) interaction (ordinal) null none (0) industrialised low (1) (x) low (1) stable agriculture medium (2) x medium (2) shifting agriculture high (3) X (with other X high (3) present) hunting(-gathering) very high (4) X (sole X) very high (4) Table 11: Reformulation of Table 10 categories for FoR preference and subsistence mode
When the languages of Majid et al.’s study are replotted according to their values for relative FoR preference and degree of environmental interaction, and converted to a scatterplot,
Figure 15 below is the result.29 It must be emphasised that these categories are no substitute for detailed individual ethnographic evaluation of these communities. Nevertheless, Figure 15 shows a distinct correlation between the two values. A Spearman rank-order correlation indicates that this inverse relationship between degree of environmental interaction and degree of relative FoR usage is highly significant (Spearman’s Rho, rs = -0.769, p < 0.001).
28 Similar arguments are advanced by Dasen & Mishra (2010: 208) in the form of ‘spatial experience’ and by Shapero (2017) in the form of ‘environmental experience’. 29 Note that I have split the Tamil data from Table 10 into the rural and urban Tamil populations, following my interpretation of Pederson’s (1993, 1995, 2006) discussion of their FoR preferences. Furthermore, the Tiriyó of Brazil are categorised as both hunters (very high environmental interaction) and stable agriculturists (medium environmental interaction), so I have assigned them the middle value of ‘high’. 95
Degree of interaction environmental
Degree of relative FoR usage
Figure 15: Relationship between environmental interaction and relative FoR usage
Thus, I conclude that upon re-examination and evaluation of Majid et al.’s (2004) data as presented in their study, that contrary to their own findings there is a very strong and very clear relationship between habitual action and relative FoR usage across their sample.
Potential variables beyond language and environment Language and/or topography are not the only potential variables capable of explaining observed differences in FoR preferences between communities. For example, inhabitants of European countries tend to be relative FoR coders, but they also tend to be more literate, with more years of schooling. Therefore, language and environment could potentially be confounding variables for these factors. In this section, I give a brief overview some of the research done in this area.
3.4.1 Literacy and schooling These variables are discussed together here, because as Dasen & Mishra (2010: 115, 315–316) point out, it is often not possible to differentiate them. The overwhelming majority of individuals tested in psychological studies are from societies in which schooling (and therefore literacy) is 96 an inextricable part of the socioculturally determined developmental process. It has been argued that literacy may prime use of the relative FoR, through practices such as writing direction and/or mirror image discrimination of symmetrical letters (e.g. b vs d, and p vs q in the
Roman alphabet; see Danziger & Pederson, 1998; Pederson, 2003). Furthermore, in more recent times studies on temporal cognition have demonstrated a strong influence on how the passage of time is conceptualised. Societies which write left-to-right tend to organise events so they progress left-to-right, conversely societies which write right-to-left tend to organise events so they progress in the same direction (Bergen & Chan Lau 2012; de Sousa 2012). Given these observed effects in domain of time, one might expect parallel effects in the closely related spatial domain.
Levinson (2003: 194) finds that while the majority of MPI-affiliated studies on spatial reference in various linguistic communities did not show any literacy effects, there were two exceptions in the form of Belhare and Tamil, where significant differences were found in one non-linguistic task (the Transitivity Task)30 but not in another (Animals-in-a-Row).31 Levinson also points out that unlike the other communities studied, Belhare and (rural) Tamil speakers were in contact with speakers of relative-preferring language varieties. Higher literacy was also associated in these communities with greater interaction with these speakers, thus it is not possible to disambiguate between literacy and language contact. Additionally, Levinson concedes that these findings are derived from studies with relatively small sample sizes which were not initially designed to test for literacy effects in the first place. Therefore, these studies can only find a result where there is a comparatively large effect size. This may also be the cause of the different results observed between tasks, as the Transitivity Task in both populations had a larger sample size than the Animals-in-a-Row task.
30 See Levinson (2003:162–167) for description of task. 31 Here Levinson is reporting on (often unpublished) research carried out by fellow colleagues associated with the MPI. These findings are also discussed in less detail by Pederson et al. (1998) and Majid et al. (2004). 97
Dasen & Mishra (2010: 113–116) report that increase in age/schooling correlated with higher preference for relative FoR in Balinese children, though as with Belhare and Tamil, these variables also are associated with contact with Indonesian speakers, who prefer the relative FoR.
In addition, they are able to disambiguate schooling from age by testing schooled vs unschooled children in a Nepali-speaking community (Dasen & Mishra 2010: 121–123). They found that schooling had no difference in terms of preference between egocentric and geocentric FoRs, but that unschooled children were more likely to use conventionalised landmarks and the elevational up-down system, while schooled children were significantly more likely to use cardinal directions. This observation is explained by the fact that the cardinal system is explicitly taught in Nepali schools.32
Bohnemeyer et al. (2014; 2015) test literacy in terms of frequency of reading and writing, with each as a separate variable, in a large-scale cross-linguistic study based on languages spoken in (or near) Mesoamerica (including Spanish dialects). They find almost no literacy effect in either the linguistic or non-linguistic task, except that writing frequency weakly predicts relative FoR usage in linguistic tasks.
Discussion and Conclusion This chapter has presented the robust evidence for variation in spatial frames of reference between societies, and for a relationship between spatial frames of reference in language and in wider cognition. It has discussed two primary competing accounts for this observed relationship – the relativity hypothesis states that there is arbitrary variation in spatial language which in turn influences spatial cognition. On the other hand, the environmental determinism hypothesis states that both spatial language and non-linguistic spatial cognition are adapted in
32 As Dasen & Mishra (2010:121) point out, schooling is not a unitary process and can differ greatly in amount, quality and nature. Therefore, it is necessary to be cautious when treating schooling as an analytical variable between populations. These differences observed in the Nepali population would be unlikely to occur in communities where cardinal directions are not explicitly taught as part of the curriculum. 98 response to the physical environment. These two hypotheses are often presented as contradictory and at times the debate has been quite acrimonious, but nevertheless evidence has been adduced to support both of them.
However, upon a deeper analysis of Majid et al.’s (2004) cross-linguistic classification of languages by subsistence mode, a third possibility emerged – that the habitual practices and behaviour of individuals and the communities they constitute form a pervasive influence on spatial FoR preference. Furthermore, I have suggested that underlying Majid et al.’s subsistence mode variable is the true variable of environmental interaction which explains why industrialised, urbanised societies, with the indoor, sedentary lifestyles they afford, do not use geocentric FoRs, while hunter-gatherer societies do.
However, the question lingers of how to reconcile the observed evidence for linguistic relativity with evidence for deterministic effects of environment and habitual action? For now, this issue will be put aside, and the following chapters will present an empirical account of how speakers of Marshallese talk and think about space. In Chapter 9, I will return to the topic of how habitual action affects spatial FoR preferences, a position which in very recent years is becoming increasingly developed by scholars such as Dasen & Mishra (2010), and Shapero (2017).
Furthermore, I will discuss recent research of the ARG which seeks to holistically integrate the observed effects of language, environment, and habitual action towards a unified
‘Sociotopographic Model’ (Palmer et al. 2017).
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4 A Marshallese grammar of space
This chapter discusses the structure and semantics of the linguistic devices Marshallese speakers use to talk about space. Here the focus will primarily be on features universal to speakers of
Marshallese. A more detailed qualitative comparison of how some of the lexical, semantic, and morphological features of spatial reference in Marshallese vary between communities is discussed in Chapter 5, while Chapter 6 provides a quantitative comparison of preferred spatial referencing strategies between sites on the basis of a corpus of Man and Tree elicitation tasks.
The chapter opens with a brief sketch of non-spatial aspects of Marshallese grammar (§4.2-
§4.7). It continues with a discussion of the linguistic means employed by Marshallese to talk about static locative relationships, addressing the grammatical means used to describe space, as well as the semantics of various topological spatial terms (§4.8). It is followed by a report on spatial deixis in Marshallese (§4.9), which describes the large and complex demonstrative paradigm, as well as the three deictic directionals, which are highly polyfunctional and abundant in Marshallese texts. The penultimate section (§4.10) describes the structure of motion events, before a brief conclusion (§4.11).
Preliminary matters This chapter contains a short grammatical sketch of Marshallese. This description is not intended to be a resource for those seeking a detailed account of the grammar of Marshallese.
Those with this goal would be better served consulting resources such as Bender et al.’s (2016) reference grammar, Zewen’s (1977) detailed grammatical sketch or Rudiak-Gould’s (2004) learners’ guide. There are also book-length treatises on different aspects of Marshallese grammar by Pagotto (1987), Choi (1992) and Willson (2008). The following description is provided as a convenient background on the language for readers of this work seeking a little more information, and to aid in understanding the examples provided in subsequent sections.
It is based primarily on my own research though of course motivated strongly by the findings and discussion of previous authors. Where my analysis departs from that of Bender et al.’s 100
(2016) grammar, this is made explicit, such as in the case of the underlying form of the preverbal particles (§4.5.2).
4.1.1 Interpreting Marshallese examples Marshallese language data are presented with a transcription, an aligned morphological gloss, and a free translation, with a data source and time stamp below. More detailed information on interpreting these examples can be found in §1.5. At many points throughout this and the following chapter, the Marshallese-English Online Dictionary (MOD) (Abo et al. 1998) is cited.
These citations are given as ‘MOD: headword’. The italicised headword can then be searched in the online Marshallese dictionary.33
Phonology 4.2.1 Consonants The consonant phonemes of Marshallese are comparatively straightforward and are shown below (following Willson 2003), along with their orthographical representations as employed in this work, following the convention used in the MOD.
33 http://www.trussel2.com/MOD/ 101
Bilabials Coronals Velars
Palatalised /pj /
/tj/
Stops Velarised /pɣ/
Labialised /kw/
Palatalised /mj/
Nasals Velarised /mɣ/
Labialised /nw/ <ņ, ņw> /ŋw/
j Liquids Palatalised /r /
(rhotics) Velarised /rɣ/
Palatalised /lj/
Palatalised /j/
Glides Velarised /ɰ/ Ø
Labialised /w/
Table 12: The consonant phonemes of Marshallese with orthographic representations
The glides often do not have a surface representation (and never the case of /ɰ/). Their existence on the phonological level is posited by Bender (1968) on the basis of diachronic evidence, as well as to account for synchronic morphophonological processes, which affect adjacent vowels. In addition, stops are voiced intervocalically.
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4.2.2 Vowels The phonology of the Marshallese vowel system is quite complex and has been discussed in detail by Bender (1968), Choi (1992), Hale (2000) and Willson (2003a). Bender (1968) analyses the vowel system as being distinguished only for height on three tiers. Choi (1992) follows this analysis. However, Hale (2000) analyses four vowel phonemes, specified for height and tongue root position, an analysis which Willson (2003a) follows. These complexities are outside the scope of this research and thus will not be discussed in detail here. The description below follows
Willson (2003a). The reader is encouraged to consult the above sources for more detailed analyses.
The four vowel phonemes of Marshallese are [+high, +ATR], [+high, -ATR], [-high, +ATR], and [-high, -ATR]. The surface realisation of these vowels alters with respect to their consonantal environment, specifically depending on the secondary articulation of their surrounding consonants. Vowels in the environment of palatalised consonants become [-back, -round], become [+back, -round] in the environment of velarised consonants and become [+back,
+round] in the environment of labialised consonants. Despite there being four phonemic vowels, and twelve vowel allophones, nine vowels are distinguished in the orthography, due to it having been designed based on Bender’s (1968) analysis.
[-back, -round] [+back, - round] [+back, +round]
[+high, +ATR] /i/ i /ɯ/ ū /u/ u
[+high, -ATR] /ɪ/ e /ɤ/ ō /ʊ/ o
[-high, +ATR] /e/ e /ʌ/ ō /o/ o
[-high, -ATR] /ɛ/ ā /a/ a /ɔ/ o̧
Table 13: Marshallese vowel allophones (per Willson 2003)
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4.2.3 A note on orthography This orthography is used in the Marshallese dictionary (Abo, Bender & Capelle 1976) as well as many academic publications. While it is now official in the Marshall Islands and slowly gaining currency amongst the general population, most Marshallese still use a more traditional orthography closer to that which was first introduced by missionaries in the 19th century. In practice however, there is a general lack of standardisation and spelling is mostly fairly free.
4.2.4 Phonotactics The canonical syllable shape is (C)V(C). Some two-consonant sequences may occur word- medially, geminates included. Word-internal heterorganic consonant clusters trigger the insertion of an epenthetic schwa, as do homorganic consonant clusters where the initial consonant is of lower sonority than the following consonant.
4.2.4.1 Geminate stems Consonants may be geminated intervocalically. Stems may also begin with geminate consonants. However, geminate consonants cannot occur word-initially. Thus, when there is no morphology prefixed or procliticised to the stem (e.g. a subject pronoun or causative prefix), a vowel e- is added stem-initially in the Rālik dialect, while the Ratak dialect inserts -ō-, as demonstrated in (6) below with the stem -m̧m̧an ‘good’.
(6) e=m̧m̧an em̧m̧an m̧ōm̧an
3SG.S=good good good
“It is good.” (both dialects) “Good.” (Rlk) “Good.” (Rtk)
Pronouns There are several sets of pronominal forms in Marshallese. Subject, object and independent pronouns are discussed here. See §4.4.6 for possessive pronouns. Pronouns are marked for person, number, clusivity, and for the 3rd person object pronouns, animacy. There is some syncretism between the classes, particularly the independent and object pronouns which have almost identical plural forms. The full pronominal paradigm is shown in Table 14 below. 104
1IN 1EX 2 3
Subject
SG i= - kwō=, ko= e=
PL je= kōm= kom̧= re=, rō=
Object
SG eō - eok e
PL kōj kōm kom̧ er (human), i (non-human)
Independent
SG n̄a - kwe e
PL kōj kōm kom̧ er
Table 14: Person pronouns in Marshallese
4.3.1 Subject pronouns Subject pronouns are procliticised either directly to a stative verb (§4.5.1) or to a preverbal particle (§4.5.2). They are obligatory in all independent verbal clauses excepting imperatives, or unless replaced by an independent pronoun. When there is a lexical NP indexed by the subject marking pronoun, the pronoun agrees with it for person and number.
(7) E=m̧ōj ke le-ļļap re=j ron ̄ al eo
3SG.S=finish SBRD woman-big 3PL.S=IPFV hear song DEF
“After the two old women heard the song”
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140127_KG1_N: 00:05:14.800
105
4.3.2 Object pronouns Object pronouns are syncretic with independent pronouns, with the exception of the first and second persons singular, and the non-human third person plural. They are optional, since object marking is not obligatory.
(8) ļe ņe e=j kalimjek BNS
man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV look.TR BNS.PN
“That man is looking at BNS store.
MAR_MT_JAB_20131213_GN1_JP1_N: 00:00:48.300
When object marking is present it follows the verb and any suffixes or directionals.
(9) nē kwō=bōd, nā i=naaj m̧an-e eok
if 2SG.S=be.wrong 1SG 1SG.S=IRR hit-TR 2SG.O
“If you are wrong, I will hit you.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20140224_CN2_PA2_W: 00:02:13.200
4.3.3 Independent pronouns Also referred to as ‘absolute pronouns’ by Bender (1969), ‘absolutive pronouns’ by Willson
(2003b) and ‘emphatic pronouns’ by Rudiak-Gould (2004: 31–32), independent pronouns may be used in almost all positions appropriate to personal pronouns in order to assign focus. This includes positions unique to independent pronouns, as well as replacements for subject and object pronouns. However, they may not replace possessive pronouns (§4.4.6). Furthermore, like the possessive pronouns but unlike subject marking pronouns, they can take number suffixes (§4.4.4.3).
As a disjunctive pronoun:
(10) Q: Wōn eo kōņaan ni kā? ‘Who wants these coconuts?’
A: N�a! ‘Me!’
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If an independent pronoun is used to replace a subject pronoun, as in (11), it cannot cross-index a lexical NP in the same clause as subject pronouns are able to.
(11) im er-ro kar jok ioo-n laļ.
and 3PL-DU PAST land on-3SG.P ground
‘[…] and they both landed on the ground.’
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140104_YM1_1_N: 00:02:48.600
Note that when the first person singular n̄a is used in subject position, it is always cross- indexed by an additional subject pronoun.
(12) nā i=ar pād buļō-n lo̧jet e=maron ̄ jonoul̄ ne m̧wilaļ.
centre- deep 1SG 1SG.S=PFV be.located sea 3SG.S=can ten foot 3SG.P
‘I was under the water maybe ten feet deep.’
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140104_YM1_1_N: 00:02:13.800
Independent pronouns can also be used in lieu of an object pronoun, in any position an object pronoun may be used. In (13) the independent pronoun kwe replaces the object pronoun eok.
(13) em̧m̧aan e e=j kalimjek kwe.
man DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV look.TR 2SG
“This man is looking at you.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20140409_LL2_AG1_NE: 00:02:51.600
In (14) the independent pronoun n̄a replaces the object pronoun eō.
(14) e=j jit=tok nan̄ nā
3SG.S=IPFV face=DIR1 to 1SG
“He is facing hither towards me.”
MAR_MT_SPR_20150119_RA2_CT2_N: 00:06:15.900
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Independent pronouns are also used in verbless clauses, as shown in (15) below.
(15) […] kwe i-j-ņe ak nā i-j-e
2SG LOC-place-DEM2 but 1SG LOC-place-DEM1
“You there and me here.”
MAR_VAR_JAB_20131130_JB2_MZ1_W: 00:12:55.000
Nouns and noun phrases 4.4.1 Nominalisation Many words can be used as both nouns and verbs; however, there are some common nominal derivation strategies such as ri-, a personifying prefix and kein, a modifier used before a verb to derive instruments or tools.
(16a) m̧ajeļ ‘Marshall (Islands)’ rim̧ajeļ ‘Marshallese person’
jerbal ‘work’ rijerbal ‘worker’
(b) katu ‘check the weather’ kein katu ‘barometer’
m̧ōn̄ā ‘eat’ kein m̧ōn̄ā ‘eating utensils’
Generally however, zero-derivation is the most common nominalisation strategy. All that is required for a word to function as a noun is that it be used as the head of an NP with the regular nominal morphology. For example in (17) below, the verb kōmeļeļe ‘explain’ is employed nominally with no further morphological derivational processes.
(17) nā i-j make pukōt-e kō-meļeļe ņe a-m̧.
1SG 1SG.S=IPFV alone search.for-TR CAUS-understand DEM2 CLF.GEN-2SG.P
“I myself am searching for your instructions.”
MAR_MT_JI_20140201_SL1_TL1_N: 00:00:18.200
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4.4.2 Types of noun Three primary subtypes of noun are identified here: proper nouns, common nouns, and local nouns. Proper nouns are used for individual persons, places, or organisations. They are not used with determiners.
(18) Joan, etal wot lik=ļo̧k innem jeer
Joan go just oceanward=DIR3 then turn
“Joan, just go oceanwards and then turn.”
MAR_RD_JAB_20140104_LM1_JB3_1_W: 00:01:31.400
Proper place nouns may be employed in the local construction (§4.8.2). Common nouns are the largest class of nouns. They must take a determiner, whether an article or demonstrative
(§4.9.1.2), numeral or quantifier (§4.4.4) or construct phrase (§4.4.6.3). Local nouns are used to denote places and spatial regions. Their properties are discussed in §4.8.3.
4.4.3 Articles and demonstratives Articles and demonstratives are described below in §4.9.1.
4.4.4 Numerals, quantifiers and number-marking Unlike most nominal modifiers in Marshallese, numerals and quantifiers precede the head noun.
4.4.4.1 Numerals Marshallese has a decimal counting system. Forms of cardinal numbers are shown below.
1 juon 6 jiljino
2 ruo 7 jilimjuon
3 jilu 8 rualitōk
4 emān 9 ruwatimjuon
5 ļalem 10 jon̄oul
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Ordinal numbers are formed by adding kein ka- before the numeral, e.g. kein kajuon “first”.
Many speakers prefer to use English for larger numbers.
4.4.4.2 Quantifiers Quantifiers precede the head noun in Marshallese. They also block the presence of an article or demonstrative following the same noun. Some of the most common quantifiers in Marshallese include:
bwijin ‘many’
jabdewōt ‘any(thing)’
aolep ‘all’
jet ‘some’
4.4.4.3 Number marking Number is not marked morphologically on ordinary nouns.34 There is an obligatory singular/plural distinction on all pronouns (§4.3) as well as on articles and demonstratives
(§4.9.1). In addition, independent pronouns, object pronouns and possessive pronouns (but not subject pronouns) may optionally be marked for dual, trial or paucal. To do so, the following suffixes are attached to the plural pronoun stems (c.f. Table 14) in the Rālik dialect: -ro, a dual;
-jel, a trial; -ean,̄ four or more (-mān in Ratak dialect); and -wōj, five or more. These are transparently derived from the Marshallese numerals (§4.4.4.1) except for -ean̄ and -wōj.
(19a) kom̧-ro ej i=tok jān ia?
2PL-DU IPFV go=DIR1 from where?
“Where did you both come from?”
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140127_KG1_N: 00:05:55.600
(b) jilu awa in a-m-ro aō […]
34 With the notable exceptions of li ’woman, girl’ and ļe ‘man, boy’ which form plurals with the suffix -m̧a (see (57)). 110
three hour CSTR CLF.GEN-1EX.PL.P-DU swim
“Three hours of both of us swimming […]”
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140104_YM1_N: 00:03:23.600
4.4.5 Attributive modifiers Attributive nominal modifiers directly follow the head noun in the NP, preceding any demonstratives or relational classifiers.
(20) wūt būrōrō ņe a-m̧
flower red DEM2 CLF.GEN-2SG.P
“Your red flower.”
Willson (2003b) further discusses the relative ordering of different types of attributives based on their semantics.
4.4.6 Possession In Marshallese, possession is marked with the possessor following the possessum. There is a semantic alienable/inalienable distinction which displays the common Oceanic pattern of the inalienable possessum being marked ‘directly’, i.e. by inflection of the possessum and alienable possession being marked ‘indirectly’ by means of some form of additional morphology (see, e.g.,
Lichtenberk 1985). In the case of Marshallese this results in the possessor being marked on one of a large range of relational classifiers. The possessor paradigm for both cases is the same:
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1SG -Ø35 1IN.PL -d 1EX.PL -m
2SG -m̧ 2PL -mi
3SG -n 3PL -er
4.4.6.1 Direct possession Inalienable nouns are possessed directly, through suffixes on the possessum. These suffixes attach to the root through addition of a ‘thematic vowel’ to form the noun stem. Thus one can identify five different classes of nouns, due to there being five different possible stem-final vowels; a-stem, aa-stem, ā-stem, i-stem and e-stem. For a comprehensive inflectional paradigm, see Rudiak-Gould (2004: 171). The following example illustrates the ā-stem class:
Stem mejā- ‘eye, face’
1SG meja 1IN.PL mejād 1EX.PL mejām
2SG mejam̧ 2PL mejāmi
3SG mejān 3PL mejāer
(21) ettōr dipi-n im m̧aa-n mejā-n bao e
go.quickly base-3SG.P and front-3SG.P eye-3SG.P bird DEM1
“Run to the post and then in front of the chicken’s face.”
MAR_RD_JI_20140108_RJ1_GI1_2_N: 00:02:13.000
Many common inalienable nouns such as body parts and kin terms cannot be used with a bare stem and must occur in their directly possessed forms. These are referred to as relational nouns.
35 There is an underlying /ɰ/in the first and second person singular forms which is not expressed, but causes non-back stem vowels to be backed. For example, the ā-stem vowel becomes -a (as shown in §4.4.6.1), the i-stem vowel becomes -ū, and the e-stem vowel becomes -ō. See §4.2.2) 112
4.4.6.2 Indirect possession Alienable nouns are possessed indirectly, by means of a relational classifier. These classifiers are themselves inalienably possessed nouns, which semantically elucidate the relationship between the possessor and the possessum. Compared to other Oceanic languages, Marshallese has an unusually high number of relational classifiers, with Rudiak-Gould (2004: 149-163) listing 31 in total, though it should be noted that some, like daa-, the classifier for pandanus, appear to be dropping out of use amongst the younger generation. Some of the more common relational classifiers include:
a- general/other waa- vehicles
kije- foods, cigarettes neji- children, toys, pets, gadgets
lime- drinks koņa- spouses
m̧ō- buildings jiki- places of origin
Example (22) includes two such relational classifiers. Note that because the frog is the boy’s pet, it takes the classifier nejin. If the boy had been planning to, for example, eat the frog, the classifier for food kijen would have been used.
(22) frog eo neji-n e=j diwōj=nabōj=tak jān lowaa-n jar
CLF.CHILD- from inside- frog DEF 3SG.S=IPFV exit=outward=DIR1 jar 3SG.P 3SG.P
eo a-n.
DEF CLF.GEN-3SG.P
“His pet frog is coming out from inside its jar. “
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140130_JN1_S: 00:00:40.100
4.4.6.3 Construct relationships In much of the descriptive literature on Oceanic languages, as well as other language groups like
Semitic, the term ‘construct suffix’ (or enclitic, or particle) is used to describe a suffix which 113 attaches to the possessum NP to mark a non-pronominal possessor (Lynch, Ross & Crowley
2011: 40–41). As established, in Marshallese the NP possessor can follow ordinary third person singular possessor whether directly possessed (21) or indirectly possessed (22). Nevertheless, this ‘construct’ terminology is also used by Bender et al. (2016) to describe a slightly different phenomenon whereby a morpheme derived from the form in attaches to a noun or NP to encode a range of associative relationships.
In practice however, there are a very large group of nouns which regularly occur as bare roots, which may then take i-stem possessive marking. This marking in the third person singular is identical in form to the construct suffix. It is probable that historically in Marshallese the construct form has been reanalysed as third person possessive morphology, and from there an entire possessive paradigm generated, as shown in the following schema:
*lik=in *liki-n lik-ū / -ūm / -in / -id / -im / -imi / -ier
back=CSTR back-3SG.P back-1SG.P / 2SG.P / 3SG.P / 1IN.PL.P / 1EX.PL.P / 2PL.P / 3PL.P
Whenever ambiguity between construct form and i-stem possessive is present in examples in this work, for example with local nouns, I conservatively gloss all –in suffixes as possessive marking, except in cases where a possessive reading is impossible, such as when the construct morpheme is used with an already possessed noun as a complementiser, as follows:
(23) eta-n in Peter.
name-3SG.P CSTR Peter
“His name is Peter.” (lit. ‘He has the name of Peter’)
Verbs and Verb Phrases In declarative and interrogative clauses, the verb phrase minimally consists of two elements, a subject marking proclitic and a verb. There is no copula in Marshallese.
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4.5.1 Stative vs dynamic verbs Marshallese has two primary subclasses of verbs, dynamic verbs and stative verbs. While the label is semantic in nature, the distinction between these two subclasses is morphosyntactic, namely that unlike with dynamic verbs, subject-indexing proclitics may attach directly to stative verbs (24).
(24) e=m̧m̧an. e=m̧ōj i=pojak
3SG.S=good 3SG.S=done 1SG.S=ready
“It is good.” “It is done.” “I am ready.”
Stative verbs include those which denote attributes or properties such as size, shape or colour; psychological states such as thoughts, feelings or desires; qualities such as truth or accuracy; and verbs of posture, location and orientation, as well as other non-finite verbs. They are obligatorily intransitive, though they may be made transitive through the addition of the causative prefix ka- (§4.5.3.2), whereupon they behave like other non-derived dynamic verbs.
Note that while stative verbs do not require an interceding pre-verbal particle, they can still take them:
(25a) Wūt eņ e=pād i=lo laļi-n pija eņ.
flower DEM3 3SG.S=be.located LOC=at bottom-3SG.P picture DEM3
“That flower is located below that picture.”
MAR_MT_SPR_20150114_RM1_HH1_1_N: 00:02:25.800
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(b) […] ak wūt e e=j pād lōnī -n.
but flower DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located top-3SG.P
[…] “and the plant is located above him.”
MAR_MT_SPR_20150114_HH1_RM1_2_N: 00:04:56.300
Dynamic verbs cannot have a subject proclitic directly attached. Instead, they are obligatorily required to be preceded be at least one pre-verbal particles which can be slotted into the verb complex (see below).
4.5.2 Preverbal particles Marshallese has several preverbal particles with a range of functions. The subject marking proclitic attaches to the particle on the left edge of the verb complex and is obligatory in non- imperative matrix clauses. The full array of preverbal particles in Marshallese is not discussed here, but can be found in Pagotto (1987) and Bender et al. (2016). The following presents the
Marshallese preverbal particles commonly found in the examples in this work, together with their relative order (Table 15).
Slot Functions
1 ej – imperfective realis ar – perfective realis naaj – irrealis 2 en – subjunctive, directive jan̄in – negative continuative 3 kar – past 4 jab – negation ban – inability, impossibility, prohibition 6 bar – repetition 7 lukkuun – intensification
Table 15: Common preverbal particles in the Marshallese verb complex
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Vowel-initial particles undergo deletion of initial vowel when a vowel-final subject proclitic is attached in the case of ej (26) and en (31). Conversely, the final vowel in the subject proclitic is deleted before ar (27), excepting the first person singular proclitic i= (47).
In the following section, the preverbal particles are presented. This list is not exhaustive, as it does not cover some of the less common particles which do not occur in my data set. Bender et al. (2016) and Pagotto (1987) contain a longer list of such preverbal particles, which they refer to as ‘helping verbs’. Where possible, examples include multiple preverbal particles, ideally from adjacent slots in order to demonstrate their relative ordering, which is also tackled in greater detail by Pagotto (1987: 489-98). Generally speaking, particles from the same slot cannot co- occur, whereas particles from different slots can. An exception is jan̄in ‘not yet’ (slot 3) which cannot co-occur with the other negation particles in slot 5. It should also be noted that this typology is tentative, as not every possible combination of pre-verbal particle has been tested.
4.5.2.1 Preverbal particle slot 1: Aspect and mood There are three particles which may be admitted into the first slot in the verb complex: ej imperfective ar perfective naaj irrealis
As pointed out by Pagotto (1987: 489), the exact functions of these particles with regards to tense/aspect is unclear and worthy of further study. Furthermore, Pagotto (1987) and Bender et al. (2016) refer to ej and ar, together with the slot 2 particle en as “prime helping verbs” on the basis that they “always” (Pagotto 1987: 454) or “generally” (Bender et al. 2016: 151) are used with a subject-marking proclitic, as opposed to the other particles which may be used independently of the subject marker in non-finite clauses and imperatives. This analysis is rejected here on the basis that it is a less parsimonious explanation of the data. For example, it would require positing a dummy third person singular subject proclitic which does not agree with the independent pronoun subject to explain examples such as (26), and would require 117 analysing examples such as (29) where en is used in conjunction with a slot 1 particle as having double subject marking.
(26) Er-ro ej ron ̄ al eo.
3PL-DU IPFV hear song DEF
‘They both hear the song.’
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140127_KG1_N: 00:05:19.700
(27) Kw=ar po laļi-n m̧ō-ņe ke?
2SG.S=PFV arrive bottom-3SG.P house-DEM2 INT
‘Have you arrived below that house?’
MAR_VAT_JAB_20131212_FP1_PP1_E: 00:07:44.700
(28) Ekwe, i=naaj ettōr ia=ļo̧k kiiō?
okay 1SG.S=IRR go.quickly where?=DIR3 now
‘Okay, where will I go now?’
MAR_RD_KILI_20140328_RJ5_WA1_2: 00:03:26.00 (adapted)
(29) e=j en jab aikuj pād i-lo lowaa-n oror ņe.
3SG.S=PRES SBJV NEG need be.located LOC-at inside-3SG.P fence DEM2
“he should not be located inside of the fence.”
MAR_RD_JAB_20131208_LJ1_OT1_4_NW: 00:02:53.900 (adapted)
4.5.2.2 Preverbal particle slot 2: The irrealis particles There are two particles in slot 2. One is the subjunctive particle en, which has various functions relating to hypothetical events (31). It occurs commonly in commands (30).
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(30) Kwō=n jab riab.
2SG.S=SBJV NEG lie
‘You should not lie.’ or ‘Do not lie.’
MAR_VAR_JAB_20140306_JB3_ML2_W: 00:05:14.600
(31) aunty r-o a-n36 ie bwe er-ro en lo=ļo̧k
aunty PL.H-DEF CLF.GEN-3SG.P L.ANA so 3PL-DU SBJV see=DIR3
‘Their aunties were there so they were both able to see them.’
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140127_KG1_N: 00:03:39.000
The continuative negative (following Auwera 1998) particle jan̄in is used for events which have not yet occurred, but are expected to.
(32) kwō=j janin̄ kar kōm̧m̧an-e men ņe ke?
2SG.S=IPFV CNEG PAST do-TR thing DEM2 INT
‘Haven’t you finished doing that one?’
MAR_MT_JI_20140201_SL1_TL1_N : 00:03:36.000
4.5.2.3 Preverbal particle slot 3: The past tense particle kar This slot may only be filled by kar, which appears to be related to the slot 1 particle ar and is also used for past tense.
(33) juon raan e=kar wōr juon ļaddik im kidu eo neji-n
one day 3SG.S=PAST exist one boy and dog DEF CLF.CHILD-3SG.P
‘One day there was a boy and his dog.’
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140304_JB3_W: 00:00:09.700
It also has a conditional or contrastive reading when combined with the irrealis particles naaj or en.
36 Why the third person singular form is used here instead of the third person plural is unclear. 119
(34) E=n kar diwōj=ļo̧k i-j-o
3SG=SBJV PAST exit=DIR3 LOC-place-DEM2
‘He should have gone out there (rather than somewhere else).’
MAR_RD_JAB_20140206_JJ1_BB1_2_N: 00:02:38.700
4.5.2.4 Preverbal particle slot 4: Negation Slot 4 particles both have negating functions. The particle jab is used for general negation (35).
(35) ak er-ro ej jab kwaļok kar wōn jemā-er-ro.
but 3PL-DU IPFV NEG show PAST who father-3PL.P-DU
‘But neither of them were revealing who their father was.’
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140127_KG1_N: 00:04:03.700
The particle ban is used to show inability, impossibility, or prohibition (36).
(36) kōm-jeel ban kā=ļo̧k iōn ̄ im rōk bwe e=ibwij.
1EX.PL.S-TRI PROH jump=DIR3 north and south so 3SG.S=high.tide
‘We could not move north or south (i.e. in any direction) because it was high tide.’
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140304_BB1_1_W: 00:03:02.000
4.5.2.5 Preverbal particle slot 5: Repetition The particle bar is primarily used for repeated events, translatable with English ‘again’ but can also have an iterative or continuous reading.
(37) ļaddik eo e=ar bar pukōt-e frog eo lo lowa-an ro̧n ̄
boy DEF 3SG-PFV again search.for-TR frog DEF at inside-3SG.P hole
120
k-o i-lo wōjke eo
PL.NH-DEF LOC-at tree DEF
‘The boy searched again for the frog inside the holes of the tree.’
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140304_JB3_W: 00:01:42.800
4.5.2.6 Preverbal particle slot 6: Intensification The particle lukkuun is an intensifier.
(38) e=lukkuun bōd iaļ eo a-ō
3SG=very be.wrong street DEF CLF.GEN-1SG.P
‘My path is really incorrect.’
MAR_RD_KILI_20140327_RJ4_BM1_4_NW: 00:03:26.600
4.5.3 Verbal morphology This section discussed verbal morphology, excluding the subject and object marking pronouns, which have already been discussed (§4.3).
4.5.3.1 Transitivity Marshallese verbs mark for whether they are transitive or intransitive. As pointed out by Pagotto
(1992), Marshallese has three main types of transitive verbs: those which are derived from intransitive verbs via a small set of suffixes (39); transitive roots whose derived intransitive forms are unpredictable (but often involve gemination or reduplication to derive the intransitive form)
(40), and suppletive transitive/intransitive pairs (41). Note that derived transitives frequently still take the transitivising suffix e (40).
(39) meļeļe ‘understand’ meļeļeik ‘understand s.t.’
pija ‘take a picture’ pijaik ‘take a picture of s.t.’
jepak ‘cut, hack’ jepake ‘cut (off) s.t., hack at s.t.’
dibuk ‘go through’ dibuki ‘go through s.t.’
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(40) kallimjek ‘stare, look’ kalimjek(e) ‘stare at s.t., look at s.t.’
kadkad ‘throw’ kad(e) ‘throw s.t.’
-bbōk ‘take’ bōk(e) ‘take s.t.’
bwōnbwōn ‘count’ bwin(e) ‘count s.t.’
(41) m̧ōn̄ā ‘eat’ kan̄ ‘eat s.t.’
idaak ‘drink’ ilimi ‘drink s.t’
kūk ‘bite’ kij ‘bite s.t.’
4.5.3.2 Causatives The causative prefix in Marshallese is ka-(with allomorphs kō-, kā- resulting from vowel harmony) increases the valency of the verb by demoting subject to object and adding a new subject.
(42a) jeer i-j-ņe =waj (b) ka-jeer i-j-ņe =waj
turn LOC-place-DEM2 =DIR2 CAUS-turn LOC-place-DEM2 =DIR2
“Face that way.” “Face it that way.”
4.5.3.3 Impersonal construction Marshallese does not have a morphological passive. Instead, the impersonal construction is used, involving the use of a dummy third person plural pronoun (43,68).
(43) bujeen ̄ e r=ar lukōj-e nan̄ aļaļ e
balloon DEM1 3PL.S=PFV tie-TR to stick DEM1
“This balloon is tied to this stick.” (lit. “they tied it to this stick”)
MAR_TOP_JAB_20140130_PP1: 00:01:54:400
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4.5.3.4 Reflexives Marshallese lacks reflexive pronouns. Reflexives are instead formed simply by employing an object pronoun (or independent pronoun in object position) with the same person and number as the subject.
(44) ka-jim̧we eok im wan=lik=tak
CAUS-straight 2SG.O and go=oceanward=DIR1
“Straighten yourself and come oceanwards hither.”
MAR_RD_KILI_20140327_BM1_RJ4_3_NW: 00:01:56.600
Alternatively, according to Rudiak-Gould (2004: 187), the verb make ‘be alone’ can be used to form reflexives; however, this construction does not occur in my corpus.
4.5.4 Basic verb phrase structure As established, the Marshallese subject pronoun precedes the preverbal particles which in turn precede the verb stem. Following the verb stem are the directionals (discussed below in §4.10.1) after which follows the object pronoun.37 Note that all elements except the verb are optional in at least some situations.
Subject Preverbal particles Verb stem Directionals Object pronoun
pronoun
Clause Structure 4.6.1 Verbal clauses: core arguments The position of the pronominal subjects with respect to the verb is fixed, but the optional lexical
NP adjuncts they cross-reference are mobile, and can appear on either side of the verb complex.
37 Zewen (1977: 129) writes that in kajin etto, the old or traditional form of Marshallese, sometimes still used when telling legends, the direct object immediately follows the verb, preceding the any directionals. This indicates that the close association between verb and directionals is perhaps a comparatively recent phenomenon in the diachrony of Marshallese. Schlossberg (2017) discusses in more detail the evolution of the directional construction (c.f. §4.10.3.4).
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In unmarked clauses, the subject proclitic cross-references the lexical topic, which precedes the verb complex, and the NP cross-referenced by the object pronoun follows it, as in (38)(45).
(45) im ļaddik in e=j lale juon ro̧n ̄
and boy DEM 3SG.S=IPFV look.at one hole
“and this boy is looking at a hole.”
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140130_JN1_S: 00:01:55.900
However, the lexical NP cross-referenced by the subject pronoun can occur following the verb complex to assign focus (46).
(46) e=ar diwōj=nabōj=tak juon bat
3SG.S=PFV exit=outward=DIR1 one bat
“Out came a bat.”
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140304_EJ1_W: 00:02:13.900
4.6.2 Prepositional phrases Prepositional phrases follow the main verb and any object pronouns or directionals. They are headed by one of five free prepositions.
4.6.2.1 The preposition lo The locative preposition lo is used not only spatially, but also to locate events in time. The example below (47) shows both functions. Although the preposition can occur in its bare form lo, it commonly also occurs with the locative prefix i- (§4.8.3.3.1), yielding a complex preposition ilo.
(47) I-lo juon iien, i=ar pād lo lo̧jet im enwōd̄ lo
LOC-at one time 1SG.S=PFV be.located at sea and line.fishing at
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wa eo.
boat DEF
“One time, I was at the sea and I was line-fishing in a boat.”
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140127_PP2_N: 00:00:14.600
(48) armij eņ e=j pād lo m̧aani-n wōjke eņ
boat SBJV 1SG=IPFV be.located at front-3SG.P tree DEM3
“That man is located in front of that tree.”
MAR_MT_SPR_20150119_BB3_CB2_2_N: 00:01:34.000
4.6.2.2 The preposition n̄ an The preposition n̄an is used for recipients, beneficiaries, and goals of directed motion.
(49) ļaddik eo e=ba nan̄ kidu eo bwe e=n jab keroro
boy DEF 3SG.S=say to dog DEF so 3SG.S=SBJV NEG speak
“The boy spoke to the dog so it would not bark.”
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140130_PP1_S: 00:03:04.400
(50) e=j kōjatdikdik ke e=naaj m̧ōnā̄ im e=naaj nan̄ armej
3SG.S=IPFV hope COMP 3SG.S=IRR food and 3SG.S=IRR to person
wōtemjej.
all
“He hoped that it would be food and that it would be for all people.”
Tobin (2002: 28)
4.6.2.3 The preposition jān The preposition jān has an ablative function.
125
(51) bar jino-e jān jino-un
again start-TR from start-CSTR
“Start it again from the beginning.
MAR_TOP_JAB_20140117_PB1: 00:01:27.300
4.6.2.4 The preposition kōn The preposition kōn is used with instruments (52) or to introduce a topic of discussion (53).
(52) e=m̧ōj a-er lukoj candle e kōn juon ribbon
1SG.S=finish CLF.GEN-3PL.P tie candle DEM1 INST one ribbon
“A candle has been tied with a ribbon.”
MAR_TOP_JAB_20140117_PB1: 00:01:27.300
(53) ekwe, nā i=naaj bwebwenato kōn kar peļo̧k eo a-m-ean.̄
CLF.GEN-1EX.PL.P- okay 1SG 1SG.S=IRR story INST PAST drift DEF PAUC
“Okay, I will tell a story about when we drifted (at sea).”
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140104_YM1_S: 00:00:11.200
4.6.2.5 The preposition kake The preposition kake is similar to kōn in that it is used to introduce a topic of discussion.
However, it does not require its complement to immediately follow it (54).
(54) […] wūt ņe kōj-ro ej kōnaan kake.
flower DEM2 1IN.PL-DU IPFV talk about
“[…] that flower we were both talking about”
MAR_RD_JAB_20131208_FP1_JT1_N: 00:03:54.800
126
4.6.3 Imperative clauses Imperatives are formed simply via omission of the second person subject pronoun (55). One can also give commands with declarative clauses by using the subjunctive preverbal particle en (see
§4.5.2).
(55) i=tok nan̄ jab-ōn tata
go=DIR1 to end-3SG.P most
“Come to the very end.”
MAR_RD_JAB_20131127_DA1_BR1_3_S: 00:05:25.100
4.6.4 Interrogative clauses This section discusses how interrogatives are formed in Marshallese. There is no special syntactic construction for forming interrogatives. Interrogatives are formed by means of an interrogative pro-form or particle.
4.6.4.1 Polar questions: the interrogative particle ke The interrogative particle ke is used to ask polar questions and can appear in various locations in the clause, but not clause-initially (in its capacity as an interrogative, though it may in its capacity as a subordinating conjunction, see §4.7.2.3). These positions include following the topic, following the preverbal particles (56), the verb stem (57), or clause-finally. See Willson
(2005) for more detailed discussion.
(56) je=j ke kwaļo̧k pija eņ nan̄ ļe e?
1IN.PL.S=IPFV INT show picture DEM3 to man DEM1
“Are we showing that picture to this guy?”
MAR_RD_KILI_20140327_RM1_HH1_1_N: 00:01:03.900
(57) kwō=j lali ke li-m̧a ra-ņe āne in?
2SG. S=IPFV see.TR.PL INT woman-PL PL.H-DEM2 land DEM1+2
“Do you see the women (of) this island?”
127
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140304_BB1_1_W: 00:04:03.700
4.6.4.2 Information questions There are three possible ways of forming information questions: with an interrogative pronoun, with an interrogative proverb, or with a clause-initial interrogative particle. Some types of information questions, such as locative interrogatives have more than one strategy available.
Interrogative pronouns take the place of either a full NP (58,(62), as a modifier of a noun within an NP (60), or as the head of an NP with a demonstrative following (61). Below are some of the most common interrogative pronouns.
4.6.4.2.1 The interrogative pronoun ia The interrogative pronoun ia ‘where?’ is used for locative NPs. It is a local noun (§4.8.3).
(58) Junjun e=pād i-lo ia?
Junjun 3SG.S=be.located LOC-at where?
“Where is Junjun?”
It may also be used as an allocentric directional in the directional construction (§4.10.1).
4.6.4.2.2 The interrogative pronoun ta The interrogative pronoun ta means ‘what?, which (one)?’
(59) jemļo̧k in ta?
end CSTR what?
“The end of what?”
MAR_RD_KILI_20140405_BB2_FL1_2_NE: 00:00:44.400
It can also be used as a determiner, as follows:
(60) wūt ta ņe?
flower what DEM
“Which flower?”
MAR_RD_SPR_20150206_MJ4_R10_3_E: 00:01:38.200
128
4.6.4.2.3 The interrogative pronoun wōn The interrogative pronoun is wōn ‘who?’ is used for animate referents.
(61) ekwe wōn ņe e=j pād iar?
okay, who? DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located sheltered.side
“okay, which (animal) is on the lagoon side?”
MAR_VAR_JAB_20131130_JB2_MZ1_1_W: 00:01:05.600
4.6.4.2.4 The interrogative pronoun n̄ āāt The interrogative pronoun n̄āāt ‘when?’ is used for asking about time.
(62) je=j kōttar nan̄ nāāt?̄
1IN.PL.S=IPFV wait to when?
“Until when are we waiting?”
4.6.4.2.5 The interrogative proverb et The interrogative proverb et means ‘do what?, do how?’.
(63) e=j et a-m̧ mour?
3SG.S=IPFV do.what? CLF.GEN-2SG.P life
“How are you?” (lit. “How is your doing of life?”)
4.6.4.2.6 The interrogative particles ewi and erri Like the interrogative pronoun ia (§4.6.4.2.1), ewi ‘where? (sg)’ and erri ‘where? (pl)’ are used to form locative interrogatives. However, they are particles, not pro-forms, and are always used clause-initially.
(64) ewi men iaļo in
where.SG? thing yellow DEM1+2
“Where is the yellow thing?”
MAR_RD_JAB_20131216_PP2_MB2_3_W: 00:00:41.300
According to the MOD, erri may only be used for human referents. However, Rudiak-Gould
(2004: 45) claims that it is used for any plural referent regardless of animacy. While no tokens 129 of erri occur in my corpus, example (65) taken from Tobin (2002: 45) seems to confirm Rudiak-
Gould’s analysis.
(65) erri men k-o kw-ar ba in i=tok in lali
where.PL? thing PL.NH-DEF 2SG.S=PFV say CSTR go=DIR1 CSTR look.TR.PL
“Where are the things you told me to come and see?”
Adapted from Tobin (2002: 45)
4.6.4.2.7 The interrogative particle etke The interrogative particle etke ‘how?, why?’ is used clause-initially. It is transparently derived from a combination of et ‘do what?’ and the polar interrogative ke.
(66) etke itōn pok ippa-m̧, ļe?
why? try.to confuse with-2SG.P man
“Why are you trying to be confusing, man?”
MAR_RD_KILI_20140331_RJ5_RJ6_1_NW: 00:05:38.000
Complex sentences Coordination and subordination are primarily expressed by means of various conjunctions.
Some of the most common are described below.
4.7.1 Coordination
4.7.1.1 The coordinating conjunction im The coordinator im (or em, in apparent free variation) is used to coordinate non-contrastive items, much like English ‘and’.
(67) ļe ņe e=j jutak tu-lōn ̄ im rei=m̧aan=ļo̧k
man DEM2 3SG=IPFV stand SIDE-top and look=forward=DIR3
“The man is standing at the top and looking forwards.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20150120_MK1_DA2_W: 00:05:22.700
130
4.7.1.2 The coordinating conjunction ak The conjunction ak ‘or, but’ is used to express disjunction (both inclusive and exclusive), a contrast, or a change of focus.
(68) em̧ōj a-er ilele peba i-lo juon needle ak dila
finish CLF.GEN-3PL.P string.TR paper LOC-at one needle but nail
“A (piece of) paper has been strung on a needle or nail.”
MAR_TOP_JAB_20150120_PB1: 00:04:17.200
(69) ak e=ar pedo timnē ļ eo wa-am-ean ̄ im bwilo̧k
but 3SG.S=PFV capsize canoe DEF CLF.VEHICLE-1IN.PL.P-PAUC and break
kubaak
outrigger
“But our canoe capsized and our outrigger broke.”
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140104_YM1: 00:01:07.600
4.7.1.3 The coordinating conjunction kab The conjunction kab is used with the meaning ‘and (also), as well as’. It is similar to im but considerably less common.
(70) jorjor=waj i-kōt-aan bridge ņe kab bao ņe
walk=DIR2 LOC-between-3SG.P bridge DEM and.also bird DEM2
“Walk hither between that bridge and that chicken.”
MAR_RD_JI_20140108_NR2_AJ3_4: 00:00:40.900
4.7.1.4 The disjunctor ke Though introduced earlier as an interrogative particle (§4.6.4.1), the form ke is also used to express exclusive disjunction, particularly in interrogatives. In these cases, ke goes between the two disjuncted NPs.
131
(71) e=pād lōn ̄ ke e=pād laļ? anmiin ̄ ke anmoon?
3SG.S=be.located top or 3SG.S=be.located bottom left or right
“Is he located on top or is he located at the bottom? Left or right?
MAR_MT_SPR_20150114_HH1_RM1_2_N: 00:05:35.500
4.7.2 Subordination
4.7.2.1 The subordinating conjunction bwe Bwe ‘so, because’ is used to introduce a subordinate clause presenting either a consequence or cause of an event. Both functions are shown in (72) below.
(72) re=bar kō-ro̧o̧l=tok kōm-ean ̄ bwe kōm-ean ̄ itōn jikul
3PL.S=again CAU-return=DIR1 1EX.PL-PAUC so 1EX.PL-PAUC come.for school
bwe e=m̧ōj weekend.
so 3SG.S=finish weekend
“They brought us all back so that we could go to school because the weekend had
ended.”
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140104_YM1: 00:01:07.600 (adapted)
4.7.2.2 The subordinating conjunction kōnke The subordinating conjunction kōnke ‘because’, like bwe, is used to express the rationale or cause of an event. However, unlike bwe it cannot be used to express a consequence of an event.
It is a transparent compound of the instrumental preposition kōn (§4.6.2.4) and the particle ke
(§4.6.4.1; §4.7.1.4; §4.7.2.3).
(73) e=kar wōtlo̧k ļaddik eo kōnke e=j waļok=tok juon bao.
3SG.S=PFV fall boy DEF because 3SG.S=IPFV appear=DIR1 one bird
“The boy fell because a bird appeared.”
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140304_JB3_W: 00:01:52.000
132
4.7.2.3 The complementiser ke In addition to being an interrogative particle (§4.6.4.1) and a coordinating conjunction
(§4.7.1.4), ke also functions as a complementiser.
(74) Kōm-jel en lo-e ke ej lam̧ōj jān bwilōn wōjke eo
1EX.PL.S-TRI SBJV see-TR COMP 3SG.S=IPFV shout from among tree DEF
“We could see that it was howling from inside the tree.”
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140304_BB1_1_W: 00:02:36.000 (adapted)
It is also used to introduce a subordinate clause indicating a cotemporaneous event.
(75) im ke leļļap re-in re=j lo leddik re-in ruo
and COMP old.woman PL.H-DEM1+2 3PL.S=IPFV see girl PL.H-DEM1+2 two
er-ro ar jiron=̄ ļo̧k er-ro ke er-ro ej i=tok jān ia.
3PL-DU PFV tell=DIR3 3PL.O-DU COMP 3PL-DU IPFV go=DIR1 from where?
“[…] and while these old women are watching these two girls, they spoke to them and asked them where they both came from.” MAR_NAR_JAB_20140127_KG1_N: 00:03:50.700
4.7.2.4 Relative clauses Relative clauses follow their head noun. They can occur without any formal marking.
(76) kōm-ean ̄ ar tal im kōm̧m̧an-e juon trip a-n jet
1EX.PL-PAUC PFV go and make-TR one trip CLF.GEN-3SG.P some
rilotok jān Mājro re=j jerbal i-lo health centre eņ.
visitor from Majuro 3PL.S=IPFV work LOC-at health centre DEM3
“We all went and organised a trip for some visitors from Majuro who work at the health
centre.”
MAR_NAR_JAB_20131130_PB1_N: 00:00:58.300
Relative clauses can also be preceded by the relativiser me.
133
(77) ļe ņe me e=j kotak wōjke ņe.
man DEM2 REL 3SG.S=IPFV carry tree DEM2
“That man who is carrying that tree.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20140127_FP1_PP2_N: 00:01:51.300
Static spatial relations In this section I introduce the two primary constructions Marshallese used to describe static relations, the general oblique construction and the local construction. I follow this with a description of basic locative constructions in Marshallese and then discuss the semantics and distribution of several local nouns used for topological relations.
4.8.1 The general oblique construction Marshallese morphosyntax, as with other Oceanic languages (Ross 2004), distinguishes between local nouns and common nouns. Local nouns are those which can occur in what Ross refers to as the local construction, a phrase specialized for static locative meaning, with simpler morphosyntax than a basic spatial construction, which Ross refers to as a general adjunct construction.
The following is an example of the general oblique construction when used to describe static relations.
(78) E=j pād (i-)lo wōjke e.
3SG=IPFV be.located (LOC-)at tree DEM1
Figure Locative_VP PREP Ground_NP
“He is at this tree.”
All locative clauses require a locative verb, usually the neutral locative verb pād, which has an obligatory locative complement phrase. Occasionally other postural verbs like jutak
‘stand’ are used (see §4.8.8)
134
The preposition lo is the only locative preposition in Marshallese (§4.6.2.1). It is the most basic way to express a locative relationship, as it denotes simple coincidence of the figure with the ground. It frequently takes the optional locative case marking prefix i- with no discernible change in meaning. This prefix can also attach directly to local nouns (§4.8.3.3.1) but not to common nouns.
More complex relationships, whether topological or frame of reference based, are marked by local nouns, which can be used in a place role with the preposition lo in the general oblique construction, but are more commonly used in the bare local construction (§4.8.2).
Unlike the local construction, the ground NP in the general oblique construction may take any noun as its head. In practice however, it is far more common for ground NPs headed by local nouns to be used in the local construction.The general oblique construction is also used for dynamic events (motion, orientation, transfer, etc.)(§4.10.3.1).
4.8.2 The local construction This local/common distinction has been reconstructed by Ross (2004: 184) for Proto Oceanic
(POc) and the distinction is generally preserved in Oceanic languages, even if the way this distinction is reflected in the grammar has changed since POc. According to Ross, Local nouns are distinguished from common nouns in that they can enter into the local construction, a morphosyntactic construction which is used for spatial relations and other associated functions
(e.g. temporal relations). However, for Marshallese additional criteria are stipulated for local nouns in terms of their morphological distribution (see §4.8.3 below). There are nouns which do not meet these morphological criteria but are nevertheless used in the local construction. These include proper place names (§4.8.4) and a few aberrant common nouns
While the local/common distinction is common across Oceanic languages, the actual morphosyntactic devices used to express it may differ from language to language. Ross (2004)
135 reconstructs the structure for the general adjunct construction and local construction in POc, using the noun *Rumaq ’house’ as follows:
(79) Local construction *i Rumaq ‘at home’
General adjunct construction *i ta-ña Rumaq ‘at a/the house’
Like in POc, the local construction is also reduced in comparison to the general oblique construction. It is characterised by the absence of the locative preposition lo ‘at’ which is obligatory in the general oblique construction.
(80) E=j pād iar.
3SG=IPFV be.located sheltered.side
“He is (located) at the lagoon side.”
All local nouns are capable of occurring in the general oblique construction, as well as the local construction. However, use of local noun in general oblique construction is relatively uncommon. The local construction is preferred for marking local nouns as place roles.
(81a) ko=pād ke i-lo m̧aan tata?
2SG.S=be.located INT LOC-at front most
“Are you located at the very front?”
MAR_RD_JAB_20131208_FP1_JT1_3_N: 00:00:55.200
(b) ak ko=jab pād i-lo tu-iōnī -n wūt e.
but 2SG.S=NEG be.located LOC-at SIDE-north-3SG.P flower DEM1
“But you are not located to the north of this flower.”
MAR_RD_JAB_20131127_DA1_BR1_1_S: 00:03:01:200
Notice in the above examples (81a) that despite occurring in the general oblique construction, local nouns retain their other formal properties (§4.8.3), further indicating that local nouns are a distinct lexical subcategory regardless of the syntactic structure of the clause in which they are employed.
136
4.8.3 Local nouns This section discusses the morphological properties universal to local nouns in Marshallese and identifies and describes two subtypes of local nouns: locative nouns and relational nouns. The third subtype, locative demonstratives, are described in §4.9.1.4.
Local nouns in Marshallese are distinguished from common nouns on the basis that (a) they may be used in the local construction, (b) they do not occur with determiners, and (c) they may optionally also take the bound locative prefix i- (see §4.8.3.3).
4.8.3.1 Locative local nouns Locative nouns are local nouns which can freely occur with a bare stem. In terms of their semantics, they are most commonly large-scale topological features in the environment (islands, the lagoon side of an island, the ocean, etc.), cardinal directions, and body axis terms. As such, they are most commonly used as landmarks or to express a frame of reference (see Chapter 2).
This contrasts with the relational local nouns, which tends to be used more often as topological relation markers (§4.8.9).
Most locative nouns can be used to overtly identify a facet of a ground entity, as in (82.
When this occurs, locative nouns are possessed as i-stem inalienable nouns (§4.4.6.1). Note that the possessive suffix alone is sufficient to mark this relationship, and thus the ground object may be omitted, as demonstrated in (82.
(82a) e=j pād riliki-n wōjke e.
3SG.S=IPFV be.located west-3SG.P tree DEM1
“He is west of this tree.”
(b) e=j pād riliki-n.
3SG.S=IPFV be.located west-3SG.P
“He is west of it.”
137
However, locative nouns differ from other directly possessed nouns in that they can occur with a bare stem, while most inalienable nouns are obligatorily possessed. It is also significant that all locative nouns take i-stem possessive marking, the third person singular of which is homomorphic with the construct form in §4.4.6.3. As these terms are used mostly with the third person, it is likely that this provided opportunity for speakers to reanalyse the construct enclitic =in as a third person singular possessive marker and from there, sentences such a (83) with a non-3SG possessive marker became possible, as discussed above in §4.4.6.3.
(83) wōjke e e=j pād tu-lik-ū
tree DEM1 3SG=IPFV be.located SIDE-back-1SG.P
“The tree is behind me.”
MAR_MT_SPR_20150119_JA3_TA2_W: 00:03:12.600
The clearest evidence for this theory comes from the local noun m̧aan which has undergone reanalysis from an aa-stem relational local noun (i.e. the root m̧-) in the third person singular to a locative local noun taking i-stem possessive marking. This is discussed in more detail in §5.4.1.
4.8.3.2 Relational local nouns Relational local nouns are stems which are obligatorily directly bound to a possessive marker and therefore cannot be used with a bare root like locative nouns (see §4.4.6.1). They primarily mark topological relations (§4.8.9) and can take any of the possible thematic vowel stems
(§4.4.6.1).
(84a) e=j pād lowaa-n.
3SG=IPFV be.located inside-3SG.P
“He is inside it.”
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140304_BB1_W: 00:02:38.700
138
(b) m̧we e=j pād lowaa-n woror e
house.DEM1 3SG=IPFV be.located inside-3SG.P fence DEM1
“The house is inside the fence.”
MAR_TOP_JAB_20140130_PP1_S: 00:01:31.200
4.8.3.3 The locative prefixes As mentioned previously, local nouns may take the locative prefixes i-. Locative local nouns may also take the locative prefix tu-. In this section, each of these two prefixes is discussed in turn.
4.8.3.3.1 The locative prefix i- The locative prefix i- may optionally be used with all local nouns to assign locative case to the phrase.
(85) […] i-kijjie-n men brown ņe i-lik tata
LOC-in.line.with-3SG.P thing brown DEM2 LOC-exposed.side most
“In line with that brown thing on the far ocean side.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20140405_FL1_BB2_1_NE: 00:01:11.600
The prefix i- may also attach to the locative preposition lo (89b; see §4.6.2.1; §4.8.1), but cannot attach to the other spatial prepositions – the dative n̄an or the ablative jān. This is possibly because lo is recently descended from a nominal form, PMc *lalo ‘inside’ (Bender et al.
2003: 41). It is also possible to stack i- marking on both lo and a local noun being used in the general oblique construction, as in (86).
(86) im kiiō deļo̧n=waj̄ i-lo i-kōtaan oror ņe lik
and now enter=DIR2 LOC-at LOC-between fence DEM2 exposed.side
“And now enter between that ocean side fence.”
MAR_RD_KILI_20140407_WH1_JJ4_2_NE: 00:00:30.800
There appears to be no synchronic semantic difference between presence and absence of i- marking. In terms of frequency, marking with i- is very common on the preposition lo and the
139 locative demonstratives (§4.9.1.4). However, it is much less common on local nouns. There is evidence that this has not always been the case, since there are many cases where i- locative has become fossilised to a local noun. . This is evidently the case with the term for ‘sheltered side (of island)’ which in Rālik Marshallese is most commonly iar, with the bare root ar only being used as an enclitic in the directional construction (see §4.10.1). Other examples of the fossilised i- prefix include iōn̄ ‘north’ (Rālik dialect, c.f. equivalent form in Ratak dialect ean ̄ which shows the root without fossilised prefix). Several of the i- initial forms in §4.8.9 are also likely to be reflections of this phenomenon.
4.8.3.3.2 The locative prefix tu- The tu- prefix can optionally be employed with locative local nouns only. It cannot be used with relational local nouns or locative demonstratives. Its exact function is unclear, like i- it can optionally be employed or not, with no discernible change in meaning. There does not appear to be an obvious sociolinguistic effect on whether it is used, as the same speaker will alternate between using it or not, with the same lexemes, to describe similar situations. Though optional, it is very high frequency, occurring over 2000 times in the corpus.
The prefix tu- is possibly related to the relational noun tūri- ‘next to, near’ (§4.8.9.4).
Given this, and that it is only used with locative nouns, which typically mark projective relationships between Figure and Ground, I tentatively gloss it as SIDE.
(87) ļe e e=j pād tu-reari-n wōjke ņe
man DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-east-3SG.P tree DEM2
“This man is to the east of that tree.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20140408_JE2_DA3_2_NE: 00:03:39.000
It is possible to stack tu- with the locative prefixe i-. When done so, the i- prefix always precedes tu- (88).
140
(88) wūt ņe e=j pād i-tu-m̧aani-n ļe ņe.
flower DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located LOC-SIDE-front-3SG.P man DEM2
“The flower is located in front of the man.”
MAR_RD_KILI_20140408_JJ4_AM1_1_NE: 00:02:36:300 (adapted)
4.8.4 Proper place nouns Proper nouns denoting locations are also used in the local construction. Like local nouns, they do not take determiners, but this is a property of all proper nouns, not just proper place nouns, thus this criterion alone is not sufficient to call them local nouns. Notably also, they cannot take any of the locative prefixes described in §4.8.3.3 above, nor may the take any possessive marking. The following example demonstrates a proper noun in the local construction (89a) and in the general oblique construction (89b).
(89a) ļe e=j pād Lojkar.
man 3SG.S=IPFV be.located Lojkar.PN
“He is at Lojkar.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20131121_KJ1_CN1_N: 00:02:03.600
(b) e=j pād lo m̧aani-n men būrōrō e i-lo Lojkar.
3SG.S=IPFV be.located at front-3SG.P thing red DEM1 LOC-at Lojkar.PN
“He is in front of the red thing at Lojkar.”
MAR_RD_JAB_20131201_DG1_GA1_3_W: 00:02:58.000
Although proper place names pattern like local nouns syntactically in that they are used in the local construction, they do not have the morphological properties of local nouns. Therefore, though Ross (2004) includes proper place names as local nouns in his typology of local nouns, they are not included as local nouns in this study.
141
4.8.5 Common nouns in the local construction Though one of the diagnostic criteria stipulated for local nouns above is that they appear in the local construction, there are at least two nouns which fulfil all the diagnostic criteria for common nouns, and none of those for local nouns, but are nevertheless employed in the local construction. These two nouns are em̧ ‘house’ and āne ‘land, islet’.
(90) E=j pād m̧ō-ke-in im rei=ar=ļo̧k.
3SG=IPFV be.located house-PL.NH-DEM1+2 and look=to.sheltered.side=DIR3
“He is at this house and looking lagoonwards.”
MAR_RD_JAB_20141127_DA1_BR1_3_S: 00:04:06.300
As can be seen in (90), em̧ ‘house’ has the morphological properties of a regular common noun in that it takes demonstratives and cannot take the locative prefixes as local nouns do. Also, unlike relational and locative local nouns, em̧ ‘house’ takes indirect possessive marking.
(91) E=j pād m̧w-e m̧ō-n LSP
3SG=IPFV be.located house-DEM1 CLF.BUILDING-3SG.P LSP
“He is at LSP’s house.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20131205_SB1_TP1_W: 00:04:30.500
Note that this situation is not the same as that which exists with left/right terms, where some speakers treat them as common nouns and others as local nouns (§5.4.2).
4.8.6 The locative particle ņa(i) The locative particle ņa(i)’s exact function is unclear, but it seems to be used to describe situations where a Figure is placed or set in a location. It slots between the verb and the locative phrase, whether it be a prepositional phrase or a local construction.
142
(92) ņa ioļap~ļapi-n men e kein ka-ruo ke?
be.placed middle~EMP-3SG.P thing DEM1 thing.for CAUS-two INT
“(Should it be) placed there at the very centre of this second thing?”
MAR_RD_JAB_20141127_DA1_BR1_3_S: 00:04:06.300
(93) jibwe ņai lōn ̄
hold.TR be.placed top
“Hold it up.”
MAR_RD_KILI_20140407_HJ2_DA3_1_NE: 00:00:17.000
(94) likūt=i kiiō kaat ka-ņe a-m̧ ņai i-lo
put.TR=3PL.O.NH now card PL.NH-DEM2 CLF.GEN-2SG.P be.placed LOC-at
laļi-n kaat ka-ņe me kw=ar kar-ōk=i.
bottom-3SG.P card PL.NH-DEM2 REL 2SG.S=PFV arrange-TR=3PL.O.NH
“Now place your cards below those cards which you have already ordered.”
MAR_MT_KILI_20140408_AM1_JJ4_2_NE: 00:03:41.300
4.8.7 The anaphoric locative pronoun ie An anaphoric pronoun, ie is used to refer to locations previously established in the discourse.
(95) e=j aolep-ān ek k-o eo̧nwōd̄ i-lo i-j-o
3SG.S=IPFV all-3SG.P fish PL.NH-DEF line.fishing LOC-at LOC-place-DEM2
143
kw=ar pād ie.
2SG.S=PFV be.located L.ANA
“It is all of the fish (you caught) fishing there where you were.”
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140224_OJ1_W: 00:02:52:300
4.8.8 The Basic Locative Construction The Basic Locative construction, or BLC, is the most common or colloquial response to a where- question inquiring about the location of a figure within a prototypical scene (Levinson & Wilkins
2006c: 15–17; Levinson & Wilkins 2006b: 514–19). Levinson & Meira (2003) and Levinson &
Wilkins (2006b) endeavour to create a preliminary typology of the BLC in a cross-linguistic perspective. In this section I discuss how Marshallese fits into the typology.
The first difficulty however, is identifying what is the BLC in Marshallese, and what is not. This is problematic, as all the constructions in the section above are common, and which is chosen can depend on a variety of factors. For example, the local construction, which is the most common, ‘default’ construction with a local noun is different to the general oblique construction, which is the default (and only) construction with a common noun. The universal properties of the general oblique construction suggest that perhaps it should be considered the
Marshallese BLC, but the local construction is used with local nouns, which are the most prototypical locations. Perhaps it is possible to generalise an underlying basic structure of the form: FIGURE_NP pād LOCATIVE_PHRASE, where the locative phrase can either be a local noun with inherent locative case (local construction) or a prepositional phrase headed by the locative preposition lo (general oblique construction). However, this ignores the complexity in terms of the variety of forms the locative phrase can take, and the possibility that this variation may correlate with various factors pragmatic or semantic (Schlossberg 2017b).
There is a considerable amount of variety in terms of the structure of the BLC across languages, especially with regards to how the topological relationship is marked (see Ameka &
Levinson 2007). For example, some languages have a series of locative/postural verbs. On the 144 other hand, some languages do not have a verb in their BLCs, while some like English make use of a general copula or have just one dedicated neutral locative verb. Marshallese falls into the latter category, with the verb pād overwhelmingly used to express location but denoting nothing of the nature of the relationship between figure and ground. The primary exceptions are the verbs -ddāp ‘to adhere to or cling to’, toto ‘to hang’ and roro ‘to hang from a line’ which are used for suspended entities. Other postural verbs like jutak ‘stand’ or jijjet ‘sit’ are used primarily for animates and rarely extended to inanimates.
Some languages, such as English, make extensive use of adpositions as the primary
Topological Relation Markers (TRMs). This is not the case for Marshallese, which has only one locative preposition, lo. However, it simply denotes coincidence between Figure and Ground.
For more complex topological relations, Marshallese uses spatial nominals, namely, relational and locative local nouns.
4.8.8.1 General and specific spatial terms Given the level of variation in the expression of Marshallese location, and the fact that there does not appear to be a single construction which could be considered ‘most basic’, we turn to another approach to typologising locative markers – that of Feist (2004, 2008). Feist identifies a cross-linguistic semantic distinction between specific spatial terms (SSTs) and general spatial terms (GSTs).38 According to Feist (2004), “GSTs occur in all spatial descriptions and impart no specific information about the location of the Figure. Rather, these terms just serve to relate the
Figure to the Ground.” Conversely, specific spatial terms mark only a specific subset of the possible relationships between Figure and Ground. Some languages like English only have specific spatial terms. Spatial prepositions such as in, at, or on may have a wide range of applications, but nevertheless are limited in their use to certain types of spatial relationships.
38 In her earlier study, Feist (2004) refers to them as generalised spatial terms. 145
This typology eliminates the difficulty of judging what exactly counts as a BLC and instead focuses on the terms used to describe spatial relations. However, Marshallese still causes problems for this dichotomy. On the surface, the spatial preposition lo appears to be a good candidate for a GST. It fulfils Feist’s second criterion for GSTs, that they impart no specific information about the location of the Figure. However, as established, lo does not occur in all spatial descriptions, appearing to flout the first criterion. On the other hand though, it is possible to employ lo in any spatial description, it is just that with local nouns it is omitted more often than not. Given that lo in Marshallese (and other languages with similar systems, see Koch 1995:
47-51) fulfils all other criteria, it is counted here as a GST.
In a quantitative study on speakers of Japanese and Indonesian which measured acceptability judgements for sole use of a GST (i.e. without accompanying SST) across a variety of Figure-Ground configurations, Feist (2008) found that the most important factor for whether or not a GST-only description of a scene would be found acceptable was whether or not the relationship between Figure and Ground was canonical.39 A similar study may prove valuable with Marshallese, not only to assess whether the same holds true for the preposition lo, but also to explore under what conditions a local construction may be employed and therefore the preposition lo be excluded entirely. While Feist identifies a two-level pragmatic hierarchy in terms of how spatial scenes are described in Japanese and Indonesian, application of her methodology to Marshallese and other similar languages may reveal a three-level hierarchy wherein highly canonical relationships are marked with a local construction (i.e. no GST or SST), compared to less canonical relationships marked with a GST and least canonical relationships with an SST and optional GST. Furthermore, while no qualitative explanation based on the data in the Marshallese corpus could be gleaned as to when the GST is employed in situations where it is optional, experimental data may yield further results.
39 In this study, canonicality was treated as a binary categorical variable for experimental purposes, though in reality it is a scalar phenomenon; relationships can be more or less canonical. 146
4.8.9 Topological Relations Topological relations are strategies for locating a figure with respect to a ground. They differ from frame of reference in that they are generally considered non-projective or non-angular
(Levinson & Wilkins 2006a: 3). This section describes the various markers used by Marshallese speakers to encode topological relations. It begins with a brief introduction to topological relation markers. Then, the section is split into subsections on the basis of semantic domain. I first look at terms for the vertical domain, relations such as ON, UNDER, ABOVE, BELOW, etc. and then analyse terms describing relations in the domains of containment (IN, INSIDE,
OUTSIDE), proximity (NEAR, BESIDE, etc.) and coincidence, where coincidence is broadly defined to include coincidence with a differentiated facet of the ground (FRONT, etc.), and finally miscellaneous others (BETWEEN, AROUND).
4.8.9.1 Overview of topological relations While invoking a frame of reference involves the projection of coordinates on the basis of a viewpoint, from a differentiated facet of the ground itself, or from features in the wider environment, topological relations express contrast in features such as containment, attachment, proximity, etc. Prototypical topological relations include concepts such as AT, IN,
ON, UNDER, OVER, etc. Despite Levinson & Wilkins (2006a: 3) drawing a clear distinction between frame of reference and topological relations, in reality the situation is murkier, as
Levinson (2003: 72,80) himself acknowledges. This is particularly the case for the vertical domain when there is no contiguity between Figure and Ground (e.g. ABOVE, BELOW, UNDER, OVER) and thus inherently some sort of projection. Nevertheless these variables are generally considered to fall within the sphere of topological relations and are therefore discussed in this section. There can also be ambiguity as to whether a construction invokes an intrinsic frame of reference or a topological relation. In English, topological invocations of ‘front’ and ‘back’ can be distinguished from frame of reference invocations on the basis of which preposition is selected. For example, the sentence “Jessie is at the front of the house” clends itself to a
147 topological interpretation, i.e. that Jessie is coincident with a facet of the house, namely the
FRONT. For a frame of reference interpretation, the preposition ‘in’ is used, i.e. “Jessie is in front of the house”. In Marshallese, this is not the case and the equivalent description Jessie ej pād m̧aanin m̧weo lends itself to either interpretation. Therefore, the primary Marshallese terms for
FRONT and BACK, m̧aan and lik respectively, are left for the section on frame of reference
(§5.4.1). However, Marshallese speakers do occasionally use other terms with FRONT/BACK semantics on a more ad hoc basis such as meja- ‘eye, face’. These uses are less likely to be projective and are therefore dealt with in this section.
Languages vary as to what sorts of topological relations are encoded by the Basic
Locative Construction. Levinson and Wilkins (2006b: 515-16) identify a hierarchy of scenes which describes the cross-linguistic tendency of a given topological relation to be described using the BLC, reproduced here:
1. Figure is impaled by ground.
2. Figure is stuck to ground.
3. Figure is ‘damage’ or in negative space (e.g. crack, hole).
4. Figure is part of ground.
5. Figure is adornment or clothing.
6. Figure is inanimate, movable entity in contiguity with the ground.
Figure 16: Hierarchy of scenes most likely to be coded by a BLC (Levinson & Wilkins 2006b)
The lower the scene is in this hierarchy, the more likely it is to be encoded linguistically with a BLC. To elicit the fine-grained distinctions required for such a semantic typology, I have followed previous research (Levinson & Wilkins 2006a) in using the Topological Relations
Pictures Series, or TRPS, a series of 71 black and line drawings developed by Bowerman &
Pederson (1992), each containing a figure highlighted in orange, to elicit topological
148 descriptions. Pictures from this elicitation suite are referred to as “TRPS” followed by their item number (1-71).
Figure 17: Pictures from the Topological Relations Picture Series
Marshallese is quite permissive with its BLC, as it allows its use for all scenes in the hierarchy.
However, Marshallese speakers disprefer the BLC for type 1 scenes, instead generally using a construction such as (96) below:
(96) Juon apple e=m̧ōj a-n juon m̧ade ka-pejlo̧k-e.
one apple 3SG.S=finish CLF.GEN-3SG.P one spear CAUS-go.through-TR
“An apple has had a spear pierce it.”
MAR_TOP_JAB_20140117_PB1: 00:05:46:000
For scenes 2 and 3, that is when the Figure is either stuck to the Ground or is in negative space,
Marshallese speakers may use either a BLC or some other construction. For example, TRPS 12, 149 which depicts a substance stuck to the blade of a knife, elicited a description with a BLC from one participant:
(97) i=jaje ta e=j pād ioo-n bōra-n knife e
1SG.S=not.know what 3SG.S=IPFV be.located on-3SG.P head-3SG.P knife DEM1
“I do not know what is on the head (i.e. blade) of this knife.”
MAR_TOP_JAB_20140130_PP1: 00:01:19:100
However the same speaker uses different construction for other types. For example, in describing TRPS 20, which depicts a swag (misidentified as a balloon by the speaker) on a stick, the speaker uses an impersonal construction (§4.5.3.3).
(98) bujeen ̄ e r=ar lukōj-e nan̄ aļaļ e
balloon DEM1 3PL.S=PFV tie-TR to stick DEM1
“They tied this balloon to this stick.”
MAR_TOP_JAB_20140130_PP1: 00:01:54:400
The end result is similar to (96); rather than using a topological description, the speaker portrays the scene as the result of an action or event.
4.8.9.2 Vertical relations
4.8.9.2.1 Ioo- ‘on’ Ioo- ‘on’ is perhaps the most commonly used relational noun in spatial descriptions. It is also irregular in that possessive inflection goes directly onto the root without addition of any of the thematic vowels to form a stem (§4.4.6.1).
Prototypically, it is employed when a figure is vertically superior to and in contact with the ground, such as a cup on a table (TRPS 1), a stamp on an envelope (TRPS 3), a hat on a person’s head (TRPS 5) or a boat on the water (TRPS 11). It can also sometimes be used when the figure is in contact with the ground, but there is no vertical superiority, such as a piece of
150 fruit hanging from a tree branch (TRPS 27) or clothes hanging from a line (TRPS 37). In both cases, a postural verb meaning ‘to hang’ must be used in lieu of the neutral locative verb pād.
(99) cup e e=j pād ioo-n table e
cup DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located on-3SG.P table DEM1
“The cup is on the table.”
MAR_TOP_JAB_20140130_PP1: 00:00.15.200
4.8.9.2.2 Ra-‘on top’ Ra- is a relational noun similar to io- and may be best translated with the English phrase ‘on top of’. Unlike io- the figure must be vertically superior to and in contact with the ground.
(100) ka-ttōr ļōn=̄ ļo̧k kijan ̄ ņe i-lo raa-n men
CAUS-go.quickly upward=DIR3 boy DEM2 LOC-at on.top-3SG.P thing
iaļo ņe
yellow DEM2
“Move the boy up on top of that yellow thing.”
MAR_RD_JAB_20140208_RW1_BL1_N: 00:02:37.000
4.8.9.2.3 Lōn̄ - ‘on top’ Lōn̄ ‘top, above, over’ is a locative noun which can be assigned to the vertically superior facet of an entity in much the same way as ‘top’ in English. When used relationally, it is generally preferred for when there is no contact between Figure and Ground, such as a lamp hanging from the roof over a table (TRPS 13) but it can be used when there is contact if the Ground is a long tall object, such as a flag on a flagpole (TRPS 56).
(101) flag e e=j pād lo i-j-eņ jiki-n lōn ̄ tata
LOC-place- place- flag DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located at top most DEM3 3SG.P
“This flag is there in its position at the very top.”
151
MAR_TOP_JAB_20140130_PP1_S: 00:05:03.900
4.8.9.2.4 Ium̧ wi- ‘under’ Ium̧wi- ‘under’ is a relational noun used for vertical inferiority. It can be used when there is contact between Figure and Ground, for instance, when a spoon is covered by a washcloth (TRPS
24) but contact is not necessary as it can also be used to describe a ball under a chair (TRPS 16) or a cat under a table (TRPS 31 (102)).
(102) kuuj ņe e=j pād ium̧wi-n table e
cat DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located under-3SG.P table DEM1
“This cat is under this table.”
MAR_TOP_JAB_20140117_PB1: 00:05:57.800
4.8.9.2.5 Laļ ‘bottom, below, ground’ Laļ ‘bottom, below, ground’ is a locative noun which may be considered the counterpart of lōn.̄
It is similar to ium̧w- but is generally not used when there is contact between figure and ground.
It is also the generic word for ‘ground’.
(103) wōjke e e=j pād laļi-n ļe ņe.
tree DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located bottom-3SG.P man DEM2
“This tree is below the man.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20140127_FP1_PP2_N: 00:02:22.500
Additionally, laļ has been metaphorically extended for temporal use, the expression in laļ meaning ‘next’ such as in the common expression iiō in laļ ‘next year’. This suggests a vertical conceptualisation of time, similar to what has been described for Mandarin speakers (Scott
1989; Boroditsky 2001) for whom futurity is also associated with vertical inferiority. However, the corresponding expression for earlier events is not, as one might expect, in lōn,̄ but instead eo ļo̧k (see §4.9.2.4).
152
4.8.9.2.6 Kapi- ‘bottom, back’ Kapi- ‘bottom (of), back (of)’ is assigned to the vertically inferior facet of entities. It is similar to laļ but it cannot involve projection from the ground to the figure. It can also designate the back of animate entities or parts of animate entities, perhaps on the same basis that the human anatomical posterior can be referred to both as ‘the bottom’ or ‘the backside’ in English, where the former is motivated by a seated canonical orientation and the latter on a standing canonical orientation.
(104) kapi-n wa ņe
bottom-3SG.P boat DEM2
“The boot of the car.”
MAR_VAT_JAB_20131129_TP1_YM1_E: 00:06:35.800
4.8.9.3 Containment
4.8.9.3.1 Lowaa- ‘in, inside’ Lowaa- ‘in, inside’ is the most common term used to express containment, for example an apple inside a bowl (TRPS 2).
(105) kidu e neji-n lale frog e nan̄ lowaa-n jar e
dog DEM1 CLF.CHILD-3SG.P look frog DEM1 to inside-3SG.P jar DEM1
“His dog is looking at this frog inside the jar.”
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140130_PP1_S: 00:00:19.500
4.8.9.3.2 Nabōj ‘outside’ Nabōj is the counterpart to lowaa-. It is used to refer to a figure located outside the bounds of the Ground, equivalent to English ‘outside (of)’, as in the following example, describing TRPS 6.
(106) kidu e e=j pād nabōji-n m̧we m̧ō-n.
outside- CLF.BUILDING- dog DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located house.DEM1 3SG.P 3SG.P
153
“This dog is outside of his kennel.”
MAR_TOP_JAB_20140130_PP1_S: 00:00:41.100
4.8.9.4 Proximity and coincidence
4.8.9.4.1 Turi- ‘near, next to, by’ Turi- ‘near, next to, by’ is used to express proximity. It is neutral as to the internal structure of the Ground.
(107) rō=lo frog e dipi-n wōjke e tūri-n. ļo̧jet
3PL.S=see frog DEM1 base-3SG.P tree DEM1 near-3SG.P sea
“They see this frog at the trunk of this tree by the sea.”
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140130_SB1_S: 00:03:58.700
4.8.9.4.2 Tōrerei- ‘side, edge, alongside’ Tōrerei- can be used to describe a side or edge of an entity, e.g. tōrerein dān ‘the water’s edge’.
It is used topologically with the meaning ‘next to, alongside’.
(108) i=wōj kōtaa-n woror e waj tōrerei-n men būrōrō ņe waj.
between- edge- go=DIR2 fence DEM1 DIR2 thing red DEM2 DIR2 3SG.P 3SG.P
“Go in your direction between this fence near you alongside that red thing near you.”
MAR_RD_JI_20140108_AJ1_VG1_2_N: 00:00:27.600
4.8.9.4.3 Dipi- ‘base, foundation, bottom, trunk (of tree)’ Dipi- describes the base of something or the side of a tall object such as a tree or wall of a house.
It is also commonly used for objects like tree trunks (148), fence posts (21), etc.
4.8.9.4.4 Meja- ‘eye, face’ Meja- ‘eye, face’, from Proto Oceanic *mata ‘eye, face’, is generally used to refer to the front of animate entities. It is generally ambiguous as to whether it is being used as a TRM or merely a body part. However, there are a few rare instances where it has been used with inanimates, much the same as m̧(aan) ‘front’, e.g. 154
(109) kwo=pād ke i-lo mejā-n wintō ņe?
2SG.S=be.located INT LOC-at face-3SG.P window DEM2
“Are you in front of that window?”
MAR_RD_JI_20140108_TE1_NR1_2_N: 00:02:43.600
4.8.9.4.5 Lōkwa- ‘tail, bottom, back, behind’ Lōkwa- ‘tail, back, behind, bottom’ is sometimes used in spatial description when there is an animate ground. Like meja-, it is generally not extended to inanimates and is rare compared to lik which is far more commonly used for ‘behind’.
(110) ļe e e=j jit=ta=ļo̧k im wōjke e e=j
man DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV face=eastward=DIR3 and tree DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV
pād lōkwa-n.
be.located tail-3SG.P
“This man is facing eastwards and this tree is at his back.”
MAR_MT_JI_20140118_JA2_MH1_E: 00:07:31.500
4.8.9.5 Miscellaneous Kōta- is used when the figure is between two ground entities.
(111) jorjor kōtaa-er im ļak m̧ōji-n jit=rina=̄ ļo̧k.
walk between-3PL.P and after finish-3SG.P face=southward=DIR3
“Walk between them and then face southwards.”
MAR_RD_JAB_20131126_CN1_SB1_3_W: 00:00:25.800
Despite the ground being inherently plural, more often than not the relational noun still takes singular marking as in (112) below.
155
(112) wal=lōn=waj̄ wot kōtaa-n woror ka-ņe ruo
go=upward=DIR2 just between-3SG.P fence PL.NH-DEM2 two
“Keep going up between those two fences.”
MAR_MT_JI_20140118_JA2_MH1_E: 00:07:32:600
The third person singular form, kōtaan, may also be used as a common noun meaning ‘the area between’. In (113) the speaker is instructing someone to navigate a boat out between two islands.
(113) diwōj ilo kōtaan ņe
exit at area.between DEM2
“Exit through that gap.”
MAR_VAT_JAB_20131212_PP1_FP1_1_E: 00:05:32:700
4.8.9.5.1 Ioļap ‘middle’ Ioļap is used as a locative noun to describe the middle of an entity. When used topologically, it prototypically describes scenes in which the Figure is contained by the Ground, but only in two dimensional space.
(114) em̧m̧aan e im wūt e re=j pād ioļapi-n pija
middle- picture man DEM1 and flower DEM1 3PL.S=IPFV be.located 3SG.P
e.
DEM1
“This man and this flower are in the middle of this picture.”
MAR_MT_SPR_20150114_RM1_HH1_1_N: 00:02:57:600
The final element can also be reduplicated for emphasis, i.e. ioļapļap ‘the very middle’.
156
(115) kwō=j etal ioļap~ļapi-n men iaļo ņe kab bao ņe.
2SG.S=IPFV go middle~EMPH-3SG.P thing yellow DEM2 and.also bird DEM2
“You go in the very centre of this yellow thing and the chicken.”
MAR_RD_KILI_20140407_DA3_HJ2_4_NE: 00:01:57.000
4.8.9.5.2 Jab- ‘end, point’ The meronym jabi- is an i-stem relational noun with the meaning ‘end, point (of something)’.
(116) kā=ļo̧k ioo-n woror ņe im jok jabō-n woror ņe.
jump=DIR3 on-3SG.P 3SG.S=IPFV DEM2 and land end-3SG.P fence DEM2
“Jump on that fence and then land at the end of that fence.”
MAR_RD_JAB_20131127_BR1_DA1_4_S: 00:01:26.500
The root jab can also compound with ar ‘sheltered side of island’ and lik ‘back, exposed side of island’.
(117) ettōr jab-liki-n āne ņe.
go.quickly end-back-3SG.P land DEM2
“Go quickly to the back end of that island.”
MAR_VAT_JAB_20131223_MK1_SB1_2_E: 00:03:46.000_
Spatial deixis This sections deals with the two primary means of expressing spatial deixis in Marshallese, demonstratives and deictic directionals.
4.9.1 Articles and demonstratives Demonstratives are deictic expressions which locate the referent with respect to some sort of deictic centre. In this section, the form and function of Marshallese demonstratives are described, with particular attention to the spatial information they contain. While demonstratives have deictic functions beyond the realm of space (temporal deixis, social deixis, discourse deixis, etc.), these are beyond the purview of this work.
157
Demonstratives have been analysed in the typological literature in terms of both their morphosyntactic distribution and the semantic features they encode. In terms of the latter, one can distinguish between deictic features which locate the referent with respect to a deictic centre and qualitative features which characterise the referent in some other way (e.g. number, animacy, etc.)(Diessel 2003).
4.9.1.1 Deictic features In classifying demonstratives according to their deictic semantics, Anderson & Keenan (1985) and Diessel (2013) primarily draw a distinction between person-oriented systems and distance- oriented systems, the latter of which applies to systems in which the deictic centre is invariantly the speaker. Like its ancestor, Proto Oceanic (Ross 2004: 177), the Marshallese demonstrative system is person-oriented, as it provides information on the location of their nominal referent with respect to the location of both speech act participants – speaker and addressee. In this respect, the Marshallese person-oriented system is among the most complex hitherto described, having innovated beyond Proto Oceanic’s three-way distinction (Ross 2004: 177).
Diessel (1999: 50) claims languages may have “up to four” deictic distinctions, whereas
Marshallese has five or six (depending on how one analyses eo, see §4.9.1.2.1 below). The World
Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) since lists only twelve languages (or 5%) with four or more distance contrasts in their demonstratives (Diessel 2013: 39-41),40 so it seems clear that
Marshallese is typologically unusual in this regard. Diessel (2013: 41) only briefly discusses languages like Quileute which encode a four-way person-oriented split and concludes that such systems are “basically a variant of a three-term deictic system with an additional category for referents near the hearer”. While perhaps this is technically true, it skirts over a larger point.
The Marshallese demonstrative system may be thought of as involving a ternary relationship between the Figure, and both the speaker and addressee. Most other person-oriented
40 However, it should be noted that WALS also erroneously describes Marshallese encoding a two-way distinction, so a greater number of distinctions may be more common than suggested by WALS. 158 demonstrative systems involve only a binary relationship between the Figure and either the speaker or the addressee, but never both. Therefore, it is possible that the scarcity of languages with demonstrative systems similar to that of Marshallese may be explained by a higher degree of cognitive load required to triangulate the location of the Figure with respect to two deictic centres. However, this hypothesis has not been tested empirically.
4.9.1.2 Adnominal demonstratives Adnominal demonstratives are determiners which modify common nouns, following the noun and any attributive modifiers, but preceding relational classifiers. They are the most morphologically simple forms of demonstrative in Marshallese. All other demonstratives are derived from the adnominal forms. Aside from their deictic properties, Marshallese demonstratives also mark for number, and, when plural, for animacy (human vs non-human).
They are obligatory except with proper and local nouns, where they are not used, or unless a numeral or quantifier is used (§4.4.4). The basic series of adnominal demonstratives is shown below.
Singular Plural Plural (human) (non-human) eo ro ko unspecified/unknown location (definite article) e rā kā near speaker in rein kein near speaker and addressee ņe raņe kaņe near addressee en raņ kaņ not near speaker or addressee uweo roro koko quite far from speaker and addressee Table 16: Basic adnominal demonstratives (adapted from Rudiak-Gould 2004: 121)
The hyperdistal demonstratives uweo, roro and koko seem to have been innovated by reduplication of the articles eo, ro and ko. The plural demonstratives have been innovated via the addition of ra- and ka- for humans and non-humans respectively.41 As a plural prefix for
41 This has led to a synchronic paradigm which contradicts Greenberg’s (2005) axiom of syncretisation, which holds that where members in a paradigm distinguish an asymmetrical number of semantic categories, the unmarked members will distinguish more categories than the marked members. 159 demonstratives, *ka- has clear cognates in other Micronesian languages and has been reconstructed for PCMc (Bender et al. 2003:30). The origin of *ra is likely from the PCMc 3rd person plural pronoun *ra, reconstructed (Bender et al. 2003: 47) as an alternative form of the plural pronoun *re (reflected in modern Marshallese as the 3PL subject pronoun). This is notable in that it allows us to sequence the diachronic stages of the Marshallese demonstrative system.
The plural demonstratives have clearly been innovated before the hyperdistal ones.
4.9.1.2.1 The articles eo, ko and ro Though they generally behave as the other demonstratives, eo, ko and ro do not provide deictic information, and are thus perhaps best categorised as articles. In addition, while a Marshallese
NP is limited to a single determiner, there is an emphatic construction where eo is used with a demonstrative.
(118) m̧ōm̧m̧aan eo ņe me e=j pād i-j-ņe ippā-m̧
man DEF DEM2 REL 3SG.S=IPFV be.located LOC-place-DEM2 with-2SG.P
“That there man who is located there near you.”
MAR_MT_SPR_20150119_RA2_CT2_W: 00:05:41:700
Nevertheless, since they generally pattern the same as the true demonstratives and fulfil similar functions, they are included when discussing ‘demonstratives’, unless stated otherwise.
4.9.1.3 Pronominal demonstratives Marshallese does not have true discrete pronominal demonstrative forms. Instead, the adnominal demonstrative is attached to the common noun men ‘thing’.
(119) bwe nā i=n, eta-n, ka-jim̧we men k-ā
so 1SG 1SG.S=SBJV name-3SG.P CAUS-correct thing PL.NH-DEM1
“So I should, um, adjust these things.”
MAR_MT_SPR_20150114_HH1_RM1_2_N: 00:00:25:800
160
4.9.1.4 Locative demonstratives Locative demonstratives are formed by suffixing the adnominal demonstratives to the bound root j-, which is likely a reduced form of the modern Marshallese word jiki- ‘place (of)’ by a process similar to that of the pronominal demonstratives.
(120) bar jino=e j-ņe kw=ar jutak ie
again start=3SG.S place-DEM2 2SG.S=IPFV be.standing L.ANA
“Start it there where you were standing.”
MAR_RD_JAB_20131216_MB2_PP2_4_W: 00:01:36.700
Locative demonstratives are a type of local noun (see §4.8.3), they can – and regularly do – take the locative prefix i-, like relational local nouns; however, they cannot take the prefix tu-.
(121) kar-ik=i i-j-ņe lōn ̄
arrange-TR=3SG.O LOC-place-DEM2 top
“Arrange it there above.”
MAR_MT_KILI_20140408_DA3_JE2_1_NE: 00:00:45:200
Locative demonstratives can also be followed by a directional (§4.10.1).
(122) bar ettōr i-j-uweo=ļo̧k
again go.quickly LOC-place-DEM3+=DIR3
“Move quickly again over that way thither.”
MAR_VAT_JAB_20140307_PB1_DG1_W: 00:06:05:700
4.9.1.5 Existential demonstratives The prefixes en̄- (singular) and er- (plural) can be added to the adnominal demonstratives to form existential demonstratives.42 These prefixes are likely historically derived from the pronouns e (3SG) and er (3PL) (see §4.3). Unlike with the adnominal demonstratives, the existential demonstratives do not mark for humanness, only the human form is used (Rudiak-
42 This term is also used by Benton (1971). Demonstratives with this, or similar, functions have been referred to by many other names in the literature, see Diessel (1999:58) for overview. 161
Gould 2004: 175) regardless of the animacy of the referent. The existential demonstratives have a presentative function.
(123a) im er-r-ā re=wōtļo̧k nan̄ ļo̧jet
and XST.PL-PL.H-DEM1 3PL.S=be.falling to sea
“and here they are, falling into the sea.”
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140130_SB1_S: 00:03:26.900
(b) En-̄ e i-lo ippa.
XST.SG-DEM1 LOC-at with.1SG.P
“It is here by me.”
MAR_MT_SPR_20150119_RA2_CT2_2_N: 00:02:14.600
4.9.1.6 Emphatic forms of demonstratives Several of the adnominal demonstratives have an emphatic form, which is used to disambiguate between possible directions. They are frequently accompanied by a pointing gesture.
Singular Plural human Plural non-human Regular Emphatic Regular Emphatic Regular Emphatic eo N/A ro N/A ko N/A unspecified/unknown location e eiō or iiō rā rārā kā kākā near speaker in N/A rein N/A kein N/A near speaker and addressee ņe ņeņe raņe rāraņe kaņe kākaņe near addressee en iien raņ rāraņ kaņ kākaņ not near speaker or addressee uweo N/A roro N/A koko N/A quite far from speaker and addressee
Table 17: Emphatic demonstratives (adapted from Rudiak-Gould 2004: 173)
It is clear that these have formed via a process of left-edge reduplication, with rā and kā instead of ra and ka in some cases due to a regular process of low-vowel dissimilation and eiō/iiō and iien perhaps due to a less regular dissimilatory process. It is noteworthy that while the 162 regular demonstratives encode a six-way distinction, the emphatic demonstratives encode the more primitive three-way distinction, found in Proto Oceanic, as well as many other languages cross-linguistically.
These emphatic forms can also be used with pronominal (124a), locative (124b), and existential demonstratives (124c).
(124a) m̧aaj nan̄ men ņe~ņe
march to thing EMPH~DEM2
“Go to that thing.”
MAR_VAT_JAB_20131223_MK1_SB1_2_E: 00:00:19.000
(b) i=j-iiō tok. kiiō, en-̄ ņe. j-ņe-ņe, en-̄ ņe
LOC-place-DEM1.EMPH DIR1 now XST.SG-DEM2 place-EMPH~DEM2 XST.SG-DEM2
“[…] this way hither. Now, there it is, over there, there it is!”
MAR_VAT_JAB_20131129_YM1_TP1_E: 00:03:15.200
(c) […] m̧aan-ū, en-̄ ņe~ņe, kwō-j jibw-e e
front-3SG.P XST.SG-EMPH~DEM2 2SG.S=IPFV grab-TR 3SG.O
“[…] in front of me. It is there, grab it”
MAR_VAT_JAB_20150119_JA3_TA2_2_W: 00:00:18.200
4.9.2 Deictic directional enclitics Marshallese has three deictic directionals, which, as with the demonstratives, are based upon the speech act participants. However, while demonstratives have the capability to encode a five- way spatial distinction, the deictic directional system is simpler, encoding only a three-way split:
tok, tak ‘towards speaker’
waj, wōj ‘towards addressee’
ļo̧k ‘towards neither speaker nor addressee’
163
The demonstrative system of Marshallese requires speakers to triangulate the location of the figure on the basis of the locations of both the speaker and the addressee. In contrast, the deictic directionals project a search domain from the Figure towards the relevant speech act participant
(Figure 18). The exception is ļo̧k, which can be either towards a third person, or else simply away from both SAPs.
ļo̧k S ļo̧k A waj tok S tok F waj A
F ļo̧k
ļo̧k
Figure 18: Configuration of Figure (F), speaker (S), and addressee (A) and deictic directionals use
The deictic directional enclitics are high-frequency items in Marshallese, and correspondingly have a high functional load. Their primary use is for dynamic relations
(§4.9.2.1), but they can also be used for static relations (§4.9.2.3) as well as for time (§4.9.2.6), and some grammatical functions, namely comparatives (§4.9.2.4) and benefactives (§4.9.2.5).
An allocentric directional may slot between the verb and the deictic directional when semantically felicitous. I refer to this as the directional construction (§4.10.1).
4.9.2.1 Bound verb stems The deictic directional enclitics are obligatory with a small lexical subcategory of bound verbs.
They are attached directly to the verb stem, except when an allocentric directional is used, in which case they immediately follow the allocentric directional which is inserted between the verb and the deictic directional enclitic.
164
(125) i- ‘go’ rei- ‘look’ jilkin- ‘send’
le- ‘give’ lo- ‘visit’ eļ- ‘pay attention to’
wan- ‘go’ jo- ‘throw’ po- ‘arrive in a boat’
jit-43 ‘face’ kā- ‘jumpy, fly’
4.9.2.2 Free verb stems Deictic directional enclitics are commonly also attached to other dynamic verbs. While not obligatory, they are nevertheless high frequency. The following examples show the verb m̧aaj
‘walk, go, march’ being used both with (126a) and without (126b) a deictic directional enclitic.
(126a) m̧aaj nan̄ men ņe~ņe
march to thing EMPH~DEM2
“Go to that thing.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20131223_MK1_SB1_2_E: 00:00:19:000
(b) m̧aaj=waj nan̄ tōrerei-n bridge ņe
march=DIR2 to side-3SG.P bridge DEM2
“March your way to the side of that bridge.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20131216_MP1_CN2_3_W: 00:01:02:800
4.9.2.3 Deictic directionals as nominal modifiers Deictic directionals may also be used to modify a head noun. However, unlike attributive nominal modifiers which go between the noun and the demonstrative (§4.4.5), deictic directionals follow the determiner (127).
43 In some respects jit behaves like a free verb. 165
(127) i=tok liki-n woror ņe tok
go=DIR1 back-3SG.P fence DEM2 DIR1
“Come behind that fence (which is) near me.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20140118_JL2_KK1_3_N: 00:00:50:800
4.9.2.4 k ‘thither’ as a comparative Comparatives are formed using the deictic directional ļo̧k following the stative verb. When an l̦o̧ object of comparison is overtly invoked, it follows the ablative preposition jān. Superlatives are formed with the superlative suffix –tata which attaches to the stative verb.
(128) e=pidodo ļo̧k a-ō ka-meļeļe-ik i-j-eņ
3SG.S=easy DIR3 CLF.GEN-1SG.P CAUS-understand-TR LOC-place-DEM3
“It is easier for me to describe it this way.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20131205_SB1_TP1_W: 00:01:09.800
4.9.2.5 Deictic directionals as benefactives While the primary method of constructing a benefactive is with the dative preposition n̄an (as outlined in §4.6.2.2) followed by a pronoun, deictic directionals may also be used as in (129) with the same effect.
(129) jāje-ik tok juon kimej
knife-TR DIR1 one coconut.frond
“Cut a coconut frond for me.”
MOD: jaje
4.9.2.6 Temporal uses of deictic directionals The third person deictic directional ļo̧k and the first person deictic directional tok can be used temporally. In these situations, ļo̧k is used for past evens and tok is used for future events. This can be observed for ļo̧k in expressions such as jem̧aan ļo̧k ‘a long time ago’, NP eo ļo̧k ‘the
166 previous NP’. For tok, there are expressions such as tokālik ‘afterwards’. However, these can also be used temporally in a more ad hoc way, as in (130).
(130) je=naaj bar iioon doon raan ka-ņe tok
1IN.PL.S=IRR again meet each.other day PL.NH-DEM2 DIR1
“We will meet each other again in these coming days.”
Anon. Facebook conversation
These temporal uses of deictic directionals are evidence of a pervasive time-moving metaphor in Marshallese, wherein the ego is conceptualised as stationary against a moving flow of time, wherein the future is coming towards the ego and the past is moving away from the ego (see
Clark 1973; Evans 2003).
Motion events This section discusses how Marshallese constructs motion events, as well as other associated dynamic relations such as orientation and transference.
4.10.1 Motion event typology: verb vs satellite-framing languages While there are many ways in which the linguistic expression of motion events can vary across languages, one salient typological distinction first made by Talmy (1991)is that of ‘satellite- framing’ vs ‘verb-framing’ languages. These analyses view a motion event as containing two primary components, the path of motion (up, down, in, out, etc.) and the manner of motion
(speed, running, swimming, flying, etc.). In this analysis, satellite-framing languages are those in which manner is part of the lexical semantics of the verbal root, whereas path is expressed outside of the lexical semantics of the verb itself, on a satellite to the verb (whether preposition, adverb, etc.) English is an example of such a language. It has a vast array of verbs to express different manners of motion, but path is expressed primarily through prepositions or adverbial demonstratives, e.g. run there, fly north, jump in. While English does have some verbs in which path is encoded directly into their lexical semantics, these tend to be lower frequency and often
167 are Latinate borrowings (e.g. enter, exit, descend, etc.). On the other hand, in verb-framing languages like Spanish, the path is part of the lexical semantics of the root verb and manner is typically relegated to an adjunct clause. While an English speaker might say he ran out of the house, a Spanish speaker would likely say salió de la casa corriendo, lit. “she exited from the house running”. It is important to note however, that these two distinctions are labels for opposite ends of a continuum. For example, in a cross-linguistic study of speakers of different languages describing a scene from the commonly used elicitation text Frog, Where Are You?
(Mayer 1969), wherein an owl flies out from a hole in a tree, startling a child, Slobin (2004) found that while speakers of Romance languages almost never use a manner verb as the root, preferring a verb meaning ‘exit’ and speakers of Russian always use a manner verb, several languages typically described as verb-framing fell somewhere in the middle, with German at
18%, English at 32% and Thai at 56% frequency of manner verb use.
Figure 19: The owl emerges from the tree (Mayer 1969:12-13)
This is in part explainable by the fact that while English and German generally do not have many path verbs, they both make frequent use of a deictic path verb, come or kommen,
168 and are thus able to say “the owl came (flying) out of the tree”. In contrast, Russian only has a neutral ‘go’ verb with deictic prefixes indicating the path.
More recently, the binary classification of verb-framing and satellite-framing languages has been revised, with Slobin (2004; 2006) adding a third ‘equipollent’ category, for languages in which the manner and path information is given equal prominence. This includes languages with serial verb constructions where it is not clear which, if any verb is the ‘main’ verb and languages with ‘bipartite’ verbs which encode both the manner and path of a motion event in a single verb.
4.10.2 Marshallese: a satellite-framing language Unlike static location, where a neutral locative verb is typically used, and the spatial information is conveyed in a locative complement, there are a large variety of verbs which can be used to express motion and other types of dynamic relations in Marshallese. These verbs’ semantics vary in terms of the manner of motion (or orientation, etc.) expressed, but they do not express spatial information about the path of motion (or gaze), making Marshallese a typical satellite- framing language.
As described for Russian above, Marshallese, has a motion lexicon consisting primarily of manner verbs, but also only has neutral, non-deictically-specified verbs of motion. Deictic paths, as well as several allocentric paths, are expressed by means of directionals, which may be considered satellites to the root verb. Of the eight Frog Stories collected in my corpus, six describe the owl scene using motion verbs,44 five of six (83%) of which are manner verbs. Of these, three use the manner-encoding motion verb kā ‘fly’ with satellited directionals (131).
(131) juon lijem̧ao e=j kā=nabōj=tak
one owl 3SG.S=IPFV fly=outward=DIR1
44 The other two do not focus the emergence of the owl, instead saying things like “the boy fell because he was startled by a bird”. 169
“An owl flies outwards hither.”
MAR_FROG _20140130_JN1_S: 00:02:42.800
Two more use the polysemous verb waļok ‘appear, emerge, get up, occur’, whose status as a motion verb is perhaps unclear. However, given that in (132) the speaker uses the ablative preposition jān, as opposed to the locative preposition lo, I have treated it thus. Since (133) occurs with a satellited directional enclitic, I too treat it as a motion description, though a static analysis is possible wherein the directional metaphorically represents fictive motion in much the same way as in the English expression “it appears to me”.
(132) e=waļo̧k juon bao jān dipi-n wōjke e
3SG.S=appear one bird from base-3SG.P tree DEM1
“A bird appeared from the trunk of this tree”
MAR_FROG _20140130_SB1_S: 00:02:24.000
(133) e=j waļo̧k=tok juon bao jān lowaa-n wōjke eo
3SG.S=IPFV appear=DIR1 one bird from inside-3SG.P tree DEF
“A bird appeared hither from inside of the tree.”
MAR_FROG _20140304_JB3_W: 00:01:55.300
The only exception uses the path verb, diwōj ‘exit’, which itself is recently lexicalised from the fusion a historically path-neutral manner verb PMc *[Ss]ili ‘inserted, penetrated’
(Bender et al. 2003: 83) to the deictic directional waj ‘towards addressee’. Its counterpart deļo̧n ̄
‘enter’ is derived from the same verb fused to PMc *loŋ[ao] ‘inward, inland, shore’ (Bender et al. 2003: 46).
(134) e=ar diwōj=nabōj=tak juon bat
3SG.S=PFV exit=outward=DIR1 one bat
“A bat exited outwards”
170
MAR_FROG_JB_20140304_EJ1_W: 00:02:13.900
All other path motion verbs I have been able to collect for Marshallese have been similarly morphologically complex, if not transparently so for the average speaker. This may be an indication that Marshallese is beginning to gain some characteristics more typical of verb- framing languages, in much the same way as languages like Latin or Serbo-Croatian have done
(Slobin 2004: 27). However, in most respects it is evident that Marshallese remains a strongly satellite-framing language.
4.10.3 The expression of path in Marshallese We have seen that Marshallese is a satellite-framing language, with a large lexicon of motion verbs onto which path information is satellited. However, how path is satellited to the verb phrase depends on numerous factors to do with both the semantics of the path expression and the type of verb. This section describes three ways of expressing motion events in Marshallese: the general oblique construction which is permissive and two more restrictive constructions: a local construction similar to that used for static location (§4.8.2) with a zero-marked local noun complement, and a directional construction.
4.10.3.1 The general oblique construction As with static relations, a general oblique construction (see §4.8.1) may be used without restriction as to the nominal subclass of the ground noun.
(135) e=j wā=tok nan/j̄ ān lik
3SG.S=IPFV go=DIR1 to/from rough.side
Figure_NP Dynamic_VP PREP Ground_NP
“He is jumping to/from the ocean side.
The general oblique construction for motion events, like with static location, is typically used for simple, prototypical motion towards a goal or from a source, which is an oblique argument marked with the dative or ablative preposition.
171
4.10.3.2 The local construction Motion paths can also be marked by means of the local construction, which, as with static location, is formed by means of an inherently locative local noun adjunct, with no overt expression of case required.
(136) ettōr lik
go.quickly back
“Go (to the) back.”
MAR_VAT_JAB_20131223_MK1_SB1_2_E: 00:03:31.000 (adapted)
Local nouns in this construction can also take standard local noun morphology as outlined in
§4.8.3.
(137) ettōr tu-rōk
go.quickly SIDE-south
“Go (to the) south side.”
MAR_RD_JAB_20140104_KG1_MP1_3_N: 00:03:41.500 (adapted)
(138) ettōr liki-n box būrōrō ņe
go.quickly back-3SG.P box red DEM2
172
“Go behind that red box. However,
MAR_RD_JAB_20140104_MP1_KG1_2_N: 00:01:08.900 the local
construction can only involve omission of the dative preposition to form a zero-marked goal.
Sources cannot be zero-marked, thus the sentence in (137) can only be interpreted as motion
towards the south side, not away. Sources must be marked with the ablative preposition jān
(discussed in §4.6.2.3). As shown by Stolz et al. (2014) among others, it is cross-linguistically
standard for places and goals to be asymmetrically zero-marked compared to sources which
must take overt marking. Furthermore, cases such as (137) above with a zero-marked simple
goal are very rare. It is more typical for the local construction to be employed in motion events
with a complex goal, with a locative or relational noun being used to specify a region of the
ground object (138).
4.10.3.3 The directional construction So far, two motion-expressing constructions have been described, broadly mirroring the two
constructions used to express location (§4.8.1; §4.8.2).
For encoding motion events, Marshallese can also make use of the directional construction,
which incorporates the path inside of the verb complex (§4.5). While deictic paths may always
be encoded in the verb complex by means of one of the three deictic directional enclitics
(§4.9.2), other types of paths may be encoded by means of a class of directionals which are
located between the head verb and the deictic directional enclitic in the verb complex, as in
(139).
(139) e=j kā=lik=tak.
3SG.S=IPFV jump=oceanward=DIR1
“He is jumping hither oceanwards.”
Note that it is possible for the directional construction to occur within a general oblique
construction (140).
173
(140) ļe ņe e=j jit=lik=waj nan̄ wōjke ņe.
man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV face=oceanward=DIR2 to tree DEM2
“That man is facing oceanwards towards that tree.”
MAR_MT_JI_20140201_JD1_DB1_N: 00:12:12:400
The directional construction alone only encodes unbounded goal paths, or goal directions (Jackendoff 1983: 165), i.e. paths without a defined end point.
4.10.3.4 Allocentric directionals I refer to these enclitics as the allocentric directional, as they do not require knowledge of the location of the speech act participants in order to use or interpret, i.e. they are non-deictic.45
Bender et al. (2016) refer to them as compound directionals, as they (generally) require a following deictic directional. There are 16 commonly used directionals (Table 18), although it is possible, but rare, for other local nouns to be used as directionals in the directional construction
(Schlossberg 2017a).
Topographic Cardinal46 Vertical/horizontal In/outward
ar to sheltered side nin̄a northward lōn̄ upward nabōj outward
lik to exposed side rōn̄a southward laļ downward deļo̧n̄ inward
meto seaward ta eastward m̧aan forward
āne landward to westward lik backward Interrogative
o̧o̧j wildernessward ia where?
Table 18: Allocentric directionals in Rālik Marshallese
There is significant overlap between the allocentric directionals and locative nouns, and indeed many of the allocentric directionals appear to have grammaticalised from local nouns.
For this reason, Bender et al. (2016) refers to them as nouns. However, the two are clearly distinct lexical categories, given the fact that cardinal directions are expressed with dedicated
45 Excepting =m̧aan ‘forward’ and =lik ‘backward’ which can be used deictically in the relative frame of reference, though are usually used in an intrinsic frame of reference. 46 Ratak forms: nin̄ean̄ ‘northward’; rōkean̄ ‘southward’; tak ‘eastward’. 174 forms, distinct from those used nominally (compare cardinals in Table 18 with those in Table
18). In addition, there is a burgeoning split between the nominal form of ‘sheltered side’, iar, and the directional form ar, which is discussed further in §5.3.3.1.
4.10.3.5 Directionals and the verb complex The ‘verb complex’ is Oceanic terminology for the verb and its satellites. According to Pawley
(2003), the verb complex is a phonological phrase that resembles a word in certain respects, namely in that it consists of a single intonation contour and phrase-internal pauses rare. Though
I have used the label directional construction to refer both to cases where the verbal stem is bound (see §4.9.2.1) as well as to when it free, phonological evidence implies that despite the superficial similarities, there are structural differences between the two cases. With bound verb stems, the verb complex consists of both the allocentric and deictic directionals, which function as enclitics attached to the verbal stem. However, with free verbs, the allocentric directional- deictic directional complex does not phonologically attach to the verb stem.
4.10.3.5.1 Free verbs and directionals When an allocentric directional is used with a free verb, the construction has the same structure as those with bound verbs, namely a verb, followed by the allocentric directional, followed by an obligatory deictic directional. With free verbs, the allocentric directional-deictic directional complex forms a distinct prosodic unit from the head verb.47
(141) ļe in e=j ettōr nineā n=tak̄
man DEM1+2 3SG.S=IPFV go.quickly northward=DIR1
“The man is running northwards hither.’
MAR_RD_JAB_20140104_KG1_MP1_1_N: 00:00:11.300
47 Based on the fact that the head verb and the allocentric-deictic directional complex each carry their own word-level stress, and that word-internal morphophonological processes such as epenthetic schwa between heterorganic consonant clusters do not occur between free verbs and the allocentric directional as they do between bound verb stems and their following directional. 175
While it was previously stated that the deictic directional is obligatory, even with free verbs, there are a few rare exceptions, wherein allocentric directionals have been used without an attached deictic directional (142). However, some speakers reject these constructions as ill- formed. Note that the example features a cardinal allocentric directional; with a non-cardinal allocentric directional, this would look identical to the local construction.
(142) ļe ņe e=j pād tu-iar im jujāl to
LOC- look westward man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located and sheltered.side
“…and that man is at the sheltered side and looking westward”
MAR_MT_KILI_20140408_JJ5_BM1_2_NE: 00:02:33.200
Additionally, allocentric directionals as a distinct lexical subcategory from deictic directions appears to be a Marshallese innovation. Reflexes of *sake and *sipo in closely related languages such as Ponapean (Rehg & Sohl 1981: 231) and Kiribati (Groves et al. 1985: 27) are used in similar ways to the deictic directionals in those languages.
4.10.3.5.2 Nominal-directional ambiguity: a bridging context for grammaticalisation It has been established in §4.5.3.2 that local nouns can sometimes be employed as zero-marked goals. Earlier in §4.9.2.3 it was established that the deictic directionals can also follow nominals.
While the directional form of the cardinals is always used with bound verb stems, with free verbs there are several instances where the nominal cardinal form is used.
(143) kiiō m̧aaj iōn=waj̄
now march north=DIR2
“Now march northwards”
MAR_RD_JAB_20131216_CN2_MP1_4_W: 00:01:45.700
(144) ettōr rilik=tak kiiō
176
go.quickly west=DIR1 now
“Go quickly westwards now”
MAR_RD_JAB_20140104_KG1_MP1_3_N: 00:03:15.900
These few disambiguating examples show a zero-marked local noun goal with a following deictic directional provide a bridging context for how several local nouns were reanalysed as directionals. These local nouns were used between the deictic directionals and the verb, in the same position as the pre-existing directionals to and ta(k). This ambiguity allows for the reanalysis of local nouns to directionals, which is evidenced in their attaching to bound verbs, a role which only directionals could take. This new categorical split was subsequently reified through innovation of distinct directional ‘north-south’ forms and nominal ‘east-west’ forms (§5.3.1) as well as in the splitting of Pre-Marshallese nominal/directional ar into nominal iar and directional =ar (§5.3.3.1).
Summary This chapter has attempted to account for the structure and core semantics of the constructions employed by Marshallese speakers to express spatial relationships. Much of the information located here will not be unexpected to those familiar with Oceanic languages; local nouns for salient large-scale geographical landmarks; deictic directionals; deictic contrasts in demonstratives; use of relational nouns for the expression of topological relations, and satellite- framing motion typology are all commonplace features of the linguistic region. However, there are some ways in which Marshallese is more unusual, namely its large innovated set of allocentric directionals, primarily derived from local nouns and a typologically rare five-way person-based deictic contrast in its demonstratives.
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5 Frame of reference in Marshallese
Chapter 4 discussed the semantics and distributional properties of various spatial terms and constructions. This chapter takes a more pragmatic focus, describing how frame of reference is used in four Marshallese-speaking field sites, focusing on both the similarities and differences, with the aim of examining the underlying conceptualisations of these terms. A primary focus of this chapter is to compare the three Marshallese field sites to the burgeoning diasporic
Marshallese community in the inland suburban centre Springdale, Arkansas, which now contains more Marshallese than any other single place on Earth, excluding Majuro, the capital of the
Republic of the Marshall Islands. This comparison is based on data collected from elicitation games, narratives and participant observation as outlined in §1.5.1. The discussion here is qualitative in nature, but it is complemented and bolstered by Chapters 6-7 which quantitatively analyse the FoR preferences of the various communities according to participants’ performance in different spatial elicitation tasks.
This chapter opens with an examination of geocentric systems of spatial reference in
Proto Oceanic (§5.1) and its modern descendants (§5.2) before discussing the semantics of geocentric spatial reference (§5.3) and body axis terms (§5.4) before comparing how these systems are used in practice at each site (§5.5).
Geocentric directional system of Proto Oceanic Proto Oceanic (POc) was likely spoken in the Bismarck Archipelago in what is now northern
Papua New Guinea between 3200-3500 years ago (c.f. Ross 1988; Spriggs 1995; Pawley 2003)
Its geocentric directional system has been reconstructed by François (2004) and by Ross (2003).
This section describes the directional system of POc, as well as how it has developed in some modern Oceanic languages
Like Marshallese, Proto Oceanic probably used a system of conventionalised local nouns as well as directionals (and/or directional verbs). As demonstrated by Ross (2003), it had a
178 landward-seaward axis, the landwards term lexified by the local nouns *qutan ‘bushland, inland, landwards’ and/or *loŋa ‘inland’, reflected in Marshallese as o̧o̧j ‘interior of island; wilderness’ and lōn̄ ‘up, top, above’, respectively. The seaward direction was most likely lexified by *laur
‘sea, seaward’ and/or *tasik ‘sea, salt water’. Though reflexes of these terms are found in
Marshallese, e.g. in the local noun lo̧jet ‘ocean, sea’, where the –jet element reflects *tasik, they are not used as part of the conventionalised system of spatial reference, having been replaced by other terms which will be discussed below.
Like its ancestor language, Proto Austronesian (Adelaar 1997), Proto Oceanic speakers relied on prevailing wind directions for spatial reference. Ross (2003) reconstructs POc *apaRat
“north-west trade wind” and *raki ‘south-east trade wind’, reflected in Marshallese as iōn̄
‘north’ and rōk ‘south’ respectively. For motion, these two axes were both lexified by the directional (verb)s *sake ‘up’ and *sipo ‘down’ (François 2004). On land, *sake referred to motion inland and *sipo to motion seaward, reflective of the fact that the shore is generally the lowest part of the island and the inland region is higher, which is especially the case on volcanic islands, but also applies to atoll islands. When navigating on the open ocean, these terms lexified the upwind-downwind axis. François also reconstructs *pano being used as an undifferentiated cross-axis on both land and sea. This a term not reflected in Marshallese.48
It appears then that Proto Oceanic had two directional axes, one motivated by the distinction between land and sea, and the other motivated by prevailing winds, with each axis being used in distinct domains. These are commonly referred to as the local domain (Figure 20) and the navigational domain (e.g. Palmer 2002; François 2004), shown below (Figure 21).
48 According to François, *pano has roots in spatial deixis, having the additional meaning ‘away from speaker’. In Proto Micronesian, this was replaced by *lako from POc *lako ‘go’, reflected in Marshallese as ļo̧k. 179
Figure 20: Proto Oceanic directionals on the local domain (François 2004).
Figure 21: Proto Oceanic directionals on the navigational domain (François 2004). Modern Oceanic languages Some modern Oceanic languages conserve the Proto Oceanic directional system exactly as it has been reconstructed.49 An example of a language like this would be Saliba (Papua New Guinea;
Margetts 1999). On the other hand, several Oceanic languages have undergone a variety of innovations. Most of these are outside the scope of this review (but see François 2004; Ross
2003a, 2003b).
An important development which has occurred independently in several Oceanic languages and subgroups, including Marshallese, is that of a separate directional system for use on a domain between the local and navigational domains. This domain has been called the intermediate domain by François (2004) and refers to situations such as travel which is done on
49 Note that while the conceptual system may have been conserved, this does not necessarily mean that the extant forms themselves are reflected from Proto Oceanic. 180 the sea, but in sight of land, speaking of locations on other islands (or possibly distant places on the island, if it was of sufficient size). In situations such as these, ambiguities may arise, especially when the directional axis used on the local domain and that used on the navigational domain are lexified by the same forms, as was the case with the *sake-sipo axis in Proto Oceanic.
François (2004) proposes that this ambiguity is the motivation behind changes in directional systems across the different domains which have occurred independently in several Oceanic languages. This evolution of the directional system has four distinct stages, shown in Table 19.
Table 19: The four diachronic stages of geocentric reference in Oceania (François 2004)
When a speaker of Proto Oceanic, with a stage 1 directional system, was sailing along the coast, they are likely to have experienced a similar ambiguity to that which has been described for the speakers of Saliba. Margetts (1999: 123) recounts that “The coordinates of the two scales can overlap to any degree and assign directional terms to the same as well as to different or even opposite directions.” For example, the shore from the sea would always have been *sake for a speaker of Proto Oceanic when speaking on the local domain, but in circumstances when the shore is northwest of the speaker’s location, then it would have been
*sipo when speaking on the navigational domain. Of course, as François (2004: 21) points out, it is possible for speakers to “get by” using this system across several generations and modern
Saliba speakers bear witness to this. However, these functional “limitations” have been progressively compensated for in several daughter languages of Proto Oceanic through the emergence of a hybrid system for use on the intermediate domain which combines the directional systems used on the local and navigational domains.
181
For example, the languages of northern and central New Caledonia, as described by
Ozanne-Rivierre (1997), have typical stage two directional systems. They cross the land-sea and wind-based axes so that they are approximately perpendicular to one another. While the problem of homophony remains in these languages as the two axes are still lexified identically
(for example in Nemi, by tic “go down” and ta “go up”; Ozanne-Rivierre 1997: 86), it does stabilise the relationship between the two axes and thus probably helps improve the pragmatic and cognitive tasks of information processing in contexts where this may be an issue (François
2004: 22). This fixing of the relationship between the two axes necessarily entails an abstraction away from the geographical features which underlie the directional axes. After all, the direction of the wind will not always be perpendicular to the direction of the land. In this way, the intermediate domain of stage two directional systems are similar to that described for Balinese by Wassmann & Dasen (1998), where the secondary sunset-sunrise axis rotates with respect to the primary mountainward-seaward axis depending on one’s location on the island.
It is easy to speculate, as François (2004: 23) does, that communities living in environments where the land-sea axis and trade winds axis are likely to be perpendicular to one another are already predisposed to undergoing the change from stage one to stage two. An attractive complementary hypothesis is that the evolution to a stage two system is more likely to occur in communities in locations where operating on the intermediate domain frequently is necessary. Both situations are present in New Caledonia. The principal island, Grand-Terre is oriented NW-SE and is far longer than it is wide (approximately 350km by 60km; see Figure 22).
The orientation of the island is such that in most parts of the island except for the extreme south- east or north-west ends, the trade winds blow parallel to the coast, while the inland-seaward axis is necessarily perpendicular to the coast. The size and shape of Grand-Terre are such that for travelling to other villages on the same side of the island, it is easier to go by canoe along the coast than it is to travel on foot. This, coupled with the short distance between Grand-Terre and
182 the nearby Loyalty Islands (see Figure 22), presumably leads to frequent travel taking place on the intermediate domain.
Figure 22: Map of New Caledonia (CartoGIS Services, Australian National University)
The ambiguity caused by the colexification of the landward-seaward and trade winds- based axes is resolved in languages at the third diachronic stage of geocentric reference, where the land-sea axis is relexified. François’ (2004) comparative study is small, including 16 Oceanic languages. Of these, all retain the use of terms etymologically derived from ‘up’ and ‘down’ to refer to the trade winds axis (with the possible exception of Kokota where the etymology of fona-paka is not given). Conversely, nine of the languages have relexified the land-sea axis. A broader study is required to examine the strength and pervasiveness of this tendency. However, assuming that the results do indicate a strong tendency, François (2004: 23-4) offers the explanation that the land-sea axis in associated with several highly perceptually salient features of the environment when compared to the trade winds axis. This allows speakers to easily find alternative ways to lexify the landwards-seawards axis, which has resulted in several parallel developments in Oceanic languages where reflexes of etyma such as POc *qutan ‘bush, forest’,
183
POc *tanoq ‘earth, ground’ and POc *loŋa ‘inland’ are used for ‘landwards’ and reflexes of etyma such as POc *tasik ‘sea’ are used for ‘seawards’. This explanation neatly accounts for how several distantly related Oceanic languages can employ directional systems which are lexified by etyma cognate to one another while simultaneously non-cognate with those of more closely related languages. Notably, these terms seem to be commonly derived from the local nouns identified by Ross (2003).
In stage four, the directional system used on the intermediate domain in stage three is generalised for use on the local domain. This change is not particularly surprising, since the directional system of the intermediate domain with its differentiated transverse axis allows for more precision and therefore increases the possibility of a successful speech act (François 2004:
25). As François points out, we can deduce that this chronology of innovations is accurate by the fact that no attested Oceanic language combines two up-down axes for use in the local domain.
Whenever the winds-based axis (which has already been established above as always being lexified by terms for “up-down”) is used on the local domain, it combines with a land-sea axis that is not lexified “up-down” (c.f. Table 19). Given that this is the case, the relexification of the land-sea axis must have occurred prior to the merging of the directional systems on the local and intermediate domain.
Marshallese geocentric references across domains This section outlines the directional system of Marshallese across the three domains of use described above. As this study primarily focuses on the local domain, the navigational and intermediate domains are discussed only briefly. In terms of the diachronic stages of Oceanic geocentric systems outlined above and shown in Table 19, Marshallese has not only reached stage 4, but innovated beyond it in several respects. It has the three complementary directional systems, for use across the three domains.
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5.3.1 Navigational domain: cardinals On the navigational domain, Marshallese uses four cardinal directions, at first glance equivalent to the English compass directions. These are also available in the other two domains, being recruited for the cross-axis to the topographic axes used on the local and intermediate domains.
Four cardinal directions are lexified, with each having a distinct nominal and directional form.
These are shown in Table 20.
East West North South Local noun rear rilik (Rlk), rālik iōn ̄ (Rlk), ean ̄ rōk (Rtk) (Rtk) Etymology ra-, place name ra-, place name PMc *afaŋi PCMc *raki formative and ar formative and lik ’north’ ‘south-east trade ‘sheltered side’ ‘exposed side’ wind’50 Directional ta= (Rlk), tak= to= nina=̄ (Rlk), rōna=̄ (Rlk), (Rtk) nineā n=̄ (Rtk) rōkean=̄ (Rtk) Etymology POc *sake POc *sipo Compound of Compound of ‘up(wind)’ ‘down(wind)’ nin̄ ‘small’ and PCMc *raki and ean ̄ ‘north’ (?) an ̄ ‘wind’
Table 20: Terms for cardinal directions in Marshallese with their etymologies
It is noteworthy that Marshallese has developed a system with four distinct cardinal directions, in contrast to Proto Oceanic with its undifferentiated transverse. Furthermore, as discussed, the Proto Oceanic system consisted of two nominals *aparat and *raki lexifying the northwest-southeast axis, with two motion verbs *sake and *sipo lexifying motion along this axis. In Marshallese we see reflexes of these terms being used for two distinct axes, rotated such that they are perpendicular to one another.
5.3.1.1 To ‘westward’ and ta ‘eastward’ The Marshallese cardinal allocentric directionals to ‘west’ and ta ‘east’ (Ratak form: tak) are unusual in that they are distinct from – and in the case of the east-west axis, etymologically unrelated to– their nominal counterparts. There is also evidence that at least the east-west terms were once used differently to the other allocentric directionals in that they could be used
50 This sense is the same as that given by Ross (2003) for POc *raki and slightly different from that given by Bender et al. (2003:78) for PCMC *raki, ‘season of southerly winds’. 185 as the sole directional in the verb complex, without an accompanying deictic directional
(§4.10.3.4). While synchronically all allocentric directional slot between a verb and a deictic directional in the directional construction, there is the fixed expression with the form VERB=to-
VERB=tak, meaning ‘to VERB back and forth’ where there is no deictic directional employed.51
(145) er-ro ka-peļļo̧k wūntō ņe im rei=to rei=tak
3PL.S-DU CAU-open window DEM2 and look=westward look=eastward
“They both open that window and look back and forth.”
MAR_FROG_JAB_20140304_EJ1_W: 00:00:56.500
Further examples include jittak and jitto, terms for the eastern and western halves of an island and (§5.3.3.4.1). This fits in with what is known of their etymology, as they are reflexes of
POc *sipo ‘down’ and sake ‘up’ and like their nominal counterparts were used originally for wind directions (upwind, downwind, c.f. §5.1). While their verticality semantics have primarily been replaced by lōn ̄ ‘upward’ and laļ ‘downward’, they both retain traces of their former meanings.
To is also used to mean ‘disembark, get off s.t.’ and in the verb (pit)to ‘climb down a rope’. Ta(k)’s former meaning is evinced by expressions such as tak-in aļ ‘sunrise’ (lit. rise-of sun). The MOD lists amongst the meanings of tak that it is used as a directional meaning ‘up’; however, it seems to have been almost entirely replaced by lōn̄ ’upward’.
Additional evidence of their formerly having different distributional properties to other allocentric directionals can be observed in close relatives of Marshallese. For example,
Pohnpeian, another Nuclear Micronesian language, also has two classes of directionals, which
Rehg & Sohl (1981: 231) call ‘third position’ and ‘fourth position’. As with Marshallese, the
‘fourth position’ directionals comprise a class of three members and are deictic in nature. The
‘third position’ comprises four members, two of which are da ‘upwards’ and di ‘downwards’,
51 Though the modern Rālik form is =ta and =tak is standard only in the Ratak dialect, in this fixed expression the more conservative form =tak is always used. This further belies the fact that this is an idiom with a fossilised structure. 186 cognates of ta(k) and to, which retain their vertical semantics in contrast to Marshallese.
However, these third position directionals can occur freely, unlike in Marshallese where they require a following deictic directional enclitic.
This raises a question as to how and why ta and to lost their verticality semantics and came to be associated with cardinal directions. Here, one can only speculate but perhaps this change can be ascribed to changes in navigational techniques. The Marshallese, like most
Oceanic language-speaking communities, are renowned navigators. However, while most
Oceanic cultures relied primarily on prevailing wind direction and the stars to navigate,
Marshallese are unique in the extent to which they rely primarily on ocean swells (see Genz
2014; Genz 2016). This comparatively lower emphasis on wind patterns may have caused the association between the direction lexified by ta and to and the prevailing wind direction to fade, perhaps making their semantics more abstract and causing them to be reanalysed as cardinal directions. This reanalysis was likely facilitated by the fact that the prevailing upwind direction in the Marshall Islands is between east and north-east, the same direction in which the sun rises, aided by fossilised expressions such as takinal ‘sunrise’, discussed above.
5.3.1.2 Rear ‘east’ and rilik ‘west’ Rear ‘east’ and rilik ‘west’ (rālik in Ratak dialect) are used on the latitudinal axis, roughly corresponding to English ‘east’ and ‘west’ respectively. As Palmer (2002) notes, they are transparently derived from ar and lik, the terms for the sheltered side and exposed side of an island, probably compounded with ra- a formative used in place names (MOD: ra-). This indicates that these terms originally developed in a community where lik was on the west side of the island and ar was on the east side of the island, i.e. a linguistic community located on islet(s) on the western side of an atoll. This is interesting because it suggests that these cardinal directions, which are typically more important on the navigational domain than the local domain, nevertheless evolved within the context of the local domain. It is also somewhat surprising, because in modern Marshallese, the cardinal axis parallel to the iar-lik axis is rarely 187 invoked, and in some cases such as on Kili, the island may not even have a cardinal axis parallel to the sheltered side-exposed side (see §5.5.3). Therefore, there is a question as to how and why these cardinal directions started to become in use on the local domain, and why they were then generalised to the navigational domain.
5.3.1.3 Nin̄ a ‘northward’ and rōn̄ a ‘southward’ The directionals nin̄a ‘northward’ and rōn̄a ‘southward’ (nin̄ean̄ and rōkean̄ respectively in
Ratak dialect) are used along the north-south axis. As is often the case, the Rālik forms are phonologically reduced versions of the Ratak forms. Rōkean̄ ‘southward’ is clearly cognate with the local noun rōk ‘south’, itself descended from PCMc *raki (Table 20). The final -an ̄ element is probably from an̄ ‘wind’, suggesting that the compound was formed in an early stage of
Marshallese, after assimilation of the first vowel to the final vowel, but before dropping of the final vowel. That is to say, it was likely an intermediate form *rōki which combined with an.̄
As previously discussed, the cardinal directions along the east-west axis have mostly lost their association with the prevailing wind. These facts together suggest that the loss of final vowels in Marshallese postdates the development of the cardinal system. Additionally, the etymology of nin̄ean ̄ is somewhat unclear but the most straightforward explanation is that it is a compound of nin̄ ‘small’ and ean̄ ‘north (wind)’.
5.3.1.4 Iōn̄ ‘north’ and rōk ‘south’ The terms iōn ̄ (W) or ean̄ (E) ‘north’ and rōk ‘south’ are used on the longitudinal axis and correspond to English ‘north’ and ‘south’ respectively. Both terms for north are reflexes of PMc
*afaŋi ‘north’ according to Bender et al. (2003: 10), with the Rālik form iōn ̄ historically derived from a compound of the extant Ratak form ean̄ with the locative prefix i-, as has occurred with many other terms including ilo ‘at’ and iar ‘sheltered side of island’ (§4.8.3.3.1). Though unacknowledged by Bender et al. (2003), the initial element *afa- in PMc *afaŋi in turn is likely to be ultimately descended from POc *apaRat ‘northwest wind; wet season when northwesterlies blow and sea is rough’ and the translations Bender et al. (2003: 10) give for its 188 reflexes in extant Micronesian languages, suggest that the term was still closely associated with wind patterns in Proto Micronesian as well. The PMc form *afa then compounded with PMc
*aŋi ‘wind’ to form PMc *afaŋi, which offers further evidence to support the direct connection between *afaŋi and the prevailing winds in Proto Micronesian. Rōk also has a historical association with the wind patterns and seasons, reflecting POc *raki ‘south-east tradewinds’
(Ross 2003: 269).
Again, despite the historical association with the winds, most Marshallese speakers do not directly associate their modern cardinal system with the wind patterns. This is not unusual, as it is common for Oceanic languages to innovate fully-fledged cardinal systems from wind- based navigational axes (François 2004).
5.3.2 Intermediate domain: land-sea On the intermediate domain, Marshallese speakers use meto ‘sea, seaward’ and āne ‘land, landward, islet’ as both local nouns and directionals. These terms are used when travelling on the water (either the lagoon or the ocean) in sight of land. They may not be used as directionals to refer to motion on land (see Figure 23 below).
Āne, from PMc *fanua ‘inhabited land’ is the general term for an islet within an atoll (in contrast to aelōn ̄ which is used for atolls as a whole, and large islands like Kili or Mejit which are not part of an atoll). It is a common noun and thus can take demonstratives. Some of the resulting forms are irregular, with the demonstrative fusing to the nominal stem (146).52
(146) Kwō=j lale ke li-ma ra-ņe ān=in …
2SG=IPFV look.TR COMP women-PL PL.H-DEM2 island=DEM1+2
“You see that those woman of this island…”
MAR_NAR_JAB_20140304_BB1_1_W: 00:04:03:600
52 Note that due to vowel coalescence, the form with the proximal demonstrative e is identical to the bare noun āne. 189
Meto, from POc *ma-Sawa ‘deep sea, open sea’, functions like most other locative nouns. There is another common term for ‘sea’ or ‘ocean’, lojet, which is not used for spatial relations.
When necessary, cardinals are used to form a cross-axis to the āne-meto axis. The same occurs on the local domain, therefore this is discussed in more detail below.
5.3.3 Local domain This section discusses how Marshallese navigate on the local domain. As all the data collection took place on land, this domain is discussed in significantly more detail than the other two.
5.3.3.1 Iar ‘sheltered side’ and lik ‘exposed side’ This axis runs perpendicular to the coast, stretching from the sheltered side of the island iar, to the exposed side of the island, lik. It is the primary directional axis used when navigating on land, in both large-scale and tabletop space. The terms (i)ar and lik are typically translated with to
English as ‘lagoon side’ and ‘ocean side’ respectively, by both Marshallese people and by non-
Marshallese people in academic and non-academic publications. However, this study instead employs the terms ‘sheltered side’ and ‘exposed side’ (of island) to translate these terms, for reasons which are discussed below.
The term lik refers to the back of an entity. The ‘ocean side’ sense is clearly an extension of this, motivated by a conceptual metaphor wherein an islet within an atoll is understood as being oriented inwards, towards the lagoon side. Despite this lexical item clearly showing evidence of this association, the lagoon side is not overtly associated with the ‘front’ by current speakers, at least those of Jaluit atoll or Kili Island. Furthermore, the term for ‘front’, m̧aan
(§5.4.1) is never used by speakers to describe the lagoon side of an island. However, it is used on some islands to describe the west side of the island, as is the case on Jaluit Island in Jaluit
Atoll. This metaphorical conceptualisation of atoll islets as being oriented inwards, with the ocean side as the ‘back’ is relatively common, with elik (derived from lik ‘back’) also meaning
‘ocean side’ in Mokilese (Harrison & Albert 1977), and similar co-lexifications or derivations in 190
Tuvaluan (Niko Besnier, pers. comm.), Tokelauan (Hoëm 1993), and Cocos Malay (Nicholas
Herriman, pers. comm.).
The i- in iar is the fossilised locative preposition i- (§4.8.3.3.1) which has been reanalysed as part of the nominal root and it is this form which is overwhelmingly preferred by speakers for the local noun form in Rālik Marshallese. Many speakers evaluate the use of bare ar as a local noun as ungrammatical. Further evidence that the i- in iar has been reanalysed as part of the root comes when it combines with the locative proposition tu. When a local noun takes both the locative prepositions i- and tu-, tu- always follows i- (see §4.8.3.3). However, tuiar is relatively common, whereas ituar never appears in the corpus.
(147) armej ņe e=j pād tu-iar
person DEM 3SG.S be.located LOC-sheltered.side
“That person is on the lagoon side.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20140401_AJ5_AA1_1_NW: 00:01:11:000
When used as a directional in the directional construction (§4.10.1), bare ar is preferred
(see §4.10.3.4). Furthermore, evidence from a speaker of the Ratak dialect of Marshallese indicates that use of bare ar as a nominal is also acceptable in that dialect, which is not the case for Rālik Marshallese. This parallels the situation with the Marshallese words for ‘north’, where again the Rālik dialect form shows the fossilised i- prefix (c.f. Table 20).
As discussed above, other literature on Marshallese (e.g. Palmer 2007; Willson 2008;
Bender, Capelle & Pagotto 2016; inter alia), as well as bilingual Marshallese themselves.
However, in this study I use the glosses ‘sheltered side’ and ‘exposed side’ (of island). The primary reason, is that on Kili, the non-atoll island field site in this study, the terms (i)ar and lik are still employed, despite the absence of a lagoon (§5.5.3). On Kili, they refer to the leeward and windward sides of the island respectively. When questioned directly on this, one Kili Islander acknowledged “yes, we call it the lagoon side even though there is no lagoon!” However, the
191 possibility exists that upon relocation from their atoll environment on Bikini Atoll, the Kili
Islanders simply extended the atoll-based geocentric system onto their non-atoll island environment. One piece of evidence against this is that on Mejit, one of the two non-atoll islands in the Marshalls with a long history of settlement, iar and lik are used in much the same way as they are in Kili, indicating that the iar-lik axis has been used on singleton islands for a long time.53
Further evidence against the metaphorical extension hypothesis can be found in examining cognates of iar and lik in other Micronesian languages, especially those not spoken on atolls. According to Bender et al. (2003), ar is a reflex of PMc *aro- ‘shore, beach vicinity’. In various extant Chuukic languages it has senses of nearness or vicinity. For Pohnpeian, spoken on a high island, the meaning ‘shore, land near the ocean, landing place for boats’ is given. The
Marshallese-internal and comparative evidence therefore seems to indicate that the core sense of ar is not the lagoon side, but rather the sheltered side of the island, where boats moor, houses are built, and the community is predominantly located. Conversely, lik is not necessarily the ocean side of the island, but merely the side of the island more exposed to the elements and therefore least interacted with. It so happens that the majority of the Marshall Islands consists of atolls, and the lagoon side of the island will always be calmer and less exposed than the ocean side, but this is merely epiphenomenal.54
5.3.3.2 O̧ o̧ j ‘wilderness, interior’ Aside, from iar and lik, a direction lexified by o̧o̧j (from POc *qutan ‘forest’) is used as both a nominal and a directional to refer to region of an island stretching from the interior to the exposed side. This region is generally the overgrown, wild, uninhabited part of the island. It is generally not used on Majuro or islands like Jabor, where the island is more urbanised and there
53 This information comes from interviewing a Mejit Islander living in Springdale, Arkansas. 54 Indeed, in an interview with a Marshallese man in Majuro, he remarked he had visited a community situated along an enclosed secondary lagoon which was part of Arno Atoll. This lagoon did not have a channel through which boats could enter from the ocean. On this islet, the iar side was not the lagoon side, but the lee side of the islet where ocean-faring vessels moored. I have not been able to verify this information, but if true would lend further credence to the discussion above. 192 is no wilderness. However, it can become conventionalised. For example, on Kili Island, o̧o̧j refers to the bare side of the island where the airstrip is. This is likely due to the fact that before the land was cleared for the strip the area was forested. It is only used as a directional to refer to movement from the sheltered side to the exposed side (see Figure 24).
5.3.3.3 Cardinal directions Cardinal directions are employed on the local domain, where they are rotated from their ‘true’ orientation such that one of the cardinal axes forms a perpendicular cross-axis to the primary iar-lik axis. This generally (but not always, see §5.5.3) leaves one axis parallel to the iar-lik axis, lexifying the same directions, which is rarely employed. For example, as shown in §5.5.1, on the islet of Jabor the local iar-lik axis is crossed by the iōn-̄ rōk ‘north-south’ axis, which is used with overwhelmingly more frequency than the parallel rear-rilik axis (see also §6.3.1.1).
5.3.3.4 Various landmarks In addition to the above highly conventionalised and grammaticised topographic landmarks,
Marshallese speakers commonly use landmarks in their surrounding environment to facilitate spatial descriptions. Some of the landmarks discussed here are highly conventionalised, and are employed across many islands in the Marshalls, others are much more ad hoc, limited to highly localised features of a given island. Further muddying the distinction between absolute FoR and landmarks (see §2.2.5), some of the most common landmarks are historically derived from the cardinals, or occasionally even synchronically associated with them.
5.3.3.4.1 Jitto ‘western side of island’ and Jittak ‘eastern side of island’ Jitto and jittak are terms for the western half and eastern half of an island respectively. They appear to be commonly used on islands that are longer on their rear-rilik ‘east-west’ axis than on their iōn-̄ rōk ‘north-south’ axis. Despite the fact that to an external observer they are transparently derived from the directionals for ‘westwards’ to and ‘eastwards’ tak (Rtk) in combination with the verb jit ‘to head, face, point’, it appears that many speakers do not associate them with the cardinals. 193
5.3.3.4.2 Em̧ ‘house’ The same is true for a variety of terms which involve the term for ‘house’, the common noun em̧, which also means ‘town, village’ when followed by a plural demonstrative. These can further be modified by a cardinal, or local domain topographic noun to clarify a side of the village.
(148) E=j jit= ļo̧k nan̄ m̧ō-ka-ņ rōk
3SG.S=IPFV face=DIR3 to house-PL.NH-DEM3 south
“He is facing thither towards the south side of town.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20140304_HL1_ML1_W: 00:12:12:400
Like āne ‘islet’, the noun em̧ ‘house’ is irregular – in both form and distribution. While it can be used in the local construction, it otherwise has all the features of a common noun, namely that it takes demonstratives and that it can be indirectly possessed using the e-stem relational classifier for buildings im̧- (itself derived from em̧). The form m̧o- in (148) occurs when a demonstrative attaches to the noun. The entire paradigm of em̧ followed by a demonstrative is irregular (see Rudiak-Gould 2004: 127 for the full paradigm). The bare root em̧ only occurs in some situations, such as when the determiner in the NP is a quantifier, rather than a demonstrative, or another modifier is inserted between the noun and the demonstrative.
(149) im jeer=ļo̧k nan̄ tu-o̧o̧ji-n em̧ iaļo ņe
and turn=DIR3 to LOC-wilderness-3SG.P house yellow DEM2
“and turn thither to the wilderness side of that yellow house.”
MAR_RD_KILI_20140407_JJ4_WH1_3_NE: 00:00:29.900 (adapted)
Em̧ is also regularly used as a landmark on a more ad hoc to refer to houses, shops or other salient buildings around a given island. Other landmarks which were common in Jabor include the schools, churches, the airport, and the rubbish tip. It is noteworthy that despite the fact that the majority of the data elicited involved spatial descriptions in tabletop space, almost all the landmarks employed by speakers were environment-landmarks from large-scale features in the wider environment. Highly salient immediately proximate potential object-landmarks 194
(doors, windows, paintings, etc.) were almost never employed by speakers in the RMI field sites, even when participants did not know where, or could not agree on the locations of various landmarks or cardinals. This indicates that Marshallese conceptualisations of space and directionality are closely linked to the wider topography of the islands and atolls they inhabit.
The nature of landmarks employed is discussed in further detail in (§6.3.1.1).
The intrinsic and relative Frames of Reference Since the intrinsic and relative FoRs are invoked with the same vocabulary, they are discussed together here. Both FoRs are expressed by means of locative nouns. Terms for directions on the sagittal axis (m̧aan ‘front’ and lik ‘back’) are much more frequently used than the terms on the transverse axis.
5.4.1 Sagittal axis terms The two most common terms used on the sagittal axis are m̧aan ‘front’ and lik ‘back’. In the intrinsic frame of reference, these terms are used similarly to their English counterparts (see
§2.2.1). However, in the relative FoR, Marshallese speakers prefer to invoke the translational subtype, where the front of the Ground is the area between it and the viewer (§2.2.2.1).
However, the reflectional relative subtype which locates the front of the Ground on the side furthest from the viewer is also in use. A more detailed analysis of the use of the relative subtypes in Springdale is available in Chapter 8.
The term m̧aan has the form of an aa-stem relational noun and does still occur as a relational noun in my corpus (150).
195
(150) wōjke ņe e=j pād m̧aa-n meja-n.
tree DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located front-3SG.P face-3SG.P
“The tree is in front of his face.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20131202_DA2_MK1_W: 00:03:28:300
However, speakers have reanalysed the third person singular form m̧aan as the root form, which now follow the same i-stem inflection pattern as other locative nouns (see
§4.8.3.1). It is this in this form in which the overwhelming majority of tokens of m̧aan are found.
(151a) jutak i-lo m̧aani-n gate ņe.
stand LOC-at front-3SG.P gate DEM2
“Stand at the front of that gate.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20131126_CN1_SB1_3_W: 00:03:19:300
(b) wōjke e e=pād lo side e m̧aan-ir-ro.
tree DEM1 3SG.S=be.located at side DEM1 front-1IN.PL.P-DU
“This tree is at this front side of us both.”
MAR_MT_SPR_201510119_CT2_RA2_1_N: 00:03:19:300
The MOD tacitly acknowledges this development by providing headword entries under both a relational noun m̧- and the reanalysed locative noun root m̧aan. It is interesting that of all the relational nouns that could be reanalysed as locative nouns, it is m̧aan for which this reanalysis has occurred, given it is most commonly used projectively (i.e. marking frame of reference), as opposed to other relational nouns which are non-projective topological relation markers. This suggests that the distinction between topological relations and projective relations (i.e. Frame of reference) is conceptually salient to Marshallese speakers, since projective relations are not conceptualised as being inherently ‘possessible’ in contrast with topological relations, which are typically grammaticalised out of body part terms.
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5.4.2 Transverse axis terms There are three transverse axis frame of reference terms in common use. Anbwijmaron ̄ and anmooņ for ‘right (hand, side)’ and anmiin̄ for ‘left (hand, side)’. All three of these terms are historically composed of a lexical root compounded with the third person singular general relational classifier an. Historically, this is likely to have come about through reanalysis of a possessive construction, i.e. ‘NP an miin’,̄ c.f. §4.4.6.2. Although these terms are employed in both the relative and intrinsic FoRs, the relative FoR is uncommon. Speakers will almost always employ the intrinsic FoR over the relative FoR if the Ground entity in the scene they are describing has differentiable facets. Thus, ambiguity or confusion between the intrinsic and relative frames is rare.
Anbwijmaron ̄ is derived from an, the third person singular possessive marker, bwij
‘lineage, family, clan’ and maron̄ ’power, authority’. This association is still apparent to at least some Marshallese speakers. A consultant on Jabor, Gastro Ajri, explained that in traditional
Marshallese culture, the right hand was the sword hand which was used to protect and project the reputation and power of one’s family. The MOD lists a counterpart for anbwijmaron,̄ anbwijban ‘left hand, side’ (ban meaning ‘weak’), which appears to no longer be in common use, though a consultant reported that they had heard older people say it.
Anmiin̄ and anmoon (or almiin ̄ and almoon) are locative nouns for ‘right hand, side’ and
‘left hand, side’ respectively. Like anbwijmaron ̄ these terms are clearly historically morphologically complex, composed of the third person possessive pronoun an compounding with a nominal root. However, unlike with anbwijmaron̄, this relationship is not evident to speakers, which perhaps accounts for the dissimilation of the historical third person singular general relational classifier an to al by many Marshallese speakers. Despite some Marshallese identifying these as the more modern terms as opposed to anbwijmaron,̄ there is evidence that they are in fact the older forms. Though I have been unable to recover the etymology of -moon,
Bender et al. (2003: 49) list -miin̄ as the reflex of PCMc *ma[iu]ñi ‘left handed’. 197
These transverse terms are unusual in that they are used both as local and relational nouns (§4.8.3).
(152) wōjke e e=j pād anmiin-̄ ū, iōn.̄
tree DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located left.side-1SG.P north
“This tree is located left of me, north.”
MAR_MT_SPR_20150119_TA2_JA3_1_W: 00:01:58:000
They can be directly possessed with i-stem marking as in (152). However, they can also be possessed with the general alienable relational classifier (§4.4.6.2) as in (153) below, where they also take adnominal demonstratives, which is ungrammatical for local nouns. This is evidence that they are common nouns which can nevertheless be used in the local construction, like āne ‘land, island’, and em̧ ’house, building’ (§4.8.5).
(153) ak kijan ̄ ņe e=j pād anmooņ ņe a-m̧.
but boy DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located right.side DEM2 CLF.GEN-2SG.P
“…and that boy is located at your right side.”
MAR_MT_JAB_20131213_GN1_JP1_1_N: 00:05:50:300
However, it is not yet clear to what extent these terms are grammatically flexible, compared to inter-speaker or inter-dialectal variation. The majority of locative noun examples were collected in the RMI field sites, where almost all participants were speakers of the Rālik dialect. Conversely, the majority of common noun examples come from Springdale, where speakers of both dialects were present, though Ratak was more common. There is also the possibility that the increased use of body axis terms in Springdale (§6.3.1.2) is influencing grammaticalisation of these terms from common nouns to locative nouns. Further investigation is required to clarify this issue.
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Spatial strategies across sites This section examines and compares how Marshallese speakers in different locations talk about space. Four sites are discussed in total; three in the Marshall Islands including two on Jaluit Atoll:
Jabor and Jaluit Island, and Kili Island. The final site, Springdale, is a small city in Arkansas, USA, with a diasporic community. The relative locations of Jaluit Atoll and Kili within the Marshall
Islands can be found in §1.2.1
5.5.1 Jabor, Jaluit Atoll Though generally also referred to as an outer atoll, Jaluit Atoll was the former capital during the early stages of World War II and remains a regional centre for the southern Rālik Chain. As such, its most populated islet (approx. 800 inhabitants), Jabor, has a level of urbanisation and development intermediate between that of the capital Majuro and the other outer atolls, containing a small bank, a high school, a private Catholic elementary school, a power plant, and several shops. The islet consists of several unsealed streets in a grid formation. English fluency and education levels are higher than on most other outer atolls, perhaps on par with Majuro, the capital. The directional system in use on Jabor is shown in Figure 23 below.55
55 At the time this map and those of Figures Figure 24-Figure 26 were created, the allocentric directionals were being analysed as enclitics and iar and lik were being translated as ‘calm side’ and ‘rough side’ respectively, instead of their present translations of ‘sheltered side’ and ‘exposed side’, used elsewhere throughout this work. 199
Figure 23: Geocentric spatial reference on Jabor, Jaluit Atoll
It is relatively typical in terms of its use of the interaction between the iar-lik axis and the cardinal axes. The north-south axis is rotated from its canonical orientation on the navigational domain where they correspond approximately to the English cardinal directions.
Here, in order to be perpendicular to the iar-lik axis, the rear-rilik ‘east-west’ axis, is correspondingly rotated such that it is perpendicular to the iōn̄-rōk axis and parallel to the iar- lik axis, but it is only invoked infrequently, as speakers prefer to use the primary iar-lik axis (see
§5.3.3 above). Jabor does not have any forested or overgrown areas and accordingly o̧o̧j
‘wilderness’ is not used. However, its degree of urbanisation affords several larger landmarks which can be used for spatial reference. The most common of these were the high school and the airport (see §5.3.3.4; §6.3.1.1),
5.5.2 Jaluit Island, Jaluit Atoll Unlike Jabor, Jaluit Island (commonly referred to by locals as Jaluit Jaluit) is more typical for a
Marshallese outer atoll islet: sparsely populated (approximately 200), with only an elementary
200 school and limited solar power. Note that despite conventionally being referred to by inhabitants as distinct ‘islands’, Jabor and Jaluit Island are connected by approximately 12km of unsealed road along an isthmus.56 The road is in poor condition and travel between the two islets generally takes 30 mins – 1 hour by truck, which runs perhaps once per week on average.
Many also regularly bicycle between the two islets, or occasionally walk. Therefore, there is a high degree of contact between the two islets.
In terms of its topography, Jaluit Island is distinctive in terms of being unusually long – approximately 2km – with a distinct curvature which is not as obvious on other smaller islets
(see Figure 24). At its eastern end, the islet runs east-west, while at its western end, the islet runs southeast-northwest. The road from Jabor continues along the lagoon side of the islet all the way terminating approximately 500m from the northwest tip of the islet, which is referred to by locals as m̧aantata ‘the very front’, for reasons which are not entirely clear.57 The population is spread sporadically along this road with density increasing slightly towards the centre of the islet, where the elementary school and church are located, and decreasing towards the peripheries in the east and northwest. The region between the ocean and the road is densely forested and thus, o̧o̧j ‘wilderness, interior’ is used to describe locations in or travel towards this region. These forests are used for copra harvesting.
As stated above, the atoll is distinctly curved, which causes issues for Marshallese system of geocentric spatial reference which crosses a cardinal axis with a topographic axis. On the eastern end of the islet, the lagoon is directly north and the ocean is south, with the cross- axis running east-west, but at the northwestern end of the islet, the lagoon is northeast and ocean is southwest, with the cross-axis running southeast-northwest.
56 This isthmus is generally not considered part of either Jabor or Jaluit Island. Two or three families do live in homes along the isthmus, but it is mostly uninhabited. 57 A possible explanation is that this is simply a translational relative frame of reference, assuming a canonical orientation westwards, which is the direction a traveller from the larger and politically more important Jabor is facing if they arrive by road. 201
Given this topographical arrangement, one might expect that speakers would employ rear- rilik as a stable cross-axis, being near parallel to its true orientation (on the navigational domain) at the eastern end of the islet and 45° degrees off at the northwestern end of the islet, similar to Jabor (c.f. Figure 23).
Surprisingly however, in the centre of the islet, which is also the centre of community life, different speakers use the cardinal system in different ways. For some, the cross-axis to the iar-lik axis is lexified by rear-rilik, with iōn̄-rōk lexifying the rarely used cardinal axis parallel to the iar-lik axis.
Figure 24: Geocentric spatial reference on Jaluit Island, system 1
For others the iōn̄-rōk axis ran parallel to the iar-lik axis, crossed by the rear-rilik axis.
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Figure 25: Geocentric spatial reference on Jaluit Island, system 2
Of further surprise was the fact that many Jaluit Islanders did not seem to initially be aware of this discrepancy. This may in part be because the cardinal cross-axis is used less frequently on Jaluit Island compared to other places. Jitto ‘west side of island’ and Jittak ‘east side of island’ are commonly used in its place.
5.5.3 Kili Island While the Marshallese archipelago primarily consists of atolls, Marshallese is also spoken indigenously on two singleton (i.e. non-atoll) islands, Jabat and Mejit, each with a long history of settlement. Furthermore, in 1948 much of the indigenous population of Bikini Atoll was resettled on a third previously uninhabited singleton island, Kili, due to nuclear testing by the
US government which rendered the atoll uninhabitable. The US government has paid a significant amount of money annually to the people of Bikini as compensation. This has led to
Kili having considerably more infrastructure than other outer islands, on a similar level to that of Jabor, including a power plant and several large stores. The majority of Kili Islanders have never been to Bikini, but nevertheless most still identify as Bikini Islanders (riBikini). 58
58 For more information on the history of the Bikini Islanders and their plight during the nuclear age, see Niedenthal (2001). 203
Bikini Atoll is located in the northern end of the Rālik Chain, as opposed to Kili Island which is nearby Jaluit Atoll (approx. 50km) in the south. As such there is considerable contact between Kili and Jaluit nowadays. Baseball teams travel between the islands to play each other and there are several Kili Islanders boarding at Jaluit High School in Jabor, as Kili does not have its own high school. Despite both groups speaking Rālik Marshallese, they are able to identify each other’s speech as distinct, as Kili Islanders are described by Marshallese in Jaluit as speaking with a distinct prosody.59
Kili is a singleton island, not part of any atoll, and does not have a lagoon. During the peak of the monsoon season – a period of approximately three months – the water is very rough around the island and larger boats are not able to moor. However, during the rest of the year, boats moor on the northwest side of the island which has calmer waters. This side is referred to by locals as iar, and the opposing side is referred to by locals as lik (§5.3.3.1).
Figure 26: Geocentric spatial reference on Kili Island
As with Jaluit Island, on Kili the term o̧o̧j is used, referring to the same side of the island as lik. It appears to be used less frequently in Kili than in Jaluit Island, based on data from
59 Consultants have claimed that this is also a feature other atolls in the Northern Rālik Chain where Bikini Atoll is located. 204 elicitation tasks. Furthermore, the o̧o̧j side of the island is not overgrown wilderness, but rather is the location of the airstrip, suggesting that the terms became conventionalised before the strip was cleared.
The most notable aspect of the Kili system of geocentric spatial reference however is its cardinal directions. On Kili, the iōn̄-rōk ‘north-south’ and rear-rilik ‘east-west’ axes run parallel to each other, both crossing the iar-lik ‘sheltered side-exposed side’ axis. Of the two, the rilik- rear axis is overwhelmingly the most frequently employed – use of iōn̄ and rōk is rare. Like Jabor,
Kili is also oriented approximately between the canonical orientation of the two cardinal axes in the navigational domain. As such, it is notable that in Jabor the cardinal cross-axis to the iar-lik axis is the iōn-̄ rōk axis whereas on Kili it is the rear-rilik axis. This indicates that the assignment of geocentric directions to the island topography is somewhat idiosyncratic.
Kili Islanders are highly educated and strong English speakers by the standards of
Marshallese outer islands. Perhaps because of this, they are well aware that their geocentric spatial referencing system is unusual from a normative Western perspective. Numerous Kili
Islanders expressed amusement about the fact that that they use ‘lagoon side’ and ‘ocean side’ even though the island has no lagoon. They were also aware that their cardinal axes run parallel to one another and that this was unusual, but were generally unable to explain why the island had such a system.
5.5.4 Springdale In recent times there has been rapidly increasing Marshallese migration to the United States. In
2010, 22,434 Marshallese were reported to reside in the US (Hixson, Hepler & Kim 2012); however, the current number is likely to be much greater. The largest Marshallese population in the US is centred on and around the city of Springdale, in Northwest Arkansas, where at least
12,000 Marshallese reside.60 Though the largest community of Marshallese in the USA, it is
60 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/marshallese-climate-refugees-head-to-arkansas-2016-2 205 younger than many of the communities in Hawai’i and the West Coast. The Springdale community originates with the migration of John Moody who moved to Springdale to work in the poultry industry in the 1980s. The majority of Springdale is low-density suburbia. Most adult
Marshallese work in manufacturing – particularly the poultry industry – or retail.
Springdale is a very different environment to the atolls and islands of the RMI.
Accordingly, the topographic terms iar, lik, and o̧o̧j are not employed. Surprisingly however, neither are the cardinal directions. In an Object Placement Task (see Chapter 8 for methodology), only four of 26 participants were able to ‘correctly’ identify the directions iōn,̄ rōk, rear and rilik. While some Marshallese indicated that they use large-scale landmarks such as the shopping mall and the Walmart to navigate around town in informal interviews, this was generally not observed across several car journeys with two consultants. Instead, they were observed using the English terms ‘left’ and ‘right’, even while speaking Marshallese. When forced to make fine-grained spatial distinctions in elicitation tasks in tabletop space, participants did use the Marshallese terms for ‘left’ and ‘right’ discussed above in §5.4. However, several participants struggled to use these terms accurately, indicating that they are probably not used naturalistically in day to day life. Perhaps the nature of the tasks, whose instructions stipulated that they must be performed in Marshallese, led participants to avoid English borrowings which would otherwise be more natural to them.
Furthermore, regardless of their behaviour in large-scale navigation, Springdale
Marshallese do not use large-scale environment-landmarks like their Marshall Islands-dwelling counterparts when describing locations in tabletop space. Like Jabor, Springdale has schools, churches, and shops, which are highly salient parts of everyday life, but these are never used as landmarks when playing tabletop space games. However, some speakers did use object- landmarks in their immediate perceptual environment such as walls, doors, televisions, etc., which were never employed by speakers living in the RMI. The behaviour of Springdale
Marshallese in elicitation tasks is also discussed in more detail in Chapter 6. It is noteworthy that 206 the reduction in the use of established and conventionalised systems of geocentric spatial reference in favour of egocentric and intrinsic strategies coincides with a switch in the type of ad-hoc landmarks employed.
More on cardinal directions Despite being translated with the English cardinal directions ‘north’, ‘south’, ‘east’ and ‘west’ by both Marshallese speakers and foreigners, it is evident that the Marshallese cardinal directions are conceptualised very differently from how English speakers conceptualise cardinal directions.
This is evident from Kili, where the supposed ‘north-south’ and ‘east-west’ axes run parallel. It is difficult to imagine an English speaker, for whom cardinal directions are strongly influenced by the compass and schematisations on maps of two arrows crossed perpendicular to one another, with north pointing upwards, ever developing a system where these two axes are parallel.
Indeed, it is not clear that for the majority of Marshallese speakers, the cardinal directions even form bidirectional axes at all. If one were to point in a direction, call it ‘north’, and ask a Westerner to derive the location of south, we expect they would easily point in the opposite direction. This is not so with Marshallese speakers, many of whom are unable to do the same if given a Marshallese cardinal direction and asked to name its opposite (c.f. Gaby et al. 2017). This suggest that for many Marshallese, each of these cardinal terms do not form axes at all, but rather four unique locally anchored points (for a similar phenomenon in Lavukaleve, see Terrill & Burenhult 2008).
Nowhere is this more clear than amongst the Marshallese community living in
Springdale. It was stated above that from 26 participants, only four were able to correctly identify the four cardinal points (i.e. point in the direction of their English translation). Aside from some who said they simply did not know, others gave a variety of answers, including that iōn̄, rōk, rilik and rear only exist in the Marshall Islands. Several imagined some sort of canonical orientation on their home atoll and transposed it to their current situation, for example, one 207 person who was facing the front door in their house in Springdale reported that they imagined they were in their house in the Marshall Islands, where when oriented towards the door, they were facing iōn̄ ‘north’, thus deriving an orientation with respect to a Marshallese cardinal. Aside from the four participants who identified the cardinal directions correctly, a further six participants responded in a way, which was incorrect in terms of the true directions of the cardinals, but nevertheless consistent with the conceptualisation of crossed cardinal axes. It was merely the case that the locations identified were rotated from their true referents. This leaves
16 of the 26 participants (62%) who did not display evidence of having a conceptual system of two crossed cardinal axes.
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6 The Man and Tree task
The Man and Tree task (M&T) was designed by scholars associated with the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen (Levinson et al. 1992). The goal of the M&T task is to elicit linguistic data comprised of descriptions of both static location and orientation, as employed in small-scale, or tabletop, space. It is perhaps one of the most widely trialled elicitation tasks in the category of director-matcher space games, having been run in all of the 12 language studies contained in Levinson & Wilkins (2006a), as well as Longgu (Hill 1997); Marquesan (Cablitz 2006);
Gurindji and Gurindji Kriol (Meakins 2011), among others. This study uses a version of Man and
Tree called the ‘Ann Senghas task’, developed by Ann Senghas in 1999 and previously run on speakers of Jahai and Lavukaleve (Terrill & Burenhult 2008). This version has also been run by
Edmonds-Wathen (2014) and Lum (2018). Palmer et al. (2017) presents a comparison between the data presented in this chapter and Lum’s data.
Aims of the Man and Tree task The Man and Tree task is one of many tasks designed for the elicitation of large quantities of spatial language. It is only one of several such tasks carried out over the course of this study, other of which are listed in §1.5.1. While the Man and Tree task has like the other elicitation games, contributed data to the qualitative findings outlined in Chapters 4 and 5, it is the only task which produced a language data set to be also subjected to quantitative analysis. This is due to its particular suitability for the construction of a large unbiased data set, for reasons discussed below in §6.2.
While it has been standard for decades to conduct quantitative analyses of spatial cognition within a population (§3.1.2; Chapter 8), these quantitative findings have generally been compared against a qualitatively derived profile of the language practices of a community.
Or alternatively, language data from only a few participants is analysed quantitatively, the findings of which are then generalised to the broader community. Chapters 3 and 9 discuss in
209 greater detail the issues with this tendency of many scholars to treat languages and linguistic communities as monolithic, with there being ‘relative languages’ and ‘absolute languages’. This can potentially lead to missing both the diversity within communities in terms of demographics, and in turn the diversity present in language use.
This study, through the creation of a large corpus of tagged, coded, and statistically analysed Man and Tree tasks, seeks to address this gap by examining the subtleties of how different variables, both demographic and situational (direction players face, whether task is conducted indoors or outside), affect the strategies that speakers of Marshallese use when talking about space. Rather than discovering whether Marshallese is an ‘absolute language’ or a
‘relative language’, or whether Marshallese people are ‘absolute encoders’ or ‘relative encoders’, this chapter explores who within the community is more likely to use a given strategy, and why.
Methodology of the Man and Tree task 6.2.1 Materials The Ann Senghas version of the M&T task is comprised of several cards, each showing a man located to the left, right, front, and back of a tree. In each position, the man may also be oriented forwards, backwards, to the left, or to the right. These possibilities yield a matrix of 16 cards
(Figure 27; note that codes R11-R44 do not appear on actual photographs).
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Figure 27: The 'Ann Senghas' Man and Tree card set (Terrill & Burenhult 2008)
The Ann Senghas version of the Man and Tree task is different from the original MPI version in that it contains no distractor cards and that it is exhaustive, i.e. all combinations of the man’s location (where he is standing) and orientation (what direction he is facing) with respect to the tree are represented. This makes results from the Ann Senghas version more amenable to quantitative analysis as it removes the extraneous variable of differences in strategy selection being due to imbalances in the range of array configurations.
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6.2.2 Procedure
6.2.2.1 Setup and instructions As with other director-matcher elicitation games, two participants are seated side by side separated by a screen. In the RMI, games were counterbalanced according to orientation with respect to the island. Approximately half the games were conducted with the participants facing along the lagoon, and half were conducted with the participants oriented perpendicular to the lagoon, towards the right.61 In Springdale, half the games were played with the participants oriented along the north-south axis, and half along the east-west axis. Participants were then given a standardised set of instructions in Marshallese (Appendix 1.1). However, many participants had difficulty understanding these instructions, so these formal instructions were elaborated on informally by either the experimenter or the Marshallese assistant. At no point was any spatial vocabulary used by the instruction-giver. In the Jaluit Atoll playthroughs, the game commenced immediately after it was deemed that the participants understood the rules and objective of the game. In Kili and Springdale, each participant was allowed to practice both the director and matcher role with a random card in order to decrease the length of the games.
Both audio and video were recorded for all games.
6.2.2.2 Gameplay The director describes to the matcher each card using any strategy they like, in order to facilitate the matcher to correctly identify the card being described. Both participants may arrange their cards on the table however they prefer. Generally, but not always, this was left-to-right, top-to- bottom. When participants realised they had made an error, they could go back and try to locate it. Often, this would depend on the level of engagement of the matcher. Despite participants being explicitly instructed that the matcher is allowed to ask questions, some matchers were silent throughout the game, while others engaged in lengthy discussion and debate.
61 With the exception of one game in Jaluit Island, conducted facing the ocean side. 212
Unsurprisingly, pairs who employed the former strategy generally produced games far shorter in duration than those who used the latter.
Figure 28: Two participants playing the Man and Tree task (Jabor, Jaluit Atoll, RMI)
After the first game is completed, pairs are asked to swap roles such that the player who was the director in the first game becomes the matcher in the second and vice-versa.
6.2.3 Participants Demographic information was collected on all participants, including their gender, age, employment, education level, day-to-day reading/writing frequency, etc. While effort was made to balance the population across variables, this was not always possible due to both the demographics and lifestyles prevalent at each site, as well as the social roles and expectations of the participants and the experimenter.
6.2.3.1 Age The minimum age for participant recruitment was 16. There was no maximum age. Note that the RMI has a young population, with a median age of 22.7 years.62
62 CIA World Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2177.html 213
6.2.3.2 Education The ‘low’ group included participants who had not progressed beyond elementary education, which in the Marshall Islands runs for eight years until approximately 14 years of age. The ‘high’ group included all those with at least some secondary education. Data collected on education and literacy (below) in Springdale was compromised due to participants giving false data on account of cultural sensitivities and was discarded.
6.2.3.3 Reading/writing frequency The daily use of literacy practices was chosen because many participants who had studied some level of post-elementary education rarely or never practiced their literacy skills since leaving school or college and conversely, some of the younger participants had recently completed elementary school and were yet to begin high school but until recently had nevertheless been engaged in education for several hours per week. In order to assess habitual reading and writing frequency, participants were asked on a Likert scale ranging from one ‘rarely or never’ to five
‘very often’ how regularly they read or write. Since the middle option of three ‘sometimes’ was not selected, the range of responses were collapsed into two groups: frequent readers
(four/five) vs infrequent readers (one/two).
6.2.3.4 Employment type Employment type divides participants into white collar workers (e.g. predominantly teachers) and non-white collar workers, which include both blue collar workers (power plant workers, truck drivers, etc.), agricultural workers (copra farmers, fishermen), and unemployed. Note that the line between these latter two groups is in practice blurred as it is common for unemployed or underemployed persons to take casual employment fishing and farming, or doing construction work, among other jobs. Therefore, these two groups have been collapsed together.
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6.2.3.5 Summary of director profiles Table 21 below shows a profile of the Directors in the sample population at each site in terms of the relevant variables analysed.
Jaluit RMI Total (RMI + Jabor Kili Springdale Island Total Springdale)
Games analysed 16 11 12 39 9 48
(range) 16-43 16-52 18-40 16-52 19-38 16-52 Age (median)63 23 26 26 26 26 26
Gender (males : females) 11 : 5 6 : 5 9 : 3 26 : 13 5 : 4 31 : 17
Education (low : high) 2 : 1364 2 : 10 4 : 7 8 : 30 N/A N/A
Reading/writing 10 : 564 7 : 5 7 : 4 24 : 14 N/A65 N/A frequency (low : high)
Employment type (blue collar/ unemployed : 6 : 10 6 : 5 12 : 0 24 : 15 7 : 2 31 : 17 white collar)
Table 21: Profile of Directors in Man and Tree task
While ideally more data would have been collected from certain underrepresented groups, in order to add power to the analysis of the above variables, it is important to note that the total number of 48 pairs is many times larger than previous studies utilising the Man and
Tree task, or indeed other director-matcher spatial language elicitation tasks. Most previous studies have used only three to five pairs per language, due in part to working with small language communities and the time-intensive data collection and processing procedure. Thus, the majority of previous researchers to run tasks of this nature have used the data yielded purely for qualitative analysis, though some studies from the ‘MesoSpace’ group are a prominent exception (e.g. Eggleston 2012; Bohnemeyer et al. 2014; inter alia). This is not intended to be a criticism of such research; in many cases the practicalities of linguistic fieldwork situations do not even afford the opportunity for studies of this nature. However, the high quantity of
63 Note that the RMI has a young population, with a median age of 22.7 years (CIA World Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2177.html). 64 One participant did not wish to provide information. 65 Due to cultural sensitivities amongst population, metadata was inaccurate and therefore excluded. 215 independent participants is an advantage of the present study as it affords the opportunity to examine the effects of several variables which have remained generally underexplored, often limited to broad typological comparisons such as that of Majid et al. (2004), which cannot account for the heterogeneity within linguistic communities.
6.2.4 Data management The M&T task was run at all four field sites in this study: Jabor, Jaluit Atoll; Jaluit Island, Jaluit
Atoll; Kili Island, and Springdale, Arkansas.
After recording games, data were transcribed in ELAN by a native Marshallese speaker and then translated by the author with the aid of a native speaker. Appendix 2 shows an example of a complete Man and Tree game. Though all games contributed towards the corpus used for qualitative analysis, only the director’s instructions in the first game of each pair was selected for further quantitative analysis, both for practical issues of time as well as the likelihood that director behaviour in the second game would be strongly primed by their partner’s behaviour in the first. Additionally, for games which took over 10 minutes, only the first ten minutes were transcribed. These games were then subjected to coding according to whether a given spatial description was describing the location of the man or tree, or the orientation of the man, as well as the spatial strategy used (Table 22).
Jaluit RMI No. of… Jabor Kili Island Springdale Total Island Total
Pairs / games 16 11 12 39 9 48 analysed Location 640 490 452 1582 351 1933 descriptions Orientation 541 340 336 1217 223 1450 descriptions Total 1181 830 788 2799 584 3196 descriptions
Table 22: Metadata from the Man and Tree task
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6.2.5 Coding data Aside from location vs orientation, spatial descriptions were also coded according to the type of strategy employed. Note that while in many ways similar, the coding employed here does not directly correspond to the typology outlined in §2.2.6. In part, this is because coding was performed before the typology was fully developed (leading to identical coding of object- landmarks and environment-landmarks), but also different categories were required according to the nature of the game (e.g. the ‘tree-directed’ category) or else were motivated by the nature of Marshallese linguistic and cultural spatial habits and practices (e.g. the distinction between the ‘environment’ and ‘landmark’ categories). As such, the various categories, together with their codings in the data files are listed in Table 23 below.
Given the open-ended response allowed by the Man and Tree task, there were naturally several different types of spatial description which were problematic to fit into the above categories. The following sections discuss some of these issues and how they were resolved.
6.2.5.1 Cardinal or landmark? In the RMI there were two relatively common strategies which resisted easy classification. These were ‘cardinal’ landmark strategies, which share some of the properties of both cardinals and miscellaneous landmarks. In Jabor, the terms m̧ōkan rōk ‘south town’ and m̧ōkan iōn̄ ‘north town’ were regularly employed. Despite these expressions straightforwardly containing the lexical nouns rōk ‘south’ and iōn̄ ‘north’, nevertheless some participants expressed a preference for one strategy over the other. Though these landmarks are transparently derived from cardinal directions, they are nevertheless landmarks and were thus treated as such.
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Category Code Explanation
Topographic Environment-landmarks iar, lik and o̧o̧j. See §5.3.3.1; ENV landmark §5.3.3.2.
Cardinal CRD The cardinal directions. See §5.3.1; §5.3.3.3.
tv The intrinsic FoR. Further subdivided into transverse (left- Intrinsic INT sg right) vs sagittal (front-back). See §5.4.
tv The relative FoR. Subdivided into transverse vs sagittal. Relative REL tl Sagittal further subdivided into translational vs reflectional. sg See §2.2.2.1; §5.4. rf
Descriptions on the vertical axis, e.g. ABOVE, ON TOP, BELOW, Vertical VERT UNDER etc (§4.8.9.2).
When the tree is the Anchor or sole element in the description, e.g. ‘facing towards the tree’.67 Distinguished Tree-landmark AIL66 from the ‘landmark’ category below because the tree is internal to the scene while other landmarks are external to the scene.
Ad hoc or semi-conventionalised object and environment Miscellaneous AEL68 landmarks in the wider environment, e.g. people’s houses, landmark the high school, the airport, the door, etc. See §5.3.3.4.
Speech Act Participant-based landmark (i.e. viewer- landmarks). Since deictic directionals are obligatory in many orientation descriptions, this category only consists SAP-landmark SAP of cases where a SAP was overtly referred to (i.e. pronominally), or where the deictic directional provides the sole directional information in the description (see §4.9.2).
Table 23: Coding of spatial strategies in Man and Tree task
A similar situation occurred for terms Jitto ‘western part of islet’ and Jittak ‘eastern part of islet’, which were common in Jaluit Island and Kili. Again, these are derived from cardinal directions (§5.3.3.4.1), but as with m̧ōkan rōk and m̧ōkan iōn,̄ some participants expressed that they understood one but not the other. On the same reasoning as above, they were coded as
66 Array-Internal Landmark. 67 Does not include descriptions where the tree is the Ground in a spatial description which can be otherwise categorised, e.g. ‘the man is in front of the tree’ is categorised solely as relative. 68 Array-External Landmark. 218 landmarks. However, upon analysis, it was found that there were clear differences in how these terms were used compared to other miscellaneous landmarks, which is explored in §6.3.5.3.
6.2.5.2 Semantics vs pragmatics It was common throughout the coding process to encounter descriptions where a strict semantic interpretation of a card description would conflict with the illocutionary intent of the utterance.
For example, rather than describe the orientation of the man with the neutral orientation verb jit-, it was equally common to use a verb such as rei- ‘look’ or kalimjek ‘stare at’. Less common, but also attested was the use of a motion verb. Under a strict semantic interpretation, the former description does not refer to a spatial relationship at all, and the latter refers to motion, not orientation. However, since pragmatically, all these utterances have the same illocutionary intent – to describe the orientation of the man – they have been tagged as orientation descriptions.
6.2.5.3 Consistency of categories across description types One of the goals of this study is to uncover how strategy preference differs when describing locations of Figures as opposed to their orientation.
However, while the strategies available for location descriptions and orientation descriptions are similar, they vary in that location descriptions include an intrinsic (INT) category, while the orientation descriptions do not. Intrinsic orientation descriptions are possible in situations where there is a mismatch in alignment between the body and head, for example, if the Figure is a person who has turned their head such that it is facing towards their own left side, one may say that the this person is ‘facing left’ even if their head is pointing to the right from the viewer’s perspective. However, there are no cards in the stimulus set in which the man’s head is not co-oriented with his body. On the other hand, orientation descriptions include the tree-directed category, which is not present for location descriptions.
Therefore, in order to facilitate comparison, the two strategies have been compared against one another. This is not completely unreasonable, as both strategies uniquely share the 219 fact that they are both entirely scene-internal, not relying on any entities outside of those presented in the stimulus picture to anchor the FoR. However, they are nevertheless quite different in their conceptual and operational structures, which does somewhat limit the location-orientation comparison.
6.2.5.4 Ambiguity in FoR type Situations frequently arose when there was ambiguity in terms of which frame of reference was being invoked, due to one spatial term co-lexifying more than one frame of reference. This was of course the case for the relative and intrinsic FoRs, which are co-lexified by FRONT-BACK-LEFT-
RIGHT terms (see §2.1.1; §5.4) and for lik which colexifies ‘back, behind’ and the exposed side
(or ‘back’) of islands. These ambiguities crop up so frequently in the data that if they were all to be excluded it would unbalance distribution of arrays and endanger quantitative analysis (see discussion in §6.2.1). However, these examples are often only ambiguous when abstracted away from context, which will usually clarify which FoR was intended as in the example below.
(154) ļe ņe e=j pād tu-lik. wōjke ņe e=j
SIDE- man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located tree DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV exposed.side
pād tu-iar
be.located SIDE-sheltered.side
“That man is on the exposed side. That tree is on the sheltered side.”
MAR_MT_KILI_20140401_RJ7_JJ3_2_NW: 00:00:29.000
While in (154) the first spatial description could be ambiguous, it is clear from the following sentence that lik is being used geocentrically to refer to the exposed side of the island. However, cases judged truly ambiguous, where context does not clarify which FoR is being employed, have been excluded.
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6.2.6 Analysis Raw counts of spatial strategy type per game were then expressed as percentages of strategy type per pair in order to control for the fact that different pairs produced different amounts of
FoR descriptions.
These proportions were then compared in order to test whether data is consistent with the null hypothesis that groups use a given FoR at the same rate. Due to the low sample sizes, non-parametric tests were performed. For categorical predictors such as field site and gender, two-tailed Mann-Whitney U tests were conducted. For continuous predictors such as age,
Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients were calculated. Due to low sample sizes, alpha was set 0.1. It is acknowledged that this methodology is less ideal than a multivariate analysis as it does not control for the influence of covariates. However, small population sizes and fieldwork conditions did not allow for sample sizes of sufficient size for a multi-variate analysis. Therefore, results of statistical analyses should be taken as suggestive.
Results of the Man and Tree In this section, results from the Man and Tree task are discussed. First the results from the different field sites are compared. Then, variables to do with experimental situation are examined, including whether the experiment was run indoors or outdoors, as well as orientation of participants with respect to the lagoon. Finally, demographic variables such as age, gender, and education levels are analysed.
This section illustrates and discusses the quantitative findings from the Man and Tree task. First, the spatial strategies from each of the primary three sites are presented, namely Jaluit
Atoll (including both Jabor and Jaluit Island), Kili Island and Springdale are compared (§6.3.1).
This is followed by a comparison of the different sites and a discussion of the implications of the differences found
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6.3.1 Results across sites Table 24 shows the results across the sites by average proportion of each strategy for both location and orientation descriptions. As the results across the Marshallese sites are quite similar, the results from the Springdale, Arkansas, sample are also compared to those from the
RMI as a whole.
LOCATION DESCRIPTIONS
REL SAP INT VERT LMRK CRD TOP Tokens 5% 1% 6% 12% 8% 33% 34% Jabor Speakers (n=16) 31% 6% 44% 50% 44% 81% 100% Jaluit Tokens 1% 1% 17% 13% 15% 29% 24% Island Speakers (n=11) 18% 27% 55% 45% 64% 73% 73% Kili Tokens 5% 0% 2% 12% 4% 36% 42% Island Speakers(n=12) 33% 0% 33% 42% 17% 92% 92% RMI Tokens 4% <1% 8% 12% 9% 33% 34% total Speakers (n=39) 28% 10% 44% 46% 41% 82% 90% Spring Tokens 44% 14% 17% 20% <1% 3% 0% -dale Speakers (n=9) 89% 44% 78% 67% 11% 11% 0% ORIENTATION DESCRIPTIONS REL SAP TREE VERT LMRK CRD TOP Tokens <1% 10% 14% 1% 14% 25% 36% Jabor Speakers (n=16) 6% 75% 81% 13% 84% 75% 100% Jaluit Tokens 1% 12% 15% 0% 2% 36% 35% Island Speakers (n=11) 9% 64% 82% 0% 27% 100% 91% Kili Tokens 2% 5% 11% 3% 1% 36% 41% Island Speakers (n=12) 8% 33% 67% 17% 17% 92% 100% RMI Tokens 1% 9% 13% 1% 7% 31% 38% total Speakers (n=39) 8% 59% 77% 10% 46% 87% 97% Tokens 33% 26% 22% 7% 12% 1% 0% Spring Speakers -dale 75% 100% 100% 50% 50% 13% 0% (n=8)69 Table 24: Spatial strategies in the Man and Tree task across field sites
It is important to be careful when analysing the above data. While the proportions of raw tokens are telling, the tokens are not independent; rather, they have been produced by a much smaller number of speakers. Therefore, along with the proportion of tokens across the sample, the number of speakers who employed a given spatial strategy at least once is also
69 One participant did not produce any orientation descriptions. 222 included. This allows for ascertaining how successful or useful a strategy is. For example four directors in Kili (or 33% of the sample population) employed an intrinsic strategy at least once in their location descriptions. However, intrinsic descriptions account for only 2% of the location descriptions in Kili, indicating the strategy was attempted but then discarded. Conversely, five directors produced vertical descriptions summing 12% of the total, indicating that participants found much more success with this strategy.
In addition, data were subjected to statistical analysis. A Kruskal-Wallis test was used to calculate whether strategies differed between the four sites, and where differences were observed, each group was compared to one another directly. Since the three RMI sites were found only to differ in their rate of miscellaneous landmark use they have been collapsed for direct comparison to the Springdale sample.
Mann-Whitney U tests: Location Orientation Cardinals RMI*** RMI*** Topographic RMI*** RMI*** Miscellaneous landmarks RMI* ns Total geocentric RMI*** RMI***
SAP-landmarks SPR*** SPR** Relative FoR SPR*** SPR*** Total egocentric SPR*** SPR**
Intrinsic SPR** N/A Vertical ns SPR** Tree-directed N/A ns Key: RMI: more common in Marshall Islands; SPR: More common in Springdale, Arkansas; ns: not significant; *: p≤0.1; **: p≤0.05; ***: p≤0.01. Full results in Appendix 3.1. Table 25: Relationship between location and spatial strategy selection in Man and Tree
The results in Table 25 above show a strong difference across nearly all spatial strategies and description types between the Marshall Islands community and the Springdale community.
The RMI population employs significantly more geocentric strategies while the Springdale population uses egocentric and intrinsic strategies more. There does not seem to be a major difference in use of more ad hoc landmarks based on this data, but as we will observe in the
223 following section, there are important differences in what referents are selected for use as landmarks between the two sites.
6.3.1.1 Geocentric M&T results across sites: topographic, cardinal, landmark Geocentric strategies were overwhelmingly preferred to other strategies in all three Marshallese sites. This section discusses similarities and differences between the sites in terms of the relative use of the three categories of geocentric spatial reference, the conventionalised topography- centred terms, the cardinal directions and the miscellaneous landmarks.
As can be observed in Table 24, the populations in any given site used environment descriptions and cardinal descriptions in very similar proportions. Aside from the largest discrepancy of 11% in Jabor orientation descriptions, in all other categories the proportions of cardinals and topographic strategies were within 5% of one another. The closeness across the field sites in terms of both these geocentric strategies is consistent with the generalisation that
Marshallese use the (i)ar-lik axis when possible, and employ cardinals primarily for the cross- axis. This discrepancy is observable when comparing uses of each cardinal (across all morphological variants, §5.3.1) in Jabor (Figure 29), where the terms for ‘north’ (iōn,̄ nin̄a) and
‘south’ (rōk, rōn̄a) which comprise the cross-axis in Jabor, are employed far more frequently than terms for ‘west’ (rilik, to) and ‘east’ (rear, ta) which lexify directions parallel to the (i)ar-lik axis.
224
200
160
120
80 Token count
40
0 North South East West
Figure 29: Rate of use of different cardinals in Jabor
In addition to cardinal and topographic strategies, landmark-based strategies were also common in Jabor, for both location and orientation descriptions, as well as in Jaluit Island, though only for location descriptions. On the other hand, landmark strategies were rare in Jaluit Island orientation descriptions, as well as in Kili generally. Unlike the cardinal and environment categories which are clearly defined, the landmark-based category includes a diversity of referents which are likely to change from island to island. Therefore, it is necessary to look more closely at what strategies are being employed. Firstly, it is noteworthy that all of the landmark strategies across the RMI (other than those using the tree or SAP-landmarks, which have been accounted for in the coding process) are environment-landmarks. They almost all refer either to districts or prominent buildings such as airports, schools, and stores, all large entities fixed in the landscape. The very few exceptions refer to other people in the immediate environment, such as the experimenter, who is presumably highly salient due to their animacy as well as participation in the experimental context. In light of this, it is perhaps unsurprising that Jabor, being the most urbanised of the three RMI communities, is home to the community with the highest number of landmarks employed. There are simply a greater number of large, visually and culturally salient referents available for anchoring spatial description in Jabor compared to in Kili or Jaluit Island. It is noteworthy that as most games were carried out indoors, these
225 landmarks were rarely visually accessible. Therefore, in order to refer to them, participants had to rely on knowing their own orientation with respect to a mental map of their island, the same as they did to employ the other geocentric categories.
40
30
20 Tokens
10
0
Figure 30: Landmark-based strategies in Jabor M&T games (by no. of tokens)
As Figure 30 shows, the favoured landmark strategies in Jabor are ‘north town’ and
‘south town’, which are classified in this study as environment-landmarks (see §6.2.5.1) though there is clearly a relationship with cardinal directions. Jaluit High School, on the iōn,̄ or north- west side of the island, a highly prominent landmark is also employed frequently, as are various people’s houses and stores. The airport, to the south of Jabor, is also sometimes employed. jar, which refers to a district stretching from the southern end of Jabor down to the airport, was mentioned 10 times, but only by inhabitants of Lojkar. The ‘other’ category included referents such as the sea-wall and the garbage dump.
However, in Jaluit Island and Kili, the overwhelming majority of landmark-based tokens refer to Jittak and Jitto, terms for the eastern and western half of an island respectively.70 As with terms for ‘north/south town’ these were coded as landmarks because there is evidence
70 These terms are not employed in Jabor, because are only used on islands which run longer east-west than they do north-south. 226 from at least some speakers, that, despite their apparent morphological transparency, they are not necessarily associated with cardinal directions by speakers (see §5.3.3.4.1). It is noteworthy that in all three sites, landmarks were used almost solely as a replacement to the cardinal cross- axis. In Jabor, where the (i)ar-lik axis runs (north)east-(south)west, all the anchoring referents were located along the north-south axis, except for a few of the houses and stores, and some in the ‘other’ category. This phenomenon reinforces the salience and primacy of the (i)ar-lik axis in the Marshallese terrestrial system of spatial reference. Indeed, grouping the three geocentric strategies (those coded ENV, AEL, CRD) together, the rates of geocentric usage across the three sites is remarkably similar, ranging from 68% in the case of Jaluit Island location description to
82% for Kili Island location descriptions (Figure 31). This indicates that while specific strategies
– whether environment terms, cardinals, or landmarks – differ between both individual and communities, overall RMI Marshallese overwhelmingly prefer geocentric frames of reference, even in tabletop space, at least on the linguistic level. This preponderance of geocentric strategies in the RMI is sharply in contrast with the near total lack of such strategies in the
Springdale community, as shown in Figure 31.
100%
80%
60% Geocentric Misc. landmark 40% Cardinal Environment 20% Other
0% Loc. Orient. Loc. Orient. RMI Springdale
Figure 31: Geocentric versus other strategies in Man and Tree across field sites
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While the environment strategy was unavailable for Springdale Marshallese, one might imagine that there is no reason why cardinals may not be used, but they too were nearly absent.
This can be accounted for by the fact that for most Marshallese speakers, cardinal directions are locally-anchored (see §5.6). Additionally, despite reports from Springdale Marshallese indicating that they use prominent large-scale landmarks such as the local Walmart store for navigating suburban Springdale, they were not used within the tabletop confines of the M&T, or other elicitation games. The landmarks employed were all visually available local object- landmarks such as the wall, the television, or the experimenter. This comparative lack of geocentric strategies in favour of egocentric and object-centred strategies may indicate that
Marshallese who have migrated to Springdale have not been able to construct a mental map of their surroundings as sophisticated as that which Marshallese speakers living on their islands in the RMI retain.
6.3.1.2 Intrinsic and egocentric strategies across sites This section discusses the use of intrinsic and relative strategies in the Man and Tree task. The two have been grouped together in part because in the RMI, they were both generally minor strategies, and in part because the two are related, with the same vocabulary in both
Marshallese and English being used to lexify a transverse axis – anmiin ̄ ‘left’ and anmoon, anbwijmaron̄ ‘right’ – and a sagittal axis – m̧aan ‘front’ and lik ‘back’. Viewer-landmark strategies
(SAP) are also included here, as like relative strategies, they are egocentric. Additionally, orientation descriptions anchored on the tree are included, as like with intrinsic descriptions, they are purely array-internal not relying on any anchors outside the scene. Therefore, like the relative and intrinsic FoRs, tree-based descriptions do not rely on participants’ wider knowledge of their surrounding geography and are universally available across sites. This factor is particularly relevant when comparing the RMI results to the Springdale results since Marshallese speakers who have moved to Springdale have to construct new mental maps of their environment in order to use geocentric FoRs. Table 26 below shows a detailed breakdown of
228 intrinsic and relative strategies across field sites. Note that as outlined above, the intrinsic is not available for orientation descriptions.
LOCATION DESCRIPTIONS
REL REL REL INT INT Total Total SAP Other sg tl sg rf tv sg tv INT REL Tokens 1% 2% 1% 6% 2% 1% 8% 4% 87% RMI Speakers total 8 4 2 17 4 4 32 11 (n=39) Tokens 4% 13% 27% 7% 9% 14% 17% 44% 25% Spring Speakers -dale 4 6 6 6 3 4 8 8 (n=9) ORIENTATION DESCRIPTIONS REL REL REL Total SAP TREE Other sg tl sg rf tv REL Tokens <1% 0% 1% 9% 13% 1% 76% RMI Speakers total 2 0 1 23 30 3 (n=39) Tokens 7% 7% 19% 26% 22% 33% 20% Spring Speakers -dale 4 3 6 8 8 7 (n=9)71 Table 26: Relative, intrinsic and SAP-landmark strategies in the Man and Tree
Given the lack of geocentric strategies observed in the Springdale community, it is unsurprising that egocentric and intrinsic strategies are correspondingly far more common compared to the RMI community, comprising 61% of location descriptions and 67% of orientation descriptions. However, upon further examination of the subtypes of relative and intrinsic strategies, there are several surprises. Firstly, given that intrinsic strategies are used more frequently and by more speakers in the RMI than relative strategies, one might expect this trend to continue in the US, with the intrinsic FoR to some extent ‘taking over’ to compensate for the lack of geocentric expressions. However, while there was a modest but significant increase (Mann-Whitney U = 103.50, p = 0.042; Table 25) in use of the intrinsic in Springdale compared to the RMI – from 8% to 17% – it was relative strategies which proved to be by far the
71 Note that one pair did not produce any orientation descriptions. 229 most popular, accounting for 44% of total location strategies in Springdale, compared to less than 4% in the RMI.
In addition to the differences between relative and intrinsic preference in the RMI and the US populations, there can similarly be observed variation in preference for sagittal (front- back) vs transverse (left-right) descriptions between the two communities. The RMI community displayed a preference for sagittal descriptions (9%) over transverse descriptions (3%) whereas the reverse was true for the Springdale community, which employed transverse descriptions at a much higher rate (34%) than sagittal descriptions (19%). A possible explanation for this phenomenon on the Springdale side is that there are more strategies available on the sagittal axis, as speech-act participant-based strategies and vertical strategies compete with sagittal relative, but not transverse relative strategies. This is borne out by a deeper examination of the data. The discrepancy between transverse (9%) and sagittal (7%) intrinsic strategies (which may be employed on both the viewer’s transverse and sagittal axes) is far lower than that between the transverse relatives (27%) and the sagittal relatives (17%). Thus it seems that rather than the
Springdale community showing a preference in favour of transverse strategies, it is perhaps more accurate to say that the RMI community exhibits a strong dispreference against transverse strategies. This dispreference has subsequently disappeared amongst the Marshallese who have relocated to Springdale. The dispreference for transverse strategies in the RMI is not particularly surprising given the intrinsic FoR is comparatively uncommon and the relative FoR is highly marginal in the first place. Transverse descriptions are more complex in that they are required to be derived from a sagittal axis, given that human beings are bilaterally symmetrical.
Therefore, the increased usage of transverse descriptions in Springdale may partially be due to participants feeling more comfortable using left/right terms, perhaps due to more contact with
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English speakers and Western cultural artefacts.72 However, this cannot be the only factor as many participants struggled to use left/right terms successfully during the task. Therefore, an important cause of the increase in transverse terms in the relative FoR may simply be that in the absence of geocentric terms, SAP-landmarks, and vertical descriptions, transverse relatives were the only strategy available.
In the relative FoR, there are three subtypes available: reflectional, rotational and translational. The differences between these subtypes is explained in more detail in §2.2.2. The rotational subtype was not observed amongst any of the participants. The other two subtypes, the reflectional and translational relative FoRs do not differ on the transverse axis, but only on the sagittal axis, wherein the ‘front’ of the Ground is the side nearest the speaker in the reflectional relative and the side furthest from the speaker in the translational relative. It can be observed in Table 26 that while both subtypes are marginal in the RMI, the translational was attempted by twice as many directors (eight or 20.5%) as the reflectional relative (four or
10.3%). Despite this, translational relatives accounted for less than 1% of total location descriptions, indicating that participants who tried to employ them generally did not continue to do so throughout their games. Indeed, not one of the eight directors who employed the translational relative in their games used it more than twice. Conversely, of the four RMI participants to employ the reflectional relative FoR, three of them used it at least four times.
In Springdale rate of use of all of the subtypes was higher than that of the RMI participants. However, the difference in rates of subtype use between the two sites was much higher for the reflectional relative than the translational relative. While the rate of translational subtype use increased from 1% in the RMI sample to 4% in the Springdale sample, the rate of reflectional relative use increased from 2% in the RMI sample to 13% in the Springdale sample.
72 Due to small sample sizes, effect of participants’ degree of interaction with English speakers in Springdale was not able to be tested for Man and Tree, though was examined in the Animals-in-a-Row game in §8.1.3.3.4. 231
Furthermore, unlike in the RMI where despite accounting for fewer tokens, more participants employed the translational subtype; in Springdale more participants used the translational relative than the reflectional relative. The difference in proportion of reflectional relatives in location descriptions between the RMI and Springdale was strongly significant (Mann-Whitney
U = 75.50, p = 0.001), while the difference in rate of translational relatives was not significant
(Mann-Whitney U = 127.50, p = 0.110). There are several possibilities as to why the Springdale community exhibits a comparative preference for the reflectional relative over the translational relative, in contrast to the RMI. Firstly, there may be influence from the dominant English- speaking community which prefers the reflectional relative. While the participants in Springdale were not in general much more competent English speakers than those in Jabor or Kili, they were in more regular contact with a native English speaking community. Another possibility is that speakers or communities who use the relative FoR more regularly in day to day life are more likely to use the reflectional relative, while those who use it less often or more ad hoc are more likely to use the translational relative.
6.3.2 Demographic variables in the RMI This section discusses how various demographic variables, including age, gender, education level, and habitual frequency of reading and writing affect frame of reference selection amongst
Marshallese speakers in the Man and Tree task. All of the analysis in this section excludes the
Springdale sample population, concentrating solely on participants in the RMI.
6.3.2.1 Gender As shown in Table 27 below, there were few significant differences between genders in their behaviour in the Man and Tree task.
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Mann-Whitney U-test Males (n=27) vs Females (n=12) Location Orientation Cardinals ns ns Environment-landmarks ns ns Misc. landmarks F* ns Total geocentric ns ns
SAP-landmarks F** ns Relative FoR ns ns Total egocentric ns ns
Intrinsic ns N/A Vertical ns ns Tree-directed N/A ns Key: F: significantly more common amongst females; M: significantly more common amongst males; ns: not significant; *: p≤0.1; **: p≤0.05; ***: p≤0.01. Full results in Appendix 3.2 Table 27: Relationship between gender and FoR selection in Man and Tree
Notably however, a Mann-Whitney U-test reveals that females use significantly more miscellaneous landmarks in location descriptions (U = 108.00, p = 0.069), as well as significantly more SAP-landmarks for location descriptions (U = 127.00, p = 0.043). This finding corresponds with previous studies on urban wayfinding which demonstrate that women tend to have a better memory of the locations of objects and subsequently tend to use landmarks more often than men, who conversely tend to prefer cardinal directions (Wolbers & Hegarty 2010; Halpern 2012:
138–140). However, this latter generalisation is not borne out in the data, as not only was there no significant difference between men and women in rate of cardinal direction use, but the results for location descriptions actually trended in the opposite direction.
6.3.2.2 Age A Spearman’s rank-order correlation was run in order to assess the relationship between age and preferred spatial strategy in the Man and Tree task. The significance values from this study are reported in Table 28 below.
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Spearman’s correlation Location Orientation Cardinals ns ns Environment-landmarks ns ns Misc. landmarks ns ns Total geocentric Y* ns
SAP-landmarks ns ns Relative FoR ns ns Total egocentric ns ns
Intrinsic O** N/A Vertical ns ns Tree-directed N/A ns Key: Y: higher use correlated inversely with age; O: higher use correlated positively with age; ns: not significant; *: p≤0.1; **: p≤0.05; ***: p≤0.01. Full results in Appendix 3.3. Table 28: Relationship between age and FoR selection in Man and Tree
There was a modest but significant inverse correlation between age and geocentric use in location descriptions (rs = -0.282, p = 0.082). This is surprising as one might expect that in an era of increasing globalisation, the more traditional geocentric strategies would be more common amongst older participants who perhaps have more traditional life styles.
There was also a positive correlation between age and intrinsic FoR selection (rs = 0.355, p = 0.027), though the reason for this is not clear.
6.3.2.3 Social variables: education, occupation, and habitual literacy This section discusses results from three related demographic variables: education level, habitual reading/writing frequency and occupation type. These are discussed together because they are assumed to be correlated with one another; higher educated participants will on average work in white collar professions and read and write more frequently in daily life.
Mann-Whitney U-tests were subsequently performed in order to assess the relationship of education level, reading/writing frequency, and employment type to FoR preference. The results from this analysis are shown in Table 29
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Mann-Whitney U test High (n=30) vs low High (n=14) vs low White collar (n=15) (n=8) education (n=24) frequency of vs non-white collar reading and writing (n=24) workers Location Orient. Location Orient. Location Orient. Cardinals L* L** ns ns ns ns Env. landmarks ns ns ns L*** ns L** Misc. landmarks ns H** ns ns ns H** Total geocentric ns L** ns ns ns L*
SAP-landmarks ns H*** H** H*** ns H*** Relative FoR ns ns ns ns ns ns Total egocentric ns ns H** ns ns ns
Intrinsic ns N/A ns N/A ns N/A Vertical ns ns ns ns ns ns Tree-directed N/A H* N/A ns N/A ns Key: H: significantly more common in groups with high levels of education, reading/writing frequency, or white collar employment. L: significantly more common in groups with reading/writing frequency, or white collar employment. ns: not significant; *: p≤0.1; **: p≤0.05; ***: p≤0.01. Full results in Appendix 3.4-3.6. Table 29: Relationship between sociocultural variables in Man and Tree
There is a clear association between social variables and greater use of geocentric strategies such as cardinals and topographic landmarks. This can be contrasted with the high education participants who exhibited a disproportionate preference for SAP-landmarks, an egocentric strategy. Similarly, participants with low reading/writing frequencies used environment-landmarks to a significantly greater degree than those with high reading/writing frequencies. However, it is noteworthy that miscellaneous landmarks were more common amongst the high education and white collar workers groups.
6.3.3 Situational variables Aside from location of the community and demography, other situational variables may effect frame of reference selection amongst speakers. This section shows results from two of these variables; namely, whether the participants played indoors or outdoors, and whether participants in the Marshall Islands played oriented along the calm side-rough side axis or perpendicular to it.
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6.3.3.1 Indoors vs outside Li & Gleitman (2002) argue that variation in absolute and relative spatial cognition can be ascribed to whether the participant is indoors or outside (§3.3.1). Though M&T is a linguistic task, six of the dyads in Jabor played outside in order to test whether there was an obvious effect present. All other dyads played indoors across all locations. No significant effects were found
(c.f. Appendix 3.7) other than a mild relationship between playing indoors and using vertical strategies in location descriptions (Mann-Whitney, U = 14.50 p = 0.093). However, it is acknowledged that sample sizes need to be increased for any definitive conclusions.
Nevertheless, it is clear that there is no effect of the magnitude suggested by Li & Gleitman.
6.3.3.2 Parallel vs perpendicular to iar-lik axis Of the 39 M&T games played in the RMI, 20 were played parallel to the iar-lik ‘sheltered side-exposed side (of island)’ axis, and 19 were played with players oriented perpendicular to this axis.
Mann-Whitney U tests Parallel (n=20) vs perpendicular (n=19) to sheltered-exposed axis Location Orientation Cardinals ns ns Topographic landmarks ns ns Misc. landmarks ns ns Total geocentric Parallel** Parallel*
SAP-landmarks Perp** Perp* Relative FoR ns ns Total egocentric ns ns
Intrinsic Perp* N/A Vertical ns ns Tree-directed N/A ns Key: parallel: significantly more common parallel to calm- rough axis; perp: significantly more common perpendicular to calm-rough axis; ns: not significant; *: p≤0.1; **: p≤0.05; ***: p≤0.01. See Appendix 3.8 for full results. Table 30: Relationship between participant orientation and spatial strategy selection in Man and Tree
Even though most games were played indoors, participants oriented along the iar-lik
‘sheltered side-exposed side’ axis did employ significantly more geocentric strategies for location descriptions than those who were oriented perpendicular (Mann-Whitney U = 104.50, 236 p = 0.014). To a lesser extent, this was also true for orientation descriptions (Mann-Whitney U
= 124.50, p = 0.066).
Primarily this difference was in topographic and miscellaneous landmarks in location descriptions and cardinals in orientation descriptions. Though in neither case did the alignment of the players have a statistically significant effect on levels of any individual geocentric strategy.
The fact that topographic strategies are more common when participants are oriented along the sheltered-exposed side axis fits with the idea that saliency of a given feature increases its likelihood of being employed in a spatial reference description. However, why miscellaneous landmarks or cardinals should be more common in perpendicular orientation is less clear. It may simply be that sagittal-only strategies like SAP-landmarks and vertical descriptions are unavailable to describe directions along the island’s cross axis when oriented along the calm- rough side axis, so other strategies are used more to compensate. Furthermore, since islands are wider across the iar-lik axis than along, more landmarks tend to be located due along the cardinal cross axis. These include the majority of the landmarks used in Jabor (c.f. Figure 30).
Similarly, the reason that SAP-landmarks are more common when participants are oriented perpendicular to the iar-lik axis may simply be because in this situation, they do not compete with the widely and frequently used environment-landmark strategies.
6.3.4 Orientation vs location descriptions Thus far, location and orientation description results have been presented independently, with some strategies displaying differences with regards to whether they are used in location descriptions or orientation descriptions. This section presents results which directly show the variation in distribution between location and orientation descriptions for all the strategies and comments on reasons behind the observed variation. Table 31 below shows the overall differences in the average use of a strategy across the population. It also shows results from a bootstrapped paired-sample t-statistics with 1000 replications which compares each of the orientation description with their equivalent location description (see §6.2.5 for key to 237 headings). Note that since intrinsic strategies are not used in orientation descriptions and tree- directed strategies are not used in orientation descriptions, these have been compared against one another. This is not entirely without motivation, as both are array-internal strategies, i.e. strategies where the anchor is present within the scene. However, operationally the two strategies are distinct, as tree-directed descriptions are a type of head-anchored FoR (i.e. a type of landmark) while the intrinsic is an angular-anchored FoR.
REL REL REL REL SAP INT misc. Tree ENV CRD VERT tl rf tv Total lmrk LMRK Location 1.4% 3.6% 6.1% 11.1% 3.1% 9.8% 7.3% 27.4% 27.4% 13.7% Orientation 1.5% 1.2% 3.7% 6.4% 12.0% 14.8% 7.4% 31.1% 26.2% 2.1% Difference –0.1% +2.4% +2.4% +4.7% –8.9% -5.0% –0.1% –3.7% +1.2% +11.6% Significance ns * ns * *** ns ns ns ns *** +/–: used more in location/orientation descriptions; *: significant to p < 0.1; ***: significant Key to p < 0.01; ns: no significant difference. See Appendix 3.9 for full results.
Table 31: Differences in use of strategies between averages of total location and orientation descriptions
In general there are few major differences observable between location and orientation descriptions in Table 31. The most striking differences are that viewer-landmarks are used significantly more frequently in orientation descriptions while vertical descriptions are used significantly more often in location descriptions. There is also a weakly significant preference for use of the relative FoR in location descriptions over orientation descriptions.
6.3.4.1 Vertical descriptions for location vs orientation The vertical results are not surprising. Since pictures and photographs are 2D representations of 3D space, the Figure we recognise as being on the far side of the Ground is actually above the Ground when the image is ‘facing’ the viewer. These facets are also maintained even when the image is lying flat, hence why the ‘top’ of a piece of paper is the side furthest away.73 However, orientation descriptions of the man involve a projection of his gaze.
Many directors would hold the card they were describing in front of them, such that the man is
‘facing’ them. In these situations a vertical reading is impossible. Even for those who kept the
73 This may be reinforced by functional considerations, e.g. writing generally being top to bottom. 238 cards on the table, the fact that the man’s face is visible may strongly influence the perception that the man is looking at them. Furthermore, as orientation descriptions involve projection of a fictive path, directors are more likely to ascribe animacy and intent to the man. This is clear in the multitude of descriptions of the man “looking” – rather than “facing” – various directions.
This is especially true for the few participants who occasionally described the orientation of the man in terms of a motion event, with the man “walking” or “going” somewhere. People are simply much less likely to perceive the man as facing or moving in vertical space. In addition, the man in the pictures is always depicted as standing, facing (intrinsically) forwards. While one can stand and face forwards above or below another object, one cannot be standing, facing intrinsically forwards, and yet simultaneously be oriented upwards or downwards in absolute space. In order to conceptualise the man as being oriented along a vertical axis, one has to ignore that fact that the 2D image is a representation of a 3D standing man. However, this is at odds with the previously discussed assignation of anthropomorphic qualities to the man, namely an animate gaze. If the man is viewed as an animate, standing figure, he cannot be looking up or down. These factors explain the comparative rarity of the vertical orientation description in the
Man and Tree task; indeed, it was totally absent in a similar study conducted with speakers of
Dhivehi (Lum 2018: 215). Nevertheless, the fact that it was present, and in the case of
Springdale, not especially rare – average proportion 6.5% – indicates that it is certainly available.
Perhaps those participants who did invoke it were simply concentrating on the orientation of the man’s head divorced from the context of the scene as a whole.
6.3.4.2 SAP-landmarks in location vs orientation descriptions The above explanations also account for the popularity of SAP-landmarks in orientation descriptions as compared with location descriptions. In addition, SAP-landmarks are linguistically more complex to express for location descriptions compared to other types or landmarks. While in Marshallese, one can use an environment or miscellaneous landmark in a locative description in order to draw a search domain from the Ground to the Figure, such that
239 aside from literal interpretation of coincidence between the tree and the high school, the description in (155) can also be a landmark description wherein the tree is on the side nearest the high school of an unstated Ground.
(155) Wōjke ņe e=j pād i-lo high school.
tree DEM2 3SG=IPFV be.located LOC-at high.school
“That tree is at the high school.”
Such a sentence is not felicitous with a human replacing the high school as the landmark.
Though other circumlocutions are attested, such as using the comitative relational noun ippā- instead of the basic locative preposition ilo, using a locative demonstrative (§4.9.1.3), or borrowing the word ‘side’ from English, such deviations from the Basic Locative Construction
(§4.8.8) seem to be dispreferred, at least within the context of the Man and Tree task. This goes some way towards explaining why the disparity between location and orientation descriptions for SAP-landmarks is not attested with other types of landmarks. Another possibility may be that
SAP-landmarks are more common in orientation descriptions due to being head-anchored FoRs.
6.3.5 Correlations between strategies The previous sections have established that Marshallese speakers as a group employ a variety of different spatial strategies in the setting of the Man and Tree task depending on a variety of factors, from the location of the community, to various demographic variables or even just the experimental situation itself. However, the relationships between the various strategies are yet to be examined in great detail. For example, how do strategies co-occur? Are participants who use, say, cardinals also more likely to use the other geocentric strategies; namely, topographic landmarks and miscellaneous landmarks?
This section examines this issue of correlations between strategy types. Furthermore, the relationship between the two description types – location and orientation – is addressed, including, which strategies vary in frequency between description types and what is causing this 240 variation. Table 32 below shows the results from a Spearman’s rank order correlation which was run to determine the relationship between the various FoRs across both description types.
Therefore, there are three further axes of comparison intersecting the comparison between strategies: location vs location, orientation vs orientation, and location vs orientation.
Aside from the geocentric and egocentric super-categories, which have been established throughout this chapter, Table 32 also groups the two array-internal strategies, namely tree-directed descriptions and intrinsic FoRs with vertical descriptions, SAP-landmarks and misc. landmarks into a ‘universal’ super-category. This is because they are presumed to be universally available regardless of topographic or cultural factors and have been observed to be present in all, or nearly all, languages. Note that along with the universal super-category, SAP- landmarks and miscellaneous landmarks each are included under another the egocentric and geocentric categories respectively.
Furthermore, Table 32’s cells have been colour-coded to aid in finding correlations of the same strategies across description types. For example, the top left cells are yellow because they compare geocentric strategies in location descriptions to geocentric strategies in orientation descriptions. To easily find the results for geocentric location descriptions against other geocentric location descriptions, one can simply locate the other yellow cells in the bottom left square.
Finally, it is important to note that few positive correlations are expected between strategies within the same description type (i.e. location vs location, orientation vs orientation).
This is because the various strategies compete with each other. As one strategy increases in frequency, other strategies correspondingly decrease. Therefore, these correlations capture relationships of substitution between the two strategies being compared. This is different to the orientation vs location descriptions where the proportions are independent from one another.
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Table 32: Correlations between FoR strategies (n=39).
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6.3.5.1 Relationship between location vs orientation descriptions Unsurprisingly, Table 31 shows that use of the same strategies between description types are generally positively correlated. An exception to this generalisation is the environment- landmarks, for which there is no significant correlation, suggesting that use of environment- landmarks for one description type has no bearings on whether they will also be used for the other description type. This finding is unexpected and no explanation immediately presents itself which can account for it.
6.3.5.2 Correlations between related strategies This section examines the correlations between strategies belonging to the same classification as each other. In general, one would naturally expect frequencies of similar strategies to correlate positively with one another. This is especially true for the geocentric and egocentric strategies as both strategies are defined by properties of the anchor (§2.2.6). One assumes that participants who are sensitive to features of the environment such that they use one geocentric strategy, would be correspondingly more likely to employ other geocentric strategies, with the same principle applying for egocentric strategies. However, since the universal strategies are classified primarily in opposition to the other two supercategories rather than on shared features, one might expect them to correlate together less strongly.
Somewhat surprisingly, positive correlations between geocentric strategies were not observed. Not only were there no positive correlations between the different geocentric strategies, but there was a marked inverse correlation between use of miscellaneous landmarks and use of cardinals within the same description type. However, in light of the discussion in
§6.3.1.1, which shows that both cardinals and miscellaneous landmarks tend to be used along the island cross-axis, this is unsurprising, as the two strategies compete more directly with one another.
However, given that the cardinals and miscellaneous landmarks are generally used to describe directions perpendicular to the environment-landmarks iar, lik, and o̧o̧j, the lack of a
243 positive relationship between environment-landmarks and the other two geocentric strategies is more surprising still, since they are in complementary distribution and increase in the use of one does not preclude use of the other.
In terms of the two egocentric strategies, SAP-landmarks and relative FoR, there is a significant correlation between use of SAP-landmarks for orientation and the relative FoR for location descriptions. However, the same was not true for the converse (relative FoR in orientation and SAP-landmarks in location), nor within the description types. In the previous section, it was pointed out that SAP-landmarks, being head-anchored, are conceptually easier to use in orientation descriptions. The findings here support that analysis, indicating that the head-anchored and angular-anchored egocentric strategies are correlated together when used systematically for their ‘best fitting’ description type.
For the ‘universal’ strategies, we see that use of SAP-landmarks is positively correlated with use of the two scene-internal strategies – tree-as-landmark and the intrinsic FoR, except for location vs location descriptions, likely due to how rare SAP-landmarks are there in general.
This could be because both the speech-act participants and the objects in the array whose arrangement is being described are the most salient entities in the context of the speech act. If one does not have a complex conceptual map of the broader area but nonetheless needs to find entities upon which to anchor a frame of reference describing the relationship between a Figure object and a Ground object in a scene, then aside from using one of the objects themselves as the anchor, the next easiest possibility is to use oneself.
6.3.5.3 Miscellaneous landmarks and SAP-landmarks Miscellaneous landmarks and SAP-landmarks both belong to the universal supercategory.
However, they both also belong to the geocentric and egocentric supercategories respectively because they are anchored on the same types of referents. Additionally, they are both landmark descriptions, i.e. head-anchored FoRs, and thus share the same operational properties. Thus
244 there is the question of which other categories they are correlated with in use (including each other).
It has already been observed that miscellaneous landmarks correlate inversely with cardinals. On the other hand however, a strongly significant correlation between SAP-landmarks and miscellaneous landmarks was observed but only for orientation descriptions.
6.3.5.4 Geocentric vs other strategies The green patches in Table 32 display the correlation between the geocentric strategies and the egocentric strategies. An inverse correlation between use of cardinals and relative FoR can be observed across all combinations of description types. Environment-landmarks also show an inverse correlation with the relative FoR but not as strongly as cardinals do, and only between opposite description types. Conversely, use of miscellaneous landmarks displays no significant correlation with use of relative FoR, except for when used in orientation descriptions, where there is actually a small but nevertheless significant positive correlation with the relative FoR.
Furthermore, use of both cardinals and topographic landmarks is inversely correlated with several of the universal strategies, particularly in orientation descriptions. Again, this trend is not observed between miscellaneous landmarks and the other universal strategies.
Conclusion This chapter has explored in detail how Marshallese speakers refer to space through analysis of a large corpus of Man and Tree tasks. These quantitative results support the discussion of the previous chapter which showed that Springdale Marshallese do not use even the theoretically available geocentric FoRs. It also found evidence that egocentric strategies are associated with higher levels of education, reading/writing, and white collar work, while the converse is true for level of geocentric FoR use, but only cardinals and environment-landmarks which are part of the conventionalised and grammaticised system of Marshallese spatial reference. Miscellaneous object or environment landmarks were found to be used both by different groups and in
245 correlation with other, non-geocentric, strategies. This finding supports arguments by Levinson et al. (2002) among others that these landmarks are conceptualised differently to conventionalised absolute FoR systems (§3.3.1).
In general, the findings in this chapter demonstrate that there can be as much variation within linguistic communities as there are between linguistic communities. Speakers of
Marshallese in Springdale and the RMI who speak (broadly) the same variety of Marshallese refer to space in very different ways, in part due to the differences in topography between the two sites. However, differences are also present between two sites on the same atoll – Jabor and Jaluit Island – due to different levels of urbanisation. The demographic variation shows that spatial reference is variable within communities as well and that variables related to education such as level of educational attainment, reading/writing frequency and employment type are correlated with increased use of egocentric strategies, though the exact cause of this is yet to be determined.
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7 The Object Placement Task
The Object Placement Task (OPT) was designed by the author along with Jonathon Lum in order to test the semantics of body axis terms (front, back, left, right or FBLR). Preliminary findings have previously been reported by Schlossberg, Lum & Poulton (2015; 2016), which also include results from an English-speaking Australian community and a Dhivehi-speaking Maldivian community. This chapter reports results from a pilot study of the OPT conducted in Springdale,
Arkansas.
Aims of the Object Placement Task The OPT involves giving a participant a spatial instruction, such as “put the red block in front of the blue block” and observing the strategy they adopt, which reflects how they interpret the semantics of the spatial term (‘front’).74
Unlike other elicitation games such as the Man and Tree or the Route Description, which are designed to elicit a linguistic response to a stimulus in the form of a spatial array, the OPT involves providing a linguistic stimulus to the participant in order to elicit a behavioural response in terms of their creation of a spatial array. This is advantageous in that it allows for rapid collection and analysis of data from large numbers of participants, facilitating quantitative analysis. This provides an advantage over the Man and Tree for which quantitative analysis involves assembling a corpus of several hours of transcribed and tagged data. Furthermore, while tasks such as Man and Tree allow for an open response, the OPT specifically targets body axis terms. This is useful because as established in §2.2.2, both the intrinsic and relative FoRs share common vocabulary, namely body axis terms. Also, the relative FoR is comprised of numerous subtypes, whose typological distribution is underexplored (§2.2.2.1). Furthermore, the targeted nature of the OPT allows for exploring these FoR preferences in communities where the relative or intrinsic FoRs are dispreferred.
74 As well as the semantics of the construction as a whole (Poulton 2016). 247
The basic concept of the OPT is not unique. A similar methodology was used by Tanz
(1980) for ascertaining FoR preferences amongst English speakers; however, in recent times these types of spatial elicitation tasks have generally relied on either eliciting free-form linguistic data (such as the Man and Tree, Chapter 6) or on eliciting a behavioural response to a physical stimulus such as a presented array (Chapter 8).
Methodology 7.2.1 Materials Two rotationally symmetrical (3.2 x 3.2 x 1.9cm) DuploTM blocks of different colours, a large opaque white cup (24cm tall), a toy car (10cm long), and a DuploTM toy man.
7.2.2 Experiment site The experiment was conducted in the participants’ homes, either on the floor or on a table, with the experimenter seated to the side of the participant, with both experimenter and participant facing the same direction.
7.2.3 Experimental procedure As with the other elicitation tasks, participants were told that they would be performing a simple task in order to help the experimenter learn more about Marshallese language and culture.
The task was divided into several different conditions, designed to test different FoR preferences in different scenarios. For example, Condition 1 tests preference for a given relative
FoR subtype, using a Ground object with undifferentiated facets to exclude the possibility of the intrinsic FoR, while Condition 3 uses a faceted Ground (a toy car) to test for relative vs intrinsic
FoR preference. The various conditions with their intended goals are shown in Table 33 and discussed in more detail below.75
75 Some participants were also given an additional condition after Condition 3 which was identical to Condition 3 but with a toy man instead of a toy car as the Ground. Since this condition was not run with all participants, it has been excluded. 248
All conditions involved the experimenter placing the Ground object in front of the participant. The participant is then handed the Figure object and is instructed in Marshallese to place it on a given side of the Ground, alternating sagittal and transverse axes (e.g. front, left, back, and right; Conditions 1-4), or to the north, east, south, and west of the Ground (Condition
5). The participant’s placement of the Figure indicates whether they interpreted the instruction according to an intrinsic FoR or one of the relative FoR subtypes, except in cases where the responses are potentially ambiguous (see §7.3.3). The response is recorded by the experimenter on a data sheet comprising drawings of the scenes in each condition.
The orientation of the participant and experimenter were obtained with a compass and are also recorded on this sheet. Occasionally the participants changed their response. In these situations, both responses were recorded with a note as to which was first and which followed.
The participant was asked to confirm their preferred response, which was also recorded. It is this preferred response which is included in the results displayed.
Figure Ground Instructions Purpose
1 Small cube Small cube FBLR Baseline condition. Tests relative subtype preference.
2a Small cube Large cup FBLR Effect of occlusion on relative subtype 2b Large cup Small cube FBLR preference. 3a-b Small cube Toy car FBLR Intrinsic vs relative FoR preference. 4 Toy man Small cube FBLR Test for type of ascribed intrinsic FoR observed in Tamil and Iwaidja (§2.2.1.1). 5 Small cube Small cube Cardinals Distractor task. Test competence with cardinal directions.
Table 33: Conditions in the Object Placement Task
7.2.3.1 Condition 1: Figure and Ground of identical size Condition 1 involved the participant placing a small coloured block (the Figure) next to another small coloured block (the Ground) in order to ascertain which of the three relative subtypes – translational, reflectional, or rotational – are preferred by the participant. As discussed in
249
§2.2.2.1, the reflectional relative FoR was thought to be universal but recent research is increasingly demonstrating how widespread the translational FoR is (Hill 1982; Bennardo 2000;
Beller, Singmann, et al. 2015). Condition 1 also functions as the control for the other conditions which do not include a Ground with intrinsically differentiable facets.
7.2.3.2 Condition 2: Figure and Ground different sizes Three previous studies on language communities demonstrated to prefer the translational relative, Hausa (Hill 1982), Tongan (Bennardo 2000), and Marquesan (Cablitz 2006), have shown that speakers may be induced to employ the reflectional relative FoR when the Ground occludes the Figure from view.76 Condition 2a tests whether this phenomenon also applies to Springdale
Marshallese. Speakers are given the same type of small block from Condition 1 but are asked to place it to the FBLR of a much larger upside-down opaque symmetrical cup (the Ground).
Condition 2b is similar but in this case the small block is the Ground and the large block is the
Figure. This is to test whether occlusion has an effect if it is the Ground being occluded from view rather than the Figure.
7.2.3.3 Condition 3: Ground with differentiated facets Condition 3 involves a Ground object with a distinct front, back, left and right side, namely a toy car. It was designed to test preference for the relative vs intrinsic FoR. Condition 3 is comprised of two subconditions: 3a, in which the car is oriented to the left; and 3b, with the car oriented towards participant. Condition 3a, with the car oriented perpendicular to the participant, is particularly important, because it is the only condition in which intrinsic and relative responses may be differentiated. In Conditions 3b and 3c, an intrinsic response looks identical to a translational relative or rotational relative FoR respectively.
76 Because occlusion is only relevant on the sagittal axis, the rotational vs reflectional distinction does not apply, since the two subtypes are only differentiable from each other on the transverse axis. I use the term ‘reflectional’ for convenience, as it is not only cross-linguistically much more common than the rotational relative, but also the rotational subtype has otherwise not been documented to be used by Marshallese speakers. 250
7.2.3.4 Condition 4: Figure with differentiated facets Condition 4 was designed to test for a phenomenon occurring in Tamil (Pederson 2006) in which intrinsic facets are ascribed to a Ground – which would otherwise have undifferentiated facets
– on the basis of an animate Figure. This unusual strategy was not found in the Marshallese population and will not be discussed further.
7.2.3.5 Condition 5: Cardinals Condition 5 (cardinals) was primarily intended as a distractor task. As this chapter concerns itself with FBLR semantics, these findings are discussed in §5.6.
7.2.3.6 Order of conditions In designing this task, the possibility was observed that participants may transfer their behaviour from similar instructions in an early condition to a subsequent condition. This possibility is problematic in that it interferes with the participant providing a response motivated purely by the nature and orientation of the Ground object.
Order Condition Figure Ground Notes
1st 3a Small cube Toy car Car facing left
2nd 1 Small cube Small block FBLR
3rd 3b Small cube Toy car Car facing towards participant
4th 5 Small cube Small block Cardinal directions
5th 2a Small cube Large cup
6th 2b Large cup Small block
7th 4 Toy man Small block
Table 34: Order of conditions in the Object Placement Task
The conditions were administered in an order designed with the intention of reducing these priming effects. For example the car facing left condition was chosen as the most
251 important condition with the oriented Ground, because there is no potential for responses along the sagittal axis to be analytically ambiguous between intrinsic and a relative FoR subtype. This condition was run before Condition 1 (Ground with undifferentiated facets) in order to prevent
Condition 1 priming a relative response in Condition 3. Since intrinsic responses were assumed not to be available in Condition 1, it was expected that there would be no priming effect from
Condition 1 to 3. However, this proved not be the case (§7.3.1)
Condition 5 (Cardinals) was primarily intended as a distractor task for this same purpose, though it also yielded interesting results. Additionally, the experimenter would attempt to converse with the participant on issues unrelated to the task between conditions in order to minimise priming effects.
7.2.4 Participants The OPT was administered to 26 native Marshallese speakers. The participants were all at the time living in the Northwest Arkansas urban area, primarily in Springdale. As this task was developed after the Marshall Islands fieldwork had taken place, it is yet to be run in the RMI. All but one participant was born in the RMI and had migrated to the US at various stages of their life. Most participants spoke English as a second language as well.
OPT Results In this section, each condition is described in more detail and the findings from each condition are presented. Note that Condition 5 is not discussed here because its primary purpose was to be a distractor. The goal of the OPT is to assess frame of reference preference as pertaining to
FBLR terms. The goal of Condition 5 is to assess competence with cardinal directions. Thus results from Condition 5 are discussed in §5.6 along with other issues to do with the usage and semantics of Marshallese cardinal directions.
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7.3.1 OPT Condition 1: testing relative subtype preference As noted above, it was assumed that running Condition 3 before Condition 1 would eliminate priming effects because the intrinsic FoR is not available in Condition 1. However, seven participants applied the intrinsic FoR in both conditions, despite the lack of a Ground with differentiated facets in Condition 1. This is thought to result from participants carrying over the facets from Condition 3a, in which the Ground object – a toy car – was facing left, and mapping the facets of this car onto the small cube such that an instruction to put the Figure in front of the Ground resulted in the participant placing it to the cube’s left.
This surprising response can be thought of as a type of ‘ascribed intrinsic’ FoR (§2.2.1.1).
Lum (2018) reports the same phenomenon occurring when the OPT was administered to Dhivehi speakers in the Maldives, albeit at a far lower rate. While seven Marshallese participants (27%) used this ascribed intrinsic strategy, only two out of 41 Maldivian participants (5%) did so. No
F F G
Figure 32: Ascribed intrinsic response in the OPT
English-speaking participant used this ascribed intrinsic strategy in this baseline condition, although one of 36 participants (3%) did use the ascribed intrinsic in the occluded condition
(Condition 2a in this study). The full results from Condition 1 are shown in Table 35 below.
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Number of Percentage of participants participants
Translational 15 58% Reflectional 1 4% Rotational 1 4% Ascribed Intrinsic 7 27% Mixed/Error 3 12%
Table 35: Results from Condition 1 of the OPT
A participant was judged as employing a strategy if all four of their FBLR aligned with one strategy. If their results were inconsistent, they were assigned to the “mixed/error” category. In all three cases it was an error on the transverse axis which caused this inconsistency, indicating that Marshallese speakers are not as comfortable with ‘left’ and ‘right’ as they are with ‘front’ and ‘back’. This is not unsurprising as ‘left’ and ‘right’ are derived from the sagittal axis and thus should involve a higher ‘configurational complexity’ which may make the transverse axis more difficult to process than the sagittal axis (Beller, Singmann et al. 2015; Grabowski 1999). It is possible that the single apparent rotational relative result is also due to left-right confusion since there is no indication of rotational relative use in the linguistic corpus.
Given participants’ confusion on the transverse axis and the low number of reflectional and rotational responses, it is reasonable to ignore the transverse axis in order to compare just the two different responses on the sagittal axis, thereby collapsing the two categories into a
‘reflectional/rotational’ supercategory. Additionally, while interesting, the ascribed intrinsic response was produced by participants due to priming from a previous condition, and so can be discarded. This results in 16 translational (84%) and 3 reflectional/rotational (16%) responses
(n=19).
The results clearly indicate a strong preference for the translational relative subtype over other relative subtypes within the Springdale Marshallese community. Thus Marshallese
254 speakers from Springdale join the rapidly-expanding list of languages documented to prefer the translational relative (§2.2.2.1).77
However, the large number of ascribed intrinsic responses cannot be ignored. One can only speculate as to why Marshallese speakers display a much higher priming effect from
Condition 1 towards the ascribed intrinsic compared to speakers of English or Dhivehi. However, a logical possibility is that the relative FoR is so uncommon and unusual for Marshallese speakers, that even when presented with a Ground with undifferentiated facets, they will take any opportunity to interpret it in an intrinsic way. On the other hand, English speakers and many
Dhivehi speakers (see Lum 2018) regularly employ the relative FoR and thus have no need to reach for an alternative.
7.3.2 OPT Condition 2: occlusion and relative subtype preference The results from Condition 2 are shown below, alongside those from Condition 1 (with the reflectional and rotational subtypes collapsed).
Condition 1 Condition 2a Condition 2b
Translational 15 58% 11 42% 12 46% Reflectional 2 8% 11 42% 10 38% Ascribed Intrinsic 7 27% 3 12% 4 15% Mixed/Error 3 12% 1 4% 0 0%
Table 36: The effect of occlusion on relative subtype selection
The results show a significant increase (p = 0.022, Fisher’s exact test) in the reflectional relative from the baseline condition to the occluded condition, for both an occluding Ground and an occluding Figure. Whether it was the Ground occluding the Figure or the Figure occluding the Ground from view had no effect, though it must be noted that a strong priming effect was
77 Qualitative observation indicates that this preference matches Marshallese speakers in the RMI. Indeed, observation of translation relative use in Jaluit was a primary motivation for the development of the OPT (c.f. Table 26, which shows eight of 39 Man and Tree participants employing the translational relative). 255 expected, given that Condition 2b was run immediately after 2a. Also notable is a substantial decrease in the ascribed intrinsic, this is likely due to the greater time elapsed between
Condition 2 and Condition 3. There are also fewer mixed responses or errors, explainable by the absence of transverse instructions in this comparison.
7.3.3 OPT Condition 3: testing relative vs intrinsic preference Assessing the results from Condition 3 is problematic, since results Condition 3b where the car is oriented along the player’s sagittal axis, is ambiguous between the intrinsic and relative FoR.
Therefore, results shown in Table 37 below show all strategies each response type is consistent with. The results have also been split according to sagittal and transverse instructions.
Front/back instruction Left/right instruction
Consistent with…. Car facing left Car facing player Car facing left Car facing player Intrinsic 26 100% 25 96% 21 81% 12 46% Rel. (translation) 0 0% 0 0% 2 8% 13 50% Rel. (reflection) 0 0% 25 96% 2 8% 13 50% Rel. (rotation) 0 0% 25 96% 0 0% 12 46% Mixed/Error 0 0% 1 4% 3 12% 1 4%
Table 37: FoR preferences in Condition 3 of the Object Placement Task
The results show that in Condition 3a, where the car was facing left, participants unambiguously preferred intrinsic responses, with sagittal instructions yielded 100% intrinsic placements and transverse instructions yielding 81% intrinsic placements when the Ground was oriented left. Similarly, sagittal instructions yielded placements consistent with the intrinsic FoR for 96% of participants, though these were also consistent with reflectional or rotational FoR interpretations. However, such an interpretation is unlikely given the overwhelming preference for translational relative observed in Condition 1.
Notably however, when the car was oriented towards the participant, 50% of the participants adopted a relative FoR. A Fisher’s exact test reveals that orientation of the Ground has a significant effect on how transverse instructions will be interpreted by Marshallese 256 participants (p = 0.002). It is less clear whether orientation of the Ground has the same effect for sagittal instructions or if the results merely reflect lower levels of confidence with left/right amongst the community. It is also noteworthy that neither Dhivehi or Australian English showed this effect (Schlossberg, Lum & Poulton 2015) in the OPT, nor did US English, German, Tongan or Mandarin in a similar study by Beller, Singmann, et al. (2015). Beller, Singmann et al. (2015:
5,9) claim that both orientation of the Ground with respect to the viewer and whether the transverse or sagittal axis is involved contributes towards “mapping difficulty” and expressed surprise that mapping difficulty was not necessary to explain their data. Again, one can only speculate as to why Marshallese is the only language to show this effect. Using the concept of mapping difficulty, one can imagine a computability threshold for a given participant – from which a population-wide threshold may be averaged. If mapping difficulty increases beyond the participant’s computability threshold, it is easier to revert to an egocentric frame of reference than compute the location of the intrinsic axes of the Ground. Therefore, given that it has previously been established that Marshallese speakers rarely use transverse axis terms and have difficulties when forced to do so, such as in the OPT, it is perhaps unsurprising that their computability threshold for mapping difficulty is lower than for other language communities.
7.3.4 Discussion of results The results show that assignation of FBLR terms is complex and can depend on a variety of configurational factors. Marshallese speakers can be added to a rapidly-expanding list of communities which prefer the translational relative frame of reference over the reflectional relative FoR. Furthermore, as documented with speakers of other translation relative preferring communities such as Tongan (Bennardo 2000), and Marquesan (Cablitz 2006: 529–534),
Marshallese speakers are significantly more likely to employ the reflectional relative in cases where the Ground occludes the Figure from view. However, it should be noted that the OPT results for Dhivehi also show that its speakers prefer the translational relative, but occlusion of the figure was not found to yield a larger quantity of reflectional responses, indicating that this 257 effect is not universal (Schlossberg, Lum & Poulton 2016; Lum 2018). It is worth pointing out that Tongan, Marquesan and Marshallese are all Oceanic languages spoken by Pacific Islanders, whereas Dhivehi is Indo-Aryan and wholly unrelated. It is also possible that the concept of ‘front’ is constructed differently by Dhivehi speakers than Marshallese or Tongan speakers. In §2.2.1.1 the concept of ‘front’ as a gestalt was introduced, comprised of elements including access, visibility, canonical orientation, canonical point of interaction, etc. and that the degree to which these elements are present in the gestalt ‘front’ in a given language may differ. It is possible that for Maldivians, the visibility element is less prominent than for Marshallese or Tongans. In any case, more data on occlusion is needed from other translational-preferring languages around the world to discover why these differences occur.
Aside from testing how configurational factors affect FoR selection, the OPT is also useful for testing the effect of demographic variables such as gender or age. Three demographic variables were tested across the conditions: age, sex, and time spent in the United States. None was found to be significant, though this is unsurprising given the small sample size. Testing the relationship between age and relative vs intrinsic selection in Condition 3b (car facing participant) with a simple logistic regression reveals that age reveals a modest effect, that an inverse relationship between age and relative FoR selection accounts for 9.5% of the observed variation (Simple logistic regression: O.R. = 0.934, p = 0.087). However, larger sample sizes are required in order to properly explore this.
7.3.5 Strengths and limitations of the OPT The OPT succeeds in several of the tasks it was designed for. It provides a window into the semantics and pragmatics of body axes terms from speaker to speaker and within a community.
It affords rapid data collection, collation and analysis. These qualities enable it to be used for directly comparing body axes terms across languages, even when the language in question uses them spatially only rarely. However, despite attempts to reduce priming effects between conditions, they were nevertheless observed (Poulton 2016 includes further discussion of 258 priming in the OPT with English-speaking participants). In future, these effects could be reduced by incorporating distraction tasks such as the cardinals competency test of Condition 5 between the other conditions. In addition, a larger sample size is required to ascertain the effects of demographic variables, if any.
Further research is required on how responses vary with experimental methodology.
Apparently similar FoR selection studies performed on English speakers have yielded quite different results in some areas. Table 38 displays results from three such studies: Poulton (2016),
Beller, Singmann et al. (2015) and Hill (1982).
FoR choice Poulton (2016)78 BSHB (2015) Hill (1982) n=36 n=66,7079 n=?
Intrinsic vs relative preference (Ground with differentiated facets) Intrinsic 65.4% 6.3% 40% Relative 34.7% 85.5% ? Error/unknown 0% 0.5% ? Relative subtype preference (Ground with undifferentiated facets) Translational 30.6% 24.6% 2.6% Reflectional 61.1% 63.6% ? Rotational 5.6% 1.5% ? Error/unknown 2.8% 4.0% ?
Table 38: FoR selection amongst native English speakers across studies
In some cases, such as the results for relative subtype preferences of Poulton (2016) and
Beller, Singmann et al. (2015) match quite closely with one another, which is encouraging for the validity of the methodologies of both studies. Other conditions, such as FoR preference given a Ground with differentiated facets, yield quite disparate results. An obvious methodological
78 Poulton (2016) also tested the effect of linguistic construction on FoR selection, comparing the inflectional genitive (e.g. the car’s front) with the predicative genitive (e.g. the front of the car). The results shown are from the latter, as it is less marked linguistically. 79 The first value is for the relative subtype preference condition, the second for the intrinsic vs relative condition. 259 difference that can account for this is that Beller, Singmann et al. showed participants 2D diagrams of a person observing an array and were encouraged to adopt the viewpoint of this observer in order to respond to a multiple-choice question about the array. Given that the presence of a potential Viewpoint was highlighted to the participants, the preponderance of the relative strategy in their results is unsurprising. However, the OPT results also show a much higher rate of intrinsic responses than the other studies. It may be that showing participants the
Ground object in different orientations calls the participants’ attention to the facets of the car.
It could also be that the nature of the experiment is transparent to the participant. This is relevant because in interviews following the experiment, participants who had alternated between intrinsic and the relative FoRs were subsequently alerted to this discrepancy and asked their reasons for changing strategies. Most participants claimed that their relative response was a ‘mistake’ and that they had responded to the prompt incorrectly. This held not only for the
Marshallese and Maldivian communities, who employ the intrinsic more frequently in linguistic tasks as well, but was also observed with the Australian English-speaking community.
Additionally, Poulton (2016) observed that use of the intrinsic FoR increased as the experiment progressed, further supporting the idea that increased attention to the experimental situation causes more intrinsic responses. It is unclear why there should be a cross-cultural normative valuation for the intrinsic FoR over the relative FoR, even in cultures which employ the relative
FoR frequently. It would be interesting to see whether this effect also holds between the intrinsic and absolute FoRs when these are co-lexified, e.g. lik ‘back, behind, oceanside’ in Marshallese, or east as front in Aymara (Núñez & Cornejo 2012).
Given the fact that these different experimental methodologies have sometimes yielded disparate results, some questions about the experiments’ validity may arise, namely: which (if any) of these experiments reflects participants’ natural behaviour and which experiment’s results are merely the product of the methodology priming for certain responses? To some extent these differences are not so much a limitation, but a design feature. For example, in 260 everyday life sometimes people do have to talk about spatial relations in 2D rather than 3D space. Sometimes people are required to responds to a verbal instruction (OPT) such that they create an array, rather than interpret a pre-existing array (Beller, Singmann et al. 2015; Man and
Tree; etc.). In these situations, varied methodologies allow for treating the experimental context as a predictor variable, and can yield interesting findings. However, it is true that some of the results caused by flaws in experimental methodology, such as priming in the OPT, should be removed through improved experimental design. For the OPT, more distractor tasks should be employed in future iterations of the experiment, both to reduce priming from one condition to the net, but also to reduce the transparency of the experiment’s goals.
7.3.6 Future applications of the OPT Frame of reference selection beyond the basic absolute – relative – intrinsic trichotomy is yet to receive the treatment it deserves. Naturally, experiments like the OPT or that of Beller,
Singmann, et al. (2015) are worth performing in several different linguistic communities. In terms of Marshallese, there is still a lot more to be done. Expanding the sample size will allow for testing for demographic effects such as age or gender. Additionally, other factors such as animacy, construction type (local vs general oblique in Marshallese, §4.8) should also be tested.
It would also be valuable to test bilingual Marshallese-English speakers in English. Hill (1982) finds that when tested in English, bilingual Hausa speakers’ performance is between that of native English speakers and Hausa speakers tested in Hausa. This implies that to some extent the semantics of spatial terms are language-specific, rather than speakers’ having an inherent conceptualisation of spatial terms, e.g. FRONT, which are universally applied to their equivalents, regardless of the linguistic medium through which they are communicated. Lastly, it would be valuable to perform the OPT in the Marshall Islands, to ascertain whether the Springdale community has diverged from those Marshallese still living in their ancestral home.
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8 Non-linguistic spatial cognition in Marshallese
Chapter 2 introduced the concept of a spatial frame of reference – a coordinate system used to identify the location of an entity – and discussed the ways various scholars have sought to typologise frame of reference. Chapter 3 reviewed the literature on the complicated relationship between spatial language and spatial cognition. This literature shows that while a clear correlation has been observed between frame of reference preference in linguistic and non- linguistic tasks, the root causes of this correlation are controversial. There are those who favour a linguistic relativity explanation argue that (arbitrary) preference for a given frame of reference in language use causes preference for the same FoR in non-linguistic cognition. Conversely, there are those who argue that speakers’ surrounding environment causes diversity in both spatial language and spatial cognition. The Marshallese linguistic resources for spatial reference were presented in Chapters 4-5 and variation in use of spatial strategies was examined subsequently in Chapter 6-7.
This chapter turns from language use to non-linguistic cognition, examining how
Marshallese speakers perform in two non-linguistic spatial tasks. Section §8.1 presents the
Animals-in-a-Row task, a free response experiment designed to test preference for egocentric vs absolute frame of reference in recall memory and discusses its findings. The next section
(§8.2) presents results from the Scout Game, a multiple choice experiment which tests for frame of reference preference in recognition memory and the results from the two experiments are compared and analysed (§8.3).
Experiment 1: Animals-in-a-Row The Animals-in-a-Row task is perhaps the non-linguistic spatial frame of reference elicitation task which has been most widely employed, though often these experiments have differed in some of their details (see Pederson et al. 1998; Levinson 2003; Haun et al. 2011; Meakins, Jones
& Algy 2016; inter alia). The results from some of these experiments were discussed in §3.1.3.
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8.1.1 Aims As discussed earlier in Chapter 3, there has been significant debate as to the relationship between linguistic spatial reference and spatial cognition and various scholars have sought to examine this relationship by conducting cognitive experiments on linguistic communities with various frame of reference strategies dominant in language use.
The Animals-in-a-Row (AR) task is designed to reveal the FoR preferences of participants when memorising a static array of small objects in table-top space. It is employed here primarily to examine how FoR preferences vary between Marshallese speakers at four different sites, namely: Jabor, Jaluit Island, Kili, and Springdale (§1.5.2; §5.5). Additionally, other variables are examined including the setting of the task (indoors or outdoors)80 and other demographic factors such as age, gender, and education.
8.1.2 Methodology This study largely follows the methodology of previous animals-in-a-row studies, as outlined in various MPI publications (e.g. Pederson et al. 2008; Levinson 2003), though with some small modifications.
8.1.2.1 Materials This study employs two identical sets of four toy animals as stimulus materials: a horse, tiger, dolphin, and turtle. While previous studies have tended to use familiar domestic quadrupeds such as pig, cow, sheep, and a horse, it was judged appropriate to use animals which are maximally distinct and culturally familiar. Most Marshallese people have never seen a cow, sheep, or horse in person before, but all are familiar with dolphins and turtles. The tiger and
80 Motivated by Li & Gleitman’s (2002) claim that experiments conducted outdoors are likely to prime for geocentric strategies (see §3.3.1). 263 horse were chosen because they are common in American media many Marshallese consume and are highly distinct from one another in colour and shape.81
The toy animals chosen were from the SchleichTM range of animal figurines and were selected to be as near-symmetrical as possible along their sagittal axes. Each toy was between
2-4cm wide, 6-12cm long and 2-9cm high. They are shown in Figure 33 below.
Figure 33: Stimulus materials from the Animals-in-a-Row task
The experiment also required two flat, cleared surfaces – usually tables82 – set up 3-4 metres apart from one another (Figure 34). Where possible, participants were provided with a chair at each table for comfort.
8.1.2.2 Experimental procedure Upon commencing the task, a native Marshallese-speaking assistant read instructions which had been professionally translated into Marshallese to the participant. The English translation for these instructions read as follows:
81 Marshallese people are familiar with pigs and dogs, but neither were selected because the experiment was designed to be maximally comparable with a parallel study on Dhivehi (Lum 2018) for which pigs and dogs were deemed inappropriate due to cultural-religious sensitivities. 82 This experiment was conducted under fieldwork conditions and thus tables were not always available. In these cases they were substituted by a countertop or stool. 264
This is a simple game. Out of four animals, you will see three animals placed in a
line. You will need to remember which animals they are and how they are
arranged. When you are ready, we will take away the animals and wait for a
small amount of time. We will then give the animals to you and ask you to make
the line again, exactly as it was. You will play the game five times in total. First
we will play a few practice games.83
Participants then played three practice rounds in order to ensure that they had understood the task, and to minimise errors during the experimental trials:
I. Three of the four animals were arranged on the stimulus table, with the animals
arranged along the subjects’ transverse axes (i.e. facing to their left or right) arranged
in a single file.84 The subject was asked to remember the arrangement of the animals
and were given as much time as they needed. Upon verbal confirmation from the
subject that they had memorised the array, the animals were scooped up and then
immediately placed in a pile in front of them on the same table, with the fourth animal
included. Participants were then without delay instructed in Marshallese to recreate
the array exactly as it had been before. If the subject produced an incorrect response,
this response was wordlessly corrected by the examiner. The first practice trial was then
repeated with a new array.
II. Upon passing the first trial, another different set of three animals was presented to the
participant, exactly the same as in the first trial. This practice trial was performed in a
manner identical to that described above for the first practice trial, except that after the
animals were scooped up by the examiner, there was a delay of thirty seconds before
83 Marshallese version available in Appendix 1.2. 84 All arrays in the training procedure and main trials were of three animals in single file, facing the same direction as each other (either to the participant’s left or right). The arrays were ‘random’ with certain constraints: no two arrays within the task could be identical, no more than two consecutive arrays could face the same direction, and across the five main trials, three faced one direction (e.g., left) and the other two faced the opposite direction. 265
the animals were placed in front of the participant in a heap and the participant was
asked to recreate the array. As with the first practice trial, failure to replicate the array
led to the participant being show then correct response, and repetition of the trial.
III. Following successful completion of the second trial, participants underwent a third and
final practice trial. This trial proceeded in a manner identical to the previous trial, except
that after the 30 second delay from when the animals were scooped up, the participant
was led to a second separate table 3-4 metres away on the other side of the room. The
participant faced this table at a 180° degree rotation from their orientation at the initial
stimulus table. Upon this table there were four identical animals to those at the stimulus
table in a pile. As with the previous trials, the participant was then asked in Marshallese
to recreate the array identically. This procedure is shown in Figure 34 below.
Stimulus Table Test Table
180° rotation
3-4m
Figure 34: Animals-in-a-Row task experimental setup
As with the previous two trials, an incorrect response led to repetition of the trial.
However, unlike the first two trials, their response was not corrected by the examiner
in any way.
IV. Following successful completion of the three practice trials, participants then
performed the experimental trials, which were conducted the same way as the third
practice trial. Each participant performed the experimental trial five times.
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8.1.2.3 Participants and conditions The Animals-in-a-row task was performed by participants at all four of the field sites. The following table shows the participant metadata.
Jaluit Spring- Jabor Kili RMI Total Total Island dale
Participants 27 21 23 71 19 90
(range) 16-63 16-52 18-49 16-63 16-59 16-63 Age (median)85 22 26 26 24 37 28
Gender (males : females) 23:4 15:6 20:3 58:13 9:10 67:23
Setting (indoors : outdoors) 15:12 21:0 23:0 24:0 19:0 78:12
Orientation (parallel : 14:13 10:11 12:11 36:35 N/A N/A perpendicular)
Education (low : med : high) 6 : 14 : 7 5 : 12 : 4 11 : 9 : 3 22 : 35 : 14 N/A N/A
% of lifetime (range) N/A N/A N/A N/A 2%-88% N/A spent in USA (median) N/A N/A N/A N/A 33% N/A
Table 39: Participants in the Animals-in-a-Row task
Participant recruitment was opportunistic under fieldwork conditions and in line with cultural norms and practices of the community, hence the disparity in gender, primarily in the
RMI sample.86
The stimulus and test table were arranged in such a way that participant orientation was counterbalanced across conditions. Thus in the RMI, approximately half of the participants at each site were oriented in line with the lagoon-ocean axis, while half were perpendicular to it. Additionally, the larger Jabor sample included indoors (n = 15) versus outdoor (n = 12) setting as a test variable in order to examine claims such as those by Li & Gleitman (2002) that
85 Though the age range and median appears to skew young, it is important to note that the RMI has a young population, with a median age in the rural atolls of 17.9 years and 46% of the rural population is under 15 years of age (Secretariat of the Pacific Community 2012). Thus the age range of the sample is representative of the population. 86 In traditional Marshallese culture it is often viewed as inappropriate for males and females to be alone together. Furthermore, participant recruitment generally took place through the social networks of native Marshallese assistants, who were all male due to this cultural norm. 267 egocentric versus geocentric FoR selection can be primed by whether participants perform the task outside or not. Otherwise, all tasks were performed indoors as this enabled better control of the environment and thus fewer possible distractions or confounding variables. In the RMI field sites, all the games were played in the same location (a volunteer’s house) at each site. The outdoor games in Jabor were played outside a Marshallese consultant’s house in view of the lagoon. In Springdale, Arkansas, the games were played at each participant’s home, for reasons of practicality and participant comfort. No participant had previously engaged in a non-linguistic spatial task, though many had participated in one of the linguistic spatial tasks (§1.5.1) on a separate day, a minimum of one week earlier.
8.1.2.4 Coding of responses As discussed above, the purpose of the Animals-in-a-Row task is to test whether a participant displays a preference for egocentric or geocentric coding. After each experimental trial, the participants’ response was recorded and classified into one of four possible groups: egocentric, geocentric, mixed, and error response. Egocentric (or relative) responses preserve the orientation and order of the stimulus array from the perspective of the participant. Thus, if the animals are facing to the participants’ left in the stimulus array, then they will also face left in the test array the participant recreates. Conversely, geocentric (or absolute) responses maintain the orientation and order of the animals with respect to the external world. Therefore, if the animals were facing north in the stimulus array, they will maintain their northerly orientation in the test array, but their orientation with respect to the viewer will have changed. This egocentric-geocentric distinction is captured in Figure 35.
268
Stimulus Table Test Table Geocentric Response
Egocentric Response
Figure 35: Egocentric versus geocentric responses in the Animals-in-a-Row task
However, the Animals-in-a-Row task is free-response, and thus the participant can produce a response which is neither egocentric nor geocentric. These alternate responses are split into two categories: ‘mixed’ and ‘error’. Responses are classified into the ‘mixed’ category when there is a mismatch between how the animals are ordered and their orientation, for example a geocentric ordering but egocentric orientation, or vice-versa: an egocentric ordering but geocentric orientation.87 These possibilities are shown in Figure 36 below.
87 In an early study Brown & Levinson (1993) refer to such responses as ‘inconsistent’ but this is abandoned in later works. Additionally, in that and other later studies (e.g. Levinson 2003), ‘inconsistent’ is used to refer to participants’ behaviour across all of the arrays. Thus, I avoid this ambiguity by adopting the term ‘mixed response’. 269
Stimulus Table Test Table Egocentric order, geocentric orientation
Geocentric order, egocentric orientation
Figure 36: Mixed responses in the Animals-in-a-Row task
Responses were then assigned to the fourth ‘error’ category if they did not fulfil the criteria for placement into the other three categories.
8.1.2.5 Coding participants In previous MPI studies, participants have been classified into three categories, depending on how they recreate the five arrays. Two distinct methodologies have been used to categorise participants. This study follows Lum (2018) in referring to the first criteria as the ‘strong MPI criteria’ and the second as the ‘weak MPI criteria’. In the strong MPI criteria, participants who use an egocentric analysis for at least four out of five arrays are classified as ‘egocentric encoders’ and conversely participants who recreate at least four of five arrays with a geocentric analysis are classified as ‘geocentric encoders’. All other participants are ‘untypable’, regardless of whether they produced mixed analyses, errors, both geocentric and egocentric analyses, or any combination of the above.
For this reason, some studies (e.g. Levinson 2003; Dasen & Mishra 2010) have alternatively assigned each participant in terms of an ‘RA gradient’ (‘relative-to-absolute gradient’, sometimes also ‘estimated absolute tendency’). The RA gradient in this study is calculated by first excluding any participants with three or more error responses. For the remainder of participants, their ‘error’ responses are discounted; their absolute responses are 270 assigned a value of 1, relative responses a value of 0, and mixed responses a value of 0.5.88 These values are added, divided by the total number of non-error trials, then multiplied by 100.
Subjects are then classified as ‘absolute’ (i.e. geocentric) encoders if their RA gradient is 70 or over and ‘relative’ (i.e. egocentric) encoders if their RA gradient is 30 or below. The strength of this methodology is that it incorporates mixed encodings, distinguishing them from errors.
Secondly, a participant who produces many errors due to poor memory or other factors, may still be included on the basis of their valid recreations. Finally, despite assigning participants to one of three categories as with the first methodology, it is still possible to analyse results as a ratio variable, increasing the sensitivity of the data analysis.
Henceforth, this study follows Lum (2018) in referring to the first criteria as the ‘strong
MPI criteria’ and the second as the ‘weak MPI criteria’.
Parti- Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial RA Weak MPI Strong MPI cipant 1 2 3 4 5 Grad. criteria criteria 1 Geo Geo Geo Error Geo 100 Geocentric Geocentric 2 Ego Ego Ego Ego Mixed 10 Egocentric Egocentric 3 Mixed Mixed Mixed Geo Geo 70 Geocentric Untypable 4 Geo Error Geo Error Geo 100 Geocentric Untypable 5 Ego Ego Error Mixed Mixed 25 Egocentric Untypable 6 Error Error Geo Geo Error N/A N/A N/A
Table 40: Example of participant coding in Animals-in-a-Row task
Table 40 above shows how these criteria operate in practice with some hypothetical responses. As can be observed below, the stricter strong MPI criteria lead to a far greater quantity of untypable participants than the more sensitive weak MPI criteria. Therefore, the results below are primarily given in terms of the weak MPI criteria. However, results are
88 In his original study, Levinson (2003: chapter 5) does not distinguish between mixed and error responses, classifying them both as ‘untypable’ and assigning both a value of 0.5 and thus does not exclude any responses, or participants on the basis of their responses. However, it is important to distinguish the two as a mixed response genuinely is geocentric on one axis of comparison (e.g. order) and egocentric along another (e.g. orientation). They are distinct from genuinely unclassifiable error responses which ought to be excluded entirely. Participants who produced three or more error responses likely misunderstood the task or have problems with memory recall, and thus merit exclusion. 271 sometimes also given in terms of the strong MPI criteria in order to facilitate comparison with other studies which utilize only the strong MPI criteria. Following calculation of RA-gradients,
Mann-Whitney U tests were performed on the dataset to compare populations.
Finally, it is important to note that previous studies (e.g. Pederson et al. 1998) have excluded participants who produced ‘monodirectional’ coders, i.e. participants who reproduced all five test arrays with the animals facing in the same direction, regardless of the stimulus arrays.
Due to an oversight in the data collection process, this was not possible to do for the data collected in the Marshall Islands. In the Springdale sample nine out of 19 participants produced a monodirectional response. These data were included throughut in order to match the RMI data. Additionally, §8.1.3.4 compares the Springdale data with monodirectional results included against the same dataset with monodirectional results excluded.
8.1.2.6 Statistical analyses Non-parametric tests were performed in order to test for associations between predictors and
FoR preference. For categorical predictors such as field site and gender, Mann-Whitney U tests were performed on RA-gradients following Levinson (2003: chapter 5). For continuous predictors such as age, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients were calculated. It is acknowledged that this methodology is less ideal than a multivariate analysis as it does not control for the influence of covariates. However, small population sizes and fieldwork conditions did not allow for collecting a sample of sufficient size for a multi-variate analysis. Therefore, results should be taken as suggestive.
8.1.3 Results This section presents the results of the Animals-in-a-row task. First the four field sites are compared, followed by an examination of situational variables, then demographic variables.
8.1.3.1 Comparison of sites Here the results in the different field sites are compared and contrasted. Table 41 shows the total raw tokens of response types by site, before classification of participants. 272
GEO EGO Mixed Error Total (N) n 76 28 10 21 135 Jabor % 56% 21% 7% 16% 100% n 48 32 5 20 105 Jaluit I. % 46% 30% 5% 19% 100% n 74 23 7 11 115 Kili % 64% 20% 6% 10% 100% n 198 83 22 52 355 RMI Total % 56% 23% 6% 15% 100% n 42 38 5 10 95 Springdale % 44% 40% 5% 11% 100% n 240 121 27 62 450 Total % 53% 27% 6% 14% 100%
Table 41: Tokens of Animals-in-a-Row responses across sites
It can be observed in Table 41 that there was a relatively high quantity of ‘error’ responses across sites, 14% in total and reaching as high as 19% of all responses in Jaluit Island. Such a large quantity of error responses will naturally lead to a relatively high quantity of untypable participants, as can be observed by the classification of participants in Table 42 below.
Strong MPI criteria Geocentric Egocentric Untypable Jabor 10 (37%) 0 (0%) 17 (63%) Jaluit Island 7 (37%) 3 (16%) 9 (47%) Kili 13 (62%) 0 (0%) 8 (38%) RMI TOTAL 30 (45%) 3 (4%) 34 (51%) Springdale 4 (21%) 3 (16%) 12 (63%)
Table 42: Classification of participants according to Strong MPI criteria
Table 42 shows that a very high proportion of the Marshallese sample fell into the
‘untypable’ category. This is on the surface quite surprising since linguistically, geocentric strategies are shown to be quite dominant (§6.3.1.1). This proportion of untypable participants is much higher than have been published for Tenejapan Mayan and Dutch (19% and 5% respectively, see Brown & Levinson 1993b; Levinson 2003). However in a recent study on
Maldivian Dhivehi, Lum (2018: chapter 6) observes an even higher rate of untypable responses.
It is also worth noting, that Levinson (2003: 176) states that high quantities of error responses –
273 presumably leading to high quantities of untypable participants – have been observed in
Animals-in-a-Row tasks conducted on Tzeltal (Mayan), Belhare (Tibeto-Burman) and Tamil
(Dravidian), but this is not elaborated on.
The RA-gradient is a more permissive analysis, which allows incorporation of mixed responses and allows for all of the participants’ responses to be analysed, without assigning participants into one of three categories. Nevertheless, the sites according to the Weak MPI criteria are shown below, together with the median gradient for each site.
Weak MPI criteria Geocentric Egocentric Untypable Median RA-gradient Jabor 14 (52%) 2 (7%) 11 (41%) 75 JI 9 (47%) 5 (26%) 5 (26%) 60 Kili 13 (62%) 2 (10%) 6 (29%) 90 RMI TOTAL 36 (54%) 9 (13%) 22 (33%) 77 Springdale 5 (26%) 6 (32%) 8 (42%) 50 Table 43: Results across sites according to Weak MPI Criteria
As can be seen in Table 43, even by the more permissive standard of the Weak MPI Criteria, there are still a large quantity of untypable participants, though fewer than there were for the
Strong MPI criteria. However, the overall picture of the results has largely not changed, though egocentric encoding now appears to be a common – if dispreferred – strategy in the RMI, compared to the more stringent Strong MPI Criteria, which paint it as highly marginal.
The Marshallese groups’ results were compared using a Kruskal Wallis test and there was not found to be a significant difference between them (H(2) = 8.52, p = 0.366). Therefore, the three Marshallese groups were collapsed for comparison against the Springdale, Arkansas group. Comparison of the RMI and Springdale groups show a significant difference (Mann-
Whitney U = 430.00, p = 0.033), indicating that Springdale Marshallese do use an egocentric frame of reference more frequently than RMI Marshallese in the AR task.
8.1.3.2 Situational variables Two situational variables are examined here: orientation with respect to iar-lik ‘sheltered- exposed side’ axis (parallel vs perpendicular), and indoors vs outdoors.
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8.1.3.2.1 Orientation with respect to island topography Orientation was only tested in the RMI, as the topography in Springdale does not include the relevant axis. The results for this variable according to the weak MPI criteria are shown in Table
44.
Weak MPI criteria Geocentric Egocentric Untypable Median gradient Parallel 21 4 9 85 Perpendicular 15 5 13 67 Table 44: AR results according to participants' orientation with respect to island topography
Figure 37 shows the results as proportions.
100% 12% 15% 80% 26% 39% 60% Egocentric Untypable 40% 62% Geocentric 20% 45%
0% Parallel Perpendicular
Figure 37: AR results according to orientation with respect to island topography
The results show that participants who performed the experiment oriented parallel to the sheltered side-exposed side axis (i.e. facing towards the sheltered side or towards the exposed side of the island) were more likely to produce a series of arrays consistent with being geocentric encoders than those who performed the experiment oriented perpendicular to the axis. However, a Mann-Whitney U test reveals that this difference is not significant (U = 439.50, p = 0.129).
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8.1.3.2.2 Setting (indoors vs outdoors) The indoors vs outdoors variable was only tested in Jabor.89 The results for this variable according to the weak MPI criteria are displayed inTable 45 below:
Weak MPI criteria Geocentric Egocentric Untypable Median gradient Indoors (n=15) 7 1 7 67 Outdoors (n=13) 7 1 5 78 Table 45: AR results in Jabor according to setting (indoors vs outdoors)
The results by coder do not show any effect of task setting. However, the median gradients of the two groups do trend towards higher geocentric use among outdoor participants, which is the direction predicted by Li & Gleitman (2002). However this trend is marginal and was not found to be statistically significant (Mann-Whitney U = 69.50, p = 0.327). It should be noted however that due to small sample sizes, only a large effect size would be evident through this test.
8.1.3.3 Demographic variables This section presents results from three demographic variables: age, gender, and education level. These demographic variables are examined in only the RMI sample.
8.1.3.3.1 Results according to age Figure 38 shows a scatterplot of individual participants’ age and RA-gradients.
89 It had originally been intended to test this variable across sites, but weather conditions and other practical considerations rendered this goal unfeasible. 276
100
80
60 Geocentric
Untypable 40 Gradient - Egocentric RA 20
0 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48 52 56 60 64 Age
Figure 38: RMI Animals-in-a-Row participants according to age and RA-gradient
A small inverse correlation was observed between participant age and RA-gradient; however it was not significant (Spearman’s Rho, Rs = -0.603, p = 0.549). It is noteworthy that the untypable participants were found to be somewhat older (Mdn age 26) than those who were categorisable as egocentric coders (Mdn age 22.0) or geocentric coders (Mdn age 22.5).90 It is worth restating here that the sample in this study is representative of the population and the rural Marshallese population is very young.91 Of the 67 total data points, there were only eight from participants over the age of 40. The median RA-gradient of these eight participants was 100 (M = 87).
8.1.3.3.2 Results according to gender The results according to gender are shown in Table 46 below.
Weak MPI criteria Geocentric Egocentric Untypable Median gradient Females (n=11) 8 1 2 85 Males (n=57) 28 8 21 71 Table 46: RMI Animals-in-a-Row results according to gender
The results from Table 46 are displayed as proportions in Figure 39 below.
90 Note that because statistical tests were conducted on the RA-gradients themselves rather than on the categories of encoders, these tests are not sensitive towards predictor effects on untypable encoders in opposition to egocentric and/or geocentric encoders, as ‘untypable’ simply labels the middle of a range. 91 No statistical data were available for individual atolls, here ‘rural’ comprises all atolls except Majuro and Kwajalein (Secretariat of the Pacific Community 2012). 277
100% 9% 14% 80% 18% 37% 60% Egocentric Untypable 40% 73% Geocentric 49% 20%
0% Females (n=11) Males (n=57)
Figure 39: Comparison of Animals-in-a-Row results between genders
There are not enough data points from the female population to facilitate statistical analysis.
However, it is notable that the female group produced a higher relative quantity of geocentric coders (73%) to the male group (49%), which conversely had a greater frequency of untypable coders.
8.1.3.3.3 Results according to education The results according to education level are shown in Table 47 below.
Weak MPI criteria Geocentric Egocentric Untypable Median gradient High (n=13) 5 2 6 60 Medium (n=35) 20 6 8 80 Low (n=20) 11 1 8 78 Table 47: Results of Animals-in-a-Row task by education levels
The results from Table 46 are normalised in Figure 40 below. These results show that the high education group consisted of the fewest geocentric coders (38%) compared to the other two groups (55% and 59%). On the other hand, the high education group produced the greatest number of untypable coders (46%), while the medium education level group produced the lowest (24%). Note however, that this result intersects with the results for age above, which showed that older participants produced a greater degree of untypable responses. Higher education participants were on average older (median age 28) than middle or low education
278 participants (median ages 23.5 and 22 respectively) owing to the mere fact that those who have completed a higher level of education must necessarily be of a more advanced age.
100% 24% 80% 40% 46% 18% 60% 5% Untypable
15% Egocentric 40% Geocentric 55% 59% 20% 38%
0% Low Medium High (n=20) (n=35) (n=13) Figure 40: Comparison of Animals-in-a-Row results across education levels
However, a Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that differences between these groups were not statistically significant (H(2) = 1.149, p = 0.563).
8.1.3.3.4 Springdale results according to time spent in the United States All of the Springdale participants were born in the Marshall Islands, but there was some variation in terms of how much time each had been living in the United States. Figure 41 shows a scatterplot of participants’ (n = 19) RA-Gradients against the percentage of their life they had spent in the United States.92
92 It is debatable whether this or a raw count of years is a more likely predictor of FoR preference, and indeed this might vary with the age of the participants. Raw years was also examined and showed results broadly similar to those in this section. 279
100
80
60 Egocentric Gradient - 40 Untypable RA Geocentric 20
0 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Percentage of lifetime spent in the USA
Figure 41: Springdale Animals-in-a-Row participants by time lived in USA and RA-gradient
Alternatively, Table 48 shows the relationship between coder type and average percentage of lifespan spent in the United States. It shows that the egocentric coding group has spent the most time in the US and the geocentric coding group the least, with untypable coders between.
Geocentric Egocentric Untypable Mean % spent in USA 22% 45% 29% Median % spent in USA 14% 44% 37% Table 48: Average % of lifetime spent in USA by coder type (n = 19)
While there was an inverse correlation was observed between percentage of lifetime lived in the USA and RA-gradient, it was not found to be significant (Spearman’s Rho, Rs = -0.306, p =
0.203).
8.1.3.4 Analysis of monodirectional results in Springdale As stated above, previous iterations of this experiment have tended to remove the outcomes of participants who recreate each array ‘monodirectionally’, i.e. only accounting for the relative order of the animals and not their orientation. These data are not directly recoverable for the
RMI sample but are for the Springdale sample.
280
Of the 19 participants in Springdale, seven (37%) produced a monodirectional response, five of which were all arrays oriented to the left, and two with all to the right.93 Of these seven monodirectional responses, six yielded RA-gradients classifiable as ‘untypable’ and one yielded an RA-gradient which was initially classified as ‘egocentric’.
Weak MPI criteria Geocentric Egocentric Untypable Median gradient Monodirectional 5 (26%) 6 (32%) 8 (42%) 50 included (n=19) Monodirectional 5 (42%) 5 (42%) 2 (17%) 50 excluded (n=12) Table 49: Monodirectional responses in Springdale
Removal of the monodirectional coders had very little effect on the ratio of geocentric coders to egocentric coders, nor did it have much of an effect on the median gradient. It is probable that this also holds for the ratio of geocentric to egocentric coders in the RMI sample too.
Nevertheless, such a high ratio of monodirectional coders does add a great deal of noise when performing statistical analyses.
8.1.4 Discussion
8.1.4.1 Location variable The results in the Marshall Islands field sites show a clear preference for geocentric over egocentric coding. By the strict standards of the strong MPI criteria, there were only 3 egocentric coders in the entire RMI sample population, all in Jaluit Island, though some were found in each
RMI site when applying the weak MPI criteria. It is surprising that Jaluit Island, the field site with the lowest levels of education and the most traditional lifestyle (see §5.5.2) produced more egocentric coding than the comparatively better educated, less traditional, more English- speaking sites of Jabor and Kili and no explanation for this phenomenon seems readily apparent.
Another interesting observation is the approximately equal rate of geocentric and egocentric
93 Lum (2018) also finds the majority of monodirectional responses facing left. This is attributed to handedness, as the most natural way to grasp a toy animal with the right hand is with the animal facing left. 281 coding in Springdale, despite almost no use of geocentric strategies in the linguistic tasks
(§6.3.1.1). Given that the Marshallese community in Springdale is relatively recent, with the earliest migrants having settled in the 1980s, and that the findings in §8.1.3.3.4 suggest that egocentric use may increase with time spent in the US.
8.1.4.2 Situation variables As discussed in §3.3.1, it has been suggested by Li & Gleitman (2002) that use of egocentric vs geocentric strategies in spatial cognition may simply reflect the immediate environment in which speakers are located. They find that participants tested outdoors are more likely to use geocentric coding while participants tested indoors are more likely to use egocentric coding.
This study also examined the effect of immediate perceptual access to the landscape, testing not only the indoors vs outdoors variable examined by Li & Gleitman (2002), but also whether orientation parallel to the highly salient iar-lik axis (see §5.3.3.1) is more likely to induce geocentric coding in comparison to orientation along the less salient cross axis. While neither variable showed a significant effect, they both trended in the predicted direction, with participants tested outdoors (§8.1.3.2.2) scoring a median RA-gradient eleven points higher than those tested indoors and participants oriented parallel to the iar-lik axis scoring a median RA- gradient 18 points higher than those perpendicular. While these findings are a far cry from the much stronger effects observed by Li & Gleitman (2002) in their stud, they do nevertheless suggest that salience of the landscape can play a role in frame of reference selection.
8.1.4.3 Demographic variables Three demographic variables were examined in the RMI sample: age, gender, and education.
While there was no significant correlation observed between age and frame of reference selection on the whole, the strongly geocentric results amongst the small cohort of participants over 40 are suggestive of the possibility that there has been a transition in FoR preferences amongst the younger generations. It is difficult to suggest a cause for this, but one possibility lies in the transition from a fishing and agriculture based lifestyle to a cash-based food economy. 282
Lum (2018) found that Maldivian fishermen were more likely to use geocentric frames of reference, and that this effect extended to other non-fisherman who lived on islets where fishing was a primary subsistence mode, in contrast to the more white-collar islets whose inhabitants tended to prefer egocentric strategies. Similarly, Shapero (2017) finds that speakers of Ancash
Quechua who were experienced cattle herders were more likely to use geocentric strategies than those who were not. Many individuals on Jabor reported that fishing from boats and inter- islet travel within the atoll had declined drastically in the previous decade due to rapidly rising petrol costs.94
The education data in Table 47 paints a similar picture. While again no significant differences were found between groups, the highest education group (at least some college) did score a median RA-gradient 20 points lower than the medium education group (at least some high school) and 18 points lower than the low education group (no high school). Though this should be taken with caution considering that the high education group was quite small (n = 14), it does match with some previous findings which indicate that schooling can play a role in inducing preference for egocentric FoRs (§3.4.1).
8.1.4.4 Conclusions The Animals-in-a-Row results indicate a preference for the geocentric frame of reference and an overall dispreference for the egocentric frame of reference amongst RMI Marshallese speakers.
These results are consistent with the observations from linguistic elicitation tasks such as Man and Tree (Chapter 6), where geocentric strategies were preferred and egocentric strategies were marginal. However, a large quantity of untypable coders were also present, many of whom were likely to have been monodirectional responses.95 Levinson (2003: 340) and Lum (2018) point out
94 Traditional navigation practices are no longer employed by the majority of Marshallese, and in any case, food imports mean that fishing is no longer the necessity it used to be. Nevertheless, many men do still regularly go spear-fishing in the lagoon or cast nets from the shore. At the time of fieldwork in 2013- 14, petrol on Jaluit Atoll cost approximately $6 USD per gallon. 95 Assuming a similar result to that observed in Springdale (§8.1.3.3.4). 283 that monodirectional responses are likely to indicate an array-internal intrinsic coding preference, where the direction of the animals is considered irrelevant.
Experiment 2: Scout game Like the Animals-in-a-Row Task, the Scout Game, sometimes also called ‘Steve’s Mazes’ after its creator Stephen Levinson or ‘Route-Completion experiment’ (Danziger 2001) is designed to examine participants FoR preference in spatial cognition. For previous studies which have employed this task, see Wassmann & Dasen (1998); Dasen & Mishra (2010); Danziger (2001);
Lum (2018), and Senft (2001).
8.2.1 Aims The Scout Game is similar to the Animals-in-a-Row game in that it is designed to elicit preference for geocentric vs egocentric encoding of scenes in spatial memory. However, the Scout Game involves recognition and memory of a path rather than a static array. A methodological advantage of the Scout Game is that rather than being open response, like the Animals-in-a-Row task, participants are presented with just three options, which greatly minimises the possibility for participant error, though it does increase the chance of false positives, participants selecting an apparently correct response accidentally. The Scout Game was carried out in order to discover whether the same population would produce similar results across experimental methodologies, thereby testing potential effects of task-specificity in spatio-cognitive experimentation. Additionally, the Scout Game tests for slightly different memory processes.
While the Animals-in-a-Row task examines recall memory – the ability of the participants to reproduce the array itself – the Scout Game tests the participants’ recognition memory – their ability to choose a correct array out of a series of possibly arrays presented to them.
8.2.2 Methodology The methodology of the Scout Game is conceptually and procedurally similar to the Animals-in- a-Row task, described above. It was carried out in broadly the same manner here in line with previous versions conducted by previous researchers. 284
8.2.2.1 Materials The stimulus materials employed in running the Scout Game consisted of six printed and laminated maps and 18 printed completion cards. Each map was printed on A3 paper, labelled
‘0’ to ‘5’ on the front, and corresponded to three possible completion cards, which were labelled with their map number followed by a number from ‘1’ to ‘3’ on their back. Each set of completion cards included an egocentric completion path, a geocentric completion path, and an incorrect distractor path. Map 0 with its corresponding completion cards 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 are shown in
Figure 42.
Figure 42: Stimulus materials in Scout Game
The full set of stimulus materials is available for viewing in Dasen & Mishra (2010: 64). The experiment also required two flat, unmarked tables.
8.2.2.2 Experimental procedure The experiment commenced with Map 0 – the training map presented on the stimulus table, together with its corresponding completion cards (0.1-0.3). Upon commencing the task, a native
Marshallese-speaking assistant read instructions which had been professionally translated into
Marshallese to the participant (see Appendix 1.3). The English translation for these instructions read as follows:
This is a very simple memory game. Here you will be shown a path [experimenter
points to path on map]. Start from the house [experimenter points to house]
and go along the path [experimenter traces path with finger]. From the end of
the path you have to go to the house [points to house]. You cannot go through 285
the trees [points to trees]. And you cannot go over the ‘stones’ [points to
stones/ponds] or back along the path [traces finger back along part of path]. You
have to go this way [traces finger from end of path to house via white space
between trees and large pond]. First we will practice. This card [points to card
0.1] shows a path leading from the end of the big path to the house [traces finger
along path shown in card to show that the route has the same shape], doesn’t
it? These other cards [points to cards 0.2 and 0.3] don’t show the correct path,
do they?
Care was taken in translation to not use any egocentric or geocentric frame of reference terms which could potentially prime the participants towards one strategy. The rest of the experiment took place in Marshallese. On a few occasions, some participants spoke to the experimenter in
English, but care was taken to reply to them in Marshallese.
8.2.2.2.1 Training procedure In order to prepare the participants for the experimental conditions, a brief training procedure was instigated at the stimulus table, with the experimenter standing alongside the participant.
This training procedure employed the same cards as in the instructions phase (Map 0, Cards 0.1-
0.3). The three cards were shuffled and placed next to the map on the table. The participant was asked to select the card which shows the correct path, in order to confirm that the participants had understood the instructions, and the notion that the lines on the completion cards represented paths which may or may not complete the path shown on the stimulus map. If the participant selected the wrong card, the experimenter corrected the participant by tracing his finger along the section of path on the map to be completed, as well as the path on the correct completion card, in order to show that the two were identical. Then the completion cards were reshuffled and the procedure outlined above was repeated until the participant correctly identified the matching completion path.
286
Upon successful completion of the first phase of training, the participant then moved onto a second training phase. The participant shown Map 0 again and told in Marshallese: remember the way this path is. I will show three cards on the next table. You will pick the card that shows the path going from the end of the big path to the house. The subject was allowed to look at the map until they confirmed they were satisfied, upon which the map was removed from their sight. After a thirty second delay during which the participant maintained their orientation towards the stimulus table, the participant was then rotated 180° and led to the test table 3-4 metres away where they were presented with the three corresponding completion cards lined next to one another in random order and asked to select which completes the path
(Figure 42). If the participant selected either the card with geocentric completion path or the card with the egocentric completion path, the participant was progressed to the experimental trials. If they selected the incorrect distractor path, then this second phase of the training procedure was repeated.
8.2.2.2.2 Experimental trials Five main trials were conducted with each participant, using the same procedure as the second phase of the training procedure outlined above. If the participant claimed to have forgotten the path after the map was removed but before being led to the test table, the participant was then shown the stimulus map again and again made to wait 30 seconds after the map was removed from view. Each participant selected a response cards for each of the stimulus maps 1-5 in order, and their choice of egocentric, geocentric or distractor card was recorded by the experimenter.
8.2.2.3 Participants The Scout Game was carried out over two days in March of 2014 on Jabor Island in Jaluit Atoll, in the RMI. There were 20 participants, all of whom performed the task indoors in the same room, oriented south-west (towards the lagoon) when facing the stimulus table and north-east
(towards the ocean side) after rotation. Recruitment was opportunistic, and in line with the cultural norms and expectations of the community. Three females and 17 males participated, 287 with a median age of 19, ranging from 16-40. As with all the other spatial elicitation tasks, all who participated in the Scout Game had not participated in any other task in at least a week, so that priming effects were minimised. Additionally, due to the similarity between the two tasks, it was ensured that any participants who had previously participated in the Animals-in-a-Row task (§8.1) were excluded unless a full month had passed between experiments. Nine participants subsequently participated in both of the non-linguistic experiments. Their results between tasks are compared in §8.3.
8.2.2.4 Coding of participants Participants were coded according to the same weak MPI criteria and strong MPI criteria outlined in §8.1.2.5. No participant chose the distractor card more than twice, so no participants were excluded. If a participant produced four or five egocentric responses they were assigned to the egocentric coders category according to the strong MPI criteria and similarly, if they produced four or five geocentric responses then they were assigned to the category of geocentric encoders. All other participants were untypable.
Additionally, each participant was assigned an RA-gradient and those with RA-gradients over and including 70 were assigned to the geocentric coders category according to the weak
MPI criteria and those with gradients under or equal to 30 were assigned to the egocentric coders category. Participants with gradients above 30 and below 70 were assigned to the category of untypable coders.
8.2.3 Results Table 50 shows the Scout Game results in terms of the total raw tokens per response type, participants coded according to weak MPI criteria, and participants coded according to strong
MPI criteria.
288
GEO EGO Error Total (N) n 27 62 11 100 Total Tokens % 27% 62% 11% Coders by n 5 12 3 20 weak MPI % 25% 60% 15% Coders by n 2 10 8 20 strong MPI % 10% 50% 40% Table 50: Results from the Scout Game (Jabor, Jaluit Atoll)
In addition, the median RA-gradient of participants in the Scout Game was 20, further indicating a preference towards egocentric coding within the sample.
Comparing Scout Game and AR task results Due to the comparable methodologies of the two tasks, which both involve calculating an RA- gradient on the basis of participants’ responses across five trials, it is possible to directly compare the results between the AR task and the Scout Game. As the Scout Game was carried out in Jabor, the results from the Scout Game are compared below to the results from the AR task in Jabor, according to the weak MPI criteria.
100% 7%
80% 41% 60% 60% Egocentric Untypable 40% 15% Geocentric 52% 20% 25% 0% AR task (n=27) Scout Game (n=20)
Figure 43: Comparison of Scout Game and Animals-in-a-Row results within Jabor
Figure 43 shows the significant difference in the ratio between egocentric and geocentric encoders between the two tasks (Mann-Whitney, U = 114.5, p < 0.001). In terms of the RA-
289 gradient, as the Jabor population had a median value of 75 for the AR task and 20 for the Scout
Game, difference in RA-gradient between the two groups was 55.
For a more granular analysis, it is also possible to directly compare the Scout Game and AR task results of nine individuals on Jabor who participated in both tasks, shown below in Figure 44.
100
80
AR task 60 Scout Game 40
20
0 JA1 KG1 BL1 PB1 PP1 HJ1 JB3 RK1 SB1
Figure 44: Comparison of results between tasks by individuals according to RA-gradient
The data show that the Scout Game did overall lead speakers to produce more egocentric responses as compared to the AR task. In an extreme case, all of participant JA1’s non-error responses in the AR task were geocentric, but this was completely reversed in their performance in the Scout Game, where all their non-error responses were egocentric. However, for some participants like BL1 and HJ1 there was only a minor increase in egocentric responses in the
Scout Game and two participants (PB1, SB1) actually produced a stronger geocentric response in the Scout Game than they did in the AR task (Figure 45).
290
JA1
KG1
BL1
PB1
PP1
HJ1
JB3
RK1
SB1
-40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100
Figure 45: AR task gradient minus Scout Game gradient by participant
For this subsample of subjects who participated in both tasks, the median RA-gradient in the AR task was 75, identical to the overall Jabor sample population. However, in the Scout Game their median RA-gradient was 50, much higher than the 20 median of the overall Jabor sample. There are not sufficient data points to test this association statistically, but this may indicate that the one month gap minimum between running the AR task and subsequently running the Scout
Game was not sufficient for total elimination of priming effects.
Discussion The Scout Game results are diametrically opposed to those of the Animals-in-a-Row task. While the AR task results revealed a preference for geocentric FoR, Scout Game results show a preference for egocentric FoR in the same population, and even amongst the same individual participants. Similar results have also been observed in studies on other languages, including
Balinese (Wassmann & Dasen 1998; Dasen & Mishra 2010: 154–156), Mopan (Danziger 2001) and Dhivehi (Lum 2018: 332–346). However, the difference between the RA-gradients in the two tasks is much larger than has been observed in most of the above studies. Lum (2018: 333) finds
11% more egocentric coders in the Scout Game in comparison to the Animals-in-a-Row task, while Wassmann & Dasen (1998: 705) find a 39% increase. The present study finds a 53%
291 increase in egocentric coders between the two tasks, which is close to the 56% increase observed by Danziger (2011) among speakers of Mopan.
As discussed in §3.2.5, this observed discrepancy in FoR preferences between tasks has been attributed to the fact that the Animals-in-a-Row arrays participants are required to memorise are more linguistically encodable, affording participants the opportunity to remember the array via a subvocalised mnemonic (e.g. “horse, tiger, turtle, all facing north”).
Conversely, the paths in the Scout Game do not easily afford linguistic encoding and are thus more likely to be remembered as an image, “an imprint on the retina which moves with the individuals as they move” (Dasen & Mishra 2010: 155). Furthermore, some Marshallese participants were noted to be tracing the path in the air with their finger and had to be explicitly told not to (also observed by Dasen & Mishra 2010: 146 in Bali). This sort of body-anchored mnemonic will naturally lead to egocentric coding. This may go some way towards explaining why the Animals-in-a-Row results seem to match closer to the linguistic Man and Tree task results than the Scout Game results do. Further evidence that the AR task affords codability through inner speech can be found in the way that participants reported remembering the array when questioned. Though the majority of participants were either unable to explain how they remembered the array, or produced an explanation that was not easily categorisable, 19 participants responded in a way interpretable as either visual memory or mnemonic inner speech.96
Weak MPI criteria Geocentric Egocentric Untypable Median gradient Visual 2 4 3 38 Inner speech 5 1 3 75 (geocentric) Inner speech 0 0 1 67 (egocentric) Table 51: Self-reported array memorisation strategy among AR task participants
96 A common way of participants expressing the former was that they remembered the array as “an image in my head” whereas the memorisation strategy was interpreted as inner speech if they used a spatial term, e.g. “I remembered that the animals were all facing north/the high school/left/etc.” 292
While the results shown in Table 51 do not show a straightforward relationship between memorisation strategy and frame of reference choice, they do nevertheless suggest that there is support for the idea that visual memorisation versus subvocalised linguistic memorisation yields different rate of frame of reference preference. It is not surprising that when speakers use their language to think, they follow the communicative norms and practices established in their linguistic community. A verbal interference task of the type outlined in §3.2.5 may be helpful for testing to what extent observed correlations between spatial language and cognition in the
AR task are dependent on language being online during recall.
293
9 Theoretical findings and conclusions
This thesis has critically reviewed the literature on spatial language and cognition and its relationship with the environment. It has described in detail the structural and semantic resources Marshallese offers for talking about space, and how speakers employ these resources both in day to day life and in targeted elicitation tasks. In this chapter I will summarise the key contributions of this study (§9.1), and then discuss the implications these findings have for the questions and issues raised in Chapter 3 (§9.2), before introducing the the Sociotopographic
Model (§9.3). Finally, I will consider avenues for further research (§9.4).
Summary Chapter 2 discussed the different ways in which frames of reference have been classified.
Influenced particularly by Bohnemeyer & O’Meara (2012b) and Lum (2018), it argued in favour of classifying frames of reference according to their conceptual structure based on three criteria:
(i) Anchor part of Ground vs external to Ground (binary vs ternary)
(ii) Nature of Anchor (object vs viewer vs environment centred)
(iii) Whether search domain is projected towards a goal (head-anchored) or not
(angular-anchored)
These three criteria yielded a seven-way FoR distinction which account for the majority of distinctions proposed in the literature. While such fine-grained distinctions may not always be necessary, and indeed are frequently collapsed into their relevant supercategories in various parts of this thesis, they nevertheless provide a means for being unambiguous when the occasion calls for it and indeed, without them some of the findings of Chapter 6 would not have been possible. It is hoped that adoption of this more precise distinction will help avoid terminological misunderstandings and controversies such as those discussed in §3.3.1.
Chapter 3 critically reviewed the debate about the root of diversity in spatial reference and spatial cognition. It examined three proposed hypotheses: linguistic relativity, biological
294 universalism, and environmental determinism. It concluded that while all three perspectives are correct in certain respects, the potential consequences of human interaction with the environment for habits of spatial reference and cognition is underexplored. Furthermore, it showed that some of the influential claims regarding the lack of effect of habitual action on frame of reference preference are without merit. This issue is taken up again in §9.2 below, in light of the findings both of this and other recent studies.
Chapters 4 and 5 discussed the linguistics of spatial reference in Marshallese from a qualitative perspective. Chapter 4 focused on the structural aspects of Marshallese spatial reference from a classical functional-typological perspective, with an emphasis on diachrony. It also situated it within the literature of motion verb typology, locative predication, and topological relations. Chapter 5 analysed the semantics of frame of reference in Marshallese as well as their use. It presented the geocentric referencing system of three Marshallese islands,
Jabor, Jaluit Island, and Kili, in doing so demonstrating how speakers are flexible in adapting their spatial referencing system to their local landscape.
Chapters 6 and 7 provided a quantitative analysis of spatial reference practices in
Marshallese. Chapter 6 supported the findings of the previous chapter by presenting the results of a large corpus of Man and Tree tasks. While linguistic elicitation tasks of this type have been relatively frequently employed in the literature, this study is unusual in terms of the level of detail of quantitative analysis and unique (together with Lum 2018) in terms of the sheer size of the corpus developed for analysis on a single language. These factors facilitated the uncovering of a great deal of heterogeneity within the Marshallese linguistic community, reinforcing the cautions made elsewhere in this thesis against the tendency to talk about languages as homogenous
Platonic ideals when it comes to their frame of reference preference. It showed that frame of reference used could vary considerably according to topographic factors (inland vs island populations, urbanised vs less urbanised islands); demographics factors such as age, gender, and
295 education; situational factors such as orientation with respect to sheltered-exposed side (of island) axis, as well as whether it is an entity’s location or its orientation being described.
Chapter 7 provided results from a pilot study of a novel elicitation task, the Object Placement
Task. The purpose of this task was to test how participants analyse front-back-left-right – i.e. body axis – terms. These terms have long been noted as ambiguous in English and other languages, not only because they can be interpreted as either intrinsic or relative frame of reference, but also many subtypes of the relative FoR depending on how the Viewpoint coordinates are mapped onto the Ground. These questions were particularly pertinent for Marshallese, as naturalistic use of relative FoR was observed to be very rare, thus targeted elicitation of these terms was the only way to ascertain participants’ preferences between the various relative subtypes. The results supported the hypothesis that Marshallese speakers would prefer intrinsic FoR over relative FoR and also showed that speakers of Marshallese when forced to use the relative FoR, preferred the translational subtype. However, when the Figure was occluded by the Ground, Marshallese speakers preferred the reflectional FoR. These results support the proposition that the translational relative FoR is relatively common cross-linguistically, as it is being increasingly described as present for non-Western cultures around the world, and contradict previous claims by psychologists of the universalism of the reflectional relative FoR.
Finally, Chapter 8 presented results from two non-linguistic tasks designed to examine the spatio-cognitive preferences of Marshallese speakers. The first task, Animals-in-a-Row (AR), showed that while considerable variation is present, Marshall Islands participants prefer geocentric coding while Springdale participants produced mixed results. These findings for the
Marshall Islands participants were broadly consistent with their linguistic behaviour, but there was a mismatch between Springdale participants’ behaviour in the linguistic Man and Tree elicitation and the non-linguistic AR task. Furthermore, application of Scout Game in the Marshall
Islands yielded strongly egocentric results, indicating a high degree of a task-specificity in spatial cognition. It was argued that this task-specificity could at least be partially accounted for by the 296
Scout Game lending itself solely to image memory solutions while the AR task was solvable with either image memory or subvocalized mnemonics.
Returning to the environmental determinism hypothesis Having summarised the key findings of this study, I now return to the questions raised in Chapter
3 regarding the relationship between language, cognition and environment and consider them in light of the findings of not only this study, but also those of the broader Atolls Research Group.
9.2.1 Implications for the Topographic Correspondence Hypothesis In §3.3.2, Palmer’s (2015: 210) Topographic Correspondence Hypothesis (TCH) was introduced.
This hypothesis made two predictions:
(i) [T]hat languages spoken in diverse topographic environments, even
when they are closely related, will tend to have systems of absolute
spatial reference that differ in ways that correlate to topographic
variation, and further that individual languages spoken in a range of
environments will show similar diversity.
(ii) [T]hat languages spoken in similar topographic environments will tend to
have similar systems of absolute spatial reference, regardless of
phylogenetic, areal or typological affiliation, and that similar
environments will lead to similar spatial systems, even in entirely
unrelated languages spoken in completely separate parts of the world.
The present study alone provides a test case for (i) and when compared with Lum (2018)
– the other ARG case study – they together provide a test case for (ii).
The findings in this study can be interpreted to support TCH prediction (i) to some extent but they also pose some problems for it. On the one hand, there was a stark difference between
Marshallese spatial reference as employed in Springdale compared to how it was employed in the RMI. The former group produced primarily geocentric strategies, especially the iar-lik
297
‘sheltered side-exposed side (of island)’ axis when describing spatial scenes, while the latter group produced primarily egocentric strategies, which have been described as adaptations to urban environments (§3.3.3), supporting the TCH. On the other hand, prediction (i) also expects a difference between how space is used on atolls like Jaluit compared to singleton islands on Kili.
While some differences were found, especially in how the cardinal directions were used, there was little evidence that this was due to the distinction between atoll islet and singleton island.
Indeed, cardinal direction use was also found to differ between Jabor and Jaluit Island, two islets on the same atoll (§5.5).
In fact, the findings suggested that the same underlying system of geocentric reference is used on both Kili and Jaluit Atoll, and that the underlying semantics of the iar-lik axis are not specified for the distinction between atoll islet and singleton island. Perhaps this should not be surprising, especially since it corresponds with the fact that atolls and singleton islands are not distinguished in the Marshallese lexicon. This consistency in the semantics of geocentric directionals and of toponymic categorisation further indicates that the two are not ontologically distinguished in the Marshallese conceptualisation of their surrounding landscape. This fact reveals a flaw in the TCH; it relies on a realist understanding of the physical environment, wherein etic classifications of the environment can be analysed across languages. However, speakers interact with – and assign categories to – their surrounding landscape in a multitude of different ways.
This is made even clearer when comparing the Marshallese spatial referencing system to that of Dhivehi (Lum 2018). Unlike Marshallese, the distinction between the sheltered side and exposed side of an islet is not commonly employed for spatial descriptions. Instead older, more traditional speakers use cardinal directions to describe scenes in tabletop space, while the younger, less traditional speakers use significantly more relative FoR. This is not unlike some of the findings of this study, but in the Dhivehi group, these differences are much more pronounced
(for a significantly more detailed comparison of the two languages, see Palmer et al. 2017). 298
Variation between speakers of the same language in the same topography is also problematic for a deterministic hypothesis such as the TCH. If different languages in the same topographies tend to have similar systems of spatial reference, then it stands to reason that speakers of the same language in the same topography must too. That this is not so reinforces a point made at various times throughout this thesis: languages are not Platonic ideals, there are no ‘absolute’ or
‘relative’ languages, there are only speakers, each with their own idiolect, each constantly adapting their language based on their interaction with others in their community and with the world around them. This point is hardly revolutionary; indeed, it is the foundational premise behind the entire subfield of sociolinguistics. However, while this has no doubt been known by scholars who have studied cross-linguistic diversity in spatial referencing systems over the past few decades, it seems to often have been forgotten. For these reasons, the findings of the present study cannot fully support the TCH in its original formulation. Nevertheless, this study does support the idea that the environment affects spatial reference, but only mediated through how speakers interact with – and are acculturated to – not only their surrounding physical landscape, but crucially also their linguistic landscape.
The Sociotopographic Model The predictions made by the TCH are not substantiated by the findings of the two ARG case studies. However, these case studies do nevertheless show a strong effect of habitual action on frame of reference preference. The habitual action of people and communities does emerge as a response to the environment in which speakers find themselves. For example, Lum (2018: 229-
238) finds that fishermen and those living on primarily fishing communities are far more likely to use geocentric strategies in the Man and Tree task compared to white collar workers, or those living on an islet where fishing is rare, who are more likely to use egocentric strategies. Of course, fishing as a dominant subsistence mode is only possible in environments which afford it, such as the rich reefs of atolls. Furthermore, subsistence mode is as much an outcome of what is not available as what is. Atolls are in many ways resource-poor, with very little land available for 299 farming or animal husbandry. The Marshall Islands before European contact only had a few staple crops, and without the revolutionary nutritional power of one of them – the breadfruit tree – settlement of the Marshall Islands and other low-lying atolls of Micronesia may not have been possible in the first place (Petersen 2006). The unique and precarious situation of island- dwellers and particularly atoll-dwellers encourages the development of large social networks spanning archipelagos, as well as long-distance trade (Petersen 2009). Cultural practices such as trade and fishing necessitate the development of highly complex navigational practices (for those of the Marshallese, see Genz 2014; Genz 2016). These facts have been true for all pre- industrialised atoll-based communities, including Marshallese and Maldivians. However, they are not necessarily true, and the introduction of imported food and market economies more broadly are changing the lifestyles of communities not just on atolls, but around the world, and accordingly as the way speakers interact with their surrounding topography is changing, so too are their spatial referencing practices.
The resulting picture these facts lead us to is complex, with the topography and other aspects of the external environment playing a role in constructing linguistic and conceptual representations of space, but only insofar as they are mediated by a range of sociocultural factors. Rather than the linguistic repertoire for expressing frame of reference being arbitrary as some have suggested (§3.2), it is in fact an adaptational response to the communicative needs of its speakers, needs which are in part motivated by the environments in which speakers reside
(Regier, Carstensen & Kemp 2016). Speakers can always modify their linguistic repertoire by borrowing new terms, as Maldivians have done by borrowing the sidereal compass of foreign traders (Lum 2018: 174), or by adapting their existing linguistic repertoire for new purposes, such as how frame of reference terms evolve from topological relation markers (§2.1.1).
However, while speakers can innovate, it is still true to some extent that they are constrained by the linguistic resources their language has available. In the absence of competing pressures,
300 it is more economical to deploy resources established in the language, rather than innovate new ways of speaking. Language form and language use are co-evolutionary.
Therefore, any theory purporting to account for diversity in spatial frame of references across and within communities must take into account this diversity of factors. The ARG has sought to do so in the formulation of a Sociotopographic Model (STM), which is illustrated in
Figure 46 below.
Culture - present/historical interactions with environment Environment - spatially anchored - topographic cultural practices - climatic Language Linguistic - spatialised cultural use repertoire - built artefacts (e.g. maps; orthography) - conceptualisation of environment in terms of above
Figure 46: Towards a Sociotopographic Model (Palmer et al. 2017)
The schematisation presented in the STM shows both environment and linguistic repertoire effecting culture, writ large to include non-linguistic conceptualisation and cognition.97 It also shows culture in turn influencing the linguistic repertoire through language use, i.e. the communicative needs of speakers and linguistic communities. The relationship between culture and the built environment is also bidirectional. An illustrative example of this is the use of landmarks for spatial reference, as shown in the Man and Tree task (§6.3.1.1). In this task, the much higher degree of urbanisation on the islet of Jabor, compared to Jaluit Island, afforded participants the use of several large, visually salient and culturally prominent landmarks such as the high school and the airport, with the former in particular becoming part
97 ‘Culture’ here is referring to a large variety of interrelated factors, including habitual action, cognitive styles and categorisation. Naturally, these deserve to be unpacked further, but the present study is linguistically-focused. A similar approach from psychology is Berry’s (1976) ‘eco-cultural framework’ which has been employed by Dasen & Mishra (2010) to study spatial frame of reference. 301
of the conventionalised repertoire of spatial reference on the islet. The degree of urbanisation
of an islet is not arbitrary, it is a function of cultural practices and behaviours, including socio-
political importance historical and present. This applies to Jabor which is the administrative
centre of the atoll, the former national capital, and remains a regional subcentre for the
southern Rālik region.
This socio-political prominence generates a variety of political and educational jobs, i.e.
development of a specialised labour force which in turn necessitates the development of a
market economy to their needs. It can therefore be seen that the sociocultural importance of
Jabor leads to the construction of a number of large structures, whose presence reinforces the
cultural prominence of the islet. These large structures are not only visually salient , but are also
socially salient. The churches are the site of many large gatherings throughout the week, most
islanders have spent several years at the high school and have have family attending at any
given moment, and the airport is the connection to the outside world, through which goods are
imported and visitors and locals travel. It is no surprise therefore that they are employed as
Environment Culture Language use Jabor: small - market economy - buildings often urbanised islet - regional centre of used as landmarks w/ large political, educational, Linguistic structures religious institutions repertoire - wide variety of strategies for referring to Environment Culture Language use space available Jaluit Island: - subsistence lifestyle - buildings not
large, sparsely often used as settled islet landmarks
Figure 47: How the STM models landmark use differences between Jabor and Jaluit Island
landmarks.
Figure 47 schematises the interaction between landmark use, culture and environment
in the STM. Note that due to contact between the two islets as well as with the outside world,
302 both islets have the same linguistic repertoire available, but if this were not the case then presumably Jaluit Island would have no terms for airports or high schools.
Another example illustrating the STM is the use of iar ‘sheltered side’ on atoll islets like
Jabor and Jaluit Island compared to singleton islands like Kili. As discussed in §5.3.3.1, despite previous descriptions of Marshallese translating iar as ‘lagoon side’ in English, evidence points to a unified underlying sense of ‘sheltered side’. The reason these ontologically distinct topographies (from an English speaking analyst’s perspective) are co-lexified in Marshallese may only in part be attributed to their visual similarity, as though they are similar in some ways, they are nevertheless quite visually distinct from one another in terms of their topography. The lagoon side on atolls tends to be very calm, with few to no waves, and have crystalline blue water. Sometimes, other islands are visible on the opposite side of the lagoon. In contrast, Kili’s iar is rocky, with waves. However, they both have in common their opposition to lik, the ocean side on Jabor and the windward side on Kili. The windward side of Kili and the ocean side of
Jabor are visually quite similar to each other – rocky areas covered in dead coral with large waves. Thus iar’s senses emerge from opposition to lik’s (and vice-versa), iar is the calmer, sandier, less rocky side of the island, the site with more buildings and more human activity.
Furthermore, whether on an atoll islet or a singleton island, the opposition between iar and lik both afford – or necessitate – similar behavioural responses. Even though an atoll lagoon is much calmer than Kili’s lee side, it is still preferable for boats to moor on the calmest side of the islet, iar. Similarly, houses are built near the lagoon side of an atoll or lee side of a singleton island because that side is less likely to flood. Therefore, the lagoon side of an atoll and the lee side of an island both have the same functions for the communities who respectively inhabit them. This in turn leads to Marshallese modifying the physical landscape of the lagoon side of atoll islets and lee sides of singleton islands in similar ways: clearing land to build settlements.
Regardless of topography, iar is the built-up side of the island where people live. Since the land on the iar side is cleared to allow for buildings and community activities, it is less vegetated than 303 the lik side, where people harvest copra.98 Thus, socioculturally determined responses to environmental pressures lead Marshallese reinforce the distinction between iar and lik in parallel ways on atoll and singleton island topographies.
Environment Language use Jaluit Island Iar refers to lagoon Atoll islet built side of islet to lagoon side Culture - need to settle in and Linguistic sail to/from sheltered areas repertoire - iar ‘sheltered - need to retain areas side of island’ Environment on island for agriculture Language use
Kili Iar refers to lee side Singleton island of island built to lee side
Figure 48: Using the STM to model the use of iar on Jaluit Atoll and Kili
With so much in common in terms of their community function and their visual appearance, it is therefore no surprise that Kili’s iar and Jabor’s iar are co-lexified. This co- lexification suggests iar represents a unified concept in the Marshallese ontological worldview
(Figure 48).
The STM is an attempt to model how spatial referencing preferences emerge from the interaction of a variety of factors. No doubt, there is room for its further development, but in foregrounding the role of the environment, acknowledging the potential for intra-community variation in frame of referencing preferences, and in emphasising the importance of not just language qua language as an important variable, but also language use, the STM represents an acknowledgment of the complex, multifaceted motivations behind diversity in spatial referencing and spatial cognition.
98 This is now only true for Jaluit Island, since on Kili specifically, the lik side has been cleared for an airstrip. On the small islet of Jabor the lik side has recently been cleared for new buildings such as the Catholic church as population density creates pressures towards urbanisation of the entire islet. However, in both cases, the lik side was cleared long after the iar side. 304
Note that while the STM and the findings of this study reject the arbitrariness principle upon which many have staked the relativity hypothesis, these claims do not preclude some of the forms of linguistic relativity such as thinking-for-speaking (§3.2.5). Though it remains to be seen how much observed relativity effects in spatial reference are a result of language being online during non-linguistic reasoning (§3.2.5; §8.3), any effects which do persist must be accounted for. As Bohnemeyer et al. (2015: 194) point out, invoking a frame of reference, whether linguistically or non-linguistically, is still a cognitive practice. The STM includes ‘culture’ in a separate box from language use and the linguistic repertoire for modelling purposes, but of course language and culture are inextricably linked. As the primary form of communicative- semiotic interaction, language is naturally a vehicle through which culture is transmitted and diffused (though certainly not the only one!). Perhaps language as a transmission system for cognitive practices is not the sort of phenomenon some scholars are comfortable referring to as
‘linguistic relativity’, therefore Bohnemeyer et al. (2014; 2015) propose the Linguistic
Transmission Hypothesis to describe this weaker form of (non-deterministic) linguistic relativity.
Conclusions At the outset of this thesis (§1.4), several aims and research questions were identifed:
• What linguistic resources (structural, semantic, pragmatic) do Marshallese speakers use
to refer to space?
• How do Marshallese spatial referencing practices differ between individuals and
communities and what factors (social, environmental, etc.) influence these differences?
• How do Marshallese speakers talk about space in inland suburban areas far away from
their home atolls?
• What is the relationship between spatial reference and non-linguistic spatial cognition
in Marshallese?
305
• What can the answers to the above questions tell us about the relationship between
spatial language, non-linguistic spatial cognition and the physical environment? Will the
evidence support the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis, or the Topographic
Correspondence Hypothesis?
These questions are complex and not all can be settled within the bounds of a single study.
However, considerable progress has been made. Chapters 4-7 constitute a description of
Marshallese spatial reference significantly deeper than that of any previous study and Chapter
8 constitutes the first investigation of Marshallese non-linguistic spatial cognition. The relationship between language, thought, and environment has been critically reviewed in
Chapter 3, with evidence pointing away from both the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis, and the
Topographic Correspondence Hypothesis, towards a more nuanced understanding of the interrelation between these factors, which support Bohnemeyer et al.’s (2014; 2015) Linguistic
Transmission Hypothesis (present chapter). Furthermore, this thesis has presented a useful tool for modelling the relationship between these factors in the form of the Sociotopographic Model.
It is hoped that more nuanced picture presented by this study and the Atolls Research Group more broadly (Palmer et al. 2017), as well as similar recent studies such as those by Dasen &
Mishra (2010); the MesoSpace Group (Bohnemeyer et al. 2015) and Shapero (2017) will inspire further research into the role of environment, culture, and language on diversity of spatial referencing practices.
9.4.1 Avenues for further research Several aspects of spatial language and cognition in Marshallese merit further exploration. The distinct systems of geocentric spatial reference on Jabor, Jaluit Island, and Kili indicate that there is variation not only atoll to atoll but islet to islet. This implies that there are over 100 slightly (or perhaps significantly) different systems of geocentric spatial reference to explore in the
Marshalls. Of particular interest are the two other populated singleton islands, Jabat and Mejit.
Though an interview a Mejit Islander living in Springdale was conducted, proper exploration of 306 these systems requires in-situ research. Similarly, there are still many questions to answer about
Marshallese spatial reference outside of the RMI. The Marshallese community in Springdale was chosen in part due to it being the largest in the US, but it is also comparatively recently established compared to many others. All but one of the participants in this study were first generation migrants and the findings from targeted elicitation tasks like Man and Tree were somewhat inconclusive, as participants were using primarily egocentric strategies, but did not appear comfortable doing so. This raises the question of how second generation Marshallese speakers acquire systems of spatial reference in Springdale. There are also questions of how universalisable the Springdale Marshallese data is for the entire diaspora Marshallese population. The inland suburban Springdale community was chosen in part due to its size, but also because its topography is maximally distinct from that of Marshallese atolls. However, many diaspora Marshallese live on islands such as those in Hawai’i and Guam, or in coastal areas near the beach such as those in Costa Mesa, California. Perhaps these topographies which are more similar to those of the Marshall Islands afford maintenance of a geocentric system of spatial reference more so than Springdale does.
Another area meriting further examination is the semantics of body axis (FBLR) terms, as discussed in Chapter 7. The Object Placement Task as a pilot study yielded interesting data, but the picture it painted was complicated by issues of experimental design, which have since been improved on (Poulton 2016). The Springdale study ought to be repeated using this methodology with a higher number of participants. Additionally, though the Springdale results were quite distinct from those of Australian English speakers (Schlossberg, Lum & Poulton 2016), perhaps Marshallese speakers living in the RMI, with far less contact with native English speakers, would show different results in this experiment. Administering the OPT in the Marshall
Islands would afford comparison of these two populations, as has been achieved for the other tasks.
307
Additionally there are several aspects of Marshallese spatial cognition yet to be explored. Self-reporting from participants in the Animals-in-a-Row task suggest that the observed correlation between this non-linguistic task and linguistic behaviour is due to the fact that language is online when participants are performing the task (§8.3). This merits systematic testing through the application of a verbal interference task. Furthermore, it is interesting that different participants chose different ways of solving the task, either visual working memory or verbal working memory. This shows that it is necessary to perform a variety of different tasks which target different aspects of spatial cognition.
9.4.2 Final thoughts Finally, it is hoped that this study will inspire further efforts into researching and documenting minority languages across the world. In an age where colonialism and globalisation is increasingly leading to the assimilation of minority cultures and languages into mainstream hegemonic WEIRD society (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic; see
Henrich, Heine & Norenzayan 2010), the task of documenting and describing the culture, language and cognitive styles of these peoples is more urgent than ever. If the sea rises and claims the atolls of the Marshallese people, it will not just be the Marshallese losing their homes
(a tragedy enough!), but humanity losing the cultural-linguistic heritage which is the product of a unique people’s interaction with a unique environment over thousands of years. While this study cannot hold back the waves from crashing over the sea walls of Marshallese, Maldivian, or Kiribati atolls, it can at least preserve some aspects of this rich intangible heritage that would otherwise be lost, as well as hopefully bring their plight to the attention of the wider world.
However, there is always more that can be done, because as Marshallese poet Kathy Jetnil-
Kijiner (2017: 70–74) forcefully states: we deserve to do more than just survive, we deserve to thrive.
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Appendix 1: Instructions
The following are the instructions for the various elicitation tasks which are the subjects of
Chapters 6 and 8. Note that the Marshallese instructions were professionally translated in
Majuro before commencement of fieldwork and preserve the orthographical conventions selected by the translator, Coffee Kiluwe, rather than those used elsewhere in this work.
1.1 Man and Tree task ‘We would like you to play a game so that we can listen to how Dhivehi/Marshallese speakers talk to each other. You will sit side by side here but you will be separated by this screen. Both of you have the same set of 16 pictures, each with a man and a tree. One of you will play the role of ‘director’, and the other will play the role of ‘matcher’. If you are the director, you will describe a group of pictures one at a time to the matcher, in an order of your choosing. You should describe each picture in such a way that the matcher can select the picture that is the same from their own set. The matcher can also ask the director questions if they want to. When you have finished with a picture, place it to the side like this and form a pile. We want the matcher to guess the matching picture just by listening to the director. The screen is to stop you seeing one another’s pictures, so please do not look over it. Once you have gone through all the pictures, you will swap roles and play the game again. The person who was the matcher will be the director and the person who was the director will be the matcher.’
Je konaan bwe kwon kommane juon ikkure jidikdik bwe kōmin roñjake waween an riMajōl kōnono nan doon ilo kajin Majōl. Kom naaj jijet iturin doon ijoke juōn katiiñ enaaj pād ikōtaami im kōjepel kom jān doon. Komro jimor enaaj wor amiro kajjojo ejja lajrak in pija kein 16, kon juon emmaan im juōn wōjke. Juōn iaamiro enaaj kōmmane ijo kunaan ‘rikeplaake’ eo im eo juōn enaaj kōmmane ijo kunaan ‘rikōppeaea’. Elañe kwe eo kwoj ri keplaak eo, kwo naaj kemeleleiki pija ko juōn illok juōn ñan ri kōppeaea eo, ilo lajrak eo kwoj karōke.Kwon kwalok kadkadin kajjojo pija ilo juōn wāween eo me ri kōppeaea eo emaroñ kālet pija eo ej āinwōt jān lajrak eo an make. Ri kōppeaea eo emaron barāinwōt kajjitōk ippān ri kōplaake eo kajjitōk ko elañe re kōnaan. Ñe emōj juōn pija, likiti na ijo rājet āinwōt in ñan kōmmane juōn ejojik. Je kōnaan bwe ri kōppeaea eo en lemnake pija eo ejejjet ilo an baj roñjake ri keplaake eo. Katiiñ eo ej ñan bōbraiki amiro lo pija ko an doon kōn men in jouj im jab kōjjaad. Ien eo emōj ami jerbal kōn aolep pija ko, kom naaj kotaaik ijoko kunaan doon im bar kōmmane ikkure eo. Armej eo me ear ri kōppeaea eo enaaj erom ri keplaake eo im armej eo ear ri keplaake eo enaaj erom ri kōppeaea eo.
319
1.2 Animals-in-a-Row ‘We would like you to play a simple memory game. We have four different toy animals here. You will see three of these placed in a line. You will need to remember which animals they are and how they are arranged. When you are ready, we will take away the animals and wait for a small amount of time. We will then give the animals to you and ask you to make the line again, exactly as it was. After that, you will play the game again with the animals in a different arrangement. You will play the game five times in total. First we will play a few practice games.’
Je kōnaan bwe kwon kōmmane ikkure in etan ‘kememej’. Ewor emen kajjojo kain menin mour ko ijin. Kwonaaj lo jilu iaaer emōj likiti ilo juōn line. Kwo naaj aikuuj in kememej kain menin mour rot kein im wāween aer laajrak. Ñe kwo pojak, kōm naaj bōki menin mour kein im kōttar jidik. Innem kōm naaj kōrooli waj menin mour kein ñan kwe im kajjitōk ippām bwe kwon bar likiti na ilo line eo, āinwōt aer kar pād mokta. Ālikin men in, kwo naaj bar kōmmane ikkure in kōn menin mour kein ilo juōn lajrak eo eoktaklok jidik. Kwo naaj ikkure lalem alen. Mokta jenaaj ikkure im kamminene kōn ikkur in.
1.3 Scout Game We would like you to play a simple memory game. Here is a path around some fields. You start off here at the house, and you go along the path, all the way around, until you get to here [trace path with finger]. You have to get from the end of the path back to the house. You cannot go through the trees and you cannot cross these stones. You’ve got to go here between them [trace remainder of route with finger]. First we will practice the game. Now I want you to remember this path. I will then show you the cards on the other table and you will pick the one which takes you from the end of the path back to the house.’
Je kōnaan bwe kwon kōmmane ikkure in naetan kememej. Eñin juōn ial ipelaakin jet melan ko. Kwoj jino ijin iturin mweo, im etal kapoole ial eo aolepān, mae ien kwo tōbar ijin. Kwoj aikuuj etal jān jabōn ial eo im jeplaak lok ñan mweo. Kwojjab maroñ etal ibulōn wōjke ko im kwojjab maroñ etal ellā ion dekā kein. Kwoj aikuuj etal im tōbar ijin ikōtaaer. Moktata jenaaj kamminene kōn ikkure in. Kiō ikōnaan bwe kwon kememej ial in. Innem inaaj kwalok ñan eok card ko ion ijo rājet in table in im kwon naaj kelet juōn eo me kwoj bōk jān jabōn ial eo im rool ñan mweo
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Appendix 2: Sample Man and Tree text
The following text is a short Man and Tree task played on Kili. The director, RJ7, is a 23 year old male with an elementary school education. The matcher, JJ3, is a 23 year old male with a high school education. The game is being played indoors with the participants facing north-west, perpendicular to the iar-lik axis.
File name: MAR_MT_KILI_20140401_RJ7_JJ3_2_NW
RJ7: ļe ņe e=j pād tu-lik
man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-exposed.side
“That man is on the exposed side.”
RJ7: wōjke ņe e=j pād tu-iar.
tree DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-sheltered.side
“That tree is on the sheltered side.”
RJ7: e=j kalimjek e wōjke e tu-iar.
3SG.S=IPFV stare.at.TR 3SG.O tree DEM1 SIDE-sheltered.side
“He is looking at the tree on the sheltered side.”
RJ7: ļe ņe e=j pād tu-lik.
man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-exposed.side
“That man is on the sheltered side.”
RJ7: e=j kalimjek wōjke e tu-iar.
3SG.S=IPFV stare.at.TR tree DEM1 SIDE-sheltered.side
“He is looking at the tree on the sheltered side.”
321
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: ko=naaj lale
3SG.S=IPFV look.TR
“You will look…”
RJ7: wōjke ņe e=j pād tu-rilik.
tree DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-west
“That tree is in the west.”
RJ7: ļe ņe e=j pād tu-rear.
man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-east
“That man is in the east.”
RJ7: e=j kalimjek e wōjke ņe nan̄ rilik
3SG.S=IPFV stare.at.TR 3SG.O tree DEM2 to west
“He is looking at the tree to the west.”
RJ7: im lale pija ņe wōjke ņe e=j pād rilik;
and look.TR picture DEM2 tree DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located west
“and look for the picture in which the tree is in the west”
RJ7: ļe ņe e=j pād rear ak e=j erre lik=ļo̧k
man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located east but 3SG.S=IPFV look exposed.side=DIR3
“that man is in the east and is looking to the exposed side”
322
RJ7: jit=lik=ļo̧k.
facing=exposed.side=DIR3
“facing to the exposed side.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: ko=naaj lale wōjke ņe …
3SG.S=IPFV look.TR tree DEM2
“You will look for that tree…”
RJ7: ļe ņe e=j pād tu-iari-n wōjke e
man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-sheltered.side-3SG.P tree DEM1
“That man is on the sheltered side of this tree.”
RJ7: ak e=j erre ta=ļo̧k.
but 3SG.S=IPFV look eastward=DIR3
“and he is looking eastwards.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: ko=naaj lale wōjke ņe e=j pād tu-lik
3SG.S=IPFV look.TR tree DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-exposed.side
“You will look for that tree which is on the exposed side”
323
RJ7: ak ļe ņe e=j pād tu-iar.
but man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-sheltered.side
“and the man is on the sheltered side.”
RJ7: ak ļe ņe e=j pād tu-iar.
but man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-sheltered.side
“and the man is on the sheltered side.”
RJ7: e=j erre ar=ļo̧k.
3SG.S=IPFV look sheltered.side=DIR3
“and he is looking to the sheltered side.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: ko=naaj lale wōjke ņe …
3SG.S=IPFV look.TR tree DEM2
“You will look for that tree …”
RJ7: wōjke ņe e=j pād iar.
tree DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located sheltered.side
“That tree is on the sheltered side.”
RJ7: ļe ņe e=j pād lik,
man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located exposed.side
“That man is on the exposed side.”
324
RJ7: e=j erre ta=ļo̧k.
3SG.S=IPFV look eastward=DIR3
“He is looking eastwards.”
JJ3: bar ba m̧ōk
again say please
“Say it again please.”
RJ7: ļe ņe e=j pād lik,
man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located exposed.side
“That man is on the exposed side.”
RJ7: wōjke ņe e=j pād iar.
tree DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located sheltered.side
“That tree is on the sheltered side.”
RJ7: e=j erre ta=ļo̧k, jit=ta= ļo̧k,
3SG.S=IPFV look eastward=DIR3 face=eastward=DIR3
“He is looking eastwards, facing eastwards.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: ko=naaj lale wōjke ņe …
3SG.S=IPFV look.TR tree DEM2
“You will look for that tree …”
325
RJ7: e=pād tu-iari-n ļe e
3SG.S=be.located SIDE-sheltered.side-3SG.P man DEM1
“It is on the sheltered side of this man.”
RJ7: ļe ņe e=j pād tu-lik
man DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-exposed.side
“That man is on the exposed side”
RJ7: ak e=j erre to=ļo̧k.
but 3SG.S=IPFV look westward=DIR3
“he is looking westwards.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: wōjke ņe e=j pād tu-rilik … tu-rear
tree DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-west SIDE-east
“That tree is on the west side … east side.”
RJ7: ak ļe e e=j pād tu-rilik im erre ar=ļo̧k.
SIDE- but man DEM 3SG.S=IPFV be.located and look sheltered.side=DIR3 west
“and the man is on the west side and is looking to the sheltered side.”
JJ3: wōjke ņe e=j pād tu-rear?
tree DEM2 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-east
“That tree is on the east side?”
326
RJ7: wōjke e e= pād tu-rear
tree DEM1 3SG.S= be.located SIDE-east
“That tree is on the east side”
RJ7: ak ļe e e=j pād tu-rilik im erre ar=ļo̧k.
SIDE- but man DEM 3SG.S=IPFV be.located and look sheltered.side=DIR3 west
“and the man is on the west side and is looking to the sheltered side.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: wōjke e e=j pād tu-rilik … tu-rear
tree DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-west SIDE-east
“That tree is on the west side … east side.”
RJ7: ak ļe e e=j pād rilik
but man DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located west
“and this man is in the west”
RJ7: ak e=j jit=to=ļo̧k.
and 3SG.S=IPFV face=westward=DIR3
“and he is facing westwards.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
327
RJ7: wōjke e e=j pād rear
tree DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located east
“That tree is in the east.”
RJ7: ak ļe e e=j pād rilik
but man DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located west
“and this man is in the west”
RJ7: ak e=j jit=to=ļo̧k.
and 3SG.S=IPFV face=westward=DIR3
“and he is facing westwards.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: wōjke e e=j pād rilik
tree DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located west
“That tree is in the west.”
RJ7: ak ļe e e=j pād rear.
but man DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located east
“and this man is in the east.”
RJ7: e=j jit=ar=ļo̧k.
3SG.S=IPFV face=sheltered.side=DIR3
“He is facing to the sheltered side.”
328
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: wōjke e e=j pād rilik
tree DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located west
“That tree is in the west.”
RJ7: ļe e e=j pād rear ak e=j jit=ta=ļo̧k.
man DEM 3SG.S=IPFV be.located east and 3SG.S=IPFV face=eastward=DIR3
“The man is in the east and is facing eastwards.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: wōjke e e=j pād lik
tree DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located exposed.side
“This tree is on the exposed side.”
RJ7: ak ļe e e=j pād tu-iar
but man DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-shelted.side
“and this man is in the east.”
RJ7: ak e=j erre to=ļo̧k.
but 3SG.S=IPFV look westward=DIR3
“and he is looking westwards.”
329
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: wōjke e e=j pād tu-iar
tree DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-sheltered.side
“This tree is on the sheltered side.”
RJ7: ļe e e=j pād tu-liki-n wōjke e
man DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-exposed.side-3SG.P tree DEM1
“This man is on the exposed side of this tree.”
RJ7: e=j erre lik=ļo̧k.
3SG.S=IPFV look exposed.side=DIR3
“he is looking to the exposed side.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: wōjke e e=j pād tu-rear.
tree DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-east
“This tree is on the east side.”
RJ7: ak ļe e e=j pād tu-rilik.
but man DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-west
“and this man is in the west.”
330
RJ7: e=j kalimjek-e wōjke e
3SG.S=IPFV stare.at-TR tree DEM1
“He is looking at this tree.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
RJ7: wōjke e e=j pād tu-lik.
tree DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-exposed.side
“This tree is on the exposed side.”
RJ7: ļe e e=j pād tu-iar
man DEM1 3SG.S=IPFV be.located SIDE-shelted.side
“This man is on the sheltered side.”
RJ7: e=j kalimjek wōjke e
3SG.S=IPFV stare.at.TR tree DEM1
“He is looking at this tree.”
JJ3: em̧m̧an
good
“Alright.”
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Appendix 3: Man and Tree statistical analysis
3.1 Location: RMI vs Springdale RMI n = 39 Mann-Whitney U tests (two-tailed) Springdale n = 9 Location Orientation U p U p Cardinals 45.00 <0.001 34.00 <0.001 Environment 18.00 <0.001 9.00 <0.001 Misc. landmarks 119.00 0.081 168.50 0.849 Total geocentric 7.50 <0.001 11.50 <0.001
SAP-landmarks 111.50 0.007 84.00 0.012 Relative FoR 34.00 <0.001 46.00 <0.001 Total egocentric 6.00 <0.001 49.00 0.001
Intrinsic 103.50 0.042 n/a n/a Vertical 130.50 0.209 115.00 0.017 Tree-directed n/a n/a 122.00 0.159
3.2 Age (RMI only) n = 39 Spearman’s Rho Location Orientation rs p rs p Cardinals -0.035 0.835 0.030 0.854 Environment -0.204 0.212 -0.175 0.286 Misc. landmarks -0.166 0.314 -0.023 0.887 Total geocentric -0.282 0.082 -0.260 0.110
SAP-landmarks -0.044 0.778 0.236 0.148 Relative FoR -0.026 0.877 0.152 0.357 Total egocentric -0.009 0.958 0.245 0.133
Intrinsic 0.355 0.027 n/a n/a Vertical 0.221 0.176 0.203 0.215 Tree-directed n/a n/a 0.222 0.174
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3.3 Gender: male vs female (RMI only) Female n = 12 Mann-Whitney U test (two-tailed) Male n = 27 Location Orientation U p U p Cardinals 158.50 0.575 132.50 0.376 Environment 141.50 0.543 115.50 0.162 Misc. landmarks 108.00 0.069 138.00 0.441 Total geocentric 127.50 0.301 147.00 0.658
SAP-landmarks 127.00 0.03 139.50 0.489 Relative FoR 161.50 0.999 144.00 0.539 Total egocentric 140.00 0.457 135.50 0.424
Intrinsic 158.50 0.913 n/a n/a Vertical 122.00 0.194 138.00 0.291 Tree-directed n/a n/a 140.50 0.523
3.4 Education: low vs high (RMI only) Low ed. n = 8 Mann-Whitney U test (two-tailed) High ed. n = 30 Location Orientation U p U p Cardinals 73.50 0.099 90.50 0.027 Environment 103.50 0.569 121.00 0.181 Misc. landmarks 84.00 0.247 127.50 0.204 Total geocentric 77.00 0.129 70.500 0.005
SAP-landmarks 104.00 0.582 77.00 0.009 Relative FoR 99.50 0.390 148.00 0.437 Total egocentric 83.00 0.190 104.00 0.574
Intrinsic 78.50 0.142 n/a n/a Vertical 106.50 0.741 166.00 1.00 Tree-directed n/a n/a 98.50 0.049
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3.5 Literacy: frequent vs infrequent (RMI only) Frequent n = 14 Mann-Whitney U tests (two-tailed) Infrequent n = 24 Location Orientation U p U p Cardinals 148.00 0.544 162.00 0.856 Environment 160.00 0.809 82.00 0.009 Misc. landmarks 145.00 0.501 125.00 0.154 Total geocentric 140.00 0.395 115.50 0.111
SAP-landmarks 137.50 0.083 66.50 0.001 Relative FoR 165.00 0.151 167.00 1.000 Total egocentric 110.00 0.042 96.50 0.027
Intrinsic 144.00 0.419 n/a n/a Vertical 152.00 0.595 159.50 0.848 Tree-directed n/a n/a 165.00 0.934
3.6 Employment type: white collar vs not white collar (RMI only) White collar n = 15 Mann-Whitney U tests (two-tailed) Not white collar n = Location Orientation 24 U p U p Cardinals 165.50 0681 154.00 0.457 Environment 172.00 0.825 102.50 0.024 Misc. landmarks 156.00 0.452 109.00 0.027 Total geocentric 148.00 0.363 118.00 0.074
SAP-landmarks 150.00 0.177 86.00 0.004 Relative FoR 163.00 0.560 176.00 0.698 Total egocentric 142.00 0.208 171.50 0.812
Intrinsic 157.00 0.482 n/a n/a Vertical 174.00 0.863 150.00 0.179 Tree-directed n/a n/a 141.50 0.270
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3.7 Setting: indoors vs outdoors (Jabor only) Indoors n = 10 Mann-Whitney U tests (two-tailed) Outdoors n = 6 Location Orientation U p U p Cardinals 16.00 0.144 29.50 0.980 Environment 27.00 0.770 23.00 0.475 Misc. landmarks 28.00 0.875 23.00 0.494 Total geocentric 23.00 0.490 26.00 0.691
SAP-landmarks 25.00 0.374 27.00 0.774 Relative FoR 28.00 0.794 27.00 0.792 Total egocentric 28.00 0.794 21.50 0.381
Intrinsic 29.00 0.953 n/a n/a Vertical 14.50 0.081 28.00 1.000 Tree-directed n/a n/a 29.00 0.937
3.8 Orientation: parallel vs perpendicular to iar-lik (RMI only) Parallel n = 20 Mann-Whitney U tests (two-tailed) Perpendicular n = Location Orientation 19 U p U p Cardinals 181.00 0.812 157.50 0.368 Environment 147.00 0.234 180.00 0.787 Misc. landmarks 140.00 0.121 189.00 0.988 Total geocentric 104.50 0.014 124.50 0.066
SAP-landmarks 150.00 0.047 133.00 0.095 Relative FoR 175.50 0.603 160.00 0.107 Total egocentric 149.00 0.188 139.50 0.150
Intrinsic 130.50 0.067 n/a n/a Vertical 156.00 0.308 169.00 0.224 Tree-directed n/a n/a 155.00 0.331
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3.9 Location vs orientation descriptions n = 38 Bootstrapped paired-sample t-test M Location Orient. SD t(47) p Relative (translational) 0.014 0.014 0.036 -0.082 0.949 Relative (reflectional) 0.037 0.012 0.097 2.252 0.101 Relative (transverse) 0.061 0.037 0.097 1.762 0.158 Relative (TOTAL) 0.112 0.062 0.147 2.322 0.100 SAP-landmarks 0.031 0.117 0.154 -3.895 0.983 Intrinsic/tree-directed 0.096 0.145 0.026 -1.664 0.127 Misc. landmarks 0.073 0.072 0.168 0.024 0.983 Environment 0.274 0.304 0.216 -0.985 0.323 Cardinal 0.274 0.257 0.228 0.514 0.632 Vertical 0.137 0.020 0.176 4.573 0.002
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