DOCSLIB.ORG

Reconstructing the Phonological History of Three Southern New Caledonian Languages

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Reconstructing the Phonological History of Three Southern New Caledonian Languages So close and yet so different: Reconstructing the phonological history of three Southern New Caledonian languages William Zetterberg Supervisors: Arthur Holmer, Mechtild Tronnier Centre for Language and Literature, Lund University MA in Language and Linguistics, General Linguistics SPVR01 Language and Linguistics: Degree project – Master’s (Two years) Thesis, 30 credits June 2021 Abstract This thesis investigates the phonological history of three languages of New Caledonia, an overseas special collectivity of France, located in southwest Pacific Ocean. New Caledonia is home to remarkable linguistic diversity, with around 28 distinct indigenous languages varieties spoken today. These languages, known as Kanak languages, are members of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. Most of these languages are spoken on the main island, Grande Terre, and are commonly organized into two subgroups, a Northern and a Southern group. The Southern languages have previously been proposed to form two distinct subgroups alongside the Northern subgroup, a Mid-Southern and Far-Southern subgroup respectively. However, little research has so far been conducted on the phonological history of the languages of the Mid- Southern group, and it has not been possible to systematically evaluate the position of these languages in relation to the languages of the Northern and Far-Southern subgroups. This thesis therefore focuses on three previously described members of the Mid-Southern group, Ajië, Tîrî, and Xârâcùù, with the aim to reconstruct the phonological structure of the last common ancestor of these languages. The goal of this reconstruction was to clarify the position of the Mid-Southern languages within the New Caledonian group. In order to reconstruct the phonological system of this common ancestor, a large set of lexical and morphological items were secondarily collected from various published wordlists and dictionaries in the three languages. From these, 266 sets of cognate words were compiled between the three languages, from which sound correspondences were generated. The correspondences between the languages were systematically analyzed, based on which predictions were made about phonological properties in the common proto-language. As such, this study presents the first phonological reconstruction of the ancestral form of the Mid- Southern languages of mainland New Caledonia. The results of this study indicate that many of the characteristic traits found in the Mid-Southern languages evolved already in the common Proto- Mid-South language. By further comparing the results with previous comparative work on the Northern and Far-Southern subgroups in comparison with higher-order Austronesian reconstructions, the phonological reconstruction present strong evidence in favor of a distinct Mid- Southern subgroup of the New Caledonian mainland, which is characterized by a number of phonological innovations that can be credited to the common ancestor, of which several cannot be reconstructed to the neighboring Northern and Far-Southern subgroups. Keywords: Historical linguistics, Comparative method, Reconstruction, Sound change, Phonology, Austronesian, Oceanic Acknowledgments First and foremost, I want to thank my two supervisors Arthur Holmer and Mechtild Tronnier for all their guidance and patience throughout this journey, and for all their helpful feedback on my many drafts over this last year. A huge thank you also goes to Arthur Holmer for first introducing me to the wonderful world of Austronesian languages, and for suggesting that I take a closer look at the languages of New Caledonia when I was looking for topics to explore in my thesis. Lastly, I am grateful to all my friends and family who have supported me and cheered me on throughout this process. A special thanks goes to all of you who have offered helpful suggestions about my work, however small these may have been. You have all made a difference! Table of contents List of maps...................................................................................................................................vii List of images................................................................................................................................vii List of figures.................................................................................................................................vii List of tables..................................................................................................................................vii Abbreviations..................................................................................................................................ix 1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................................1 1.1 History of research.....................................................................................................................3 1.2 Aim and research question.........................................................................................................4 1.3 Structure of the thesis................................................................................................................5 2 Background........................................................................................................................................6 2.1 Subgrouping...............................................................................................................................6 2.1.1 Language change and types of subgroups..........................................................................6 2.1.2 External and internal relations...........................................................................................7 2.2 Language background................................................................................................................9 2.2.1 Ajië...................................................................................................................................10 2.2.2 Tîrî....................................................................................................................................11 2.2.3 Xârâcùù............................................................................................................................12 2.3 Phonological background........................................................................................................12 2.3.1 Ajië...................................................................................................................................13 2.3.1.1 Vowels......................................................................................................................13 2.3.1.2 Consonants...............................................................................................................14 2.3.1.3 Phonotactics..............................................................................................................16 2.3.1.4 Stress........................................................................................................................17 2.3.1.5 Glottalization............................................................................................................17 2.3.2 Tîrî....................................................................................................................................18 2.3.2.1 Vowels......................................................................................................................18 2.3.2.2 Consonants...............................................................................................................20 2.3.2.3 Phonotactics..............................................................................................................21 2.3.2.4 Stress........................................................................................................................22 2.3.3 Xârâcùù............................................................................................................................22 2.3.3.1 Vowels......................................................................................................................22 2.3.3.2 Consonants...............................................................................................................23 2.3.3.3 Phonotactics..............................................................................................................24 2.3.3.4 Stress........................................................................................................................25 2.3.4 Summary of phonological systems..................................................................................25 2.4 Previous comparative research................................................................................................26 2.4.1 Proto-Oceanic phonology................................................................................................26 2.4.2 Phonological innovations in Kanak languages................................................................27 3 Method.............................................................................................................................................30 3.1 Material....................................................................................................................................30 3.2 The comparative method..........................................................................................................31
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Michailovsky Et Al
    Vol. 8 (2014), pp. 119-135 http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4621 Documenting and Researching Endangered Lan- guages: The Pangloss Collection Boyd Michailovsky1, Martine Mazaudon1, Alexis Michaud1,2, Séverine Guillaume1, Alexandre François1,3, Evangelia Adamou1 CNRS-LACITO1, MICA Institute (HUST-CNRS/UMI2954-Grenoble INP)2, Australian National University3 The Pangloss Collection is a language archive developed since 1994 at the Langues et Civilisations à Tradition Orale (LACITO) research group of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). It contributes to the documentation and study of the world’s languages by providing free access to documents of connected, spontaneous speech, mostly in endangered or under-resourced languages, recorded in their cultural context and transcribed in consultation with native speakers. The Collection is an Open Archive containing media files (recordings), text annotations, and metadata; it currently contains over 1,400 recordings in 70 languages, including more than 400 transcribed and annotated documents. The annotations consist of transcription, free translation in English, French and/or other languages, and, in many cases, word or morpheme glosses; they are time-aligned with the recordings, usually at the utterance level. A web interface makes these annotations accessible online in an interlinear display format, in synchrony with the sound, using any standard browser. The structure of the XML documents makes them accessible to searching and indexing, always preserving the links to the recordings. Long- term preservation is guaranteed through a partnership with a digital archive. A guiding principle of the Pangloss Collection is that a close association between documentation and research is highly profitable to both.
    [Show full text]
  • Abstract of Counting Systems of Papua New Guinea and Oceania
    Abstract of http://www.uog.ac.pg/glec/thesis/ch1web/ABSTRACT.htm Abstract of Counting Systems of Papua New Guinea and Oceania by Glendon A. Lean In modern technological societies we take the existence of numbers and the act of counting for granted: they occur in most everyday activities. They are regarded as being sufficiently important to warrant their occupying a substantial part of the primary school curriculum. Most of us, however, would find it difficult to answer with any authority several basic questions about number and counting. For example, how and when did numbers arise in human cultures: are they relatively recent inventions or are they an ancient feature of language? Is counting an important part of all cultures or only of some? Do all cultures count in essentially the same ways? In English, for example, we use what is known as a base 10 counting system and this is true of other European languages. Indeed our view of counting and number tends to be very much a Eurocentric one and yet the large majority the languages spoken in the world - about 4500 - are not European in nature but are the languages of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific, Africa, and the Americas. If we take these into account we obtain a quite different picture of counting systems from that of the Eurocentric view. This study, which attempts to answer these questions, is the culmination of more than twenty years on the counting systems of the indigenous and largely unwritten languages of the Pacific region and it involved extensive fieldwork as well as the consultation of published and rare unpublished sources.
    [Show full text]
  • 4 Moysefaurie
    Te Reo the Journal of the Linguistic Society of New Zealand Volume 62 Issue 1 (Special Issue): Issue in Honour of Frantisek Lichtenberk Research Article 2019 pp. 49–74 September 2019 Existential and locative predication in some eastern Oceanic languages Claire Moyse-Faurie Lacito-CNRS, France This paper is a peer-reviewed contribution from https://nzlingsoc.makeitso.nz/journal/current-issue ©Te Reo – The Journal of the Linguistic Society of New Zealand Guest Editors: Andreea S. Calude & Suzanne Kemmer Claire Moyse-Faurie 49 Existential and locative predication in some eastern Oceanic languages Claire Moyse-Faurie Abstract In many Oceanic languages a category of plain verbs expressing existence, and their negative counterparts, is found. Some only refer to pure existence (‘be’, ‘exist’), others aim at localizing the existence (‘be at’), either in a neutral way or, as shown by Lichtenberk (2002), by specifying the posture (‘be standing, sitting, lying’). Moreover, existential verbs are well known for expressing possession (Lyons 1967). This article aims to discuss the expressions of (non-)existence and localization in some New Caledonian and Polynesian languages, investigating how the languages express these notions and how they are interrelated: in specific compatibilities with tense-aspect and negative markers and in their choice of subjects (impersonal vs. personal, specific vs. nonspecific, animate vs inanimate). I will show that existential predicates and constructions manifest considerable diversity in Oceanic languages: in their lexical inventory, in their contrasts between affirmation and negation, in their semantic differentiations between ‘existence’ and ‘localization’ as well as in their constructional properties. Oceanic languages have more existential verbs than non-existential ones (Pawley 2000).
    [Show full text]
  • The Geography and History of *R-Loss in Southern Oceanic Languages Alexandre François
    Where *R they all? The Geography and History of *R-loss in Southern Oceanic Languages Alexandre François To cite this version: Alexandre François. Where *R they all? The Geography and History of *R-loss in Southern Oceanic Languages. Oceanic Linguistics, University of Hawai’i Press, 2011, 50 (1), pp.140 - 197. 10.1353/ol.2011.0009. hal-01137686 HAL Id: hal-01137686 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01137686 Submitted on 17 Oct 2016 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Where *R they all? The Geography and History of *R-loss in Southern Oceanic Languages Alexandre François LANGUES ET CIVILISATIONS À TRADITION ORALE (CNRS), PARIS, AND AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Some twenty years ago, Paul Geraghty offered a large-scale survey of the retention and loss of Proto-Oceanic *R across Eastern Oceanic languages, and concluded that *R was “lost in proportion to distance from Western Oceanic.” This paper aims at testing Geraghty’s hypothesis based on a larger body of data now available, with a primary focus on a tightly knit set of languages spoken in Vanuatu. By observing the dialectology of individual lexical items in this region, I show that the boundaries between languages retaining vs.
    [Show full text]
  • In Kanak Languages Anne-Laure Dotte, Claire Moyse-Faurie
    Toward a comparative typology of ‘eating’ in Kanak languages Anne-Laure Dotte, Claire Moyse-Faurie To cite this version: Anne-Laure Dotte, Claire Moyse-Faurie. Toward a comparative typology of ‘eating’ in Kanak lan- guages. Oceanic Linguistics, University of Hawai’i Press, 2021, 60 (1), 10.1353/ol.2021.0006. hal- 03094721v2 HAL Id: hal-03094721 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03094721v2 Submitted on 26 Jul 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. TOWARD A TYPOLOGY OF EATING IN KANAK LANGUAGES 1 Toward a Comparative Typology of ‘Eating’ in Kanak Languages Anne-Laure Dotte† and Claire Moyse-Faurie‡ †UNIVERSITÉ DE LA NOUVELLE-CALÉDONIE AND ‡LACITO-CNRS This paper aims to explore the diversity of expressions for food ingestion in some Oceanic languages, and intends to map out the convergences and divergences attested among these languages. Six main points are addressed: first, a brief historical and environmental survey will be presented; second, the parameters distinguishing ‘eat’ verbs among the Kanak languages will be compared with the differentiation made in other Oceanic languages. In the notional domain under discussion, each Kanak language has its own food noun categories, depending on physical, nutritive or symbolic (cultural) criteria, and distinguished on the basis of the verb they combine with.
    [Show full text]
  • Reconstructing the Geocentric System of Proto Oceanic Alexandre François
    Reconstructing the geocentric system of Proto Oceanic Alexandre François To cite this version: Alexandre François. Reconstructing the geocentric system of Proto Oceanic. Oceanic Linguistics, University of Hawai’i Press, 2004, 43 (1), pp.1-32. halshs-00526846 HAL Id: halshs-00526846 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00526846 Submitted on 16 Oct 2010 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. This document is the preprint version of: François, Alexandre. 2004. Reconstructing the geocentric system of Proto Oceanic. Oceanic Linguistics 43-1, juin 2004. University of Hawai'i Press. Pp.1-32. RECONSTRUCTING THE GEOCENTRIC SYSTEM OF PROTO OCEANIC Alexandre FRANÇOIS LACITO-CNRS Summary The comparison of sixteen Austronesian languages, regarding the absolute coordinates they use in space reference, makes it possible to propose a historical hypothesis regarding the geocentric system of Proto Oceanic: on land, one up-down axis defined by the declivity of the ground; at sea, a second up-down axis motivated by the prevailing trade winds. After reconstructing the system of POc, we model the principal paths of evolution which historically derived from it and led to the diverse systems attested in modern Oceanic languages.
    [Show full text]
  • The Phonetics of Paici) Vowels1
    THE PHONETICS OF PAICI) VOWELS1 1 This work would not have been possible without the generous cooperation of the speakers who shared their knowledge of their language, and the hospitality of the community. Much essential assistance was provided by Stephen Schooling. The project was funded by the National Science Foundation. This paper presents results of a phonetic study of the vowel system of Paici), an Austronesian language of central New Caledonia. The Paici) vowel system is of phonetic interest for both its three-way lexical tone contrast, rare among Austronesian languages, and its relatively large inventory of both oral and nasalized vowels. The large number of nasalized vowels is rare not only from an Austronesian persepctive, but also is typologically atypical throughout the world. This paper focuses on the analysis of qualitative aspects of both the oral and nasalized vowels of Paici). It is shown that vowel qualities posited in previous research on Paici) are phonetically differentiated, with the contrast between certain nasalized vowels being more subtle than the contrast involving their oral counterparts. In addition, the phonetic realization of the three tones of Paici) is discussed. 1. Introduction Paici) is one of the twenty-five or so Austronesian languages indigenous to the French “overseas territory” of New Caledonia. It is spoken in a narrow band stretching across the center of the main island, Grande Terre, from Poindimié and Ponerihouen on the east coast to Pouembout and Koné on the west. The location is shown in the map in Figure 1. The number of speakers was estimated at approximately 5000 in the 1970’s.
    [Show full text]
  • Journal of the Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea
    Language & Linguistics in Melanesia Vol. 33 No. 1, 2015 ISSN: 0023-1959 Journal of the Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea ISSN: 0023-1959 Vol. 33 No. 1, 2015 52 Language & Linguistics in Melanesia Vol. 33 No. 1, 2015 ISSN: 0023-1959 The Phonological History of Iaai John Lynch University of the South Pacific [email protected] Abstract Iaai is one of four languages spoken in the Loyalty Islands, which form part of New Caledonia. One of these four (Fagauvea) is a Polynesian Outlier; the other three form a distinct subgroup within the New Caledonian family, which is a subgroup of Southern Oceanic. Iaai has a rich phonemic inventory—37 consonants, ten short vowels, and ten long vowels—and the development of these phonemes from Proto-Oceanic is quite complex. This paper charts that development, paying special attention to historical reduplication, vowel loss, and vowel and consonant alternation. 1. INTRODUCTION There are almost thirty languages spoken in New Caledonia, and all except for the Polynesian Outlier Fagauvea belong to a single subgroup within Southern Oceanic (Lynch 1999, 2000; Lynch and Ozanne-Rivierre 2001). They appear to divide into two lower-level groups: a Mainland group (further divisible into Northern and Southern subgroups), and a Loyalty Islands group (Haudricourt 1971; Geraghty 1989; Ozanne-Rivierre 1992; inter alia). The Loyalties group consists of three languages: Iaai, Drehu, and Nengone. Iaai, the focus of this paper, is spoken on the island of Ouvéa, which it shares with Fagauvea. There are around 4,000 speakers of the language, probably more than half of whom live away from Ouvéa, most in the territorial capital, Nouméa.
    [Show full text]
  • Interaction and Diversification in the Austronesian Colonization of Remote Oceania
    For Workshop on Migration, Ile de Porquerolles, France, Sept. 5-7 2007 Why do Polynesian island groups have one language and Melanesian island groups have many? Patterns of interaction and diversification in the Austronesian colonization of Remote Oceania ANDREW PAWLEY AUSTRALIAN NATONAL UNIVERSITY 1. The puzzle of different language densities in Polynesia and Melanesia The islands and seas of the southwest and central Pacific are conveniently subsumed under the heading ‘Oceania’.1 In the anthropological and geographic literature Oceania is generally divided into three regions: Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. This division, based on 19th century perceptions of racial and cultural groupings, is unsatisfactory especially because ‘Melanesia’ is not a coherent entity of the same order as the other two, but it remains a standard frame of reference. 2 The prehistoric human settlement of Oceania has left many complex and sometimes puzzling cultural, linguistic and biological patterns. This paper investigates one particular puzzle – the striking differences between Polynesia and Fiji, on the one hand, and almost all of Island Melanesia, on the other, in the density of languages per island group. (‘Island Melanesia’ is that part of Melanesia that excludes the 2400 km long island of New Guinea.) In Polynesia the norm is one language per island group; in Island Melanesia it is many languages. Thus, Samoa, Tonga, the Tokelaus, Tuvalu, the Southern Cooks, the Societies, the Marquesas and Tuamotus at first European contact each had a single language, generally with no more than modest regional variation. The large Fijian archipelago can be said to have just two distinct languages, though each ‘language’ is a dialect chain of considerable diversity.
    [Show full text]
  • Space Directionals in Mwotlap Alexandre Fran¸Cois
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Archive Ouverte a LUniversite Lyon 2 Of men, hills and winds: Space directionals in Mwotlap Alexandre Fran¸cois To cite this version: Alexandre Fran¸cois.Of men, hills and winds: Space directionals in Mwotlap. Oceanic Linguis- tics, 2003, 42 (2), pp.407-437. <halshs-00526847> HAL Id: halshs-00526847 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00526847 Submitted on 16 Oct 2010 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destin´eeau d´ep^otet `ala diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publi´esou non, lished or not. The documents may come from ´emanant des ´etablissements d'enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche fran¸caisou ´etrangers,des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou priv´es. OF MEN, HILLS AND WINDS: SPACE DIRECTIONALS IN MWOTLAP Alexandre FRANÇOIS LACITO-CNRS, Paris Summary In Mwotlap, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu, the principal device for referring to space is a paradigm of six directionals. Organized in pairs, these morphemes define three ways to draw a vector in space: by reference to a salient participant (hither-thither); by reference to an asymmetry perceptible within the immediate, local setting (up-down; in-out); or by reference to a fixed, absolute system of four horizontal quadrants (also lexified as up-down; in-out). These three "coordinate sets" can be shown to obey a strict hierarchy, determining which one the speaker should activate in a given situation.
    [Show full text]
  • Reciprocal Constructions in Oceanic Languages
    DGfS-CNRS Summer School: Linguistic Typology (6) August 25th, 2010 Koenig/Moyse-Faurie Reciprocal constructions in Oceanic languages 0. Introduction * In most Oceanic languages, reciprocal and reflexive expressions differ in their constructions and in the origin of their markers. *By contrast, middle and reciprocal situations often share the same morphosyntactic marker, albeit in different constructions. * Reciprocal construction generally exhibit a higher degree of grammaticalization than reflexive ones. * Oceanic languages provide a large sample of the variety of reciprocal strategies found in the languages of the world, mainly affixal, (de)verbal and quantificational ones. * Some languages provide evidence for both directions of meaning extensions in the historical development of these constructions: reflexive > reciprocal AND reciprocal > reflexive 1. Lexical reciprocals * Verbs of social relations, verbs denoting spatial relations of proximity, verbs denoting (dis)similarity. XÂRÂCÙÙ (New Caledonia, South of the Mainland) 1. ri tôôbùtù ri xöyö 3PL put together 3PL marry ‘They are meeting.’ ‘They are getting married.’ TOQABAQITA (Malaita, South-East Solomon) 2. roo tarake kere toqo two truck 3PL.FACT impact ‘(The) two trucks collided.’ (Lichtenberk 2007:1551) * Lexicalized reciprocals: NENGONE eked ‘assemble’, ethanata ‘speak’, itic ‘exchange’, XÂRÂGURÈ pupuu ‘meet, gather’, puté ‘race’, EAST FUTUNAN fetai ‘fight’, fetogi ‘exchange’, PAICÎ ipiti ‘meet’, etc. * No specific marking but direct object, or possessive suffix on the direct object, co- referential with the subject: TOQABAQITA 3. roo wane kero laba-taqi keeroqa two man 3DU:NONFUT affect.negatively-TR 3DU ‘The two men harm each other.’ (Lichtenberk 2000:42) 4. kero musu-a babali-daroqa 3DU.FACT kiss-3.OBJ cheek-3DU.POSS ‘The two of them kissed each other on the cheek.’ lit.
    [Show full text]
  • Southern Oceanic Linguistic History V 425
    I history John Lynch Linguist Int rod IJC~ion Recent research suggests the following interrelationships between the non-Polynesian languages of what I will refer to as Southern Oceania (i.e. Vanuatu and New Ca1edonia)l: (a) the languages of Southern Vanuatu and New Caledonia form a single subgroup of Oceanic - the Southern Melanesian family; (b) these Southern Melanesian languages and the languages of north and central Vanuatu form a higher-level grouping - the Southern Oceanic linkage2; and (c) within Southern Oceanic, the Southern Melanesian languages are most closely rela- ted to the languages of Central Vanuatu, as members of a Nuclear Southern Oceanic lin- kage; specifically, their closest relative is the South Efate language. These interrelationships are set out diagrammatically in (31) below. 1 The terms 'Yamily" and "linkage" will be explained in 53. Much of 52 of this paper is based on Lynch (flc). I am grateful to Ross Clark, Terry Crowley, Paul Geraghty, Jeff Marck, Francoise Ozanne-Rivierre, Andrew Pawley, Malcolm Ross and Darrell Tryon for comments on that paper, and to Robert Early and Matthew Sprlggs for comments on an earlier draft of thls paper. 2 The term 'Southern Oceanic" has previously been used to refer to only the New Caledonian languages, and then only by Geraghty (1989). It seems to me that 'New Caledonian" is a perfectly adequate name for this group, and that "Southern Oceanic" should be reserved for a geographically more widespread subgroup - like the one proposed here. 424 V Le Pacifique de 5000 2000 avant le present / The Pacific from 5000 to 2000 BP In this paper, I will (i) briefly discuss the evidence for these hypotheses, (ii) make some reference to the external connections of these subgroups (particularly in the southeas- tern Solomon Islands and in FijiIPolynesia), and (iii) suminarise recent research on Polynesian-Melanesian contact in Southern Oceania.
    [Show full text]