Possessive Markers in Central Pacific Languages (Review) Joseph C
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Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation Volume 15 Article 14 Issue 2 October 2001 Possessive Markers in Central Pacific Languages (Review) Joseph C. Finney Follow this and additional works at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj Part of the History of the Pacific slI ands Commons, and the Pacific slI ands Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Finney, Joseph C. (2001) "Possessive Markers in Central Pacific Languages (Review)," Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation: Vol. 15 : Iss. 2 , Article 14. Available at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj/vol15/iss2/14 This Book or Media Review is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Hawai`i Press at Kahualike. It has been accepted for inclusion in Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation by an authorized editor of Kahualike. For more information, please contact daniel20@hawaii.edu. Finney: Possessive Markers in Central Pacific Languages (Review) pect that this work will be toted as the flagship of Pacific ar Possessive Markers in Central Pacific Languages chaeology for years to come. As the years go by, and new themes in Pacific prehistory develop, On the Road ofthe Winds Edited by Steven Roger Fischer will remain an excellent historical statement of the current con Sprachtypologie und Universalienforchung, Universitat Bre dition ofthe field. men, Postfach 22 04 40, D28334 Bremen, Germany REFERE CES Review by Joseph C. Finney Bellwood, Peter. 1978. Man's Conquest ofthe Pacific: The Prehistory ofSoutheast Asia and Oceania. William Collins, Auckland. This book was published as a special issue of the German Bellwood, Peter. 2000. Book Review: On the Road ofthe Winds. An (Berlin) journal, Sprachtypologie und UniversaIienforschung, tiquity 74(286):989-990. with the translating subtitle: "Language Typology and Univer Biersack, Alletta. 1991. Clio in Oceania: Toward a Historical Anthro sals". In all the papers quoted here, an asterisk denotes a hypo pology. Smithsonian Institution Press. thetical reconstruction of an ancestral form, and not an ungram White, J. Peter. 2000. Book Review: On the Road ofthe Winds. Asian Perspectives 39: 189-190. matical form (its other common use). The Central Pacific languages (a group with common an cestry) are the Polynesian languages (and dialects), the Fijian Te Moana Nui. Exploring Lost Isles communalects (where the distinctions between languages and ofthe South Pacific dialects is unclear), and Rotuman. Fijian and Rotuman probably share a common ancestry that is not shared by Polynesians. Georgia Lee Central Pacific is a unit within Oceanic, a subgroup within East Easter Island Foundation, 200 I. rapanuibookS@woridnet.alt.nel $25 ern Malayo-Polynesian, which is a subdivision of Malayo ISBN 1-880636-19-0 Polynesian, which is one of the ten divisions of the Austrone Review by Paul G. Bahn sian family of languages. Of the twelve papers, one deals with the Central Pacific The latest in the Easter Island Foundation's excellent se group as a whole, one with Fijian, one with Rotuman, one with ries of publications constitutes a delightful journey through a the Polynesian group as a whole; and each of the remaining wide variety of islands in the South Pacific - including Rapa eight deals with a specific Polynesian language: (Tongan and Nui - in the company ofGeorgia Lee who has had the rare good Niuean in the Tongic group; Tokelauan, Pileni, and East Uvean fortune to visit them all aboard the cruise ship World Discov in the Samoic-Outlier group; and Rapanui, Hawaiian, and Maori erer. This is a book which can be either dipped into or read in East Polynesian). cover to cover - it contains something for everyone, from pre The guest editor, Steven Fisher, who also contributed a history to scandals, from artistic rogues to sadistic clergymen, paper, did well in his selection of the eleven other authors to from warfare to movies, from pearls to politics, from Robinson cover various languages of Central Pacific. The authors know Crusoe to Moby Dick - and of course there is the ever-popular their languages well and they have very ably analyzed the mark mutiny on the Bounty and many other ripping yarns. ing ofpossessive markers in Central Pacific Languages. For each island or group, a map is provided, as well as a timeline of important events. In each case, the author gives us a JOHN LYNCH'S HISTORICAL OVERVIEW brief history of the island, and of the characters involved in it, Lynch begins his historical overview by noting that Cen as well as of the present-day conditions ofthe place and its peo tral Pacific is a division of the Oceanic languages, which in ple. Alongside the many familiar tales such as those of Paul cludes some 450 languages. That is about half the (1000 or so) Gauguin or Alexander Selkirk, one encounters fascinating tid languages in the Austronesian family, though Oceanic is a small bits such as the fact that it was Pitcairn Island which was the sub-sub-sub division within the family. Citing his own work first community anywhere to adopt women's suffrage and com and others, he notes that Proto-Oceanic (henceforth POc) had pulsory education, or that Easter Island is probably the only two basic ways of marking possession. The simpler and perhaps place in the world where introduced rabbits were eaten by peo older one was Direct possession. It was used in POc for certain ple before they could multiply! In the margins one finds a well inalienable relations, notably kin terms, parts of something, and chosen potpourri of quotations from poems, chants, songs, let passive possession, things done to the possessor (his destruction ters and texts, featuring people as diverse as Bill Mulloy, Car of her). lyle Smith, Rupert Brooke and Herman Melville. Overall, the Direct possession puts the possessed thing at the left, after book's design is outstanding, with chapter openings strikingly its article (ART). The possessor is on the right. Because of an superimposed on large photographs, and one can forgive the cestral syntactic changes that we need not consider (ancestral occasional typographic error and a bibliography that is not al genitive-ergative becoming nominative in Proto Central-Eastern ways in alphabetical order. MP), it is hard to tell whether an "of" element is present at the This miscellaneous collection of studies of the often tragic beginning of the possessor pronoun suffix or not. The issue is pasts and uncertain futures of these wonderful and remote is not discussed. If the possessor is a pronoun, it is attached as a lands is warmly recommended to all those who have any kind of suffix on the possessed object. Lynch's examples from Proto interest in the Pacific region. Who can resist tales of pirate Oceanic (hence preceded by an asterisk) are: treasure and castaways? Direct possession is almost totally lost in Rotuman and Rapa Nui Journal 133 Vol. 15 (2) October 200 I Published by Kahualike, 2001 1 Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation, Vol. 15 [2001], Iss. 2, Art. 14 especially Polynesian, where Lynch (citing Wilson 1982) notes shortly before the Norman conquest, may have had some ability it is used with only half-dozen kin terms and even there only in to understand the English and vice versa, which allowed Eng the singular, where for a pronoun possessor it comes out, e.g., lish to borrow pronouns (they and them) from the Danish words "father-me" (or "father-my, father of me" if we regard a hidden that were homologous with English "these" and those", replac genitive preposition as present). An abbreviated or contracted ing the older English plural pronouns beginning with h-. By this construction of this sort is likely to be a more ancient construc theory, East Fijian and West Fijian grew close together so that tion that has suffered lenition. (Here I am supplying an explana nowadays it is not inappropriate to consider them members of a tion not expressed by Lynch). common Fijian language, though as Geraghty notes, there is a The other type, called indirect possession, was used in comprehension boundary between them. Proto Central Pacific for alienable possessions, with separate Geraghty reports recent research beyond what he has pre markers for three types: food, drink, and general. (This is the viously published. He notes that Lynch disputes his expressed sort of elaboration that occurs to aid comprehension by restor view that Proto Polynesian is most closely related to the lan ing a greater ratio of observable cue to meaning). What Proto guages of Lau [in Fiji] and eastern Vanualevu." Geraghty con Polynesian (PPN) has subsequently done is to rearrange the cludes, "Vanualevu is thus the only part of Fiji where are to be three types of indirect possession into two, one marked by the found the three prerequisites for the Polynesian marker set: glot particle "A" and the other by "0". As we shall see, there are at tal stop initial general marker, loss ofdirect possession for most least two differing ways of characterizing the basic difference inalienables, and loss of general marker after the article.... between an A" possession and an "0" possession: in terms of Vanualevu therefore remains the most likely location for the "control" or of "alienability." In a complex way, Polynesian's origin ofthe Polynesian languages as a distinct entity." "A" marker (controlling or alienable possession) comes down from the ancestral marker for general possessions, and Polyne HANS SCHMIDT ON ROTUMAN sian's "0" from ancestral "qo" which had increasingly come to Schmidt's paper discusses at length the Possession Mark be used with passives, kin terms and parts. It is a very complex ers in Rotuman.