A Grammar of Nese

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

A Grammar of Nese A Grammar of Nese Lana Grelyn Takau MA A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Linguistics School of Humanities and Social Science Faculty of Education and Arts The University of Newcastle, Australia March 2016 Statement of Originality The thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university of 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 1968. **Unless an Embargo has been approved for a determined period. i Table of Contents List of Tables and Figures.............................................................................. x List of Maps ................................................................................................. xii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... xiii Abstract ........................................................................................................ xv Abbreviations .............................................................................................. xvi 1 Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Vanuatu Language Setting ....................................................................... 1 1.1.1 Linguistic situation................................................................................ 4 1.1.2 Subgrouping .......................................................................................... 8 1.1.3 Previous linguistic work on Vanuatu languages ................................. 12 1.2 Malekula ................................................................................................ 14 1.2.1 Sociolinguistic overview ..................................................................... 15 1.2.1.1 Matanvat today................................................................................. 17 1.2.1.2 Nese speakers ................................................................................... 19 1.2.1.3 Influence of Bislama ........................................................................ 21 1.2.1.4 Speakers’ attitudes towards their own language .............................. 21 1.2.1.5 Nese language revival efforts........................................................... 23 1.2.2 Linguistic situation.............................................................................. 26 1.2.3 Vanuatu internal subgrouping ............................................................. 27 1.2.3.1 Internal classification of Malekula languages .................................. 28 1.3 The present study ................................................................................... 31 1.3.1 Methodology ....................................................................................... 31 1.3.2 Organisation of the thesis.................................................................... 34 ii 1.3.3 Presentation of examples .................................................................... 34 2 Phonology ................................................................................................. 36 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................ 36 2.2 Phonemic inventory ............................................................................... 36 2.2.1 Consonants .......................................................................................... 37 2.2.2 Vowels ................................................................................................ 57 2.3 Phonotactics ........................................................................................... 60 2.3.1 Consonant and vowel combinations ................................................... 60 2.3.2 Syllable structure ................................................................................ 61 2.3.2.1 Consonant distribution ..................................................................... 63 2.3.2.2 Vowel distribution ........................................................................... 68 2.4 Stress ...................................................................................................... 70 2.5 Morphophonemic processes................................................................... 72 2.5.1 Vowel harmony ................................................................................... 72 2.5.1.1 Vowel harmony in subject cross-indexes ........................................ 73 2.5.1.1.1 Realis subject prefixes .................................................................. 73 2.5.1.1.2 Irrealis subject prefixes ................................................................. 74 2.5.1.2 Vowel harmony in negative discontinuous markers ........................ 76 2.5.2 Vowel raising ...................................................................................... 80 2.5.3 Reduplication ...................................................................................... 85 2.5.3.1 CVC reduplication ........................................................................... 86 2.5.3.2 CV reduplication .............................................................................. 88 2.6 Orthography ........................................................................................... 89 3 Word Classes ............................................................................................ 92 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................ 92 iii 3.2 Nouns ..................................................................................................... 92 3.2.1 Proper nouns ....................................................................................... 94 3.2.2 Common nouns ................................................................................... 97 3.2.3 Locational nouns ............................................................................... 102 3.3 Verbs .................................................................................................... 107 3.4 Pronouns .............................................................................................. 111 3.5 Prepositions .......................................................................................... 114 3.6 Adverbs ................................................................................................ 117 3.7 Quantifiers & Numerals ....................................................................... 119 3.7.1 Ordinal Numbers ............................................................................... 121 3.8 Conjunctions and Subordinators .......................................................... 123 3.8.1 Conjunctions ..................................................................................... 123 3.8.2 Subordinators .................................................................................... 128 3.9 Relational classifiers ............................................................................ 130 3.10 Directionals ........................................................................................ 130 3.11 Demonstratives .................................................................................. 133 3.13 Negative particles............................................................................... 139 3.14 Verbal affixes ..................................................................................... 140 3.15 Greetings and Leave takings .............................................................. 140 3.16 Lexical interjections ........................................................................... 141 3.17 Flexibility of word class members ..................................................... 142 4 The Noun Phrase ..................................................................................... 146 4.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 146 4.2 Order of Noun Phrase constituents ...................................................... 146 4.3 Function of Noun Phrases .................................................................... 152 iv 4.4 Words functioning as heads of Noun Phrases...................................... 155 4.5 Modification of the head ...................................................................... 163 4.5.1 Nominal modifiers ............................................................................ 163 4.5.2 Bound personal pronouns ................................................................. 164 4.5.3 Intransitive stative verb modifiers .................................................... 167 4.5.4 Number ............................................................................................. 169 4.5.5 Quantifiers......................................................................................... 171 4.5.6 Numerals ........................................................................................... 174 4.5.7 Demonstratives ................................................................................
Recommended publications
  • ISSN: 0023-1959 Vol. 34 No. 1, 2016
    Language & Linguistics in Melanesia Vol. 34 No. 1, 2016 ISSN: 0023-1959 Journal of the Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea ISSN: 0023-1959 Vol. 34 No. 1, 2016 www.langlxmelanesia.com www.langlxmelanesia.com www.langlxmelanesia.com Language & Linguistics in Melanesia Vol. 34 No. 1, 2016 ISSN: 0023-1959 An Account of Possession in Larevet Julie Barbour University of Waikato [email protected] Abstract This paper presents a first analysis of the Larevet language of central Malakula, Vanuatu, focusing on its possessive system. I locate the analysis within the literature on possession in the Oceanic language family broadly, seeking to understand how the synchronic system re- lates to both typological understandings within the family, and the possessive system recon- structed for Proto Oceanic. Drawing on a corpus of communicative and elicited language as evidence, I demonstrate that Larevet displays many features of a canonical Oceanic language, and that where changes have occurred, these align well with observations of possession in related languages of Malakula. Keywords: Malakula, Larevet, Possession, Oceanic, Alienability 1. Introduction The Larevet language (also referred to as Laravat, Larë vat and Larevat) is spoken in a village of the same name, on the northwestern coast of Malakula Island in Vanuatu. Unpublished data from the 2009 census puts the population of Larevet at 244.1 The village is gradually transitioning to Bislama as the dominant language of communication. The community is in- volved in the early phases of a long-term language documentation project, and I have under- taken brief periods of field work with Larevet speakers from 2013 onwards.
    [Show full text]
  • Acoustic Evidence for Right-Edge Prominence in Nafsana)
    ...................................ARTICLE Acoustic evidence for right-edge prominence in Nafsana) Rosey Billington,b) Janet Fletcher,c) Nick Thieberger,d) and Ben Volchok ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, School of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3052, Australia ABSTRACT: Oceanic languages are often described as preferring primary stress on penultimate syllables, but detailed surveys show that many different types of prominence patterns have been reported across and within Oceanic language families. In some cases, these interact with segmental and phonotactic factors, such as syllable weight. The range of Oceanic prominence patterns is exemplified across Vanuatu, a linguistically diverse archipelago with over 130 languages. However, both impressionistic and instrumentally-based descriptions of prosodic patterns and their correlates are limited for languages of this region. This paper investigates prominence in Nafsan, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu for which previous observations of prominence differ. Acoustic and durational results for disyl- labic and trisyllabic Nafsan words show a clear pattern of higher fundamental frequency values in final syllables, regardless of vowel length, pointing towards a preference for prominence at the right edge of words. Short vowels also show centralisation in penultimate syllables, providing supporting evidence for right-edge prominence and informing the understanding of vowel deletion processes in Nafsan. VC 2020 Acoustical Society of America. https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0000995 (Received 3 May 2019; revised 15 September 2019; accepted 16 October 2019; published online 30 April 2020) [Editor: Benjamin V. Tucker] Pages: 2829–2844 I. INTRODUCTION empirically. The present study is part of a wider project using instrumental phonetic approaches to investigate vari- This paper investigates prominence in Nafsan (South ous aspects of Nafsan phonology.
    [Show full text]
  • Bridging Constructions in Typological Perspective Valérie Guérin James Cook University Grant Aiton James Cook University
    Chapter 1 Bridging constructions in typological perspective Valérie Guérin James Cook University Grant Aiton James Cook University In this chapter, we undertake a cross-linguistic examination of bridging construc- tions, which we define as the sequence of two clauses: the first clause (called theref- erence clause) ends a discourse unit, the second clause (called the bridging clause) typically repeats the first clause at the beginning of a new discourse unit. Based on published language data and data from the volume, we identify three differ- ent types of constructions subsumed under the label bridging construction (§2 and §3): recapitulative linkage, summary linkage, and mixed linkage. They differ in the form that the bridging clause takes on: broadly speaking, verbatim lexical recapit- ulation of the reference clause; a light verb summarizing the reference clause; or a mix of these two strategies. Because bridging constructions lie at the interface of discourse and syntax, we dedicate §4 to explaining their discourse functions. Amid the cross-linguistic variation, we found two recurrent discourse functions: empha- sizing sequentiality and cohesively structuring discourse. Finally, we establish a list of questions to guide the documentation of these linguistic patterns. 1 Preliminaries While reference grammars and the typological literature have a long tradition de- scribing syntactic phenomena within a clause, cross-linguistic research beyond the level of the clause, especially the role that clause-level phenomena play in discourse structure, is comparatively scarce. This volume presents a case study Valérie Guérin & Grant Aiton. 2019. Bridging constructions in typological perspective. In Valérie Guérin (ed.), Bridging constructions, 1–44. Berlin: Lan- guage Science Press.
    [Show full text]
  • Naman: a Vanishing Language of Malakula (Vanuatu)
    Naman: a vanishing language of Malakula (Vanuatu) Pacific Linguistics 576 Pacific Linguistics is a publisher specialising in grammars and linguistic descriptions, dictionaries and other materials on languages of the Pacific, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, southeast and south Asia, and Australia. Pacific Linguistics, established in 1963 through an initial grant from the Hunter Douglas Fund, is associated with the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at The Australian National University. The authors and editors of Pacific Linguistics publications are drawn from a wide range of institutions around the world. Publications are refereed by scholars with relevant expertise, who are usually not members of the editorial board. FOUNDING EDITOR: Stephen A. Wurm EDITORIAL BOARD: John Bowden, Malcolm Ross and Darrell Tryon (Managing Editors), I Wayan Arka, David Nash, Andrew Pawley, Paul Sidwell, Jane Simpson EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Karen Adams, Arizona State University Lillian Huang, National Taiwan Normal Alexander Adelaar, University of Melbourne University Peter Austin, School of Oriental and African Bambang Kaswanti Purwo, Universitas Atma Studies Jaya Byron Bender, University of Hawai‘i Marian Klamer, Universiteit Leiden Walter Bisang, Johannes Gutenberg- Harold Koch, The Australian National Universität Mainz University Robert Blust, University of Hawai‘i Frantisek Lichtenberk, University of David Bradley, La Trobe University Auckland Lyle Campbell, University of Utah John Lynch, University of the South Pacific James Collins, Universiti Kebangsaan Patrick McConvell, Australian Institute of Malaysia Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Bernard Comrie, Max Planck Institute for Studies Evolutionary Anthropology William McGregor, Aarhus Universitet Soenjono Dardjowidjojo, Universitas Atma Ulrike Mosel, Christian-Albrechts- Jaya Universität zu Kiel Matthew Dryer, State University of New York Claire Moyse-Faurie, Centre National de la at Buffalo Recherche Scientifique Jerold A.
    [Show full text]
  • Bislama Into Kwamera: Code-Mixing and Language Change on Tanna (Vanuatu)
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarSpace at University of Hawai'i at Manoa Vol. 1, No. 2 (December 2007), pp. 216–239 http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc/ Bislama into Kwamera: Code-mixing and Language Change on Tanna (Vanuatu) Lamont Lindstrom University of Tulsa People throughout Vanuatu frequently mix Bislama (that country’s national Pidgin) into their vernaculars. Extensive code-mixing is an obvious indicator, and sometime cause, of language change or even language replacement. This paper discusses several sorts of Bislama code-mixing on Tanna among speakers of that island’s Kwamera language. It assesses levels and kinds of Bislama use in four village debates, tape-recorded in 1982 and 1983. Among other uses, Kwamera speakers mix Bislama when interjecting, reiterating, reporting speech, neutralizing marked vernacular terms, and qualifying what they say. The paper concludes with some remarks on the phonological, morphological/syntactic, and lexical/semantic consequences of recurrent language mixing—on how Islanders’ insertions of Bislama into their oratorical and everyday talk may or may not be effecting linguistic change in Kwamera. Bislama, so far at least, has enriched more than it has impoverished Tanna’s linguistic ecology. Speakers’ frequent Bislama mixes have not yet seriously undermined their vernacular. 1. INTRODUCTION. On the island of Tanna, Vanuatu, many people say that they don’t speak their language the way they used to. This language is Kwamera—or, to give it its local name, Nɨninɨfe1 or Nɨfe (Lindstrom 1986; Lindstrom and Lynch 1994). Around 3,500 people living along Tanna’s southeastern coasts speak Kwamera.
    [Show full text]
  • Reflexives Markers in Oceanic Languages
    DGfS-CNRS Summer School: Linguistic Typology (3) Koenig/Moyse-Faurie Reflexives markers in Oceanic Languages Ekkehard König (FU Berlin) & Claire Moyse-Faurie (Lacito-CNRS) 1. Previous views 1.1. A lack of reflexive markers ? “[Oceanic languages] have morphological markers used to encode reciprocal and certain other situations, but not reflexive situations” (Lichtenberk, 2000:31). “Assuming that reflexivity is inherently related to transitivity, we understand why we do not find morphosyntactic reflexivisation in Samoan: Samoan does not have syntactically transitive clauses” (Mosel, 1991: ‘Where have all the Samoan reflexives gone?’) “There is no mark of reflexive, either in the form of a reflexive pronoun or of a reflexive marker on the verb – one simply says I saw me” (Dixon, 1988:9). Out of context, there are indeed many cases of ambiguity with 3rd persons, due to the frequent absence of obligatory grammaticalized constructions to express reflexivity: XÂRÂGURÈ (South of the Mainland, New Caledonia) (1) nyî xati nyî 3SG scold 3SG ‘He is scolding him/himself.’ NUMÈÈ (Far South of the Mainland, New Caledonia) (2) treâ trooke nê kwè nê ART.PL dog 3PL bite 3PL ‘The dogs are biting them/each other.’ MWOTLAP (North Central Vanuatu) (3) Kēy mu-wuh mat kēy 3PL PERF-hit die 3PL ‘They killed each other/themselves.’ (François, 2001:372) TOQABAQITA (South East Solomon) (4) Keero’a keko thathami keero’a 3DU 3DU like 3DU ‘They liked them/each other/themselves.’ (Lichtenberk, 1991:172) 1.2. Confusion between middle markers and reflexive markers “In East Futunan, the reflexive meaning is either lexicalised (i.e. expressed by lexically reflexive verbs) or by transitive verbs, the two arguments of which refer to the same entity.
    [Show full text]
  • Re-Membering Quirós, Bougainville and Cook in Vanuatu
    Chapter 3 The Sediment of Voyages: Re-membering Quirós, Bougainville and Cook in Vanuatu Margaret Jolly Introduction: An Archipelago of Names This chapter juxtaposes the voyages of Quirós in 1606 and those eighteenth-century explorations of Bougainville and Cook in the archipelago we now call Vanuatu.1 In an early and influential work Johannes Fabian (1983) suggested that, during the period which separates these voyages, European constructions of the ªotherº underwent a profound transformation. How far do the materials of these voyages support such a view? Here I consider the traces of these journeys through the lens of this vaunted transformation and in relation to local sedimentations (and vaporisations) of memory. Vanuatu is the name of this archipelago of islands declared at independence in 1980 ± vanua ªlandº and tu ªto stand up, endure; be independentº (see figure 3.1). Both words are drawn from one of the 110 vernacular languages still spoken in the group. But, alongside this indigenous name, there are many foreign place names, the perduring traces of the movement of early European voyagers: Espiritu Santo ± the contraction of Terra Austrialia del Espiritu Santo, the name given by Quirós in 1606;2 Pentecost ± the Anglicisation of Île de Pentecôte, conferred by Bougainville, who sighted this island on Whitsunday, 22 May 1768; Malakula, Erromango and Tanna ± the contemporary spellings of the Mallicollo, Erromanga and Tanna conferred by Cook who named the archipelago the New Hebrides in 1774, a name which, for foreigners at least, lasted from that date till 1980.3 Fortunately, some of these foreign names proved more ephemeral: the island we now know as Ambae, Bougainville called Île des Lepreux (Isle of Lepers), apparently because he mistook the pandemic skin conditions of tinea imbricata or leucodermia for signs of leprosy.
    [Show full text]
  • The Paamese Language of Vanuatu
    PACIFIC LINGUISTICS Series B - No. 87 THE PAAMESE LANGUAGE OF VANUATU by Terry Crowley Department of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Crowley, T. The Paamese language of Vanuatu. B-87, xii + 280 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1982. DOI:10.15144/PL-B87.cover ©1982 Pacific Linguistics and/or the author(s). Online edition licensed 2015 CC BY-SA 4.0, with permission of PL. A sealang.net/CRCL initiative. PACIFIC LINGUISTICS is issued through the Linguistic Circle of Canberra and consists of four series: SERIES A - Occasional Papers SERIES B - Monographs SERIES C - Books SERIES D - Special Publications EDITOR: S.A. Wurm ASSOCIATE EDITORS: D.C. Laycock, C.L. Voorhoeve, D.T. Tryon, T.E. Dutton EDITORIAL ADVISERS: B.W. Bender John Lynch University of Hawaii University of Papua New Guinea David Bradley K.A. McElhanon La Trobe University University of Texas A. Capell H.P. McKaughan University of Sydney University of Hawaii Michael G. Clyne P. MUhlhliusler Monash University Linacre College, Oxford S.H. Elbert G.N. O'Grady University of Hawaii University of Victoria, B.C. K.J. Franklin A.K. Pawley Summer Institute of Linguistics University of Auckland W.W. Glover K.L. Pike University of Michigan; Summer Institute of Linguistics Summer Institute of Linguistics G.W. Grace E.C. Polome University of Hawaii University of Texas M.A.K. Halliday Gillian Sankoff University of Sydney University of Pennsylvania E. Haugen W.A.L. Stokhof National Center for Harvard University Language Development, Jakarta; A. Healey University of Leiden Summer Institute of Linguistics E.
    [Show full text]
  • UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Phonlab Annual Report
    UC Berkeley UC Berkeley PhonLab Annual Report Title Phonetic Sources of Morphological Patterns in Sound Change: Fricative Voicing in Athabascan Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3xm9418n Journal UC Berkeley PhonLab Annual Report, 11(11) ISSN 2768-5047 Author Manker, Jonathan Publication Date 2015 DOI 10.5070/P73xm9418n eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UC Berkeley Phonology Lab Annual Report (2015) Phonetic Sources of Morphological Patterns in Sound Change: Fricative Voicing in Athabascan Jonathan Manker University of California, Berkeley While most modern Athabascan languages are described as having contrastive voicing in fricatives, the patterns of fricative voicing still follow both transparent and sometimes more complex morphological (as well as phonological) environments. While a synchronic analysis of the language seems to demonstrate a direct connection between phonological patterns and morphology, such an analysis may also suggest the possibility of morphological conditions in sound change, which has been proposed by some (Crowley 1997, Donohue 2005). This paper investigates the development of fricative voicing in two Athabascan languages and demonstrates that purely phonetic conditions can be identified that led to what appears to be a case of a morphologically conditioned sound change, following a similar analysis in Blevins & Lynch (2009). Both class-specific affixation and prominence patterns are shown to provide phonetic environments that may result in synchronic phonological patterns following morphological environments. 1. Introduction Early models of linguistic organization suggest the impossibility that non-phonetic factors (morphosyntax, semantics, etc.) can influence sound change. For example, the Neogrammarians proposed that sound change is a “purely phonetic process,” occurring under “strictly phonetic conditions” (Bloomfield 1933:364, concerning the Neogrammarians).
    [Show full text]
  • DOCUMENT RESUME FL 015 507 AUTHOR Das, Bikram K., Ed. Communicative Language Teaching. Selected Papers from the RELC Seminar
    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 266 661 FL 015 507 AUTHOR Das, Bikram K., Ed. TITLE Communicative Language Teaching. Selected Papers from the RELC Seminar (Singapore, \pril 23-27, 1984). Anthology Series 14. INSTITUTION Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (Singapore). Regional Language Centre. REPORT NO ISBN-9971-74-022-2; RELC-P208-85 PUB DATE 85 NOTE 234p.; For individual papers, see FL 015 508-520. PUB TYPE Reports - Descriptive (141) -- Guides - Classroom Use - Guides (For Teachers) (052) -- Collected Works - Conference Proceedings (021) EDRS PRICE MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS Classroom Techniques; *Communicative Competence (Languages); *Developing Nations; *Educational Strategies; English (Second Language); Grammar; Industrial Education; Relevance (Education); Secondary Education; Second Language Instruction; *Teaching Methods; Writing Instruction ABSTRACT A collection of papers presented at a seminar conducted at the Regional Language Centre (Singapore)on communicative language teaching includes: "Integrating the New and the Old in a Communicative Approach" (William T. Littlewood); "Communicative Competence and Language Teaching: Second Thoughts" (Christina Brett Paulston); "Communicative Teaching: 'Communicative' in What Sense?" (N. S. Prabhu); "Silence in the Communicative Curriculum" (John Gibbons); "Theory and Methodology: DoWe Do What We Are Knowing?" (J. D. Willis); "The Status of Grammar in theLanguage Curriculum" (Jack C. Richards); "Communicative Language Teaching in the Rural Areas: How Does One Make the Irrelevar* Relevant?" (Andrew Gonzalez); "Teaching for Communicative Competence isa Second Language" (Bonifacio P. Sibayan); "Opportunities for Learning through the Communicative Approach" (Paul Nation); "UMSEP and theDeep End-Support-Performance Approach to Language Learning" (Khong Chooi Peng); "The Communicative Approach: Questions Arisingfrom Materials Writing in a TEFL Situation" (P.
    [Show full text]
  • Notes on Daakie (Port Vato): Sounds and Modality
    Proceedings of the Eighteenth Meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association (AFLA) Lauren Eby Clemens Gregory Scontras Maria Polinsky (dir.) AFLA XVIII The Eighteenth Meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association Harvard University March 4-6, 2011 NOTES ON DAAKIE (PORT VATO): SOUNDS AND MODALITY Manfred Krifka Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin & Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Table of Contents Preface i Byron Ahn Tongan Relative Clauses at the Syntax-Prosody 1-15 Interface Edith Aldridge Event Existentials in Tagalog 16-30 Laura Kalin and TP Serialization in Malagasy 31-45 Edward Keenan Manfred Krifka Notes on Daakie (Port Vato): Sounds and Modality 46-65 Eri Kurniawan Does Sundanese have Prolepsis and/or Raising to 66-79 Object Constructions? Bradley Larson A, B, C, or None of the Above: A C-Command 80-93 Puzzle in Tagalog Anja Latrouite Differential Object Marking in Tagalog 94-109 Dong-yi Lin Interrogative Verb Sequencing Constructions in 110-124 Amis Andreea Nicolae and How Does who Compose? 125-139 Gregory Scontras Eric Potsdam A Direct Analysis of Malagasy Phrasal 140-155 Comparatives Chaokai Shi and A Probe-based Account of Voice Agreement in 156-167 T.-H. Jonah Linl Formosan Languages Doris Ching-jung Yen and Sequences of Pronominal Clitics in Mantauran 168-182 Loren Billings Rukai: V-Deletion and Suppletion The Proceedings of AFLA 18 NOTES ON DAAKIE (PORT VATO): SOUNDS AND MODALITY* Manfred Krifka Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin & Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin [email protected] The paper reports from ongoing field work on Daakie (South Ambrym, Vanuatu), also known as Port Vato.
    [Show full text]
  • Possession in Lelepa, a Language of Central Vanuatu
    POSSESSION IN LELEPA, A LANGUAGE OF CENTRAL VANUATU by Sébastien Lacrampe A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Linguistics School of Language, Arts and Media Pacific Languages Unit The University of the South Pacific March, 2009 DECLARATION I, Sebastien Lacrampe, declare that this thesis is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge, it contains no material previously published, or substantially overlapping with material submitted for the award of any other degree at any institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the text. The research in this thesis was performed under my supervision and to my knowledge is the sola work of Mr. Sebastien Lacrampe. ABSTRACT This thesis studies possession in Lelepa, a language from the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian, spoken in Central Vanuatu. Investigating this particular feature of the language was achieved by collecting original data from Lelepa speakers. Language data is presented in the form of interlinearised examples taken from a corpus of texts and elicitation notes. Data was collected between 2006 and 2008 during fieldtrips to Lelepa and Mangaliliu. The core of the study is devoted to the possessive system of Lelepa. Like many other Oceanic languages, Lelepa has direct and indirect possessive constructions. This thesis shows that the direct possessive construction formally consists of a possessed noun to which a possessor suffix attaches. It encodes possession of semantic domains such as body parts, body products, reference kinship terms, items closely associated to the possessor and parts of wholes. Indirect possession is expressed by two distinct subtypes: the free and construct indirect constructions.
    [Show full text]