Lynch, Pacific Languages
Lynch, Pacific Languages
Lynch, Pacific Languages
Pacific
Languages
AN INTRODUCTION
John Lynch
© 1998 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
98 99 00 01 02 03 5 4 3 2 1
Lynch, John
Pacific languages: an introduction / [John Lynch].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–8248–1898–9 (alk. paper)
1. Pacific Area—Languages. I. Title.
P381.P3L96 1998
499—dc21 97–24552
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To
Andonia,
Brendan,
and
Steven
Contents
Illustrations x
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
VII
VIII Contents
Part 2: Structure 73
Appendices 283
Notes 313
References 321
Index 345
Illustrations
Tables
Figures
1. Genetic relationship
2. Subgroups of a family
3. Subgroups of Proto East-Central Papuan
4. Establishing migration patterns
5. Time limits on comparative linguistics
6. An Austronesian family tree
7. The Polynesian subgroup
8. Partial classification of Anejom̃ terms for marine life
9. A moiety system
10. Njamal kinship terms
11. Anejom̃ kinship terms
X
Illustrations XI
Maps
This book was born out of frustration. I have lost count of the number of
times people have asked me to recommend to them a “good general book
on the languages of the Pacific.” There are any number of good specialist or
technical books on the Austronesian languages as a whole, or on the Papuan
languages, or on Australian languages, or on certain subgroups or individual
languages—but virtually all of these are aimed at readers who have studied
a considerable amount of linguistics.
There are, however, many nonlinguists who want or need to know some-
thing about the languages of this region. Language is an important topic of
conversation, an important political and social phenomenon, in many if not
all Pacific countries and territories. Pacific peoples want to know more about
their languages—what other languages they are related to, where they came
from, how they compare with, say, English and French, what the other lan-
guages in the region are like. People working in Pacific countries need some
general information on the languages of the country or the region to assist
them in their work and in their appreciation of the cultures and societies
of the Pacific. Teachers, sociologists, community workers, government offi-
cers, high school and university students—all are affected by language, and
most would like to know more.
Hence this book. It has been a long time in the making, but I hope that
it will serve a useful purpose. I have tried to steer a middle course between
being too simplistic and being too technical. Obviously, to provide detailed
coverage in any book of the sound systems and grammars of fourteen hun-
dred languages, their interrelationships and connections with languages
outside the region, their history and current status, and the relationships
between language, culture, and social organization is quite impossible.
XIII
XIV Preface
What I have tried to do is to give the general reader a feel for what these
languages are like (with a minimum of references) and at the same time
offer linguists something to get their teeth into (with references to sources
they can follow up).
The book has three major sections. Part 1 describes the geographical
distribution of Pacific languages and attempts to summarize what is known
of their history. Part 2 is an overview of the phonological and grammatical
structure of these languages. This discussion is far from exhaustive. Many
areas (e.g., complex sentences) and many thorny problems (e.g., the Polyne-
sian “passive”) are omitted or glossed over. But there is enough information
to give a general picture of what Pacific languages are like, in what ways
they are similar, and how they differ both from each other and from met-
ropolitan languages like English or French. Part 3 looks at the relationship
between Pacific societies and cultures and their languages from a number of
different points of view. In the Pacific as elsewhere, language is very much a
social and cultural phenomenon.
The careful reader will notice a bias toward Oceanic languages in part
2. This results partly from my own professional background and partly from
the fact that, while there are good general surveys of Papuan and Australian
languages (Foley 1986 and Dixon 1980), there is nothing comparable for
Oceanic languages.
The orthography I use in citing language data is generally the standard
orthography of the language. For languages lacking such an orthography,
I have used a standard set of phonetic symbols (see appendix 2). This has
often meant modifying the orthography of the original sources. Similarly, I
have consistently used the same name for the same language, even when
some sources use different names.
Phrase and sentence examples are presented as shown below.
Fijian
• The last line, in single quotation marks, is the free English translation.
This book originally appeared in 1993 as an in-house text for the University
of the South Pacific course “Structure of Pacific Languages.” I am grateful to
students for their feedback about this earlier version, and to Donn Bayard,
Barbara Hau‘ofa, Andrew Horn, Ross McKerras, Macha Paris, Mere Pulea,
Jeff Siegel, Matthew Spriggs, Jan Tent, Randy Thaman, Howard Van Trease,
Vilimaina Vakaciwa, and the Department of Geography of the University of
the South Pacific, who either commented on parts of the earlier version or
provided useful information.
I take particular pleasure in expressing my gratitude to Niko Besnier,
Terry Crowley, Ken Rehg, Malcolm Ross, and Nick Thieberger, without
whose assistance this book would not be what it is. I reserve, of course, all
blame for errors and misinterpretations.
I am also deeply indebted to a number of Pacific people who have
opened the doors of their languages to me. I am especially grateful to John
Davani, Tom Hiua, John Naupa, Julie Piau, Tu‘a Taumoepeau-Tupou, Philip
Tepahae, and Apenisa Tusulu, to the people of Uje and Anelcauhat (Ane-
ityum) and west Tanna in Vanuatu, and to my tambus in Kond and Anigl in
Papua New Guinea.
My sons Brendan and Steven have lived with this book over the past few
years, and the backs of discarded drafts have been of great use in helping to
develop their artistic talents. My wife Andonia has been a source of constant
encouragement, and I am eternally grateful for her love and support. I ded-
icate this book to them.
XVII
Terms Used
XIX
CHAPTER
Linguistics:
Some Basic Concepts
The only problem is that the noun man happens to be an exception to rule
(1), and the verb go an exception to rule (2). Looking at this ungrammatical
1
2 CHAPTER 1
utterance gives us insight into how the child’s brain is functioning in terms
of rules that combine units into larger units.
What are these units I have been talking about? If you asked a non-
linguist that question, the answer would probably be sounds, words, and
sentences. Unfortunately, the situation is more complex than that.
pull full
pig fig
supper suffer
cup cuff
The only difference in sound between the words in each pair is the difference
between the sounds [p] and [f], but each word has a very different meaning.
In English, the sounds [p] and [f] belong to different phonemes; that is, they
are different significant units of sound in the language. And linguists write
phonemes in slant lines / / to distinguish them from both sounds and letters.
Thus English has the phonemes /p/ and /f/.
Compare the same two sounds in the Tok Pisin language of Papua New
Guinea:
In this language, the difference between [p] and [f] is not significant. You can
use either sound without changing the meaning of a word. In Tok Pisin, [p]
and [f] belong to the same phoneme, usually written /p/. The same sounds in
different languages may therefore have quite different functions in the sys-
tems in which they occur, and quite different relationships with each other.
Note that we are dealing with sounds and phonemes here, not with the
letters that are used to write them. In the English words we looked at above,
the phoneme /f/ is represented by the letter f in full as well as by the combi-
nation ff in suffer. The same phoneme /f/ is also represented by ph in phone,
by gh in enough, and so on. Our principal concern is with the sound systems
of Pacific languages, though we will also look at their orthographies, or
writing systems.
act
acted
react
reacted
Each of these consists of a number of phonemes, and each is also a word, since it
has meaning by itself and, in the written language, appears with a space before
and after. The second and third words, however, can also be divided into two mean-
ingful parts, act ‘carry out’ + ed ‘past tense’ and re ‘back’ + act. The fourth word
consists of three meaningful parts: re + act + ed.
These smallest meaningful units are called morphemes. Some single mor-
phemes are words (act, dog, house, desire, for example). Other words (acted, re-
act, reacted, dogs, housewife, desirable, for example), consist of multiple mor-
phemes. The study of morphemes and of the way morphemes combine to form
words, is known as morphology, a term also used to refer to the patterns by which
morphemes combine to form words in a particular language.
The examples given above show one other feature of morphemes. While
act can stand on its own as a word (as a free morpheme), re and ed cannot.
Morphemes like re and ed are known as affixes, and they must be attached
to another morpheme. There are a number of different kinds of affixes, the
most common being prefixes, which, like re, come before the root in a word,
and suffixes, which, like ed, come after the root. The convention in linguis-
tics is to write prefixes with a following hyphen (re-) and suffixes with a
preceding hyphen (-ed), the hyphen indicating where the join takes place.
4 CHAPTER 1
Another kind of affix occurs in some Pacific languages, namely, the infix,
which is placed within the root. In Roviana (Solomon Islands), for example,
verbs are converted to nouns by inserting the infix -in- (note the hyphens
both before and after the infix) before the first vowel of the root:
Each of these phrases is a unit. When each is moved to some other position
in the sentence, it must be moved as a whole entity. For example, the passive
equivalent of the sentence above is
The cats / were being killed / by the young boys / on the beach.
* The young the cats were being killed by boys on the beach.
Linguistics: Some Basic Concepts 5
(The asterisk marks the sentence as ungrammatical.) That is, it is not just
the noun boys that moves in this change from active to passive, but the
whole noun phrase the young boys.
There are different types of phrases. In this book, I refer to noun phrases,
which are phrases that function like nouns and can be replaced by a single noun
or a pronoun—the young boys and the cats in our sentence above are both noun
phrases (and could be replaced, for example, by they and them). I also refer to
prepositional phrases, which are noun phrases introduced by a preposition:
on the beach and by the young boys in the examples above are prepositional
phrases, introduced by the prepositions on and by. I use the term verb com-
plex to refer to phrases that function like verbs: were killing and were being
1
killed in the sentences above are both verb complexes.
Phrases combine to form clauses. A clause is a group of phrases containing
a subject (the topic being talked about) and a predicate (what is being said
about the topic). A sentence is a group of one or more clauses that can stand
alone. If we return to our example of the cat-killing boys, none of the following is
2
a sentence, since each requires other phrases to make it complete.
English and many other languages usually require each predicate to con-
tain a verb complex, so that a sentence must have at least one verb. Many
languages of the Pacific, however, do not require this, since in these languages
there is no verb equivalent to English be (with its various forms is, are, etc.). So,
for example, English demands the verb be in equational sentences like That man
is a doctor, but many Pacific languages have no verb in equivalent sentences. In
the Lenakel language of Vanuatu, for example, the same sentence would be Wus
aan tokta, literally ‘man that doctor,’ with no verb.
This fact is important, because the subject is not always the performer
of the action. Look at these sentences:
In these sentences, the boy is still the subject, because we can see the same
kinds of changes in the verb when the boy becomes plural:
In the second case, however, the boy is not performing the action. The pig is
performing the action on the boy.
In other languages, the subject and the object behave in ways different
from the way in which English subjects and objects behave, and we cannot
give a universal definition of these concepts. But the subject often performs
the action, and the object usually receives it.
cede the noun it describes or follow the verb be (or similar verbs like seem or
appear), as in A good chief looks after his people and Our chief is/seems good.
In many Pacific languages, however, adjectives belong to a class of
stative verbs, verbs that indicate a state rather than an action. In Fijian, for
example, a verb is marked as stative by one of a number of markers (e.g., e
‘third person singular subject’). In the first sentence below, the verb is kana
‘eat,’ and the word levu ‘big’ follows the noun it modifies, vuaka ‘pig’:
In the next sentence, the word levu ‘big’ behaves like a verb, that is, just as
kana ‘eat’ does in the sentence above.
Singular Plural
First person I, me, my we, us, our
Second person you, your you, your
Third person
Masculine he, him, his they, them, their
Feminine she, her they, them, their
Neuter it, its they, them, their
lama, the national language of Vanuatu, for example, yumi is the first
person inclusive pronoun (‘I + you’), while mifala is the first person
exclusive pronoun (‘I + he/she/it/them [not you]’).
3. Many Pacific languages distinguish more than two numbers, the most
common (apart from singular and plural) being the dual number,
which refers to two and only two; the trial number, referring to three
and only three; and the paucal number, used for a few (three to six or
so), or to a small group that is part of a much larger one.
The function of the plural changes depending on how many num-
bers a language recognizes. In a language with a singular, a dual, a
trial or a paucal, and a plural, the role of the plural is much smaller
than it is in a language with only a singular and a plural. In Fijian, for
example, we have o koya ‘he/she/it’ (singular), o irau ‘they two’ (dual),
o ira-tou ‘they (a few)’ (paucal), and o ira ‘they (many)’ (plural).
4. Many Pacific languages have separate object and possessive forms
of the pronoun, as English does. But in addition, and unlike English,
many also distinguish between an independent pronoun and a sub-
ject pronoun. The independent pronoun can be used as an answer
to a question, and may be used as a subject, but when it is it is
usually emphatic. In Lenakel, for example, in is the third person
singular independent pronoun, and r- is the corresponding subject
pronoun. The sentences In r-am-apul and R-am-apul both mean ‘He/
she is asleep.’ But while the second one is a neutral statement, the
first emphasizes that it is he or she, not someone else, who is asleep.
Here we can see that there are two different constructions: The words for
‘hand’ and ‘father’ attach -gu directly to the noun. I call this type a direct
Linguistics: Some Basic Concepts 9
possessive construction. The words for ‘house’ and ‘dog’ do not attach -gu
directly to the noun, but attach it instead to the morpheme e-, and this word
(e-gu) precedes the noun. This I call an indirect possessive construction.
In one way or another, most Pacific languages distinguish two types of
possessive constructions to which different linguists have given different
labels, and which have different semantics. These two types could be classi-
fied as follows:
Some languages are more complex than this, using a system of classifiers,
often in both possession and counting, to show what type of thing the noun is,
just as in English we normally do not say ten cattle or four breads, but ten head
of cattle or four loaves of bread, using head and loaf as kinds of classifiers. Look
at the following examples from Ponapean (spoken in Pohnpei, Micronesia):
kene-i-mahi
edible:thing-my breadfruit
‘my breadfruit’
nime-i uhpw
drinking:thing-my coconut
‘my drinking coconut’
sehu pah-sop
sugarcane four-stalk
‘four stalks of sugarcane’
Ponapean has more than twenty possessive classifiers (like kene- and nime-
above), and approximately thirty numeral classifiers (like -sop above).
version, though both are often still recognizable as the “same” language.
The two examples given below, of the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer in the
English of about 1400 and in modern English, illustrate this principle.
Oure fadir that art in heuenes halowid be thi name, thi kyngdom come to,
be thi wille don in erthe es in heuene.
Our Father, who is in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your king-
dom come into being. May your will be followed on earth, just as it is in
heaven.
Even if a language does not have written records going back a long
time, the fact that people of different generations speak the same language
slightly differently shows that languages change. We can even observe
changes taking place in a language when we notice competing forms, like
the two different pronunciations of a word like either in English (one with an
initial vowel sound like that of niece and the other with a vowel like that of
nice), or the past tense of the verb dive—dived and dove—in many dialects of
American English. Perhaps the most obvious example of language change,
however, is the continual introduction of new words into all languages (and,
less obvious but also quite frequent, the gradual loss of words that, for one
reason or another, have become obsolete).
Imagine now that we have a single speech community speaking a lan-
guage we will call X. This community splits into four separate groups, A,
B, C, and D. Because language change is inevitable and continuous, after a
few hundred years these four communities would speak different dialects of
3
the same language. But after a thousand years or more, these four dialects
would have changed so much that they had become separate languages, as
shown in figure 1. The languages would share many similarities in vocabu-
lary and grammar, since language change is relatively slow. But a speaker
of language A would have considerable difficulty in holding a conversation
with a speaker of B, C, or D.
Languages A, B, C, and D in figure 1 are all genetically related to
each other, because they all descend from language X, which is their com-
mon ancestor. Languages A, B, C, and D are often referred to as daughter
languages of X, and all four languages belong to the same language fam-
ily. Figure 1, which represents their relationship, is their family tree.
Where there are historical records of the ancestor language and of the
whole period of change, it is easy to establish the relationship between the
daughter languages and to see how diversification took place. But in the
Pacific, as in many other parts of the world, such records do not go back any-
where near far enough for us to have concrete proof of diversification and
relationship. How, then, do linguists establish such languages’ relationship?
Related languages share a number of similarities in vocabulary, pronun-
Linguistics: Some Basic Concepts 11
ciation, and grammar. Linguists look for similarities between various lan-
guages, and if the similarities are numerous enough, they assume that the
languages involved are related despite the absence of documentary proof
and derive from a hypothesized common ancestor, which is referred to as a
protolanguage.
But not all similarities between languages can be attributed to genetic re-
lationship. There are two other possible explanations. One is that the similar-
ities are purely accidental. In Motu, Fijian, and many other Pacific languages,
the word for ‘eye’ is mata, while in Modern Greek the word for ‘eye’ is mati.
This, however, is a purely accidental resemblance, as there are no other con-
nections between Greek and Motu or Fijian. If two or more languages share
only a few similarities, these are probably coincidental. It is virtually impossi-
ble, however, that languages could accidentally have hundreds of similarities.
The second explanation for similarities between languages is copying
or borrowing—that a language has adopted a word (or some other linguistic
feature) from some other language. For example, in many Pacific languages
the word for ‘radio’ is something like retio or ledio. This word has been
copied from English, but this does not mean that these languages are related
either to English or to each other.
Copying is a very common phenomenon in all languages (see chapter 9).
When new items of technology, new social practices, or new ideas are intro-
duced into a society from outside, often the words for them, modified to fit
local pronunciation, will be brought in at the same time. English is full of
words copied from other languages: Algebra, boomerang, coup, demonstra-
tor, ghetto, junta, taboo, thug, and yen are just a few examples.
Copying is more likely to take place in certain areas of the lexicon than
in others. For example, words like snow, coconut, ice cream, church, team,
and television could be easily introduced into a language, since they represent
things or concepts that are by no means found in all cultures or environments.
12 CHAPTER 1
But words like hand, leg, one, two, black, white, eat, sleep are much less likely
to be taken from another language, since all languages probably have their
own words for these concepts, irrespective of the culture of their speakers or
the physical environment in which they live. There would be no need for a lan-
guage to supplement its vocabulary by borrowing them. For similar reasons,
certain aspects of grammar (the morphological structure of words, for exam-
ple) are less likely to be borrowed than others (like word order).
If similarities between two languages are only in areas where we might
expect to see copying, they do not constitute evidence of genetic relation-
ship. If, however, the similarities are in areas of vocabulary and grammar
where borrowing is much less likely to take place, we can reasonably con-
clude that these are not due to chance or borrowing, but to genetic in-
heritance. The words and structures were present in some form in an an-
cestor language and have been retained, usually in a modified form, in the
daughter languages. This then leads to the conclusion that the languages
sharing these similarities are related, belong to the same language family,
and derive from the same protolanguage.
abbreviated as m:m:m. We can also see all the vowels (a:a:a, i:i:i, and so
on). But there are also some correspondences between different phonemes:
First, although we have the set p:p:p (as in pune : pune : pune ‘pigeon’), we
also have another set p.p:b (as in lapia : lapia : labia ‘sago’). Then, we also
have the set θ:θ:t (where θ represents the absence of a sound), as in uli: uli:
tuli ‘sew.’ The important thing about both types of correspondence sets is
that they are regular. They are not random, but occur again and again in
many words. Even in the short list above, you can see a number of examples
of each.
In the case of correspondence sets of the type m:m:m, the original lan-
guage almost certainly had m, and the daughter languages have not altered
it. The protolanguage, then, had a phoneme *m, where the asterisk denotes
a reconstructed form.
In the case of correspondence sets of the type p:p:p and p:p:b, however,
one or more daughter languages has changed. The logical assumption here
is that the set p:p:p reflects an original *p, while the set p:p:b represents an
original *b, which Aroma and Hula have changed to p. The merger of pho-
netically similar phonemes is a very common phenomenon, and this is what
seems to have happened: The distinction between the two phonemes p and b
has been lost in these two languages (in the same way as the distinction be-
tween the voiced w in witch and the voiceless w in which is being lost in most
varieties of English). Similarly, the set θ:θ:t probably represents an earlier
*t, which has been lost in Aroma and Hula; again, loss of a phoneme is far
more common and natural than the addition of a phoneme.
Using this principle of regularity of correspondence, and also making
use of what linguists know generally about language change, it is possible
to reconstruct elements of a protolanguage—to make an educated guess
about what the phonemes, words, and grammar of the ancestor language
might have been. Given that Aroma nemo, Hula nemo, and Sinagoro nemo
all mean ‘mosquito,’ for example, and that the correspondences n.n.n, e:e:e,
m:m:m, and o:o:o are regular, linguists would reconstruct the word *nemo
‘mosquito’ in the language ancestral to these three languages. The full set of
protoforms for the words given above would be:
*tama ‘father’
*lata ‘milk’
*tuli ‘sew’
*tubu ‘grandparent’
*labia ‘sago’
*pune ‘pigeon’
14 CHAPTER 1
*kopi ‘skin’
*manu ‘bird’
*nemo ‘mosquito’
but within the group, D and E are more closely related to each other than ei-
ther is to language C.
Linguists generally use the term subgroup to refer to two or more lan-
guages within a family that are more closely related to each other than to
the rest of the family. In figure 2, A and B form one subgroup and F, G, and H
another. C, D, and E make up a third subgroup within which exists a further,
lower-level, subgroup (sometimes called a subsubgroup), D and E.
When the history of a language family is known through written records,
the subgrouping of languages within that family can also usually be estab-
lished by examining those records. But how do we determine subgroups of
a language family in an area like the Pacific, where written records of lan-
guages either do not exist at all or date only from recent times?
One technique for doing this is known as lexicostatistics. This involves
the comparison of the basic vocabulary of the languages we are interested
in (using a standard one-hundred-or two-hundred-word list), and expressing
the degree of relationship between any two languages in the sample as a
percentage, which represents the cognates (similar vocabulary items pre-
sumed to derive from the same original word in the protolanguage) shared
by each pair of languages. A higher percentage corresponds to a closer rela-
tionship, and members of subgroups should show the highest percentages.
Lexicostatistics has the advantage of allowing quick formulation and quan-
tification of the internal relationships of a language family, but it also has many
problems. Some of these are theoretical or methodological and need not concern
us here. One obvious problem, however, is that a list of even two hundred words
represents only an extremely small part of a whole language, and the figures ob-
tained from comparing such lists may not accurately represent the relationship
between two languages. Today, most linguists do not rely heavily on lexicostatis-
tics as a method for subgrouping languages, although they might use it to get a
preliminary indication of the possible subgrouping.
The chief method linguists use to establish subgroups is examination of
shared innovations. If you go back to the Aroma, Hula, and Sinagoro exam-
ples in the last section, you will see that two changes, or innovations, have
taken place: (1) original *t has been lost in both Aroma and Hula (but not in
Sinagoro); and (2) the distinction between original *b and *p has been re-
tained in Sinagoro, but it has been lost in both Aroma and Hula, where these
two phonemes merge as the single phoneme p.
Aroma and Hula share two innovations that Sinagoro does not, which
would suggest that the two languages are more closely related to each other
than either is to Sinagoro. The family tree in figure 3 shows how these three
descendants of Proto East-Central Papuan are related.
Rather than suggesting that Aroma and Hula both quite independently
16 CHAPTER 1
First, the fact that languages are related implies that they have a com-
mon origin. This often (though not always) implies that the people who
speak those languages have a common origin as well, telling us something
about the origins of and historical connections between the peoples of a
region.
Second, information about subgroupings can give us an idea of the
chronology of language divisions (and presumably also divisions in a com-
munity), as well as providing indications about the directions in which peo-
ple migrated. As an example of this, let us consider just the following Pacific
languages: Fijian, Tongan, Pukapuka (spoken in the Cook Islands), Tahitian,
and Rapanui (Easter Island). A simple family tree for just these five lan-
guages would look like the one in figure 4.
The most recent split in this family (which includes hundreds of other
languages) is that between Tahitian and Rapanui, with the next most recent
that between Pukapuka and the ancestor of Tahitian and Rapanui. Some-
what earlier Tongan and “Proto Pukapuka-Tahitian-Rapanui” divided, and
the first split was between Fijian and all the other languages. As you can see
by looking at map 1, the splits proceeded from west to east.
On the basis of this subgrouping, most linguists would assume (1) that
the original homeland of this group of people was probably somewhere
around the Fiji-Tonga area; and (2) that the general direction of migration
of these peoples was probably from west to east, as shown in map 1. Note
that I have used the terms “assume,” “probably,” and “somewhere.” These
conclusions are merely the best educated guesses we can make from the
data. We would still want to find supporting evidence from other disci-
plines—archaeological dates, oral traditions, or the like—before adopting
these conclusions firmly.
Third, comparative linguistics can tell us something about the culture
of the people who spoke the protolanguage, and about the changes that
have taken place in that culture. If a set of words can be reconstructed for
The Languages
of the Pacific
When different people speak of the Pacific region, they often mean different
things. In some senses, people from such Pacific Rim countries as Japan and
Korea, Canada and the United States, and Colombia and Peru are as much
a part of the region as are those from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Marshall
Islands, Tonga, and so on. In this book, however, I use the term “the Pacific”
to refer to the island countries and territories of the Pacific Basin, including
Australia and New Zealand.
This Pacific has traditionally been divided into four regions: Melanesia,
Micronesia, Polynesia, and Australia (see map 2). Australia is clearly sepa-
rate from the remainder of the Pacific culturally, ethnically, and linguisti-
cally. The other three regions are just as clearly not separate from one
another according to all of these criteria. There is considerable ethnic, cul-
tural, and linguistic diversity within each of these regions, and the bound-
aries usually drawn between them do not necessarily coincide with clear
physical, cultural, or linguistic differences. These regions, and the bound-
aries drawn between them, are largely artifacts of the western propensity,
even weakness, for classification, as the continuing and quite futile debate
over whether Fijians are Polynesians or Melanesians illustrates.
Having said this, however, I will nevertheless continue to use the terms
“Melanesia,” “Micronesia,” and “Polynesia” to refer to different geographi-
cal areas within the Pacific basin, without prejudice to the relationships of
the languages or the cultures of people of each region.
23
24
CHAPTER 2
Map 2. The Pacific
The Languages of the Pacific 25
speak the language of their own community, but also acquire an understand-
ing, either active or passive, of the languages of neighboring communities
from a very early age. People from two communities can quite often carry on
a conversation in two different languages, so testing for mutual intelligibil-
ity is fraught with all sorts of problems. In cases like these, linguists have to
use their own judgment about how many languages are involved.
Perhaps more important than the issue of mutual intelligibility is the is-
sue of social identity. People believe that their language is the same as—or is
different from—another group’s language for a variety of social rather than
linguistic reasons. Here are two examples of this:
A B C D E F G H I J
People from, say, village C can easily communicate with their close neigh-
bors (A and B to the west, D and E to the east); they have some difficulty
communicating with people from F and G; and they cannot communicate
well at all with people from H, I, and J. On the other hand, people from
village E can communicate easily with those from C, D, F, and G, have
some difficulty with those from B, H, and I, but find people from A and J
unintelligible. People from A would be unable to communicate with those
The Languages of the Pacific 27
from J, so it would seem from looking just at the two ends of the chain
that two different languages are involved. But there is nowhere in the
middle of the chain where we can draw a language boundary, since every-
one can communicate with their immediate neighbors. So are we dealing
with one language or two?
In one sense, this is really a problem only when one tries to count the
number of languages, to tidy up the situation with a neat classification.
Some linguists would say that the villages I have described share one lan-
guage, made up of a complex dialect chain. Others would say it is two, with,
however, no distinct boundary between the western language and the east-
ern one. Situations like this are found in Fiji, in the Caroline Islands of
Micronesia, and in a number of areas in Papua New Guinea. This is one rea-
son that different authorities give different numbers of languages for certain
areas of the Pacific.
Despite these complications, when I say that there are about fourteen
hundred languages spoken in the Pacific, I do mean languages, not dialects.
Some, of course, are quite similar to each other, as French is to Spanish and
Italian, or even as Hindi is to Urdu. But there are also differences of the
same order of magnitude as those between English and Chinese. And many
of these languages are spoken in a number of dialects as well.
There are two other reasons why we cannot be exact about the number
of languages in the Pacific. Some languages are moribund—that is, at last
report they were spoken by just a small number of old people—and there-
fore are almost extinct. Many Australian languages fall into this category,
but there are some in Melanesia as well. The other reason is that, at least
in certain parts of the Pacific, we have insufficient information. The interior
of Irian Java is an especially good example, though not the only one. In such
cases we are forced to make educated guesses.
Table 1 gives the number of languages spoken in each of the main re-
gions of the Pacific and in each of the countries and territories within each
region. For the reasons discussed above, the figures given are approximate.
Melanesia 1151+
Irian Jaya 205+
Papua New Guinea 750+
Solomon Islands 63
Vanuatu 105
New Caledonia 28
Micronesia 16
Belau 1
Northern Marianas and Guam 2a
Marshall Islands 1
Kiribati 1
Nauru 1
Federated States of Micronesia 11
Australia 200b
Total 1389+
a
One of these is a dialect of Carolinian, other dialects of which are spoken in
the Federated States of Micronesia.
b
Many of these have become extinct or are moribund.
Speakers of many of these languages now live outside their home coun-
tries. There are significant communities of speakers of, for example, East
Uvea (Wallisian) in New Caledonia and Vanuatu, and of Tongan and Samoan
in both New Zealand and the United States. About as many Rarotongan
The Languages of the Pacific 29
30 CHAPTER 2
speakers, and many more speakers of Niuean, live in New Zealand as in the
Cook Islands and Niue, respectively.
Some Polynesian languages have large numbers of speakers. Samoan
probably has about 250,000 speakers, Tongan, Tahitian, and New Zealand
Māori each approximately 100,000. Rarotongan, with more than 30,000
speakers, and Wallisian, with 10,000, are also large in Pacific terms. In con-
trast, some of the languages of French Polynesia other than Tahitian are
spoken by fewer than a thousand people.
Micronesia is similar to Polynesia in having—as a rule—only one language
per island or island group, although there are difficulties in deciding exactly
how many languages there are. Bender and Wang (1985, 54–56) have a good
brief discussion of this problem. While many of the speech traditions of Microne-
sia are clearly identifiable as discrete languages, the Trukic group of speech
communities, extending from Chuuk (Truk) Lagoon to Tobi, presents a major
problem. Different linguists have divided this complex continuum into three,
seven, and eleven distinct languages, which makes the exercise of counting lan-
guages difficult and probably futile. I have taken Bender and Wang’s figure of
three languages for this continuum, and this gives the somewhat arbitrary figure
of sixteen languages spoken in Micronesia. Map 4 shows the location of these
languages, but also indicates the named varieties of the three Trukic languages
that some linguists treat as distinct.
Many speakers of Micronesian languages also live outside their home coun-
tries, particularly in Guam and the United States. Fiji, Nauru, and Solomon Is-
lands possess sizable Kiribati-speaking communities. Kiribati and Chamorro,
each with more than 50,000 speakers, have the greatest number of speakers in
Micronesia. Lagoon Trukese, Ponapean, and Marshallese all have about 20,000
speakers, and most of the other languages (depending on how they are defined)
number in the thousands. A number of languages or dialects, how-
ever,—including Sonsorolese, Satawalese, Namonuito, Ngatikese, Kapingama-
rangi, and Nukuoro—have fewer than a thousand speakers.
2.2.2. Melanesia
For the purposes of this discussion, Melanesia is taken as including the in-
dependent states of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, the
Indonesian province of Irian Jaya, and the French overseas territory of New
Caledonia. Melanesia differs from Polynesia and Micronesia; here it is the
rule rather than the exception for there to be many languages per island. In
this general survey of the linguistic situation in Melanesia, maps 5 through
10 locate all the languages of Melanesia mentioned in this book.
The Languages of the Pacific 31
32 CHAPTER 2
island of Bau, southeast of Viti Levu, has been adopted as the standard for
the written language, for education, and for certain public occasions, so that
many Fijians who speak another dialect also know that one. “Fijian” consists
of a chain of perhaps thirty or forty dialects. Most linguists would probably
divide this chain into two languages, Western Fijian (spoken in the western
half of Viti Levu), and Eastern Fijian (spoken in the rest of the country, ex-
cluding Rotuma).
Vanuatu
The Republic of Vanuatu is home to between one hundred and 110 lan-
guages (Tryon 1976). As in New Caledonia, all of these are spoken by very
small populations. Recent estimates (Tryon and Charpentier 1989) show
that Northeast Ambae on Ambae Island, with 4,300 speakers, Lenakel and
Whitesands on Tanna, each with 4,000, and Apma on Pentecost, with 3,800
3
have the largest number of speakers. Forty-one languages, or almost half
the languages of the country have two hundred speakers or fewer; five of
these forty-one have fewer than fifty speakers. (Map 7 shows only those lan-
guages mentioned in the text.)
Solomon Islands
The most recent linguistic survey of Solomon Islands (Tryon and Hackman
1983) lists sixty-three languages as being spoken in that country. Those with
the largest populations are the North Malaita dialect chain, with 13,500, and
Kwara’ae, with 12,500, both on Malaita. No other language has more than
10,000 speakers. Twelve languages have fewer than two hundred speakers;
six of these twelve have fewer than fifty. (Map 8 includes only those lan-
guages discussed in the text.)
At the same time, a staggering 114 languages in Papua New Guinea are
listed as being spoken by populations of fewer than two hundred people.
The Languages of the Pacific 35
Irian Jaya
The situation in Irian Jaya is less clear than anywhere else in the Melanesian
region, since much less research has been done on these languages than
on those of any other part of the Pacific. Wurm and Hattori (1981) believe
that slightly more than two hundred languages are spoken in this Indonesian
province, only four of them by 40,000 people or more. These four are:
2.2.3. Australia
Dixon (1980) says that, at the time of first European settlement, there were
probably about two hundred different languages spoken in Australia. We will
never know the exact figure, since many languages had disappeared before
any linguistic work had been carried out on them. Of these two hundred, the
Western Desert language had the largest number of speakers, around 6,000.
4
It was spoken over an area of about 1.3 million square kilometers.
The survival of Australian languages (and of the people who speak them)
has been severely threatened in the last two centuries. Whole tribes and
their languages died out in many areas, while other tribes assimilated to
varying degrees to the invading culture, losing their languages in the
process. Of the current language situation in Australia, Dixon says:
are probably around 100 languages that are on the path towards
extinction. Some are remembered by only a handful of old peo-
ple, and will cease to be spoken or remembered within a very few
years; others may be being learnt by children in a few families but
the total number of speakers is so small—a few dozen or less—that
these languages seem bound gradually to drop out of use over the
next few generations. Finally, perhaps 50 languages are in a rel-
atively healthy state—spoken as first language by a few hundred
(or, in one or two cases, by a few thousand) people and preserving
their full range of use in everyday affairs and in ceremony and rit-
ual. (Dixon 1980, 18)
While the languages of the rest of the Pacific region are generally quite
viable, the Australian languages, which once spread right across the conti-
nent, are in rapid decline. The number of speakers of each diminishes with
the shift toward English and the decimation of the population.
Even when people do have their own name for a language, some other
name is often given, usually a geographical one. On the island of Tanna
in Vanuatu, for example, the “real” names of the languages spoken in the
Lenakel and Whitesands areas are, respectively, Netvaar and Nɨrak. But
these languages are almost universally known as Lenakel and Whitesands
not only to outsiders but also to their speakers.
In many cases the same language goes by a number of different names,
a name in the local language and a geographical name, or a series of names
for different dialects or different localities in the language area, for example.
The language spoken (in two dialects) on the islands of Rennell and Bellona
in Solomon Islands is known variously as Rennell-Bellona, Rennellese, Bel-
lonese, Moiki, Munggava, and Munggiki. The Nakanamanga language of
central Vanuatu is perhaps better known to linguists as Nguna or Ngunese,
5
which is the dialect that has received the most attention.
Again, there are cases where names may refer only to different dialects.
West Guadalcanal (Solomon Islands), for example, has a number of named
dialects, some of which appear in the linguistic literature as if they were sep-
arate languages (Gari or Ghari. Kerebuto, Nggae, Sughu, and Vaturanga).
Early mission grammars or dictionaries often named the language after
the location of the mission, while the name in current use is different
(Lamalanga [name assigned by missionaries] for Raga, spoken in Pentecost
Island in Vanuatu). Hyphenated language names (e.g., Mono-Alu in Solomon
Islands) can indicate that there are (at least) two named dialects but no over-
all local name for the language. Spelling variations also occur. The name of
the Baniata language of Rendova in Solomon Islands has also been spelled
Bañata and Mbaniata, while another Solomons language, spoken in New
Georgia, has been variously spelled Bareke, Bariki, Mbareke, and Mbariki.
In this book I try to use the most generally accepted name for any lan-
guage with consistency, even if (1) the language has other names, and (2)
these other names are used in my sources.
2.4.2. Micronesia
Given Micronesia’s checkered colonial history, it is not surprising that little
was known about most of its languages until after the Second World War.
Some of the early information on Micronesian languages was written in Ger-
man or Japanese.
Bender (1984, viii–x) gives a brief summary of the history of Microne-
The Languages of the Pacific 43
2.4.3. Melanesia
In Melanesia, some languages have been well known to linguists for a long
time, but a very large number remain almost completely unstudied. Apart
from a few wordlists published by early explorers, it was once again the mis-
sionaries who undertook the first serious study of any of the Melanesian
languages. For many of these languages missionary grammars and dictio-
naries (in French, German, or Dutch as well as English) remain the only
publications of a linguistic nature. By the turn of the twentieth century, there
were publications on a handful of these languages, including the compara-
tive studies of von der Gabelentz (1861–1873). Codrington (1885), and Ray
(1926), which presented grammatical sketches of a number of languages.
But even into the 1920s, very little indeed had been published about the lan-
guages of Melanesia.
During the twentieth century, missionary linguistic work has continued
in anglophone Melanesia. Scholars from various universities have also pub-
lished grammatical and lexical studies of a number of Melanesian languages,
while the Summer Institute of Linguistics has engaged in a massive amount
of research into languages of the New Guinea area especially. Until recently,
the pioneering work of Leenhardt (1946) remained the major source of infor-
mation for the languages of francophone Melanesia, though recent work by a
number of French and other linguists has dramatically increased our knowl-
edge of the languages of New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands.
2.4.4. Australia
Apart from a few missionaries and colonial officials, very few of the early
white settlers paid much attention to Australian languages. Given their atti-
44 CHAPTER 2
tudes toward Aboriginal people and Aboriginal society, which ranged from
classifying them as primitive, attempting to assimilate them, and treating
them with “benign neglect” to downright extermination and genocide, one
would not have expected much linguistic work to be done on these lan-
guages in the first century of contact.
In the earlier part of the twentieth century, some linguistic study accom-
panied anthropological studies. In his survey of the languages of Australia
Dixon notes that, in the fifty years between 1910 and 1960, there was only
one linguist, Arthur Capell, active in the field. In more recent years, linguists
from a number of universities in Australia and elsewhere, as well as those
working with the Summer Institute of Linguistics, have produced a consid-
erable body of descriptive and comparative work. Much of this falls into the
category of salvage linguistics, recording a language before it becomes ex-
tinct. Many salvage attempts are just sketches, containing gaps in lexicon
and grammar that can never be filled.
CHAPTER
45
46 CHAPTER 3
part of the Pacific, but the poor state of our knowledge of Melanesian lan-
guages has made it difficult to determine just what that initial branching
looked like. Fijian and the Polynesian languages have been thoroughly stud-
ied for more than a century, and their interrelationships are fairly clear.
They form, however, only one small subsubgroup of Oceanic, and studying
them has not helped a great deal in determining the overall structure of the
Oceanic subgroup.
Only in fairly recent years has a coherent picture of the Oceanic sub-
group begun to emerge. Currently the groups within this subgroup include:
Attempts have been made to try to link two or more of these groupings
together into a higher-order group, but they have so far been unsuccessful.
Groups 5–8 above have recently been linked into a putative Central-Eastern
Oceanic subgroup (Lynch, Ross, and Crowley 1998) whose validity is still be-
ing investigated. Because of this, trying to present a family tree of Oceanic
would serve no real purpose at this stage of our research.
to the Pacific region. This thesis is almost universally accepted. Some evi-
dence suggests that the closest external relatives of the Austronesian lan-
guages may be (1) the Thai-Kadai group of languages, spoken mainly in
Thailand and Laos, and (2) the languages of the neighboring Austroasiatic
group, spoken mainly in Cambodia and Vietnam. Both of these groups also
have members in southern China and in parts of Malaysia. Archaeologists
suspect that dramatic improvements in agricultural practices, accompanied
by significant population growth, led to expansions of human populations on
the Southeast Asian mainland around 5,000 B.C. (Bellwood 1995).
The Austronesians were one of these populations. The linguistic family
tree presented in figure 6 is compatible with the archaeological evidence
pointing to an Austronesian homeland on the Asian mainland. The first no-
ticeable expansion was into Taiwan, and then, after some centuries, from
Taiwan to the Philippines. Later some Austronesian speakers migrated to
Malaysia, Indonesia, and Madagascar.
The closest relatives of Oceanic are its immediate western neighbors
in the Cenderawasih Bay area and the Halmahera Islands in western Irian
Jaya. The immediate ancestors of the Proto Oceanic speakers migrated from
eastern Indonesia through western Irian Jaya into the Bismarck Archipelago
(Manus, New Britain, and New Ireland), and settled there—possibly around
the Willaumez Peninsula in New Britain—for some time. Map 14 gives some
idea of the various migrations.
Austronesians must have been varied in nature. In some situations the two
groups probably engaged in open warfare. In others, the relationship would
have been uneasy but not particularly hostile. Yet others no doubt involved
total integration and intermarriage.
Some speakers of Proto Oceanic and its early descendants limited their
settlements, moving slowly to settle the Admiralties and New Britain. Others
went farther: Yap may have been settled from the Admiralties, for example,
as were New Ireland and the western Solomons. Oceanic speakers also
crossed the Vitiaz Strait to reach the New Guinea mainland, with one group
progressively settling the north coast from east to west, and another moving
into the Milne Bay area and the south coast.
Some Oceanic speakers seem to have been more adventurous still. If
indeed they originated in the New Britain area, they have left no trace
there, but seem to have moved first southeast into the Solomons, then south
into northern and central Vanuatu and north into Micronesia, probably the
Kiribati–Marshall Islands area, from which location they settled the rest of
Micronesia. There were also movements further south, into southern Vanu-
The History of the Austronesian Languages 55
atu, the Loyalty Islands, and New Caledonia, and further east to Fiji, from
where Polynesia was settled. Map 14 outlines these movements.
We should be careful, however, not to think of all of these migrations
as major colonizing expeditions. Spriggs (1995), for example, suggests that
there were probably initial long-distance scouting parties, followed by more
than one movement of people along fairly well defined routes. Back-migra-
tions of some people also took place. The migrations may have been deliber-
ate, as such factors as population pressure, food shortages, or political tur-
moil forced people to seek somewhere else to live. They may also have been
accidental, at least initially, as fishermen were blown off course and ended
up on new islands. Many settlements succeeded, but a great number no
doubt failed because of disease, attacks by speakers of Papuan languages,
and all kinds of other reasons.
Such factors complicate the neat splitting of communities suggested by
family trees. On the one hand, a language community may not have actually split,
but rather slowly diversified as contact between its subgroups became less and
less intense. On the other hand, different related languages could have influ-
enced each other, blurring any innovations that might have been developing in
one or another of them. Speed of settlement is another complicating factor. In
the islands east of the Bismarcks no one seems to have stayed in one place long
enough for telltale linguistic innovations to appear. Under these circumstances,
definitive higher-order subgroups of Oceanic are hard to establish.
If the settlement of the Pacific proceeded in the direction and at the
speed discussed above, it begins to make sense that Micronesians and Poly-
nesians, although originating in Melanesia, nevertheless physically resem-
ble their Southeast Asian ancestors more than they do Melanesians. Some
Oceanic speakers moved through Melanesia quickly enough to retain Asian
genetic features, and these people “became” Polynesians and Micronesians.
Others remained in Melanesia, where centuries of intermarriage with the
physically different Papuan speakers have led to quite different genetic de-
velopments (Pawley and Ross 1995, 60).
dates for the breakup of Proto Indo-European and its various subgroups were,
for example, proposed. Glottochronology, however, was strongly criticized by
many scholars, not only because of some of the dates it generated, but also be-
cause of inherent weaknesses in its methodology and underlying assumptions.
The practice has been almost universally abandoned.
But although there is no linguistic technique for determining absolute
dates for divisions in protolanguages or for migrations, linguists can try to
match their relative dating sequences with archaeological evidence, which
is on surer ground when it comes to absolute dating. In the Oceanic region,
this cooperative enterprise has led to some interesting results.
Archaeologists use the term Lapita to refer to a distinctive style of pot-
tery. (The name comes from a place in New Caledonia, one of the first sites
excavated with this pottery.) The term Lapita culture refers to the cul-
tural complex associated with this pottery style, including the introduction
of pigs, dogs, and chickens; distinctive stone adzes and shell ornaments;
the development of larger villages; and the intensification of agriculture
(Spriggs 1995; 116–118).
Lapita culture first appears in the archaeological record of the Bismarck
Archipelago about 1600 B.C. It seems to have reached as far as Vanuatu and
New Caledonia by about 1200 B.C., and Fiji and western Polynesia by about
1000 B.C. In Vanuatu and islands farther south and east, Lapita people were
the first settlers: There is no evidence of any pre-Lapita people (Papuans or
others) in eastern Melanesia and Polynesia, and this absence of competition
for land would have made settlement much easier than it was farther north
and west.
This notion of a very rapid movement of people through island Melane-
sia correlates very well with the linguistic subgrouping that I discussed in
the last section: That is, the fact that the Oceanic group seemed to have
a number of first-order subgroups (a “flat” tree), rather than two or three
subgroups that themselves have only two or three subsubgroups, suggests
fairly quick movement over a wide area. Much slower settlement patterns
would have allowed more time for distinctive innovations and would present
a more layered family tree, with the eastern languages much lower down the
tree than the western ones.
Archaeologists tell us that the original Polynesians settled in the Samoa-
Tonga area about 1000 B.C., remaining in that area for five hundred or even
a thousand years. At around the turn of the era, some moved into eastern
Polynesia, while others migrated to the western Pacific to establish the Out-
liers. By about A.D. 1000, all the major eastern Polynesian island groups had
been settled (Bellwood 1978; 318).
In Micronesia, there is evidence that the Mariana Islands may have been
The History of the Austronesian Languages 57
settled from Southeast Asia about 1000 B.C. The rest of Micronesia, however,
appears to have been settled for only about two thousand years—probably
by Lapita people from somewhere in Melanesia, though neither linguistics
nor archaeology is able to tell us precisely where.
Significantly less archaeological work has been done in the western and
northern parts of the Pacific than in the eastern part, so that linguists work-
ing on the Polynesian languages, who are dealing with a relatively short
period, have reliable archaeological information with which to correlate
their findings. But those working in Melanesia and Micronesia have to deal
with a longer period of time, much less archaeological information against
which to test their hypotheses, and, in some areas at least, occupation by
pre-Oceanic peoples.
• Canoes and fishing. Terms for two types of outrigger canoes (large and
small), outrigger float and boom, matting sail, paddle, bailer, launch-
ing rollers, rudder, and anchor, as well as terms for various parts of the
canoe and for steering and sailing. There are also many reconstructed
terms for a number of aspects of fishing technology, and of course
names of many different kinds of fish, shellfish, and crustaceans.
The History of the Austronesian Languages 59
• Pottery. Various kinds of pots, clay and techniques of clay pot manu-
facture, decorations, and accessories like lids, as well as terms for
different kinds of cooking (roasting, boiling, steaming, stone or earth
oven, etc.).
• Fruits and nuts. A wide range of terms relating to the coconut has
been reconstructed, including those for different stages of growth
and parts of the fruit or tree. The words for a number of fruit and nut
trees, for betel nut, and for plants like ginger and turmeric have also
been reconstructed.
• Animals and birds. Proto Oceanic terms in this area include words
for wild and domesticated pig, dog, fowl, rat, bandicoot, cassowary,
cuscus (possum), and numerous bird names.
• Social structure. A fairly complete set of kinship terms has been re-
constructed, as have terms relating to chieftainship and the societal
hierarchy.
These and other reconstructed words paint the following picture of early
Oceanic culture. The original speakers of Proto Oceanic were clearly a mar-
itime people. They used outrigger canoes, fished with hooks and nets, and
generally exploited the resources of the maritime environment. They grew a
number of crops, including yam, taro, banana, and sugar cane, and gathered
fruits and nuts. They had domesticated fowls, pigs, and dogs (and suffered the
rat!), used the spear and the bow and arrow for hunting or warfare, made clay
pots, and built houses with shelves and platforms (as well as probably build-
ing more temporary shelters in gardens or on the beach). They had a fairly
hierarchical society, with chiefs and probably other social ranks as well. They
believed in gods or spirits and probably practiced sorcery.
But some words cannot be reconstructed for Proto Oceanic despite the
fact that the items they name are found in most parts of the Pacific today. The
sweet potato, for example, is grown and eaten across the Pacific, yet there
is no Proto Oceanic reconstruction for it. Apparently the sweet potato was
introduced after the dispersal of Oceanic speakers. Archaeological evidence
confirms this. Other items that also fall into this category include the paw-
paw and the cassava (manioc). Our linguistic evidence, particularly when
paired with the archaeological testimony, gives us a partial understanding of
Pacific prehistory, although much remains to be done.
CHAPTER
60
The History of the Papuan and Australian Languages 61
In dealing with the history of both Papuan and Australian languages, I can
make only general and tentative statements.
and some grammatical features (e.g., the marking of subject and object by
verbal prefixes rather than suffixes [Wurm 1982, 208]).
Another suggested wider grouping is the Sepik-Ramu phylum,
consisting of more than one hundred languages belonging to sixteen differ-
ent families (numbered 30 through 45 in table 4) and spoken mainly in the
East Sepik, West Sepik, and Madang provinces of Papua New Guinea. (A few
nearby isolates would also be members of this phylum.) These languages
share a number of distinct phonological features, such as a very small num-
ber of vowel phonemes, and also have some common grammatical features
(Wurm 1982, 210).
The Torricelli family (29 in table 4) is treated by Wurm as the Torricelli
phylum, composed of perhaps five or six families. Foley (1986, 241–242),
however, treats this as a single family, largely because these languages
share a number of grammatical features not found elsewhere among Papuan
languages. (Subject prefixes and complex noun-class systems are two exam-
ples.)
Wurm has also grouped the Papuan languages spoken east of the New
Guinea mainland into the East Papuan phylum. This consists of twenty-
five languages belonging to the New Britain, South Bougainville, North
Bougainville. Yele-Solomons, and Reefs–Santa Cruz families (64 through 68
in table 4). There appears to be some lexical and grammatical evidence for
the existence of this group, though it is not very strong, and the situation is
complicated by the heavy Austronesian-language influence on some of the
members of the phylum.
The largest and possibly most controversial genetic grouping Wurm
proposes is the Trans–New Guinea phylum. This hypothesis, in its most ex-
treme form, proposes that almost all the rest of the Papuan languages—with
the exceptions of a few small families and some isolates—belong to a single
genetic group of about five hundred languages stretching from Timor in the
west to Milne Bay in the east. It would include all of the languages of the
southern and central part of the mainland, as well as some spoken in the
north (1, 6, 8, 9, 11–21, 23, 25–27, and 48–63 in table 4). There are certain
phonological and grammatical features shared by at least some members of
this group, but the existence of the phylum as a whole—at least at this stage
of our research—seems tenuous, to say the least. Some support for the hy-
pothesis can be found in Pawley (1995).
A number of the families listed in table 4 cannot at present be assigned
to any phylum even under the most liberal application of the comparative
method. These lone families are the East Bird’s Head. Cenderawasih Bay
(plus the isolate Yava). Sko, Kwomtari, Arai, and Amto-Musian families
(see map 16).
68 CHAPTER 4
4.2.2. Tasmania
Genocide in Tasmania has led to the loss of all Tasmanian languages. An
Aboriginal population of possibly five thousand people at the time of first Eu-
ropean contact, speaking somewhere between eight and twelve languages,
was exterminated in less than eighty years. The last full-blooded Tasmanian
died in 1888, although there are still about four thousand people of partial
Tasmanian Aboriginal descent living in Tasmania and elsewhere. So little
was recorded of these languages that it is almost impossible to say anything
The History of the Papuan and Australian Languages 69
about them (Crowley 1993). As regards their history, Dixon (1980, 233) says,
“All we can conclude is this—there is NO evidence that the Tasmanian lan-
guages were NOT of the regular Australian type. They have been separated
off for so long, and the available materials are so poor, that the likelihood of
a genetic connection cannot be confirmed. The genetic affiliation of Tasman-
ian is, and must remain, unproven.”
languages; Australia was also settled at about the same time. Since compar-
ative linguistics cannot reach back more than about eight or ten thousand
years, most of that fifty-thousand-year period is lost to linguistics.
It is possible that all the Papuan families are related, descending from a
single “Proto Papuan” ancestor that we cannot even dimly imagine. A single
language, spoken somewhere in the New Guinea area around 50,000 B.C.,
could have given rise, over time, to all of the modern Papuan languages, and
this language may have been the ancestral language from which all Aus-
tralian languages ultimately derive.
We also have no evidence to indicate the origins of the first speakers of
Papuan or Australian languages. Linguistic connections with Asia or Africa
are nothing more than highly speculative, nor would we expect otherwise.
If the time elapsed is too great to show interrelationships among all Papuan
languages, it is certainly too great to show genetic relationships between
these languages and those to the north, south, or west.
But perhaps this very lack of evidence for external relatives means that
the Papuan languages do, or did, form a genetic unity, and that the same could
be said about the Australian languages. If the diversity existing among mod-
ern Papuan and Australian families is due to different origins and different
migrations of people at various times from various locations, one might expect
to find some genetic connections between individual Papuan or Australian
families and Asian or African language families. The fact that we do not, while
not strong enough to be called evidence, does suggest that the Papuan lan-
guages may have formed a single linguistic grouping in the very distant past,
and that the same may be true of Australian, Tasmanian included.
In only a few instances has there been anything in the way of comprehen-
sive reconstruction of the phonology, grammar, and vocabulary of any of the
larger Papuan families, and the situation in Australia is pretty similar. Little
can be said about relations with other families, origins and migration routes,
and earlier stages of Papuan or Australian culture, and the little that has been
said on these topics must be treated as highly speculative.
4.4.2. Diversification
One question that must be asked in any study of the Papuan and Australian
situations is, if both New Guinea and Australia have been settled for about
the same length of time, why do we find such incredible genetic diversity
among Papuan languages, whereas Australian languages all seem to belong
to just a single family?
Physical geography, and its effect on wide-ranging human movement,
is one contributing factor: “Most of New Guinea is difficult country indeed,
The History of the Papuan and Australian Languages 71
Babatana Ririo
sosole susuel ‘naked’
vumi vuim ‘beard’
piru piur ‘wild’
bose bues ‘man’
shifting of tribal groups,” through which people came into contact with dif-
ferent languages. He also mentions mergers of different tribal groups whose
numbers had been reduced by famine or disease. Such factors conspired to
keep Australian languages more similar to each other than one might ex-
pect, especially in comparison to Papuan languages.
Both Papuan and Australian languages have been in the Pacific region for
a very long time indeed. We know nothing of where they came from and little
of how their speakers moved around the region. We do not know how far east
or west of the New Guinea mainland Papuan speakers might have originally
settled or much about their connections with Australian languages. All we can
reasonably deduce is that, by the time speakers of Austronesian languages
arrived in this area about four to five thousand years ago or so, speakers of
Papuan and Australian languages were very much entrenched.
PART TWO
Structure
CHAPTER
Sound Systems
The sound systems of languages in different parts of the Pacific vary enor-
mously, sometimes even when the languages themselves are closely related.
Major similarities and differences exist between languages of the three
broad genetic groups—Austronesian, Papuan, and Australian. Below I dis-
cuss the vowel systems, consonant systems, stress and tone, and the way in
which words are structured in each group, touching briefly as well on the
1
development of orthographies.
i u
e o
a
75
76 CHAPTER 5
Samoan
/malo/ ‘loincloth’ /malo:/ ‘hard’
/lulu/ ‘barn owl’ /lu:lu:/ ‘shake’
Nukuoro
/nui/ ‘coconut’ /nu:i/ ‘green’
/ahe/ ‘go back’ /ahe:/ ‘when?’
Paamese
/men/ ‘it’s ripe’ /me:n/ ‘his tongue’
/vati/ ‘he stopped’ /va:ti/ ‘he’ll bite if’
Mokilese
/paj/ ‘nest’ /pa:j/ ‘hollow of canoe’
/ros/ ‘darkness’ /ro:s/ ‘flower’
In Melanesia, most languages with more than five vowels have just one or
two extra ones. In Tanna and Malakula (Vanuatu), as well as in New Ireland
(Papua New Guinea), languages with six vowels generally add /ә/ (the sound of a
in English words like ago or sofa). Some languages in Melanesia have developed
seven-vowel systems, the basic five vowels plus either front rounded vowels (like
the vowels in French rue and heureux), or a contrast between two different e-
sounds and two different o-sounds (/e/ and /ε/, /o/ and /ͻ/).
The most complex Oceanic vowel systems, however, are almost cer-
tainly those of New Caledonia (see appendix 3). Iaai in the Loyalty Islands,
Sound Systems 77
for example, has eleven short vowels, all of which can also occur long;
while Xârâcùù, on the mainland, has ten oral and seven nasal vowel
phonemes, each of which can occur short or long, yielding thirty-four vowel
contrasts!
How do such complex vowel systems evolve out of an original five-vowel
system? The changes that took place in different Oceanic languages are very
different. Here I give just two kinds of examples. First, phonemes often have
more than one pronunciation, depending on their phonetic environment.
Imagine that the phoneme /a/ was pronounced [æ] (the sound represented
by a in English cat) when the vowel in the next syllable was /i/, but as [a] (like
in father) elsewhere. We would have pairs of words like:
Now the contrast between [æ] and [a] creates a minimal pair, and /æ/ has
been added to the language’s phonemic (as opposed to phonetic) inventory.
Rotuman illustrates a second kind of process. Most Rotuman words
have “long” and “short” forms that are used in different grammatical con-
3
texts. In some cases, the short form simply drops the final vowel of the long
form. (Note that the symbol ŋ represents the ng sound in English sing, while
ʔ represents the glottal stop.)
Rotuman
Long form Short form
haŋa haŋ ‘feed’
heleʔu heleʔ ‘arrive’
Rotuman
Long form Short form
hosa hoas ‘flower’
tiko tiok ‘flesh’
pepa peap ‘paper’
78 CHAPTER 5
But with other combinations, the two vowels that came into contact have
fused to produce a third, different vowel. (The vowel ö is a bit like the vowel
in French heureux, while ü is the vowel in French rue.)
Rotuman
Long form Short form
mose (> moes >) mös ‘sleep’
futi (> fuit >) füt ‘pull’
Because of this Rotuman, which originally probably had five vowels, now has
ten.
Tongan Hawaiian
P t k ʔ P k ʔ
v w
f s h h
m n ŋ m n
l l
Micronesia
typical of the majority of these languages. It has the following fourteen con-
sonants (/tʃ/ represents a sound something like ch in English church, but
with the tongue turned back).
Lagoon Trukese
w
p P t tʃ k
mw m n ŋ
f s
r
w y
All consonants except /w/ and /y/ have both short and long forms.
Lagoon Trukese
/sɨk/ ‘appear’ /s:ɨk/ ‘bleed’
/kamwe/ ‘clam’ /kamw:et/ ‘sweetheart’
/tʃi:mw/ ‘head’ /tʃ:in/ ‘speedy’
/takir/ ‘laugh’ /tak:itʃ/ ‘torch-fishing’
Melanesia
Tigak
p t k
b g
s
v
m n ŋ
r
l
80 CHAPTER 5
Fijian To‘aba‘ita
p t k t k kw ʔ
m n ŋ m n ŋ ŋ w
b d g b d g g
f s f θ s
v ð
m n ŋ m n ŋ
l l
r
w y w
Stress
The term stress refers to the relatively greater prominence given to one
syllable in a word through extra effort, extra loudness, a change in pitch,
or some combination of these factors. The underlined syllables in the Eng-
Sound Systems 81
lish words temptation, absolute, absolutely, and resist receive greater stress
than the other syllables in those words.
In the majority of Oceanic languages, the position of stress in a word is
predictable. Let us take Samoan as an example. The basic pattern in Samoan
is one of penultimate stress. Stress (marked here by an acute accent over
the vowel of the syllable) falls on the next-to-last syllable of the word.
Samoan
/túli/ ‘dismiss’ /táma/ ‘child’
/tulíŋa/ ‘dismissal’ /tamáʔi/ ‘young of animals’
When a suffix is added to a word in Samoan, the stress shifts to the right so
that it still falls on the penultimate syllable: /túli/ becomes /tulíŋa/.
When a Samoan word ends in a diphthong (like /ae ai au/, for example)
or in a long vowel, stress falls on this final diphthong or long vowel:
Samoan
/atamái/ ‘clever’ /faifeʔáu/ ‘pastor’
/tamá:/ ‘father’ /paʔú:/ ‘fall’
Māori
(a) /maná:ki/ ‘support’ /pá:tu:tahi/ ‘a village’
(b) /tamáiti/ ‘child’ /táutau/ ‘barking’
(c) /támariki/ ‘children’ /hóro/ ‘fast’
Big Nambas
/áγau/ ‘go away!’ /patiráni/ ‘put it up’
/ipáli/ ‘he’ll burn it’ /iputakmáni/ ‘he’ll spoil it’
But sometimes stress falls on the final syllable. Compare the two pairs be-
low, identical except for stress:
82 CHAPTER 5
Big Nambas
/áγau/ ‘go away!’ /aγáu/ ‘chief’s wife’
/ipáli/ ‘he’ll burn it’ /ipalí/ ‘he’ll tie it’
Further, as is not the case in Samoan, the stress remains in its original posi-
tion even when suffixes are added:
Big Nambas
/γápat/ ‘chief’ /γápatak/ ‘my chief’
/prápar/ ‘sow (pig)’ /práparan/ ‘his sow’
Tone
Phonemic tone refers to contrasting pitch occurring at the word level. The
same string of consonants and vowels can mean different things if the pitch
of the voice is high or low, rising or falling. While common in Asian and
African languages—and in Papuan languages as well—tone is fairly rare in
the rest of the Pacific. Among Oceanic languages, just a few in New Cale-
donia (like Cèmuhî) and a few more in the Morobe Province of Papua New
Guinea (like Yabêm), have phonemic tone.
Cèmuhî has three tones: high (marked here with an acute accent), mid
(marked with a macron), and low (marked with a grave accent), as exempli-
fied in the following words:
Cèmuhî
/tí:/ ‘destroy’
/tī:/ ‘gather’
/tì:/ ‘write’
Yabêm
/áwá/ ‘valuables’ /àwà/ ‘his/her mouth’
/wá/ ‘mango’ /wà/ ‘crocodile’
/sá?/ ‘to hammer’ /sà?/ ‘put on top of’
/ólí/ ‘body’ /òlì/ ‘wages’
/gàdùʔ/ ‘I bow.’ Some consonants that conditioned high or low tone have
since changed their voicing (or even disappeared), but they have left their
tone “trace” behind. For example, earlier *s remained /s/ in Yabêm and, be-
cause it is, and was, voiceless, it is associated with high tone.
Yabêm
*sipo > /sép/ ‘go down’
*saqit > /sí/ ‘sew’
On the other hand, earlier *j was voiced, and it conditioned low tone on the
following syllable, but later became voiceless /s/:
Yabêm
*jóŋi > /sóŋ/ ‘stop up, plug’
*joRi > /sò/ ‘tie’
*lejan > lέsέŋ ‘nit’
Mekeo
/akaikia/ ‘great’
/oisofai/ ‘off you go!’
/ekapaisau/ ‘he made me’
Arosi
/taroha/ ‘news’
/amamu/ ‘your father’
/haʔaheuheu/ ‘change form’
Fijian
/veitau/ ‘friends’
/vakasalataka/ ‘advise’
/mbatambata:/ ‘cold’
84 CHAPTER 5
Hawaiian
/pauloa/ ‘everything’
/hoaha:nau/ ‘cousin’
/ku:konukonu/ ‘excessive’
Banoni
/matam/ ‘your eye’
/βatamumam/ ‘make us eat’
/teŋtapatsi/ ‘broken off and scattered’
In other cases, however, consonant clusters are frequent and can occur in
syllable-initial position as well as across syllable boundaries:
Adzera
/tatariʔ/ ‘fowl’
/romgam/ ‘yourself’
ŋ
/tafa-ŋga- ʔ/ ‘our ancestors’
Maringe
/fnakno/ ‘famous’
/kñaokñaroo/ ‘be stringy’
/snaplu/ ‘slip out’
Big Nambas
/prapar/ ‘sow (female pig)’
/vənmaran/ ‘old woman’
/kətəγsrasr/ ‘you’ve swept’
Hawaiian
/ʔaki/ ‘to take a nip and let go’
/ʔakiʔaki/ ‘to nibble (as a fish)’
/ʔaʔaki/ ‘to nip repeatedly’
Sound Systems 85
The basic verb is /ʔaki/. The verb /ʔakiʔaki/ shows complete reduplication,
with the whole verb root being repeated, while the verb /ʔaʔaki/ is an exam-
ple of partial reduplication, in which only part of the verb (in this case,
the first syllable) is repeated. Reduplication commonly has a number of
functions in the languages in which it is productive. Take a look at these ex-
amples.
Māori
/paki/ ‘pat’ /pakipaki/ ‘clap’
/kimo/ ‘wink’ /kimokimo/ ‘blink, wink repeatedly’
2. Intensity.
Tahitian
/hiʔo/ ‘look at’ /hiʔohiʔo/ ‘stare at’
/parau/ ‘converse’ /parauparau/ ‘talk a lot’
Tongan
/viku/ ‘wet all over’ /vikuviku/ ‘damp’
/havili/ ‘strong wind’ /havilivili/ ‘gentle wind, breeze’
Kosraean
/pΛk/ ‘sand’ /pΛkpΛk/ ‘sandy’
/pweŋ/ ‘news’ /pweŋpweŋ/ ‘famous’
Tigak
Transitive Intransitive
Samoan
Singular Plural
/ʔai/ /ʔaʔai/ ‘eat’
/tu:/ /tutu:/ ‘stand’
/ŋalue/ /ŋalulue/ ‘work’
Nearly all the examples so far have been from Polynesian and Microne-
sian languages. Here is a set of examples from a Melanesian language, the
Nguna Island dialect of Nakanamanga (Vanuatu). The function of each ex-
ample of reduplication is given in the right-hand column.
Manam
/salaga/ ‘be long’ /sasalaga/ ‘long (plural)’
/eno/ ‘sleep’ /eneno/ ‘always sleep’
/sapara/ ‘branch’ /saparapara/ ‘having branches’
/ʔulan/ ‘desire’ /ʔulanlaŋ/ ‘desirable’
The last Manam example shows that there are often morphophonemic
changes involved with reduplication, so that the reduplicated part of the word
is not always phonologically identical to the unreduplicated part. In Tongan,
vowels undergo changes in many reduplicated words. Some of these changes
involve differences in length, others differences in vowel quality:
Tongan
/poʔuli/ ‘be dark’ /po:po:ʔuli/ ‘be somewhat dark’
/mafi/ ‘powerful’ /ma:fimafi/ ‘almighty’
/teliŋa/ ‘ear’ /taliŋeliŋa/ ‘fungus’
/muʔa/ ‘front’ /muʔomuʔa/ ‘go in front’
Ponapean
(a) /pap/ ‘swim’ /pampap/
/kak/ ‘able’ /kaŋkak/
/sas/ ‘stagger’ /san̪ sas/
/t̪it̪/ ‘build a wall’ /t̪in̪ ti̪ t̪/
(b) /tsep/ ‘begin’ /tsepitsep/
/katso:re/ ‘subtract’ /katsikatso:re/
/kate̪ k/ ‘be kind’ /kata̪ kate̪ k/
/masukun̪ / ‘be blind’ /masamasukum̪/
i u
e o
a
Although this is the most common system, some Papuan languages, in-
cluding many of those in the Sepik area of Papua New Guinea, have fewer
than five phonemic vowels, while others have more. Compare Iatmul’s three
vowels to Vanimo’s eight:
Iatmul Vanimo
ɨ i u
ə e ə o
ɛ ͻ
a a
Foley (1986, 54) says that no Papuan language with more than eight phone-
mic vowels has been attested.
A number of Papuan languages, for example, Pawaian, contrast oral and
nasalized vowels. (The examples below are all low tone.)
Pawaian
/sù/ ‘ginger’ /yè/ ‘ancestor’
/sṹ/ ‘road’ /yẽ̀/ ‘type of nut’
Rotokas
p t k
v r g
Waskia
/kadí/ ‘man’
/naúr/ ‘coconut’
/bagesán/ ‘it stays’
/namerukó/ ‘he must go’
Kewa6
/póna/ ‘cut’
/rúmaa/ ‘portion out’
/rógoma/ ‘clay’
Koita
/ómo/ ‘head’ /omó/ ‘adze’
/γúdi/ ‘digging stick’ /γudí/ ‘lime’
/γúma/ ‘path’ /γumá/ ‘axe’
Pawaian
/sú/ ‘tooth’ /sù/ ‘ginger’
/yé/ ‘new’ /yè/ ‘ancestor’
Fore
/àsìyúwè/ ‘I stand up’ /àsìyùwè/ ‘I peel it’
/nàyà:né/ ‘my hair’ /nàyá:né/ ‘my kidney’
Foley (1986, 63) says that in many such languages tone is closely associated
with the stress system, with high tone correlating with accented syllables,
7
and that these are not, strictly speaking, tone languages.
In some languages—especially in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New
Guinea—tonal systems are more complex. These seem to be true tonal sys-
tems. The following words in Awa, which has four phonemic tones, illustrate
8
this.
Awa
/pǎ/ ‘fish’ rising tone
/nâ/ ‘taro’ falling tone
/ná/ ‘breast’ high tone
/nà/ ‘house’ low tone
90 CHAPTER 5
Toaripi
/pasisa/ ‘ladder’
/easo/ ‘fish spear’
/maeamariti/ ‘shame’
/eae/ ‘erroneously’
Mountain Koiari
/neinuvueabe/ ‘their mothers’
/neiniai/ ‘properly’
/saiamo/ ‘slow’
/ialelua/ ‘consequently’
Some Papuan languages that generally have open syllables (see the first
two words in the example below), allow syllables to be closed with a nasal.
Buin
/itaka/ ‘freshwater shrimp’
/topituumoru/ ‘fish-killer’
/kuikuiŋ/ ‘driftwood’
/rempo/ ‘battle axe’
Wahgi
/amŋa/ ‘yawn’
/oks̪nal̪/ ‘avoid’
/molmŋe/ ‘they were’
n
/e d̪ z̪mo/ ‘waste?’
/kops̪nde/ ‘cut open’
/kand̪ z̪Ip/ ‘they saw’
Kamasau
/beryi/ ‘bean’
/torbiŋ/ ‘mouth harp’
ŋ
/fra gi/ ‘tomorrow’
/suŋgrum/ ‘type of grass’
/surog/ ‘caterpillar’
/wand/ ‘speech’
Sound Systems 91
i u i: u:
a a
Exceptions are generally of two kinds. First, there are a few languages
in Central Australia that have only two vowel phonemes: Kaitij, for example,
has just /ɨ/ and /a/ (though each of these has a number of different pronuncia-
tions in different phonetic contexts). Second, some languages in the north
and northwest have a four-or five-vowel system, for example, Alawa and
Kunjen.
Alawa Kunjen
i u i u
e e o
a a
But a few languages, especially those in the Cape York area, have
developed complex vowel systems from what was probably an ancestral
three-vowel system. One such system, that of Anguthimri, appears in ap-
pendix 3.
Australian languages distinguish apical and laminal stops and nasals, and
many have two sets of apicals and two sets of laminals. Apicals include the
apico-alveolar (tongue tip on the tooth ridge) consonants /d t n/ and the
apico-postalveolar, or retroflex (tip on the roof of the mouth) consonants
/ḍṭṇ/. Laminals occur as laminodentals (tongue blade on the teeth), namely
/d̪ t̪n̪/, and laminopalatals (blade on the roof of the mouth), /dy ty ñ/.
Australian languages generally have bilabial (/b p m/) and velar (/g k
ŋ/) stops and nasals as well. Along the east coast, languages usually have
only one lateral, but elsewhere they have two or more. Most Australian lan-
guages have two rhotics, or r-sounds. One is usually a retroflex semivowel
/ṛ/ (rather like English r), and the other a flapped or trilled r.
Consonant inventories for four languages illustrate some general pat-
terns. Wargamay is an example of an east-coast language, with no contrast
between apicals or between laminals, and with one lateral. Kunjen is an east-
ern language with a laminal contrast but no apical contrast, and with one
lateral. Wajarri, a western language, exhibits apical contrast but no laminal
contrast, and has more than one lateral. Pitta-Pitta is a central Australian lan-
guage that contrasts both apicals and laminals and has more than one lateral.
Wargamay
b d̪ d g
m n̪ n ŋ
l
ṛ
w y
Kunjen
p t̪ t ty k
b d̪ d dy g
f ð γ
m n̪ n ñ ŋ
l
ṛ
w y
Wajarri
p t̪ t ṭ k
m n̪ n ṇ ŋ
l̪ l ḷ
r ṛ
w y
Sound Systems 93
Pitta-Pitta
p t̪ t ṭ ty k
m n̪ n ṇ ñ ŋ
l̪ l ḷ λ
r ṛ
w y
Bandjalang
/dya:dyam/ ‘child’ /ba:baŋ/ ‘grandmother’
/burbi/ ‘koala’ /ŋu:ñba/ ‘snake’
/guluŋbay/ ‘flu’ /yalañ/ ‘tongue’
y
/d imbaŋ/ ‘sheep’ /bala:ya/ ‘die’
Anguthimri
/pwe:ke/ ‘groper’ /pæŋa/ ‘elbow’
/kyabara/ ‘alligator’ /iγiti/ ‘brown’
/ubu/ ‘red gum’ /baw/ ‘tooth’
/d̪ wa/ ‘eye’ /drya/ ‘wing’
Dyirbal
/bari/ ‘axe’ /baribari/ ‘axes’
/bulgan/ ‘big one’ /bulganbulgan/ ‘big ones’
Kalkatungu
/jagabi/ ‘listen’ /jagabijagabi/ ‘listen intently’
/buyud/ ‘hot’ /buyudbuyud/ ‘Very hot’
Diyari
/kinta̪ la/ ‘dog’ /kinta̪ lakinta̪ la/ ‘puppy’
Western Desert
/wati/ ‘man’ /watiwati/ ‘child playing at
being an adult’
5.4. Orthographies
9
No Pacific languages were written before European contact, and even to-
day, not all Pacific languages are written. This usually means that no mis-
sionaries or linguists have done sufficient work on these languages to design
an orthography. Languages in this category are found almost exclusively in
Melanesia and Australia.
Many languages in Melanesia and Australia are used for a much nar-
rower range of written purposes than are other Pacific languages: The main
writers are probably linguists! One reason for this has to do with the rela-
tively small numbers of speakers of these languages, and the fact that they
generally write in a more widely understood language (English, French, or
Melanesian Pidgin, for example).
Sound Systems 95
/g/ /ŋ/
Lutherans g ŋ
Catholics g ng
Methodists q g
There have also been other nonlinguistic factors at work. English and
French, as international languages, have considerable prestige in the Pa-
cific. Although linguists have their own phonetic symbols for sounds, many
of these are not standard letters in the English or French writing systems—β
ð θ ʔ ə ŋ, for example. Attempts to use letters like these to represent sounds
in Pacific languages are often met with resistance by speakers of those lan-
guages, who don’t want their languages to look “funny” in comparison with
English or French.
Other problems are also related to the orthographies of the prestige lan-
guages. In general, a scientific approach to orthographic design requires
that, wherever possible, each phoneme should be represented by a single
12
letter. Following this principle, the early missionaries used the single let-
ter g to represent the phoneme /ŋ/ (the sound written ng in English singer)
in a number of Polynesian languages: Pago Pago, the capital of American
Samoa, for example, is pronounced /paŋopaŋo/. This principle was extended
by Methodist and related missionaries to some other parts of Polynesia, to
Fiji, and to certain areas in Melanesia.
But though this decision may follow scientific rationality, there is a
conflict with the spelling system of English, where the letter g has a very
different value. In Tongan, for example, original g was later changed to
ng, since it was felt that Tongans learning English would be confused
by the two different values of the letter g in these two languages. Many
languages in Melanesia and Micronesia use ng for this sound, but this
has led to problems of a different sort. On the one hand, English ng
represents both the sound /ŋ/ as in singer and the sounds /ŋg/ as in fin-
Sound Systems 97
are concerned. In these languages, for example, the prenasalized stops /mb
n
d ŋg/ tend to be written b, d, and g in word-initial position (where the pre-
nasalization is fairly weak), and mb, nd, and ngg in other positions. The
velar nasal [ŋ] is usually written ng, although in some areas where the
Lutheran church is strong, the letter ŋ is used. The occurrence of more
than one lateral in Highlands languages has required the use of two letters
to represent a single phoneme, like tl, dl, gl, and so on, in addition to sim-
ple l, while gh is frequently used for the velar fricative /γ/. In dealing with
languages which have more than five phonemic vowels, both digraphs
(two-letter combinations) and diacritics (additional marks like accents)
have been used. Thus where there is a contrast between /i/, /I/, and /e/ (as
in English seat, sit, set), for example, these vowels are written i, î, e; or i,
ê, e; or ii, i, e.
The complex nature of the consonant and vowel systems of most New
Caledonian languages has forced linguists to use both diacritics and combi-
nations of letters. The vowels of Xârâcùù, for example, are a â ä e é è ê ë i î o
ô ö u ù û ü, and the long vowels are written by doubling these letters. Writing
the consonant phonemes of Pije involves single letters (p, m, h, w), digraphs
(pw, ph, hm, hw) and even trigraphs—combinations of three letters repre-
senting a single phoneme—like phw, hmw, hny, hng.
In Micronesia, digraphs are usually used to help represent complex
vowel and consonant systems. A number of Micronesian languages use oa
for /ͻ/ when this contrasts with /o/ (written o), and h is often used to mark
14
long vowels: thus i represents /i/, while ih represents /i:/. Digraphs and tri-
graphs are also widely used in writing consonant phonemes. Carolinian, for
example, distinguishes bw, gh, mw, pw, rh, sch, and tch from b, g, m, p, r, s,
and t. Long consonants are usually represented by doubling the consonant
(as in ll for long /l:/). In the case of digraphs, only the first letter is doubled
(mmw represents long mw).
5.4.4. Australia
In general, the small number of vowel phonemes in Australian lan-
guages has not posed many problems for designers of orthographies. Long
vowels have sometimes been written as double vowels, sometimes with a fol-
lowing h; thus /a:/ is written aa in some languages, but ah in others.
Decisions made about writing consonants vary, but a common pattern
is to write retroflex sounds with a preceding r, dentals with a following h,
and palatals with a following y; palatal stops are sometimes written j. In
Gooniyandi, for example, the stop and nasal phonemes given on the left be-
low are written with the letters on the right:
Sound Systems 99
Gooniyandi
Phonemes Letters
b d̪ d ḍ dy g b th d rd j g
m n̪ n ṇ ñ ŋ m nh n rn ny ng
Similarly, multiple laterals are generally written lh, l, rl, and ly (or lj), while
the two rhotics are generally written r and rr.
I have adopted these spelling conventions here and transliterated sym-
bols in this way from sources that use phonetic symbols. Note, however, that
there is pressure to spell Australian languages following English conven-
tions. For example, the Bandjalang (/bañdyalaŋ/) people now choose to write
their language name Bundjalung, to avoid its possible mispronunciation as
/bæñdyəlæŋ/ by English speakers.
5.5. Summary
Pacific languages show a great diversity of phonological systems. Vocalically
they range from Australian languages with just three short vowels to New
Caledonian languages with seventeen short vowels. Consonant inventories
can be very small and simple, or extremely large and complex. Some lan-
guages have phonemic tone, others do not. Some allow a great deal of
consonant clustering; others allow none.
Various social issues surround and affect the development of orthogra-
phies for these languages. In the remainder of this book, I use the standard
writing system, in italics, for each language from which I give examples. In
the case of languages without a generally accepted writing system, I use a
modified set of phonetic symbols, also in italics.
CHAPTER
Oceanic Languages:
Grammatical Overview
6.1. Pronouns
I use the term “pronoun” fairly loosely. Oceanic languages generally have
only one set of free pronouns, but they also have one or more sets of pronom-
inal forms that are more or less bound to nouns, verbs, or other morphemes.
While only the free forms might qualify as pronouns under a strict definition,
I discuss the other forms here as well.
6.1.1. Person
Almost all Oceanic languages make a distinction between inclusive first
person, referring to the speaker and the addressee or addressees (“I +
you”) and exclusive first person, referring to the speaker and some other
individual or individuals (“I + he/she/it/they”). For example:
Plural
we:INC ita maita nigita kiir
we:EXC ai maani kinami yáámem
you umui maang nimu yáámi
they idia relana‘i naara yiir
100
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 101
Exceptions to this general statement are found in a few languages that seem
to have lost the inclusive/exclusive distinction. These include the five lan-
guages of the Siau family in the West Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea
(Sera, Sissano, Ali, Tumleo, and Ulau-Suain), Kiribati, and possibly also one
or two varieties of Fijian.
Sissano Kiribati
Singular
I ya ngngai
you e ngkoe
he/she/it i ngaia
Plural
we eit ngaira
you om ngkamii
they ri ngaiia
Very few Oceanic languages mark gender in pronouns. In all the exam-
ples above, the third person singular refers to male or female animates as
well as to inanimates. Maringe (Isabel, Solomon Islands) is one of the few
Oceanic languages that does have a gender distinction, though it differs
from the English one. Female speakers use only one set of third person
forms, but male speakers use two sets—one referring to males, and the other
in all other cases.
Maringe
6.1.2. Number
A three-way distinction between singular, dual, and plural number is per-
haps the commonest pattern in Oceanic languages, the dual number refer-
ring to two and only two. This pattern is found in Polynesian languages and
102 CHAPTER 6
Dual
we two:INC gadow etalua görru tā‘ua
we two:EXC gamow emilua gövu mā‘ua
you two gimeew emulua göu ‘oulua
they two yow egirua curu lā‘ua
Plural
we:INC gadaed etatou gèvé tātou
we:EXC gamaed emiteu gèrré mātou
you gimeed emutou gëvë ‘outou
they yaed egiteu céré lātou
There are two common departures from this pattern. A number of lan-
guages in Melanesia and Micronesia show only a two-way distinction be-
tween singular and plural. The examples given in 6.1.1 above from Motu,
Mono-Alu, and Nakanamanga (in Melanesia), and Puluwat and Kiribati (in
Micronesia) illustrate this.
The other variation is quite common in Melanesia (including Fiji),
though not elsewhere in the Pacific. It involves a four-way distinction, be-
tween singular, dual, trial or paucal, and plural. Some of these languages
have a trial number, which refers to three and only three:
Tolai Anejom̃
Singular he/she/it ia aen
Dual they two dir aarau
Trial they three dital aattaj
Plural they (>three) diat aara
Others have a paucal number, which refers to a few (perhaps three to six or
1
so), or to a small group in comparison with a larger group.
6.1.3. Functions
The pronouns cited so far are known as independent pronouns. They may
stand alone as the answer to a question and may also act as subject of a
verb (though they often have an emphatic function in this usage). There are,
however, other pronominal forms in many Oceanic languages, although they
may not always be able to stand alone.
Lenakel
I-es-ol-aan.
I-not-do-not
‘I didn’t do it.’
Io i-es-ol-aan!
I I-not-do-not
‘I didn’t do it!,’ ‘It wasn’t I who did it!’
In both sentences, the person and the number of the subject are marked
within the verb by the prefix i- ‘I.’ The first sentence, with no independent
pronoun, is a neutral statement. In the second, however, emphasis is placed
on the subject, ‘I,’ through the use of the independent pronoun io.
Below are some examples—in just singular and plural num-
bers—illustrating the formal difference between independent pronouns and
subject markers. The Nehan and Fijian subject markers are free preverbal
2
particles, while the Trukese ones are verbal prefixes.
Plural
we:INC ingeg ki kiich si- o keda da
we:EXC ingam king áám éwú- o keimami keimami
you ingam kung áámi wo- o kemunī nī
they gisit ka iir re- o ira ra
Lenakel
R-ɨs-aamh-aan io.
he-not-see-not me
‘He didn’t see me.’
Languages with distinct object pronouns are found in Melanesia and Mi-
cronesia. In some of these languages (like Anejom̃ in the example below)
these are free forms, while in others (like Kiribati) they are suffixed to the
3
verb.
Anejom̃ Kiribati
IND. OBJ. IND. OBJ.
Singular
I añak ñak ngngai -ai
you aek yic ngkoe -iko
he/she/it aen yin ngaia -ia
Plural
we:INC akaja caja ngaira -iira
we:EXC ajama cama
you ajowa cowa ngkamii -ingkami
they aara ra ngaiia -iia, -i
For more about the functions of both subject and object markers, see section
6.4.
Virtually all Oceanic languages also have a set of possessive affixes
(normally suffixes) marking the person and number of the possessor. These
differ from independent pronouns and subject markers (though they are fre-
quently identical or similar to object markers). The grammar of possession
in Oceanic languages is quite complex (refer to section 6.3 below). For exam-
ple, the Fijian possessive suffix -qu ‘my’ is attached directly to certain types
of possessed nouns (like tama ‘father’ in the example below), but when used
with nouns of other types it is attached to a possessive marker or classifier
(as with vale ‘house’).
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 105
Fijian
na tama-qou but na no-qau vale
the father-my the POSS-my house
‘my father’ ‘my house’
These affixes are almost always suffixes. But in a few languages they occur
as prefixes in some grammatical contexts.
Wayan Fijian
o mna-m but m-ulu
the mother-your your-head
‘your mother’ ‘your head’
Anejom̃ Kiribati
IND. OBJ. POSS. IND. OBJ. POSS.
Singular
I añak ñak -k ngngai -ai -u
you aek yic -m̃ ngkoe -iko -m
he/she/it aen yin -n ngaia -ia -n(a)
Plural
we:INC akaja caja -ja ngaira -iira -ra
we:EXC ajama cama -ma
you ajowa cowa -mia ngkamii -ingkami -mii
they aara ra -ra ngaiia -iia, -i -ia
It follows from all of this that, while some Oceanic languages have a
pronoun system as simple as that of English, many have pronoun systems
of considerable complexity. Table 5 lists the full set of independent, object,
and possessive pronouns in Anejom̃, along with the three sets of subject
markers used in the aorist, past, and inceptive tenses, to illustrate this
complexity.
1. INC 1. EXC 2. 3.
Independent
Singular — añak aek, aak aen, aan
Dual akajau ajamrau ajourau aarau
Trial akataj ajamtaj ajoutaj aattaj
Plural akaja ajama ajowa aara
Object
Singular — ñak yic, -c yin, -n
Dual cajau camrau courau rau
Trial cataj camtaj coutaj ettaj
Plural caja cama cowa ra
Possessive
Singular — -k -m̃ -n
Dual -jau -mrau -mirau -rau
Trial -taj -mtaj -mitaj -ttaj
Plural -ja -ma -mia -ra
Subject (aorist)
Singular — ek na et
Dual tau ekrau erau erau
Trial taj ettaj ettaj ettaj
Plural ta ekra eka era
Subject (past)
Singular — kis as is
Dual tus eris arus erus
Trial tijis eris atijis etijis
Plural eris ekris akis eris
Subject (inceptive)
Singular — ki an iñiyi
Dual tu ekru aru eru
Trial tiji etiji atiji etiji
Plural ti ekri aki eri
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 107
Fijian
E lako mai na tagane oyā (tagane = noun).
he come here the man that
‘That man is coming.’
In this and subsequent sections, when I use the word “noun,” I am referring
to words functioning as nouns in a particular context. For our purposes,
then, tagane is a noun in the first Fijian sentence above, though not in the
other two.
Vinmavis
Matoro i-fwelem.
old:man he-come
‘The old man came.’
Matoro ar at-fwelem.
old:man PL they-come
‘The old men came.’
Singular Plural
Motu
tau ‘man’ tatau
hahíne ‘woman’ háhine
mero ‘boy’ memero
kekéni ‘girl’ kékeni
Māori
tangata ‘man’ tāngata
tupuna ‘ancestor’ tūpuna
tuahine ‘sister’ tuāhine
Hawaiian
luahine ‘old woman’ luāhine
kahuna ‘priest’ kāhuna
kupuna ‘grandparent’ kūpuna
Kiribati
te tina ‘(the) mother’ tiina ‘mothers in general’
te ika ‘(the) fish’ iika ‘fish in general’
te ben ‘(the) coconut’ been ‘coconuts in general’
te bong ‘(the) day’ boong ‘days in general’
te biti ‘(the) knife’ biiti ‘knives in general’
In Rotuman, the long form of a noun (see 5.1.1 above) marks a noun as
4
definite. Indefinite nouns occur in the short form.
Rotuman
Famori ‘ea.
people say
‘The people say.’
Famör ‘ea.
people say
‘(Some) people say.’
Singular Plural
Palauan
chad ‘person’ rę-chad
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 109
Chamorro
estudiante ‘student’ man-estudiante
pale‘ ‘priest’ mam-ale‘
saina ‘parent’ mañ-aina
Sye
Singular Plural
kuri ‘dog’ ovn-kuri
nakeh ‘axe’ ov-nakeh
neteme ‘person’ ovo-teme
namou ‘mother’ ov-namou, namou-me, ov-namou-me
asu-g ‘my husband’ asu-g-me, r-asu-g-me
ma-n ‘her brother’ ma-n-me, ro-ma-n-me
Anejom̃
Singular Plural
natam̃ añ ‘man’ elpu-atam̃ añ
natimi ‘person’ elpu-atimi
nepcev ‘shark’ elpu-epcev, epcev
incai ‘tree’ cai
inhat ‘stone’ hat
Lenakel
aklha ‘steal’ i-aklha ‘thief’
110 CHAPTER 6
Mokilese
karaja ‘explain’ karaja-poa ‘example’
wia ‘make’ wia-poa ‘construction’
woaroai ‘to last’ woaroai-n ‘duration’
Māori
kimi ‘to seek’ kimi-hanga ‘a search’
noho ‘sit’ noho-anga ‘seat’
inu ‘to drink’ inu-manga ‘a drink’
6.2.2. Articles
Articles are morphemes marking the class or reference of a noun. In
English, the article the marks a noun as definite, while a/an marks it as
singular indefinite; in French, un and le mark singular masculine nouns
(indefinite and definite, respectively), while une and la mark singular
feminine nouns.
Generally speaking, the languages of the New Guinea mainland and the
5
islands of Papua, and those spoken in Vanuatu, have no articles. Examples:
Manam
Tamoata roa to‘a i-ti‘in-i.
man his:spouse his:older:brother he-show-her
‘The man showed his wife to his older brother.’
Kilivila
E seki Kilagola yena guyau.
he give Kilagola fish chief
‘The chief gives Kilagola the fish.’
Sye
Natmonuc y-omonki nacave.
chief he:DISTANT:PAST-drink kava
‘The chief drank (the) kava.’
6
used before other nouns that are definite in some sense. Indefinite nouns (like
yaqona in the second example below) are not marked by articles. Examples:
Fijian
E gunu-va na yaqona o Seru.
he drink-TRANS the kava the:PERSONAL Seru
‘Seru is drinking the kava.’
Hawaiian
7
ka, ke definite article, singular: ‘the’
nā definite article, plural: ‘the’
he indefinite article: ‘a’
a personal article
Mokilese
Mahnsang kin wia ahr paj in pohn suhkoa.
bird HABITUAL make their nest in top tree
‘Birds build their nests in treetops.’
When the reference is specific but indefinite—the addressee does not know
which individual is being referred to—Mokilese nouns take as a suffix the ap-
propriate numeral classifier (see 6.2.5 below) in the singular, and -pwi in the
plural:
Mokilese
Ngoah kapang lih-men o.
I see woman-CLASSIFIER there
‘I saw a woman there.’
Ngoah kapang lih-pwi o.
I see woman-a:PL there
‘I saw women there,’ or ‘I saw some women there.’
112 CHAPTER 6
When the reference is both specific and definite, the suffix -o (sometimes-u)
is used.
Mokilese
Ngoah kapang lih-o.
I see woman-the
‘I saw the woman.’
Yapese
fa rea kaarroo
the SG car
‘the car’
ba kaarroo
a car
‘a car’
To‘aba‘ita
nga ‘ai lakoo ki
the wood this PL
‘the firewood’
ai tha Gerea
wife the:MASCULINE Gerea
‘Gerea’s wife’
maka ni ‘Oina
father the:FEMININE ‘Oina
‘Oina’s father’
The most complex article systems are those of New Caledonia. In these
languages articles precede the noun and mark—among other features—def-
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 113
initeness, number, and gender. Drehu has the following articles and article-
like particles:
Drehu
la definite, near speaker, visible
lai definite, near addressee, visible
lo definite, not present or visible
ketre indefinite singular
xaa indefinite non-singular
isa ‘each’
itre, o paucal
nöjei plural
haa collective
Cèmuhî has an even more complex system. Its articles distinguish gen-
der—feminine and nonfeminine, which both treat the noun as a person or
individual, as well as neuter, which treats the noun as a thing or idea);
number—singular, dual, and plural; and reference—definite, indefinite, and
neutral. (Neutral reference marks the noun as a noun without specifying
whether it is definite or indefinite.)
Cèmuhî
Neutral Definite Indefinite
Singular Nonfeminine pā pācɛ pāli
Feminine ɛ̀ ɛ̀cɛ ɛ̀gi
Neuter ā ācɛ āli
Dual Nonfeminine lūpwɔ̄ lūpwɔ̄ cɛ lūpwɔ̄ li
Feminine lū lū cɛ lū li
Plural Nonfeminine lēpwɔ̄ lēpwɔ̄ cɛ lēpwɔ̄ li
Feminine lē lēcɛ lēli
Neuter ni cɛ li, ili
6.2.3. Demonstratives
Demonstratives are words that locate the noun in space and/or time, gen-
erally with reference to the speaker and the addressee, though sometimes
with reference to some other focus. English has a simple two-way distinction
(between this/these and that/those), and this system is found in a few
Oceanic languages in Melanesia.
Manam Maringe
ngae gne ‘this’
ngaedi gre ‘these’
114 CHAPTER 6
Others, however, not only make the three-way contrast but also indicate sin-
gular and plural:
Anejom̃
niom̃ iyiiki
house that
‘that house (the one I was talking about before)’
Anejom̃
Singular Dual Plural
Proximate iniñki erañki ijiñki
Intermediate enaanai — ijeknaa
Distant enaikou erañkou ijeknaikou
Anaphoric iyiiki eraaki ijiiki (recent)
ijekeñ (distant)
6.2.4. Adjectives
I mentioned earlier that there is often difficulty in rigidly assigning a word
to a specific part of speech in Oceanic languages. This is especially apparent
in the distinction, or lack of it, between verbs and adjectives.
Words that translate into English as adjectives generally have two func-
tional possibilities in most Oceanic languages. First, they may occur within
a noun phrase, almost always following the noun which they modify.
Fijian
na waqa levu
the canoe big
‘the big canoe’
Samoan
‘o le teine puta
FOCUS the girl fat
‘the fat girl’
Second, and more frequently, adjectives function as stative verbs. That is,
they function in the same way as other intransitive verbs (being marked for
subject, tense, and so on), but they express a state rather than an action,
with the subject being the experiencer of that state.
Fijian
E levu na waqa.
it big the canoe
‘The canoe is big.’
Samoan
Ua puta le teine.
STATIVE fat the girl
‘The girl is fat.’
gories include words that would translate as adjectives. Lenakel, for exam-
ple, has a set of stative verbs similar to those illustrated for Fijian and
Samoan: vɨt ‘good’ and esuaas ‘small’ may function as adjectives, following
the noun in a noun phrase:
Lenakel
R-ɨm-aamh nimwa vɨt ker.
he-PAST-see house good one
‘He saw a good house.’
They may also occur as the head of a verb complex, taking prefixes marking
subject and tense aspect just like any nonstative verb (compare the behavior
of vɨt and esuaas in the examples below with that of aamh ‘see’ and apul
‘sleep’ above).
Lenakel
Nimwa taha-n r-ɨm-vɨt akɨn.
house POSS-his it-PAST-good very
‘His house was/used to be very nice.’
Kova ka r-ɨs-esuaas-aan.
child that he-not-small-not
‘That child is not small.’
There is, however, a set of words that can only be adjectives, like vi ‘new’
and ituga ‘foreign.’ These also follow the noun in a noun phrase.
Lenakel
R-ɨm-ol nimwa vi.
he-PAST=make house new
‘He built a new house.’
Words in this category never function as stative verbs, and utterances like
the following ones are unacceptable.
Lenakel
*Nimwa r-(ɨm)-vi.
house it-(PAST)-new
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 117
*Nɨkava r-ɨs-ituga-aan.
kava it-not-foreign-not
Fijian
E moce na gone.
he sleep the child
‘The child slept/is sleeping.’
E dua na gone.
he one the child
‘(There is) one child.’
Two features of such systems are (1) that a noun modified by a numeral
occurs in what is effectively a relative clause in the sentence, and (2)
that numerals above one usually take singular rather than plural subject
markers.
Fijian
Erau moce e rua na gone.
they:two sleep he two the child
‘The two children slept/are sleeping.’
Such systems are common in Polynesia and are also found in some lan-
guages in Melanesia.
Tahitian
‘Ua ho‘i mai na ta‘ata ‘e toru.
PAST return here the:PL person it:is three
‘Three people came back here.’
118 CHAPTER 6
Anejom̃
A noup̃an is ithii, is amen a natimi is esej.
at time it:PAST one, it:PAST live SUBJECT person PAST three
‘Once upon a time, there were three people.’
Manam Lenakel
aine rua peravɨn (mil) kiu
woman two woman (DUAL) two
‘two women’ ‘two women’
Here we can see that the roots of the numerals have something in front of
them: i in Vinmavis, k (+ vowel) in Lenakel. In Vinmavis, i- is a third person
singular non-future verbal prefix, and in Lenakel k (+ vowel) is a third per-
son non-singular verbal prefix. Many languages of this type may once have
treated numerals as stative verbs, but over time the verbal prefix has be-
come attached to the numeral, and the numeral has lost its verbal nature.
The third kind of system involves what are known as numeral clas-
sifiers. Some Micronesian languages have an elaborate system of these
classifiers, and they are perhaps the best known representatives of this type,
although such classifiers also occur in the Admiralty Islands languages. As
Rehg says of Ponapean: “Every concrete noun in Ponapean belongs to one or
more classes. When we use a numeral with a noun, an appropriate numeral
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 119
classifier must be employed. More simply stated, the choice of the numeral
system one uses is dependent upon what one is counting” (Rehg 1981, 125).
Here are three such numeral systems in Ponapean, with the forms of
the numerals one through nine. The words in the second column are used
with the word mwutin ‘heap or pile of.’ Those in the third column are used
to count stalks of things. And those in the last column are used for counting
slices or chips of something.
Ponapean
‘heaps of’ ‘stalks of’ ‘slices of’
1 emwut osop edip
2 riemwut riasop riadip
3 silimwut silisop silidip
4 pahmwut pahsop pahdip
5 limmwut limisop limadip
6 wenemwut wensop wenedip
7 isimwut isisop isidip
8 walimwut welisop welidip
9 duwamwut duwasop duwadip
Examples:
Ponapean
mwutin dihpw pahmwut
pile:of grass four-CLASSIFIER
‘four piles of grass’
sehu pah-sop
sugarcane four-CLASSIFIER
‘four stalks of sugarcane’
As you can see from these examples, the numeral is made up of a mor-
pheme representing the number itself (sili- ‘three,’ pah- ‘four,’ etc.), and
a suffix, which is the classifier. Ponapean has twenty-nine such classifiers,
which include the following (the first three being those exemplified above).
It has as well a general classifier -u, which can be used with a range of nouns.
These classifiers may also be used without any numeral, in which case they
function as indefinite articles (compare section 6.2.2 in relation to Mokilese).
Ponapean
pwihk men tuhke pwoat
pig CLASSIFIER tree CLASSIFIER
‘a tree’ ‘a pig’
Tongan
ha kau faifekau ‘e toko fitu
a PL minister it:is CLASSIFIER seven
‘seven ministers’
Tongan
ha kau faifekau ‘e toko fiha?
a PL minister it:is CLASSIFIER how:many
‘how many ministers?’
the noun. The position of numerals and quantifiers is more variable. In some
languages, these precede the noun, in others they follow it. In the examples
below, the head noun is underlined to illustrate these patterns.
Labu
gwa kege ànì hanô anamô maipi lene
canoe small one house big five this
‘a small canoe’ ‘these five big houses’
Banoni
na tavana kota numa ghoom bangana bubu
PL person all house new big red
‘all people’ ‘the big new red house’
To‘aba‘ita
roo wela loo ki nga fau ba‘ita
two child this PL the stone big
‘those two children’ ‘a/the big stone’
Port Sandwich
navüs xavoi minac ngail pwici isa-n rai
bow real other PL all POSS-his only
‘all his other real bows only’
Ponapean
pwutak reirei sili-men-o
boy tall three-CLASSIFIER-that
‘those three tall boys’
Kiribati
teni-ua te boki akanne
three-CLASSIFIER the book those
‘those three books’
Fijian
na wai batabatā na vinivō damudamu oqō
the water cold the dress red this
‘(the) cold water’ ‘this red dress’
Tahitian
te mau pōti‘i purotu tē-ra ta‘ata ‘ino
the PL girl beautiful the-that man bad
‘the beautiful girls’ ‘that bad man’
The Kilivila language has a system of classifiers similar to, but much
richer than, the Bantu languages of Africa, with close to two hundred dif-
122 CHAPTER 6
Kilivila
tau m-to-na to-kabitam
man this-CLASSIFIER-this CLASSIFIER-intelligent
‘this intelligent man’
Paamese
nati-n mete-n
child-his/her eye-his/her/its
‘his/her child’ ‘his/her/its eye’
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 123
Fijian
na tina-qu na ulu-qu
the mother-my the head-my
‘my mother’ ‘my head’
Paamese
aa- food, passive
mo- drink or for domestic use
so- social relationship determined by law or custom
ono- general, active
Fijian
ke- food, passive
me- drink
no- general, active
Some examples:
Paamese
auh aa-k ipu aa-m
yam POSS:FOOD-my loss POSS:PASSIVE-your
‘my yam (to eat)’ ‘your loss/disadvantage’
Fijian
na ke-mu madrai na ke-na itukutuku
the POSS:FOOD-your bread the POSS:PASSIVE-his report
‘your bread (to eat)’ ‘his report (the one made
about him)’
Paamese
mete-n huli kailu
eye-C:S dog DUAL
‘the two dogs’ eyes’
The distinction between direct and indirect possession, and between the
various types of indirect possession, depends partly on the semantics of the
possessed noun and partly on the nature of the relationship between the pos-
sessor and the possessed. It follows, therefore, that at least some nouns may
participate in more than one kind of possessive construction, depending on
the nature of that relationship. For example:
Fijian
na yaca-qu na no-qu yaca
the name-my the POSS:GENERAL-my name
‘my name’ ‘my namesake’
Manam
mata-ng tama-gu
eye-your father-my
‘your eye’ ‘my father’
Sye
noru-g etme-n
hand-my father-his
‘my hand’ ‘his/her father’
Kiribati
tina-na kuni-u
mother-his skin-my
‘his mother’ ‘my skin’
126 CHAPTER 6
Ponapean
moange-i nime-i uhpw
head-my CLASSIFIER-my coconut
‘my head’ ‘my drinking coconut’
Ponapean
Classifier Used with nouns referring to
kene- edible things
nime- drinkable things
sapwe- land
were- vehicles
kie- things to sleep on
ipe- things used as coverings
pelie- peers, counterparts, opponents
mware- garlands, names, titles
nah- small or precious things, and people or things over
which the possessor has a dominant relationship
There is also a general classifier ah-, which is used with nouns that do not
fall into any other class. Examples:
Ponapean
ah-i seht ‘my shirt’
ah-i pwutak ‘my boyfriend’
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 127
Many nouns may occur with more than one classifier, with slight seman-
tic changes. So the noun pwihk ‘pig’ may be possessed with the dominant
classifier nah-, the general classifier ah-, and the edible classifier kene-, each
with different meanings:
Ponapean
nah-i pwihk ‘my (live) pig’
ah-i pwihk ‘my (butchered) pig’
kene-i pwihk ‘my pork, my pig (as food)’
Iaai
hinyö-k ba-n
mother-my head-his
‘my mother’ ‘his/her head’
hwakeci-m i-fuuc-in
custom-your NOM-speak-his
‘your custom’ ‘his/her way of speaking’
But there is also quite a large number of markers used in indirect con-
structions.
Iaai
a- food
bele- drink
hanii- something caught (e.g., through hunting or fishing)
höne- a contribution
hwa- a noise
iie- a piece of something to chew
ii- land
dee- a road
hnââ- something done to one
anyi- general (none of the above)
Examples include:
Iaai
anyi-k thaan a-n könying
CLASSIFIER-my chief CLASSIFIER-his taro
‘my chief’ ‘his taro (to eat)’
128 CHAPTER 6
There are also specific possessive markers in Iaai. These are derived from
nouns and are used to indicate possession of those same (or related) nouns.
Iaai
umwö-k uma ‘my house’
nuu-k nu ‘my coconut tree’
huu-k hu ‘my boat’
waii-k wai ‘my reef’
Labu
yê na ana yê na hanô
you your mother you your house
‘your mother’ ‘your house’
Rotuman
‘e-n ‘a‘ana ‘a‘an ‘e le Fauholi
POSS:FOOD-his taro taro POSS:FOOD the:PERSONAL Fauholi
‘his taro’ ‘Fauholi’s taro’
Almost all Polynesian languages (except Niuean and Takuu) have re-
tained the dichotomy between inalienable (or subordinate) and alienable
(or dominant) possession, but this is expressed by two different indirect
constructions. Generally speaking, inalienable or subordinate possession
is expressed by a possessive morpheme based on the vowel o, while
alienable or dominant possession is expressed with the vowel a. For ex-
ample:
Samoan
‘o lo-‘u tama ‘o le ulu o Tavita
FOCUS POSS-my father FOCUS the head POSS DAVID
‘my father’ ‘David’s head’
As in most other languages we have looked at, there are many examples
of the same noun being possessed in both constructions, with a concomitant
semantic difference.
Nukuoro
to-ku ngavesi ta-ku ngavesi
‘POSS-my box ‘POSS-my box
‘my coffin’ ‘my storage box’
Niuean has lost even this distinction, using only a- forms in all cases:
Niuean
haa-ku ihu haa-ku fale
POSS-my nose POSS-my house
‘my nose’ ‘my house’
Nehan
A mahoh ene pak-e rikin wah.
the old this should-he:NONPAST lie rest
‘This old man should lie down and rest.’
To‘aba‘ita
Nau ku bi‘i fula.
I I just:now arrive
‘I arrived just now.’
A‘jië
Gö yé vi köyö.
I will CONTINUOUS play
‘I am going to go on playing.’
Ponapean
Soulik kin pirida kuloak isuh.
Soulik HABITUAL get:up clock seven
‘Soulik gets up at seven o’clock.’
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 131
Fijian
E lailai na vale.
it small the house
‘The house is small.’
Rotuman
‘Eap ta la hoa‘.
mat the FUTURE take
‘The mat will be taken.’
Māori
I kai te rangatira.
PAST eat the chief
‘The chief ate.’
Languages of this type do, however, have a fairly small set of verbal
prefixes and suffixes. The most frequently used prefixes mark causativity
(see the To‘aba‘ita example below) and reciprocality (A‘jië), while suffixes
commonly mark the person and number of the object (To‘aba‘ita, A‘jië),
transitivity (Fijian), or the passive (Māori).
To‘aba‘ita
Nia ‘e fa‘a-faalu-a rabo‘a.
he he CAUSATIVE-clean-it bowl
‘He cleaned the bowl.’
A‘jië
Curu vi-ya‘-ru.
they:two RECIPROCAL-hit-them:two
‘They hit each other.’
Fijian
E rai-ci ira.
he see-TRANS them
‘He saw them.’
Māori
Ka pūhi-a te poaka e wai?
INCEPTIVE shoot-PASSIVE the pig by who
‘By whom was the pig shot?’
Lenakel
Amnuumw!
drink
‘Drink (it)!’
In such languages, however, verbs typically take prefixes and suffixes mark-
ing subject, tense-aspect, and a range of other grammatical features. In the
examples below, the verb root is underlined:
Manam
‘U-lele-‘ama.
you-look:for-us:EXC
‘You looked for us.’
Ma‘asi-lo i-ngara-ngara.
ocean-in he-CONTINUOUS-swim
‘He is swimming in the ocean.’
Natu i-laba-doi.
child he-big-COMPLETIVE
‘The child has grown up.’
Robu‘a i-ro-ro‘a‘-i-ramo-la.
rubbish it-HABITUAL-throw-them-randomly-persistently
‘He keeps throwing rubbish all over the place.’
Lenakel
R-ɨm-kɨn mun akɨn.
he-PAST-eat again very
‘He ate a lot again.’
K-ɨm-uɨni-uas to nahuto.
they-PAST-DUAL-say-together to crowd
‘They were both talking at once to the crowd.’
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 133
Fijian
E ā̱ lako mai o Jone.
he PAST go here the:PERSONAL John
‘John came.’
Rotuman has only one tense-marker, la (sometimes tæla), which marks the
future. The non-future is unmarked.
Rotuman
Ia ‘ea ia la leum.
he say he FUTURE come
‘He says he will come.’ or ‘He said he would come.’
Tͻn ta sun-‘ia.
water the hot-STATIVE
‘The water is (now) hot.’
Fā ta leume-a.
man the COME-COMPLETIVE
‘The man has already come.’
Other languages have more complex tense systems than that of English.
Lenakel, for example, distinguishes four non-future tenses:
134 CHAPTER 6
Lenakel
n-ak-ol ‘you do it’
n-ɨm-ol ‘you did it’
n-n-ol ‘you have done it’
n-ep-ol ‘you did it (after you did something else)’
A future prefix, t-, can be used in combination with two of the tense prefixes
above to produce two different future tenses.
Lenakel
t-n-ak-ol ‘you will do it soon’
t-n-ep-ol ‘you will do it some time later’
In yet other languages, tense is not really marked at all. Let us consider
what Rehg (1981, 268) has to say about Ponapean:
This idea of a time contour can be clarified by looking at four aspects marked
in Ponapean:
Some examples:
Ponapean
Soulik kin kang rais.
Soulik HABITUAL eat rice
‘Soulik eats rice.’
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 135
A verb may also occur without any of these aspect markers, as in:
Ponapean
Soulik kang rais.
Soulik eat rice
‘Soulik is eating rice,’ ‘Soulik ate rice,’ etc.
This simply indicates that Soulik was involved in eating rice. No time is spec-
ified, although this can of course be included if it is necessary:
Ponapean
Soulik kang rais nan sounpar samwalahro.
Soulik eat rice on year last
‘Soulik ate rice last year.’
Māori
ka inceptive Beginning of a new action
i past Action in the past
kua completive Action (fairly recently) completed
kia desiderative Desirability of an action
me prescriptive Action should take place
e non-past Present or future (when used with ana
following the verb, indicates incomplete
or continuous action)
136 CHAPTER 6
Examples:
Māori
Ka takoto te tamaiti ka moe.
INCEPTIVE lie the child INCEPTIVE sleep
‘The child lay down and slept.’
tween some initial consonants of verbs. Verbs with initial v, w, k, and r retain
these consonants in irrealis mood, but change them to p, p̄, g, and t, re-
spectively, after any preverbal particle. (The verb root is underlined in the
examples.)
Nakanamanga
Irrealis mood Realis mood
a ga vano e pano
I INTENTIONAL go he go
‘I’m going’ ‘he goes’
6.4.3. Subject
Most Oceanic languages mark the person and the number of the subject
somewhere in the verb complex—either as a prefix to the verb, or as a pre-
15
verbal particle. In some cases, a single morpheme marks both person and
number:
Paamese
Na-mū mon alok.
I-make:it pudding
‘I made the pudding.’
Ro-mūmon alok.
we:INC-make:it pudding
‘We (inclusive) made the pudding.’
Ma-mūmon alok.
we:EXC-make:it pudding
‘We (exclusive) made the pudding.’
Kiribati
E ata-ai.
he know-me
‘He knows me.’
A ata-ai.
they know-me
‘They know me.’
138 CHAPTER 6
Lenakel
N-ak-am-kɨn menuk ua?
you-PRESENT-CONTINUOUS -eat chicken or
‘Are you (singular) eating chicken?’
Manam
Singular Plural
Realis Irrealis Realis Irrealis
1 u- m- 1 INC ta- ta-
2 ‘u- go- 1 EXC ‘i ga-
3 i- nga- 2 ‘a- ‘ama-
3 di- da-
For example:
Manam
Eu i-mate.
dog it:REALIS-die
‘The dog died.’
Eu nga-mate ‘ana.
dog it:IRREALIS-die likely
‘The dog’s going to die.’
In languages like these, the subject marker occurs whether the subject
is a full noun phrase or a pronoun, and whether that subject is expressed in
the sentence or not. By contrast, languages in western Polynesia use prever-
bal subject-marking pronouns only when the subject is a pronoun:
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 139
Tongan
Na‘e ‘alu ‘a e tangata. (noun phrase subject)
PAST go SUBJECT the man
‘The man went.’
Samoan
Ua sau le ali‘i. (noun phrase subject)
COMPLETIVE come the chief
‘The chief has come.’
Tahitian
‘Ua tāpū te vahine ‘i te vahie. (noun
phrase subject)
PAST cut the woman OBJECT the wood
‘The woman cut the wood.’
Nakanamanga
A ga munu.
I INTENTIONAL drink
‘I’ll drink.’
Fijian
E bulu.
he bury
‘He/she/it is buried.’
E bulu-t-a na benu.
he bury-TRANS-it the rubbish
‘He/she buried the rubbish.’
Anejom̃
Adap̃o-i upni yin aak!
cover-TRANS good him you
‘Cover him up well!’
Fijian
Intransitive Transitive
bulu bulu-ti ‘bury’
rai rai-ci ‘see’
tuku tuku-ni ‘tell’
kaci kaci-vi ‘call’
viri viri-ki ‘throw at’
kila kila-i ‘know’
As you can see from the examples, the form of the suffix (which is sometimes
simply -i) is unpredictable. One simply has to learn that bulu, for example,
16
takes -ti, but rai takes -ci.
The second feature is that many Oceanic languages in fact have two
transitive suffixes, the first deriving from Proto Oceanic *-i and the second
from *-aki or *-akini. This second suffix is sometimes called the applicative.
It often refers to the instrument with which the action is carried out, the rea-
son for performing the action, or some other more indirect transitive notion.
In the Fijian examples below, I have used the form of the suffix that incor-
porates a third person singular object -a. In Fijian, -Ci-a becomes -Ca, and
-Caki-a becomes -Caka. In some cases the thematic consonant is the same in
both suffixes.
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 141
Fijian
Transitive Applicative
cici-va ‘run for it’ cici-vaka ‘run with it’
cabe-ta ‘ascend it’ cabe-taka ‘ascend with it’
oso-va ‘bark at it’ oso-vaka ‘bark because of it’
uso-ra ‘poke it’ uso-raka ‘poke with it’
Fijian
Transitive Applicative
kaki-a ‘scrape it’ kaki-taka ‘scrape with it’
yaqa-va ‘crawl to it’ yaqa-taka ‘crawl with it’
masu-ta ‘pray to it’ masu-laka ‘pray for it’
tala-a ‘send him’ taka-vaka ‘send it’
Lenakel
R-ɨm-eiua-in mun iik.
he-PAST-lie-TRANS again you
‘He lied to you again.’
A large number of languages, however, do mark the person and the num-
ber of the object within the verb complex, either with a suffix to the verb (as
in Manam and Kiribati) or as a postposed verbal particle (as in Fijian):
Manam
Bang u-naghu-sere‘-i.
taro I:REALIS-pierce-split-it
‘I split the taro by piercing it.’
Kiribati
E ata-a tama-u.
he know-him father-my
‘He knows my father.’
142 CHAPTER 6
Fijian
E ā rai-ci irau na yalewa.
he PAST see-TRANS them:two the woman
‘He saw the two women.’
Generally, if a language has transitive and object suffixes, both occur suf-
18
fixed to the verb in that order.
Ulithian
Yule-mi-ya cale lee!
drink-TRANS-it water this
‘Drink this water!’
In other languages, the object suffix occurs when the object is a pronoun,
but not when it is a noun or noun phrase.
Nakanamanga
A ga munu-gi-a.
I INTENTIONAL drink-TRANS-it (pronoun object)
‘I’ll drink it.’
Kosraean
Tuhlihk sacn tuhlakihn pinsuhl nuhtih-k ah.
child that snatch pencil CLASSIFIER-my the
‘That child snatched my pencil.’
Hawaiian
Ua ‘ai ka māka‘i i ka poi.
COMPLETIVE eat the policeman OBJECT the poi
‘The policeman ate the poi.’
Māori
I inu te tangata i te wai.
PAST drink the man OBJECT the water
‘The man drank the water.’
Tahitian
‘Ua hohoni te uri ‘i te tamaiti.
PAST bite the dog OBJECT the boy
‘The dog bit the boy.’
In examples of the passive given so far, I have put the agent in paren-
theses. In these languages a passive sentence may occur with or without an
agent.
Tahitian
‘Ua hohoni-hia te tamaiti ‘e te uri.
PAST bite-PASSIVE the boy by the dog
‘The boy was bitten by the dog.’ (agent specified)
Very few languages in Melanesia have a passive. Those that do are spo-
ken in the western Solomons. In these languages, only the passive without
agent is permitted. Indeed, in Roviana at least, the passive is used only when
the agent is generic or is not recoverable from the context.
Roviana
Seke-a sa tie sa siki.
hit-it the man the dog
‘The man hit the dog.’
Ta-seke sa siki.
PASSIVE-hit the dog
‘The dog was hit.’
Fijian
E davo-r-a.
he lie-TRANS-it
‘He lay on it.’
E vaka-davo-r-a.
he CAUSATIVE-lie-TRANS-it
‘He made him/her/it lie down.’
Manam
Dang i-a‘a-gita-i.
water he-CAUSATIVE-hot-it
‘He heated the water.’
Roviana
Lopu va-mate tie si rau.
not CAUSATIVE-die person SUBJECT I
‘I didn’t kill anybody.’
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 145
Mokilese
Lih-o ka-loau-i mwingeh-u.
woman-the CAUSATIVE-be:cooked-TRANS food-the
‘The woman made sure the food was cooked.’
West Futuna
Ne-i faka-sara aia ta vetoka.
PAST-he CAUSATIVE-be:open he the door
‘He opened the door.’
The causative prefix often has a number of other functions in these lan-
guages. One common one is to form ordinal or multiplicative numerals from
20
cardinal numerals, which are stative verbs.
Kiribati
teniua ‘three’ ka-teniua ‘third’
nimaua ‘five’ ka-nimaua ‘fifth’
Samoan
lua ‘two’ fa‘a-lua ‘twice’
tolu ‘three’ fa‘a-tolu ‘three times’
Fijian
E loma-ni koya.
he love-TRANS she
‘He loves her.’
Erau vei-loma-ni.
they:two RECIPROCAL-love-TRANS
‘They (two) love each other.’
Fijian
Era butu-k-a.
they tread-TRANS-it
‘They trod on it.’
Era vei-butu-yak-a.
they CONCERTED-tread-TRANS-it
‘They trampled it all over.’
146 CHAPTER 6
Samoan has taken this one step further. There the reciprocal prefix fe-, in
addition to normal reciprocal functions, has also come to mark some verbs
as having plural subjects (perhaps deriving from the idea of united or con-
certed action).
Samoan
Singular Plural
a‘a fe-a‘a ‘kick’
inu fe-inu ‘drink’
fefe fe-fefe ‘be afraid’
tagi fe-tagi-si ‘cry’
oso fe-oso-fi ‘jump’
Fijian
E sā qai tau-r-a mai.
she ASPECT then bring-TRANS-it here
‘Then she brought it here.’
E ā wili-k-a tale.
he PAST read-TRANS-it again
‘He read it again.’
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 147
Lenakel
R-ep-os-i-pa.
she-then-take-TRANS-here
‘Then she brought it here.’
K-ɨm-hal-vɨn-uas.
they-PAST-TRIAL-go:there-together
‘They (three) went off there together.’
R-ɨm-avhi-in mun.
he-PAST-read-TRANS again
‘He read it again.’
Roviana
Totoso ene nuguru la ghami …
when walk enter go we:EXC
‘When we walked in …’
Roviana
Lopu seke mate-i rau pa lima-gu.
not hit die-TRANS:them I with hand-my
‘I didn’t kill them with my hands.’
Paamese
Ni-ro-kan-tei ouh.
I:FUTURE-not-eat-not yam
‘I will not eat the yam.’
In serial constructions in Paamese, the first verb in the series takes the pre-
fix ro-, while the last verb takes the suffix -tei:
Paamese
Ni-ro-kan vīs-tei ouh.
I:FUTURE-not-eat try-not yam
‘I will not try to eat the yam.’
6.5. Sentences
English normally requires sentences to contain (at least) one verb, but
Oceanic languages do not. Below I follow Krupa (1982) in distinguishing be-
tween verbal sentences and nominal sentences.
Subject Predicate
Tolai
Iau mamati.
I from:here
‘I am from here.’
Motu
Ia na tau bada-na.
he FOCUS man big-SG
‘He is a big/elderly man.’
To‘aba‘ita
Thata-mu ni tei?
name-your the:PERSONAL who
‘What is your name?’
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 149
Mokilese
Pediro kahdilik-men.
Pediro Catholic-CLASSIFIER
‘Pedro is a Catholic.’
Rotuman
Ia gagaja-t.
he chief-a
‘He is a chief.’
In languages in which the verb normally precedes the subject (see below),
the predicate in a nominal sentence comes before the subject.
Predicate Subject
Yapese
Chitamngii-g Tamag.
father-my Tamag
‘Tamag is my father.’
Roviana
Vineki zingazingarana si asa.
girl light:skinned SUBJECT she
‘She is a light-skinned girl.’
Fijian
Na ke-na i-liuliu na kānala.
the POSS-its NOM-lead the colonel
‘The colonel is its leader.’
Tongan
Ko e faiako au.
FOCUS a teacher I
‘I am a teacher.’
Māori
He kātiro ātāhua a Mārama.
a girl beautiful the:PERSONAL Mārama
‘Mārama is a beautiful girl.’
Kiribati, in which the verb comes first in a verbal sentence, apparently al-
lows either subject + predicate or predicate + subject with little if any
difference in meaning.
150 CHAPTER 6
Kiribati
Te berititenti ngaia. (subject + predicate)
the president he
‘He is the president.’
The translations of all these sentences contain some form of the verb
“to be,” which is used in equational sentences (“He is the president.”), in
some kinds of locational sentences (“I am from here.”), and so on. Many
Oceanic languages have no such verb, expressing equational and locational
sentences as nominal sentences.
1. She is sleeping.
2. She saw the man.
3. The man saw her.
Sentences (1) and (2) are intransitive and transitive, respectively. Both have
she as subject. In sentence (3), the form of the object is her, not she.
The majority of Oceanic languages are accusative languages. In the fol-
lowing examples, the subject is underlined:
Anejom̃
Et amjeg a natam̃ añ iyii.
he sleep SUBJECT man that
‘That man is sleeping.’
Southwest Tanna
Kɨmlu i-ɨmn-la-gɨn.
we:two:EXC we-PAST DUAL-afraid
‘We (two) were afraid.’
Pa l- ɨ mn-hai amlu?
who he-PAST-stab us:two:EXC
‘Who stabbed us (two)?’
Samoan
Sa ma‘i le fafine.
STATIVE sick the woman
‘The woman is sick.’
in the second. In the second and third sentences, however, le tama ‘the child’
and le fafine are subjects of the transitive verb and are marked as such by
the ergative marker, e.
Note a similar pattern in Motu. Morea is unmarked in the first two sen-
tences, where it is subject of the intransitive verb and object of the transitive
verb, respectively. But when it occurs as subject of the transitive verb, as in
the third example, it is marked by the following ergative marker ese.
Motu
Morea e-mahuta.
Morea he-sleep
‘Morea is sleeping.’
SV(O) Languages
Nakanai
E pusi tetala eia parakukuru.
the cat his it black
‘His/her cat is black.’
Labu
Ase eme?
who come:PAST
‘Who came?’
To‘aba‘ita
Nau kwa-si mata‘i.
I I-not sick
‘I am not sick.’
Paamese
Mail he-to.
Mail he:DISTANT-bald
‘Mail is going bald.’
Lenakel
Nakankɨp r-ɨm-am-apul.
Nakankɨp he-PAST-CONTINUOUS-sleep
“Nakankɨp was sleeping.”
Ponapean
Lamp-o pahn pwupwidi.
lamp-that FUTURE fall
‘That lamp will fall down.’
154 CHAPTER 6
S(O)V Languages
Motu
Morea e-mahuta.
Morea he-sleep
‘Morea is sleeping.’
Maisin
Pita-ka i-maa-matu.
Peter-TOPIC he-CONTINUOUS-sleep
‘Peter is asleep.’
Verb-Initial Languages
Languages whose rules demand that the verb complex come first in the
23
sentence are found in various parts of the Oceanic area. Anejom̃ in Vanu-
atu, many New Caledonian languages, a few languages in Micronesia, and
most Polynesian languages (especially those of the Polynesian Triangle) are
verb-initial languages. In some of these languages, the normal order is verb
+ object + subject.
Anejom̃
Ek hag añak.
I eat I
‘I am eating.’
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 155
Iaai
A me walak wanakat.
he CONTINUOUS play child
‘The child is playing.’
Kiribati
E a mataku Itaia.
he CONTINUOUS watch Itaia
‘Itaia is watching.’
Yapese
Bea mool Tamag.
PRESENT sleep Tamag
‘Tamag is sleeping.’
Māori
I kai te rangatira.
PAST eat the chief
‘The chief ate.’
Tahitian
‘Ua tāmā‘a te vahine.
PAST eat the woman
‘The woman has eaten.’
To some extent, all Oceanic languages, like most other languages in the
world, allow some flexibility in basic phrase order. In English, for example,
emphasis or contrast can be laid on the object by moving it to sentence-ini-
tial position: Compare I just can’t stand that fellow with That fellow I just
can’t stand.
In Oceanic languages, it is generally possible to focus attention on any
noun phrase by moving it to the beginning of the sentence. In some lan-
guages, there is a pause (marked in the examples below by a comma) or
a special focusing morpheme after this phrase. The first set of examples is
from languages that are normally verb-initial. The focus is on the subject:
A‘jië
Më‘u, wè, na kani.
yam, FOCUS, it grow
‘As for the yam, it’s growing well.’
Iaai
Wanakat, a me walak.
child, 3SG CONTINUOUS play
‘As for the child, he/she is playing.’
Mā‘ori
Ko Wahieroa kua moe i a Kura.
FOCUS Wahieroa COMPLETIVE marry OBJECT the:PERSONAL Kura
‘Wahieroa [not someone else] has married Kura.’
Anejom̃
Nev-atimi iyii na ecta-i aek?
which-man that you see-TRANS you
‘Which man was it that you saw?’
Fijian
E dua na qito levu keimami ākī-tak-a.
it one the game big we:EXC:PL PAST do-TRANS-it
‘It’s a big game we played.’
The examples below are from normally subject-initial (either SVO or SOV)
languages, with attention focused on the object.
Nakanai
La paia taume, eau kama hilo-a.
the dog your, I not see-it
‘As for your dog, I haven’t seen it.’
To‘aba‘ita
Niu ne‘e ki na ku ngali-a mai.
coconut this PL FOCUS I carry-it here
‘It was these coconuts that I brought.’
Motu
Boroma Morea ese e-ala-ia.
pig Morea ERGATIVE he-kill-it
‘The pig, Morea killed it.’
Lenakel
Nimwa aan nɨmataag-asuul r-ɨm-atakɨn.
house that wind-big it-PAST-destroy
‘That house was destroyed by the cyclone.’
The following extract from a Banoni story (Lincoln 1976, 229) shows
how discourse features influence word order in these languages. The noun
phrase we are interested in is natsu-ri ‘their child.’
158 CHAPTER 6
Banoni
Vi natsu-ri ke vakekariana me-ria
then child-their COMPLETIVE play with-them
‘Their child was playing with
The story is about a man and his wife cooking pork. When their child
(natsu-ri) is introduced into the story, it is obviously in focus. It comes before
the verb of which it is the subject (ke vakekariana ‘he was playing’). Once
the child has been introduced, however, there is no necessity to focus on the
child again. In the last clause in the above example, natsu-ri follows the verb
of which it is the subject (ke tai-ma ‘he came’).
In some Oceanic languages, however, this variability in phrase order is
a requirement of grammar. Tolai, for example, has SV(O) in most sentence
types, but V(O)S in stative sentences. Compare examples 1 and 2 with exam-
ples 3 and 4.
Tolai
Rotuman also has SV(O) as its normal order, but this can change to VS in
certain kinds of intransitive sentences (e.g., imperatives). Compare the first
two examples below with the last one.
Rotuman
Verb Subject
Leum ‘æe!
come you
‘(You) come!’
6.5.4. Negation
There is some variety in the ways in which negation is marked in Oceanic
languages. The most widespread pattern is for negation to be marked by a
preverbal negative particle:
Manam
Tamoata tago nga-te-a.
man not he:IRREALIS-see-me
‘The man will not see me.’
Banoni
Ma to tai no, Ken ma to tai.
IRREALIS not go you, Ken IRREALIS not go
‘If you don’t go, Ken won’t go either.’
Nakanamanga
A ko taa munu.
I INCOMPLETE not drink
‘I haven’t drunk yet.’
160 CHAPTER 6
A‘jië
Céré daa të ka‘u.
they not still big
‘They are not big yet.’
Kiribati
E aki kiba te moa.
it not fly the chicken
‘The chicken didn’t fly.’
Nukuoro
Ia e te hano
he PRESENT not go
‘He is not going.’
Tongan
Na‘e ‘ikai ‘alu ‘a Siale.
PAST not go SUBJECT Siale
‘Siale didn’t go.’
Raga
Ran hav gita-u tehe.
they:COMPLETIVE not see-me not
‘They didn’t see me.’
Rotuman
Taunæ‘ ta kat sok ra.
meeting the not:NON-FUTURE happen not
‘The meeting did not take place.’
West Futuna
A tata ni se kauna ma avau ki ta skul.
the parent PAST not send not me to the school
‘My parents didn’t send me to school.’
Oceanic Languages: Grammatical Overview 161
Special mention must be made of the Lewo language of Epi Island, Vanuatu,
which is probably unique in the world in requiring (in some grammatical
contexts) a triple marking of negation:
Lewo
Pe ne-pisu-li re Santo poli.
not I-see-try not Santo not
‘I’ve never seen Santo.’
Motu
B-asi-na-ita-ia.
FUTURE-not-I-see-it
‘I won’t see it.’
Paamese
Inau na-ro-mesai-tei.
I I-not-sick-not
‘I am not sick.’
Lenakel
Wusuaas ka r-ɨs-ho-aan peravɨn taha-m.
boy the he-not-hit-not woman POSS-your
‘The boy didn’t hit your wife.’
Tahitian
‘Aita te ta‘ata ‘i hohoni-hia ‘e te ‘uri.
not the man COMPLETIVE bite-PASSIVE by the dog
‘The man was not bitten by the dog.’
162 CHAPTER 6
Māori
Kāhore ngā wāhine e kōrero ana.
not the:PL woman NONPAST talk CONTINUOUS
‘The women are not talking.’
Rapanui
Ina matou kai ma‘a i te vānaga Magareva.
not we:EXC not know OBJECT the language Mangareva
‘We ourselves don’t know the Mangareva language.’
Southwest Tanna
Magau l-ɨmn-asim niɨv.
Magau he-PAST-garden yesterday
‘Magau worked in the garden yesterday.’
In the negative equivalent of this sentence, person and tense marking oc-
curs on the negative verb apwah, and the verb asim is nominalized.
Southwest Tanna
Magau l-ɨmn-apwah n-asim-ien niɨv.
Magau he-PAST-not NOM-garden-NOM yesterday
‘Magau did not work in the garden yesterday.’
Fijian
E sega na kākana.
it not the food
‘There is no food.’
To‘aba‘ita
‘i location, direction
ni purpose, instrument
mala ‘like, as’
‘ana instrument, goal, comparison
Samoan
i location, direction toward, instrument, cause
ma comitative, ‘with’
mā, mō beneficiary ‘for’ (the a/o distinction paralleling
that of
possessives)
mai ablative, ‘from’
To‘aba‘ita
Thaina-mare‘a ‘e nii ‘i luma.
mother-our:two:EXC she be in house
‘Our mother is in the house.’
Samoan
Ua sau le tama ma se ‘au-fa‘i.
STATIVE come the boy with a bunch-banana
‘The boy is coming with a bunch of bananas.’
To‘aba‘ita
Ka takalo-a gano fuu ‘i maa-na bi‘u fuu.
he:then scatter-it soil that in face-its house that
‘Then he scattered the soil in front of the house.’
‘Ono ‘i ninima-ku.
sit:down at side-my
‘Sit down beside me.’
Manam
zaiza comitative, ‘with’
‘ana cause
ane, oti, ono instrument
bo‘ana ‘like, as’
-lo location
-o ‘on’
Sinagoro
ai location, ‘in, at’
na instrument, ablative
γoti accompaniment
γana direction toward
Manam
Roa-gu uma-lo i-malipi-lipi.
wife-my garden-in she-work-CONTINUOUS
‘My wife is working in the garden.’
Sinagoro
Au γe-γu koko-na a-kwari-a-to.
I POSS-my axe-with I-hit-it-PAST
‘I hit it with my axe.’
Sinagoro
numa gabule-na-ai
house underneath-its-at
‘under the house’
numa muli-na-ai
house back-its-at
‘behind the house’
mimiga potiati-ai
hole gone:through-at
“through the hole”
7.1. Pronouns
Pronoun systems vary widely among Papuan languages, but in general they
are not so complex as Oceanic systems. Many Papuan languages distinguish
only singular and plural (sometimes only in some persons, like Kuman in the
examples below). Some languages in Irian Jaya do not even do this. They
simply distinguish person, though they usually have a special plural mor-
pheme preceding or following (like king- in Manem):
Plural
we king-ga no no
you king-sa ene ya
they king-angk ye yau
166
Papuan Languages: Grammatical Overview 167
Wiru Alamblak
Singular
I no nan
you ne nin
he/she/it one rër
Dual
we two tota nën
you two kita nifɨn
they two kita rëf
Plural
we toto nëm
you kiwi nikëm
they kiwi rëm
The Wiru examples show another not uncommon feature of Papuan pro-
nouns, conflation of non-singular second and third persons.
A number of Papuan languages distinguish gender in pronouns, most
commonly in the third person singular, but occasionally in other persons as
well. Note the following singular pronouns in Abelam:
Abelam
I wnǝ
you masculine mǝ nǝ
you feminine ñǝ nǝ
he dǝ
she lǝ
Nimboran
io I, we inclusive
ngo I, we exclusive
ko you (singular and plural)
no he, she, it, they
cases trial number. The most complex of these pronoun systems is that of Ba-
niata (see table 6).
Dual
1INC be bebe
1EXC eere eerebe
2 bere berebe
3 sere robe rede
Trial
1INC meno menu
1EXC eebeno eebenu
2 mebeno mebenu
3 nomo numo nafi
Plural
1INC memo
1EXC eebo
2 mebo
3 mo mo no
a
Gender is not distinguished in these persons and numbers.
Many Papuan languages mark person and number of subject (and, less
often, object) by verbal affixes, usually suffixes, but sometimes prefixes. In-
terestingly, a number of languages make more distinctions in these affixes
than they do in free pronouns. Kuman is one such language:
Kuman
Dual
we two — -bugl
you two — -bit
they two — -bit
Plural
we no -mun
you ene -iw
they ye -iw
Kuman (1) contrasts dual and plural in the subject pronoun suffixes; (2) like
Wiru, it conflates non-singular second and third persons in the subject suf-
fixes. Neither of these features appears in the independent pronouns.
Bilua, on the other hand, has subject prefixes. One small class of verbs
marks the object by prefixes, but most verbs take object suffixes. Here are the
singular forms of these pronouns (along with the independent pronouns).
Bilua
Subject Object
Independent Prefixes Prefixes Suffixes
I anga a- l- -l
you ngo ngo- ng- -ng
he vo o- v- -v
she ko ko- k- -k
particular class. The word order in the examples below is /noun + demonstra-
1
tive + adjective + verb/. The class marker is underlined in each case.
Abu‘
Noun Dem. Adj. Verb
Aleman ana afuni n-ahe‘ ‘This good man went.’
Alemam ama afumi m-ahe‘ ‘These good men went.’
Numata‘ au‘a afu‘i kw-ahe‘ ‘This good woman went.’
Numatawa awa afuweri w-ahe‘ ‘These good women went.’
Aul ala afuli l-ahe‘ ‘This good eel went.’
Akuh akuha afukuhi h-ahe‘ ‘These good eels went.’
Bahiataf afa afufi f-ahe‘ ‘This good river fish went.’
Ihiaburuh aha afuhi h-ahe‘ ‘This good butterfly went.’
Koita
o PROXIMATE: ‘this’
e INTERMEDIATE: ‘this, that’
vire DISTANT: ‘that’
Other Papuan languages are more like English, with a two-way contrast in
demonstratives between proximate (near the speaker) and distant (not near
the speaker). Barai, though closely related to Koita, is one such language,
but the demonstrative situation is complicated by the fact that other aspects
of the location of the noun referred to are also incorporated into the system.
Barai
Proximate Distant
ig- ij- general
— gar-, gur- to the side
— gam- down at an angle
— gaf- up at an angle
— gum- straight down
— guf- straight up
Koita
ata ahu inuhati vire
man old all that
‘all those old men’
Daga
gutut otu ame uiwa
story little that last
‘that last little story’
Abu‘
ba-kuh a-kuha bia-kuh afu-kuhi
stick-CLASS this-CLASS two-CLASS good-CLASS
‘these two good sticks’
Enga
akáli épé kitúmende dúpa
man good four those
‘those four good men’
Koita
di hete-re di ava-γe
I chin-POSS I mouth-POSS
‘my chin’ ‘my mouth’
di vaiγa-de di muni-ve
I spear-POSS I stone-POSS
‘my spear’ ‘my stone’
172 CHAPTER 7
Daga
ne goani-na
I younger:sibling-my
‘my younger sibling’
nu mama-nu
we father-our
‘our father’
Other nouns do not take these possessive suffixes, but are followed instead
by an independent pronoun plus a possessive marker.
Daga
ne anu-t ne-ga
I thing-NOM I-POSS
‘my thoughts’
nu dugup nu-ga
we clan we-POSS
‘our clan’
Magi
Oni-la-es-a.
go-IMPERFECTIVE-PRESENT-he
‘He is going.’
Oni-bi-ava-i!
go-CONDITINOAL-you:two-IMPERATIVE
‘You two go!’
Papuan Languages: Grammatical Overview 173
Oni-sa-‘a-i-dei.
go-FUTURE-I-IMPERATIVE-short:time
‘I will go now for a short time.’
Wahgi
Na-pi-s-a-mbiɫ-mo?
not-hear-CLASSIFIER-FUTURE-two-QUESTION
‘Will you two not hear?’
No-n-a-mb-ua?
eat-CLASSIFIER-FUTURE-they-QUESTION
‘Can they eat?’
Na-no-tang-e-r-ind.
not-eat-HABITUAL-COMPLETIVE-CLASSIFIER-I
‘I do not always eat.’
Abelam
wʌ-kʌ-wtǝ-kwʌ.
talk-FUTURE-I-NONPAST
‘I will talk.’
gǝra-kʌ-ñǝnǝ-gwʌ.
cry-FUTURE-you: FEMININE-NONPAST
‘You (fem.) will cry.’
kʌ-kʌ-wtǝ-kwʌ-y
eat-FUTURE-I-NONPAST-not:FUTURE
‘I will not eat.’
Yimas
yan na-ka-kumprak-asa-t
tree OBJECT:CLASS-I-broken-CAUSATIVE-COMPLETIVE
‘I broke the tree.’
ka-n-wa-n
likely-he-go-PRESENT
‘He’s likely to go.’
antɨ-ka-wa-ntut
might-I-go-FAR:PAST
‘I would have gone.’
174 CHAPTER 7
Korafe
-e present
-are future
-ete immediate past (something that happened today)
-imuta very near past (something that happened yesterday)
-a recent past (something that happened before yesterday,
but not very long ago)
-ise far past
-erae habitual
Korafe
Y-are-s-a.
go-FUTURE-you-STATEMENT
‘You will go.’
Re-da y-are-s-i?
what-to go-FUTURE-you-QUESTION
‘Where will you go?’
Y-a-s-a.
go-RECENT:PAST-you-STATEMENT
‘You went (recently).’
Re-da y-a-s-i?
what-to go-RECENT:PAST-you-QUESTION
‘Where did you go (recently)?’
Kuman
Underlying form Surface form
/pit-i-ka-a/ > prika
hear-I-REALIS-STATEMENT
‘I hear.’
Papuan Languages: Grammatical Overview 175
Kuman
Bugla kinde suŋgwa.
pig bad it:hit
‘The pig is sick.’
These two sentences are examples of what are called adjunct con-
structions, in which the verb of the sentence is preceded by a morpheme of
some other word class, usually a noun or an adjective, which is known as an
adjunct. Some other examples in Kuman are:
Kuman
ka di gaugl ere
word say laughter do
‘say’ ‘laugh’
Kuman
Ye mbo mbat narukwa.
he sugarcane cut he:give
‘He cut sugarcane for me.’
Kuman
di te di pre
say give say perceive
‘tell’ ‘ask’
si bogl si gogl
hit cut hit die
‘sew’ ‘kill’
ere kan pre pol si
do see perceive undo hit
‘try’ ‘understand’
In all of these cases, what other languages often view as a single state or
event and express by a single verb is broken up into components. For exam-
ple, the sentence Ye komboglo ake suŋgwa is idiomatically translated ‘She
hit it with a stone,’ but is more literally ‘She held a stone and hit it.’ In the
more literal translation, the two components of holding the stone and hitting
something with it are separated.
While many Papuan languages, like Kuman, make quite frequent use of ad-
junct and serial constructions, “the closely related Kalam and Kobon are the
most remarkable in applying this idea in the most thoroughgoing fashion….
Kalam immediately strikes one as a language in which the speakers are exces-
sively specific in their description of events” (Foley 1986, 113). An example like
the following one gives an idea of just how specific these languages can be.
Kalam
Yad am mon pk d ap ay-p-yn.
I go wood hit hold come put-COMPLETIVE-I
‘I fetched firewood.’
Kalam
nb nŋ- ag tk-
consume perceive sound sever
‘taste’ ‘interrupt’
Kalam
wdn nŋ- tmwd nŋ-
eye perceive ear perceive
‘see’ ‘hear’
ywg ñ- mnm ag ñ-
lid give speech sound give
‘put a lid on’ ‘confide’
7.5. Sentences
7.5.1. Simple Sentences
Any generalization about word order in Papuan languages would state that
they tend to be verb-final languages. The order of the core constituents is SV
2
in intransitive clauses and SOV in transitive clauses.
Fu mave kana-e.
he pig hit-PAST
‘He hit the pig.’
Wahgi
Na wo-tang-n-al.
I come-HABITUAL-CLASS-I:will
‘I will always come.’
Na mokine no-tang-ind.
I food eat-HABITUAL-I:have
‘I always ate food.’
Anggor
Songgo borǝ me-fe-o.
fowl:egg broke-change-it:S
‘The wildfowl egg broke.’
Ap palu na-sikh-e.
man python eat-FAR:PAST-he
‘The man ate the python.’
While in many languages this is the usual order, in others word order is
not significant for indicating functions like subject or object. Many Papuan
languages “may be regarded as free word-order languages. Although the
verb is usually positioned clause-finally, this rule is rigid only in some lan-
guages. In a great many Papuan languages, peripheral nominals such as
locatives or temporals commonly occur after the verb…. The general im-
pression of clause structure in Papuan languages in comparison to English
is its overall looseness” (Foley 1986, 168).
Foley illustrates this statement using Yimas. The following sentence fol-
lows “standard” Papuan SOV order:
Papuan Languages: Grammatical Overview 179
Yimas
Subject Object Verb
Pay-um nar-mang na-mpu-tay.
man-CLASS:PL woman-CLASS:SG her-they:MASCULINE-see
‘The men saw the woman.’
Each noun is marked as belonging to a particular noun class, and the verb
takes prefixes corresponding to the noun class of the object and the subject,
in that order. In the verb namputay in the sentence above, na- marks a third-
person singular object of the human female noun class, and mpu- marks a
third-person plural subject of the human male noun class. The verb nam-
putay on its own means ‘They (male human) saw her (human).’ Conse-
quently, it is clear which noun is subject and which is object without relying
on word order. The following Yimas sentences also mean ‘The men saw the
woman.’
Yimas
Narmang payum na-mpu-tay. (object-subject-verb)
Payum na-mpu-tay narmang. (subject-verb-object)
Narmang na-mpu-tay payum. (object-verb-subject)
Kuman
Di ta yoŋgwa.
axe a it:be
‘There is an axe.’
Togoi ta molkwa.
snake a it:exist
‘There is a snake.’
Many of the languages of the Highlands are similar to Kuman. Huli, for
example, has three existential verbs, Sinasina four, and Enga seven (Piau
1981).
180 CHAPTER 7
Anggor
amar- be sitting on or inside
anǝngg- be standing on
enggor- be lying, on a low plane
anangg- be lying, on a high plane
apeningg- be attached flat to
apaiyar- be attached and curling around
apuiyar- used only of liquids
ahetar- be hanging from a protrusion
Subject Predicate
Koita
Ata bera yaga-uhu-gera.
man a house-in-the
‘A man is in the house.’
Kuman
Yuŋgu-n awe?
house-your where
‘Where is your house?’
Predicate Subject
Daga
Ne tata-na ge.
I older:sibling-my you
‘You are my older sibling.’
Kuman
Kagl-e mina yoŋgwa.
foot-her on it:be
‘It is on her foot.’
Kewa
Ada ru-para pá-lua.
house inside-to go-I:FUTURE
‘I will go inside the house.’
But “the more basic case relations are expressed directly,” usually by suf-
fixes (Foley 1986, 93):
Kuman
Mokona gagl-e krika.
greens bag-in I:pack
‘I put the greens in the bag.’
Ye nigl-e molkwa.
he water-at he:be:there
‘He is at the river.’
Kewa
Ada-para pá-lua.
house-to go-I:FUTURE
‘I will go home.’
Ní-na méáá-ria.
I-for get-he:PAST
‘He got it for me.’
Koita
-γe ‘to (rivers)’
-va ‘to (things)’
-γasina ‘to (persons)’
-he ‘at’
182 CHAPTER 7
Some examples:
Koita
vani be-he
time some-at
‘sometimes’
di dehiye-he
I back-at
‘behind me’
a-γore
you-with
‘with you’
idi umuka-va
tree root-to
‘near the tree’
Enga
Baá p-é-á.
he go-PAST-he
‘He went.’
Nambá p-é-ó.
I go-PAST-I
‘I went.’
In each case the verb takes a suffix marking the tense and another marking
the subject’s person and number.
When two or more clauses are put together to form a complex sentence,
the last verb in the clause (final verb) retains this subject-tense marking,
but the other verbs (medial verbs) do not. Rather, they incorporate a suffix
indicating whether the subject of the verb is the same as, or different from,
the subject of the following verb. Look now at the following Enga examples:
Enga
Baa-mé pá-o kalái p-i-á.
he-ERGATIVE go-SAME:SUBJ work do-PAST-he
‘He went and worked (at the same time).’
In both of these sentences, the final verb, ‘do,’ has the suffix marking subject
and tense, but the verb preceding it does not. In the first example, the verb
pá ‘go’ takes the suffix -o, which indicates that the subject of this verb is the
same as the subject of the next one, and the actions happened at the same
time. In the second case, the verb ‘go’ (now with the form p) takes both tense
and subject markers and the suffix -pa, which indicates that the subject of
the next verb is going to be different from the subject of this verb. This is
what is meant by switch-reference.
Languages with switch-reference systems are generally a little more
complex than I have shown. For example, in the first sentence we find the
suffix -o, which marked the verb as having the same subject as the next one
and indicated that the actions of the two verbs were roughly simultaneous.
If the second action occurred after the first, however, we would have to use
the suffix -(a)la rather than -o. Here are some suffixes found on Enga medial
verbs:
Enga
-o same subject, simultaneous action
-(a)la same subject, sequential action
-pa different subject, simultaneous or sequential action
-nya same subject, next verb expresses purpose or desire
-ní-mi same subject, next verb expresses intense desire
184 CHAPTER 7
Australian Languages:
Grammatical Overview
8.1. Pronouns
Almost all Australian languages distinguish at least three numbers in pro-
nouns—singular, dual, and plural—though a few have a trial or a paucal as
well. About half the languages of Australia have an inclusive/exclusive dis-
tinction, like nearly all Oceanic languages, while the rest (like most Papuan
languages) do not. There appear to be no geographical correlates of these
different systems. They are scattered fairly randomly across the continent.
2
Below are examples of the two most common types of pronoun systems.
Wargamay Wajarri
Singular
I ngayba ngaja
you nginba nyinta
he/she/it nyunga palu
185
186 CHAPTER 8
Dual
we two ngali we two INC ngali
we two EXC ngalija
you two nyubula nyupali
they two bula pula
Plural
we ngana we INC nganyu
we EXC nganju
you nyurra nyurra
they jana jana
In many Australian languages, the third person “pronouns” are not really
pronouns at all, especially in the singular, but rather demonstratives, with a
meaning something like “this one” or “that one” as opposed to “he/she/it”.
Apart from languages with two or four numbers, there are some other
variations in these general patterns. Pitta-Pitta, for example, distinguishes
between masculine and feminine in the third person singular. In addition, all
third person pronouns have to take a locational suffix, so the full range of
third person pronouns is:
Pitta-Pitta
Singular Dual Plural
‘he ‘she’ ‘they two’ ‘they’
Near nhuwayi nhanpayi pulayi thanayi
General nhuwaka nhanpaka pulaka thanaka
Far nhuwaarri nhanpaarri pulaarri thanaarri
Lardil
Same generation or two One or three
generations apart generations apart
we two INC ngakurri ngakuni
we two EXC nyarri nyaanki
you two kirri nyiinki
they two pirri rniinki
Pronouns generally vary in form according to case, that is, their function
in the sentence. These case suffixes are usually the same as those for nouns.
Australian Languages: Grammatical Overview 187
Western Desert
pu-ngku-rna-nta
hit-FUTURE-I-you:OBJECT
‘I will hit you.’
pu-ngku-rni-n
hit-FUTURE-me-you:SUBJECT
‘You will hit me.’
Walmajarri
Yi-nya ma-rna-ny-pilangu-lu kakaji.
give-PAST AUXILIARY-we:EXC:PL-to:you:two-DUAL:O -PL:S goanna
‘We gave the goanna to you two.’
Yidiny
absolutive ø
ergative -nggu, -du, -bu, -ju
188 CHAPTER 8
The absolutive case marks the subject of an intransitive verb and the ob-
ject of a transitive verb. The ergative case marks the agent (the subject of a
transitive verb).
Yidiny
Wagaal-du mujam wawa-l.
wife-ERGATIVE mother:ABSOLUTIVE look:at-PRESENT
‘(My) wife is looking at Mother.’
The locative, allative, and ablative cases have to do with direction and loca-
tion. Locative refers to the location, allative marks direction toward, and
ablative marks direction from.
Yidiny
Mujam gali-ng digarra-mu.
mother:ABSOLUTIVE go-PRESENT beach-ABLATIVE
‘Mother is going from the beach.’
Yidiny
Yingu gurnga mangga-ng waguja-nda.
this:ABSOLUTIVE kookaburra: laugh-PRESENT man-DATIVE
ABSOLUTIVE
‘This kookaburra is laughing at the man.’
The possessive case suffix -ni marks the possessor. A noun with this suf-
fix also takes the case suffix of the possessed noun (since it functions like an
adjective describing that noun):
Australian Languages: Grammatical Overview 189
Yidiny
Wagal-ni-nggu gudaga-nggu mujam baja-l.
wife-POSS-ERGATIVE dog-ERGATIVE mother: bite-PRESENT
ABSOLUTIVE
Dyirbal
-jarran plural
-garra one of a pair
-manggan one of a group
-mumbay ‘all’
-barra ‘belonging to a place’
-bila comitative, ‘with’
-ngarru similative, ‘like, as’
For example:
Dyirbal
gambil-barra
tablelands-belonging:to
‘tablelands people’
mijiji-garra
white:woman-one:of:pair
‘a white woman and someone else’
Wargamay
-nggu after a vowel bari-nggu ‘stone’
-ndu after l maal-ndu ‘man’
-dyu after ny munyininy-dyu ‘black ant’
190 CHAPTER 8
Anguthimri
Root Ergative
kyabara ‘crocodile’ kyabara-ga
ßüyi ‘ashes’ ßüyi-gi
ku ‘stick’ ku-gu
Tiwi
Masculine Feminine
tini ‘male person’ tinga ‘female person’
matani ‘male friend’ matanga ‘female friend’
kirijini ‘boy’ kirijinga ‘girl’
Tiwi
Masculine Feminine
arikula-ni yirrikipayi arikula-nga kiripuka
big-MASCULINE crocodile big-FEMININE crab
‘a big crocodile’ ‘a big crab’
Australian Languages: Grammatical Overview 191
Yanyuwa has sixteen noun classes, each one marked by a prefix that oc-
curs also with adjectives and numerals. (The class marker is underlined in
each example below.)
Yanyuwa
narnu-yabi narnu-arrkula
ABSTRACT-good ABSTRACT-one
‘one good thing’
nya-yabi nya-arrkula
MASCULINE-good MASCULINE-one
‘one good man/boy’
The last two examples show how noun class prefixes can occur even without
5
an accompanying noun. The class marker makes the referent clear.
Gumbaynggir
yaam ‘this, these, here’
yarang ‘that, those, there’
Yaygir
adyi, ngadyi ‘this, these, here’
ila, yila ‘here’
dyaadyi ‘there (not too far away)’
alaara, yalaara ‘there (a long way off)’
Djapu
dhuwai ‘this, these, here’
dhuwali ‘that, those, there (nearby)’
ngunha ‘that, those, there (a long way off)’
ngunhi anaphoric, ‘the one we are talking about’
Adjectives
Adjectives behave like nouns in many ways. They take the same case suffixes
and very often occur as the head of a noun phrase. (In these examples from
Gumbaynggir, the ergative suffix takes the forms -du and -dyu.)
Gumbaynggir
Niiga-du barway-dyu buwaa-ng giibar dyunuy.
man-ERGATIVE big-ERGATIVE hit-PAST child:O small:O
‘The big man hit the small child.’
Pitta-Pitta
nganya-ri murra wima
I-POSS stick big
‘my big stick’
Guugu Yimidhirr
nambal warrga-al
stone big-with
‘with a big stone’
Australian Languages: Grammatical Overview 193
Yukulta
rtathinta pirwanta ngawu pirtiya
that their dog bad
‘that nasty dog of theirs’
Gumbaynggir
Niiga-du barway-dyu buwaa-ng giibar dyunuy.
man-ERGATIVE big-ERGATIVE hit-PAST child:O small:O
‘The big man hit the small child.’
But either or both could precede the noun in a noun phrase, yielding these
possibilities:
Gumbaynggir
Barway-dyu niiga-du buwaa-ng giibar dyunuy.
big-ERGATIVE man-ERGATIVE hit-PAST child:O small:O
‘The big man hit the small child.’
This freedom of order sometimes extends beyond the phrase: “Not only
can words occur in any order in a phrase and phrases in any order in a
sentence, [but] in addition words from different phrases may be freely scat-
tered through a sentence” (Dixon 1980, 442). Look first at the following
sentence:
Wargamay
Yibi-yibi ngulmburu- wurrbi- buudi-lganiy malan-gu.
nggu bajun-du
child-PL woman- big-very- take-CONTINUOUS river-to
ERGATIVE ERGATIVE
‘The very big woman is taking the children to the creek.’
Wargamay
Ngulmburu-nggu buudi-lganiy malan-gu yibi-yibi wurrbi-bajun-du.
woman- take- river-to child-PL big-very-
ERGATIVE CONTINUOUS ERGATIVE
‘The very big woman is taking the children to the creek.’
Here the noun subject ngulmburu-nggu ‘woman’ is separated from its mod-
ifying adjective wurrbi-bajun-du ‘very big’ by the verb, the allative phrase,
and the object.
Djapu
djamarrkurli‘ Milyin-gu
children Milyin-POSS
‘Milyin’s children’
ngarra-ku-ny dhuway-‘mirringu-ny
I-POSS-EMPHATIC ‘my husband’ husband-kinship-EMPHATIC
Djapu
Dharpu-ngal ngarra-n dhandurrung-dhu gatapanga-y.
pierce- I-OBJECT horn-ERGATIVE buffalo-ERGATIVE
COMPLETIVE
‘The buffalo’s horn has pierced me.’
Derivational Suffixes
Pitta-Pitta
kathi- ‘climb’ kathi-la- ‘put up’
mari- ‘get’ mari-la- ‘get for’
mirrinta- ‘scratch’ mirrinta-mali- ‘scratch self’
ngunytyi- ‘give’ ngunytyi-mali- ‘exchange’
thatyi- ‘eat’ thatyi-li- ‘want to eat’
thatyi- ‘eat’ thatyi-linga- ‘going to eat’
rtinpa- ‘run’ rtinpa-ma ‘run around’
thatyi- ‘eat’ thatyi-yarnrta- ‘eat while walking along’
Wargamay
baadi- ‘cry’ baadi-ma- ‘cry for’
dyinba- ‘spear’ dyinba-ma- ‘spear with’
mayngga- ‘tell’ mayngga-ba- ‘tell each other’
dyuwara- ‘stand’ dyuwara-bali- ‘be standing’
bimbiri- ‘run’ bimbiri-yandi- ‘run away’
196 CHAPTER 8
Inflectional Suffixes
Inflectional suffixes to verbs mark tense (or tense-aspect). They often mark a
verb as being imperative or as occurring in a subordinate clause. Most Aus-
tralian languages, like Latin, have more than one conjugation or conjuga-
tional class of verbs. Verbs in the same conjugation take the same suffixes,
but verbs in another conjugation take a different set of suffixes, and there
is no semantic explanation for why a particular verb belongs to a particular
conjugational class.
To illustrate both the idea of conjugations and the kinds of grammatical
functions they mark, here are some data from the Atampaya dialect of
Uradhi, which has four conjugations (labeled I, II, III, and IV):
Uradhi
I II III IV
past -γal, -kal -n -ñ -n
present -ma -al -ña -ø
future -maŋka -awa -ñaŋka -ŋka
imperative -ði, -t̪i -ri -yi -γu
For the verb roots wa- ‘burn,’ rima- ‘twirl,’ lapu- ‘blow,’ and ruŋka- ‘cry,’
which belong to conjugations I, II, III, and IV, respectively, the verb forms in
each tense are:
Uradhi
I II III IV
‘burn’ ‘twirl’ ‘blow’ ‘cry’
past wa-γal rima-n lapu-ñ ruŋka-n
present wa-ma rima-al lapu-ña ruŋka
future wa-maŋka rima-awa lapu-ñaŋka ruŋka-ŋka
imperative wa-ði rima-ri lapu-yi ruŋka-γu
Class I verbs begin with one of the prefixes marking person of the sub-
6
ject (and, if third person, noun class membership).
Wunambal
ng- first person
g- second person
b-, w-, m-, a-, n-, nj- third person, different noun classes
Wunambal
gu-r-wanban gu-r-wanban-miya
you-NON:SG-fall you-NON:SG-fall-DUAL
‘you (pl.) fall’ ‘you two fall’
Wunambal
gu-nu-ma gu-ma-ya
you-not-come you-come-FUTURE
‘you didn’t come’ ‘you will come’
For class I verbs, the object’s person and number are indicated by a suffix.
Wunambal
ba-nbun-bun-wuru ba-nbun-bun-ngu
he-spear-PRESENT-them he-spear-PRESENT-it
‘he spears them’ ‘he spears it’
Class II verbs have much the same tense-aspect marking system as class
I verbs. The difference lies in the fact that the object’s person and number
are marked by prefixes (underlined in the examples below), which precede
the subject prefixes.
Wunambal
gu-nga-nbun gu-r-nga-nbun
you:OBJECT-I-hit you:OBJECT-PL-I-hit
‘I hit you’ ‘I hit you (pl.)’
bu-r-nga-nbun bu-r-nga-ru-nbun
him-PL-I-hit him-PL-I-PL-hit
‘I hit them’ ‘we hit them’
Both classes of verbs also have a set of derivational suffixes along the
lines of those found in nonprefixing languages.
198 CHAPTER 8
Gumbaynggir
Birmading yilaaming.
run:PAST here:PAST
‘(She) ran over here.’
8.5. Sentences
8.5.1. Nominal Sentences
Equational, stative, and locational sentences generally have no verb in Aus-
tralian languages. The most common order is subject + predicate.
Subject Predicate
Wajarri
Pakarli maparnpa.
man sorcerer
‘The man is a sorcerer.’
Warla parnti.
egg good
‘The egg is good.’
Kuwiyari marta-ngka.
goanna rock-on
‘The goanna is on the rock.’
Anguthimri
Angu rtalawati.
I red
‘I am red.’
Ma ngu-tyana.
man clothes-without
‘The man is naked.’
Australian Languages: Grammatical Overview 199
Wargamay
Subject/Agent Object Verb
Maal gagay.
man:ABSOLUTIVE go
‘The man is going.’
Wargamay
Subject/Agent Object Verb
Ngali gagay.
we:two go
‘We two are going.’
These sentences show that, although the noun ganal ‘frog’ behaves erga-
tively, the pronoun ngali ‘we two’ behaves accusatively. It has the same form
(ngali) when it is subject either of an intransitive or a transitive verb, but a
different form (ngali-nya) when it is the object of a transitive verb. In this
respect it behaves exactly like its equivalent we/us in English. Australian
languages like Wargamay that treat nouns and pronouns differently are re-
7
ferred to as split-ergative languages.
Because Australian languages clearly mark the case or function of noun
phrases in a sentence by affixes to the noun phrase (as in Wargamay), by
affixes to the verb, or in both of these ways, it is obvious from looking at a
noun phrase what its function in a sentence is. Because of this, “the order
of words and phrases can, in most Australian languages, be extraordinarily
free; it has little or no grammatical significance. A preferred order can usu-
ally be perceived….But there can be unlimited deviation from this preferred
order, dictated partly by discourse considerations (‘topic,’ and the like) and
partly by the whim of the speaker” (Dixon 1980, 441).
Where there is a preferred word order, it is usually subject + verb in in-
transitive sentences, and agent + object + verb in transitive sentences, as
in the Wargamay examples above. Object + agent + verb, however, is just as
frequent. Both versions of this Wargamay sentence are acceptable:
Wargamay
Agent Object Verb
Ganal-ndu ngali-nya ngunday.
frog-ERGATIVE we:two-OBJECT see
‘The frog is looking at us two.’
This is possible because (1) it is clear from the suffix -ndu that ganal-ndu
‘frog’ is the agent, and (2) it is also clear from the suffix -nya that ngali-nya
‘us two’ is the object.
Other phrases are also relatively free as far as their order is concerned,
sometimes occurring before the verb and sometimes after it. It is rare,
however, for the verb to occur in sentence-initial position. In the following
examples the verb complex is underlined.
Australian Languages: Grammatical Overview 201
Bandjalang
Mali-yu ngagam-bu yalany-dyu giyay bunybeh-la.
the-ERGATIVE dog-ERGATIVE tongue-with salt lick-PRESENT
‘The dog is licking salt with its tongue.’
Yidiny
Waguuja-nggu wagal bunja-ng banggaal-da.
man-ERGATIVE wife hit-PRESENT axe-with
‘The man hit his wife with an axe.’
Wajarri
Yamaji-lu kuka marlu ngura-ki kangkarni-manya.
man-ERGATIVE meat kangaroo camp-to bring-PRESENT
‘A man is bringing kangaroo meat to the camp.’
Dyirbal
Object Agent Verb
Bala yugu banggul yara-nggu gunba-n.
it tree he:ERGATIVE man:ERGATIVE cut-PAST
‘The man was cutting the tree.’
In the antipassive, the agent (banggul yara-nggu ‘the man’) becomes the
subject of what is now an intransitive verb, and the object (bala yugu ‘the
tree’) becomes a peripheral phrase—in this case, a dative phrase. The verb
is also marked differently. Here is the antipassive form of the sentence
above:
Dyirbal
Subject Verb Dative
Bayi yara gunbal-nga-nyu bagu yugu-gu.
he man cut-ANTIPASSIVE-PAST it:DATIVE tree-DATIVE
‘The man was cutting the tree.’
Note that the translations of the two sentences are the same. Dixon says
that, in Dyirbal at least, “a regular transitive sentence and its antipassive
correspondent … have the same basic meaning and differ only in emphasis,
202 CHAPTER 8
rather like an active and its corresponding passive in English” (Dixon 1980,
449). Like the peripheral agent in a passive sentence, the peripheral dative
phrase in an antipassive sentence can be deleted.
Dyirbal
Subject Verb
Bayi yara gunbal-nga-nyu.
he man cut-ANTIPASSIVE-PAST
‘The man was cutting.’
Lardil
Subject Verb Object/Other
Pirngen rikur.
woman cry
‘The woman is crying.’
But these languages are in the minority, and most Australian languages ad-
here to the ergative model.
PART THREE
The Social
and Cultural Context
CHAPTER
Languages in Contact
205
206 CHAPTER 9
trade with inland villagers—the former supplying fish and other marine pro-
duce, the latter vegetables and other non-maritime commodities. Such a
situation occurred in Central Papua, where the coastal Motu traded with the
inland Koita and Koiari people. Many words for maritime concepts in Koita
are originally Motu words, while the Motu have taken into their language
Koita words for non-maritime things.
nabans on Rabi Island in Fiji represent three such cases. There have also
been significant movements of populations from Micronesia and Polynesia
into the United States and New Zealand (see chapter 2). All of these situa-
tions bring languages into contact, with various degrees of closeness.
Gedaged, Yabêm, Kâte, Dobuan, Suau, and Wedau in Papua New Guinea,
Roviana in Solomon Islands, and Mota in Vanuatu. Faced with a multiplicity
of languages in a relatively small area, missionaries often chose one lan-
guage as the language of the mission, requiring speakers of neighboring
and usually related languages to use the chosen language in religious con-
texts. This practice has helped create a complex situation in which both
European and Pacific church languages influence other languages in the
region.
Kava terminology
Kwamera West Futuna
nɨkava ‘kava’ kava
tapuga ‘chief’s kava’ tapuga
tamafa ‘ritual spitting of kava’ taumafa
nafunu ‘food eaten after drinking kava’ fono
akona ‘drunk’ kona
taporoka ‘kind of canoe-shaped ta poruku ‘kind of canoe’
kava bowl’
nafáu ‘kava strainer’ fao ‘coconut branch
used as a kava
strainer’
Languages in Contact 209
Maritime terminology
Kwamera West Futuna
tira ‘mast’ shira
nɨkiatu ‘outrigger boom’ kiato
kwan-metau ‘fishhook’ metao
takwarau ‘prevailing wind’ tokorau
tafra ‘whale’ tafora
tataua ‘barracuda’ tatao
tagarua ‘sea snake’ tagaroa
Trukese
antiyos ‘fishing goggles’ < Spanish anteojos
koopwure ‘corrugated iron’ < Spanish cobre ‘copper’
paatere ‘priest’ < Spanish padre
Samoan
peritome ‘circumcise’ < Greek peritome
agelu ‘angel’ < Greek angelos
210 CHAPTER 9
Motu
[sesi] ‘shirt’
[makesi] ‘market’
[sini] ‘tin’
[tupu] ‘soup’
[topu] ‘soap’
Motu
[seti] ‘shirt’
[maketi] ‘market’
[tini] ‘tin’
[supu] ‘soup’
[sopu] ‘soap’
What has happened here is that the distribution of [s] and [t] has changed,
and there is now contrast between them.
In addition to changing the distribution of existing sounds in a language,
contact may also lead to the introduction of a new sound. Samoan, for exam-
ple, originally had an l but no r. As the result of contact with other languages,
however a number of words with r have been introduced:
Samoan
‘Aperila ‘April’ < English
‘areto ‘bread’ < Greek artos
‘ario ‘silver’ < Tahitian ario
faresaio ‘pharisee’ < Greek farisaios
misionare ‘missionary’ < English
‘oreva ‘vulture’ < Hebrew ‘orebh ‘raven’
rosa ‘rose’ < English
teropika ‘tropics’ < English
‘urosa ‘bear’ < Latin ursus
Tahitian
Verb Subject Object
‘Ua tāpū te vahine ‘i te vahie.
PAST cut the woman OBJECT the wood
‘The woman cut the wood.’
Nukuoro
Verb Subject Object
Ne kake ia te nui.
PAST climb he the coconut
‘He climbed the coconut.’
This has almost certainly come about at least in part from contact with
neighboring non-Polynesian languages, which are almost exclusively SVO.
A similar change seems to have occurred on the mainland of New
Guinea. The original Oceanic languages spoken there almost certainly had
verb + object order (whether SVO or VOS is a matter of some discussion,
but is irrelevant here). Then they came into contact with Papuan speakers,
for whom SOV was the basic order, and this contact led to a change in the
Oceanic languages’ word order, from SVO (or VOS) to SOV. (Some examples
of languages with this order were given in chapter 6.)
Let us look at one more example, this time from the Papuan language Yi-
mas:
9.3.1. Rotuman
The Rotuman vowel system has undergone some interesting developments
(chapter 5). But Rotuman is also a language where contact has led to a com-
plex situation for the historical-comparative linguist.
In some cases the same word has come into the language twice, first di-
rectly (Set I) and later indirectly (Set II), though with slight differences in
meaning. For example:
PCP Rotuman
Set I Set II
*kuli ‘skin’ ʔuli ‘skin’ kiria ‘leprosy’
*vidi ‘jump, spring’ hiti ‘start with surprise’ fiti ‘jump’
*toka ‘come ashore’ foʔa ‘come ashore’ toka ‘settle down’
called Bill dies, we could not use the word bill (meaning either ‘account’ or
‘beak of a bird’), nor probably could we use phonologically similar words like
build, billet, billy, and perhaps pill. We would have to find new words… at
least for a time.
In Australia, the tabooed word is sometimes replaced by a synonym or
near synonym from within the language. In our imaginary example above,
bill could then be replaced by (1) check or account and (2) beak. “But more
often a new word will be borrowed from the language of a neighboring tribe”
(Dixon 1980, 28). Examples:
1. “In 1975 a man named Djäyila died at Yirrkala and as a result the
common verb djäl- ‘to want, to be desirous of was proscribed and
replaced by d̪ukt̪uk-, probably a verb from another Yolŋu dialect
that did have this set of meanings” (Dixon 1980, 28).
2. “In 1977 a Djapu man named Djewiny died and the loanword dhe
‘tea’ was at once tabooed at Yirrkala; another loanword gopi ‘cof-
fee’ had its meaning extended also to cover ‘tea’ (little coffee is in
fact drunk at Yirrkala; if disambiguation is necessary it can be re-
ferred to as gopi yuwalk ‘real coffee’)” (Dixon 1980, 122).
In a series of studies, Thurston (1982, 1987, 1992) has documented the ef-
fects of language contact among a number of languages spoken in the north-
west of New Britain. The area Thurston discusses is currently occupied by a
number of Oceanic languages (important to this discussion are the coastal
languages Kabana, Amara, Kove, and Lusi), and the Papuan language Anêm.
“The Anêm are now completely surrounded by speakers of Austronesian lan-
guages…. Evidence suggests that Anêm is the sole surviving member of a
non-Austronesian language family that once extended over much of what
is now West New Britain Province. West of the Willaumez Peninsula, all of
these languages, except Anêm, have been replaced by Austronesian lan-
guages which retain features of a non-Austronesian substratum” (Thurston
1992, 125).
Contact in this area between speakers of different languages, related and
unrelated, has been going on for a long time, with quite far-reaching effects:
There has been a large amount of lexical copying in both directions be-
tween the Oceanic languages and Anêm, but of more interest are changes
in grammar as a result of this prolonged contact. Some of the grammatical
features of Lusi (and some of the other Oceanic languages in the area) that
seem to have been introduced from Anêm or its extinct relatives are de-
scribed below.
Lusi
Ti-rau-nga-ri.
they-hit-RECIPROCAL-them
‘They fought each other.’
Anêm
I-pəl-ak.
they-hit-RECIPROCAL
‘They fought each other.’
Lusi
I-rau γaea mao.
he-hit pig not
‘He didn’t kill a pig.’
Anêm
U-b-ɨ aba mantu.
he-kill-it Pig not
‘He didn’t kill a pig.’
3. Lusi has two postpositions, aea purposive and iai locative, as well
as a handful of prepositions. Oceanic languages with postpositions
tend to be restricted to the New Guinea mainland. Although Anêm
does not have postpositions, Thurston suggests that Lusi probably
acquired its postpositions as a result of contact with one of the now
extinct Papuan languages of the area.
The contact has not been one way, however. An inclusive/exclusive dis-
tinction in the first person is almost universal in Oceanic languages, but is
exceedingly rare among Papuan languages (see 7.1 above). Anêm shows this
distinction in possessive suffixes (though not in other pronominal forms),
and it also has the inalienable/edible/neutral contrast in possessive con-
structions, typical of western Oceanic languages, but nonexistent in Papuan
languages (Thurston 1987, 91). The long-term intimate contact between lan-
guages in this area has clearly produced major changes in the structure of
these languages.
These decisions have been reached by ignoring vocabulary for the most part
and looking instead at the core of the languages’ grammatical systems.
Even languages like these are not truly mixed, in the sense of having two
co-equal ancestors. They are, however, cases where the influence of another
language has been so strong as to make genetic affiliation very difficult to
determine.
Kwamera
nɨkava ‘kava’
tapuga ‘chief’s kava’
tamafa ‘ritual spitting of kava’
nafunu ‘food eaten after drinking kava’
akona ‘drunk’
taporoka ‘kind of canoe-shaped kava bowl’
nafáu ‘kava strainer’
10
Contact may have quite drastic effects on a language. But it may also lead to
the creation of totally new languages, which in some senses at least qualify
as “mixed” languages. Three of these new languages are, in terms of num-
ber of speakers, among the largest languages spoken in the Pacific today
(although not all speakers of any of these languages speak them as their
mother tongue). I use the term Melanesian Pidgin as a cover term for the
three languages/dialects known as Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea, Pijin in
Solomon Islands, and Bislama in Vanuatu, spoken in all by perhaps three mil-
1
lion people. Hiri Motu is spoken in Papua New Guinea by about a quarter of
a million people. And Fiji Hindi, one of the two major languages of Fiji, has
more than 300,000 speakers. This chapter looks at these three languages
and at similar languages in various parts of the Pacific.
220
Pidgins, Creoles, and Koines 221
some Pacific islands. In Australia and New Zealand, of course, contact was
more intense in many areas as a result of European settlement. This contact
intensified during the nineteenth century as labor recruiters began recruit-
ing Pacific Islanders to work on plantations in various parts of the region,
especially Samoa, Fiji, and Queensland. In Queensland there was also some
contact between Pacific Islanders and aboriginal Australians, who them-
selves were often moved from their tribal homelands into situations where
they lived and worked with speakers of other languages.
In all of these situations, numerous fairly unstable pidgins developed.
In Melanesia and parts of Australia, these unstable pidgins developed into
relatively stable languages as people who had learned different varieties
in different parts of the Pacific came into contact. The contact between
Europeans, mainly English speakers, Pacific Islanders (almost exclusively
speakers of Oceanic languages), and aboriginal Australians was responsible
for the very significant English input into the vocabulary of these creoles.
But it was not just this contact that was significant in the development of
Melanesian Pidgin. The contact between Pacific Islanders from different lin-
guistic backgrounds was important from the beginning, became even more
so later on, and was probably responsible for the Austronesian contribution
to the grammar of Melanesian Pidgin.
By the latter part of the nineteenth century, English-based pidgins were
spoken, in various forms and with various levels of sophistication, in almost
the whole of the Pacific Basin: from New Guinea to Pitcairn Island, and from
the Marshalls and Hawai‘i to New Caledonia and New Zealand. In most of
4
these places, however, the pidgins died out. In some places, like New Cale-
donia and the British colony of Papua (the southern half of what is now Papua
New Guinea), this was as a result of government policy. The governments
were strongly opposed to a “bastard” form of English being used, though
possibly for different reasons (the British in Papua because they saw it as a
“bastard” language, the French probably because they saw it as a form of
English!). In other places, like most of the countries of Polynesia, the pidgin
simply became unnecessary as people from other parts of the Pacific stopped
being recruited to work on plantations in these countries, and as educational
levels improved. In Samoa, for example, the cessation of labor recruiting and
the establishment of schools meant that pidgin English was no longer needed.
Samoan was the language of communication between Samoans, while first
German and then English were used for communicating with foreigners.
The situation in Melanesia and Australia was very different. First, the
countries are geographically larger and linguistically more diverse than
those of Polynesia and Micronesia, and it was more difficult for governments
to exercise strong control over language use. Second, although recruitment
Pidgins, Creoles, and Koines 223
Tok Pisin
Dispela pikinini i sindaun i stap na kaikai kiau wantaim kek.
Pijin
Desfala pikinini i sidaon an kaekae eg weitim kek.
Bislama
Pikinini ya i stap staon mo kakae eg wetem gato.
‘This child is sitting down and eating eggs and cake.’
lands were recruited for the same work, so there was considerable contact
between ni-Vanuatu and Solomon Islanders at this time. Only a few people
from this part of the Pacific, however, were recruited to work in Samoa, and
then only for a short time.
Men from the German colony of New Guinea, however, did not go to
Queensland or to Fiji, which were British colonies. Rather, starting in the
1880s, they went to work on the plantations in Samoa, then a German
colony. For a few years they were in contact with ni-Vanuatu and Solomon
Islanders, from whom they would have learned the basics of Melanesian Pid-
gin, but for the next few decades, the New Guinea version of Melanesian
Pidgin, known today as Tok Pisin, developed in isolation both from other
varieties of the language and from English. The German and Samoan lan-
guages contributed some words to early Tok Pisin, although many of these
have disappeared. The major contributing languages (other than English)
have been Tolai (cf. kiau ‘egg’ in the example above) and other Austronesian
languages of New Britain and New Ireland, since Rabaul (where Tolai is spo-
ken) was the headquarters of German New Guinea, and the place where
most of the laborers were recruited from or returned to.
Pijin and Bislama did not undergo any of these influences. However, be-
cause the French jointly ruled the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) with the
British for most of the twentieth century, Bislama has incorporated a num-
ber of words of French origin (like gato ‘cake’ in the example above). It has
also taken in quite a few words from local languages. Neither French (for
obvious reasons) nor local languages (for less obvious reasons) have made
any significant contribution to Pijin in Solomon Islands, however. The differ-
ent colonial histories of each country, along with different labor-recruitment
patterns, meant that there were significant differences in the contact situa-
tions while each version of the language was developing.
tures from English into their Pidgin, while less educated speakers do this
much less frequently. And although all languages are changing, languages
like Melanesian Pidgin are changing much faster than others.
Hence, it is often difficult to say exactly what is or is not “in” a language
like Melanesian Pidgin. I try to describe the variety spoken by fluent but not
highly educated speakers, but comment from time to time on common vari-
ations from these patterns.
Sound System
Melanesian Pidgin has the same five-vowel system as is found in the major-
ity of the languages of the Pacific:
i u
e o
a
P t k
b d g
f s h
v ʤ
m n ŋ
l
r
w y
Sentence Structure
Tok Pisin
Subject Verb Object
Wanpela man i kam. 0
one man PREDICATE come 0
‘A man came/is coming.’
Tok Pisin
Object Subject Verb
Pik bilong mi ia, Maria i kilim.
pig POSS me FOCUS, Maria PREDICATE
kill:TRANS
Pidgins, Creoles, and Koines 227
Pijin
Subject Predicate
Hem i man blong mi.
he PREDICATE man POSS me
‘He is my husband.’
Pronouns
Bislama
Singular
I mi
you yu
he/she/it hem
Dual
we two INC yumitu
we two EXC mitufala
you two yutufala
they two tufala
Trial
we three INC yumitrifala
we three EXC mitrifala
you three yutrifala
they three trifala
Plural
we INC yumi
we EXC mifala
you yufala
they olgeta
5
There is virtually no morphophonemic variation in the pronouns. The
same form is used as an independent pronoun, as subject or object, or after
a preposition:
228 CHAPTER 10
Bislama
Mi hang-em ol klos blong mi long laen.
I hang-TRANS PL clothes POSS me on line
“I hung my clothes on the line.”
Nouns are almost universally invariable in form. There are no articles and
only a small number of demonstratives. Tok Pisin has dispela and Pijin des-
fala ‘this’ (sometimes ‘that’), both of which precede the noun. Bislama ya
‘this, that’ follows the noun. The following sentences all mean much the
same thing.
Tok Pisin
Dispela man i laik-im dispela meri.
this man PREDICATE like-TRANS this woman
Pijin
Desfala man i laek-em desfala woman.
this man PREDICATE like-TRANS this woman
Bislama
Man ya i laekem woman ya.
Man this PREDICATE like:TRANS woman this
‘This man likes this/that woman.’
Tok Pisin
tupela liklik meri
two small girl
‘two little girls’
Pidgins, Creoles, and Koines 229
ol gutpela pikinini
PL good child
‘the good children’
Pijin
tufala boe nomoa
two boy only
‘only two boys’
Bislama
tu big haos ya
two big house this
‘these two big houses’
tu big-fala haos ya
two big-EMPHATIC house this
‘these two particularly big houses’
Bislama
long location, direction, source, instrument, time
blong possession, purpose, beneficiary
olsem ‘like, as
wetem accompaniment, instrument
from cause
Examples:
Bislama
Mi kam long Vila from wan kos.
I come to Vila because:of one course
‘I came to Vila for a course.’
230 CHAPTER 10
The other two dialects are slightly different. From does not occur in
Tok Pisin, which uses the compound form bilong wanem ‘for what?’ to mark
cause instead. Pijin has the same prepositions as Bislama plus fo, which is
used to indicate purpose or tendency:
Pijin
Mifala laek fo go.
we:EXC want for go
‘We want to go.’
Pijin
nem blong yu belo blong sios
name POSS you bell POSS church
‘your name’ ‘the church bell’
Verbs are morphologically quite simple in Melanesian Pidgin. The only com-
mon affix is the transitive suffix.
Tok Pisin
Em i rit i stap.
he PREDICATE read PREDICATE be
‘He/she is reading.’
With certain verbs, while the transitive form takes the suffix, the intran-
sitive form is often reduplicated.
Tok Pisin
Mama i was-im ol pikinini.
mother PREDICATE wash-TRANS PL child
‘Mom washed the children.’
Ol pikinini i was-was.
PL child PREDICATE INTRANSITIVE-wash
‘The children washed/swam.’
Tok Pisin
PREVERBAL POSTVERBAL
bai future pinis completed
bin incomplete past i stap continuous
ken optative, potential
inap ability
laik intention
save habitual
Three of these particles are, or derive from, verbs: laik, from laikim, ‘like,
want,’ save, which as a verb means ‘know, know how to,’ and i stap, which as
a verb means ‘to be (in a place).’ Some examples of these tense-aspect par-
ticles (plus the negative preverbal particle no) follow.
Tok Pisin
Em i no save kaikai mit.
he PREDICATE not HABITUAL eat meat
‘He/she doesn’t eat meat.’
Bislama
Leg blong hem i solap.
leg POSS he PREDICATE swell
‘His/her leg is swollen.’
(Koriki variety) and the Hiri Trading Language (Eleman variety), respec-
tively.
That, however, is by no means the end of the story. The Motu also used a
pidginized version of their own language (Dutton calls this Simplified Motu)
with other foreigners—originally probably in trade with their Oceanic-
speaking neighbors, and later with newcomers to the area. After European
contact in the late nineteenth century, they also used a variety of Melanesian
Pidgin with early colonial officials and other outsiders.
The two Hiri Trading Languages were restricted to use on the hiri, and
when that trading expedition finally ceased toward the middle of the twen-
tieth century, the languages also died a natural death. The English-based
pidgin died a less natural death: it was proscribed by the British govern-
ment, which adopted instead the pidginized version of Motu as the language
of contact.
The first British police force in Papua consisted of Fijians, Solomon Is-
landers, and Kiwais from the Daru area of western Papua. By the time the
police force was being established, there were a number of other foreigners
of various origins settling in the Port Moresby area. Simplified Motu soon
became the lingua franca of this motley collection of people. It was spread
outside Port Moresby mainly by the police on their patrols along the coast
and into the interior, but also by released prisoners who were given posi-
tions of authority as village constables. The language acquired the name
Police Motu, but in the 1970s, as the connotations of the word “police” were
deemed pejorative, the name Hiri Motu was chosen—in the mistaken belief
that Police Motu was a continuation of the language(s) spoken on the hiri.
The differences between the Hiri Trading Languages and Hiri (or Po-
lice) Motu can be seen in the following sentences (from Dutton 1985,
33–34).
Motu
(lau) tama-gu
(I) father-my
‘my father’
Hiri Motu simply uses the general possessive form for all nouns: lauegu
8
tamana ‘my father,’ lauegu aniani ‘my food,’ lauegu ruma ‘my house.’
Second, Motu has independent pronouns, as well as subject prefixes and
object suffixes to verbs. Hiri Motu uses free pronouns in all of these environ-
ments:
Hiri Motu was once widely spoken in Papua (although virtually not at
all in New Guinea, the northern half of Papua New Guinea), and it is one
of the three official languages of Papua New Guinea (alongside English and
Tok Pisin). In recent years, however, the number of its speakers, and conse-
quently its status, have tended to decline, partly as a result of inroads into
Papua by Tok Pisin, and partly because people who have been educated tend
to use English in preference to Hiri Motu.
Pidgins, Creoles, and Koines 235
The formation of plural pronouns by the addition of log ‘people’ to the singu-
lar, as in ham log ‘we,’ is characteristic of Magahi.
There were other contributors to Fiji Hindi as well: Bazaar Hindustani,
the Pidgin Hindi spoken on the plantations, English (as one might expect),
and also Fijian. Some examples from Fijian follow.
The result of this koineization process is a new form of Hindi different from
any spoken in India.
A final complicating factor in the Hindi situation in Fiji has been the
fact that, although Fiji Hindi is the first language of virtually all Fiji In-
dians, who speak it in informal contexts, it is not the language of formal
situations. Standard (Indian) Hindi is used in schools, on radio, in print,
and in other formal contexts. A situation of diglossia has developed in
which people use one variety (Standard Hindi) in public meetings, for reli-
gious occasions, and in other formal situations, and the other variety (Fiji
Hindi) in informal situations.
CHAPTER
11
237
238 CHAPTER 11
The other aspect of this problem relates to what forms the basis of our
comparison. The simplest way to compare languages in this way is to count
the entries in a dictionary (ignoring for the moment all the other problems
Simpson has pointed out). But some languages (like English) have a much
longer and more intensive history of dictionary compilation than do others
(like those of the Pacific). So even if this were a valid way of making com-
parisons, it would not be a particularly productive one.
Let us pursue this a little further. Crystal (1987, 108) notes that the 1987
edition of the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, for ex-
ample, contains some 260,000 headwords (“the bold-face items that occur
at the beginning of each entry”). No dictionary of a Pacific language comes
anywhere near that figure: The monolingual Fijian dictionary currently in
preparation has considerably fewer than twenty thousand entries (Paul Ger-
aghty, personal communication), and this will probably be one of the largest
Pacific dictionaries when it is published. Does this mean that Pacific lan-
guage vocabularies are considerably more limited than those of European
languages?
In a sheer numerical sense, of course, it does. But we need to look a little
more deeply into this question. Let us do a quick experiment. Below are thirty
consecutive words beginning with the letter q, as listed on pages 1415–1416
of the 1981 edition of the Macquarie Dictionary. How many of these do you
1
think are in common use? How many could you give the meaning of?
Specific Terms
Kwamera
iapwas small coconut, coconut fruit bud
kwanapuirahákw larger coconut fruit bud
kwatigɨs small coconut (about four inches in diameter)
kapkapeki (intermediate stage between kwatig ɨs and tafa)
tafa young coconut before meat has begun to form
nafweruk nut with soft meat and effervescent water
kahimaregi nut with hard, well-developed meat
napuei mhia ripe nut with developed flesh, which falls from
the tree
kwarumahákw fallen nut which has begun to sprout
nuvera sprouted nut
In addition to these terms, there are terms for different parts of the nut, of
the tree, and of the fronds, as well as for different varieties of coconuts and
different coconut products.
The existence of areas of lexical specialization like this is not surprising.
We would expect coastal people to have numerous words for different kinds
of fish and fishing equipment, horticulturalists to have specialist terms for
plants and their parts and growth stages, warriors to have detailed vocabu-
lary relating to weapons, and so on. But there are also a few less expected
areas of lexical specialization, like the following set of names for different
kinds of noises in Yidiny:
Language, Society, and Culture in the Pacific Context 241
Yidiny
dalmba sound of cutting
mida the noise of a person clicking his tongue against the
roof of his mouth, or the noise of an eel hitting the wa-
ter
maral the noise of hands being clapped together
nyurrugu the noise of talking heard a long way off when the
words cannot quite be made out
yuyurunggul the noise of a snake sliding through the grass
gangga the noise of some person approaching, for example,
the sound of his feet on leaves or through the
grass—or even the sound of a walking stick being
dragged across the ground
Generic Terms
Why have even the more charitably disposed observers held the view that
Pacific languages have no generic terms? There are a few possible explana-
tions. One is that “when objects are being named one is generally expected
to be as specific as possible. If, say, a snake is seen it should be described
by its species name; the generic term ‘snake’ would only be employed if just
the tail were noticed and the species could not be identified, or in similar
circumstances” (Dixon 1980, 5). A second factor is that certain abstract
concepts grounded in western philosophy and culture are foreign to Pacific
cultures. In a society without money, for example, terms like money, poverty,
interest, devaluation, and so on are rare or nonexistent.
A third point is that, while abstractions do occur in Pacific languages, their
nature, or the concepts they represent, may be quite different from similar con-
cepts in European languages, because the way people look at and classify the
world is different. Kinship terms are a good example of this (see 11.3).
Pacific languages also classify the natural world taxonomically (al-
though, as we should by now expect, this classification might not necessarily
exactly match a classification of the same items in a European language). A
taxonomy is a way of classifying things or concepts in a hierarchical orga-
nization. At the “top” is a general term; the further down the hierarchy one
goes, the more specific the terms become; and each lower term is included
in the meaning of a higher term. If we take the generic term fish, then tuna,
mackerel, snapper, mullet, and so on are all kinds of fish; skipjack, bluefin,
yellow-fin, and so on are all kinds of tuna (which is a kind of fish); and so on.
Figure 8 shows a very partial classification of terms for marine life in Ane-
jom̃. The generic term numu refers to all fish, crustaceans, sea-urchins, sea
snakes, shellfish, etc. (though in common speech numu often means simply
242 CHAPTER 11
‘fish’). There are a number of first-order specific terms, among them numu-
sgan ‘fish in the sea, including sharks, whales, stingrays, etc.,’ numuñwai
‘freshwater fish,’ numu-taregit ‘crustaceans,’ nesgaamu ‘shellfish,’ nahau
‘turtles,’ and so on. Each of these has a number of subvarieties. In addition to
the words given in the third column as subvarieties of sea fish (nepcev ‘shark,’
inhar ‘stingray,’ etc.), there are hundreds more: inhet ‘needlefish,’ inhos ‘sil-
verside,’ necna ‘sea mullet,’ najaj ‘flatfish,’ nilcam ‘wrasse,’ and so on. Many
of these third-order terms are further divided into more specific terms still, as
partially illustrated in figure 8. Similar taxonomies could be presented in all
Pacific languages for flora and fauna, especially those of economic or ritual im-
portance to the people who speak that language.
These taxonomies reflect people’s perceptions of nature, and they do
not always correspond with the perceptions held by speakers of other lan-
guages. In parts of the highlands of New Guinea, for example, the cassowary
is classified as an animal, not as a bird, because it does not fly. In many
cultures, bats and flying foxes are classified as birds, because they do fly.
Indeed, “the criteria for defining a generic term will [often] vary between
neighbouring languages; in Dyirbal yugu ‘tree’ does not include within its
scope stinging trees … or trees like pandanus which are less than a certain
height, whereas the [cognate] Yidiny noun jugi … does include pandanus
and stinging trees and in fact appears to be roughly coextensive with the
English lexeme tree” (Dixon 1980, 113).
Let us look briefly at the noun classes of an Australian language,
Murrinh-Patha (M. Walsh 1993). Murrinh-Patha has ten noun classes, each
marked with a particle preceding the noun. These are:
Murrinh-Patha
kardu- Aboriginal people and spirits
ku- Non-Aboriginal people, animals, birds, fish, insects,
and their products (like nests, meat, eggs, and honey)
kura- fresh water
mi- food and food plants, including their products (like fe-
ces!)
thamul- spears
thu- things used for striking: offensive weapons (other than
spears), along with thunder, lightning, and playing
cards (which are thrown into the center of a group)
thungku- fire, firewood, matches, etc.
da- times and places
murrinh- speech and language
nanthi- everything else
244 CHAPTER 11
Fijian
bola ‘ten fish,’ ‘a hundred canoes’
bewa ‘ten bunches of bananas’
vulo ‘ten tabua (whale’s teeth)’
uduudu ‘ten canoes’
koro ‘a hundred coconuts’
selavo ‘a thousand coconuts’
Rotuman
asoa ‘two coconuts’
sava‘a ‘ten pigs, cows, fowls, eggs, cuttlefish’
246 CHAPTER 11
Motu and its close relatives show a system that might be referred to as
an imperfect decimal system, in which some numerals represent multiplica-
tions. Here are the numerals from one through ten in Motu:
Motu
1 ta 6 taura-toi
2 rua 7 hitu
3 toi 8 taura-hani
4 hani 9 taura-hani-ta
5 ima 10 gwauta
Although there are separate words for seven and ten, six and eight appear to
be ‘(one) two-threes’ and ‘(one) two-fours,’ and nine is ‘(one) two-fours-one.’
There are also imperfect decimal systems that involve subtraction. Here
are the numerals one through ten in Titan (Oceanic) and Buin (Papuan). (The
Buin numerals are those used with the noun class referring to things.)
Titan Buin
1 si nonumoi
2 luo kiitako
3 talo paigami
4 ea korigami
5 lima upugami
6 wono tugigami
7 ada-talo paigami tuo
8 ada-lua kiitako tuo
9 ada-si kampuro
10 akou kiipuro
In Titan and Buin, there are normal numerals from one through six and ten.
In Titan, seven is ada-3, 8 is ada-2, and 9 is ada-1. Clearly subtraction is in-
volved, although ada is not the word for ten. In Buin, seven is ‘three less’ and
eight is ‘two less’; nine, however, means something like ‘completed.’
five-plus-two, and so on. The numerals ten and twenty may be compounds
as well, or may be separate morphemes. Such systems are found in much
of New Guinea (among both Oceanic and Papuan languages), as well as in
parts of Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. The examples below
are from Oceanic languages, with the exception of Daga, which is Papuan.
Lenakel and Tigak form numerals above five by compounding on the actual
numeral five, while Jawe and Daga use a modified version of the form for
five. Tigak, Jawe, and Daga have independent morphemes for ten, but the
Lenakel form involves addition.
Expansions of these systems are interesting. Lenakel simply continues
building on the base katilum until nineteen (which is katilum-katilum-katilum-
6
kuvɨr= 5–5–5–4 = 19). Twenty is expressed as:
Lenakel
ieramím karena r-ɨka
person one he-is:not
‘twenty’
which is similar to the system in Jawe, where the word for twenty is siic kac
‘one man.’ Both of these derive from counting all fingers and toes—“com-
pleting” a single person.
Daga is different: Here the form given above for five is nani yamu-naet
‘hand other-nothing’; so seven is nani yamu dere ‘two on the other hand.’
Ten is ao-na-gaet ‘up-my-INTENSIFIER’—i.e., ‘only my upper appendages,’ or,
in other words, ‘my two hands.’ Counting from one to ten proceeds on the
fingers, counting from eleven to nineteen on the toes, and twenty represents
a complete person.
Daga
aonagaet pusinawan daiton
ten my:foot one
‘eleven’
248 CHAPTER 11
apane daiton
man one
‘twenty’
Drehu
1 caa 6 caa-ngömen 11 caa-ko 16 caa-hwaihano
2 lue 7 lue-ngömen 12 lue-ko 17 lue-hwaihano
3 köni 8 köni-ngömen 13 köni-ko 18 köni-hwaihano
4 eke 9 eke-ngömen 14 eke-ko 19 eke-hwaihano
5 trii-pi 10 lue-pi 15 köni-pi 20 caatr
In Drehu, the numerals five, ten, and fifteen are trii-pi, lue-pi, and köni-pi.
There seems to be a unit of five, based on a form pi, and these numerals are
There seems to be a unit of five, based on a form pi, and these numerals are
effectively 1-pi, 2-pi, and 3-pi. Between these units, the numerals one to four
take suffixes: -ngömen is used between six and nine, -ko between eleven and
fifteen, and -hwaihano between sixteen and nineteen. The Drehu word for
twenty, caatr, is actually caa atr ‘one man.’
Adzera Mapos
1 bits ti
2 iruc lu
3 iruc da bits lal
4 iruc da iruc lu-mba-lu
5 iruc da iruc da bits orund vandu
6 iruc da iruc da iruc, etc. orund vandu mb-ti, etc.
Tiwi
1 yati 6 kiringarra (yati)
2 yirrara 7 kiringarra yirrara
3 yirrajirrima 8 kiringarra yirrajirrima
4 yatapinti 9 kiringarra yatapinti
5 punginingita 10 wamutirrara
Other Papuan languages have a ternary system, with three basic numer-
als. In Som the system simply involves addition (so seven is 3–3–1, etc.), while
in Guhu-Samane the word for boto ‘hand’ occurs in the numeral five.
Som Guhu-Samane
1 koweran tena
2 yarə eseri
3 kabmə tapari
4 oyarə oyarə eseri sa eseri
5 oyarə oyarə kowe boto tena
6 okabmə okabmə boto tena ma tena
Kewa
1 pameda
2 laapo
3 repo
4 ki (= ‘hand’)
5 (kina) kode (= ‘[hand’s] thumb’)
6 kode laapo (= ‘thumb + two’)
7 kode repo (= ‘thumb + three’)
8 ki laapo (= ‘two hands’)
9 ki laapona kode (pameda) (= ‘two hands, one thumb’)
10 ki laapona kode laapo, etc. (= ‘two hands, two thumbs’)
Laycock (1975a, 224) reports that there are also a few languages with a
base-six system.
across the face or the chest, and down to the fingers of the other hand; these
are often used for counting valuables—pigs, shell-money, or other things
given—and also calendrical events, such as the preparations needed for a
festival. Tally systems “are used only for direct counting, or ‘mapping’ of a
set of objects against some other measuring code. There are no ‘numerals’
in a tally system, so that one may not receive a reply to the question ‘how
many?’ or find the points of the tally-system qualifying nouns, as do true nu-
merals” (Laycock 1975a, 219).
As well as having a base-four numeral system, Kewa also has a tally sys-
tem, involving a counting cycle called a paapu. Counting begins with the
little finger on the left hand, goes through the other fingers (1–5), from the
heel of the thumb up to the upper arm (6–14), the shoulder and neck (15–18),
the jaw (19), the left ear (20), cheek (21), eye (22), the inside of the left eye
(23) until the mid point is reached: rikaa ‘between the eyes’ = 24. Counting
then proceeds in the reverse order, ending with the little finger on the right
hand, which is 47.
11.3. Kinship
Kinship systems are intricately bound up with the system of social relations
of a particular society. They show very clearly how language is tied in with
social life and social behavior.
1. Figure 10 shows the terms for ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ as kurda and
turda, respectively. These terms are used to refer only to brothers or
sisters who are older than the speaker. Younger brothers and sisters
are both referred to by the term maraga. Relative age is a factor in de-
termining which term should be used within Ego’s generation.
2. Differences in the referent of some terms may depend on the sex of
8
the speaker.
The social facts of moiety membership, relative age, and the sex of the
speaker are all important in Njamal society, as the system of kinship termi-
nology indicates.
Tongan
Commoners Nobles King
kai ‘ilo taumafa ‘eat’
mate pekia hala ‘die’
fa ‘itoka mala ‘e mo‘unga ‘cemetery’
kaukau tākele fakamālū ‘bathe’
‘alu me‘a hā‘ele ‘go’
258 CHAPTER 11
These words are supposed to be used to and about a member of the social
category concerned: “Thus [Tongan] people will say that when using Tongan
words for ‘go’, ‘alu is used to and about Commoners, me‘a is used to and
about Nobles, and hā‘ele is used to and about the King” (Philips 1991, 374).
This is what Tongans say should happen. In practice, however, things
are a little different. Philips notes, for example, that kingly terms are also
used when addressing God in prayers. Noble terms are used not only to and
about nobles, but also to and about people in nontraditional positions of au-
thority. She documents one case, for example, where a magistrate and the
public prosecutor use noble terms to each other, but commoner terms to wit-
nesses. Noble terms are, however, used “to raise the level of formality and
politeness in public discourse generally” (378), and also in poetry “to en-
hance the beauty and persuasiveness of what is said” (379). The system is
not rigid: It can be manipulated.
Samoan is similar to Tongan in that there are different registers, though
only two, used depending on whether one is talking to or about a matai (a
chief, an orator, or some other titled person) or a commoner. It is also sim-
ilar in the way in which one can manipulate these registers: “When we test
the accuracy of status/rank features to account for the actual use of RWs [re-
spectful words] in everyday interaction, we realize that such features of the
context are good predictors of performance only in some contexts” (Du-
ranti 1992, 83; emphasis in the original). Formality and politeness can be
signaled by the use of the respect register even when those involved do not
merit this by virtue of their status. On the other hand, intimacy or common
purpose can be conveyed by using the ordinary register even if one or more
of the participants is matai.
In addition to this lexical marking, all Samoan words that contain t or n
have two quite different pronunciations, depending on whether one is talk-
ing in a formal or an informal context. Formal Samoan t and n become k and
g (=/ŋ/) in informal or colloquial speech. The word meaning ‘bury’ is tanu in
more formal contexts, but kagu in informal contexts.
The fairly widespread Australian and Pacific practice of word taboo, or
replacement by some other term of a word that is or sounds like the name
of a recently dead person or of a chief, is one example of an avoidance
style. There are other kinds of avoidance styles in the Pacific as well. Two
such styles relate to the way one behaves linguistically (1) in the presence of
certain relatives, usually in-laws, and (2) during certain kinds of food gath-
ering and preparation. For example, “In every Australian community there
are certain kin relations that demand special behaviour; typically, two peo-
ple in mother-in-law/son-in-law relationship should avoid close contact and
sometimes may not address one another directly. Most (perhaps all) Aus-
Language, Society, and Culture in the Pacific Context 259
tralian tribes have or had a special ‘avoidance’ speech style which must be
used in the presence of a taboo relative” (Dixon 1980, 58–59). In Dyirbal,
perhaps the most extreme case of this kind in Australia, there are two words
for almost every concept, one in the Guwal (everyday) style and another in
the Jalnguy (avoidance) style (Dixon 1980, 61). Thus, for example, buynyjul
means ‘red-bellied lizard,’ but in the presence of a taboo relative one has to
use the term jijan instead; for midin ‘ring-tail possum’ one must substitute
jiburray; and so on.
The Maisin of Papua New Guinea have a similar avoidance style. There,
it is not just the presence of the in-law that is important. In Maisin, one is not
allowed to use the name of an in-law in any circumstances, nor can one use
any word that sounds like that in-law’s name. One must substitute another
word instead. This necessitates the generation of many pairs of words refer-
ring to the same thing. Speakers choose the one that is not like the name of
an in-law. For example,
Maisin
isu gungguti ‘nose’
ikosi dobong ‘coconut’
mimisi jenje ‘sandfly’
wo iriri ‘fire’
gaiti sisari ‘dirty’
borung ombi ‘rain’
kimi damana ‘star’
If one has an in-law whose name is, or is like, kimi, one cannot use this word,
but must use damana to mean ‘star’ instead.
The Kalam of Papua New Guinea have a similar in-law avoidance style.
In addition, however, they have what has come to be called “Pandanus Lan-
guage” in the literature.
Kalam
The Kalam are not unusual in this. Many Pacific languages have special
varieties that must be used in collecting forest produce, in hunting or fish-
ing, in initiations and other rituals, and so on. In many of these cases,
people believe that if they use ordinary language, the spirits guarding
their prey will be alerted, and the hunting or fishing expedition will be
unsuccessful. They disguise their intentions from these protective spirits
by speaking in a special language in order to ensure the success of their
expeditions.
Not all cultures have the same expectations of children. For example,
in white middle-class society, preverbal children are generally consid-
ered to be potential conversation partners and a care-giver carries on
‘conversations’ with a child. When the child starts producing words,
the care-giver often points to things and asks the child to name the
object or picture. Or the care-giver helps the child to develop com-
municative skills by telling the child what to say to a third person.
However, in other cultures, children are not necessarily encouraged
to speak until they have some knowledge to give, and question-answer
routines are not part of the adult-child interaction. (Bavin 1993, 86–87)
views of social behavior, Kulick (1992) says that they distinguish between
hed and save. Hed (Tok Pisin for ‘head’) refers to personal will and auton-
omy, but often has the negative connotations of unacceptable individualism
or selfishness; save (Tok Pisin ‘know, knowledge’), on the other hand, refers
to the ability to behave appropriately and to fulfill one’s roles in society. Chil-
dren are born with hed. Save, so the people of Gapun say, “breaks open”
in a child somewhere in the second or third year. “Teaching and learning
are two distinct processes and … one can occur independently without the
other. Parents consider that they can tell their children to ‘call the names of
things,’ but that the children will only ‘start to learn’ once their save breaks
open inside of them” (Kulick 1992, 120). Much of the talk Taiap villagers
direct toward young children is what Kulick calls a “distraction routine.”
Parents do not have conversations with children; they seem simply to want
to stop them from crying.
Like adults in most societies, Taiap adults have a set of baby-talk words
they use to children, because the proper words are “too hard.” Among them
are the following (Kulick 1992, 197):
Taiap
Adult form Baby-talk form
mambrag mamak ‘spirit’
kakamatɨk kakam ‘millipede’
min mimi ‘breast’
yewɨr pipi ‘excrement’
nok soso ‘urine’
min atukun mimi naka ‘drink the breast!’
atɨtɨŋgarana puparəŋgarana ‘you’d better not fall!’
This concept of proper words being too hard, however, is taken much
further in Gapun village. Adults believe that the Taiap language is hard.
Because children have no save, they will not be able to learn it well. They
therefore very often use Tok Pisin in talking to children, since it is a much
“easier” language. Children learn Taiap from older siblings rather than
13
from adults.
In the region I have been dealing with, there are now only two other intru-
sive or colonial languages in use at the national level: Spanish is the official
language of Easter Island, which is a territory of Chile, while Bahasa Indone-
sia is the official language of the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya. Other
colonial powers used their own languages in their Pacific colonies before they
were displaced. Spanish, German, and Japanese were used in parts of Mi-
cronesia, German also in New Guinea and Samoa, and Dutch in Irian Jaya.
Language, Society, and Culture in the Pacific Context 263
11.5.2. Multilingualism
The arrival of these intrusive languages, and the increased social mobility of
people in recent times, has led to quite complex sociolinguistic situations in
the Pacific. Most people in the Pacific are at least bilingual; they use two lan-
guages on a fairly regular basis. Many people are in fact multilingual, using
three or more languages regularly.
Bilingualism and multilingualism are not new in the Pacific. Particularly
in Melanesia, but also to some extent in Australia, people—especially,
though not exclusively, men—have always been exposed to languages other
than their own, and have often used foreign languages in certain contexts.
There was often considerable kudos to be gained by being multilingual. Sal-
isbury’s (1962) classic study of the Siane of the Eastern Highlands Province
in Papua New Guinea, for example, showed that the overt use of a foreign
language, Chuave, on formal and even informal occasions was a way of
achieving and maintaining high social status.
264 CHAPTER 11
In modern times the use of two or more languages has become more com-
mon and is no longer a male preserve. In general terms, we can differentiate
between Australia, Polynesia, and Micronesia, where people tend to be bilin-
gual, and Melanesia, where they tend to be multilingual. On most Polynesian
and Micronesian islands, only one language is spoken. People speak this as
their vernacular; it is the language they use within their own community, but
normally not outside it. These people speak some other language as their lin-
gua franca, the language used when dealing with (at least certain types of)
outsiders. The lingua franca throughout almost all of Polynesia and Microne-
sia is English, except in French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna, where it is
French. Similarly, many aboriginal Australians know one Australian vernacu-
lar and use a creole or some variety of English as a lingua franca.
By contrast, most islands in Melanesia contain more than one language,
and each country or territory contains a large number. Many Melanesians,
therefore, speak their own vernacular, and often one or more neighboring
vernaculars as well (particularly if there is a vernacular that has acquired
some prestige as the result of missionary activity). Except in Irian Jaya and
New Caledonia, they can usually also speak the national variety of Melane-
sian Pidgin (or Hiri Motu) to communicate with people from other parts of
the country. And if they have been educated, they speak Bahasa Indonesia
(in Irian Jaya), English (in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanu-
atu), or French (in Vanuatu and New Caledonia), both to other citizens of
their country and to outsiders. (Some educated ni-Vanuatu, in fact, speak
both English and French, as well as Bislama and one or more vernaculars.)
Fiji falls somewhere between. Most Fijians speak their own dialect of
Fijian plus the standard dialect; many also speak English. Similarly, most
Indians speak Fiji Hindi and Standard Hindi, and many speak English. Not
many Fijians speak Hindi, and not many Indians speak Fijian. English, or in
some contexts Pidgin Fijian or Pidgin Hindi, is the language of interethnic
communication.
In these kinds of multilingual situations, various aspects of the context de-
termine the appropriate language to use. In the market in Vila, for example,
a ni-Vanuatu would use the vernacular if the person selling vegetables came
from the same language community (or possibly a nearby one), but Bislama if
she didn’t. During a coffee break in a Honiara office, the staff would probably
talk in Pijin if they were all Solomon Islanders, but would most likely use Eng-
lish if some expatriates were taking part in the conversation.
Another feature of these multilingual situations is what is known as
code-switching. Very often, even in the same conversation, people switch
from one language to another. This may be because certain topics are easier
to talk about in one of the languages all the participants know rather than in
Language, Society, and Culture in the Pacific Context 265
56. The official language of Parliament shall be English, but any mem-
ber of either house may address the chair in the House of which he is a
member in Fijian or Hindustani [i.e., Hindi]. (Fiji)
(2) The Republic shall protect the different local languages which
are part of the national heritage, and may declare one of them as a
national language.
11.5.5. Literacy
Literacy is often achieved through the formal educational system. In Polyne-
sia and Micronesia, literacy rates are generally quite high, and people have
usually learned to read and write their own language, often adding English
later. In Melanesia, by contrast, literacy rates tend to be much lower, and
those who have learned to read and write through formal education do so in
English or French.
The Christian missions and the Summer Institute of Linguistics have
sponsored literacy training in vernacular languages in at least some parts of
Melanesia and Australia. More recently, however, there has been a burgeon-
ing interest in vernacular literacy. Preschool programs have been estab-
lished in many parts of Papua New Guinea to teach children basic literacy in
their own language before they go to school. In many cases, these have op-
erated totally or almost totally outside government education agencies.
Adult vernacular literacy has also undergone a major expansion, espe-
cially in the last few years. There are, for example, over fifteen hundred
268 CHAPTER 11
The interesting point about these two cases—and similar cases else-
where in the region—is that the languages involved are spoken by people
who were the traditional sole occupiers of their territory, who have been
invaded and colonized, but who are now reasserting their rights and identi-
ties. Following a century or more of not particularly successful assimilation,
the Māori and the Hawaiians are becoming increasingly vocal on the po-
litical stage in their own country. The emblematic function of language, to
which I referred in part 1, is perhaps operative here. To be a Māori, rather
than just a New Zealander, involves a number of things, and one of these is
the ability to speak the Māori language.
These are cases where there are active programs to revive dying lan-
guages. Some areas of Melanesia show the opposite trend. Many of the
languages concerned have very small populations. In Papua New Guinea,
Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, there are over 160 languages spoken by two
hundred people or fewer, and many of these are under threat of extinction.
As people from these societies intermarry, as children go to school outside
their home areas, and as young men and women drift to the towns looking
for paid employment, the chances that they and their children will continue
to speak their language are fairly remote. But the attitudes of these peo-
ple toward the impending death of their languages seem to be somewhat
different. Speaking of parts of the Sepik area of Papua New Guinea, for
example, Foley (1986; 27–28) says: “Tok Pisin … is seen as an avenue by
which to acquire the goods of this [Western] culture … with the result that
in certain areas the vernacular indigenous languages are being abandoned
in favour of Tok Pisin, which is being acquired as a first language. This is
occurring not just in urban areas, but also in rural areas. Murik, a language
of the lake country west of the mouth of the Sepik river … is dying, and is
not spoken by younger people in the villages. It is being replaced by Tok
Pisin.”
I have already referred to Kulick’s (1992) important study of the Taiap
speakers of Gapun village in the Sepik. Tok Pisin was introduced into the vil-
lage by men returning from working on plantations, and for some years it
was a men’s language only. Christianization and other social changes after
the Second World War exposed women to Tok Pisin, with the result that all
adults now know both Taiap and Tok Pisin.
But this in itself is no explanation for the fact that children in Gapun vil-
lage, as in some other parts of Papua New Guinea, are learning Tok Pisin
rather than (in this case) Taiap as their first language. In many parts of the
Pacific, people retain their own vernacular even though they use another lan-
guage on a daily basis. Why are Gapun children growing up speaking Tok
Pisin rather than Taiap as their first language? “The reasons for the enthusi-
Language, Society, and Culture in the Pacific Context 271
asm toward and the spread of Tok Pisin throughout the verbal repertoires of
all villagers, eventually even those who rarely if ever left Gapun, were not
so much ‘pragmatic’ or ‘socioeconomic,’ as those terms are commonly used
in the sociolinguistic literature, as they were ‘cosmological,’ in the broadest
anthropological sense of that word” (Kulick 1992, 249). That is, the arrival
of Europeans, or new conditions, and of a new religion was seen as “the
harbinger of a new way of life. Their presence in New Guinea came to be un-
derstood in terms of an impending metamorphosis that would transform every
aspect of the villagers’ lives, including their physical beings…. In their ea-
gerness for the metamorphosis to occur, villagers immediately seized upon
language as a ‘road,’ a way of making it happen” (Kulick 1992, 249).
To some extent, of course, these attitudes are similar to those of the
postwar urban Māori. The new language is seen as the key to change, to ad-
vancement, to success, however measured and perceived. The difference is
that the people Foley and Kulick are talking about see themselves as Papua
New Guineans, as citizens of a country with the same rights as other citi-
zens. A shift from one language to another does not really threaten this
identity. In contrast, the Māori and the Hawaiians view language as a mark
not only of cultural but also of ethnic identity, and they manipulate language
as a political tool.
CONCLUSION
When I first went to see the man who has become our family doctor in Port
Vila, he asked what I did, and then said that he had visited the university
library here and had seen rows and rows of dictionaries and grammars of
languages spoken by just a few hundred speakers. “Fascinating”, he said,
“fascinating … but bloody useless!”
Attitudes like these are held by both westerners and many Pacific Is-
landers, though perhaps for different reasons. Many westerners see Pacific
Island languages as not being really serious subjects of study: They do not
have a “literature,” they are not used in education, they have no real place in
the national—let alone the international—domain. Linguists who study these
languages are seen as dilettantes who should be doing something more “se-
rious.” Many Pacific Islanders have slightly different views. For example,
they often look on a dictionary as an important archive or museum piece
recording “old” words that are dropping out of the language. But they feel
that their language really does not have much of a future when faced with
competition from international languages.
Most Pacific languages have neither been vilified to the extent that
Melanesian Pidgin or Fiji Hindi have nor subjected to the extreme pressures
of survival that Māori, Hawaiian, Murik, or Taiap have felt. Virtually all of
them, however, have well and truly entered the twentieth century, and are
spoken side-by-side with introduced languages or other recently developed
lingua francas.
Rapid social changes in the Pacific have affected Pacific languages no
less rapidly. This is perhaps most evident in the area of lexical borrowing,
as discussed in chapter 9. Grandparents shudder when their grandchildren
interlard their vernacular with English-derived terms—and are sure that
their language will not survive another generation!
272
Ideas about Pacific Languages 273
Ifira-Mele
aeani ‘iron’ fooko ‘fork’
marseni ‘medicine’ laemu ‘lemon, lime’
nakitae ‘necktie’ peelo ‘bell’
Ifira-Mele
Borrowing Original word
taemu ‘time’ malo
staaji ‘start’ tuulake
insaiji ‘inside’ iroto
auji ‘go out’ tave
puroomu ‘broom’ niisara
wooka ‘work’ wesiwesi
the Celtic people of Britain, virtually all the islands of the Pacific had been set-
tled, many by successive waves of people speaking different languages.
Many westerners—and indeed many Pacific Islanders as well—hold the
view that, once a particular island or area was settled, the inhabitants re-
mained in place. Only with the coming of Europeans were their eyes opened
to the outside world. But of course the Pacific region was not like this at all.
Contact of various kinds—warfare, invasion, trade, intermarriage, ceremo-
nial exchange, and so on—took place between near neighbors or between
peoples whose homes were thousands of kilometers apart, between people
who spoke similar or at least related languages and between those whose
languages were unrelated. The European intruders who entered this region
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were really just the latest of a se-
ries of “foreigners” who contacted Pacific peoples. Pacific languages have
been changing throughout this whole period as a result of external pres-
sures and internal processes. They have survived these changes and will
continue to survive others.
When the first Fiji Hindi dictionary ever published appeared some years
ago (Hobbs 1985), it was greeted with howls of protest and derision from the
Fiji Hindi-speaking community. “There is no such language as Fiji Hindi!”
said one writer to a newspaper. “Hindi in Fiji is a sub-standard Bhojpuri
which has been corrupted,” said another.
Attitudes like these toward creoles and similar languages are common
throughout the world. Such languages are often seen by outsiders as “bro-
ken,” “bastardized,” or “baby-talk” versions of proper languages. Speaking
of what is now known as Tok Pisin, for example, Sir Hubert Murray (1924,
10), an Australian colonial administrator, said, “It is a vile gibberish … and
should be discouraged.” Major Eustace Sanders, a British colonial official who
served on Malaita in Solomon Islands, had similar views about Pijin: “The only
lingua franca [is] pigeon English which consists of the English word in the
Melanesian context. It is a queer sounding garbled business and not in any
way satisfactory” (quoted in Keesing 1990, 156). Even the names of these lan-
2
guages—Pidgin, Pijin, Broken, and so on—have negative connotations.
This could all be simply dismissed as another example of western ethno-
centrism if many speakers of these languages did not share the same
views—as the case of Fiji Hindi illustrates. Speaking of Solomon Islands,
Keesing (1990, 162) says:
view that Pijin has ‘no grammar,’ even though in speaking and under-
standing Pijin, those who express this view use (unconsciously) a
grammar so complex and intricate and powerful that (like the gram-
mars of all languages) it defies formal description.
a culture of a people. Even if that people is numerically small and does not
play an important part on the world stage, its culture and, by implication, its
language, are no less worthy of study than the languages of larger or more
influential peoples. It is true that the usefulness in a global sense of even lan-
guages like Fijian or Samoan pales into insignificance beside the usefulness
of English or French. But that does not mean that these languages should be
discounted altogether.
Change in the languages of Pacific Islanders, as in all languages, is
inevitable, natural, and not something to be universally deplored. Certain
changes may be undesirable for all sorts of reasons, but it is in the nature of
language to change, and resisting change is counterproductive.
What of the future? Dixon (1990, 230–231), in suggesting that every lan-
guage with fewer than ten thousand speakers is at risk of extinction, rather
gloomily predicts that 80 percent of the languages in the Pacific and Asia
may have died out by the end of the twenty-first century. Even languages like
Melanesian Pidgin are seen by some as being under threat from English: “It
would seem that in the future Tok Pisin has nowhere to go but down…. This
does not mean that Tok Pisin will die a rapid, or even an easy, death…. But
it does mean that, in perhaps 50 years’ time, Tok Pisin will most likely be
being studied by scholars among a small community of old men” (Laycock
1985, 667). Although the potential for language death is a serious one for
some Pacific languages, I feel that Dixon and Laycock are unnecessarily pes-
simistic. The vast majority of Pacific languages are not, or not yet, moribund.
As long as a community is sufficiently viable to remain a community (irre-
spective of absolute size), and as long as such a community has pride in its
language as part of its overall cultural heritage, the language will survive. It
will change, as internal and external mechanisms cause it to develop differ-
ent words, pronunciations, and expressions, and these changes will be rued
by the older generation—as they always are. But change is endemic to lan-
guage and is an element of its vitality.
There are, of course, languages that have died out or are currently under
serious threat. For some threatened languages, there are programs of reinvig-
oration and resurgence: Hawaiian and Māori are probably the best known of
these. Both involve serious attempts to teach young children the language in a
structured or semistructured environment, in the hope that, unlike their par-
ents, they will become fluent in the language of their ancestors.
Arguments rage, of course, about the worth of such programs. At one
end of the spectrum are those who feel that all languages should be pre-
served and, if possible, used more widely than they are now, and who pro-
pose programs to encourage—and even almost to force—young people, and
often adults, to learn their “own” language. At the other end are those who
Ideas about Pacific Languages 277
say that languages should be left alone. If people want to shift to another lan-
guage that they think is more useful, it is their right to do so. Very often this
debate is held in the rarefied circles of academe, without much input from
the speakers of the languages themselves. Those speakers will, of course,
have the final say (and perhaps the last laugh) by choosing the course of ac-
tion that seems most sensible and practical from their perspective.
The Pacific area has probably seen more change taking place in its lan-
guages than any other part of the world—certainly than any other region
with a comparable population. The multiplicity of different languages and
language types, with different histories, has always been one of the intrigu-
ing features of this region for both Pacific Islanders and outsiders alike. As
long as Pacific Islanders continue to recognize that their languages are both
their past and their future, the unity in diversity so characteristic of the Pa-
cific will continue to make this region unique.
Suggestions for Further Reading
Chapter 1
Crystal’s Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (1987, 2d ed. 1998) pro-
vides a wealth of information on many of the topics covered in this chapter
in a very readable and accessible format.
There are hundreds of general introductions to descriptive linguis-
tics. Aitchison (1978) provides a good, readable general introduction. Fine-
gan and Besnier (1979) and Crowley, Lynch, Siegel, and Piau (1995) go into
rather more technical detail; these are useful because many of their exam-
ples are from Pacific languages.
Aitchison (1981) is a very readable discussion of language change,
while Crowley (1992, 3d ed. 1997) not only provides perhaps the clearest in-
troduction to historical and comparative linguistics currently available
but also uses Pacific examples to illustrate many technical concepts.
Chapter 2
Sebeok (1971) and Wurm (1975, 1976) contain a number of articles relevant
to the distribution of and history of research into Pacific languages. Schütz
(1972, 1994) provides thorough and sensitive treatments on the history of
research into Fijian and Hawaiian, respectively. Schütz (1994) is a particu-
larly fine piece of scholarship. The language atlas of the Pacific region edited
by Wurm and Hattori (1981) is worth detailed examination.
Chapter 3
Various aspects of the establishment of the Austronesian family and its sub-
groups are covered by Blust (1978a, 1984a, 1984b), Clark (1979), Dem-
279
280 Suggestions for Further Reading
Chapter 4
The major general comprehensive works on the history of Papuan lan-
guages are Foley (1986) and Wurm (1975, 1982). McElhanon and Voorhoeve
(1970) provides an illustration of the kinds of techniques used in estab-
lishing a Papuan phylum, while Pawley (1995) shows how the comparative
method can be applied to these languages.
Good general works on Australian languages include Dixon (1980) and
Yallop (1981). O’Grady and Tryon (1990) is a collection of articles in which
the comparative method is applied to a number of Australian language
groups.
Chapter 5
There is no single volume dealing with the sound systems of the Austrone-
sian languages, such descriptions generally being incorporated in larger
comparative or grammatical studies. Haudricourt et al. (1979) provides con-
siderable information on New Caledonian phonologies, as does Krupa
(1982) for Polynesian. Tryon (1994) and Lynch, Ross, and Crowley (1998)
give briefer outlines of the phonologies of a wide range of Austronesian lan-
guages.
Foley (1986, chap. 3) and Dixon (1980, chaps. 6 and 7) provide general
overviews of the phonology of Papuan and Australian languages, respec-
tively. A fairly representative sample of Australian phonologies can be found
in the handbooks edited by Dixon and Blake (1979, 1981, 1983).
Chapter 6
Lynch, Ross, and Crowley (1998) provides a general coverage of Oceanic
grammar, as well as sketch grammars of almost four dozen Oceanic lan-
guages. Ross (1988) contains general information on the grammars of West-
ern Oceanic languages, while Blust (1978b), Tryon (1973), and Haudricourt
(1971) contain general grammatical information on the languages of the Ad-
Suggestions for Further Reading 281
Chapter 7
The best general introduction to the structure of Papuan languages is Foley
(1986). Wurm (1975, 1982) also provide useful general information on a
range of Papuan languages. Collections of articles on a number of languages
include Dutton (1975) and Franklin (1973, 1981). More detailed information
on individual languages can be found in the bibliographies to these works or
in appendix 1, below.
Chapter 8
Dixon (1980) is a very good general survey of Australian languages, and
it contains as well quite a detailed description of grammatical structure.
Sketch grammars of particular languages, or treatments of particular gram-
matical categories across a range of Australian languages, may be found in
Dixon (1976) and in Dixon and Blake (1979, 1981, 1983). Appendix 1, below,
gives sources for a number of individual languages.
Chapter 9
Apart from the studies by Biggs on Rotuman and Thurston in northwest
New Britain, mentioned in this chapter, there are a number of other useful
works about this topic. Collections of articles include Dutton (1992), Dutton
and Tryon (1994), and Pawley and Ross (1994). Implications for prehistoric
contact on the classification of modern languages are discussed by Lynch
(1981a, 1981b) and Pawley (1981). Among case studies of individual lan-
guages or language communities, those by Siegel (1987) on Fiji and J. Lee
(1987) on the Tiwi of Australia are of considerable interest.
Chapter 10
Verhaar (1990) is a collection of articles on Melanesian Pidgin. For specific
varieties of Melanesian Pidgin, the following should be consulted:
On Hiri Motu and the Hiri Trading Languages, Dutton (1985) is the
best historical source. Grammatical treatments may be found in Wurm and
Harris (1963) and Dutton and Voorhoeve (1974).
For Fiji Hindi and other contact languages in Fiji, Siegel (1987) is the
authoritative source. Siegel (1977) is a brief introduction to the grammar of
Fiji Hindi, and Hobbs (1985) is a dictionary of the language.
Among discussions of Australian creoles, the following are of interest:
for Broken (Torres Strait Creole), see Schnukal (1988); for Kriol (Northern
Territory Creole), see Harris (1986) and Sandefur (1986).
Chapter 11
General coverages of the relationship between language, culture, and
social organization, and the nature of the lexicons of Pacific languages,
can be found in Dixon (1980), Foley (1986), Walsh and Yallop (1993), and
Wurm (1975, 1976, 1977). Smith (1988) provides a good discussion of the
range of numeral and counting systems found in parts of the region.
There is a growing literature on languages in use in both traditional
and modern societies. Important studies on socialization include Kulick
(1992) and Schieffelin (1990) on New Guinea societies and Ochs (1988) on
Samoa. There are a number of Pacific-oriented studies in Duranti and Good-
win (1992) dealing with various aspects of the context of language use.
As far as language and education are concerned, Baldauf and Luke
(1990), Benton (1981), Brumby and Vászolyi (1977), and Mugler and Lynch
(1996) provide a fairly wide coverage.
Conclusion
Most of the general surveys I have referred to above contain some reference
to attitudes toward and ideas about Pacific languages. There are a number
of articles specifically on this topic in the Handbook of Tok Pisin (Wurm and
Mühlhäusler 1985).
Appendices
APPENDIX 1
Data Sources
Below is a list of all languages from which data have been quoted in the
book, arranged on a broad genetic basis, together with their general loca-
tions (see the maps in chapter 2) and the sources from which the data were
taken. JL indicates that some or all of the data are from my own knowledge
or unpublished research; PNG = Papua New Guinea.
Location Sources
Austronesian Languages
Non-Oceanic
Chamorro Micronesia Topping (1973)
Palauan Micronesia Josephs (1975)
Oceanic
Adzera PNG Holzknecht (1989),
Smith (1988)
A‘jië New Caledonia Fontinelle (1976), Lichtenberk
(1978)
Anejom̃ Vanuatu Lynch (1982a, 1998), JL
Aroma PNG Crowley (1992), JL
Arosi Solomon Is. Capell (1971), Lynch and Horoi
(1998)
Banoni PNG Lincoln (1976)
Big Nambas Vanuatu G. Fox (1979)
Carolinian Micronesia Jackson and Marck (1991)
Cèmuhî New Caledonia Rivierre (1980)
285
286 APPENDIX 1
Papuan Languages
Australian Languages
Phonetic Symbols
Vowel Symbols
Front Central Back
MID
Close e ö ə o
Open ɛ ɔ
291
292 APPENDIX 2
LOW
Close æ œ ʌ
Open a ɒ
Vowels
Front Vowels
Consonants
Symbols that look like, and are pronounced roughly like, the
corresponding English letter are not discussed here. Less familiar symbols
are briefly explained below.
Consonant Symbols
velarized bilabial labio dental alveo- retro- alveo palatal velar labio glottal
bilabial dental lar flex palatal velar
w y
voiceless stops: P P t̪ t ṭ t c k kw Ɂ
oral
m w m n n n n y ñ ŋ ŋ w ŋ
prenasalized p P t̪ t ṭ t c k k Ɂ
w y w
voiced stops: oral b b d̪ d ḍ d j g g
m w m n n n n y n̄ ŋ ŋ w
prenasalized b b d̪ d ḍ d j g g
voiceless affricates t̪s̪ ts tʃ
voiced affricates d̪ z̪ dz dʒ
voiceless fricatives fw Φ f θ s ṣ ʃ x xw h
w w
voiced fricatives v β v ð z ẓ ʒ γ γ
voiced nasals mw m n̪ n ṇ ñ ŋ ŋw
voiced laterals l̪ l ḷ λ ɫ
voiced flap r
Phonetic Symbols
voiced trill:
oral r̃
n
prenasalized r̃
voiced semivowels w r y
293
294 APPENDIX 2
Non-English Sounds
Stops. Prenasalized stops are made with a nasal sound at the same time as
the stop: [mb], for example, is a bit like the mb in timber, but is a single
sound rather than two. Dental stops have the tongue tip touching the teeth,
retroflex stops have the tongue tip curled back to the roof of the mouth,
and palatal stops are made with the blade of the tongue on the roof of the
mouth.
Fricatives. The bilabial fricatives [β ϕ] are very similar to English [f v], ex-
cept that both lips are used, and the teeth are not. The velar fricatives [x γ]
parallel the stops [k g], except that a little air is allowed to escape.
Laterals. [λ] is pronounced like ly run quickly together, while [ɫ] is pro-
nounced like gl run together.
Flaps and trills. [r] is a single flap, as in Spanish pero ‘but,’ while [r̃] is a trill
or roll, as in Spanish perro ‘dog.’
APPENDIX 3
Vowel Systems
Micronesia
Kosraean Mokilese
i ɨ u i u
e ǝ o e o
ɛ Λ ɛ ɔ
æ a ɒ a
Melanesia: Austronesian
Iaai Xârâcùù
i ü u i ĩ ɨ ɨ̃ u ũ
e ö ǝ o e ǝ o
ɛ œ ɔ ɛ ɛ̃ ɔ ɔ̃
a a ã
295
296 APPENDIX 3
Australia
Anguthimri
i i: ĩ ü u u:
e e: ẽ ö o
æ æ: æ̃
a a: ã
Consonant Systems
Micronesia
Note: The symbol /R/ is used here to refer to a Nauruan consonant described
as “a kind of r whose exact nature is unknown. It may be palatalized…. It
sounds partially devoiced and appears to be quite fortis” (Nathan 1973, 482).
Nauruan
pw p t k kw
bw b d g gw
w
m m n ŋ ŋw
w
m : m: n: ŋ: ŋw:
r̃
R
w y
Kosraean
pw p tw t kw k
w w
f f s ʃ ʃ
mw m nw n nw ŋ
w
l l
r
Yapese
p p̕ t t̕ ṭ k k̕ ʔ
b d ḍ g
f fʼ θ θʼ ṣ h
m m̕ n n̕ ŋ ŋ'
l l̕
r̃
w w' y y'
Sample Phoneme Systems 297
Melanesia: Austronesian
Pw P t c k P t ts k
bw b d g b d dz g
m w m n ŋ
b b r g
s x s h
w
v v v γ
mw m n ŋ m n ŋ
l r̃
r̃
Ririo Adzera
p t ts k ʔ P t c k ʔ
m n ñ ŋ ŋ
P t c k ʔ
b d j g
m n n ŋ ñ
b d dz g j
s f s h
v z γ
m n ŋ m n ŋ
l
r r
w y
Pije Drehu
Phw Ph th kh
pw p t c k p t ṭ c k
m w m n ñ ŋ
b b d j g b d ḍ g
ɸ f s x f θ s x h
v ð z
mw m n ñ ŋ m n ñ ŋ
̥ ̥
m̥w m̥ n̥ ñ̥ ŋ m̥ n̥ ñ̥ ŋ
l l
l̥ l̥
w y w
w̥ y̥ w̥
298 APPENDIX 3
Melanesia: Papuan
Awa Abau
P t k ʔ p k
b g
s s h
m n m n
r r
w y w y
Kobon Kâte
k
p t k p
g
b d g b d g b
f s x h f s h
v
ts ts
dz dz
m n ñ m n ŋ
l ḷ λ
r̃ r
w y ŋ y
Wahgi
P t k
m n n
b d g
n
d̪ z̪
s̪
m n̪ n ŋ
l̪ l ɫ
w y
Australia
Anguthimri
P t̪ t tr ty k ʔ
m n n n r n y
b d̪ d d d g
v ð Ʒ γ
m n̪ n ñ ŋ
l
r
w y
APPENDIX 4
This glossary of technical terms used in the text is intended to assist the
general reader to understand the basic meanings of those terms. For this
reason, many technicalities and intricacies have been deliberately omitted.
ablative. A case marking the direction from which the action proceeds.
absolute dating. In prehistory, the assignment of an actual (approxi-
mate) date for a particular event (say, the breakup of a language family).
See also relative dating.
absolutive. The case of the object and the intransitive subject in an erga-
tive language.
accusative language. A language (like English) where the subjects of
transitive and intransitive verbs are marked in the same way and the
object of transitive verbs is marked differently. Also called nominative-
accusative languages.
active voice. A sentence is in the active voice when the subject of the
verb is also the performer of the action, as in John hit the dog. See also
passive voice.
adjective. A class of words whose function is to describe nouns.
adjunct, adjunct construction. A construction, common in Papuan lan-
guages, in which a noun or an adjective (an adjunct) is bound closely
with a verb, expressing an idea that is often expressed by a single verb
in other languages.
affix. A morpheme attached to a root. An affix may not occur by itself. See
also infix, prefix, suffix.
affricate. A consonant combining a stop with a fricative release, like the
sound of ch [tf] in English chin.
299
300 APPENDIX 4
agent. (1) The performer of an action; often the semantic (but not the gram-
matical) subject in a passive sentence, like Fred in The window was broken
by Fred. (2) The subject of a transitive verb in an ergative language.
alienable possession. A construction in which the possessor is in con-
trol of the relationship with what is possessed. See also inalienable
possession.
allative. A case marking the direction toward which action proceeds.
alveolar. Made by the tip of the tongue touching the ridge behind the top
teeth, as for [t d].
alveopalatal. Made with the front part of the tongue touching the front
of the roof of the mouth as far forward as the alveolar ridge, as for [ʃ].
anaphoric. Referring to something already mentioned.
antipassive. A structure found in ergative languages to derive intransi-
tive sentences from underlying transitive ones.
aorist. A tense that marks an action as non-future but does not specify
whether it is present or past.
apical. Made with the tip of the tongue, like [t].
apicolabial. A sound produced with the tip of the tongue touching the
top lip.
applicative. Marking the instrument with which the action was per-
formed, the reason for the performance of the action, and similar roles.
Often referred to as the “remote transitive.”
article. A morpheme that marks some aspect of the class or reference of
a noun. The English articles a and the, for example, mark a noun as in-
definite and definite, respectively.
aspect. Expresses the duration of the event or state referred to by the
verb, or the manner in which the action or state is carried out. The dif-
ference between He went and He was going in English is one of aspect
(punctiliar vs. continuous). See also tense.
aspiration. The puff of air accompanying the production of certain
sounds. English p and t in words like peach and tick are aspirated; in
words like speech and stick they are not aspirated.
asterisk (*). Symbol used to mark an utterance as not (normally) occur-
ring, either (1) because it is ungrammatical, e.g., *They will went today or
(2) because it is a reconstruction for a particular protolanguage, and has
not actually been attested, e.g., Proto Oceanic *paka- ‘causative prefix.’
Australian. A language family consisting of nearly all aboriginal lan-
guages of Australia.
Austronesian. A large family of languages, whose members are found in
a few areas on the Asian mainland, in island Southeast Asia, Madagas-
Glossary of Technical Terms 301
car, parts of the New Guinea area, most of the rest of Melanesia, and in
Micronesia and Polynesia.
auxiliary. A morpheme with little semantic content that functions to
carry tense and sometimes other grammatical information in the verb
phrase, like did in Did you see it?
avoidance style. A variety of a language in which the speaker has to
avoid certain terms (e.g., names of recently dead people or of in-laws).
back vowel. A vowel made with the highest part of the tongue in the back
of the mouth, like those in English sue and saw.
benefactive. A case marking the beneficiary of an action.
binary numeral system. A system of counting based on two.
bilabial. A consonant made with both lips, like [m].
borrowing. A process whereby speakers of one language adopt some
features of another language. Sometimes called copying.
bound morpheme. See affix.
case. An indication of the role of a noun phrase in a clause or sentence.
causative. Bringing about the action of a verb or the quality of a noun or
adjective. Compare Tongan mohe ‘to sleep’ and fakamohe ‘to put (some-
one) to sleep,’ with the causative prefix faka-.
central vowel. A vowel in which the highest part of the tongue is in the
center of the mouth, as in English bird and bard.
classifier. A morpheme marking a noun as belonging to a particular class.
clause. A group of phrases containing one predicate.
clitic. An affix attached to a phrase rather than a word, like the English
possessive suffix ’s, which is attached to the last word in the possessor
noun phrase, as in the President of the United States of America’s hat.
close vowel. A vowel made with more tension than its open equivalent;
the vowel in English seat is close, but the vowel in sit is open.
closed syllable. A syllable ending in a consonant. See open syllable.
coarticulated sound. A single sound involving two simultaneous but dif-
ferent articulations. The labial-velar stop /kp/ is an example.
code-switching. A situation in a bilingual or multilingual context where
people switch from using one language to using another one.
cognate. Words in different languages whose meanings correspond and
whose forms are related through regular sound correspondences. Cog-
nates by implication all derive from a single protoform.
comitative. A marker of accompaniment, like with in He came with me.
common ancestor. The language ancestral to a group of related languages. A
common ancestor may be either known through documentary records or else
hypothesized or inferred (in which case it is referred to as a protolanguage).
302 APPENDIX 4
flap. A consonant made by one very fast strike of the tongue on the alveolar ridge.
In fast casual speech, the dd in English ladder is often pronounced as a flap [r].
free morpheme. A morpheme that may stand on its own as a word.
fricative. A consonant made by allowing a small amount of air to escape
under considerable friction, as with English [f v s z].
front vowel. A vowel made with the highest part of the tongue in the
front of the mouth, as in English seat and set.
genetic inheritance, genetic relationship. Descended from a com-
mon ancestor (said of languages). Deriving from phonemes or words in
the ancestor language (said of phonemes, words, and so on).
glottal. Made in the glottis, like [h].
glottal stop. A consonant, symbolized [ʔ], in which the stream of air is
completely stopped in the glottis. (Cockneys are supposed to substitute
a glottal stop for tt in words like butter and better.)
glottalization. Simultaneous closure of the glottis in the production of a
nonglottal consonant.
glottochronology. A technique, now shown to be unreliable, for dating
the splits in a protolanguage.
goal. The noun phrase at which the action of the verb is aimed.
habitual. An aspect indicating that an action is performed regularly as a
habit or custom.
head. The main word in a phrase.
high vowel. A vowel made with the tongue high in the mouth, like the
vowels in English see and sue.
historical-comparative linguistics. The branch of linguistics that
seeks to discover the history of a group of languages through comparing
them. Sometimes referred to as comparative linguistics.
imperative. The modality of a command.
imperfective. An aspect indicating that action is not seen as completed.
inalienable possession. A construction in which the possessor does not control
possession. Often used of body parts or relatives. See alienable possession.
inceptive. An aspect indicating that action is seen as beginning.
inchoative. Inceptive.
inclusive first person. A pronoun including the speaker and the person
or persons spoken to, e.g., Bislama yumi ‘we (you and I).’ See also
exclusive first person.
independent pronoun. A pronoun that may occur alone, as opposed to
other types of pronouns, which occur only as prefixes or suffixes.
indirect possession. A construction in which a possessive pronoun is not
attached to the possessed noun (as in direct possession) but to some
Glossary of Technical Terms 305
other morpheme, e.g., Motu e-gu ruma ‘my house,’ where -gu ‘my’ is at-
tached to the possessive marker e- and not to the noun ruma ‘house.’
infix. An affix inserted inside a root. Tolai, for example, changes verbs into
nouns with the infix -in-, as in mat ‘die,’ m-in-at ‘death.’ See also prefix, suffix.
instrumental. A case marking the instrument with which the action is
performed.
intentional. An aspect marking the fact that the subject intends to per-
form the action.
intermediate demonstrative. A demonstrative referring to someone or
something near the addressee but not near the speaker.
interstage language. An intermediate protolanguage, which is both a
daughter of the common ancestor of a whole family and the ancestor of
one subgroup of that family.
intransitive. A verb with no object; a clause or sentence containing such
a verb as the main verb: e.g., They are sleeping. See also transitive.
irrealis. An aspect or mood marking an action or state as not real, i.e.,
not having taken place or existing. See also realis.
isolate. A language that appears to be related to no other language.
koine. A language that develops (through a process known as koineiza-
tion, sometimes called dialect mixing), out of contact between and
mixing of a number of dialects.
labiodental. Consonants produced by touching the top teeth to the bot-
tom lip, like [f v].
labiovelar. Velar consonants produced with simultaneous lip-rounding,
like [kw].
laminal. Made with the blade of the tongue, like sh in English (phoneti-
cally [ʃ]).
language family. A group of related languages deriving from a common
ancestor (actual or hypothesized).
Lapita. A distinctive pottery style found in the Pacific. Lapita culture
refers to the culture associated with this pottery style, assumed to be
the culture of speakers of Proto Oceanic and its immediate descendants.
lateral. A sound made when air passes around the sides of the tongue; [l]
is a typical lateral.
lexicostatistics. A statistical technique for measuring the degree of re-
lationship between languages by comparing similarities in basic or non-
cultural vocabulary.
lingua franca. A language used as a common language between peo-
ple who speak different vernaculars.
linguistics. The systematic study of language.
306 APPENDIX 4
semivowel. A consonant with vowel-like qualities, like [w] and [y], which
are similar in some ways to [u] and [i].
sentence. A group of one or more clauses that can stand alone without
requiring the addition of any more phrases.
sequential. An aspect indicating that an action follows the action of the
previous verb.
serial construction. A construction involving the stringing together of
two or more verbs in a single clause.
shared innovation. A change from the protolanguage shared only by
certain members of the family. Shared innovations are one of the criteria
for delimiting a subgroup.
short consonant. See consonant length.
short vowel. See vowel length.
sound correspondence. See regular sound correspondence.
split-ergative language. One in which certain nouns function erga-
tively and others (including pronouns) function accusatively.
stative. Expressing a state rather than an event or an action.
stock. A group of related families. See also phylum.
stop. A sound whose production involves the complete blockage of the air
flow, like English [p t k].
stress. Emphasis placed on one of the syllables of a word, making it more
prominent than the others, as in the third syllable of university.
subgroup. A group of languages within a family, more closely related to
each other than any is to any other language.
subject. The topic in a nominal sentence, or the doer of the action or ex-
periencer of the state in a verbal sentence.
subject marker. A form of a pronoun occurring within a verb complex to
mark the person and the number of the subject.
suffix. An affix following the root, like -ing in raining. See also infix, prefix.
suprasegmental phonology. The area of phonology that deals with as-
pects of speech that cannot be segmented, like stress, tone, and intona-
tion. See also segmental phonology.
switch-reference. A grammatical category marked on verbs that indi-
cates whether the subject of a verb is the same as, or different from, the
subject of some other verb.
taxonomy. A classification of words in which there is a generic, overarch-
ing term and a number of levels of specific terms. The lower-level terms
are members of the higher-level terms’ families.
tense. The time of the action or state referred to by the verb in relation to
the time of speaking or writing (or, occasionally, in relation to some other
Glossary of Technical Terms 311
time): The difference between I went, I am going, and I will go, is one of
tense—past, present, and future. In many cases, a marker of tense also
marks aspect; such markers are referred to as tense-aspect markers.
ternary numeral system. A system of counting based on three.
thematic consonant (vowel). A consonant (or vowel) not present when
the root occurs alone, but which surfaces when an affix is added: e.g.,
in Palauan char ‘price,’ one must add the thematic vowel a before any
possessive suffix. Historically, thematic vowels or consonants may have
been part of the root that were lost except in such environments.
tone. For our purposes, changes in pitch that causes changes in mean-
ings of a word. Such tone is phonemic tone.
transitive. Having an object (of a verb); containing such a verb as the
main verb (of a clause or a sentence). Example: They are eating ice
cream. See intransitive.
trial number. Referring to three and only three.
trigraph. Three letters representing a single phoneme.
trill. A series of very fast flaps giving a rolling sound (phonetically [r])
found, for example, in Scots English.
unrounded vowel. A vowel made with the lips not rounded, like the vow-
els of seed and sad.
velar. Made in the back of the mouth, like [k].
velarized bilabial. A bilabial sound produced by simultaneously raising
the tongue at the back of the mouth, giving an accompanying w-sound:
e.g., [mw].
verb. A class of words expressing actions and states.
verb complex. A phrase in which the head is a verb.
verb root. The form of the verb with no affixes.
verb serialization. See serial construction.
verbal sentence. A sentence whose predicate is a verb complex. See
also nominal sentence.
vernacular. The language of a community, which is little used outside
that community.
voice. See active voice; passive voice.
voiced and voiceless sounds. A sound is voiced if the vocal folds vibrate
during its production, and voiceless if they do not: The voiced sounds [b
v z] have voiceless equivalents [p f s].
vowel copying. Occurs in an affix whose vowel is a complete copy of
some other vowel in the root. In Bislama, when the verbs kuk ‘cook’, kil
‘hit,’ and sem ‘shame’ take the transitive suffix vowel +m, the vowel is a
copy of the vowel of the root: kuk-um, kil-im, sem-em.
312 APPENDIX 4
CHAPTER 1
1. Some linguists use the term “verb phrase” to represent this type of unit, but
others use it to refer to the verb complex together with the object. I do not use the
term in this book.
2. The first and third sentences could stand on their own with the assistance of
context, that is, they would both be acceptable answers to the question “Who were
killing the cats?” They could not, however, stand in isolation, or as, say, the first sen-
tence in a conversation.
3. See section 2.1 in the next chapter for a discussion of the concept of dialect.
CHAPTER 2
1. In the absence of other evidence, the number of speakers in the region would
lead us to predict the existence of about six languages, not fourteen hundred, as-
suming that all the world’s languages had an equal number of speakers.
2. The points of the Polynesian Triangle are Hawai‘i to the north, New Zealand
to the southwest, and Easter Island to the southeast.
3. Crowley (1994) estimates that Paamese currently has about 4,750 speakers, al-
though Tryon and Charpentier (1989) put the number of speakers at around 2,400. Even
with changes of this order in the figures for some other languages, however, no Vanuatu
language has anywhere near 10,000 speakers.
4. The Western Desert language has a variety of local dialect names, but no in-
digenous name for the whole language.
5. The name Nakanamanga, both widely and commonly used by speakers of the lan-
guage, may have been avoided by missionaries who had some experience with Fijian,
since this term is obscene in that language.
313
314 Notes
CHAPTER 3
1. The family was for a long time called “Malayo-Polynesian,” but because this
term appeared to exclude the languages of Melanesia and Micronesia, most schol-
ars have adopted the term “Austronesian” (lit., southern islands).
2. Most of the groups mentioned here correspond to those listed in Pawley and
Ross 1995, an admirable summary of the current state of research. (Exactly how
a small group of Oceanic languages in northeast Irian Jaya is related to the rest
of the languages of the subgroup is still not clear.) In a few cases, I have incorpo-
rated more recent research. In such cases I have specified the source. Lynch, Ross,
and Crowley (1998) suggest that groups five through eight may belong to a single
Central-Eastern Oceanic group.
3. For a brief discussion of lexicostatistics, see 1.3.3, above.
4. I do not list the actual terms here. For both a list and more detailed discus-
sion, see Chowning (1991) and Pawley and Ross (1995).
CHAPTER 5
1. Recall from the discussion in chapter 1 that the sounds of languages are
organized into a number of sound units, or phonemes. In discussing individual pro-
nunciations of words, linguists use square brackets [ ], while phonemes are written
between slant lines / /. I use italics for single letters. Appendix 2 provides a chart of
the phonetic symbols used in this book, and appendix 3 gives some examples of the
vowel and consonant systems of a number of Pacific languages.
2. I make occasional reference in this section to the two non-Oceanic languages
spoken in Micronesia, Palauan and Chamorro.
3. The contexts need not concern us here. But see 6.2.1 below and Churchward
(1940, 14).
4. The phonetic explanation for this seems to be that the production of voice-
less obstruents involves greater muscle tension and a higher larynx than does the
production of voiced obstruents, and greater muscle tension and a higher larynx
are associated with higher pitch (Clark and Yallop 1990, 282–283).
5. The Rotokas voiced phonemes /v r g/ are pronounced as nasals [m n ŋ] in
some phonetic environments.
6. Tone marking has been omitted from these examples so as not to obscure the
placement of stress.
7. “On the whole these [tonal systems] seem better analyzed as pitch-accent
systems rather than as genuine tonal systems. The vast majority of such Papuan
languages have a single contrast between high and low tone, and this suggests a
pitch-accent system with a contrast between accented syllables and unaccented
ones” (Foley 1986, 63).
8. Unfortunately, the sources do not show full contrast, as there appears to be
no word /nǎ/ that would contrast with the other three words listed here.
9. The Rapanui (Easter Island) rongorongo may be an exception to this, although
it was apparently a system of mnemonics rather than a writing system per se.
Notes 315
10. Many nonlinguists do not conceive of the glottal stop as a proper consonant,
but more as a “break” between two vowels. In his grammar of Tongan, Churchward
is at pains to correct this misconception and to stress the consonantal nature of the
glottal stop: “To call it the break, as is sometimes done, is convenient but is rather
misleading” (Churchward 1953, 1).
11. The Catholic forms have eventually been adopted, partly because they cor-
respond most closely to the English system, and partly due to the influence of
Wantok newspaper, the first Tok Pisin newspaper, which was originally produced by
the Catholic Church.
12. This principle was taken to its ridiculous extreme in Erromango (Vanuatu),
where early missionaries wrote /au/ as x and /oi/ as c.
13. The only violation of this principle has been the use of the digraph dr to rep-
resent /nr̃/. The controversy, which surfaces every so often, usually takes the form of
pressure to revise Fijian orthography more in the direction of English, and to write
mb, th, and so on for what are currently written as b and c.
14. This convention is based on German orthography.
CHAPTER 6
1. Note that the Fijian pronouns given here (and elsewhere) have a preposed
personal article (see 6.2.2 below), which is i in the Nadrau dialect given here and o
in Standard Fijian and some other dialects. I sometimes refer to Standard (Bauan)
Fijian simply as “Fijian,” but specify other varieties by name (e.g., “Nadrau Fijian”).
2. The Nehan forms are those used in past tense. Non-past forms are slightly
different, involving the loss of initial k in most persons and the replacement of k
with m in the first person exclusive and the second person plural.
3. The variation in the third person plural in Kiribati is between animate (-iia)
and inanimate (-i) objects.
The forms given for the subject markers in table 5 are what appear to be the
underlying forms. There is considerable variation in current usage as a result of
changes in progress in this system (see Lynch 1995).
4. In citing Rotuman data, I use standard orthographic symbols for consonants,
but phonetic symbols for vowels, since the system of vowel diacritics in Rotuman
orthography is somewhat unwieldy.
5. Many of these languages probably once did have at least one article, deriving
from the Proto Oceanic common article *na. In Vanuatu especially, however, this ar-
ticle has become attached to the noun and now forms part of the noun root, though
it may be removed in certain contexts (cf. the discussion on pluralization in Anejom̃
in the previous section).
6. In Fijian, ko tends to be used quite often in writing where o is used in speech,
while a is sometimes used instead of na. This variation is not important for our
purposes here. I will continue to gloss articles as “a” or “the,” adding additional in-
formation (personal, plural, etc.) where relevant.
7. Ke is most often used before words beginning with a, e, o, and k, while ka
tends to precede words beginning with i, u, and any consonant except k.
316 Notes
8. The numeral for one does not usually follow the same pattern in these lan-
guages.
9. The vowels of some of the possessive markers in both languages undergo
morphophonemic changes in various environments. Note that, in both Paamese
and Fijian, the markers for food and for passivity are formally identical. As some
languages mark these two categories differently, there is good reason for believing
that these were distinct in Proto Oceanic.
10. Generally, however, the form, function, and semantics of possessive classi-
fiers are different from those of numeral classifiers. Some languages, like Kiribati
and Kilivila, for example, have elaborate numeral classifier systems but no corre-
spondingly elaborate possessive classifier systems.
11. I say “for the most part” because there are vestiges of the direct construc-
tion in some of these languages (cf. Wilson 1982, 35–40).
12. The Nukuoro orthography used here differs slightly from that in the original
source (Carroll 1965): I write the simple stops p t k and the long stops pp tt kk; Car-
roll writes the simple stops b d g and the long stops p t k.
13. I use the term “verb complex” in place of “verb phrase,” which has different
meanings in different theoretical approaches to linguistics. The term “particle”
refers to words that have a grammatical function (marking tense or negation, for
example) rather than a lexical one (denoting some thing, action, or quality in the
real world), but which are pronounced and written as separate words and not as
prefixes or suffixes.
14. Thus I had drunk (completive), I used to drink (habitual), I was drinking
(continuous), and I drank (punctiliar) illustrate different aspects of the English verb
in the past tense.
15. Rotuman is somewhat unusual in having no preverbal subject markers and
in marking the person and number of the subject of a stative verb by a suffix:
Iris la joni-eris.
they FUTURE run:away-they:STATIVE
“They will run away.”
18. In some of these languages both transitive and object marking occur to-
gether only when the object is human or animate.
19. Passive and transitive are closely linked concepts, and this suffix is presum-
ably the same historically as the -Ci transitive suffix. There has been considerable
debate in the literature over whether the -Ci suffix marks passive or transitive in
other Polynesian languages, a matter I do not take up here. See, for example, Biggs
(1974), Chung (1977, 1978), Clark (1973, 1981), Hohepa (1969), Lynch (1972), Mil-
ner (1973), and Tchekhoff (1973).
20. The Kiribati numerals given here include the general classifier -ua.
21. “Accusative” here is short for “nominative-accusative” (subject in the
nominative case, object in the accusative case). “Ergative” is short for “ergative-ab-
solutive,” defined later.
22. This is probably a result of influence from one or more neighboring non-
Austronesian languages (most of which have SOV preferred order) on a language
ancestral to the Oceanic languages of southern mainland Papua New Guinea. See
chapter 9 for further discussion.
23. Verb-initial languages do allow some flexibility when the subject or object is
emphasized. Some Oceanic languages have flexible phrase order, but certain gram-
matical contexts may require one order and others another.
CHAPTER 7
1. The marking on nouns and other noun phrase constituents varies for number
(aleman n-ahe‘ ‘the man went,’ alemam m-ahe‘ ‘the men went’), and in some classes
the markers are not phonologically identical in all environments (numata‘ kw-ahe‘
‘the woman went’).
2. The Anggor verbs in the examples below are more complex morphologically
than illustrated here, but I have simplified the analysis for purposes of illustration.
3. The numerous morphophonemic changes in Enga verb roots and suffixes
need not concern us here, but note that the root meaning “go” appears as both p-
and as pá-in the examples.
CHAPTER 8
5. The last example is the version used by female speakers. Male speakers dis-
pense with the prefix nya- with nouns of this class, saying simply yabi arrkula “one
good man/boy.”
6. When the consonant-initial prefixes are followed by a consonant, a vowel in-
tervenes.
7. In some split-ergative languages, proper nouns—or even all nouns referring
to humans—behave like pronouns, while other nouns behave ergatively.
CHAPTER 9
1. Note also that these words have adapted to another phonological feature of
Motu—the fact that every syllable must be open. (Examples are from Crowley 1992,
85.)
2. Not all consonants are included in these tables. In order not to clutter the
picture, I have concentrated only on those pertinent to the point I am making.
3. A third of his correspondences are classed as indeterminate. There are no
diagnostic differences between the two sets (since, for example, phonemes like *m
and *n are reflected as m and n in both set I and set II).
4. Readers interested in this debate might wish to consult, in the first instance,
the summaries in Lynch (1981b) or Thurston (1987, 89–93), and the more detailed
discussions in Capell (1976) for mixed languages and Biggs (1972) against them.
CHAPTER 10
6. A notable exception is the adjective meaning ‘bad,’ which follows the noun,
as in Pijin Mi kaekae fis nogud ‘I ate a/some bad fish.’
7. If the subject is mi ‘I,’ yu ‘you,’ or yumi ‘we (inclusive),’ i is not used. In Bis-
lama, i is replaced by oli if the subject is third person plural.
8. The Hiri Motu word tamana ‘father’ derives from the Motu form tama-na ‘his/
her father.’ The Motu third person suffix -na has become part of the Hiri Motu root.
Hiri Motu has also fused the (optional) Motu free pronoun and the possessive pro-
noun as a single form: (lau) e-gu > lauegu ‘my,’ (oi) e-mu > oiemu ‘your,’ etc.
CHAPTER 11
11. Clark cites Fischer’s (1957, 27) report that all the male inhabitants of
Ngatik are said to have been massacred by some European sailors (who presum-
ably spoke some variety of Pidgin English). These sailors then married the local
women and remained on the island.
12. Kalam words like wjblp ‘bird’ look unpronounceable because Kalam orthog-
raphy does not mark the neutral vowel /ə/, which occurs predictably between any
two consonants. Wjblp is phonemically something like /wəjəbələp/.
13. This behavior has obvious implications for a shift in language-use patterns.
See 11.6 below.
14. In Vanuatu, some schools are English medium, others French medium.
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Index
345
346 Index
Motu, 8–9, 11, 40, 100, 102, 107–108, New Guinea area,
114, 148, 151–152, 154, 157, 161, linguistic diversification in, 70–71
206, 210–211, 232–234, 246, 303, settlement of, 53–57, 60–61, 69–70
305, 318, 319 See also Irian Jaya; Papua New
Motu people, 206, 232–233 Guinea
Simplified Motu, 233–234 Ngatikese, 30
Mountain Koiari, 90 men’s language, 257, 320
Moyse-Faurie, Claire, 286 Ngunese. See Nakanamanga
Mugler, France, 282 Nimboran, 167
Mühlhäusler, Peter, 281, 282 Niuafo‘ou, 50
multilingualism, 263–265 Niuean, 30, 50, 129, 130
Murane, Elizabeth, 288 Njamal, 251–254, 256
Murik, 270, 272 nominalizers, 109–110
Murray, Sir Hubert, 274 nominal sentences, 148
Murrinh-Patha, 243–244 in Australian languages, 198
mutual intelligibility, 25–26 in Melanesian Pidgin, 227
Muyuw, 120 in Oceanic languages, 148–150
in Papuan languages, 179
Nadrau Fijian, 102, 315 Non-Austronesian. See Papuan
Nakanai, 102, 114, 152, 157, 245 Non-Pama-Nyungan group, 68,
Nakanamanga, 40‚ 41, 86, 100, 102, 195–197
136–137, 139, 142, 159, 313 North-Central Vanuatu subgroup, 48
Namonuito, 30 North Malaita, 34, 79
nasal, 78, 294 North New Guinea subgroup, 48
nasalized vowels, 87 Northeast Ambae, 34
voiceless nasals, 78, 80 noun classes, 126, 169–170, 179,
national languages, 266 190–191, 243–244
Nauruan‚ 48, 50, 76, 79, 96‚ 120, noun phrase structure, 5
296 in Australian languages, 192–194
negation, negatives‚ 136‚ 212‚ 216 in Melanesian Pidgin, 228–230
discontinuous, 160–161 in Oceanic languages, 120–122
in Melanesian Pidgin, 231–232 in Papuan languages, 171
negative verbs, 161–162 nouns, 105, 107
in Oceanic languages, 159–162 plurality in, 107–109, 187
in serial constructions, 147–148 Nuclear Polynesian subgroup, 50
Nehan‚ 103–104, 130, 315 Nukuoro, 30‚ 50‚ 76, 129, 159, 212, 316
Nekitel, Otto‚ 169, 288 Numanggang, 249–250
New Caledonia number (grammatical)‚ 7–8
languages of 33, 57 in demonstratives, 114–115
articles in, 112–113 in pronouns, 101–103, 166–167,
consonant systems of, 80 185–186, 227
history of research into, 43 in verbs, 197
orthographies of, 98 numeral classifiers, 9, 111, 118–120
phonemic tone in, 82 numerals, 117–120, 228–229, 244–251,
vowel systems of, 76–77 319
See also names of individual lan- binary systems, 249–250
guages as per Map 6 decimal systems, 244–246
settlement of, 55–56 formation of ordinals, 145
354 Index
Spanish in the Pacific, 25, 207, 262 in Oceanic languages, 133–137, 138
influence on Oceanic languages, 209 in Papuan languages, 172–175,
split-ergative languages, 199–200, 318 182–184
Spriggs, Matthew, 55, 56 Tepahae, Philip, 254
stative verb, 7, 115–116 ternary numeral system, 249–250
stock, 64 thematic consonant/vowel, 140–141,
stops, 78, 80, 92–93, 294 142, 171
aspirated, 78, 80 Thieberger, Nicholas, 317
coarticulated, 88 Thomas, Dicks, 281, 290
glottal, 93, 315 Thomson, N. P., 288
prenasalized, 78, 80, 97–98, 294 Thurston, William R., 215, 217, 281,
retroflex, 80, 92–93, 294 286, 288, 318
voicing distinction in, 78, 93 Tigak, 79, 85, 247
stress, 80–82, 88–89, 91 Titan, 246
Suau, 208 Tiwi, 190–191, 249, 281, 317, 318
subgroup, 15–17 To‘aba‘ita, 80, 112, 114, 121, 130, 131,
subject, 5–6 148, 153, 157, 162–163
in ergative structures, 151 Toaripi, 90
subject-marker, subject pronoun, 8, Todd, Evelyn M., 287, 288
103–104, 132, 137–139, 168–169, Tok Pisin, 2–3, 25, 96, 212, 220,
172–174, 187, 196–197, 227, 234, 223–224, 226–232, 234, 261,
316 270–271, 274, 275, 276, 281, 282,
and switch reference, 182–184 315, 318
suffix, 3 constitutional status of, 265
suffixed reduplication, 86 in the media, 268
Sugita, Hiroshi, 209, 286 See also Melanesian Pidgin
Summer Institute of Linguistics, 43, 44, Tokelauan, 50
60, 267 Tolai, 34, 40, 102, 148, 158, 207, 305
suprasegmental features. See prosodic influence on Tok Pisin, 224
features tone, 80, 82–83, 89, 91, 314
switch reference, 182–184 Tongan, 17, 28, 30, 40, 50, 78, 85, 86,
Sye, 109, 110, 125 96, 120, 139, 149, 160, 245,
257–258, 263, 301, 315
Tahitian, 17, 30, 85, 117, 121, 139, 143, influence on the Lau group, 207
155–156, 161, 212 influence on Rotuman, 214
loans in Samoan, 211 status of, 266
Taiap, 260–261, 270, 272 Tongic subgroup, 50
Takuu, 78, 129 topic and comment, 148
tally systems of counting, 250–251 Topping, Donald M., 285
Tamil, 263 Torricelli phylum, 40, 67
Tasmania, languages of, 68–69, 70 transitive/transitivity, 6
taxonomies, 241–244 accusative vs. ergative, 150–152
Tchekhoff, Claude, 317 in Melanesian Pidgin, 230–231
Telugu, 263 in Oceanic languages, 139–142, 317
tense, 133 Trans–New Guinea phylum, 67
tense-aspect, 132, 216 Trefry, David, 288
in Australian languages, 196–197 trial (number), 8, 102
in Melanesian Pidgin, 231–232 trigraph, 98
358 Index