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Symmetrical Voice and Linking in Western Austronesian Languages
This book is an in-depth study of the voice systems of Totoli, Balinese, Indonesian, and Tagalog, which shows that the symmetrical nature of these systems poses a problem to current linking theories. It provides an analysis of symmetrical linking within two grammatical theories (LFG & RRG) and develops a modified LFG linking mechanism that sheds light on the differences as well as the similarities of symmetrical and asymmetrical voice systems.
eBook
Symmetrical voice and linking in western Austronesian languages
This book is an in-depth study of the voice systems of Totoli, Balinese, Indonesian, and Tagalog, which shows that the symmetrical nature of these systems poses a problem to current linking theories. It provides an analysis of symmetrical linking within two grammatical theories (LFG & RRG) and develops a modified LFG linking mechanism that sheds light on the differences as well as the similarities of symmetrical and asymmetrical voice systems.--Back cover.
Book
Topics in Oceanic Morphosyntax
This monograph is a collection of selected papers on Oceanic languages. For the first time, aspects of the morphology and syntax of Oceanic languages such as the encoding of sentence types, the structure of the noun phrase, noun incorporation, constituent order, and ergative vs. accusative alignment are discussed from a comparative point of view, thus drawing attention to genetic, areal and language-specific features. The individual papers are based on the field work of the authors on lesser-described and endangered languages and are basically descriptive studies. At the same time they also explore the theoretical implications of the data presented and analyzed, as well as the historical development of certain morpho-syntactic phenomena, without basing these explorations on a single theoretical framework.
The book provides new insights into the morphosyntactic structures of Oceanic languages and is of interest primarily for linguists working on Austronesian, in particular Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian languages, but also for typologists and linguists working on language change.
eBook
Südsee- und Südostasiatische Sprachen
Ulrike Folie war von 2010 bis 2013 wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin bei der Arbeitsstelle »Wilhelm von Humboldt: Schriften zur Sprachwissenschaft« an der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Volker Heeschen, Linguist und Ethnologe, seit 1974 in Westpapua forschend, zuletzt am Institut für Ethnologie der Universität München tätig, arbeitet seit 2004 mit der Arbeitsstelle »Wilhelm von Humboldt: Schriften zur Sprachwissenschaft« zusammen und ist mit der Herausgeberschaft der Schriften zu den austronesischen Sprachen betraut. Frank Zimmer ist seit 2004 Mitarbeiter bei der Arbeitsstelle »Wilhelm von Humboldt: Schriften zur Sprachwissenschaft« an der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
eBook
Clause Structure and Adjuncts in Austronesian Languages
Clause Structure and Adjuncts in Austronesian Languages is a collection of papers devoted to the syntactic analysis of modification and extraction strategies in Austronesian languages such as Kavalan, Malagasy, Niuean, Seediq, and Tagalog. Written by some of the leading scholars in the field, it elucidates the categorial and phrase structural status as well as the scopal behavior of sentence-level adverbs, ordering constraints on adjectival modifiers, and the nature of unbounded dependencies in interaction with Philippine-type voice systems. Guglielmo Cinque's universal ordering hypothesis for adverbs and current work on remnant movement serve as theoretical points of reference.
More particularly the book contains an analysis of lower VP-adverbs in Kavalan as serial verbs (Chang), a defense of two types of adverbial heads in Seediq (Holmer), an account of possible DP-internal serializations in Niuean in terms of remnant movement (Kahnemuyipour Massam), a plea for relative, scope-based adverb ordering in Tagalog (Kaufman), a clefting approach to unbounded dependencies in Malagasy (Potsdam), a critical assessment of constraints on remnant movement as applied to adverb orderings in Malagasy (Thiersch), and an analysis of the Malagasy voice system on the basis of clitic left-dislocation (Travis). The editors' introduction undertakes a critical survey of the relevant empirical and theoretical background.
A substantial part of the empirical facts are presented here for the first time, and the book will inspire additional systematic investigation of the often neglected aspects of modificational strategies in Austronesian languages.
The book will be of value to linguists interested in contemporary syntactic analysis and to everyone seeking a deeper understanding of the formal properties of Austronesian.
eBook
LINKING BASIC LEXICON TO SHARED ONTOLOGY FOR ENDANGERED LANGUAGES: A LINKED DATA APPROACH TOWARD FORMOSAN LANGUAGES
This paper proposes an innovative approach to link basic lexicon (e.g. Swadesh list) to upper ontology as the foundation of OntoLex interface to address the challenge of building language resources for endangered languages in the linked data paradigm. A linked data approach to language resources requires existing, and preferably sizable, language resources. For endangered and other less-resourced languages, however, the scarcity of existing resources limits the possibilities and potential benefits of linking. The challenges are then, how can construction of language resources for endangered language continue to thrive in the linked data paradigm, and how can the linked data approach benefit language resources for endangered languages. Our proposal requires the bare minimum of available data and we show with examples from Formosan languages (Austronesian or aboriginal languages of Taiwan (Blust 2013, 20)) that 1) this approach is applicable to endangered languages, and that 2) in spite of the restrictions imposed by scarcity of resources, the linked linguistic data consisting of basic lexicon + upper ontology generate important new information. Comparing Swadesh lists from different languages allowed us to build a small shared ontology that reflects direct human experience, and can serve as the cross-lingual conceptual core. In addition, these micro-ontologized lexicons can be used as seeds for developing a fully-grown and more comprehensive documentation of linguistically motivated ontology for each language.
Journal Article
The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia
With nearly a quarter of the world's population, members of at least five major language families plus several putative language isolates, South Asia is a fascinating arena for linguistic investigations, whether comparative-historical linguistics, studies of language contact and multilingualism, or general linguistic theory.
This volume provides a state-of-the-art survey of linguistic research on the languages of South Asia, with contributions by well-known experts. Focus is both on what has been accomplished so far and on what remains unresolved or controversial and hence offers challenges for future research. In addition to covering the languages, their histories, and their genetic classification, as well as phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, and sociolinguistics, the volume provides special coverage of contact and convergence, indigenous South Asian grammatical traditions, applications of modern technology to South Asian languages, and South Asian writing systems. An appendix offers a classified listing of major sources and resources, both digital/online and printed.
eBook
A Computational Dialectology Approach to Mapping Bidayuhic Varieties in Tayan Hulu Using Gabmap
This study examines the linguistic variation of the Bidayuhic language in Tayan Hulu, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, through a computational dialectological approach using Gabmap. This study applies Levenshtein Distance to measure lexical and phonological differences in six observation sites, analyzing 491 lexical items. The findings show that the Bidayuhic language forms a linguistic continuum, where dialectal variation is not entirely aligned with geographical boundaries. Instead, lexical and phonological differences are influenced by language contact, social mobility, and cultural interaction. This study identifies the merger of the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) phonemes R and l into /r/, /ɣ/, and /h/, reflecting phonological innovations in the Bidayuhic language. Furthermore, ablaut in verb morphology is observed, distinguishing between transitive and intransitive verb forms. Cluster analysis via Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) and probabilistic clustering revealed two main groups, confirming that variation is gradual rather than regionally segmented. Despite adding 0.8 probabilistic disturbances, the clustering remained stable, validating the effectiveness of Gabmap in dialect classification. These results emphasize that Bidayuhic variation is shaped more by sociolinguistic interactions than geographical factors. This study highlights the role of Gabmap in linguistic mapping, offering a methodological model for mapping local languages in Indonesia.
Journal Article
HOW UNIVERSAL IS AGENT-FIRST? EVIDENCE FROM SYMMETRICAL VOICE LANGUAGES
Agents have been claimed to be universally more prominent than verbal arguments with other thematic roles. Perhaps the strongest claim in this regard is that agents have a privileged role in language processing, specifically that there is a universal bias for the first unmarked argument in an utterance to be interpreted as an agent. Symmetrical voice languages such as many western Austronesian languages challenge claims about agent prominence in various ways. Inter alia, most of these languages allow for both ‘agent-first’ and ‘undergoer-first’ orders in basic transitive constructions. We argue, however, that they still provide evidence for a universal ‘agent-first’ principle. Inasmuch as these languages allow for word-order variation beyond the basic set of default patterns, such variation will always result in an agent-first order. Variation options in which undergoers are in first position are not attested. The fact that not all transitive constructions are agent-first is due to the fact that there are competing ordering biases, such as the principles dictating that word order follows constituency or the person hierarchy, as also illustrated with Austronesian data.
Journal Article