The Oceanic LanguagesThis new volume of the Language Family Series presents an overview of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian languages, spread across a region embracing eastern Indonesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia. It provides sufficient phonological and grammatical data to give typologists and comparativists a good idea of the nature of these languages, and of how much typological variety there is in this single subgroup. The references will allow those interested in particular topics, geographical areas or specific languages to delve further. Divided into two major parts, the first five chapters of the book place the Oceanic languages in their geographic, demographic and social context. Both the place of the Oceanic subgroup within the wider Austronesian family, and the internal subgrouping of Oceanic itself are dealt with. A typological overview of Oceanic languages is provided, as well as an outline of the reconstructed phonology and morphosyntax of Proto Oceanic. The second part of the book consists of grammar sketches of 43 Oceanic languages that are not at all well known in the linguistic literature. For many of these languages, the sketch in this volume is the first grammatical treatment to appear in print. |
Contents
Chapter 1 The Oceanic languages | 1 |
Chapter 2 Sociolinguistic background
| 23 |
Chapter 3 Typological overview | 34 |
Chapter 4 Proto Oceanic | 54 |
Chapter 5 Internal subgrouping | 92 |
The grammar sketches | 121 |
Listing of Oceanic languages by subgroup | 877 |
| 891 | |
| 915 | |
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Common terms and phrases
4.2 Verbal clauses adjectives adverbial Austronesian banana canoe clitic coconut consonant Coordination core arguments definite demonstratives derived dialect enclitic example expressed final find finish first first verb fish five forms function head noun imperative indefinite independent pronoun Indirect possession inflection Interrogative sentences intransitive irrealis Islands lexical linkage locative Longgu marked marker Melanesia Micronesian morpheme Mwotlap Nadroga nominalised noun phrase object suffix occur Oceanic languages orthography Papuan languages Papuan Tip peripheral arguments phonemes phonological Phonotactics phrase structure PHRASES 2.1 plural Polynesian possessive classifier possessor suffix postverbal preceding predicate prefix PREP preposition preverbal proclitic pronoun Proto quantifiers realis reduplication reflect reflexes relative clause Ross semantic SENTENCES 5.1 sequence singular speakers specific stative stress subgroup subject prefixes subordinate suffix syllable taro temporal third person transitive verbs Vanuatu verb phrase verb root Verb serialisation Verbless clauses vowel woman word