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 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
4.2 Verbal clauses adjectives adverbial Austronesian banana canoe clitic coconut complement consonant constituent Coordination core arguments demonstratives derived dialect enclitic example expressed forms function head noun imperative independent pronoun Indirect possession inflection Interrogative sentences intransitive irrealis Islands lexical linkage locative Longgu Māori marked marker Melanesia Micronesian morpheme Mwotlap nominalised noun phrase object suffix occur Oceanic languages orthography Papuan languages Papuan Tip paradigm peripheral arguments phonemes phonological Phonotactics PHRASES 2.1 plural Polynesian POSS POSS-3SG possessive classifier possessor suffix postverbal preceding predicate prenasalised PREP preposed preposition preverbal proclitic pronominal pronoun Proto realis reduplication referred relative clause relativised Ross Rotuman semantic SENTENCES 5.1 sequence SG PL singular speakers stative stress subgroup subject prefixes subject proclitic subordinate syllable taro temporal third person Tobati transitive suffix transitive verbs Vanuatu verb phrase verb root Verb serialisation Verbless clauses village vowel woman word