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This article concludes the special issue of Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics PLUS dedicated to the diachrony of Serial Verb Constructions. The authors of the ten contributions included in the volume discuss the most important results of... more
This article concludes the special issue of Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics PLUS dedicated to the diachrony of Serial Verb Constructions. The authors of the ten contributions included in the volume discuss the most important results of their studies and suggest the possible lines for future research.
Research Interests: Linguistics and Verb
This paper discusses a sociollinguistic project on language contact as a mechanism of cultural interaction and inter-ethnic communication. The focal points are the Greek language and the contact-induced changes in Greek, as a minority... more
This paper discusses a sociollinguistic project on language contact as a mechanism of cultural interaction and inter-ethnic communication. The focal points are the Greek language and the contact-induced changes in Greek, as a minority language under pressure from the dominant language in different socio-cultural and geographic environments, concentrating mainly on Australia and Argentina. This study critically overviews and assesses the structure and use of Greek in Diaspora in the aforementioned sociolinguistic environments, monitoring and evaluating the mechanisms of change under differential conditions and sources of influence. The paper also provides the theoretical perspective and a comprehensive book review on issues of transference and contrastive linguistics with emphasis on languages and dialects in contact. The article also identifies the effects of language contact in the areas of phonology, lexicon, morphology, syntax and pragmatic phenomena from a pluricentric perspecti...
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This chapter presents a message that terms 'ergative' and 'accusative' are appropriately used to describe ways of marking the functions of core arguments in a clause, and syntactic constraints on shared arguments in clause... more
This chapter presents a message that terms 'ergative' and 'accusative' are appropriately used to describe ways of marking the functions of core arguments in a clause, and syntactic constraints on shared arguments in clause linking. In this usage the terms have a coherent conceptual value. However, there has recently arisen a tendency to extend the use of 'ergative' to cover any association between intransitive subject (S) and transitive object (O) functions; and similarly to use 'accusative' for any association of S with transitive subject (A). The chapter focuses on a summary statement of the varied types of association between S and O (and between S and A). It summarizes a number of recurrent cross-linguistic associations between S and A. Finally the chapter serves as a call for more care in the use of terms like 'ergative' and 'accusative' (and 'absolutive' and 'nominative').Keywords: accusative; clause; core arguments; cross-linguistic associations; ergative; intransitive subject (S); transitive object (O); transitive subject (A)
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The recent years have seen an upsurge in studies of correlations between the use and the knowledge of Indigenous languages across the world and people’s well-being (including Olko et al., 2022; Walsh, 2018; and Whalen et al., 2016, to... more
The recent years have seen an upsurge in
studies of correlations between the use and
the knowledge of Indigenous languages
across the world and people’s well-being (including
Olko et al., 2022; Walsh, 2018; and
Whalen et al., 2016, to name a few; a brief
bibliography is in Aikhenvald, 2023). These
studies go together with growing interest
in maintenance and retention, and in reclamation
and revitalization, of Indigenous languages
spoken by underserved and oftentimes
neglected minorities, working towards
people’s equality and empowerment, so as
to expiate the evils of the colonial past. How
does knowledge of Indigenous language impact
the well-being of those who speak it?
studies of correlations between the use and
the knowledge of Indigenous languages
across the world and people’s well-being (including
Olko et al., 2022; Walsh, 2018; and
Whalen et al., 2016, to name a few; a brief
bibliography is in Aikhenvald, 2023). These
studies go together with growing interest
in maintenance and retention, and in reclamation
and revitalization, of Indigenous languages
spoken by underserved and oftentimes
neglected minorities, working towards
people’s equality and empowerment, so as
to expiate the evils of the colonial past. How
does knowledge of Indigenous language impact
the well-being of those who speak it?
Research Interests:
Each language bears an imprint of the society that speaks it — speakers' relationships to each other, their beliefs and ways of viewing the world, and other facets of their social environment, alongside speakers' habitat,... more
Each language bears an imprint of the society that speaks it — speakers' relationships to each other, their beliefs and ways of viewing the world, and other facets of their social environment, alongside speakers' habitat, subsistence, and physical environment. A grammar of each language will relate to, and be integrated with, the meanings and the choices which reflect societal practices. Ihe integration of language and society, as reflected in grammatical features of languages, is what this volume is about. It starts with a typological introduction summarising the main issues relevant to the integration of language and society, with special focus on grammatical phenomena. These include honorific forms, genders and classifiers, possession, evidentiality, comparative constructions, and demonstrative systems. It is followed by several studies focused on the ways in which societal norms and beliefs are reflected in languages of diverse typological profiles. The data are drawn from languages of Australia and New Guinea (Dyirbal and Idi), South America (Chamacoco, Ayoreo, Murui, and Tariana), Asia (Japanese, Brokpa, and Dzongkka), and Africa (Iraqw). The volume advances our understanding of the ways in which non-linguistic traits have their correlates in language, and how they change if the society undergoes transformations. The outcomes will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of typology, general linguistics, linguistic and cultural anthropology, and social sciences.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Page 1. NON-CANONICAL ARKING OF SUBJECT AND OBJECTS Edited by ALEXANDRA Y, AIKHENVALD R, M, W, DIXON MASAYUKI ONISHI JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY Page 2. r Page 3. NON-CANONICAL ...
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‘Word’ is a cornerstone for the understanding of every language. It is a pronounceable phonological unit. It will also have a meaning, and a grammatical characterization-a morphological structure and a syntactic function. And it will be... more
‘Word’ is a cornerstone for the understanding of every language. It is a pronounceable phonological unit. It will also have a meaning, and a grammatical characterization-a morphological structure and a syntactic function. And it will be an entry in a dictionary and an orthographic item. ‘Word’ has ‘psychological reality’ for speakers, enabling them to talk about the meaning of a word, its appropriateness for use in a certain social context, and so on. This volume investigates ‘word’ in its phonological and grammatical guises, and how this concept can be applied to languages of distinct typological make-up-from highly synthetic to highly analytic. Criteria for phonological word often include stress, tone, and vowel harmony. Grammatical word is recognized based on its conventionalized coherence and meaning, and consists of a root to which morphological processes will apply. In most instances, ‘grammatical word’ and ‘phonological word’ coincide. In some instances, a phonological word may consist of more than one grammatical word. Or a grammatical word can consist of more than one phonological word, or there may be more complex relationships. The volume starts with a typological introduction summarizing the main issues. It is followed by eight chapters each dealing with ‘word’ in an individual language—Yidiñ from Australia, Fijian from the Fiji Islands, Jarawara from southern Amazonia, Japanese, Chamacoco from Paraguay, Murui from Colombia, Yalaku from New Guinea, Hmong from Laos and a number of diasporic communities, Lao, and Makary Kotoko from Cameroon. The final chapter contains a summary of our findings.
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Every language has a variety of ways of expressing how one knows what one is talking about. In quite a few of the world's languages, one has to always specify the information source through grammatical means. Evidential terms may combine... more
Every language has a variety of ways of expressing how one knows what one is talking about. In quite a few of the world's languages, one has to always specify the information source through grammatical means. Evidential terms may combine reference to the information sources of the speaker and of the addressee and to information shared by everyone.
A special term for 'common knowledge' is a feature of a few large systems of evidentials. Sharing information source and common knowledge may constitute part of the meaning of an existing evidential within a large system. Shared context allows speakers and the audience to distinguish the exact reference of each evidential term. If a language — and the traditional lore associated with it — become obsolescent, the meanings of the evidential terms change. This is illustrated with a case study from Tariana, an endangered Arawak language from north-west Amazonia, Brazil.
A special term for 'common knowledge' is a feature of a few large systems of evidentials. Sharing information source and common knowledge may constitute part of the meaning of an existing evidential within a large system. Shared context allows speakers and the audience to distinguish the exact reference of each evidential term. If a language — and the traditional lore associated with it — become obsolescent, the meanings of the evidential terms change. This is illustrated with a case study from Tariana, an endangered Arawak language from north-west Amazonia, Brazil.
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We focus on the grammatical expression of four major groups of meanings related to knowledge: I. Evidentiality: grammatical expression of information source; II. Egophoricity: grammatical expression of access to knowledge; III.... more
We focus on the grammatical expression of four major groups of meanings related to knowledge: I. Evidentiality: grammatical expression of information source; II. Egophoricity: grammatical expression of access to knowledge; III. Mirativity: grammatical expression of expectation of knowledge; and IV. Epistemic modality: grammatical expression of attitude to knowledge. The four groups of categories interact. Some develop overtones of the others. Epistemic-directed evidentials have additional meanings typical of epistemic modalities, while egophoricity-directed evidentials combine some reference to access to knowledge by speaker and addressee. Over the past thirty years, new evidential choices have evolved among the Tariana-whose language has five evidential terms in an egophoricity-directed system-to reflect new ways of acquiring information, including radio, television, phone, and internet. Evidentials stand apart from other means of knowledge-related categories as tokens of language ecology corroborated by their sensitivity to the changing social environment.
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The emergence and the expansion of serial verbs can be affected by language contact. This paper focuses on a case study from Tariana, a highly endangered Arawak language spoken in the multilingual Vaupés River Basin Linguistic Area in... more
The emergence and the expansion of serial verbs can be affected by language contact. This paper focuses on a case study from Tariana, a highly endangered Arawak language spoken in the multilingual Vaupés River Basin Linguistic Area in Brazilian Amazonia. Tariana has numerous types of asymmetrical and symmetrical serial verbs highly frequent in discourse of all genres. Two kinds of serial verbs are on the rise. A construction involving a prefixed form -siwa with an emphatic, reciprocal, sociative, and reflexive meaning is developing into a serial verb construction. The motivation for this development lies in intensive language contact with the unrelated Tukano, now the major language in use by the extant speakers of Tariana, where reflexive and reciprocal meanings are expressed through serial verbs. The integration of recapitulating verb sequences with the verb -ni ‘do, make’ into the system of serial verbs is indirectly linked to the impact of Tucano where the verb meaning ‘do, make...
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... with a hit, or a bite)' 3.-wisa'break till it becomes flat';'crush by stepping on' 4.-taka'cut in two'... more
... with a hit, or a bite)' 3.-wisa'break till it becomes flat';'crush by stepping on' 4.-taka'cut in two' 1.-bill'inside' 2.-thepi'in (to) water' 3.-bisi'into fire' 4.-tatha'up with force' 5.-yana'inside a trap' 6.-hu'away with a brusque movement' 7.-thani'to and fro' 8.-kha,-khani,-khd,-khana'away' 1 ...
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A noun may refer to a man, a woman, an animal, or an inanimate object of varied shape, size, and function, or have abstract reference. Noun categorization devices vary in their expression, and the contexts in which they occur. Large sets... more
A noun may refer to a man, a woman, an animal, or an inanimate object of varied shape, size, and function, or have abstract reference. Noun categorization devices vary in their expression, and the contexts in which they occur. Large sets of numeral classifiers in South-East Asian languages occur with number words and quantifying expressions. Small highly grammaticalized noun classes and gender systems in Indo-European and African languages, and the languages of the Americas are expressed with agreement markers on adjectives, demonstratives, and also on the noun itself. Further means include noun classifiers, classifiers in possessive constructions, verbal classifiers, and two lesser-known types: locative and deictic classifiers. This introductory chapter offers a general typological background, focusing on issues in noun categorization devices particularly relevant for this volume.
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The intellectual and spiritual legacy of Iuly Aikhenvald (1872?-1928), a prominent literary critic, a philosopher, and one of the major exilees of the Philosophers' ship, percolated the lives and the work of his children. Their lives... more
The intellectual and spiritual legacy of Iuly Aikhenvald (1872?-1928), a prominent literary critic, a philosopher, and one of the major exilees of the Philosophers' ship, percolated the lives and the work of his children. Their lives largely revolved around their father's apartment on Novinsky boulevard (Moscow). Two complementary paths —continuity and defiance — is what sums up their intellectual interactions with Iuly, especially in his emigré years. Boris Aikhenvald (1902-1938), a philosopher, translator, expert in aesthetics and poetry, partly followed in his father's footsteps. And yet he defied Iuly's views on a few authors, including August Strindberg. Boris' view of the future of cinema is somewhat opposite to his father's famous 'rejection' of theatre. Alexandr Aikhenvald (1904-1941), a prominent Bolshevik and a member of the right wing-opposition, openly challenged Iuly's attitudes to the new regime. And yet Alexandr's keen awareness of social injustice — and honest analysis of what had gone wrong in the Russian revolution — resonate with his father's lines of thought. July's only grandson was my father, Yuri Aikhenvald (1928-1993), poet, translator, critic, theatre historian, and writer (whose work was also published in The New Review). Intellectual dialogue with the grandfather — whom he never met — is a thread that permeates much of Yuri's work. The story of the Aikhenvald family and the legacy of Iuli Aikhenvald is testimony to spiritual and intellectual continuity which has always kept Russian intelligentsia together, across centuries, countries, and regimes.
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The island of New Guinea is probably the most linguistically diverse and complex area in the world. The Sepik river basin displays cultural as well as linguistic diversity and fragmentation, perhaps more so than other areas of New Guinea.... more
The island of New Guinea is probably the most linguistically diverse and complex area in the world. The Sepik river basin displays cultural as well as linguistic diversity and fragmentation, perhaps more so than other areas of New Guinea. Many of the Sepik languages show signs of endangerment. Manambu, from the Ndu language family, is spoken by about 2500 people. Many Manambu children acquire Tok Pisin, the local lingua franca, as their first language, using it in their day-to-day communication. The paper shows that the value placed on the language by its speakers – and a number of cultural and economic trends in modern-day Papua New Guinea – are favourable to slowing down the process of impending language shift, and improving the perspectives for language survival.
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Classifiers are morphemes which occur under specifiable conditions and which categorise nominal referents in terms of their animacy, shape, and other properties. The most widely represented type is numeral classifiers, which occur next to... more
Classifiers are morphemes which occur under specifiable conditions and which categorise nominal referents in terms of their animacy, shape, and other properties. The most widely represented type is numeral classifiers, which occur next to a number word or a quantifier. Further types include noun classifiers, verbal classifiers, classifiers in possessive constructions, and deictic classifiers. One language can have more than one type of classifier. In some, the same set of classifiers occurs in several classifier contexts, corroborating the unity of the phenomenon. Classifiers categorise nouns, and have to be distinguished from verbal action markers used to categorise and count actions. Classifiers have a variety of functions, and are never semantically redundant. Classifiers mirror social attitudes and hierarchies, physical environment and means of subsistence, and are susceptible to change in language contact situations. Contributions to this issue adress the systems and the functions of numeral classifiers and also classifiers in multiple contexts across Asia and beyond, including Austronesian languages of Taiwan, a selection of Tibeto-Burman (or Trans-Himalayan) languages, Zhuang, a Tai-Kadai language, and Kazakh, a Turkic language.
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What everybody knows: expressing shared knowledge thorough evidentials Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald Centre for Indigenous Health Equity Research, Central Queensland University Every language has a variety of ways of expressing how one knows... more
What everybody knows: expressing shared knowledge thorough evidentials
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Centre for Indigenous Health Equity Research, Central Queensland University
Every language has a variety of ways of expressing how one knows what one is talking about. In quite a few of the world's languages, one has to always specify the information source through grammatical means. Evidential terms may combine reference to the information sources of the speaker and of the addressee and to information shared by everyone.
A special term for 'common knowledge' is a feature of a few large systems of evidentials. Sharing information source and common knowledge may constitute part of the meaning of an existing evidential within a large system. Shared context allows speakers and the audience to distinguish the exact reference of each evidential term. If a language — and the traditional lore associated with it — become obsolescent, the meanings of the evidential terms change. This is illustrated with a case study from Tariana, an endangered Arawak language from north-west Amazonia, Brazil.
Key words: evidentiality, common knowledge, assumption, Amazonian languages, Arawak languages, Tariana
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Centre for Indigenous Health Equity Research, Central Queensland University
Every language has a variety of ways of expressing how one knows what one is talking about. In quite a few of the world's languages, one has to always specify the information source through grammatical means. Evidential terms may combine reference to the information sources of the speaker and of the addressee and to information shared by everyone.
A special term for 'common knowledge' is a feature of a few large systems of evidentials. Sharing information source and common knowledge may constitute part of the meaning of an existing evidential within a large system. Shared context allows speakers and the audience to distinguish the exact reference of each evidential term. If a language — and the traditional lore associated with it — become obsolescent, the meanings of the evidential terms change. This is illustrated with a case study from Tariana, an endangered Arawak language from north-west Amazonia, Brazil.
Key words: evidentiality, common knowledge, assumption, Amazonian languages, Arawak languages, Tariana
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This is a brief introduction to the special issue of Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus. We present the concept of serial verb constructions (SVCs) conventionally understood as monoclausal sequences of verbs without any overt marker... more
This is a brief introduction to the special issue of Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus. We present the concept of serial verb constructions (SVCs) conventionally understood as monoclausal sequences of verbs without any overt marker of coordination, subordination, or syntactic dependency. We then focus on the mechanisms at work in the evolution of serial verb constructions, and the investigations of their origin and demise. We introduce the prototype approach to the category of SVCs as the basis of the study of verb serialization throughout the volume and discuss the research strategies applicable to the development of serial verbs in individual languages. The concluding section offers an overview of the volume.
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The emergence and the expansion of serial verbs can be affected by language contact. This paper focuses on a case study from Tariana, a highly endangered Arawak language spoken in the multilingual Vaupés River Basin Linguistic Area in... more
The emergence and the expansion of serial verbs can be affected by language contact. This paper focuses on a case study from Tariana, a highly endangered Arawak language spoken in the multilingual Vaupés River Basin Linguistic Area in Brazilian Amazonia. Tariana has numerous types of asymmetrical and symmetrical serial verbs highly frequent in discourse of all genres. Two kinds of serial verbs are on the rise. A construction involving a prefixed form-siwa with an emphatic, reciprocal, sociative, and reflexive meaning is developing into a serial verb construction. The motivation for this development lies in intensive language contact with the unrelated Tukano, now the major language in use by the extant speakers of Tariana, where reflexive and reciprocal meanings are expressed through serial verbs. The integration of recapitulating verb sequences with the verb-ni 'do, make' into the system of serial verbs is indirectly linked to the impact of Tucano where the verb meaning 'do, make' is used as a recapitulating device in bridging linkage. The development of recapitulating serial verbs in Tariana can be partly seen as an independent innovation, and as an outcome of language-internal pressure to create further serial verbs, expanding and extending the productive and much-deployed mechanism in the language.
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Linguistic genders are usually assigned to nominal referents on the basis of such core semantic properties as sex (or natural gender), animacy, humanness, in addition to shape, form and size. In a number of languages, linguistic genders... more
Linguistic genders are usually assigned to nominal referents on the basis of such core semantic properties as sex (or natural gender), animacy, humanness, in addition to shape, form and size. In a number of languages, linguistic genders have affective values. Reversing genders – from feminine to masculine or from masculine to feminine – often reflects speaker’s attitudes towards the entity, including endearment, respect, and disdain. The paper focuses on semantic effects of gender reversals, and the ways in which the choice of linguistic gender and gender switches may correlate with the implications of social gender as a cultural construct
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An alphabet book in the Tariana language
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1. Introduction: To write a grammar 2. A language and its setting 3. Basics 4. Sounds and their functions 5. Word classes 6. Nouns 7. Verbs 8. Adjectives and adverbs 9. Closed classes 10. Who does what to whom: grammatical relations 11.... more
1. Introduction: To write a grammar 2. A language and its setting 3. Basics 4. Sounds and their functions 5. Word classes 6. Nouns 7. Verbs 8. Adjectives and adverbs 9. Closed classes 10. Who does what to whom: grammatical relations 11. Clause and sentence types 12. Clause linking and complex clauses 13. Language in context 14. Why is a language the way it is? 15. How to create a grammar and how to read one Glossary References
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The chapter focuses on area diffusion and linguistic areas in the Amazon Basin, one of the linguistically most diverse regions in the world. The long-term history of language interaction in the linguistically highly diverse basin of the... more
The chapter focuses on area diffusion and linguistic areas in the Amazon Basin, one of the linguistically most diverse regions in the world. The long-term history of language interaction in the linguistically highly diverse basin of the Amazon Basin has been marred by a large scale language extinction and obliteration of contact patterns. At present, the Vaupés River Basin area is the best established linguistic area. Linguistic and cultural features of neighbouring languages in the Upper Rio Negro region, and in the basin of neighbouring Caquetá and Putumayo, point towards possible areal diffusion in the past. The Upper Xingu region is a well established cultural area; however, given its relatively shallow time depth, its status as a linguistic area is questionable. A number of other regions within Amazonia show traces of possible language contact with inconclusive evidence in favour of long-standing areal diffusion. A number of pan-Amazonian features are shared by genetically unrelated, and often geographically remote, languages. These may well reflect traces of linguistic contact which can no longer be recovered.
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[Extract] Every language has a way of talking about seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. In about a quarter of the world's languages, grammatical evidentials express means of perception (visual, and non-visual) and... more
[Extract] Every language has a way of talking about seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. In about a quarter of the world's languages, grammatical evidentials express means of perception (visual, and non-visual) and information source in general. Lexical verbs covering perception and cognitive processes mayor may not form a special subclass of verbs. Their meanings vary. In some languages verbs of vision subsume cognitive meanings (knowledge and understanding). In others, cognition is associated with a verb of auditory perception, touch, or smell. Grammatical, and lexical, expression of perception and cognition share a number of features. 'Vision' is not the universally preferred means of perception. In numerous cultures, taboos are associated with forbidden visual experience. Vision may be considered intrusive and aggressive, and linked with access to power. In contrast, 'hearing' and 'listening' are the main avenues for learning, understanding and 'knowing'. The studies presented in this book set out to explore how these meanings and concepts are expressed in languages of Africa, Oceania, and South America. The final section of this chapter offers an overview of the volume
This monograph is a description of grammar and lexicon of Modern Hebrew, the official language of the state of Israel. Modern Hebrew is an inflectional language, typologically close to other Semitic languages; however, the linguistic... more
This monograph is a description of grammar and lexicon of Modern Hebrew, the official language of the state of Israel. Modern Hebrew is an inflectional language, typologically close to other Semitic languages; however, the linguistic system of Modern Hebrew has undergone a significant number of changes due to the influence of Indo-European languages. This is reflected in its analytic tendencies in syntactic structures, and in the simplification of its phonological system. The Author discusses the issues of development and 'coming of age' of Modern Hebrew, and provides a brief history of the studies of the language. The book contains an analysis of the phonological system and the norms of pronunciation, and presents a sufficiently detailed analysis of the grammatical structure of the language (within the framework of this book series). The book contains appendices, with text samples, vocabularies and commentaries. This book is recommended for Semitologists and scholars of Heb...
A comprehensive study of language contact in north-west Amazonia
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Abstract: Kumandene Tariana, a North Arawak language, spoken by about 40 people in the community of Santa Terezinha on the Iauari river (tributary of the Vaupés River, not far from the Upper Rio Negro, a major tributary of the Amazon),... more
Abstract: Kumandene Tariana, a North Arawak language, spoken by about 40 people in the community of Santa Terezinha on the Iauari river (tributary of the Vaupés River, not far from the Upper Rio Negro, a major tributary of the Amazon), can be considered a new blended language. The Kumandene Tariana moved to their present location from the middle Vaupés about two generations ago, escaping pressure from the Catholic missionaries. The Kumandene Tariana intermarry with the Baniwa Hohôdene, speakers of a closely related language. This agrees with the principle of 'linguistic exogamy' common to most indigenous people within the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area. Baniwa is the majority language in the community, and Kumandene Tariana is endangered. The only other extant variety of Tariana is the Wamiarikune Tariana dialect (for which there is a grammar and a dictionary, by the present author) which has undergone strong influence from Tucano, the major language of the region. As a result of their divergent development and different substrata, Kumandene Tariana and Wamiarikune Tariana are not mutually intelligible. Over the past fifty years, speakers of Kumandene Tariana have acquired numerous Baniwa-like features in the grammar and lexicon. The extent of Baniwa impact on Kumandene Tariana varies depending on the speaker, and on the audience. Kumandene Tariana shares some similarities with other 'blended', or 'merged' languages — including Surzhyk (a combination or Russian and Ukrainian), Trasjanka (a mixture of Russian and Belorussian), and Portunhol (a merger of Spanish and Portuguese). The influence of Baniwa is particularly instructive in the domain of verbal categories — negation, tense, aspect, and evidentiality on which we concentrate in this presentation.
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[Extract] That firsthand knowledge of diverse languages is the backbone of any respectable linguistic work - and a sine qua non for trying to understand how languages work - has always been obvious for me. And what better way to acquire... more
[Extract] That firsthand knowledge of diverse languages is the backbone of any respectable linguistic work - and a sine qua non for trying to understand how languages work - has always been obvious for me. And what better way to acquire this knowledge than to do linguistic fieldwork - venturing into a new community, facing an unknown world, embracing difficult living conditions and trying to come to terms with new and unexpected linguistic structures. Working with a minority language, spoken out of the way of what we know as 'civilization', may be physically taxing - no running water (except in a river or a waterfall), no electricity, plenty of insects and diseases, tiring travel and further challenges. But what you learn is well worth the effort. In many ways minority 'out-of-the way' languages can be more expressive, more efficient and perhaps overall 'better' thatn familiar European ones (see Dixon 2016).
Each language bears an imprint of the society that speaks it — speakers' relationships to each other, their beliefs and ways of viewing the world, and other facets of their social environment, alongside speakers' habitat,... more
Each language bears an imprint of the society that speaks it — speakers' relationships to each other, their beliefs and ways of viewing the world, and other facets of their social environment, alongside speakers' habitat, subsistence, and physical environment. A grammar of each language will relate to, and be integrated with, the meanings and the choices which reflect societal practices. Ihe integration of language and society, as reflected in grammatical features of languages, is what this volume is about. It starts with a typological introduction summarising the main issues relevant to the integration of language and society, with special focus on grammatical phenomena. These include honorific forms, genders and classifiers, possession, evidentiality, comparative constructions, and demonstrative systems. It is followed by several studies focused on the ways in which societal norms and beliefs are reflected in languages of diverse typological profiles. The data are drawn from languages of Australia and New Guinea (Dyirbal and Idi), South America (Chamacoco, Ayoreo, and Tariana no Murui), Asia (Japanese, Brokpa, and Dzongkka), and Africa (Iraqw). The volume advances our understanding of the ways in which non-linguistic traits have their correlates in language, and how they change if the society undergoes transformations. The outcomes will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of typology, general linguistics, linguistic and cultural anthropology, and social sciences.
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The world over, younger generations speak differently from older people and show deviations from the established norm. How do transgenerational differences fare in the situation of imminent pressure from major languages and impending... more
The world over, younger generations speak differently from older people and show deviations from the established norm. How do transgenerational differences fare in the situation of imminent pressure from major languages and impending language shift in minority languages with predominantly oral traditions? In many communities, younger peoples' ways of speaking appear to bear an indelible impact from national languages and linguas francas. Extensive borrowing, code-switching, and loss of original forms and patterns appear to create a generally bleak picture. In actual fact, things are somewhat more complex.. Patterns of change in Innovative varieties of traditional languages spoken by people at least a generation younger than the bearers of the norm can be internally motivated. This is the case with 'anticipatory' changes whereby an innovative variety of a language spoken by younger generation replicate a change which has already taken place in a more innovative related language, or languages. Or their origins can be traced to the increased impact of contact with linguas francas or national languages, regularizing paradigms and creating new forms and expressions. The Innovative Tariana spoken by younger generations is a case in point. Tariana is the only Arawak language spoken in the Brazilian part of the multilingual linguistic area of the Vaupés River Basin (which spans Brazil and Colombia: Aikhenvald 2002, 2015). The language is spoken by about 100 people. The region is known for its obligatory multilingualism based on linguistic exogamy: you have to marry someone whose father speaks a different language than your father (and thus belongs to a different language group). Languages within the multilingual marriage network are Tariana (Arawak) and a number of East Tucanoan languages, including Tucano, Wanano, Piratapuya, etc. The Tariana used to be fluent in several East Tucanoan languages. Now, Tucano is gaining ground as the main language of the region (mostly thanks to the Catholic education policies); and many younger people use it on a day-to-day basis. There is a marked difference between the 'Traditional Tariana' (now almost gone; documented by the author in the 1990s-early 2000s) and the 'Innovative Tariana', currently spoken, which bears an increasing impact of Tucano, especially as concerns syntax and discourse patterns and also morphology. This contribution provides a systematic investigation of the Innovative Tariana, focusing on internally motivated changes (including 'anticipatory changes') and changes due to the impact of Tucano and Portuguese, the national language. Traditional Tariana used to be a predominantly oral language, with literacy developed in the early 1990s. All speakers of the Innovative Tariana are literate in the language. We also focus on newly emergent genres — including written stories (produced during pedagogical workshops), personal letters, and communication by e-mail, messenger, Facebook, and What's app — and concomitant language change.
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This chapter focuses on phonological and grammatical word in Yalaku, a minority language from the Ndu family in the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea. The phonological word in Yalaku is characterized by one single stress, and a number of... more
This chapter focuses on phonological and grammatical word in Yalaku, a minority language from the Ndu family in the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea. The phonological word in Yalaku is characterized by one single stress, and a number of phonological processes, including voicing of stops and the post-alveolar affricate, and k-fortition word-internally. The usual length of a phonological word is two syllables. One grammatical word corresponds to two or more phonological words in case of echo-compounds, nominal compounds, serial verb constructions, and full reduplication of non-cohering type. Cohering reduplication which produces one phonological word. One phonological word corresponds to more than one grammatical word if it contains clitics. All clitics in Yalaku can occur as independent phonological words if in focus. Monosyllabic third person cross-referencing markers are anticipatory clitics which form one phonological word with the constituent preceding their host, unless that con...
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Competing motivations are often at work in the choice of form and meaning of possessive and associative noun phrases. The article offers a broad typological review of the ways of expressing possession at the NP-internal level. In... more
Competing motivations are often at work in the choice of form and meaning of possessive and associative noun phrases. The article offers a broad typological review of the ways of expressing possession at the NP-internal level. In particular, it discusses how iconicity and economic motivations interact in determining the shape of NP-internal possessive expressions, also addressing the topics of how socio-cultural factors affect the grammar of possession and how societal changes are reflected in language variation.
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The Manambu language belongs to the Ndu language family, and is spoken by over 2500 people in five villages located on the Sepik River (Ambunti district, East Sepik province), in addition to a few hundred expatriates living in other areas... more
The Manambu language belongs to the Ndu language family, and is spoken by over 2500 people in five villages located on the Sepik River (Ambunti district, East Sepik province), in addition to a few hundred expatriates living in other areas of PNG. The language is still in active use (see Aikhenvald 2008). However, a substantial amount of ritual and traditional religious knowledge has been lost, challenging the continuity of the Manambu heritage. The speakers' competence in composing songs of any genre is rapidly dwindling. Traditionally, the Manambu had three song types: • mourning songs gra-kudi (sung by women after someone's death and during the mortuary rite Keketep which may take place a year later); • laments about foiled marriages and missing or endangered relatives (namay and sui), sung by men and by women. Each of these poetic literary forms (improvised by performers) consists of two parallel stanzas. The first one (referred to as apEk 'side') typically consis...
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Language and well-being Selected references (Alexandra Aikhenvald, updated February 2024) This is an ongoing project; any suggestions and additions will be most welcome Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2012. The languages of the Amazon. Oxford:... more
Language and well-being Selected references (Alexandra Aikhenvald, updated February 2024) This is an ongoing project; any suggestions and additions will be most welcome Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2012. The languages of the Amazon. Oxford: OUP.
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This is an ongoing project; any suggestions and additions will be most welcome
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The topic of my contribution is special spirit-only places where living people are believed to dwell after they die or if a spirit takes them there. These locations are invisible to the eye of common mortals, but can reveal themselves in... more
The topic of my contribution is special spirit-only places where living people are believed to dwell after they die or if a spirit takes them there. These locations are invisible to the eye of common mortals, but can reveal themselves in sgtories and under special circumstances. Among the people of the Vaupés River Basin Linguistic area, these are referred to as 'the village/settlement of the Fish-people'. Among the Manambu of the East Sepik, they are referred to as 'ghost-villages'. These are treated as 'alternative reality' and share some similarities (e.g. white people's riches) and also show some rather striking differences. Are they secret? Are they sacred? And how well-hidden are they if everyone seems to know about them? (Duringf my fieldwork, I was even shown one very concrete
location in Avatip where one can see the 'traces' of a spirit-village).
el more real than reality, more truthful than the truth'.
location in Avatip where one can see the 'traces' of a spirit-village).
el more real than reality, more truthful than the truth'.
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The topic of my contribution is special spirit-only places where living people are believed to dwell after they die or if a spirit takes them there. These locations are invisible to the eye of common mortals, but can reveal themselves in... more
The topic of my contribution is special spirit-only places where living people are believed to dwell after they die or if a spirit takes them there. These locations are invisible to the eye of common mortals, but can reveal themselves in sgtories and under special circumstances. Among the people of the Vaupés River Basin Linguistic area, these are referred to as 'the village/settlement of the Fish-people'. Among the Manambu of the East Sepik, they are referred to as 'ghost-villages'. These are treated as 'alternative reality' and share some similarities (e.g. white people's riches) and also show some rather striking differences. Are they secret? Are they sacred? And how well-hidden are they if everyone seems to know about them? (During my fieldwork, I was even shown one very concrete
location in Avatip where one can see the 'traces' of a spirit-village).
location in Avatip where one can see the 'traces' of a spirit-village).
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Across traditional Papuan languages and cultures, personal names are special. The principles of name-giving are in many ways as diverse as the languages and the cultures themselves. Naming systems display 'both linguistic intricacy and... more
Across traditional Papuan languages and cultures, personal names are special. The principles of name-giving are in many ways as diverse as the languages and the cultures themselves. Naming systems display 'both linguistic intricacy and cultural complexity' (Kroskrity 2021).
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This is a brief bibliography of works dealing with language and well-being (work in progress).
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A brief list of references on language and well-being, with special attention to grammatical frames and patterns, in minority languages in tropical locations.
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This is a working document with checklists of points on a number of topics addressed in several volumes authored or edited by A Y Aikhenvald and in workshops on grammatical categories organised by A Y Aikhenvald and R M W Dixon over the... more
This is a working document with checklists of points on a number of topics addressed in several volumes authored or edited by A Y Aikhenvald and in workshops on grammatical categories organised by A Y Aikhenvald and R M W Dixon over the years.
If you have any questions as to the points within the list and would like to use them for your fieldwork, it will be useful for you to contact Professor Alexandra Aikhenvald, a.y.aikhenvald@live.com, or a.aikhenvald@cqu.edu.au
If you have any questions as to the points within the list and would like to use them for your fieldwork, it will be useful for you to contact Professor Alexandra Aikhenvald, a.y.aikhenvald@live.com, or a.aikhenvald@cqu.edu.au
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The spread of Chinese diaspora and Chinese workers across the world has resulted in the emergence of numerous pidgins — simplified communication codes used in trade and workplace environments. The Chinese presence in PNG goes back to the... more
The spread of Chinese diaspora and Chinese workers across the world has resulted in the emergence of numerous pidgins — simplified communication codes used in trade and workplace environments. The Chinese presence in PNG goes back to the late nineteenth century — yet no Chinese-based pidgins have been documented. Was this so because the 'old' Chinese kept themselves to themselves, and used Tok Pisin and English for occasional communication with the locals, so that no propitious conditions arose for a formation of a pidgin? Or was it due to the 'invisibility' of the Chinese in the colonial accounts and histories? The advent of the 'new', mainland, Chinese in the 1990s and the spread of the Chinese-run enterprises saw a drastic change in the whole picture. Consistent interaction in the workplaces and growing trade have provided a ready setting for new means of communication. The Basamuk Nickel refinery in Madang Province is the birthplace of a workplace pidgin — a male-only variety created on the basis of Chinese, English, and Tok Pisin (addressed in I-Chang Kue's contribution). With the expansion of Chinese-run enterprises across the country, the workplace pidgin is here to stay. What makes Basamuk Pidgin unique is the fact that one of its lexifiers is a Creole language.
An unusual gender-based register, a foreigner talk, is in use in the Marmar market, outside the refinery itself. Used by women sellers to communicate with their Chinese customers (employees of the refinery), this register combines elements of simplified Tok Pisin, English, and Mandarin. Cultural tensions and differences in market practices between the Chinese and the Melanesian women bring about a further angle to this foreigner talk. It has features of a 'mock-language', whose function is to ridicule and belittle the aggressive and haggling business partners by mimicking their language practices.
The exact place of the newly emergent Chinese-based pidgin(s) and foreigner talk registers, and their stability, within the linguistic ecology of multilingual and multicultural Papua New Guinea, are a matter for further studies.
An unusual gender-based register, a foreigner talk, is in use in the Marmar market, outside the refinery itself. Used by women sellers to communicate with their Chinese customers (employees of the refinery), this register combines elements of simplified Tok Pisin, English, and Mandarin. Cultural tensions and differences in market practices between the Chinese and the Melanesian women bring about a further angle to this foreigner talk. It has features of a 'mock-language', whose function is to ridicule and belittle the aggressive and haggling business partners by mimicking their language practices.
The exact place of the newly emergent Chinese-based pidgin(s) and foreigner talk registers, and their stability, within the linguistic ecology of multilingual and multicultural Papua New Guinea, are a matter for further studies.
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All Ndu languages have productive clause chaining and elaborate systems of switchreference. Connectives tend to arise as a result of transparent grammaticalization of markers of summary linkage. Switch-reference operates on the principles... more
All Ndu languages have productive clause chaining and elaborate systems of switchreference. Connectives tend to arise as a result of transparent grammaticalization of markers of summary linkage. Switch-reference operates on the principles of subject identify between the reference clause and the marking clause. Iatmul and Boiken lack special markers of different subject. Manambu, Yalaku, and Abelam-Wosera have fewer markers of different subject than of same subject. Dependent clauses share intonational properties. Heterosemous case markers as clause linkers are a feature of Manambu and of Yalaku. The dative case is involved in marking purposive clauses across the family. A special feature of Manambu, Yalaku, and Abelam-Wosera is the option of questioning a constituent within a dependent clause without questioning the main clause. Same subject switch-reference-sensitive dependent clauses in Yalaku have an option of being within or without the scope of an imperative. Recapitulating linkage is a pervasive while summary linkage is a feature of Manambu, Iatmul, and also Yalaku.
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Across traditional Papuan languages and cultures, personal names are special. The principles of name-giving are in many ways as diverse as the languages and the cultures themselves. Naming systems display 'both linguistic intricacy and... more
Across traditional Papuan languages and cultures, personal names are special. The principles of name-giving are in many ways as diverse as the languages and the cultures themselves. Naming systems display 'both linguistic intricacy and cultural complexity' (Kroskrity 2021). This contribution addresses the types of names, including name-tunes, and their linguistic properties.
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Serial verb constructions reflect culturally typical events. This is exemplified using examples of motion events from Tariana, an Arawak language
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Ways of talking about diseases, ailments, convalescence, and well-being vary from language to language. In some, an ailment 'hits' or 'gets' the person; in others, the sufferer 'catches' an ailment, comes to be a 'container' for it, or is... more
Ways of talking about diseases, ailments, convalescence, and well-being vary from language to language. In some, an ailment 'hits' or 'gets' the person; in others, the sufferer 'catches' an ailment, comes to be a 'container' for it, or is presented as a 'fighter' or a 'battleground'. In languages with obligatory expression of information source, the onslaught of disease is treated as 'unseen', just like any kind of internal feeling or shamanic activity. Different stages of disease-covering its onset, progression, wearing off, recovery, and cure-form 'the trajectory of well-being'. Our main focus is on grammatical means employed in talking about various phases of disease and well-being, and how these correlate with perception and conceptualization of disease and its progression and demise. I offer a brief taxonomy of grammatical schemas and means employed across the languages of the world. I then turn to a study of terminologies and grammatical schemas employed in the trajectory of well-being in Tariana, an Arawak language from northwest Amazonia (Brazil), with special focus on cultural and cognitive motivations. The emergence and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected ways of speaking about this disease among the Tariana, especially with regard to the origins and the onset of this affliction.
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Beyond nominal tense: temporality, aspect, and relevance in Tariana noun phrases Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald Tariana, an Arawak language from Brazil, has nominal markers which convey temporal and aspectual information about the noun phrase.... more
Beyond nominal tense: temporality, aspect, and relevance in Tariana noun phrases
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Tariana, an Arawak language from Brazil, has nominal markers which convey temporal and aspectual information about the noun phrase. Besides nominal future, there is a distinction between completed and non-completed nominal pasts. The completed nominal past has three meanings — decessive ('late, gone'), temporal ('former'), and commiserative or deprecatory ('poor thing'). The latter is only applicable to humans and higher animates. The non-completed nominal past has a further semantic component of relevance of the state or property for the present time. The usage of the markers is governed by the principle of communicative necessity — in contrast to clausal, or propositional, tense-cum-evidentiality marker which are always obligatory. Having special means for expressing tense, aspect and relevance within a noun phrase — distinct from tense and aspect categories with clausal scope — constitutes a typologically rare feature of the language.
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald
Tariana, an Arawak language from Brazil, has nominal markers which convey temporal and aspectual information about the noun phrase. Besides nominal future, there is a distinction between completed and non-completed nominal pasts. The completed nominal past has three meanings — decessive ('late, gone'), temporal ('former'), and commiserative or deprecatory ('poor thing'). The latter is only applicable to humans and higher animates. The non-completed nominal past has a further semantic component of relevance of the state or property for the present time. The usage of the markers is governed by the principle of communicative necessity — in contrast to clausal, or propositional, tense-cum-evidentiality marker which are always obligatory. Having special means for expressing tense, aspect and relevance within a noun phrase — distinct from tense and aspect categories with clausal scope — constitutes a typologically rare feature of the language.
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A few of the world's languages have a marker indicating an indefinite possessor or an indefinite subject. Eight Arawak languages, belonging to five subgroups, have a prefix *i-, with the meanings of indefinite, or unspecified, possessor... more
A few of the world's languages have a marker indicating an indefinite possessor or an indefinite subject. Eight Arawak languages, belonging to five subgroups, have a prefix *i-, with the meanings of indefinite, or unspecified, possessor and subject on nominalizations, and a focused and unspecified subject on verbs. Three of these languages, all of them members of the Uapuí subgroup in the Upper Rio Negro region, add to this a marker of generic, or impersonal, possessor and subject, translatable as 'one', or 'someone', thus creating an unusual five-term set of person values. Notwithstanding the brevity of the prefix's form, its shared functions and geographical spread point towards its antiquity. We offer an in-depth investigation of semantic and syntactic features of the indefinite person prefix on nouns and on verbs, and then suggest possible scenarios for its historical development.
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The world over, younger generations speak differently from older people and show deviations from the tradition norm. In many communities, younger peoples' ways of speaking appear to bear an indelible impact from majority languages. Or... more
The world over, younger generations speak differently from older people and show deviations from the tradition norm. In many communities, younger peoples' ways of speaking appear to bear an indelible impact from majority languages. Or patterns of change in Innovative varieties of traditional languages can be internally motivated. A special instance of internally motivated developments involves 'anticipatory' changes whereby a variety of a language spoken by the younger generation replicates-or anticipates-a change which has already taken place in a more innovative related language, or languages (see Aikhenvald 2019). The situation can be further complicated by the impact of language obsolescence. And innovative patterns may spread across all generations of speakers within a community, obliterating the differences between traditional and innovative varieties. As modern means of communication-including internet and social media-become available to younger generations of speakers, we see the rise of new genres and new ways of saying things as part and parcel of younger speakers' speech practices (in agreement with the tendencies outlined in Yannuar et al. this volume). Most-if not all-these factors are at play in the development and usage of Innovative Tariana, spoken in the Vaupés area in northwest Amazonia (Brazil). We start with a brief snapshot of the language and its speakers in §1.
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Abstract. Serial verb constructions (or serial verbs) are sequences of verbs which form a single predicate without any overt marker of syntactic dependency. In terms of their composition, serial verbs can be asymmetrical or symmetrical.... more
Abstract. Serial verb constructions (or serial verbs) are sequences of verbs which form a single predicate without any overt marker of syntactic dependency. In terms of their composition, serial verbs can be asymmetrical or symmetrical. Asymmetrical serial verbs consist of (1) a minor component from a closed class of verbs which imparts aspectual, directional, modal, or valency-changing meaning to the construction and tends to grammaticalize, and (2) of a major component from an open class. Symmetrical serial verbs consist of two or more components each from an open class, and tend to lexicalize (see the framework in Aikhenvald 2018a). Serial verbs can be contiguous or non-contiguous; they may form one, or more than one, grammatical word. Serial verbs are a feature of over 50 languages from Lowland Amazonia, with two areas of concentration, one to the north and one to the south of the River Amazon. Multi-word contiguous serial verbs tend to be the property of mildly synthetic languages, while single-word constructions are attested in highly synthetic languages. A number of languages combine several types of serial verbs (among them Kampa subgroup of Arawak family, and Latundê/Lakondê, a Nambikwara language). Multi-word non-contiguous serial verbs are a comparative rarity in the region (attested in just a few Tupí-Guaraní and Guaycuruan languages). Serial verbs are a feature of at least one established linguistic area in the region — the Vaupés River Basin spanning Brazil and Colombia.
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In most languages of the world, the terms for human body parts are special. They constitute a closed subclass of nouns, and have a set of specific grammatical properties. They may undergo grammaticalization, giving rise to members of a... more
In most languages of the world, the terms for human body parts are special. They constitute a closed subclass of nouns, and have a set of specific grammatical properties. They may undergo grammaticalization, giving rise to members of a closed class of adpositions. They may be used in the expression of emotions, feelings, and the person's inner self, reflecting cultural stereotypes and cognitive patterns. The semantic range and grammatical properties of terms for 'internal' body parts — associated with mental states, understanding and reasoning — varies. This paper focuses on an analysis of body parts terms in Tariana, the only Arawak language spoken in the multilingual Vaupes Basin Linguistic Area, with special focus on kale 'soul, heart' and -daki 'body', and their use in various genres including shamanic spells.
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Bridging constructions-a means of linking sentences within narratives-can be of two kinds. Recapitulating linkage may involve repetition of the last clause of the preceding sentence as the first, dependent clause of the following one.... more
Bridging constructions-a means of linking sentences within narratives-can be of two kinds. Recapitulating linkage may involve repetition of the last clause of the preceding sentence as the first, dependent clause of the following one. Summary linkage involves using a generic verb in a dependent clause summarising the actions of the previous sentence. Both have been referred to with various terms, including tail-head or head-tail linkage. In a number of languages, including Tariana, a North Arawak language spoken within the Vaupes River Basin Linguistic area in Brazil, the two techniques are distinct in their form, the content of the recapitulating and the summary clause, and in their functions. Both bridging techniques are the result of recent areal diffusion from the neighbouring and unrelated East Tucanoan languages. The use of the generic verb in summary clauses and the repetition in recapitulating sentences are consistent with broader patterns in language structure and language use. 1 Bridging constructions: a preamble How does one tell a coherent story and make it flow-highlighting continuity or discontinuity of actions, throwing spotlight on some participants and events, and backgrounding others? Bridging constructions-a prominent feature of narratives in many
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Immersion fieldwork means being there to observe and to learn, to be part of the community, and to be integrated into a kinship system with its network of obligations and reciprocity. And to be given a new name — one then gets a feeling... more
Immersion fieldwork means being there to observe and to learn, to be part of the community, and to be integrated into a kinship system with its network of obligations and reciprocity. And to be given a new name — one then gets a feeling of belonging, a status, and even extra protection. Names can be special in terms of their grammar. The intricacies of naming patterns, and the features of names — as experienced throughout my life as a fieldworker — are the main topic of this paper. I start with Amazonia, and then discuss New Guinea.
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A number of the world's languages have a special morpheme marking a generic human participant or possessor, roughly translatable as 'one', or 'someone'. In the course of language history, a generic marker may undergo semantic change and... more
A number of the world's languages have a special morpheme marking a generic human participant or possessor, roughly translatable as 'one', or 'someone'. In the course of language history, a generic marker may undergo semantic change and take on further functions — those of (a) a first person inclusive, (b) a marker of possessor coreferential with the subject of a clause, or (c) just of a third person. A versatile prefix *pa- attested in a number of Arawak languages of South America offers new insights into clusters of functions involving a 'generic person'. The prefix is a feature of a variety of languages in the Upper Rio Negro region and a a few other Arawak languages spoken north of the Amazon, in addition to a few south of the Amazon. We discuss the meanings of the prefix in individual languages, and attempt to present a scenario of its historical development.
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The chapter focuses on area diffusion and linguistic areas in the Amazon Basin, one of the linguistically most diverse regions in the world. The long-term history of language interaction in the linguistically highly diverse basin of the... more
The chapter focuses on area diffusion and linguistic areas in the Amazon Basin, one of the linguistically most diverse regions in the world. The long-term history of language interaction in the linguistically highly diverse basin of the Amazon Basin has been marred by a large scale language extinction and obliteration of contact patterns. At present, the Vaupés River Basin area is the best established linguistic area. Linguistic and cultural features of neighbouring languages in the Upper Rio Negro region, and in the basin of neighbouring Caquetá and Putumayo, point towards possible areal diffusion in the past. The Upper Xingu region is a well established cultural area; however, given its relatively shallow time depth, its status as a linguistic area is questionable. A number of other regions within Amazonia show traces of possible language contact with inconclusive evidence in favour of long-standing areal diffusion. A number of pan-Amazonian features are shared by genetically unrelated, and often geographically remote, languages. These may well reflect traces of linguistic contact which can no longer be recovered.
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This chapter from the forthcoming The Oxford Handbook of evidentiality (ed Aikhenvald, OUP) deals with the effects of language contact on evidentiality and its expression.
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This paper addresses a special register of the Tariana language (Arawak, Vaupes Linguistic area) used within earshot of women, so that they couldn't hear terms associated with the Yurupary cult.
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The Arawak language family is the largest in South America in terms of its geographical spread, with over forty extant languages. Arawak languages are spoken in at least ten locations north of the River Amazon, and in at least ten south... more
The Arawak language family is the largest in South America in terms of its geographical spread, with over forty extant languages. Arawak languages are spoken in at least ten locations north of the River Amazon, and in at least ten south of it, and are structurally diverse. Across the family, the expression of first person is relatively consistent. We start with an overview of its marking and its meanings. We then turn to a detailed case-study of a complex of means involved in the expression of first person, or 'self', and 'other' in Tariana, a well-documented Arawak language from the multilingual Vaupés River Basin linguistic area in northwest Amazonia.
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The history of Arawak languages, a major language family in South America and adjacent regions, has been marred with language extinction and loss ever since the European Conquest. The European invasion — starting with Columbus reaching... more
The history of Arawak languages, a major language family in South America and adjacent regions, has been marred with language extinction and loss ever since the European Conquest. The European invasion — starting with Columbus reaching the coast of modern Haiti — the island of Hispaniola, and the location of the Taino, the first Arawak language to come into contact with Europeans in 1492 — resulted in decimation of numerous groups. Hundreds of languages have been irretrievably lost. Many extant languages across the Arawak family are highly endangered. No longer used in most spheres of communication, they face impending obsolescence and loss, under the pressure of larger groups and aggressive national languages. The remarkable diversity of Arawak languages is under threat.
A closer look at the development of some extant languages reveals a somewhat different and less depressing picture. Substrata from Arawak languages may have been instrumental in the creation of new ethnolects and varieties of national languages. The world over, younger generations speak differently from older people and show deviations from the traditional norm. Innovative Tariana, from the Vaupés River Basin in north-west Amazonia, is an example of a newly evolving younger people's variety. A new Tariana-Baniwa blended language is on the rise in one village on the Iauiarí river, off the Rio Negro in Brazil. As languages make their way into social media, new genres are on the rise. Across the family, attempts at language reclamation and language regeneration — through joint efforts of language communities, descendants, and linguists — produce novel language varieties. The emergent versions of Taino in the Dominican Republic and the USA are a case in point.
How vital are the newly developed varieties? And will they be transmitted across generations? These questions are bound to remain open for now.
A closer look at the development of some extant languages reveals a somewhat different and less depressing picture. Substrata from Arawak languages may have been instrumental in the creation of new ethnolects and varieties of national languages. The world over, younger generations speak differently from older people and show deviations from the traditional norm. Innovative Tariana, from the Vaupés River Basin in north-west Amazonia, is an example of a newly evolving younger people's variety. A new Tariana-Baniwa blended language is on the rise in one village on the Iauiarí river, off the Rio Negro in Brazil. As languages make their way into social media, new genres are on the rise. Across the family, attempts at language reclamation and language regeneration — through joint efforts of language communities, descendants, and linguists — produce novel language varieties. The emergent versions of Taino in the Dominican Republic and the USA are a case in point.
How vital are the newly developed varieties? And will they be transmitted across generations? These questions are bound to remain open for now.
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As a consequence of changing social environments and the growing influence of the colonial cultures, economies, and languages, many indigenous languages, and the multilingual ecologies they used to thrive in, face impending attrition and... more
As a consequence of changing social environments and the growing influence of the colonial cultures, economies, and languages, many indigenous languages, and the multilingual ecologies they used to thrive in, face impending attrition and loss. The Vaupés River Basin Linguistic Area in north-west Amazonia in Brazil is a case in point. This region used to be characterized by obligatory multilingualism based on the principle of linguistic exogamy: 'those who speak the same language as us are our brothers, and we do not marry our sisters' (see Aikhenvald 2015). Every person will be proficient in the language of their father, their mother, and of their playmates; they will identify themselves with their father's language and group. Starting from the early twentieth century, educational and employment policies of the powers that be resulted in a drastic reduction of multilingual patterns (with Tucano, the majority indigenous language, and now also Portuguese, gradually becoming dominant) and a gradual loss of minority languages, further exacerbated by intensive migrations to regional centres for the purposes of education and a better life. The reduction of traditional multilingualism, the loss of the main, 'father's', language, and the relaxation of linguistic exogamy are affecting people's self-esteem and well-being. Disease and misfortunes are often blamed on the fact that people speak a 'borrowed' language, and breach the principles of language-based exogamy. The ever-evolving 'discourse of nostalgia' (Hill 1998) in the Vaupés area reflects people's preoccupations with the collapse of traditional language ecology and its effect on their well-being. The current changes are contrasted with what we know about the effects of earlier migrations within the region and the dynamics of multilingual communities. in comparison with the processes at work in the Sepik region of New Guinea - another hotspot of linguistic diversity.
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2015. The languages of the Amazon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hill, J. H. 1998. “Today there is no respect”: nostalgia, “respect” and oppositional discourse in Mexicano (Nahuatl) language ideology. In Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, B. B. Schieffelin, K. A. Woolard, and P.V. Kroskrity (eds), 68-86. New York: Oxford University Press.
The author – name and address
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, PhD, Dlitt, FAHA, FQAAS, MAE
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2015. The languages of the Amazon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hill, J. H. 1998. “Today there is no respect”: nostalgia, “respect” and oppositional discourse in Mexicano (Nahuatl) language ideology. In Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, B. B. Schieffelin, K. A. Woolard, and P.V. Kroskrity (eds), 68-86. New York: Oxford University Press.
The author – name and address
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, PhD, Dlitt, FAHA, FQAAS, MAE
Research Interests:
Across indigenous minorities world-wide, the new ways of communication and communicative practices — including various social media platforms, mobile phones, and WhatsApp — are on the rise. A high uptake of social media platforms,... more
Across indigenous minorities world-wide, the new ways of communication and communicative practices — including various social media platforms, mobile phones, and WhatsApp — are on the rise. A high uptake of social media platforms, especially Facebook, has been signalled for numerous indigenous groups across the loci of linguistic diversity, including Papua New Guinea, Amazonia, and also the First Nations of Australia. This is particularly so in the world impacted by Covid-19, with wide-spread limitations on face-to-face contact and travel.
New technological developments and new interaction patterns within virtual spaces have resulted in linguistic innovations. A typical consequence is an influx of loanwords from contact languages, especially English. Speakers of some minority languages, with a tendency to ensure they are not understood by their numerous and aggressive neighbours, have a different preference: existing terms for traditional practices, such as drum beats, get extended to cover notions such as phone credit and phone number.
What happens if speakers of a language with obligatory evidentiality (that is, grammaticalized information source) acquire access to new ways of knowing things, via phones and social media? The new practices help us understand just how pliable these systems are. People who use social media and phones on a day-to-day basis treat them on a par with face-to-face communication, using visual evidential. In contrast, older and more traditional speakers, for whom social media remain an exotic rarity, tend to use non-visual and reported forms to talk about information acquired with the new means.
The impending rise of new forms of communication sets apart speakers of different generations: younger people who are often less well-versed in traditional genres and ways of saying things than their parents and grandparents are likely to excel in the knowledge of modern technology and in discourse within social media. As a consequence, we see the enhancement of transgenerational differences and speedy rise of transgenerational diversity of minority languages. New ways of saying things can be seen as an opportunity to enhance the vitality and the utility of minority languages in the new contexts, as many try and maintain their languages as 'in-group' communication devices within the vast web of social media platforms. Technological advances are responsible for rapid changes in the linguistic ecology, creating a further dimension for linguistic diversity and impacting the reflexive understanding of language and language use.
New technological developments and new interaction patterns within virtual spaces have resulted in linguistic innovations. A typical consequence is an influx of loanwords from contact languages, especially English. Speakers of some minority languages, with a tendency to ensure they are not understood by their numerous and aggressive neighbours, have a different preference: existing terms for traditional practices, such as drum beats, get extended to cover notions such as phone credit and phone number.
What happens if speakers of a language with obligatory evidentiality (that is, grammaticalized information source) acquire access to new ways of knowing things, via phones and social media? The new practices help us understand just how pliable these systems are. People who use social media and phones on a day-to-day basis treat them on a par with face-to-face communication, using visual evidential. In contrast, older and more traditional speakers, for whom social media remain an exotic rarity, tend to use non-visual and reported forms to talk about information acquired with the new means.
The impending rise of new forms of communication sets apart speakers of different generations: younger people who are often less well-versed in traditional genres and ways of saying things than their parents and grandparents are likely to excel in the knowledge of modern technology and in discourse within social media. As a consequence, we see the enhancement of transgenerational differences and speedy rise of transgenerational diversity of minority languages. New ways of saying things can be seen as an opportunity to enhance the vitality and the utility of minority languages in the new contexts, as many try and maintain their languages as 'in-group' communication devices within the vast web of social media platforms. Technological advances are responsible for rapid changes in the linguistic ecology, creating a further dimension for linguistic diversity and impacting the reflexive understanding of language and language use.
Research Interests:
Les noms personnels et les systèmes de dénomination jouent un rôle particulier dans les langues et cultures traditionnelles des minorités. Dans toute l'île de Nouvelle-Guinée, les noms personnels sont des signes et des gages de relations... more
Les noms personnels et les systèmes de dénomination jouent un rôle particulier dans les langues et cultures traditionnelles des minorités. Dans toute l'île de Nouvelle-Guinée, les noms personnels sont des signes et des gages de relations avec d'autres membres de la communauté. Les noms possédés par un clan peuvent être équivalents à d'autres biens de valeur. Ce qui est considéré comme s'appropriant le nom de quelqu'un d'autre sera contesté dans un débat sur le nom - une caractéristique d'un certain nombre de groupes dans la région de Sepik en Nouvelle-Guinée. Les noms ont un pouvoir de guérison (comme c'est le cas dans la région de Vaupés au nord-ouest de l'Amazonie, l'une des régions les plus multilingues du monde). Ils font partie des traditions poétiques, y compris celles des Manambu de la région de Sepik. Les noms non phonémiques - airs, sifflets et battements de tambour - sont une marque importante de l'identité d'une personne en Nouvelle-Guinée. Ceux-ci sont partagés avec l'Oyda, un groupe de langue omotique en Éthiopie. Au fur et à mesure que les langues et les cultures se transforment dans le monde moderne, les pratiques de dénomination européennes se développent et les méthodes traditionnelles sont en déclin. En raison de l'impact colonial, de la mise en danger imminente de la langue et de la perte des connaissances autochtones, les jeunes peuvent ne plus se souvenir de leurs vrais noms. Ce qui était autrefois des noms «sacrés» perd son statut spécial. Les genres poétiques centrés sur les noms tombent dans l'oubli, y compris les genres de chansons traditionnelles chez les Manambu. Le sentiment de perte se reflète dans le discours de nostalgie de ceux qui se souviennent encore du bon vieux temps. Comment récupérer les connaissances et garder les noms vivants? C'est l'un des défis que nous abordons dans cette présentation.
Research Interests:
This is an initial orientation paper on non-verbal predicates and copula clauses presented as the foundation for the Local Workshop of the Language and Culture Research Centre in 2021, projected to be the basis of further presentations,... more
This is an initial orientation paper on non-verbal predicates and copula clauses presented as the foundation for the Local Workshop of the Language and Culture Research Centre in 2021, projected to be the basis of further presentations, accompanied by points to address.
Research Interests:
A discussion of how common and shared knowledge is expressed in the world's languages.
The video is at https://youtu.be/mP4sHyk1YZE
The video is at https://youtu.be/mP4sHyk1YZE
Research Interests:
Every language has a variety of ways of expressing how one knows what one is talking about. In quite a few of the world's languages, one has to always specify the information source through grammatical means. Evidentiality —... more
Every language has a variety of ways of expressing how one knows what one is talking about. In quite a few of the world's languages, one has to always specify the information source through grammatical means. Evidentiality — grammaticalized marking of information source — is a versatile phenomenon, loved by journalists and general public alike. Evidential systems vary. In some, one has to just specify whether the information was obtained via a speech report, leaving other sources vague. In others, one has to indicate whether the speaker saw the event happen, didn't see it but heard it (or smelt it), made an inference about it based on visible traces, reasoning or common knowledge, or was told about it. Evidential terms may combine reference to the information sources of the speaker and of the addressee and to information shared by everyone.
A special term for 'common knowledge' is a feature of a few large systems of evidentials, including Yongning Na, a Tibeto-Burman language from China. Or sharing information source and common knowledge may be intrinsic to just one evidential term. In Tariana, an Arawak language from Brazil, this is achieved through an evidential whose overall meaning can be described as assumption based on logical inference from general facts.
A 'common knowledge' evidential expresses what is known to the whole community, as part of their shared experience to the exclusion of outsiders— much like 'What everybody knows' in the Spanish 2018 mystery-crime-drama film echoing the topic of this talk. A 'common knowledge' evidential will also be used to retell the lore and traditional knowledge passed down from one generation to the next. What are the overtones of the forms expressing 'common knowledge'? And what happens when a language becomes obsolescent and traditional knowledge slides into oblivion?
A special term for 'common knowledge' is a feature of a few large systems of evidentials, including Yongning Na, a Tibeto-Burman language from China. Or sharing information source and common knowledge may be intrinsic to just one evidential term. In Tariana, an Arawak language from Brazil, this is achieved through an evidential whose overall meaning can be described as assumption based on logical inference from general facts.
A 'common knowledge' evidential expresses what is known to the whole community, as part of their shared experience to the exclusion of outsiders— much like 'What everybody knows' in the Spanish 2018 mystery-crime-drama film echoing the topic of this talk. A 'common knowledge' evidential will also be used to retell the lore and traditional knowledge passed down from one generation to the next. What are the overtones of the forms expressing 'common knowledge'? And what happens when a language becomes obsolescent and traditional knowledge slides into oblivion?
Research Interests:
Across the world's languages, there is grammatical expression for four major groups of meanings related to knowledge. These are — I. Evidentiality: grammatical expression of information source. II. Egophoricity: grammatical expression... more
Across the world's languages, there is grammatical expression for four major groups of meanings related to knowledge. These are —
I. Evidentiality: grammatical expression of information source.
II. Egophoricity: grammatical expression of access to knowledge.
III. Mirativity: grammatical expectations of knowledge.
IV. Epistemic modality: grammatical expression of attitude to knowledge.
The four groups of categories interact. Some develop overtones of the others. For instance, some evidential terms may take on egophoric, mirative, or epistemic meanings.
Evidentials stand apart from other means of expressing knowledge in their scope, possibility of double marking, time reference different from that of the predicate, the option of being negated or questioned separately from the predicate of the clause, and specific correlations with speech genres and social environment.
Evidentials can be semantically complex. They may combine reference to the information source of the speaker and of the addressee, and access to information source. The general knowledge evidential attested in a number of languages is a case in point. Alternatively, an evidential term within a system may reflect access to knowledge and knowledge sharing, thus overlapping with the domain of egophoricity. This is the case for the assumed evidential in Tariana, an Arawak language from Brazil.
Evidentials and epistemic modalities display an unequal relationship. Evidentials often arise form reinterpretation of epistemic markers. Developments in the opposite direction are restricted. In a situation of language obsolescence: the erstwhile evidentials may undergo reinterpretation as modals, as the obsolescent language succumbs to a dominant one with no evidentials. Alternatively, an attempt to express one's information source in the dominant language with no evidentiality may involve a modal verb, leading a hapless fieldworker to erroneously equate evidentials and modals.
I. Evidentiality: grammatical expression of information source.
II. Egophoricity: grammatical expression of access to knowledge.
III. Mirativity: grammatical expectations of knowledge.
IV. Epistemic modality: grammatical expression of attitude to knowledge.
The four groups of categories interact. Some develop overtones of the others. For instance, some evidential terms may take on egophoric, mirative, or epistemic meanings.
Evidentials stand apart from other means of expressing knowledge in their scope, possibility of double marking, time reference different from that of the predicate, the option of being negated or questioned separately from the predicate of the clause, and specific correlations with speech genres and social environment.
Evidentials can be semantically complex. They may combine reference to the information source of the speaker and of the addressee, and access to information source. The general knowledge evidential attested in a number of languages is a case in point. Alternatively, an evidential term within a system may reflect access to knowledge and knowledge sharing, thus overlapping with the domain of egophoricity. This is the case for the assumed evidential in Tariana, an Arawak language from Brazil.
Evidentials and epistemic modalities display an unequal relationship. Evidentials often arise form reinterpretation of epistemic markers. Developments in the opposite direction are restricted. In a situation of language obsolescence: the erstwhile evidentials may undergo reinterpretation as modals, as the obsolescent language succumbs to a dominant one with no evidentials. Alternatively, an attempt to express one's information source in the dominant language with no evidentiality may involve a modal verb, leading a hapless fieldworker to erroneously equate evidentials and modals.
Research Interests:
Ways of talking about diseases, ailments, convalescence, and well-being vary from language to language. In some, an ailment 'hits' or 'gets' the person; in others, the sufferer 'catches' an ailment, comes to be a 'container' for it, or is... more
Ways of talking about diseases, ailments, convalescence, and well-being vary from language to language. In some, an ailment 'hits' or 'gets' the person; in others, the sufferer 'catches' an ailment, comes to be a 'container' for it, or is presented as a 'fighter' or a 'battleground'. In languages with obligatory expression of information source, the onslaught of disease is treated as 'unseen', just like any kind of internal feeling or shamanic activity. Do the grammatical means of talking about diseases and ailments reflect traditional attitudes and thoughts about the origins of adverse conditions? How are diseases inflicted and spread? And what are the patterns involved in describing traditional healing practices and 'getting better'? Our special focus is on languages from hot-spots of linguistic diversity and diseases of all sorts — especially Amazonia, with special attention to Tariana, an Arawak language spoken in the multilingual Vaupes River Basin area, and the problems of translating COVID19 information brochures into this and other languages.
Research Interests:
Linguistic diversity in Papua New Guinea comes in many guises — diversity of genetic groups, diversity in language numbers, and diversity of linguistic structures and forms. Add to this the diversity of genres and speech registers... more
Linguistic diversity in Papua New Guinea comes in many guises — diversity of genetic groups, diversity in language numbers, and diversity of linguistic structures and forms. Add to this the diversity of genres and speech registers available in the speech repertoire of every thriving language community. Transgenerational diversity adds a further dimension to this. Young people develop new forms, new ways of saying things, and even new languages. And they are hardly a minority or a negligible group. Within the context of PNG at least 32% of the population are aged under thirty.
Sadly, in a number of communities children no longer acquire their ancestral tongues, shifting to a national language instead. One example is Abu' Arapesh, a Torricelli language from East Sepik and Sandaun, and Iatmul in the village of Korogo in East Sepik (Nekitel 1998; Jendraschek 2012: 478).
In those communities where ancestral languages continue to be in use by children and young adults, we find intergenerational phonological and phonetic differences, partly under the influence of Tok Pisin, as in Yalaku, from East Sepik, and partly as an independent development, as in Nungon, from Morobe (Sarvasy 2017: 121, 350), and Yimas, from East Sepik (Foley 1991: 39). There is also regularization of paradigms and extension of one form to cover multiple functions, as in Manambu from East Sepik (Aikhenvald 2008: 323-4, 330). New conjunctions and clause-chaining markers are borrowed from Tok Pisin, or developed following the Tok Pisin pattern, as in Paluai, from Manus (Schokkin 2015: 424-5). Clause chains in younger peoples' narratives are markedly shorter than those told by traditional speakers. This is especially so in written stories, text messages, and internet communication — we see the rise of the new genres and ways of framing events (along the lines of Foley 2014, for Watam from East Sepik).
The desire to set themselves apart from older family members and keep their interaction private promotes creation of special youth-only speech styles. Young speakers of Nungon have a special code-speak, reserved for gossip or snide remarks, and not mutually intelligible with the mainstream language (Sarvasy 2017: 50; 2019 26).
Children and speakers under thirty are often less well-versed in traditional genres than their parents and grandparents. Young people's knowledge of terms for flora and fauna is often dwindling, as they no longer partake in traditional subsistence practices of their ancestors. Instead, they are likely to excel in the knowledge of modern technology and of appropriate terms. Young speakers of Yalaku are responsible for extending the language's own forms to cover notions such as 'flex, phone credit' and 'phone number', so as to avoid Tok Pisin and English terms and thus maintain the 'in-group' status of their native language. This innovation is now spreading. Young people's ways of speaking carry the seeds of language change — the direction which the language of a community is likely to take.
The ways in which young people deploy and manipulate their tok ples enhance its vitality and its utility. The linguistic legacy of youth is a foundation for the future. What can we do to ensure it gets a space in language documentation and in educational practices, within the multilingual and multicultural ecologies of PNG?
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2008. The Manambu language of East Sepik, Papua New Guinea. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Foley, William A. 1991. The Yimas language of New Guinea. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
—. 2014. 'Genre, register and language documentation in literate and preliterate communities', pp. 85-98 of Language documentation and description, volume 1, edited by Peter K. Austin. London: SOAS.
Jendraschek, Gerd. 2012. 'A grammar of Iatmul'. Habilitationsschrift. University of Regensburg.
Nekitel, O. 1998. Voices of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Language, Culture and Identity. New Delhi: UBS, Publisher Distributors Ltd.
Sarvasy, Hannah. 2017. A grammar of Nungon, a Papuan language of Northeast New Guinea. Leiden: Brill.
—. 2019. 'Taboo and secrecy in Nungon speech'. Mouth 4: 20-30.
Schokkin, Dineke. 2015. 'A grammar of Paluai, the language of Baluan island'. PhD thesis, JCU.
Sadly, in a number of communities children no longer acquire their ancestral tongues, shifting to a national language instead. One example is Abu' Arapesh, a Torricelli language from East Sepik and Sandaun, and Iatmul in the village of Korogo in East Sepik (Nekitel 1998; Jendraschek 2012: 478).
In those communities where ancestral languages continue to be in use by children and young adults, we find intergenerational phonological and phonetic differences, partly under the influence of Tok Pisin, as in Yalaku, from East Sepik, and partly as an independent development, as in Nungon, from Morobe (Sarvasy 2017: 121, 350), and Yimas, from East Sepik (Foley 1991: 39). There is also regularization of paradigms and extension of one form to cover multiple functions, as in Manambu from East Sepik (Aikhenvald 2008: 323-4, 330). New conjunctions and clause-chaining markers are borrowed from Tok Pisin, or developed following the Tok Pisin pattern, as in Paluai, from Manus (Schokkin 2015: 424-5). Clause chains in younger peoples' narratives are markedly shorter than those told by traditional speakers. This is especially so in written stories, text messages, and internet communication — we see the rise of the new genres and ways of framing events (along the lines of Foley 2014, for Watam from East Sepik).
The desire to set themselves apart from older family members and keep their interaction private promotes creation of special youth-only speech styles. Young speakers of Nungon have a special code-speak, reserved for gossip or snide remarks, and not mutually intelligible with the mainstream language (Sarvasy 2017: 50; 2019 26).
Children and speakers under thirty are often less well-versed in traditional genres than their parents and grandparents. Young people's knowledge of terms for flora and fauna is often dwindling, as they no longer partake in traditional subsistence practices of their ancestors. Instead, they are likely to excel in the knowledge of modern technology and of appropriate terms. Young speakers of Yalaku are responsible for extending the language's own forms to cover notions such as 'flex, phone credit' and 'phone number', so as to avoid Tok Pisin and English terms and thus maintain the 'in-group' status of their native language. This innovation is now spreading. Young people's ways of speaking carry the seeds of language change — the direction which the language of a community is likely to take.
The ways in which young people deploy and manipulate their tok ples enhance its vitality and its utility. The linguistic legacy of youth is a foundation for the future. What can we do to ensure it gets a space in language documentation and in educational practices, within the multilingual and multicultural ecologies of PNG?
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2008. The Manambu language of East Sepik, Papua New Guinea. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Foley, William A. 1991. The Yimas language of New Guinea. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
—. 2014. 'Genre, register and language documentation in literate and preliterate communities', pp. 85-98 of Language documentation and description, volume 1, edited by Peter K. Austin. London: SOAS.
Jendraschek, Gerd. 2012. 'A grammar of Iatmul'. Habilitationsschrift. University of Regensburg.
Nekitel, O. 1998. Voices of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Language, Culture and Identity. New Delhi: UBS, Publisher Distributors Ltd.
Sarvasy, Hannah. 2017. A grammar of Nungon, a Papuan language of Northeast New Guinea. Leiden: Brill.
—. 2019. 'Taboo and secrecy in Nungon speech'. Mouth 4: 20-30.
Schokkin, Dineke. 2015. 'A grammar of Paluai, the language of Baluan island'. PhD thesis, JCU.
Research Interests:
Ways of talking about diseases, ailments, convalescence, and well-being vary from language to language. In some, an ailment 'hits' or 'gets' the person; in others, the sufferer 'catches' an ailment, comes to be a 'container' for it, or is... more
Ways of talking about diseases, ailments, convalescence, and well-being vary from language to language. In some, an ailment 'hits' or 'gets' the person; in others, the sufferer 'catches' an ailment, comes to be a 'container' for it, or is presented as a 'fighter' or a 'battleground'. In languages with obligatory expression of information source, the onslaught of disease is treated as 'unseen', just like any kind of internal feeling or shamanic activity. Do the grammatical means of talking about diseases and ailments reflect traditional attitudes and thoughts about the origins of adverse conditions? How are diseases inflicted and spread? And what are the patterns involved in describing traditional healing practices and 'getting better'? Our special focus is on languages from hot-spots of linguistic diversity and diseases of all sorts-Amazonia and New Guinea. Preamble The ways in which disease, ailment, recovery, and well-being are conceptualised, across languages and cultures, correlate with how people talk about them. Different phases of disease or sickness tend to be expressed using different schemas in terms of grammatical constructions used (some of which have been mentioned in the previous materials). We start with a taxonomy of grammatical schemas identified across languages.
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This is an investigation of how non-specified possessor is marked across the Arawak language family, with special attention to the polysemous suffix(es) which mark possession and nominalizations across the family.
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Abstract: Kumandene Tariana, a North Arawak language, spoken by about 40 people in the community of Santa Terezinha on the Iauari river (tributary of the Vaupés River, not far from the Upper Rio Negro, a major tributary of the Amazon),... more
Abstract: Kumandene Tariana, a North Arawak language, spoken by about 40 people in the community of Santa Terezinha on the Iauari river (tributary of the Vaupés River, not far from the Upper Rio Negro, a major tributary of the Amazon), can be considered a new blended language. The Kumandene Tariana moved to their present location from the middle Vaupés about two generations ago, escaping pressure from the Catholic missionaries. The Kumandene Tariana intermarry with the Baniwa Hohôdene, speakers of a closely related language. This agrees with the principle of 'linguistic exogamy' common to most indigenous people within the Vaupés River Basin linguistic area. Baniwa is the majority language in the community, and Kumandene Tariana is endangered. The only other extant variety of Tariana is the Wamiarikune Tariana dialect (for which there is a grammar and a dictionary, by the present author) which has undergone strong influence from Tucano, the major language of the region. As a result of their divergent development and different substrata, Kumandene Tariana and Wamiarikune Tariana are not mutually intelligible.
Over the past fifty years, speakers of Kumandene Tariana have acquired numerous Baniwa-like features in the grammar and lexicon. The extent of Baniwa impact on Kumandene Tariana varies depending on the speaker, and on the audience. Kumandene Tariana shares some similarities with other 'blended', or 'merged' languages — including Surzhyk (a combination or Russian and Ukrainian), Trasjanka (a mixture of Russian and Belorussian), and Portunhol (a merger of Spanish and Portuguese). The influence of Baniwa is particularly instructive in the domain of verbal categories — negation, tense, aspect, and evidentiality on which we concentrate in this presentation.
Over the past fifty years, speakers of Kumandene Tariana have acquired numerous Baniwa-like features in the grammar and lexicon. The extent of Baniwa impact on Kumandene Tariana varies depending on the speaker, and on the audience. Kumandene Tariana shares some similarities with other 'blended', or 'merged' languages — including Surzhyk (a combination or Russian and Ukrainian), Trasjanka (a mixture of Russian and Belorussian), and Portunhol (a merger of Spanish and Portuguese). The influence of Baniwa is particularly instructive in the domain of verbal categories — negation, tense, aspect, and evidentiality on which we concentrate in this presentation.
Research Interests:
This presentation at the Third International Workshop (DAAD/Universities Australia) highlights the importance of social relationships in immersion fieldwok.
Research Interests:
Serial verb constructions are a sequence of verbs which act together as a single predicate without any over marker of coordination, subordination or syntactic dependency of any sort. Serial verb constructions can be symmetrical,... more
Serial verb constructions are a sequence of verbs which act together as a single predicate without any over marker of coordination, subordination or syntactic dependency of any sort. Serial verb constructions can be symmetrical, consisting of two or more verbs each chosen from a semantically and grammatically unrestricted class. Or they may be asymmetrical, and include a verb from a grammatically or semantically restricted class. Serial verbs can form one or more than one grammatical word. We focus on the distribution of asymmetrical and symmetrical serial verb constructions of single-word and of multi-word types in the languages of Lowland Amazonia, and discuss their functions, meanings, and origins.
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This is a talk delivered at a conference dedicated to the 150th anniversary of Iuli Aikhenvald, my greatgrandfather, entitled 'Fathers and Grandfathers: on the heritage of Iuli Aikhenvald in work and in destinies of his descendants'. I... more
This is a talk delivered at a conference dedicated to the 150th anniversary of Iuli Aikhenvald, my greatgrandfather, entitled 'Fathers and Grandfathers: on the heritage of Iuli Aikhenvald in work and in destinies of his descendants'. I talk about his three children - Tatiana, a mathematician, Boris, a philosopher, and Alexander, an economist and also a philosopher, and his grandson, Yuri, a poet, a cultural historian, a literary critic and an expert on Don Quixote. This is in Russian - but this can be translated.
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Noun categorization devices, or classifiers, of all types are a means of classifying referents in terms of basic cognitively salient parameters. These include humanness, animacy, sex, shape, direction and orientation, consistency, and... more
Noun categorization devices, or classifiers, of all types are a means of classifying referents in terms of basic cognitively salient parameters. These include humanness, animacy, sex, shape, direction and orientation, consistency, and function. In addition to that, in large systems of classifiers, one finds additional terms whose application is restricted to a limited set of referents, or even just to a single referent. For instance, numerous languages of Mainland Southeast Asia have elaborate sets of specific classifiers in the domain of social hierarchies and human interactions. Languages with multiple classifier systems spoken in riverine environment will be likely to have a special classifier for 'canoe'. Rather than categorizing entities in terms of general features, such classifiers with specific meanings and limited applicability serve to highlight items important for the socio-cultural environment of the speakers and their means of subsistence. Specific classifiers are likely to be lost if a practice or a hierarchy they reflect undergoes attrition. They occupy a singular place in language acquisition, dissolution, and the history of development of classifier systems. Why is it so that verbal classifiers hardly ever have terms with specific or unique reference? This question is addressed at the end of the study.
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The recent paper on serial verbs by Martin Haspelmath (2016. 'The serial verb construction: comparative concept and cross-linguistic generalizations'. Language and Linguistics 17: 291-319) has caused concern to a fair number of linguists.... more
The recent paper on serial verbs by Martin Haspelmath (2016. 'The serial verb construction: comparative concept and cross-linguistic generalizations'. Language and Linguistics 17: 291-319) has caused concern to a fair number of linguists. Quite apart from attempting to re-characterize the category, the paper contains a number of factual inadequacies.
Encouraged by our colleagues, we have written a straightforward letter to the editor of the journal Language and Linguistics, with a list of corrections.
Encouraged by our colleagues, we have written a straightforward letter to the editor of the journal Language and Linguistics, with a list of corrections.
Research Interests:
Analysis of number in Manambu, a Papuan language of New Guinea, within the framework of LCRC workshop on Number systems in grammar. Position paper available on request.
Research Interests:
Knowledge can be expressed in language using a plethora of grammatical means. Four major groups of meanings related to knowledge are Evidentiality: grammatical expression of information source; Egophoricity: grammatical expression of... more
Knowledge can be expressed in language using a plethora of grammatical means. Four major groups of meanings related to knowledge are Evidentiality: grammatical expression of information source; Egophoricity: grammatical expression of access to knowledge; Mirativity: grammatical expression of expectation of knowledge; and Epistemic modality: grammatical expression of attitude to knowledge. The four groups of categories interact. Some develop overtones of the others. Evidentials stand apart from other means in many ways, including their correlations with speech genres and social environment. This essay presents a framework which connects the expression of knowledge across the world's languages in a coherent way, showing their dependencies and complexities, and pathways of historical See More Readership Advanced undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in linguistics, anthropological linguistics, and also psychology, philosophy and social sciences For more information see brill.com
Note that my affiliation is now Central Queensland University. JCU has nothing to do with this publication, or any other publications of mine starting from 2021.
Note that my affiliation is now Central Queensland University. JCU has nothing to do with this publication, or any other publications of mine starting from 2021.
Research Interests:
A comprehensive study of language contact in north-west Amazonia
Research Interests:
A comprehensive analysis of language contact in northwest Amazonia, focus on the Vaupes linguistic area
Research Interests:
This is a comprehensive reference grammar ofTariana, an endangered Arawak language from a remote region in the northwest Amazonian jungle. Its speakers traditionally marry someone speaking a different language, and as a result most people... more
This is a comprehensive reference grammar ofTariana, an endangered Arawak language from a remote region in the northwest Amazonian jungle. Its speakers traditionally marry someone speaking a different language, and as a result most people are fluent in five or six languages. Because of this rampant multilingualism, Tariana combines a number of features inherited from the protolanguage with properties diffused from neighbouring but unrelated Tucanoan languages. Typologically unusal features of the language include: an array of classifiers independent of genders, complex serial verbs, case marking depending on the topicality of a noun, and double marking of case and number. Tariana has obligatory evidentiality-every sentence contains a special element indicating whether the infonnation was seen, heard, or inferred by the speaker, or whether the speaker acquired it from somebody else. This grammar will be a valuable source-book for linguists and others interested in natural languages.