The Mek languages are a family of Papuan languages spoken in the eastern highlands of the Indones... more The Mek languages are a family of Papuan languages spoken in the eastern highlands of the Indonesian province Papua. They have a rich verb morphology with subject and object indexation and numerous temporal, modal, and aspectual categories. In this paper, I focus on the subject inflections, which are combined with tense or mood. Six paradigms of subject person-number endings are reconstructed. In addition, I reconstruct the personal pronouns. Shared innovations that emerge from the reconstructions are used to subgroup the Mek languages.
We focus on three language families located along the southwestern coast of New Guinea from the B... more We focus on three language families located along the southwestern coast of New Guinea from the Bomberai Peninsula in the northwest to Kolopom Island in the southeast: the Kamrau Bay family, the Asmat Kamoro family, and the Muli Strait family. Our purpose is to show that these languages form a larger family c alled Asmat Muli Strait. To this end we present sets of lexical cognates and the sound correspondences that can be observed in them. A crucial piece of additional evidence is a paradigm of verbal subject indexing suffixes that can be reconstructed to Proto Asmat Muli Strait. Our research shows that the Kamrau Bay family and the Asmat Kamoro family form a subgroup to which the Muli Strait family is more distantly related.
Aekyom, Pa and Kamula are spoken in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. We demonstrate that... more Aekyom, Pa and Kamula are spoken in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. We demonstrate that these languages form a language family by reconstructing the sound system , some vocabulary, pronouns and grammatical suffixes. We also trace loans from neighboring languages. It is shown that Aekyom and Pa form a subfamily called Elevala. We suggest that the nearest relatives of the Kamula-Elevala languages are the Awyu-Dumut languages spoken across the border in Indonesian Papua.
In this paper, we propose a new family of Papuan languages. The Anim languages are spread across ... more In this paper, we propose a new family of Papuan languages. The Anim languages are spread across the lowlands of south New Guinea on both sides of the border between Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian Province of Papua. They share a system of four genders that manifest themselves in adjective agreement and in the demonstratives. Two demonstratives can be reconstructed. The demonstrative *tV 'that' has the gender forms *te (masculine singular), *tu (feminine singular), *ti (plural masculine and feminine), *to/*ta (neuter 1), and *ti (neuter 2). We also reconstruct a singulative suffix and the pronominal object prefixes of the verb. Most Anim languages are only sparsely documented, and much of our data come from survey word lists. We present 44 sets of Anim lexical cognates, including both nouns and verbs. In combination with the fuller lexical evidence for the four subfamilies, this allows posit-ing regular sound correspondences for 13 of the 17 Anim languages.
A small number of monosyllabic verbs make up a large part of the verb occurrences in Kâte discour... more A small number of monosyllabic verbs make up a large part of the verb occurrences in Kâte discourse. In this paper the focus is on two of them, the near-synonyms he 'hit' and qa 'hit'. These verbs play a prominent role in the formation of two types of complex predicates, namely predicate collocations and causative compounds. It is found that he 'hit' and qa 'hit' do not stand in semantic opposition to each other in these complex predicates. When used as independent main verbs, however, they do have different meanings. They suggest the use of a different instrument of hitting and a different result of the impact.
In: John Bowden, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann and Malcolm Ross (eds.) 2010. A journey through Austronesian and Papuan linguistic and cultural space. Papers in honour of Andrew Pawley. [PL 615]. 423-37. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
In this paper, the conditions of use of the optional ergative of Kâte in transitive clauses are s... more In this paper, the conditions of use of the optional ergative of Kâte in transitive clauses are studied. There are two environments in which the use of the ergative is virtually obligatory: in clauses with the marked word order OSV, and when the subject is bound by a focus particle. These two environments have in common that the subject is highly rhematic in them. In quantitative discourse analysis further evidence is found that high rhematicity triggers ergative marking. Personal pronouns, which are inherently thematic, are less likely to be marked by the ergative than nouns. Furthermore, in transitive clauses with an overt direct object NP the subject is less likely to be ergatively marked than in clauses with an ellipsed direct object.
The Huon Peninsula languages are a family of Papuan languages spoken in the northeast of the isla... more The Huon Peninsula languages are a family of Papuan languages spoken in the northeast of the island of New Guinea. The family comprises 21 languages. One of them, Kovai, is not spoken on the Huon Peninsula but on Umboi Island in the Vitiaz Strait, which separates New Guinea from New Britain. In this dissertation, the Huon Peninsula languages are compared to each other with the aim of reconstructing the commonly inherited morphology. The verb is rich in morphology, showing prefixes as well as suffixes. The prefixes occur on a small closed class of verbs and index the person and number of the object referent. About two dozen verbs with object prefixes can be reconstructed to various subfamilies and five of them to the top-level family. The verb suffixes index the person and number of the subject referent and express tenses or moods. Partial paradigms for five tenses and moods can be reconstructed to Proto-Huon Peninsula and several more to the subfamilies. As in many other language families, the personal pronouns are stable so that all forms can be reconstructed. Other pronouns that lend themselves to reconstruction are the possessive affixes and basic as well as elevational demonstratives. In the nominal domain, the Huon Peninsula languages share six types of case enclitic, three of which can be reconstructed to the top-level family. Apart from reconstructing aspects of the proto-languages of the languages compared, the dissertation also sheds light on processes of language contact that have shaped them.
The Mek languages are a family of Papuan languages spoken in the eastern highlands of the Indones... more The Mek languages are a family of Papuan languages spoken in the eastern highlands of the Indonesian province Papua. They have a rich verb morphology with subject and object indexation and numerous temporal, modal, and aspectual categories. In this paper, I focus on the subject inflections, which are combined with tense or mood. Six paradigms of subject person-number endings are reconstructed. In addition, I reconstruct the personal pronouns. Shared innovations that emerge from the reconstructions are used to subgroup the Mek languages.
We focus on three language families located along the southwestern coast of New Guinea from the B... more We focus on three language families located along the southwestern coast of New Guinea from the Bomberai Peninsula in the northwest to Kolopom Island in the southeast: the Kamrau Bay family, the Asmat Kamoro family, and the Muli Strait family. Our purpose is to show that these languages form a larger family c alled Asmat Muli Strait. To this end we present sets of lexical cognates and the sound correspondences that can be observed in them. A crucial piece of additional evidence is a paradigm of verbal subject indexing suffixes that can be reconstructed to Proto Asmat Muli Strait. Our research shows that the Kamrau Bay family and the Asmat Kamoro family form a subgroup to which the Muli Strait family is more distantly related.
Aekyom, Pa and Kamula are spoken in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. We demonstrate that... more Aekyom, Pa and Kamula are spoken in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. We demonstrate that these languages form a language family by reconstructing the sound system , some vocabulary, pronouns and grammatical suffixes. We also trace loans from neighboring languages. It is shown that Aekyom and Pa form a subfamily called Elevala. We suggest that the nearest relatives of the Kamula-Elevala languages are the Awyu-Dumut languages spoken across the border in Indonesian Papua.
In this paper, we propose a new family of Papuan languages. The Anim languages are spread across ... more In this paper, we propose a new family of Papuan languages. The Anim languages are spread across the lowlands of south New Guinea on both sides of the border between Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian Province of Papua. They share a system of four genders that manifest themselves in adjective agreement and in the demonstratives. Two demonstratives can be reconstructed. The demonstrative *tV 'that' has the gender forms *te (masculine singular), *tu (feminine singular), *ti (plural masculine and feminine), *to/*ta (neuter 1), and *ti (neuter 2). We also reconstruct a singulative suffix and the pronominal object prefixes of the verb. Most Anim languages are only sparsely documented, and much of our data come from survey word lists. We present 44 sets of Anim lexical cognates, including both nouns and verbs. In combination with the fuller lexical evidence for the four subfamilies, this allows posit-ing regular sound correspondences for 13 of the 17 Anim languages.
A small number of monosyllabic verbs make up a large part of the verb occurrences in Kâte discour... more A small number of monosyllabic verbs make up a large part of the verb occurrences in Kâte discourse. In this paper the focus is on two of them, the near-synonyms he 'hit' and qa 'hit'. These verbs play a prominent role in the formation of two types of complex predicates, namely predicate collocations and causative compounds. It is found that he 'hit' and qa 'hit' do not stand in semantic opposition to each other in these complex predicates. When used as independent main verbs, however, they do have different meanings. They suggest the use of a different instrument of hitting and a different result of the impact.
In: John Bowden, Nikolaus P. Himmelmann and Malcolm Ross (eds.) 2010. A journey through Austronesian and Papuan linguistic and cultural space. Papers in honour of Andrew Pawley. [PL 615]. 423-37. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
In this paper, the conditions of use of the optional ergative of Kâte in transitive clauses are s... more In this paper, the conditions of use of the optional ergative of Kâte in transitive clauses are studied. There are two environments in which the use of the ergative is virtually obligatory: in clauses with the marked word order OSV, and when the subject is bound by a focus particle. These two environments have in common that the subject is highly rhematic in them. In quantitative discourse analysis further evidence is found that high rhematicity triggers ergative marking. Personal pronouns, which are inherently thematic, are less likely to be marked by the ergative than nouns. Furthermore, in transitive clauses with an overt direct object NP the subject is less likely to be ergatively marked than in clauses with an ellipsed direct object.
The Huon Peninsula languages are a family of Papuan languages spoken in the northeast of the isla... more The Huon Peninsula languages are a family of Papuan languages spoken in the northeast of the island of New Guinea. The family comprises 21 languages. One of them, Kovai, is not spoken on the Huon Peninsula but on Umboi Island in the Vitiaz Strait, which separates New Guinea from New Britain. In this dissertation, the Huon Peninsula languages are compared to each other with the aim of reconstructing the commonly inherited morphology. The verb is rich in morphology, showing prefixes as well as suffixes. The prefixes occur on a small closed class of verbs and index the person and number of the object referent. About two dozen verbs with object prefixes can be reconstructed to various subfamilies and five of them to the top-level family. The verb suffixes index the person and number of the subject referent and express tenses or moods. Partial paradigms for five tenses and moods can be reconstructed to Proto-Huon Peninsula and several more to the subfamilies. As in many other language families, the personal pronouns are stable so that all forms can be reconstructed. Other pronouns that lend themselves to reconstruction are the possessive affixes and basic as well as elevational demonstratives. In the nominal domain, the Huon Peninsula languages share six types of case enclitic, three of which can be reconstructed to the top-level family. Apart from reconstructing aspects of the proto-languages of the languages compared, the dissertation also sheds light on processes of language contact that have shaped them.
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