The linguistic position of the Timor-Alor-Pantar languages

Studies in Diversity Linguistics, 2014

The Alor-Pantar family constitutes the westernmost outlier group of Papuan (Non-Austronesian) languages. Its twenty or so languages are spoken on the islands of Alor and Pantar, located just north of Timor, in eastern Indonesia. Together with the Papuan languages of Timor, they make up the Timor-Alor-Pantar family. The languages average 5,000 speakers and are under pressure from the local Malay variety as well as the national language, Indonesian.This volume studies the internal and external linguistic history of this interesting group, and showcases some of its unique typological features, such as the preference to index the transitive patient-like argument on the verb but not the agent-like one; the extreme variety in morphological alignment patterns; the use of plural number words; the existence of quinary numeral systems; the elaborate spatial deictic systems involving an elevation component; and the great variation exhibited in their kinship systems.Unlike many other Papuan lan...

Paper giving an overview of the history and state of the study of Papuan languages of the Timor-Alor-Pantar family.

2012

2011

The process leading to this thesis began when, during my MA studies in Zurich, my then supervisor Dr. Philippe Maurer introduced me to a Timorese student, Eduardo da Costa Guterres. His native tongue, Makasae, ended up being the topic of my MA thesis. Eduardo's commitment and enthusiasm convinced me that working in East Timor would be a worthwhile and rewarding thing to do. Dr. Aone van Engelenhoven, the present thesis' supervisor, was also involved in this endeavour from very early on -it was him who first made me aware of the possibility of pursuing my doctorate in Leiden. He then accompanied me on my first trip to East Timor, which would have been much much more daunting without him, and I am immensely grateful to him. Also, he was always willing to read and discuss any preliminary analyses and findings. None of this would have been possible, of course, without the consent of Prof. Maarten Mous to act as my promotor. He was very supportive and despite all his other duties always took the time to read parts of my dissertation when I asked him to. It was a pleasure to work with him. I also owe thanks to all other members of LUCL, who helped making my time in Leiden a unique and interesting experience. An honorary mention goes to

2012

The Papuan languages on the islands of Timor, Alor, Pantar and Kisar have typically been supposed to be related to one another. Based on their geographical proximity, this assumption of relatedness has been supported by impressionistic assessments of lexical and phonological similarity and the results of lexicostatistical measurements. Whilst recent historical work has shown definitively that the languages of Alor and Pantar are related to one another (Holton et al. 2012), the relation of the Papuan languages on Timor and Kisar has not yet been established with the proper methodological rigour. In this paper we present the results of a study applying the comparative method to the Timor and Kisar languages. We demonstrate the inter-relatedness of the Timor-Kisar languages through the identification of abundant cognate sets with regular sound correspondences between languages.

Studies in Diversity Linguistics, 2014

The Alor-Pantar family constitutes the westernmost outlier group of Papuan (Non-Austronesian) languages. Its twenty or so languages are spoken on the islands of Alor and Pantar, located just north of Timor, in eastern Indonesia. Together with the Papuan languages of Timor, they make up the Timor-Alor-Pantar family. The languages average 5,000 speakers and are under pressure from the local Malay variety as well as the national language, Indonesian.This volume studies the internal and external linguistic history of this interesting group, and showcases some of its unique typological features, such as the preference to index the transitive patient-like argument on the verb but not the agent-like one; the extreme variety in morphological alignment patterns; the use of plural number words; the existence of quinary numeral systems; the elaborate spatial deictic systems involving an elevation component; and the great variation exhibited in their kinship systems.Unlike many other Papuan lan...

Due to their proximity, the Papuan languages on the islands of Timor, Alor, Pantar and Kisar are typically seen to be related to one another. The assumptions of geography have been reinforced by impressionistic assessments of lexical and phonological similarity and by the results of lexicostatistical measurements, but have for the most part not been tested through rigorous application of the comparative method. Whilst recent work has shown the Papuan languages of Alor and Pantar to be related to one another (Holton et al. 2012), the inter-relation of the Papuan languages on Timor and Kisar (henceforth, simply ‘Timor-Kisar languages’) has not yet been demonstrated. In this paper we investigate the historical relations of the Timor-Kisar languages. Our aims are two-fold: (i) to establish that the Timor-Kisar languages are related to one another, and (ii) to identify the changes defining sub-groups amongst the Timor-Kisar languages. We show that the regular sound correspondences which can be established on the basis of form-meaning pairings support seeing the Timor-Kisar languages as inter-related. We further identify sound and lexical changes that define low-level sub-groupings amongst the Timor-Kisar languages.

2014. In Alor-Pantar languages. Language Science Press.

The Papuan languages of Timor, Alor, Pantar and Kisar have long been thought to be members of a single family. However, their relatedness has not yet been established through the rigorous application of the comparative method. Recent historical work has shown the relatedness of the languages of Alor and Pantar on the one hand (Holton et al. 2012), and those of Timor and Kisar on the other (Schapper, Huber & van Engelenhoven 2012a). In this chapter, we present a preliminary demonstration of the relatedness of the Timor-Alor-Pantar family based on a comparison of these two reconstructions. We identify a number of regular consonant correspondences across cognate vocabulary between the two groups and reconstruct a list of 89 proto-TAP roots. Schapper, Antoinette, Juliette Huber & Aone van Engelenhoven. 2014. The relatedness of Timor-Kisar and Alor-Pantar languages: A preliminary demonstration. In Marian Klamer (ed.), The Alor-Pantar languages: History and typology. Berlin: Language Science Press. 99-154

2007

This work contains the first comprehensive description of Abui, a language of the Trans New Guinea family spoken approximately by 16,000 speakers in the central part of the Alor Island in Eastern Indonesia. The description focuses on the northern dialect of Abui as spoken in the village Takalelang. This study is based on primary data collected by the author on Alor. With Pantar island, Alor Island is the western-most area where Papuan languages are spoken. Abui syntax is characterized by rigid head-final word order. The language presents a number of typologically interesting features such as semantic alignment. Characteristic for Abui is the extensive use of generic verbs. Generic verbs appear as parts of complex verbs or in serial verb constructions. This grammar covers the phonology, morphology and basic syntax of Abui. The appendix contains several Abui texts and word lists. Not being written against any particular theoretical background, this book is of interest to scholars of b...

Studies in Diversity Linguistics, 2014

The Alor-Pantar family constitutes the westernmost outlier group of Papuan (Non-Austronesian) languages. Its twenty or so languages are spoken on the islands of Alor and Pantar, located just north of Timor, in eastern Indonesia. Together with the Papuan languages of Timor, they make up the Timor-Alor-Pantar family. The languages average 5,000 speakers and are under pressure from the local Malay variety as well as the national language, Indonesian.This volume studies the internal and external linguistic history of this interesting group, and showcases some of its unique typological features, such as the preference to index the transitive patient-like argument on the verb but not the agent-like one; the extreme variety in morphological alignment patterns; the use of plural number words; the existence of quinary numeral systems; the elaborate spatial deictic systems involving an elevation component; and the great variation exhibited in their kinship systems.Unlike many other Papuan lan...