There are few published grammars of the languages of the Admiralty Islands. This work makes avail... more There are few published grammars of the languages of the Admiralty Islands. This work makes available valuable data compiled by Po Minis and the New Britain missionary P. Josef Meier for the Titan language. Meier published seventy-five texts in Titan (the corpus is about 25,000 words) in the journal Anthropos between 1906 and 1909 and an addendum in 1912. Stories contain brief information about the speakers and are glossed word-for-word in German and occasionally Latin.
Sivisa Titan is divided into three sections. The first is a sketch grammar based entirely on the texts collected by Meier and published by him in Anthropos. Part Two is a wordlist compiled from the texts with an English-Titan reversal. Part Three contains the texts published by Meier. The present work provides English glosses based on Meier’s German ones and free translations, which are not included by Meier. Sivisa Titan will be an invaluable addition to our knowledge about the Admiralty Islands subgroup of Oceania. It also illustrates the importance of ethnographic texts collected in the local language and possibilities for analysis based on materials originally gathered for another purpose.
Linguists have long identified sound changes that occur in parallel. Now novel research shows how... more Linguists have long identified sound changes that occur in parallel. Now novel research shows how Bayesian modeling can capture complex concerted changes, revealing how evolution of sounds proceeds.
Abstract In the Sivisa dialect of Titan (Admiralty Subgroup, Oceanic) there are a number of prepo... more Abstract In the Sivisa dialect of Titan (Admiralty Subgroup, Oceanic) there are a number of prepositions that agree in tense/mood with the main verb of the clause. The marker of tense on prepositions is homophonous with the third person subject agreement clitic on matrix ...
ABSTRACT We compare the etymologies of ethnobiological nomenclature in 130 hunter-gatherer and ag... more ABSTRACT We compare the etymologies of ethnobiological nomenclature in 130 hunter-gatherer and agriculturist languages in Australia, North America, and Amazonia. Previous work has identified correlations between systems of ethnobiological terminology and dominant means of community subsistence, relating stability of terminology to the “salience” of the items. However, the relevance of subsistence patterns to the development of ethnobiological nomenclature requires further investigation, as does the notion of “salience” and how it might relate to etymological stability. The current study probes the relationship between salience and stability and the variability within this relationship. We refine the notion of stability by studying both inheritance and loan rates. We refine the notion of “salience” by separately testing retention and loan rates in flora and fauna vocabulary that might be considered salient for different reasons. Results indicate that the most etymologically stable items are core foodstuffs (whether cultivated or wild). Psychotropic items were more likely to be loaned. There were no significant patterns for cultivar status or trade, though we note that the most frequently loaned items in the sample are also traded.
The contact history of the languages of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait has been claimed (e... more The contact history of the languages of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait has been claimed (e.g. by Dixon 2002, Wurm 1972, and others) to have been sufficiently intense as to obscure the genetic relationship of the Western Torres Strait language. Some have argued that it is an Australian (Pama-Nyungan) language, though with considerable infl uence from the Papuan language Meryam Mir (the Eastern Torres Strait language). Others have claimed that the Western Torres language is, in fact, a genetically Papuan language, though with substantial Australian substrate or adstrate influence. Much has been made of phonological structures which have been viewed as unusual for Australian languages. In this paper we examine the evidence for contact claims in the region. We review aspects of the phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait languages with an eye to identifying areal infl uence. Th is larger data pool shows that the case for intense contact has been vastly overstated. Beyond some phonological features and some loan words, there is no linguistic evidence for intense contact; moreover, the phonological features adduced to be evidence of contact are also found to be not specifically Papuan, but part of a wider set of features in Australian languages.
Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights: On the Margins of Nations is a collection of papers o... more Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights: On the Margins of Nations is a collection of papers originally presented at the Foundation for Endangered Language's (FEL) annual conference; the 2004 meeting was held in Barcelona. The great majority of the papers are written in English, with a few in Spanish and one in Catalan.
Abstract Australian linguistic prehistory has lagged behind equivalent endeavours on other contin... more Abstract Australian linguistic prehistory has lagged behind equivalent endeavours on other continents in part because of the dearth of grammars and dictionaries until recent times, when there has been a great deal of high quality work done. Australianist linguists have tended not to use the standard comparative method. In some cases, this was because it was prematurely judged inapplicable in Australia, due to supposed very high levels of diffusion, which did not allow cognates to be distinguished from loans. This view is losing ground as ...
There are few published grammars of the languages of the Admiralty Islands. This work makes avail... more There are few published grammars of the languages of the Admiralty Islands. This work makes available valuable data compiled by Po Minis and the New Britain missionary P. Josef Meier for the Titan language. Meier published seventy-five texts in Titan (the corpus is about 25,000 words) in the journal Anthropos between 1906 and 1909 and an addendum in 1912. Stories contain brief information about the speakers and are glossed word-for-word in German and occasionally Latin.
Sivisa Titan is divided into three sections. The first is a sketch grammar based entirely on the texts collected by Meier and published by him in Anthropos. Part Two is a wordlist compiled from the texts with an English-Titan reversal. Part Three contains the texts published by Meier. The present work provides English glosses based on Meier’s German ones and free translations, which are not included by Meier. Sivisa Titan will be an invaluable addition to our knowledge about the Admiralty Islands subgroup of Oceania. It also illustrates the importance of ethnographic texts collected in the local language and possibilities for analysis based on materials originally gathered for another purpose.
Linguists have long identified sound changes that occur in parallel. Now novel research shows how... more Linguists have long identified sound changes that occur in parallel. Now novel research shows how Bayesian modeling can capture complex concerted changes, revealing how evolution of sounds proceeds.
Abstract In the Sivisa dialect of Titan (Admiralty Subgroup, Oceanic) there are a number of prepo... more Abstract In the Sivisa dialect of Titan (Admiralty Subgroup, Oceanic) there are a number of prepositions that agree in tense/mood with the main verb of the clause. The marker of tense on prepositions is homophonous with the third person subject agreement clitic on matrix ...
ABSTRACT We compare the etymologies of ethnobiological nomenclature in 130 hunter-gatherer and ag... more ABSTRACT We compare the etymologies of ethnobiological nomenclature in 130 hunter-gatherer and agriculturist languages in Australia, North America, and Amazonia. Previous work has identified correlations between systems of ethnobiological terminology and dominant means of community subsistence, relating stability of terminology to the “salience” of the items. However, the relevance of subsistence patterns to the development of ethnobiological nomenclature requires further investigation, as does the notion of “salience” and how it might relate to etymological stability. The current study probes the relationship between salience and stability and the variability within this relationship. We refine the notion of stability by studying both inheritance and loan rates. We refine the notion of “salience” by separately testing retention and loan rates in flora and fauna vocabulary that might be considered salient for different reasons. Results indicate that the most etymologically stable items are core foodstuffs (whether cultivated or wild). Psychotropic items were more likely to be loaned. There were no significant patterns for cultivar status or trade, though we note that the most frequently loaned items in the sample are also traded.
The contact history of the languages of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait has been claimed (e... more The contact history of the languages of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait has been claimed (e.g. by Dixon 2002, Wurm 1972, and others) to have been sufficiently intense as to obscure the genetic relationship of the Western Torres Strait language. Some have argued that it is an Australian (Pama-Nyungan) language, though with considerable infl uence from the Papuan language Meryam Mir (the Eastern Torres Strait language). Others have claimed that the Western Torres language is, in fact, a genetically Papuan language, though with substantial Australian substrate or adstrate influence. Much has been made of phonological structures which have been viewed as unusual for Australian languages. In this paper we examine the evidence for contact claims in the region. We review aspects of the phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait languages with an eye to identifying areal infl uence. Th is larger data pool shows that the case for intense contact has been vastly overstated. Beyond some phonological features and some loan words, there is no linguistic evidence for intense contact; moreover, the phonological features adduced to be evidence of contact are also found to be not specifically Papuan, but part of a wider set of features in Australian languages.
Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights: On the Margins of Nations is a collection of papers o... more Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights: On the Margins of Nations is a collection of papers originally presented at the Foundation for Endangered Language's (FEL) annual conference; the 2004 meeting was held in Barcelona. The great majority of the papers are written in English, with a few in Spanish and one in Catalan.
Abstract Australian linguistic prehistory has lagged behind equivalent endeavours on other contin... more Abstract Australian linguistic prehistory has lagged behind equivalent endeavours on other continents in part because of the dearth of grammars and dictionaries until recent times, when there has been a great deal of high quality work done. Australianist linguists have tended not to use the standard comparative method. In some cases, this was because it was prematurely judged inapplicable in Australia, due to supposed very high levels of diffusion, which did not allow cognates to be distinguished from loans. This view is losing ground as ...
BOOK NOTICES 179 this volume is to provide evidence from a number ofdifferentlanguagesandlanguage... more BOOK NOTICES 179 this volume is to provide evidence from a number ofdifferentlanguagesandlanguagefamiliesto... the apparent tendency that has existed in the past toseetheexplanationoflanguagechangeasac... between ''language-internal''(ie intra-systemic) and ''language-external''factors (ie contact)'(1). This collectioncomprises fourteenarticles, grouped under four major themes, with each article conveniently preceded by an abstract. Thefirstthemeis 'Levelling', aconceptwhichhas been extended from its 'internal'sense of complete or partial ...
Approximately half of the papers collected here were presented as part of a workshop on Grammatic... more Approximately half of the papers collected here were presented as part of a workshop on Grammatical Relations and Grammatical Change at ICHL XIV (the Fourteenth International Conference on Historical Linguistics) in Vancouver in 1999. Additional papers were invited following the workshop. The contributors to the volume are: WERNER ABRAHAM ('How far does semantic bleaching go?'), JOHN OLE ASKEDAL ('Oblique subjects, structural and lexical case marking'), JAN TERJE FAARLUND ('The notion of oblique subject and its ...
Western Arrernte, an Australian language, is spoken in Central Australia, in Alice Springs and in... more Western Arrernte, an Australian language, is spoken in Central Australia, in Alice Springs and in the country to the west of Alice Springs. This dictionary was compiled by Gavan Breen from historical sources and through the knowledge of the Western Arrernte community. It is a preliminary dictionary and will form the basis of a much more extensive work in the future.
Historical linguistics and language classification questions have recently been prominent in the ... more Historical linguistics and language classification questions have recently been prominent in the field (as well as in the wider media) because of work demonstrating connections between Athabaskan and Yenisei languages (Vajda 2000, 2001) and the use of computational biological methods to study change, subgrouping, and population spread (Gray et al. 2007). Campbell and Poser have written a complex book that covers many aspects of language classification. They make contributions to the history of the field, to ...
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Books by Claire Bowern
Sivisa Titan is divided into three sections. The first is a sketch grammar based entirely on the texts collected by Meier and published by him in Anthropos. Part Two is a wordlist compiled from the texts with an English-Titan reversal. Part Three contains the texts published by Meier. The present work provides English glosses based on Meier’s German ones and free translations, which are not included by Meier. Sivisa Titan will be an invaluable addition to our knowledge about the Admiralty Islands subgroup of Oceania. It also illustrates the importance of ethnographic texts collected in the local language and possibilities for analysis based on materials originally gathered for another purpose.
Papers by Claire Bowern
Sivisa Titan is divided into three sections. The first is a sketch grammar based entirely on the texts collected by Meier and published by him in Anthropos. Part Two is a wordlist compiled from the texts with an English-Titan reversal. Part Three contains the texts published by Meier. The present work provides English glosses based on Meier’s German ones and free translations, which are not included by Meier. Sivisa Titan will be an invaluable addition to our knowledge about the Admiralty Islands subgroup of Oceania. It also illustrates the importance of ethnographic texts collected in the local language and possibilities for analysis based on materials originally gathered for another purpose.