Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[Creyeditor]

My personal Papuan prototype includes the following:

• Small consonant inventory (no/few fricatives)
• Prenasalized voiced stops or weak implosives (might be allophones)
• One super-rare consonant (like a bilabial trill, a velar lateral)
• Five vowels + length
• A word tone system
• Simple to moderately simple syllable structur (CV or CVC)
• Rich morphology (concatenative/non-concatenative)
• TAM/Agreement inflection on verbs
• Light verbs or something similar
• mainly suffixes
• non-canonical ways of linking clauses

[bradrn]

Not that similar to South American - fewer nasal vowels and more coda consonants.

I’m just going on anecdotal evidence from the Name That Language thread — I tend to confuse Papuan and South American languages with each other.

A prototypical Papuan inventory would be something like /p t k mb nd Ng s m n N l r/ + optional /f h B G/ + /j w/ + labiovelars.

To me this structure seems more like something specifically TNG. Then again, those are the stereotypical Papuan languages in a sense.

One super-rare consonant (like a bilabial trill, a velar lateral)

These consonants are super-rare even amongst Papuan languages. It’s just that there’s so many of them that you can easily find a few nonetheless.

A word tone system

I don’t believe this is all that common either.

Rich morphology (concatenative/non-concatenative)

This is the case for many families, but not TNG. Also, the whole of north-eastern Papua New Guinea is mostly isolating.

non-canonical ways of linking clauses

I don’t understand what this means. For one, switch-reference is pretty common amongst SOV languages worldwide, not just in Papuan languages.

[Darren]

According to Bill Foley, some common morphosyntactic features of Papuan languages are:

• Sharp distinction between nouns and verbs
• Generally rich in nominalisers and poor in verbalisers
• Verbs always have more morphology than nouns
• Nouns generally unmarked for number
• Gender is common, often masculine/feminine
• Simple or no case systems
• Ergativity, where it exists, is semantically complex
• Truncated pronoun systems are common
• Ditransitives non-existent or limited
• Most languages have verbal subject agreement
• Object agreement is relatively common
• Often complex derivational processes in verbs
• Word-order is never verb-initial (except for Kuot); SOV and SVO are common
• Use of light verbs
• SVCs everywhere apart from the south coast
• Topic and focus markers are common

Of these, I'd say ergativity, SOV syntax, SVCs, more complex verbal than nominal morphology and wack pronoun systems are the most distinctive of these.

[Otto Kretschmer]

What are the most conservative and most innovative Austronesian branches?

[Kuchigakatai]

As someone who knows next to nothing about Papuan, this conversation is pretty interesting...

Truncated pronoun systems are common
[...] wack pronoun systems

Any memorable example(s) you could share?

Often complex derivational processes in verbs

Do you know what Foley may be meaning by this?

Also, is your list citeable, so that I could add it to Wikipedia somewhere?

[zompist]

According to Bill Foley, some common morphosyntactic features of Papuan languages are:

[*]Verbs always have more morphology than nouns

I don't know anything about Papuan, but isn't this a near-universal? Where do nouns have more morphology than verbs?

[bradrn]

Truncated pronoun systems are common
[...] wack pronoun systems

Any memorable example(s) you could share?

Looking through my copy of Foley, it’s mostly interesting syncretisms: many merge second/third person non-singular, others merge first/second person plural. Awa does that, while having a completely different set of syncretisms in the subject suffixes. And quite a few (e.g.) Yimas have paucal number. I recall reading about one language with only two pronouns, though I can’t find it again.

Often complex derivational processes in verbs

Do you know what Foley may be meaning by this?

I don’t have any real idea. I do know that the term ‘derivational’ is often used of causative, passive, directional etc. affixes, in which case Papuan languages would have plenty.

According to Bill Foley, some common morphosyntactic features of Papuan languages are:

[*]Verbs always have more morphology than nouns

I don't know anything about Papuan, but isn't this a near-universal? Where do nouns have more morphology than verbs?

Well, Tariana has polysynthetic nouns (Aikhenvald 2003):

nu-we-du-ma-pe=yana-pe=tupe=pena=ne=se=misini=nuku
‘with my naughty future younger sisters, too’

But then again it also has polysynthetic verbs. I agree that this seems to be a universal.

EDIT: On reflection, I suppose it should be possible to find a language where verbs are uninflected but nouns can take possessive affixes or something. But that’s a borderline case, and not particularly interesting as a counterexample.

[Darren]

As someone who knows next to nothing about Papuan, this conversation is pretty interesting...

Truncated pronoun systems are common
[...] wack pronoun systems

Any memorable example(s) you could share?

Sure!

Golin is the one with only two personal pronouns; first person ná and second person í. No number whatsoever; the only third person pronouns are compounds yalíni and abalíni, derived from yál "man" and abál "woman" + inín "self."
Nimboran has clusivity but no number contrast; ŋo 1excl, yo 1incl, ko 2 and no 3. Of course, yo minimally refers to two people, but otherwise number is unspecified.
Usarufa has ke first person singular/plural and second person plural, e 2sg, we 3sg and ye 3pl. Number is only explicitly marked in the third person; compare this to a number of Papuan languages such as the Lakes Plain languages, which mark number in 1st and 2nd but not 3rd person pronouns.
Tairora has the opposite of the English system; 1st person te and third person bi are unmarked for number, are 2sg and be 2pl.
To top it off, Kuman marks number only in the first person; na 1sg, no 2pl, ene 2, ye 3.
Yimas on the other hand has four numbers; singular, dual, paucal and plural, on all pronouns.

Often complex derivational processes in verbs

Do you know what Foley may be meaning by this?

Causatives and applicatives mostly. Barupu apparently has "around a dozen distinct forms" of applicatives.

Also, is your list citeable, so that I could add it to Wikipedia somewhere?

The list is my summary of William A. Foley's chapter The morphosyntactic typology of Papuan languages, from The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area ed. Bill Palmer; pages 895-931.

According to Bill Foley, some common morphosyntactic features of Papuan languages are:

• Verbs always have more morphology than nouns

I don't know anything about Papuan, but isn't this a near-universal? Where do nouns have more morphology than verbs?

He mentions that "some Torricelli languages like those of the Arapeshan subfamily, and those of the Baining family like Mali" are exceptions. From the same book, it looks like Mali verbs mark tense and not much if anything else. Pronouns also mark tense, as wel as gender and number; and nouns are confusing but have articles and (possibly cliticised?) prepositions and a three-way number distinction and nine productive noun class suffixes. Unfortunately the article on it is short so it's difficult to make a judgement.

[bradrn]

Golin is the one with only two personal pronouns; first person ná and second person í. No number whatsoever; the only third person pronouns are compounds yalíni and abalíni, derived from yál "man" and abál "woman" + inín "self."

Ah, thanks! The name Golin sounds familiar, so it’s probably the same one.

Often complex derivational processes in verbs

Do you know what Foley may be meaning by this?

Causatives and applicatives mostly. Barupu apparently has "around a dozen distinct forms" of applicatives.

Yep, Dixon (IIRC — unless it’s Foley) says that Barupu has the most complex applicative system in the world.

Also, is your list citeable, so that I could add it to Wikipedia somewhere?

The list is my summary of William A. Foley's chapter The morphosyntactic typology of Papuan languages, from The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area ed. Bill Palmer; pages 895-931.

Aargh, I used the wrong Foley! I should have known it was the later book. (I even looked there, but I forgot it had that last chapter…)

According to Bill Foley, some common morphosyntactic features of Papuan languages are:

• Verbs always have more morphology than nouns

I don't know anything about Papuan, but isn't this a near-universal? Where do nouns have more morphology than verbs?

He mentions that "some Torricelli languages like those of the Arapeshan subfamily, and those of the Baining family like Mali" are exceptions. From the same book, it looks like Mali verbs mark tense and not much if anything else. Pronouns also mark tense, as wel as gender and number; and nouns are confusing but have articles and (possibly cliticised?) prepositions and a three-way number distinction and nine productive noun class suffixes. Unfortunately the article on it is short so it's difficult to make a judgement.

Mali’s an interesting language. My grammar says they mark at least number and noun class — if there’s anything else, I don’t have enough time to look through the grammar to find it. It’s not quite correct to say that pronouns mark tense: that applies to the concordial pronouns only, which seem more like agreement markers than anything (though again, I don’t have time to properly double-check). Given the properties of Mali clitics, I’d count them as separate words rather than affixes.

[Nortaneous]

What are the most conservative and most innovative Austronesian branches?

Malayan or various Formosan depending on how you reckon it, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are some Austronesian languages so innovative that they've yet to be identified as such (the Reefs-Santa Cruz languages were classified as Papuan until recently)

[Otto Kretschmer]

I have seen a video with reconstructed Proto Austronesian text and some Indonesians claimed that they understand 70% of the text. Is Indonesian so conservative?

Are the Polynesian languages among the innovative ones?

[Creyeditor]

A word tone system

I don’t believe this is all that common either.

I seem to recall that the van Zanten & Dol chapter on Stress and pitch accent (here) made that conclusion, but I might be wrong.

Rich morphology (concatenative/non-concatenative)

This is the case for many families, but not TNG. Also, the whole of north-eastern Papua New Guinea is mostly isolating.

I was actually thinking of Mee (aka Ekari/Ekagi) and Dani, which have more concatenative morphology and Skou languages, which have some non-concatenative morphology (and are in the North at least).

non-canonical ways of linking clauses

I don’t understand what this means. For one, switch-reference is pretty common amongst SOV languages worldwide, not just in Papuan languages.

I once read an article on Tail-Head Linkage. I was thinking of this strategy in particular, I just forgot the term. Sorry

[bradrn]

Rich morphology (concatenative/non-concatenative)

This is the case for many families, but not TNG. Also, the whole of north-eastern Papua New Guinea is mostly isolating.

I was actually thinking of Mee (aka Ekari/Ekagi) and Dani, which have more concatenative morphology

Both of those are TNG.

and Skou languages, which have some non-concatenative morphology (and are in the North at least).

Skou languages are mostly isolating; Barupu is very much the exception.

non-canonical ways of linking clauses

I don’t understand what this means. For one, switch-reference is pretty common amongst SOV languages worldwide, not just in Papuan languages.

I once read an article on Tail-Head Linkage. I was thinking of this strategy in particular, I just forgot the term. Sorry

Tail-head linkage is also pretty common cross-linguistically: see e.g. Valérie 2018.

[Moose-tache]

For what it's worth, googling Papuan grammar pdfs and compiling a random list of a dozen or so yields a completely patternless mess that matches almost none of the criteria listed above (except the things that are almost universal cross-linguistically).

[bradrn]

For what it's worth, googling Papuan grammar pdfs and compiling a random list of a dozen or so yields a completely patternless mess that matches almost none of the criteria listed above (except the things that are almost universal cross-linguistically).

Could you give some examples? (Well, in this case, I suppose they’d be counter-examples.) Darren’s list seems reasonable to me based on my experience of Papuan languages.

[Moose-tache]

Even better, I provided instructions!

[Otto Kretschmer]

Do you guys (pun intended) know examples of new pronoun being developed other than English you guys/y'all?

[keenir]

Do you guys (pun intended) know examples of new pronoun being developed other than English you guys/y'all?

you'ins

[Travis B.]

Do you guys (pun intended) know examples of new pronoun being developed other than English you guys/y'all?

Spanish usted, vosotros, etc.

[Creyeditor]

Papua Indonesian:
dong (from de+orang he+human) they
kitong (from kita+orang we+human) we

These are similar to Tok Pisin mipela and yupela, I think.