The development of echo-subject markers in Southern Vanuatu
De Sousa, H.
(2008). The development of echo-subject markers in Southern Vanuatu. In T. J. Curnow (
Ed.),
Selected papers from the 2007 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society. Australian Linguistic Society.
One of the defining features of the Southern Vanuatu language family is the echo-subject (ES) marker (Lynch 2001: 177-178). Canonically, an ES marker indicates that the subject of the clause is coreferential with the subject of the preceding clause. This paper begins with a survey of the various ES systems found in Southern Vanuatu. Two prominent differences amongst the ES systems are: a) the level of obligatoriness of the ES marker; and b) the level of grammatical integration between an ES clauses and the preceding clause. The variation found amongst the ES systems reveals a clear path of grammaticalisation from the VP coordinator *ma in Proto–Southern Vanuatu to the various types of ES marker in contemporary Southern Vanuatu languages
Publication type
Proceedings paper
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