Publications

Abstract

There are some 6000 languages spoken today, classfied in approximately 90 linguistic families and many isolates, and also differing across structural, typological, dimensions. Genetically, the human species is remarkably homogeneous, with the existant genetic diversity mostly explain by intra-population differences between individuals, but the remaining inter-population differences have a non-trivial structure. Populations splits and contacts influence both languages and genes, in principle allowing them to evolve in parallel ways. The farming/language co-dispersal hypothesis is a well-known such theory, whereby farmers spreading agriculture from its places of origin also spread their genes and languages. A different type of relationship was recently proposed, involving a genetic bias which influences the structural properties of language as it is transmitted across generations. Such a bias was proposed to explain the correlations between the distribution of tone languages and two brain development-related human genes and, if confirmed by experimental studies, it could represent a new factor explaining the distrbution of diversity. The present chapter overviews these related topics in the hope that a truly interdisciplinary approach could allow a better understanding of our complex (recent as well as evolutionary) history.

Abstract

Empirical studies addressing the age factor in second language acquisition have mainly been concerned with a comparison of end state data (from learners before and after the closure of a putative Critical Period for language acquisition) to the native speaker norm. Based on longitudinal corpus data, this paper investigates the affect of age on end state, rate and the process of acquisition and addresses the question of whether different grammatical domains are equally affected. To this end, the paper presents summarized findings from the acquisition of word order and inflectional morphology in L2 German by Russian learners of different ages and discusses theoretical implications that can be drawn from this evidence.

Abstract

This paper discusses the influence of age-related factors like stage of cognitive development, prior linguistic knowledge, and motivation and addresses the specific effects of these ‘age factors’ on second language acquisition as opposed to other learning tasks. Based on longitudinal corpus data from child and adolescent learners of L2 German (L1 = Russian), the paper studies the acquisition of word order (verb raising over negation, verb second) and inflectional morphology (subject-verb-agreement, tense, noun plural, and adjective-noun agreement). Whereas the child learner shows target-like production in all of these areas within the observation period (1½ years), the adolescent learner masters only some of them. The discussion addresses the question of what it is about clusters of grammatical features that make them particularly affected by age.

Abstract

This entry provides some orientation and task suggestions on how to explore the perceptual world of your field site and the interaction between the cultural world and the sensory lexicon in your community. The material consists of procedural texts; soundscapes; other documentary and observational tasks. The goal of this task is to explore the perceptual world of your field site and the interaction between the cultural world and the sensory lexicon in your community.

Abstract

Ideophones are marked words that depict sensory events, for example English hippety-hoppety ‘in a limping and hobbling manner’ or Siwu mukumuku ‘mouth movements of a toothless person eating’. They typically have special sound patterns and distinct grammatical properties. Ideophones are found in many languages of the world, suggesting a common fascination with detailed sensory depiction, but reliable data on their meaning and use is still very scarce. This task involves video-recording spontaneous, informal explanations (“folk definitions”) of individual ideophones by native speakers, in their own language. The approach facilitates collection of rich primary data in a planned context while ensuring a large amount of spontaneity and freedom.

Abstract

Informal paraphrases by native speaker consultants are crucial tools in linguistic fieldwork. When recorded, archived, and analysed, they offer rich data that can be mined for many purposes, from lexicography to semantic typology and from ethnography to the investigation of gesture and speech. This paper describes a procedure for the collection and analysis of folk definitions that are native (in the language under study rather than the language of analysis), informal (spoken rather than written), and multi-modal (preserving the integrity of gesture-speech composite utterances). The value of folk definitions is demonstrated using the case of ideophones, words that are notoriously hard to study using traditional elicitation methods. Three explanatory strategies used in a set of folk definitions of ideophones are examined: the offering of everyday contexts of use, the use of depictive gestures, and the use of sense relations as semantic anchoring points. Folk definitions help elucidate word meanings that are hard to capture, bring to light cultural background knowledge that often remains implicit, and take seriously the crucial involvement of native speaker consultants in linguistic fieldwork. They provide useful data for language documentation and are an essential element of any toolkit for linguistic and ethnographic field research.

Abstract

Mensen groeien op in verschillende omgevingen, met verschillende ervaringen en verschillende talen. Betekent dat ook dat ze verschillend denken? En als er invloed is van taal op denken, hoe ver reikt die dan? Wordt ons denken begrensd door woorden, of is de invloed meer gematigd en kunnen we er soms zelfs aan ontkomen?

Abstract

Der vorliegende Beitrag zum Kieler Symposium1 stellt die Resultate eines Teilbereichs meiner Arbeit zum Guarani vor, nämlich einen Vorschlag zur Analyse der Personenpräfixe dieser Sprache und der mit ihnen verbundenen grammatischen Kategorien. Die im Titel angedeutete lexikographische Fragestellung bedarf einer näheren Erläuterung, die ich im Zusammenhang mit einer kurzen Darstellung der Motivation für meine Untersuchungen geben will

Abstract

With the present essay I pursue a threefold aim as will be explained in the following paragraphs. Since I cannot expect my readers to be familiar with the language studied, Guaran´ı, more information about this language will be given in the next subsection.

Abstract

This contribution explores the potentials of combining corpora of language use data with language description in e-grammars (or digital grammars). We present three directions of ongoing research and discuss the advantages of combining these and similar approaches, arguing that the technological possibilities have barely begun to be explored.

Abstract

This paper describes the verbal Tense-Aspect-Mood system of Awetí (Tupian, Central Brazil) in a Word-and-Paradigm approach. One classification of Awetí verb forms contains clear aspect categories. A second set of independent classifications renders at least four moods and contains a third major TAM classification, factuality, that has one mainly temporal category Future, while others are partially or wholly modal. Structural categories reflect the formal composition of the forms. Some forms are synthetic, ‘marked’ only by means of affixes, but many are analytic, containing auxiliary particles. With selected sample forms we demonstrate in detail the interplay of structural and functional categories in Awetí verb paradigms.

Abstract

The Touo language is a non-Austronesian language spoken on Rendova Island (Western Province, Solomon Islands). First language speakers of Touo are typically multilingual, and are likely to speak other (Austronesian) vernaculars, as well as Solomon Island Pijin and English. There is no institutional support of literacy in Touo: schools function in English, and church-based support for vernacular literacy focuses on the major Austronesian languages of the local area. Touo vernacular literacy exists in a restricted niche of the linguistic ecology, where it is utilised for symbolic rather than communicative goals. Competing vernacular orthographic traditions complicate the situation further.

Abstract

Definition Perceptual learning in speech describes a change in the mapping from acoustic cues in the speech signal to abstract linguistic representations. Learning leads to a lasting benefit to the listener by improving speech comprehension. The change can occur as a response to a specific feature (such as a talker- or accent idiosyncrasy) or to a global degradation of the signal (such as in synthesized or compressed speech). In perceptual learning, a top-down process is involved in causing the change, whereas purely bottom-up, signal-driven phenomena are considered to be adaptation.

Abstract

How do we refer to people in everyday conversation? No matter the language or culture, we must choose from a range of options: full name ('Robert Smith'), reduced name ('Bob'), description ('tall guy'), kin term ('my son') etc. Our choices reflect how we know that person in context, and allow us to take a particular perspective on them. This book brings together a team of leading linguists, sociologists and anthropologists to show that there is more to person reference than meets the eye. Drawing on video-recorded, everyday interactions in nine languages, it examines the fascinating ways in which we exploit person reference for social and cultural purposes, and reveals the underlying principles of person reference across cultures from the Americas to Asia to the South Pacific. Combining rich ethnographic detail with cross-linguistic generalizations.

Abstract

Research on video- and audio-recordings of spontaneous naturally-occurring conversation in English has shown that conversation is a rule-guided, practice-oriented domain that can be investigated for its underlying mechanics or structure. Systematic study could yield something like a grammar for conversation. The goal of this task is to acquire a corpus of video-data, for investigating the underlying structure(s) of interaction cross-linguistically and cross-culturally.

Abstract

This field guide is for eliciting information about grammatical resources used in describing perceptual events and perception-based properties and states. A list of leading questions outlines an underlying semantic space for events/states of perception, against which language-specific constructions may be defined. It should be used as an entry point into a flexible exploration of the structures and constraints which are specific to the language you are working on. The goal is to provide a cross-linguistically comparable description of the constructions of a language used in describing perceptual events and states. The core focus is to discover any sensory asymmetries, i.e., ways in which different sensory modalities are treated differently with respect to these constructions.

Abstract

Lao is the national language of Laos, and is also spoken widely in Thailand and Cambodia. It is a tone language of the Tai-Kadai family (Southwestern Tai branch). Lao is an extreme example of the isolating, analytic language type. This book is the most comprehensive grammatical description of Lao to date. It describes and analyses the important structures of the language, including classifiers, sentence-final particles, and serial verb constructions. Special attention is paid to grammatical topics from a semantic, pragmatic, and typological perspective.

Abstract

This chapter discusses some of the elements of human sociality that serve as the social and cognitive infrastructure or preconditions for the use of requests and other kinds of recruitments in interaction. The notion of an agent with goals is a canonical starting point, though importantly agency tends not to be wholly located in individuals, but rather is socially distributed. This is well illustrated in the case of requests, in which the person or group that has a certain goal is not necessarily the one who carries out the behavior towards that goal. The chapter focuses on the role of semiotic (mostly linguistic) resources in negotiating the distribution of agency with request-like actions, with examples from video-recorded interaction in Lao, a language spoken in Laos and nearby countries. The examples illustrate five hallmarks of requesting in human interaction, which show some ways in which our ‘manipulation’ of other people is quite unlike our manipulation of tools: (1) that even though B is being manipulated, B wants to help, (2) that while A is manipulating B now, A may be manipulated in return later; (3) that the goal of the behavior may be shared between A and B, (4) that B may not comply, or may comply differently than requested, due to actual or potential contingencies, and (5) that A and B are accountable to one another; reasons may be asked for, and/or given, for the request. These hallmarks of requesting are grounded in a prosocial framework of human agency.

Abstract

Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van hoogleraar Etnolinguïstiek, in het bijzonder die van Zuid-Oost Azië, aan de Faculteit der Letteren van de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op woensdag 4 november 2009 door prof. dr. N.J. Enfield

Abstract

People of all cultures have some degree of concern with categorizing types of communicative social action. All languages have words with meanings like speak, say, talk, complain, curse, promise, accuse, nod, wink, point and chant. But the exact distinctions they make will differ in both quantity and quality. How is communicative social action categorised across languages and cultures? The goal of this task is to establish a basis for cross-linguistic comparison of native metalanguages for social action.

Abstract

People of all cultures have some degree of concern with categorizing types of communicative social action. All languages have words with meanings like speak, say, talk, complain, curse, promise, accuse, nod, wink, point and chant. But the exact distinctions they make will differ in both quantity and quality. How is communicative social action categorised across languages and cultures? The goal of this task is to establish a basis for cross-linguistic comparison of native metalanguages for social action.

Abstract

What causes a language to be the way it is? Some features are universal, some are inherited, others are borrowed, and yet others are internally innovated. But no matter where a bit of language is from, it will only exist if it has been diffused and kept in circulation through social interaction in the history of a community. This book makes the case that a proper understanding of the ontology of language systems has to be grounded in the causal mechanisms by which linguistic items are socially transmitted, in communicative contexts. A biased transmission model provides a basis for understanding why certain things and not others are likely to develop, spread, and stick in languages. Because bits of language are always parts of systems, we also need to show how it is that items of knowledge and behavior become structured wholes. The book argues that to achieve this, we need to see how causal processes apply in multiple frames or 'time scales' simultaneously, and we need to understand and address each and all of these frames in our work on language. This forces us to confront implications that are not always comfortable: for example, that "a language" is not a real thing but a convenient fiction, that language-internal and language-external processes have a lot in common, and that tree diagrams are poor conceptual tools for understanding the history of languages. By exploring avenues for clear solutions to these problems, this book suggests a conceptual framework for ultimately explaining, in causal terms, what languages are like and why they are like that.

Abstract

This sub-project is concerned with analysis and cross-linguistic comparison of the mechanisms of signaling and redressing ‘trouble’ during conversation. Speakers and listeners constantly face difficulties with many different aspects of speech production and comprehension during conversation. A speaker may mispronounce a word, or may be unable to find a word, or be unable to formulate in words an idea he or she has in mind. A listener may have troubling hearing (part of) what was said, may not know who a speaker is referring to, may not be sure of the current relevance of what is being said. There may be problems in the organisation of turns at talk, for instance, two speakers’ speech may be in overlap. The goal of this task is to investigate the range of practices that a language uses to address problems of speaking, hearing and understanding in conversation.

Abstract

This Field Manual entry has been superceded by the 2009 version: https://doi.org/10.17617/2.883564

Abstract

This book argues that the complex, anthropocentric, and often culture-specific meanings of words have been shaped directly by their history of 'utility' for communication in social life. N. J. Enfield draws on semantic and pragmatic case studies from his extensive fieldwork in Laos to investigate a range of semantic fields including emotion terms, culinary terms, landscape terminology, and honorific pronouns, among many others. These studies form the building blocks of a conceptual framework for understanding meaning in language. The book argues that the goals and relevancies of human communication are what bridge the gap between the private representation of language in the mind and its public processes of usage, acquisition, and conventionalization in society. Professor Enfield argues that in order to understand this process, we first need to understand the ways in which linguistic meaning is layered, multiple, anthropocentric, cultural, distributed, and above all, useful. This wide-ranging account brings together several key strands of research across disciplines including semantics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, and sociology of language, and provides a rich account of what linguistic meaning is like and why.

Abstract

In Dutch, all morpheme-final obstruents are voiceless in word-final position. As a consequence, the distinction between obstruents that are voiced before vowel-initial suffixes and those that are always voiceless is neutralized. This study adds to the existing evidence that the neutralization is incomplete: neutralized, alternating plosives tend to have shorter bursts than non-alternating plosives. Furthermore, in a rating study, listeners scored the alternating plosives as more voiced than the nonalternating plosives, showing sensitivity to the subtle subphonemic cues in the acoustic signal. Importantly, the participants who were presented with the complete words, instead of just the final rhymes, scored the alternating plosives as even more voiced. This shows that listeners’ perception of voice is affected by their knowledge of the obstruent’s realization in the word’s morphological paradigm. Apparently, subphonemic paradigmatic levelling is a characteristic of both production and perception. We explain the effects within an analogy-based approach.

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to identify the evolutionary origins of the ability to speak and understand a natural language. I will adopt Botha’s “Windows Approach” (Language and Communication, 2006, 26, pp. 129–143) in order to justify the following two assumptions, which concern the evolutionary continuity between human language and animals’ communication systems: (a) despite the uniqueness of human language in sharing and conveying utterances with an open-ended structure, some isolated components of our linguistic competence are shared with non- human primates, grounding a line of evolutionary continuity; (b) the very first “linguistic” utterances were holistic, that is, whole bunches of sounds able to convey information despite their lack of modern syntax. I will address such suppositions through the comparative analysis of three constitutive features of human language: syntax, the semantic value of utterances, and the ability to attribute mental states to conspecifics, i.e. the theory of mind.

Abstract

Relative clauses are a syntactic device to create complex sentences and they make language structurally productive. Despite a considerable number of experimental studies, it is still largely unclear how children learn relative clauses and how these are processed in the language system. Researchers at the MPI for Psycholinguistics used a computational learning model to gain novel insights into these issues. The model explains the differential development of relative clauses in English as well as cross-linguistic differences

Abstract

This chapter connects the grammar of the first person collective pronoun in the Cha’palaa language of Ecuador with its use in interaction for collective reference and social category membership attribution, addressing the problem posed by the fact that non-singular pronouns do not have distributional semantics (“speakers”) but are rather associational (“speaker and relevant associates”). It advocates a cross-disciplinary approach that jointly considers elements of linguistic form, situated usages of those forms in instances of interaction, and the broader ethnographic context of those instances. Focusing on large-scale and relatively stable categories such as racial and ethnic groups, it argues that looking at how speakers categorize themselves and others in the speech situation by using pronouns provides empirical data on the status of macro-social categories for members of a society

Abstract

This paper investigates the lexical semantics and relative distributions of verbs describing putting and taking events in Kuuk Thaayorre, a Pama-Nyungan language of Cape York (Australia). Thaayorre put/take verbs can be subcategorised according to whether they may combine with an NP encoding a goal, an NP encoding a source, or both. Goal NPs are far more frequent in natural discourse: initial analysis shows 85% of goal-oriented verb tokens to be accompanied by a goal NP, while only 31% of source-oriented verb tokens were accompanied by a source. This finding adds weight to Ikegami’s (1987) assertion of the conceptual primacy of goals over sources, reflected in a cross-linguistic dissymmetry whereby goal-marking is less marked and more widely used than source-marking.

Abstract

To understand the underlying principles of categorisation and classification of sensory input semantic analyses must be based on both language and culture. The senses are not only physiological phenomena, but they are also linguistic, cultural, and social. The goal of this task is to explore and describe sociocultural patterns relating language of perception, ideologies of perception, and perceptual practice in our speech communities.

Abstract

This chapter explores what L2 learners' gestures reveal about L2 grammar. The focus is on learners’ difficulties with maintaining reference in discourse caused by their incomplete mastery of pronouns. The study highlights the systematic parallels between properties of L2 speech and gesture, and the parallel effects of grammatical development in both modalities. The validity of a communicative account of interlanguage grammar in this domain is tested by taking the cohesive properties of the gesture-speech ensemble into account. Specifically, I investigate whether learners use gestures to compensate for and to license over-explicit reference in speech. The results rule out a communicative account for the spoken variety of maintained reference. In contrast, cohesive gestures are found to be multi-functional. While the presence of cohesive gestures is not communicatively motivated, their spatial realisation is. It is suggested that gestures are exploited as a grammatical communication strategy to disambiguate speech wherever possible, but that they may also be doing speaker-internal work. The methodological importance of considering L2 gestures when studying grammar is also discussed.

Abstract

Gestures, the symbolic movements speakers perform while they speak, are systematically related to speech and language at multiple levels, and reflect cognitive and linguistic activities in non-trivial ways. This chapter presents an overview of what gestures can tell us about the processes of second language acquisition. It focuses on two key aspects, (a) gestures and the developing language system and (b) gestures and learning, and discusses some implications of an expanded view of language acquisition that takes gestures into account.

Abstract

Gestures are often regarded as the most typical compensatory device used by language learners in communicative trouble. Yet gestural solutions to communicative problems have rarely been studied within any theory of second language use. The work pre­sented in this volume aims to account for second language learners’ strategic use of speech-associated gestures by combining a process-oriented framework for communi­cation strategies with a cognitive theory of gesture. Two empirical studies are presented. The production study investigates Swedish lear­ners of French and French learners of Swedish and their use of strategic gestures. The results, which are based on analyses of both individual and group behaviour, contradict popular opinion as well as theoretical assumptions from both fields. Gestures are not primarily used to replace speech, nor are they chiefly mimetic. Instead, learners use gestures with speech, and although they do exploit mimetic gestures to solve lexical problems, they also use more abstract gestures to handle discourse-related difficulties and metalinguistic commentary. The influence of factors such as proficiency, task, culture, and strategic competence on gesture use is discussed, and the oral and gestural strategic modes are compared. In the evaluation study, native speakers’ assessments of learners’ gestures, and the potential effect of gestures on evaluations of proficiency are analysed and discussed in terms of individual communicative style. Compensatory gestures function at multiple communicative levels. This has implica­tions for theories of communication strategies, and an expansion of the existing frameworks is discussed taking both cognitive and interactive aspects into account.

Abstract

Gestures are prevalent in communication and tightly linked to language and speech. As such they can shed important light on issues of language development across the lifespan. This volume, originally published as a Special Issue of Gesture Volume 8:2 (2008), brings together studies from different disciplines that examine language development in children and adults from varying perspectives. It provides a review of common theoretical and empirical themes, and the contributions address topics such as gesture use in prelinguistic infants, the relationship between gestures and lexical development in typically and atypically developing children and in second language learners, what gestures reveal about discourse, and how all languages that adult second language speakers know can influence each other. The papers exemplify a vibrant new field of study with relevance for multiple disciplines.

Abstract

This paper explores the linguistic encoding of placement and removal events in Swedish. Drawing on elicited spoken data, it provides a unified approach to caused motion descriptions. The results show uniform syntactic behaviour of placement and removal descriptions and a consistent asymmetry between placement and removal in the semantic specificity of verbs. The results also reveal three further semantic patterns, pertaining to the nature of the relationship between Figure and Ground, that appear to account for how these event types are characterised, viz. whether the Ground is represented by a body part of the Agent; whether the Figure is contained within the Ground; or whether it is supported by the Ground.

Abstract

To understand the nature of language learning, the factors that influence it, and the mechanisms that govern it, it is crucial to study the very earliest stages of language learning. This volume provides a state-of-the art overview of what we know about the cognitive and neurobiological aspects of the adult capacity for language learning. It brings together studies from several fields that examine learning from multiple perspectives using various methods. The papers examine learning after anything from a few minutes to months of language exposure; they target the learning of both artificial and natural languages, involve both explicit and implicit learning, and cover linguistic domains ranging from phonology and semantics to morphosyntax. The findings will inform and extend further studies of language learning in multiple disciplines.

Abstract

Beim Sprechen und beim Sprachverstehen findet man die Wortbedeutung im Gedächtnis auf und kombiniert sie zu größeren Einheiten (Unifikation). Solche Unifikations-Operationen laufen auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen der Sprachverarbeitung ab. In diesem Beitrag wird ein Rahmen vorgeschlagen, in dem psycholinguistische Modelle mit neurobiologischer Sprachbetrachtung in Verbindung gebracht werden. Diesem Vorschlag zufolge spielt der linke inferiore frontale Gyrus (LIFG) eine bedeutende Rolle bei der Unifi kation

Abstract

We review data and hypotheses dealing with the mental representations for perceived and produced speech that infants build and use over the course of learning a language. In the early stages of speech perception and vocal production, before the emergence of a receptive or a productive lexicon, the dominant picture emerging from the literature suggests rather non-analytic representations based on units of the size of the syllable: Young children seem to parse speech into syllable-sized units in spite of their ability to detect sound equivalence based on shared phonetic features. Once a productive lexicon has emerged, word form representations are initially rather underspecified phonetically but gradually become more specified with lexical growth, up to the phoneme level. The situation is different for the receptive lexicon, in which phonetic specification for consonants and vowels seem to follow different developmental paths. Consonants in stressed syllables are somewhat well specified already at the first signs of a receptive lexicon, and become even better specified with lexical growth. Vowels seem to follow a different developmental path, with increasing flexibility throughout lexical development. Thus, children come to exhibit a consonant vowel asymmetry in lexical representations, which is clear in adult representations.

Abstract

This paper joins studies of linguistic variation (e.g. Labov 1972; Dubois & Horvath 2000) and discourse (e.g. Jaworski & Lawson 2005; Jaworski & Pritchard 2005; Thurlow & Jaworski 2010) that consider the intersection between language and tourism. By examining the language attitudes that tourists hold toward linguistic variability in their host community, we find that attitudes differ by context and with respect to tourists’ travel motivations. We suggest that these results are particularly likely in a context like Edinburgh, Scotland, where linguistic variation has an iconic link to place authenticity. We propose that the joint commodification of ‘intelligibility’ and ‘authenticity’ explains this variability. The results raise questions about how the commodity value of travel motivation and the associated context of language use influence language attitudes.

Abstract

This paper follows the changing fortunes of Chomsky’s search for a pedigree in the history of Western thought during the late 1960s. Having achieved a unique position of supremacy in the theory of syntax and having exploited that position far beyond the narrow circles of professional syntacticians, he felt the need to shore up his theory with the authority of history. It is shown that this attempt, resulting mainly in his Cartesian Linguistics of 1966, was widely, and rightly, judged to be a radical failure, even though it led to a sudden revival of interest in the history of linguistics. Ironically, the very upswing in historical studies caused by Cartesian Linguistics ended up showing that the real pedigree belongs to Generative Semantics, developed by the same ‘angry young men’ Chomsky was so bent on destroying.

Abstract

Originally published in Diachronica 27:2 (2010) One attempt at explaining why some language families are large (while others are small) is the hypothesis that the families that are now large became large because their ancestral speakers had a technological advantage, most often agriculture. Variants of this idea are referred to as the Language Farming Dispersal Hypothesis. Previously, detailed language family studies have uncovered various supporting examples and counterexamples to this idea. In the present paper I weigh the evidence from ALL attested language families. For each family, I use the number of member languages as a measure of cardinal size, member language coordinates to measure geospatial size and ethnographic evidence to assess subsistence status. This data shows that, although agricultural families tend to be larger in cardinal size, their size is hardly due to the simple presence of farming. If farming were responsible for language family expansions, we would expect a greater east-west geospatial spread of large families than is actually observed. The data, however, is compatible with weaker versions of the farming dispersal hypothesis as well with models where large families acquire farming because of their size, rather than the other way around.

Abstract

Whitesands is an Oceanic language of the southern Vanuatu subgroup. Like the related languages of southern Vanuatu, Whitesands has developed a clause-linkage system which monitors referent continuity on new clauses – typically contrasting with the previous clause. In this chapter I address how the construction interacts with topic continuity in discourse. I outline the morphosyntactic form of this anaphoric co-reference device. From a functionalist perspective, I show how the system is used in natural discourse and discuss its restrictions with respect to relative and complement clauses. I conclude with a discussion on its interactions with theoretical notions of information structure – in particular the nature of presupposed versus asserted clauses, information back- and foregrounding and how these affect the use of the switch-reference system