AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES

Ratahan Nikolaus P. Himmelmann (University of Bochum) & John U. Wolff (Cornell University) Ratahan is an endangered Austronesian language spoken in the district of Ratahan, province of North Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is estimated that now only 500 good speakers of Ratahan are left, mostly over 60 years of age, and a few thousand semi-speakers. Ratahan is located in the midst of the Minahasa region but belongs to the Sangiric subgroup, spoken at some distance to the north of Ratahan, of which to date only one language (Sangirese) has been documented in some detail. Typologically, Ratahan resembles the languages of the Philippines, and the verbal morphology shows many of the same categories as, for example, the Tagalog verbs. Much of the Ratahan affixational morphology is clearly cognate with affixes in Philippine languages. With regard to noun phrase marking, pronominal clitics, and word order, however, there are strong differences from the Philippine languages. Furthermore, a system of markers for spatial deixis exists which is far more elaborate than that commonly found in Austronesian languages. The volume contains an outline of the phonology and the basic morphosyntax, a somewhat more elaborate discussion of the verbal morphology and of the system of spatial orientation marking, a sample text, and a map of the language area. The analysis is based on a few hours of recorded spontaneous speech. The introductory chapter discusses the present state of the language and some basic procedures in documenting a language. There is also an Indonesian summary, and the examples and the text are glossed in both Indonesian and English. The Indonesian has been added to make the materials accessible to the members of the Ratahan community, all of whom are literate in Indonesian. ISBN 9783895861475. Languages of the World/Materials 130. 100pp. 1999. A Short Grammar of Alorese (Austronesian) Marian Klamer Leiden University Alorese (Bahasa Alor) (25,000 speakers) is the only indigenous Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language spoken amongst the Papuan languages of the Alor-Pantar archipelago in south-eastern Indonesia. Like many of the other minority languages spoken in this part of Indonesia, Alorese has not been previously described. This sketch is based on primary data collected by the author during on-site fieldwork in 2003. While earlier sources suggest that Alorese is a dialect of Lamaholot, this grammar compares the Alorese basic lexicon with that of three Lamaholot dialects, to suggest that Alorese is a language of its own. Another feature that distinguishes Alorese from any of the Lamaholot dialects is its isolating profile, lacking all productive morphology. There are significant lexical differences between Alorese dialects spoken on Pantar island and those spoken on Alor. The present sketch notes such variation, but emphasis is on the language as it is spoken in Baranusa, west Pantar. Historical and ethnographic evidence is presented to reconstruct the history of its speakers as migrants from the east Flores Lamaholot-speaking region, who arrived in Pantar before or around 1,300 AD. Alorese phonology and morphology are sketched before presenting the major grammatical constructions used. Serial verb constructions, especially directional ones, are often used. Alorese combines head-initial clausal constituent order with post-predicate negation and a clause-final conjunction. It has accusative alignment, the grammatical relations subject and object are expressed by constituent order. Alorese non- declarative sentence types are structurally very similar to declarative ones. Clauses are linked to each by conjunctive linking words or by complementation; complementation is by juxtaposition. Alorese contains words and grammatical constructions that are non-Austronesian. Details are presented suggesting that these are due to different kinds of contact between Alorese and Papuan languages in historic and prehistoric times. ISBN 9783862881727. Languages of the World/Materials 486. 142pp. 2011. The Grammatical Realization of Temporal Expressions in Tsou Chia-jung Pan James Cook University This study proves an in-depth investigation of the grammatical realization (including semantic functions, temporal markers, grammatical roles, grammatical categories, and syntactic relationships) of temporal expressions in Tsou, an Austronesian language of Taiwan. Temporal expressions examined in this study are based on Haspelmath’s (1997) classifications of time adverbials and, meanwhile, with the addition of frequency expressions and miscellaneous temporal expressions, in order to scrutinize the semantic functions and their corresponding markings. Among the twenty-three subtypes of semantic functions, it is found that five temporal markers are employed in the markings with different types of semantic functions of temporal expressions: ne-, ho-, ta, to, and no. Besides, some semantic functions of temporal expressions in Tsou even take the form of ne or ho clause. These five markers and the ne or ho clause possess their own distinguishing temporal characteristics. It is also shown that the markers ta, to, and no are virtually oblique case markers, thereby suggesting that in addition to spatial and psychological distinctions, case markers in Tsou can distinguish temporal meanings as well. ISBN 9783862880119. LINCOM Studies in Austronesian Linguistics 07. 260pp. 2010.