Typology and Linguistic Areas

Abstract

A closer look shows that rather than constituting a linguistic area on its own, the region between Lombok and Papua is simply part of a typological continuum that runs from the northern Austronesian languages in Taiwan and the Philippines through Malaysia and western Indonesia east toward Melanesia, without any linguistically de²nable borders on either side. 1. DEFINING A LINGUISTIC AREA IN "CENTRAL/EASTERN INDONESIA." In her Rejoinder to Malcolm Ross's squib, Klamer (2003) addresses Ross's critique of her 2002 article, Typical features of Austronesian languages in Central/Eastern Indonesia, stating that, rather than attempting to present a rubric for evaluating genetic relatedness, the article was intended to describe a set of grammatical features that are relevant to the area she discussed (which is "roughly the geographic area between Lombok and Papua"). 1 This is made clear in quotes from her discussion such as "regarding the features chosen: how typical are they for the area?, " "the paper was intended as a typological characterization of an area, " and "complex linguistic areas like C/E Indonesia" [emphases mine].An approach that addresses areal, rather than historical, issues, does crucially rely on two methodological points that are only addressed in passing: (1) are the morphosyntactic features really typical of the area that Klamer describes, and (2) do these features serve to de²ne this area? Ross (2003:506) suggests not, saying that "the features she enumerates for this region are also widespread among Oceanic languages." While Ross concludes that this commonality con²rms "that the major typological divide among Austronesian languages is one that separates the … languages of Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, western Indonesian, and Madagascar from … Eastern Nusantara and Oceania," I suggest that there is no "major typological divide" located in the region that Klamer describes, and that the features she examines ²nd as many exemplifying languages to the west of East Nusantara 2 as they do in the languages to the east of this "area," in as great a proportion of sample set. A qualifying note is required

Wallacea, a Linguistic Area

“…However, in (20b) and (20c) the subject is encoded with the enclitic =na and =ya respectively, each carrying different mood, modality and aspectual connotations (see Klamer 1998 for discussion). The map builds on the argumentation of Donohue (2004) and synthesises data from Donohue (2004Donohue ( , 2008a, Ewing (2010), Holton (2008), Klamer (2008aKlamer ( , 2008b, Schapper ( , 2015, Siewierska (2013) and Taber (1999). This map presents 58 languages, 26 Austronesian and 32 Papuan languages with semantic alignment.…”

“…This map presents 58 languages, 26 Austronesian and 32 Papuan languages with semantic alignment. It builds on the argumentation of Donohue (2004) and synthesises data from Donohue (2004Donohue ( , 2008a, Ewing (2010), Holton (2008), Klamer (2008aKlamer ( , 2008b, Schapper ( , 2015, Siewierska (2013) and Taber (1999 Such formal variety suggests that the appearance of semantic alignment in Austronesian languages in the region is the result of erratic diffusion. By contrast, as Donohue (2004 : 231-233) argues, semantic alignment appears to be an inherited trait in the Papuan families of Wallacea, which Austronesian languages in the region acquired either through substratum or contact.…”

“…These are also excluded. As the criticisms of Donohue (2004) reveal, Klamer's (2002) characterisation of metathesis was not sufficiently constrained or well-defined to be taken to constitute an areal feature.…”

Quantifying areality: A study of prenasalisation in Southeast Asia and New Guinea

“…It is widely acknowledged that some linguistic variables have more "weight" than others in defining areas. Some variables are sufficiently rare that a concentration of them in some area, such as the presence of semantic alignment (stative/active) systems in eastern Indonesia across more than one language family (Donohue 2004) should be a strong indication that areality plays a role in the spread. Since there is as yet little consensus on what variables are "common" and what are rare (though see Wichmann & Holman 2009), this cannot yet be accounted for objectively.…”

Malay as a mirror of Austronesian: Voice development and voice variation

“…Examples from Saweru (Donohue, 2001a(Donohue, , 2004a are shown in (71) Particularly striking is the fact that Saweru instantiates a three-way split in intransitive verbs, with a small class of experiential verbs (such as manano 'be lonely') inflecting with dative agreement suffixes, as in (73a). These same agreement suffixes are used to code objects that are relatively unaffected by the predicate, such as that in (73b).…”