Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages
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The contribution of language history to the study of the early dispersals of modern humans throughout the Old World has been limited by the shallow time depth (about 8000 ± 2000 years) of current linguistic methods. Here it is shown that the application of biological cladistic methods, not to vocabulary (as has been previously tried) but to language structure (sound systems and grammar), may extend the time depths at which language data can be used. The method was tested against well-understood families of Oceanic Austronesian languages, then applied to the Papuan languages of Island Melanesia, a group of hitherto unrelatable isolates. Papuan languages show an archipelago-based phylogenetic signal that is consistent with the current geographical distribution of languages. The most plausible hypothesis to explain this result is the divergence of the Papuan languages from a common ancestral stock, as part of late Pleistocene dispersals.
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List of maps Preface Abbreviations used in glosses 1. Introduction 2. Language and its social content 3. Phonology 4. Nominals 5. Verbs 6. Syntax 7. Problems of comparative linguistics in Papuan languages 8. Papuan languages and New Guinea prehistory References Language index Subject index.
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▪ Abstract The New Guinea region is the most linguistically diverse region in the world, with some 1000 languages in an area smaller than 900,000 km 2 . There are about three dozen language families and close to the same number of language isolates, although two very different language families, each with about 300 languages, dominate: the coastal Austronesian languages, and the montane Trans New Guinea family. The other, smaller families are largely restricted to the northern lowlands. Typologically, the languages exhibit enormous variation and many unusual properties. Vowel systems in which central vowels predominate and consonantal systems lacking fricatives and, rarer still, nasals are attested. Morphological types range from isolating to polysynthetic, and most languages are head marking. Verbs normally carry more complex inflection than do nouns. Of nominal categories, gender is often exuberantly elaborated, but surprisingly case is not, the weak development being an areal feature, in contrast to Australian languages on the one hand and those of Eurasia on the other. Syntactically, languages fall into left-headed and right-headed types, represented by Austronesian and Trans New Guinea, respectively. Clause chaining and associated morphological structures such as switch reference are a salient feature of right-headed and particularly Trans New Guinea languages. Discourse structures are often highly elliptical, with the verbal morphology providing signals for the recovery of elided information and the cohesion of the text. Highly ritualized texts, such as songs, are characterized by strict formal rules of parallelism and trope usage. Other than Austronesian, no language family has congeners outside the region, and within it, large-scale processes of convergence have shaped languages over many millennia, giving rise to areal traits.
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Human genetic diversity in the Pacific has not been adequately sampled, particularly in Melanesia. As a result, population relationships there have been open to debate. A genome scan of autosomal markers (687 microsatellites and 203 insertions/deletions) on 952 individuals from 41 Pacific populations now provides the basis for understanding the remarkable nature of Melanesian variation, and for a more accurate comparison of these Pacific populations with previously studied groups from other regions. It also shows how textured human population variation can be in particular circumstances. Genetic diversity within individual Pacific populations is shown to be very low, while differentiation among Melanesian groups is high. Melanesian differentiation varies not only between islands, but also by island size and topographical complexity. The greatest distinctions are among the isolated groups in large island interiors, which are also the most internally homogeneous. The pattern loosely tracks language distinctions. Papuan-speaking groups are the most differentiated, and Austronesian or Oceanic-speaking groups, which tend to live along the coastlines, are more intermixed. A small "Austronesian" genetic signature (always <20%) was detected in less than half the Melanesian groups that speak Austronesian languages, and is entirely lacking in Papuan-speaking groups. Although the Polynesians are also distinctive, they tend to cluster with Micronesians, Taiwan Aborigines, and East Asians, and not Melanesians. These findings contribute to a resolution to the debates over Polynesian origins and their past interactions with Melanesians. With regard to genetics, the earlier studies had heavily relied on the evidence from single locus mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosome variation. Neither of these provided an unequivocal signal of phylogenetic relations or population intermixture proportions in the Pacific. Our analysis indicates the ancestors of Polynesians moved through Melanesia relatively rapidly and only intermixed to a very modest degree with the indigenous populations there.
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The broad arc of islands north of Australia that extends from Indonesia east towards the central Pacific is home to a set of human populations whose concentration of diversity is unequaled elsewhere. Approximately 20% of the worlds languages are spoken here, and the biological and genetic heterogeneity among the groups is extraordinary. Anthropologist W.W. Howells once declared diversity in the region so Protean as to defy analysis. However, this book can now claim considerable success in describing and understanding the origins of the genetic and linguistic variation there. In order to cut through this biological knot, the authors have applied a comprehensive battery of genetic analyses to an intensively sampled set of populations, and have subjected these and complementary linguistic data to a variety of phylogenetic analyses. This has revealed a number of heretofore unknown ancient Pleistocene genetic variants that are only found in these island populations, and has also identified the genetic footprints of more recent migrants from Southeast Asia who were the ancestors of the Polynesians. The book lays out the very complex structure of the variation within and among the islands in this relatively small region, and a number of explanatory models are tested to see which best account for the observed pattern of genetic variation here. The results suggest that a number of commonly used models of evolutionary divergence are overly simple in their assumptions, and that often human diversity has accumulated in very complex ways.
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List of Plates. List of Figures and Tables. Preface. 1. This Island Melanesian World. Introduction: An Archaeological View. Island Melanesian Language. The Island Melanesian People. A Lapita and Post-Lapita Community of The Island Melanesian World. Conclusions. 2. Early Settlement: 40,000 to 20,000 Years Ago. Early Settlement in Island Melanesia: Who and When. Voyaging. Settlement and Subsistence Prior to 20,000 years ago. Early Settlement of Vanuatu and New Caledonia? 3. Settling In: 20,000 to 6000 Year Ago. Seal Level Changes. The Archaeological Sites. Cultural Changes. Economic Change: 20,000 to 6000 BP. Early Island Melanesians. 4. The World Turned Upside Down: 6000 to 3000 Years Ago. The Lapita Cultural Complex. Sites of the Immediately Pre-Lapita Period. The Argument for Continuity. The Agricultural Question. Lapita Discontinuities. The Origins of the Lapita Culture. A Lapita Language? A Lapita People?: The Evidence from Genetics. How Southeast Asian is Lapita? Lapita Social Organisation. The Structure of the Lapita Migration. Lapita Origins Revisited. 5. Success and Failure of Lapita: 3000 to 2000 Years Ago. The Bismarcks. The Solomons. Vanuatu. New Caledonia. Contemporary Non-Lapita Sites. The Micronesian Connection. The Lapita Legacy. 6. The Making of Traditional Island Melanesian Cultures: 2000 to 750 Years Ago. The End of Lapita. Investigating Alternatives. The Bismarcks. The Solomons. Vanuatu. New Caledonia. The Legacy of Polynesian Contact. 8. Ships from the West: Island Melanesians Encounter the Europeans. The Conquest of the Conquistadors, 1528-1606 AD. Fleeting Glimpses, 1616-1722 AD. The Major European 'Discoveries', 1767-1774. Final First Meetings, 1781-1850 AD. Legacies of Contact. 9. Custom and Continuity in Island Melanesian Cultures. The Impact on Population. Impact on Settlement Pattern. Subsistence Change. Environmental Degradation. Mobility. Challenges to Authority Structures. The Position of Women. Directions and Constraints from the Past. 10. An Island Melanesian Future? Index.
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