Much of my research over the last fourteen years has involved primary linguistic documentation and analysis in a number of Oceanic languages, and the theoretical, typological and diachronic implications of that research.
A website
One result of my Oceanic research has been the launch of my website of Northwest Solomonic materials.
Northwest Solomonic is a subgrouping within Oceanic, comprising the Oceanic languages of Bougainville and the western Solomon Islands. The website brings together some of the research I have carried out into these languages, along with other materials on a number of languages in the group, radiating from homepages for each of the languages.
Possession in Oceanic
My recent research has also included work on various aspects of possession in Oceanic in general. This has included work on the syntactic status of the so-called 'possessive classifiers' in indirect possessive construction, research that has concluded that in many Oceanic languages these forms are in fact the syntactic head of the NP in which they occur, and that they do not satisfy the criteria usually used to define classifiers. Click here to view a draft paper on this topic (prepared jointly with Dunstan Brown).
In addition, I have been investigating a phenomenon found across Oceanic, in which possessor-indexing strategies are employed for functions apparently distinct from their canonical semantic function, such as:
- a direct possessor-indexing strategy with a canonical function marking possession of inalienable items such as body parts and kin terms turning up marking possession of characteristics, possession of stories, pictures and the like by their subject matter, and possesison of intimate items such as bedding and clothing;
- a FOOD 'classifier' with a canonical function marking possession of items eaten turning up marking instruments used on the possessor, such as weapons; and
- a DRINK 'classifier' with a canonical function marking possession of items drunk turning up marking possession of intimate items.
Click here to view a recent conference presentation on this topic.
The Kokota project
One major strand of my Oceanic research has involved the documentation and description of Kokota, an Oceanic language spoken in three villages on the island of Santa Isabel in the Solomon Islands.
Several lengthy periods living in a Kokota community has resulted in a reference grammar of Kokota, initially as a PhD dissertation. A revised version is now to be published by the University of Hawai'i Press (Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication no. 31). A sketch grammar of the language also appears in Lynch, Ross & Crowley's 2002 The Oceanic languages. (London: Curzon)
The Kokota project has also resulted in a draft dictionary, and a collection of texts.
This research is ongoing, and further periods in the field among the Kokota are projected.
Other Solomon Islands research
In addition to the Kokota project, I have undertaken primary documentation and analysis in Cheke Holo (aka Maringe), also spoken on Santa Isabel, and in Simbo, spoken in the Solomon Islands' New Georgia group.
A discussion of mood and aspect in Simbo appears in John Lynch & Fa'afo Pat's 1997 Proceedings of First International Conference on Oceanic Linguistics. (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics).
An article on 'Information structure and the pragmatic function of clause order variation in Cheke Holo' has been accepted for publication in Studies in Language.
Click here to view a draft of the Cheke Holo article.
In recent years my research focus has examined several interrelated morphological and syntactic phenomena in the Mono-Uruavan subgroup of Oceanic, a group of highly endangered and typologically unusual languages that includes Torau, Uruava and Mono Alu. These languages display considerable innovation, in many cases apparently reflecting long periods of bilingualism with neighbouring Papuan languages.
Torau is a highly endangered language traditionally spoken on the east coast of the strife-torn island of Bougainville. Spoken by only a few hundred people at most, Torau is the language of a community that has been dispersed and severely disrupted by civil conflict on the island. It is not clear how many speakers the language now has, and to what extent they remain a cohesive community. A project to document and investigate aspects of Torau is seeking funding.
Torau's closest relative on Bougainville was Uruava, a language whose last speaker died in about 1970. I am currently working on a salvage description of this extinct language to be published by Pacific Linguistics, drawing on the limited existing materials (almost all unpublished).
Variation and diachronic change in prosodic phonology
Drawing on this descriptive and analytic work, my research has investigated a number of phonological, morphological and syntactic phenomena in the languages investigated, and their wider implications.
One central strand of this is focused on the prosodic phonology of these languages, particularly their regimes of stress assignment. This has resulted so far in a number of conference presentations on stress in Kokota - an area of the grammar of that language that is highly complex and in the process of a series of diachronic changes, including a shift from moraic to syllabic trochees, and the regularisation of irregular stress assignment reflecting the prosodic shadow of lost morphological complexity. This is of particular interest as prosodic change is less well understood than changes in segmental phonology. This work is the subject of a journal article and a monograph in preparation.
Primary data on stress assignment in Cheke Holo and Banoni (Oceanic, spoken on Bougainville's west coast) is also under analysis.
Click here to view the most recent output of this work on stress.
I am also investigating a network of other phonological changes in several languages, including the development of echo vowels, consonant clusters and voiceless sonorants and onset clusters. The research into voiceless sonorants has resulted in a paper on the phonemic status of voiceless sonorants in Kokota.
The use of possessive morphology to index subjects
A further ongoing research strand is focused on several interrelated morphological and syntactic phenomena in Northwest Solomonic, particularly in the Mono-Uruavan subgroup. One focus of this work has been on the use of apparent possessive morphology to index subject and encode aspect on verbs, a phenomenon found throughout North West Solomonic.
Most North West Solomonic languages make some use of possessive morphology within the verb complex to index the subject, typically also encoding durative or progressive aspect. In some languages this occurs as optional additional marking in the standard clause structure. In others it forms an obligatory component of a distinct verbal construction.
An ongoing project is investigating the details of this construction across the group, and developing hypothesis about how such a shift from nominal to verbal morphology could occur.
Click here to view a recent conference paper on this project.
© Bill Palmer 2006