Diachronica - Current Issue

This study analyzes the numeral systems of Austronesian and Papuan languages, investigating their areal distribution and considering their most likely ancestral states. The presence or absence of different methods of numeration has often been ascribed to contact-induced change. This can certainly be seen in scholarship pertaining to Melanesia, where Austronesian languages probably first came into contact with Papuan languages around 3,500 years ago. Indeed, since Proto-Austronesian is reconstructed as having employed a decimal (base-10) numeral system (with reflexes occurring throughout the Austronesian world), the presence of quinary (base-5) numeral systems in the Austronesian languages of Melanesia has commonly been attributed to contact with Papuan languages. Relying on a typological survey of 1,825 languages, this paper argues that highly conventionalized quinary systems were probably rare in Melanesia prior to the arrival of Austronesian languages. Rather, it was more likely that Austronesian speakers spread lexicalized quinary systems to Papuan groups, not the other way around. In making this argument, the paper stresses that, while numeration may be something that is linguistically encoded in a systematic fashion, it may also be realized as a cultural feature without strongly conventionalized lexicalized expressions.

Based on internal reconstruction, this paper resolves a long-standing problem observed in Khroskyabs, a West Gyalrongic language (Sino-Tibetan), that seems to sporadically have lenited voiceless stops, resulting in irregular correspondences with East Gyalrongic. Two major sound changes are involved: intervocalic lenition and post-stress intersyllabic compression. It turns out that the processes proposed here are one probable solution to monosyllabicization in languages of Southeast Asia, explaining a pathway from polysyllables or sesquisyllables toward monosyllables. Through examining potential problems of previous reconstructions in various languages, this paper shows that the Khroskyabs case provides a plausible direction in the solution of relevant unresolved problems from a panchronic perspective.

This paper demonstrates that unexpected sound changes are best explained by an approach that accounts for different motivations: phonetic, structural and social. Here, we focus on a multifaceted investigation of the cross-linguistically uncommon bilabial trills to show the complex interaction between different drivers of sound change. In this paper, we highlight and examine the prenasalized voiced bilabial trill ^mʙ and plain voiceless bilabial trill p [ʙ̥] found in a number of Oceanic languages spoken on Malekula Island in Vanuatu. We offer a comparative-historical analysis, and we identify the various forces that have led to the emergence and persistence of ^mʙ and p in Malekula languages: the historical articulatory environments, the particular make-up of the consonant inventories of these languages, complementary sound changes and phonological processes, contact with non-Austronesian languages, and in-group identity attachment. Furthermore, we offer a hypothesis for the relative timing of these factors on the historical pathway of Malekula’s bilabial trills.

The term “Humboldt’s Universal”, introduced to linguistics in the 1970s, appears to be synonymous with a number of other expressions, some of which are also used to denote different phenomena (e.g. isomorphism). In this paper, the extent of the terminological problem is highlighted, and a plea is made for explanation of how the term is to be understood in the work of individual authors.

L’expression « universel de Humboldt », introduite en linguistique dans les années 1970, semble être synonyme de nombreuses autres formulations, dont certaines sont également utilisées pour désigner d’autres phénomènes. Dans cet article, l’étendue du problème terminologique est soulignée et un plaidoyer est mené pour que soient expliqués les termes en question dans le travail de chaque auteur.

Der in den 1970er-Jahren in die Linguistik eingeführte Begriff „Humboldts Universale“ wird gerne mit einer Reihe anderer Ausdrücke synonym verwendet, die aber teilweise auch andere Phänomene bezeichnen. In diesem Beitrag wird das Ausmaß des terminologischen Problems aufgezeigt, indem die Verwendungsweisen des Terminus im Werk der einzelnen Autoren erklärt wird.