Central Solomon languages
| Central Solomons | |
|---|---|
| (tentative) | |
| Geographic distribution | Solomon Islands |
| Linguistic classification | One of the world's primary language families |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | None |
 Language families of the Solomon Islands. Central Solomons | |
The Central Solomon languages are the four Papuan languages spoken in the state of the Solomon Islands.
The four languages are, listed from northwest to southeast,
- Bilua of Vella Lavella and Ghizo islands,
- Touo (also known as Baniata) of Rendova Island,
- Lavukaleve of the Russell Islands, and
- Savosavo of Savo Island.
Classification
The four Central Solomon languages were identified as a family by Wilhelm Schmidt in 1908. The languages are at best distantly related, and evidence for their relationship is meager. Dunn and Terrill (2012) argue that the lexical evidence vanishes when Oceanic loanwords are excluded.[1] Ross (2005) and Pedrós (2015), however, accept a connection, based on similarities among pronouns and other grammatical forms.
Pedrós (2015) suggests, tentatively, that the branching of the family is as follows.
- Central Solomons
Savosavo and Bilua, despite being the most distant languages geographically, both split more recently than Lavukaleve and Touo according to Pedrós.
Palmer (2018) regards the evidence for Central Solomons as tentative but promising.[2]
Pronoun reconstructions
Pedrós (2015) argues for the existence of the family through comparison of pronouns and other gender, person and number morphemes and based on the existence of a common syncretism between 2nd person nonsingular and inclusive. He performs an internal reconstruction for the pronominal morphemes of each language and then proposes a reconstruction of some of the pronouns of the claimed family. The reconstructions are the following:
| 1 singular | 2 singular | inclusive/ 2 non-singular |
1 exclusive | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-Savosavo | *a-ɲi | *no | *me | a- |
| Pre-Touo | e̤ | noe | *me | e̤- |
| Pre-Lavukaleve | *ŋai | *ŋo | *me | e |
| Pre-Bilua | *ani/*aŋai | *ŋo | me | e- |
| Proto-Central Solomons | *ani/*aŋai | *ŋo | *me | *e |
Numerals
Central Solomon numerals from Pedrós (2015):
numeral Savosavo Touo Lavukaleve Bilua 1 ˈela, ˈpade / pa aɺo / azo ˈtelakom, ˈtelako ˈomadeu, ˈmadeu 2 ˈedo e̤ɺi ˈlelemal, ˈlelaol, ˈlelaɰel, ˈlemal ˈomuga, ˈmuga 3 iˈɰiβa / iˈɰia hie ˈeŋa ˈzouke, ke 4 ˈaɰaβa a̤vo nun ˈariku 5 ˈara sodu ˈsie ˈsike, ke
As the comparisons indicate, lexical evidence for the relatedness of the four languages is limited.
Syntax
All Central Solomon languages have SOV word order except for Bilua, which has SVO word order to due Oceanic influence.[3]
See also
- Papuan languages
- Temotu languages, Oceanic but with heavy Papuan substrate influence
Further reading
- Simon J Greenhill, & Robert Forkel. (2019). lexibank/tryonsolomon: Solomon Islands Languages (Version v3.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3535809
References
- ^ Michael Dunn & Angela Terrill (2012) Assessing the lexical evidence for a Central Solomons Papuan family using the Oswalt Monte Carlo test. Diachronica 29:1–27.
- ^ Palmer, Bill (2018). "Language families of the New Guinea Area". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 1–20. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- ^ Stebbins, Tonya; Evans, Bethwyn; Terrill, Angela (2018). "The Papuan languages of Island Melanesia". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 775–894. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
- Ross, Malcolm, 2001. "Is there an East Papuan phylum? Evidence from pronouns", in The boy from Bundaberg. Studies in Melanesian linguistics in honour of Tom Dutton, ed. by Andrew Pawley, Malcolm Ross and Darrell Tryon: 301-322. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- Structural Phylogenetics and the Reconstruction of Ancient Language History. Michael Dunn, Angela Terrill, Ger Reesink, Robert A. Foley, Stephen C. Levinson. Science magazine, 23 Sept. 2005, vol. 309, p 2072.
- Ross, Malcolm, 2005. "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages", in Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan speaking peoples, ed. by Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson: 15-65. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
- Pedrós, Toni, 2015. "New arguments for a Central Solomons family based on evidence from pronominal morphemes". Oceanic Linguistics, vol. 54, no. 2 (358-395).
External links
- Central Solomons languages database at TransNewGuinea.org
- Central Solomons word lists (Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database)