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Where does grammar come from? The cognitive basis of transitivity and grammatical relations

In this project we seek to explain how basic sentence structures arise, with a basis in our general cognitive abilities and our shared human need to communicate.

A house built on stilts on a beach on a Pacific island.

The project focuses on languages from the Austronesian family, which is spoken across Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Photo (c) Åshild Næss.

About the project

Language is what makes us human, and all humans have language. But are all human languages fundamentally the same, or can they be organised in very different ways? Does our shared ability to use language come from a specialised language faculty in our brains which determines how languages can be structured, or from our general cognitive abilities and shared communicative needs?

This project takes the latter approach in trying to explain how basic sentence structures arise. If all human languages have a shared grammatical blueprint, then organising sentence structure around categories like subject and object should be common to all languages. Our starting point is the Austronesian language family, which covers Island Southeast Asia and most of the Pacific Ocean, and stretches all the way to Madagascar off the east coast of Africa. Within this language family, some languages do clearly structure their sentences around the categories of subject and object, while others seem to be organised in a different way which more directly reflects communicative concerns such as which aspects of a situation the speaker considers to be most important. Moreover, we know that the Austronesian languages which do have a subject-object system have developed it from something like this other type of system. This suggests that even the most basic properties of grammatical structure are best understood as stemming from the function of human language as a system of communication. The project will use the great range of variation in structures found in the Austronesian language family to develop a theory of how our communicative needs shape basic sentence structure and what the properties are which shape different types of system. This will give us more insight into how human language, in general, works, and how human language and human experience shape and influence each other.

What are we up to?

 

Several project members are attending the 3rd International Conference on Prominence in Language in Cologne and the 14th Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics Conference (APLL) in Berlin in June 2022. At APLL, Beth Evans is a plenary speaker, Åshild Næss and Eline Visser are presenting papers, and Jozina Vander Klok is on the organising committee! 

Eline Visser got a Small Grant from the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme to do fieldwork on Uruangnirin, and we're crossing our fingers that such fieldwork will be possible later this year! 

From autumn 2022 we have a new project member, Eline Visser, who is funded by the Swedish Wenner-Gren Foundation. She will collect and analyse data from the undescribed language Uruangnirin, which belongs to the little-explored Central Malayo-Polynesian branch of Austronesian. Welcome, Eline! 

In May-July 2021 project members are participating in the conferences:

In November 2020, Sindre Holmen submitted his MA thesis "Voice choice in Äiwoo: A discourse-functional study of the symmetrical voice system in Äiwoo (duo.uio.no). Congratulations, Sindre!

Events

On May 11-12, 2021, we are organising a PhD course on 'Expressions of information structure in a crosslinguistic perspective'. 

In June 2020 we are hosting the 12th International Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics conference (APLL12). This is the first time APLL is being held as a digital event! See conference website for more information.

On 9-10 December 2019, the project organised a workshop on the role of prominence in the grammar of Austronesian languages at the Australian National University. The program and participants can be found on the webpage for the workshop (dynamicsoflanguage.edu.au)

Financing

The project (2018-2022) is funded by the Research Council of Norway under the FRIPRO scheme.

Publications

  • Næss, Åshild; Alfarano, Valentina; Boerger, BH & Vaa, Anders (2023). Comitative Constructions in Reefs–Santa Cruz. Oceanic Linguistics. ISSN 0029-8115. 62(1), p. 81–116. doi: 10.1353/ol.2023.0002. Full text in Research Archive
  • Næss, Åshild (2023). Voice and Pluractionality in Äiwoo. Oceanic Linguistics. ISSN 0029-8115. 62(1), p. 47–80. doi: 10.1353/ol.2023.0001. Full text in Research Archive
  • Næss, Åshild (2022). Binominals in Äiwoo: Compounds, possessive constructions, and transitional cases. In Pepper, Steve; Masini, Francesca & Mattiola, Simone (Ed.), Binominal Lexemes in Cross-Linguistic Perspective Towards a Typology of Complex Lexemes. De Gruyter Mouton. ISSN 978-3-11-064087-8. p. 181–212. doi: https:/doi.org/10.1515/9783110673494-006.
  • Næss, Åshild (2021). Voice and valency morphology in Äiwoo. Oceanic Linguistics. ISSN 0029-8115. 60(1), p. 160–198. doi: 10.1353/ol.2021.0005. Full text in Research Archive
  • Næss, Åshild (2021). Äiwoo wâtu and the typology of comparatives. Studies in Language. ISSN 0378-4177. 45(4), p. 938–967. doi: 10.1075/sl.20022.nae. Full text in Research Archive
  • Næss, Åshild (2020). Looking for words in the Reef Islands: bound roots in Äiwoo and their descriptive and documentary challenge. In Leblic, Isabelle & Souag, Lameen (Ed.), Du terrain á la théorie: les 40 ans de Lacito. Lacito Publications. ISSN 978-2-490768-01-1. p. 199–220.

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  • Evans, Bethwyn; Næss, Åshild & Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn (2024). Prominence in Austronesian. De Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 9783110735413.

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  • Evans, Bethwyn; Næss, Åshild & Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn (2024). Prominence in Austronesian: An introduction. In Evans, Bethwyn; Næss, Åshild & Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn (Ed.), Prominence in Austronesian. De Gruyter Mouton. ISSN 9783110735413. p. 1–18. doi: https:/doi.org/10.1515/9783110730753-001.
  • Næss, Åshild (2023). Voice choice in Äiwoo discourse.
  • Rødvand, Linn Iren Sjånes (2023). Post-verbal subjects in an SV language: non-agentivity and discourse structure .
  • Næss, Åshild (2022). Voice and transitivity in Äiwoo discourse .
  • Næss, Åshild (2022). Reversing grammatical relations: lessons from Reefs-Santa Cruz.
  • Næss, Åshild (2022). Prominence levels and the symmetrical voice-to-transitivity shift.
  • Næss, Åshild (2022). Voice and pluractionality in Äiwoo.
  • Rødvand, Linn Iren Sjånes (2021). Topicalization in Patani.
  • Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn (2021). PPs in Javanese applicatives.
  • Næss, Åshild (2021). Two comitative constructions in Äiwoo.
  • Næss, Åshild (2021). Deictics, syntax and information structure in Äiwoo.
  • Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn & Evans, Bethwyn (2021). Javanese applicatives within the historical evolution of applicatives in Austronesian .
  • Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn & Conners, Thomas J. (2021). Proceedings of ISLOJ 7 (International Symposium of the Languages of Java). . NUSA: Linguistic studies of languages in and around Indonesia. ISSN 0126-2874. 69.
  • Næss, Åshild (2021). Äiwoo: momalâ.
  • Rødvand, Linn Iren Sjånes (2020). Semantics of numeral classifiers in Patani.
  • Næss, Åshild & Sauppe, Sebastian (2020). Bringing psycholinguistics to the field: experiences from the Solomon Islands.
  • Næss, Åshild (2019). How to grow grammatical relations: modelling the transition from symmetrical voice to subject/object structure in Austronesian.
  • Næss, Åshild (2019). How to grow grammatical relations: modelling the transition from symmetrical voice to subject-object structure in Austronesian.
  • Næss, Åshild; Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn & Evans, Bethwyn (2019). Prominence in Austronesian: introduction.
  • Næss, Åshild (2019). Chasing the clause: the challenges of describing person indexing in Äiwoo.
  • Næss, Åshild (2019). Språkmangfaldet i Stillehavsregionen. Mål og makt. ISSN 0332-7744. 49(3), p. 33–37.
  • Næss, Åshild; Evans, Bethwyn & Vander Klok, Jozina Madolyn (2018). The rise of grammatical relations in Austronesian.

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Published May 2, 2018 11:18 AM - Last modified Aug. 2, 2022 2:43 PM

Participants

Detailed list of participants