Language Ecology

The Austronesian and Papuan logosphere ranks very high in linguistic diversity, and it remains a puzzle how such a high degree of diversity has developed originally and how it has remained stable despite much language contact and entrenched multilingualism. The concept of language ecology may help to investigate this question in a structured way. The ecology of a language is the network of relationships that a language (i.e. its speakers) has with the other languages it comes in contact with, together with other aspects of its environment that might exert an influence on it. The concept of language ecology, following Haugen (1972), includes factors such as: the genetic classification of the language; the demography of its speakers; its internal variation; its domains of use; other languages used by its speakers; their degree of bi- or multilingualism; its degree of development; whether it has institutional support; the attitudes of its users; as well as the many non-linguistic aspects of its social environment and natural environment. We are interested in papers addressing aspects of the following questions:

• What types of bi- or multilingualism are practised in the speech communities of the region?

• What are the speakers’ attitudes towards their own language or a neighbouring language?

• What are the speakers’ attitudes towards variation and language change?

• How do/did language ecologies change in the region? To what degree are they endangered?

• How do non-linguistic factors (i.e. the social environment and natural environment) influence the structure of individual languages?

Applicatives

Applicatives are a prevalent morphosyntactic construction in the grammars of Austronesian and Papuan languages, but also play a role beyond its morpho-syntactic function of promoting a peripheral semantic role to direct object as the “applied phrase”. Recent work investigating the morphosyntax of applicative constructions has explored the types of semantic roles applicative morphology targets, the role of stacking/doubling of different applicative morphology, the role of word order of internal arguments, as well as its role in relation to its use in deriving causative constructions. In addition, recent work has noted that the role of applicative morphology can have other non-syntactic functions. Among these functions are pluractionality, iteration, topicality of the applied phrase, specificity of the applied phrase, completeness of the event or affectedness of the applied phrase. These functions, while less studied, seem to be common cross-linguistically. We are interested in papers addressing aspects of the following questions, especially with an eye to broader typological generalizations:

• What are the morpho-syntactic functions of applicative constructions in a given Austronesian or Papuan language?

• What are the semantic or pragmatic functions of applicatives in a given Austronesian or Papuan language?

• What are pathways of change to and/or beyond applicatives in one or more Austronesian or Papuan languages?