Numeral classifiers are additional grammatical elements within a numeral phrase (NumP) which refer to the salient semantic properties of the counted noun (Gil 2013). Numeral classifier systems are...Show moreNumeral classifiers are additional grammatical elements within a numeral phrase (NumP) which refer to the salient semantic properties of the counted noun (Gil 2013). Numeral classifier systems are the most recognised type of classifier system in the world’s languages. Numeral classifiers are structured by semantic principles, by which certain subclasses of nouns are assigned to the same classifiers. These semantic principles bear certain similarities across the world’s languages, which are called universals. Besides a universals basis, Lyons (1977a: 248) believes that the semantics of numeral classifier are also determined partly by cultural basis. This thesis is a comparative analysis of numeral classifiers in Palikúr (an Arawakan language of Brazil and French Guiana) and Rongga (an Austronesian language). The thesis has two goals. First, I am interested to explore to what extent the semantic universals regarding numeral classifiers hold for Palikúr and Rongga. In particular for Palikúr, since South American languages were mostly left out in the search for universal patterns in numeral classifier languages. The universal semantic frameworks regarding numeral classifiers that I discuss are Allan (1977), Lyons (1977) and Croft (1994). My second goal for this thesis is to explore the semantic variability between the Palikúr and Rongga numeral classifier systems. This question is of interest because it can help illuminate what kinds of semantic differences can be found within the semantic universal parameters identified by semanticists. The semantic variability of numeral classifier systems that I discuss is based on the study of Grinevald (2015). Together, these two questions shed light onto the interplay between universality and variability in the semantics of numeral classifier systems.Show less
Bujangga Manik is a fifteenth-century story from Sundanese-speaking West Java about an ascetic who travels around Java and Bali before ascending to heaven. Its central narrative trope, of narrating...Show moreBujangga Manik is a fifteenth-century story from Sundanese-speaking West Java about an ascetic who travels around Java and Bali before ascending to heaven. Its central narrative trope, of narrating the ascetic's journey through a recitation of place names, has no clear parallels in South Asian literature, and I argue that it derives from an ancient Malayo-Polynesian tradition, similar to what the anthropologist J. J. Fox named the 'topogeny'. I attempt to show this through a dissection of Bujangga Manik and detailed comparison with ethnographic data from the Malayo-Polynesian-(Austronesian-)speaking world.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
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This thesis investigates the linguistic expression and conceptualization of lexical temporal concepts in Kavalan, a highly endangered Austronesian (Formosan) language spoken on the east coast of...Show moreThis thesis investigates the linguistic expression and conceptualization of lexical temporal concepts in Kavalan, a highly endangered Austronesian (Formosan) language spoken on the east coast of Taiwan. The first part consists of a grammar sketch. The second part is the core component, describing and analyzing lexical time in Kavalan based on fieldwork data. The lexical temporal concepts are taken from Haspelmath’s (1997) typological semantic classification of temporal NP-based adverbials. The conceptualization of these concepts is examined using the Conceptual Metaphor Theory as advanced by Lakoff & Johnson (e.g. 1980, 1999b) and adjusted and expanded by Moore (2000, 2006, 2014). Expressions motivated by various TIME IS SPACE metaphors are found to be fairly frequent in Kavalan. The third and final part contains a small typological study, in which Kavalan’s linguistic behavior in terms of temporal expression and conceptualization is compared to that of four other Formosan languages: Tsou, Saisiyat, Isbukun Bunun, and Paiwan. A general pattern is the different encoding of temporal clauses in past situations as opposed to those in future and generic/habitual situations (Zeitoun 1997). Both Kavalan and Saisiyat are curiously found to deviate from this two-way distinction by being more implicit. Tsou is an obvious outlier in various respects, as expected from its likewise diverging general linguistic properties.Show less
Amarasi nominal demonstratives ia, naan and ne are used both pro- and adnominally to refer to objects and entities in the speech situation, with ia being used for near-speaker reference, naan being...Show moreAmarasi nominal demonstratives ia, naan and ne are used both pro- and adnominally to refer to objects and entities in the speech situation, with ia being used for near-speaker reference, naan being the near-addressee term for visible referents and ne being used for distal reference. The terms ia and ne are visibility-neutral. The nominal demonstratives can be used pronominally in copular clauses to identify referents in the speech situation. In adnominal form, they can co-occur with other determiners in a noun phrase. The corresponding local adverbs are ia, naa and nee respectively. Both ia and naan can be used for endophoric reference. Addressee-based naan is used anaphorically to refer back to preceding noun phrases and preceding chunks of discourse. The cataphoric demonstrative is ia, used to introduce direct speech. Speaker-based ia can only be used for anaphoric reference when the referent has high topicality.Show less
