Abstract
This introduction surveys the prospects for developing a systematic comparative approach to Austronesian syntax and outlines the benefits of such an approach for syntactic theory. We begin with a brief overview of Austronesian languages, focusing on some typologically unusual aspects of their grammar, and the theoretical explanations that have been proposed for these features. We then survey the articles in the rest of this volume and the theoretical questions they address. A novel feature of this special issue is that each article is followed by a commentary by another Austronesian linguist which engages the same issues from a different perspective. The pairings of article and commentary should give readers a window into the study of Austronesian syntax and its current contributions to linguistic theory.
Article PDF
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Aldridge, Edith. 2004a. Ergativity and word order in Austronesian languages. PhD dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY.
Aldridge, Edith. 2004b. Internally headed relative clauses in Austronesian languages. Language and Linguistics 5: 99–129.
Aldridge, Edith. 2009. Antipassive in Austronesian alignment change. In Grammatical change: origins, nature, outcomes, eds. Dianne Jonas, John Whitman, and Andrew Garrett. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Arka, I Wayan, and Malcom Ross, eds. 2005. The many faces of Austronesian voice systems: some new empirical studies. Pacific Linguistics, 571. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Austin, Peter, and Simon Musgrave, eds. 2005. Voice and grammatical functions in Austronesian languages. Stanford: CSLI.
Bauer, Winifred. 1993. Maori. London: Routledge.
Bellwood, Peter. 1979. Man’s conquest of the Pacific: the prehistory of Southeast Asia and Oceania. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bhatt, Rajesh. 2002. The raising analysis of relative clauses: evidence from adjectival modification. Natural Language Semantics 10: 43–90.
Bianchi, Valentina. 2002. Headed relative clauses in generative syntax. Parts I–II. Glot International 6.7–6.8: 235–247.
Blust, Robert. 1999. Subgrouping, circularity and extinction: some issues in Austronesian comparative linguistics. In Selected papers from the eighth international conference on Austronesian linguistics, eds. Elizabeth Zeitoun and Paul Jen-kuei Li, 31–94. Taipei: Academia Sinica.
Broschart, Jürgen. 1997. Why Tongan does it differently: categorial distinctions in a language without nouns and verbs. Linguistic Typology 1: 123–165.
Caponigro, Ivano. 2004. The semantic contribution of wh-words and type shifts: evidence from free relatives cross-linguistically. In Proceedings from the conference on semantics and linguistic theory (SALT) XIV, ed. Robert N. Young, 38–55. Ithaca: Cornell University Publications.
Carnie, Andrew. 1995. Non-verbal predication and head-movement. PhD Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
Carnie, Andrew, Heidi Harley, and Sheila Ann Dodey, eds. 2005. Verb first: on the syntax of verb-initial languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Cartier, Alice. 1989. De-voiced transitive verb sentences in formal Indonesian. In Serpih-Serpih Telaah Pasif Bahasa Indonesia, ed. Kaswanti Purwo, 84–145. Yogyakarta: Kanisius.
Chung, Sandra. 1978. Case marking and grammatical relations in Polynesian. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Chung, Sandra. 1987. The syntax of Chamorro existential sentences. In The representation of (in)definiteness, eds. Eric Reuland and Alice ter Meulen, 191–225. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Chung, Sandra. 1998. The design of agreement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chung, Sandra. 2006. Properties of VOS Languages. In The Blackwell companion to syntax (syncom), eds. Martin Everaert, Henk van Riemsdijk, Rob Goedemans, and Bart Hollebrandse, 685–720. Malden–Oxford: Blackwell.
Chung, Sandra, and James McCloskey. 1987. Government, barriers, and small clauses in Modern Irish. Linguistic Inquiry 18: 173–237.
Cole, Peter, and Gabriella Hermon. 2005. Subject and nonsubject relativization in Indonesian. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 14: 59–88.
Cole, Peter, and Gabriella Hermon. 2008a. Malay/Indonesian syntax from an Austronesian perspective: an introduction. Lingua 118: 1431–1439.
Cole, Peter, and Gabriella Hermon. 2008b. VP raising in a VOS language. Syntax 11: 144–197.
Cole, Peter, Gabriella Hermon, and Yanti. 2008. Voice in Malay/Indonesian. Lingua 118: 1500–1553.
Custis, Tonya. 2005. Word order variation in Tongan: a syntactic analysis. PhD Dissertation, University of Minnesota.
Dahl, Otto Christian. 1951. Malgache et maanyan. Une comparaison linguistique. Avhandlinger utgitt av Instituttet 3. Oslo: Edege Instituttet.
Davies, William, and Stanley Dubinsky. 2001. Functional architecture and the distribution of subject properties. In Objects and other subjects: grammatical functions, functional categories, and configurationality, 247–279. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Dempwolff, Otto. 1920. Die Lautentsprechungen der indonesischen Lippenlaute in einigen anderen austronesischen Sprachen, Habilitationsschrift. ZfES 2. Berlin: Beiheft, Dietrich Reimer.
Dempwolff, Otto. 1934. Vergleichende Lautlehre des Austronesischen Wortschatzes, Band 1. Induktiver Aufbau einer indonesischen Ursprache. ZfES 15. Berlin: Beiheft, Dietrich Reimer.
Dempwolff, Otto. 1937. Vergleichende Lautlehre des Austronesischen Wortschatzes, Band 2. Deduktive Anwendung des Urindonesischen auf austronesische Einzelsprachen. ZfES 17. Berlin: Beiheft, Dietrich Reimer.
Dempwolff, Otto. 1938. Vergleichende Lautlehre des Austronesischen Wortschatzes, Band 3. Austronesisches Wörterverzeichnis. ZfES 19. Berlin: Beiheft, Dietrich Reimer.
den Dikken, Marcel. 2003. The structure of the noun phrase in Rotuman. Lincom Studies in Austronesian Linguistics, 05. Berlin: LINCOM Europa.
Emonds, Joseph. 1980. Word order in generative grammar. Journal of Linguistic Research 1: 33–54.
Gärtner, Hans-Martin, Paul Law, and Joachim Sabel. 2006. Clause structure and adjuncts in Austronesian languages: a critical introductory survey. In Clause structure and adjuncts in Austronesian languages, eds. Hans-Martin Gärtner, Paul Law, and Joachim Sabel, 1–42. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Georgopoulos, Carol. 1985. Variables in Palauan syntax. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 3: 59–94.
Georgopoulos, Carol. 1991. Syntactic variables: resumptive pronouns and A′-binding in Palauan. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Gerassimova, Veronica, and Peter Sells. 2008. Long-distance dependencies in Tagalog: the case for Raising. In Proceedings of the 26th west coast conference on formal linguistics, eds. Charles B. Chang and Hannah Haynie, 190–198. Somerville: Cascadilla Press.
Gerdts, Donna. 1988. Antipassives and causatives in Ilokano: evidence for an ergative analysis. In Studies in Austronesian linguistics, ed. Richard McGinn, 295–321. Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies.
Gil, David. 2004. Riau Indonesian sama: explorations in macrofunctionality. In Coordinating constructions, ed. Martin Haspelmath, 371–424. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Gil, David. 2005. Word order without syntactic categories: how Riau Indonesian does it. In Verb first: on the syntax of verb-initial languages, eds. Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley, and Sheila Ann Dooley, 243–263. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Grace, George W. 1959. The position of the Polynesian languages within the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language family. Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics. International Journal of American Linguistics, Memoir 16.
Grace, George W. 1961. Austronesian linguistics and culture history. American Anthropologist 63: 359–368.
Guilfoyle, Eithne, Henrietta Hung, and Lisa Travis. 1992. Spec of IP and spec of VP: two subjects in Austronesian languages. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 10: 375–414.
Hendrick, Randall. 2005. Tongan determiners and semantic composition. Language 81: 907–926.
Heycock, Caroline. 2005. On the interaction of adjectival modifiers and relative clauses. Natural Language Semantics 13: 359–382.
Hyams, Nina, Cecile Manorohanta, and Dimitris Ntelitheos. 2006. Acquisition of the Malagasy voicing system: implications for adult grammar. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 24: 1049–1092.
Keenan, Edward. 1972. Relative clause formation in Malagasy. In Chicago which hunt: papers from the relative clause festival, eds. Paul M. Peranteau, Judith N. Levi, and Gloria C. Phares, 169–189. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
Keenan, Edward L. 1976. Remarkable subjects in Malagasy. In Subject and topic, ed. C.N. Li, 247–301. New York: Academic Press.
Keenan, Edward L. 1987. A semantic definition of ‘indefinite NP’. In The representation of (in)definiteness, eds. Eric Reuland and Alice ter Meulen, 286–326. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Keenan, Edward L. 2003. The definiteness effect: semantics or pragmatics? Natural Language Semantics 11: 187–216.
Keenan, Edward L. 2008. Voice and relativization without movement in Malagasy. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 26: 467–497.
Kikusawa, Ritsuko. 2002. Proto central Pacific ergativity: its reconstruction and development in the Fijian, Rotuman and Polynesian languages. Pacific Linguistics, 520. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Klamer, Marian. 2002. Ten years of synchronic Austronesian linguistics. Lingua 112: 933–965.
Koopman, Hilda, and Anna Szabolcsi. 2000. Verbal complexes. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information structure and sentence form: topic, focus, and the mental representations of discourse referents. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lumsden, Michael. 1988. Existential sentences: their structure and meaning. London: Croom Helm.
Massam, Diane. 2001. Pseudo noun incorporation in Niuean. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 19: 153–197.
Massam, Diane. 2005. Lexical categories, lack of inflection, and predicate fronting in Niuean. In Verb first: on the syntax of verb-initial languages, eds. Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley, and Sheila Ann Dooley, 227–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Massam, Diane. 2009. Existential incorporation constructions. Lingua 119: 166–184.
Massam, Diane, and Carolyn Smallwood. 1997. Essential features of predication in English and Niuean. In Proceedings of the 27th North East Linguistic Society, ed. Kiyomi Kusumoto, 263–272. Amherst: GLSA Publications.
McCloskey, James. 1991. Clause structure, ellipsis, and proper government in Irish. Lingua 85: 259–302.
McCloskey, James. 2001. The distribution of subject properties in Irish. In Objects and other subjects: grammatical functions, functional categories, and configurationality, eds. William Davies and Stanley Dubinsky, 157–192. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
McNally, Louise. 1992. An interpretation for the English existential construction. PhD Dissertation, University of California at Santa Cruz.
Nguyen, Ba Duong. 1998. Le systeme “verbal” du wallisien. In Systemes verbaux, ed. Fernand Bentolila, 307–326. Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters.
Oda, Kenji. 2005. V1 and wh-questions: a typology. In Verb first: on the syntax of verb-initial languages, eds. Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley, and Sheila Ann Dooley, 107–134. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Otsuka, Yuko. 2005. Two derivations of VSO: a comparative study of Niuean and Tongan. In Verb first: on the syntax of verb-initial languages, eds. Andrew Carnie, Heidi Harley, and Sheila Ann Dooley, 65–90. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Paul, Ileana. 2001. Concealed pseudo-clefts. Lingua 111: 707–727.
Pearce, Elizabeth. 2002. VP versus V raising in Māori. In Proceedings of AFLA VIII: the eighth meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics, 44, eds. Andrea Rackowski and Norvin Richards, 225–240. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Pearson, Matthew. 2001. The clause structure of Malagasy: a minimalist approach. PhD Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
Pearson, Matthew. 2005. The Malagasy subject/topic as an A′-element. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 23: 381–457.
Polinsky, Maria. 2008. Existential constructions in Malagasy. In Language and text in the Austronesian world. Studies in honor of Ülo Sirk, ed. Yuri Lander, 222–257. Berlin: LINCOM Europa.
Rackowski, Andrea, and Norvin Richards. 2005. Phase edge and extraction: a Tagalog case study. Linguistic Inquiry 36: 565–599.
Rackowski, Andrea, and Lisa Travis. 2000. V-initial languages: X or XP movement and adverbial placement. In The syntax of verb-initial languages, eds. A. Carnie and E. Guilfoyle, 117–141. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ross, Malcolm. 1995. Some current issues in Austronesian linguistics. In Comparative Austronesian dictionary: an introduction to Austronesian studies, part 1, fascicle 1, ed. Darrell T. Tryon, 45–120. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Sabbagh, Joseph A. 2005. Non-verbal argument structure: evidence from Tagalog. PhD dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
Schachter, Paul. 1976. The subject in Philippine languages: topic, actor, actor-topic or none of the above? In Subject and topic, ed. C.N. Li, 491–518. New York: Academic Press.
Sells, Peter. 2000. Raising and the order of clausal constituents in the Philippine languages. In Formal issues in Austronesian linguistics, eds. Ileana Paul, Vivianne Phillips, and Lisa Travis, 117–144. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Sproat, Richard. 1985. Welsh syntax and VSO structure. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 3: 173–216.
Tchekhoff, Claude. 1981. Simple sentences in Tongan. Canberra: Australian National University.
Tjung, Yassir. 2005. On. Ada-constructions in Indonesian. Manuscript, University of Delaware.
Verhaar, John M. 1989. Syntactic ergativity in contemporary Indonesian. In Serpih-Serpih Telaah Pasif Bahasa Indonesia, ed. B. Kaswanti Purwo, 200–281. Yogyakarta: Kanisius.
Ward, Gregory, and Betty Birner. 1995. Definiteness and the English existential. Language 71: 722–742.
Zeitoun, Elizabeth, Lillian M. Huang, Marie M. Yeh, and Anna H. Chang. 1999. Existential, possessive, and locative constructions in Formosan languages. Oceanic Linguistics 38: 1–42.
Zucchi, Alessandro. 1995. The ingredients of the definiteness effect. Natural Language Semantics 3: 33–78.
Zwartjes, Otto, and Even Hovdhaugen. 2004. Introduction. In Missionary linguistics/linguistica misionera, eds. Otto Zwartjes and Even Hovdhaugen, 1ff. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Chung, S., Polinsky, M. Introduction. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 27, 659–673 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-009-9076-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-009-9076-2