•  
  •  
 

Abstract

This paper examines gender agreement in three little-known languages of the Aru Islands and places them within the larger pattern of "neuter gender" in eastern Indonesia. For each language, I look first at the variety of agreement targets that are controlled by gendered nouns. Secondly, I look at the semantics of nouns that control agreement. I show that whilst having a strongly semantic base involving animacy, gender in Aru languages is a grammatical category in which many nouns denoting certain types of entities that lack discernable biological animacy are assigned to the same gender as that of animate referents. I conclude by considering the system of gender in proto-Aru.

References

Blust, Robert. 1993. “Central and Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian”, Oceanic Linguistics 32: 241–93.

lust, Robert. 2009. The Austronesian languages. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. [Pacific Linguistics 602.]

Blust, Robert. 2014. “Dobel Historical Phonology”, Oceanic Linguistics 53/1: 37-60.

Bolton, Rosemary. 1990. “A preliminary description of Nuaulu phonology and grammar”. MA thesis, University of Texas, Arlington.

Collins, James T. 1982. “Linguistic research in Maluku; A report of recent fieldwork”, Oceanic Linguistics 21: 73-146.

Dalrymple, Mary and Suriel Mofu. 2012. Dusner. München: Lincom Europa.

Donohue, Mark and Charles E. Grimes. 2008. “Yet more on the position of the languages of eastern Indonesia and East Timor”, Oceanic Linguistics 47: 114–58.

Gasser, Emily. 2015. Windesi Wamesa Morphophonology. PhD thesis, Yale University.

Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. “Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements”, in: Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of Human Language, pp. 73-113. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Heuvel, Wilco van. 2006. Biak, description of an Austronesian language of Papua. Utrecht: LOT.

Hughes, Jock. 1987. “The languages of the Kei, Tanimbar, and Aru archipelagos of the South-East Moluccas; A preliminary lexicostatistic classification”, NUSA, Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and Other Languages in Indonesia 27: 71-111.

Hughes, Jock. 1995. “Dobel (Aru Islands); Introduction and wordlist”, in: Darrell T. Tryon (ed.), Comparative Austronesian dictionary; An introduction to Austronesian studies, Part 1, pp. 637-50. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hughes, Jock. 2000. “The morphology of Dobel, Aru with special reference to reduplication”, in: Charles E. Grimes (ed.), Spices from the East, pp. 131- 180. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. [Pacific Linguistics 503.]

Hughes, Jock. n.d. “List of Dobel animate nouns that refer to inanimate objects“. [Unpublished manuscript.]

Hughes, Jock and Katy Hughes. 1989. “A phonology of Dobel”, Workpapers in Indonesian Languages and Cultures 7: 43-76.

Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds). 2014. Ethnologue; Languages of the World. Seventeenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. [Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com.]

Nivens, Richard. 1992. “A lexical phonology of West Tarangan”, in: Donald A. Burquest and Wyn D. Laidig (eds), Phonological studies in four languages of Maluku, pp. 127-227. Dallas, Texas: SIL International.

Nivens, Richard. 1993. “Reduplication in four dialects of West Tarangan”, Oceanic Linguistics 32: 353-387.

Nivens, Richard. 2002. Borrowing versus code-switching in West Tarangan (Indonesia). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. [Publications in Sociolinguistics 8.]

Olson, Richard. n.d. “Dictionary of Kola”. [Unpublished Toolbox files.]

Plank, Frans and Wolfgang Schellinger. 1997. “The Uneven Distribution of Genders over Numbers; Greenberg Nos. 37 and 45”, Linguistic Typology 1: 53-101.

Schapper, Antoinette. 2010. “Neuter gender in eastern Indonesia”, Oceanic Linguistics 49/2: 407-435.

Schapper, Antoinette. 2011. “Phalanger facts; Notes on Blust’s marsupial reconstructions”, Oceanic Linguistics 50/1: 154-168.

Steinhauer, Hein. 1985. “Number in Biak; Counterevidence to two alleged language universals”, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 141: 462-485.

Takata, Yuko. 1992. “Word structure and reduplication in Kola”, NUSA, Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and Other Languages in Indonesia 34: 47-68. [Series Descriptive studies in languages of Maluku (Donald A. Burquest and Wyn D. Laidig eds.), Dallas, Texas: SIL International.]

Takata, Masahiro and Yuko Takata. 1991. Dahlang dal Kola relih = Percakapan dalam Bahasa Kola = Kola conversations. Ambon: Universitas Pattimura and Summer Institute of Linguistics.

Takata, Masahiro and Yuko Takata. 1992a. “Kola phonology”, NUSA, Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and Other Languages in Indonesia 34: 31-46.

Takata, Masahiro and Yuko Takata. 1992b. “Word structure and reduplication”, NUSA, Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and Other Languages in Indonesia 34: 47-68.

Winne, David de. 2013. “A morpho-syntactic sketch of Kola”. MA thesis, Leiden University.

Share

COinS