Journal article
Whither Realis marking: Loss and specialization in an Oceanic language
Elizabeth Pearce
Diachronica: international journal for historical linguistics | John Benjamins Publishing | Published : 2016
Abstract
The verb paradigms of declarative clauses in Unua (an Oceanic language of Malakula, Vanuatu) have a distinct Irrealis prefix b- contrasting with zero marking for the Realis. In relative clauses, however, the Irrealis b- contrasts with a prefix m- encoding realis interpretations. On the basis of comparative evidence, the synchronic m- prefix is a remnant of an earlier Realis *mw- that has become specialized for use in relative clauses. The diachronic loss of overt morphology in unmarked categories is not unusual. What is unusual in the Unua case is the retention and specialization of the morphology for the unmarked category in a sub-class of constructions, relative clauses. This paper sketche..
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Funding Acknowledgements
My work on Unua has been generously supported through a grant from the Marsden Fund of New Zealand and through supplementary funding from Victoria University of Wellington. Material in this paper was first presented at the International Workshop on Vanuatu Languages, ANU-Kioloa, 21-23 October 2011. I am grateful to the conference participants for helpful discussion as well as to the anonymous Diachronica reviewers for their valuable comments and to the Diachronica editorial team. Special thanks are due also to Ross McKerras, Jean-Michel Charpentier and Leina Isno for contributions of unpublished data, respectively on Uripiv, Port Sandwich and Ninde; and to Jesse Dimech who produced the Malakula map. Any errors are mine.