Antoinette Schapper
I am a field linguist working on Papuan and Austronesian languages in eastern Indonesia.
For my PhD, I wrote a description of Bunaq, a Papuan language spoken in central Timor. Bunaq is surrounded on all sides by Austronesian languages and has borrowed a large number of lexical items from them, especially Tetun and to a lesser extent Kemak. Though it has retained the head-final, head-marking syntax typical of its family, Bunaq has developed in isolation from the other Timor-Alor-Pantar languages and accordingly has many unique characteristics.
Most broadly characterised, I am interested in descriptive linguistics, language history and reconstruction, linguistic typology and lexicography.
For my PhD, I wrote a description of Bunaq, a Papuan language spoken in central Timor. Bunaq is surrounded on all sides by Austronesian languages and has borrowed a large number of lexical items from them, especially Tetun and to a lesser extent Kemak. Though it has retained the head-final, head-marking syntax typical of its family, Bunaq has developed in isolation from the other Timor-Alor-Pantar languages and accordingly has many unique characteristics.
Most broadly characterised, I am interested in descriptive linguistics, language history and reconstruction, linguistic typology and lexicography.
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The areas of grammar covered in this thesis are phonology (ch. 2), word classes (ch.3), clause structure (ch. 4), noun phrases (ch. 5), pronouns and person reference (ch. 6), determiners (ch. 7), locationals (ch. 8), adnominal possession (ch. 9), verbs (ch. 10), valency changing and deponency (ch. 11), postposition and verbal postpositions (ch. 12), serial verb constructions (ch. 13), adverbs and verbal modifiers (ch. 14).
Bunaq is a head-marking language with a basic APV/SV word order and postpositions. Word order shows a significant amount of pragmatic variation, and is also sensitive to factors such as person and animacy in non-agentive clauses. Whilst Bunaq
is an APV/SV language, it is not strictly verb-final. Many elements follow the verb, including the theme argument of a trivalent verb, the negative particle and aspect particles.
The Bunaq vowel phoneme inventory consists of the five cardinal vowels and three phonemic diphthongs, while the number of consonant phonemes varying between 12 and 16 depending on the dialect. Consonant clusters are largely prohibited and codas are restricted. Stress is not phonemic. Morphophonological processes include metathesis and irregular root mutations.
The language is isolating with the only morphology being a single set of person prefixes, occurring on verbs and nouns. On verbs, they mark P and less often S; there is no verbal affixation of A. Ps are differentially marked on the verb according to the
grammatical noun class ANIMACY of the P. On nouns, person prefixes mark possessors. The NP is predominantly head-initial. Noun heads are followed by relative clauses, numerals, nouns, determiners, but preceded by locationals and possessors. Noun class is a covert property of nouns reflected in determiner and verbal prefix agreement. The two noun classes are ANIMATE and INANIMATE. Free pronouns are marked for person, number (singular, dual, plural) and clusivity, but are unmarked for grammatical role.
Bunaq has an elaborate set of deictic elements, including six determiners and eight locationals. They are used to locate, identify and track referents in space, time and discourse, and to mark an array of pragmatic meanings. Bunaq distinguishes between alienable and inalienable possessors. Inalienable
possessors are expressed by compounding and marked directly on the possessed noun with person prefixes. Alienable possessors are expressed by phrasally and marked
indirectly on a free possessor classifier.
Bunaq makes extensive use of verb serialisation to express, for instance, manner, cause and aspect. A set of inflecting ‘verbal’ postpositions is used to add peripheral NPs to clauses. Complex events are expressed by coordinated clauses, either juxtaposed or linked by a conjunction. Indigenous conjunctions are clause-final, borrowed ones are clause-initial; they often combine to ‘bracket’ a dependent clause. Tail-head linkage is common.
Papers
This paper defines a Wallacean linguistic area occupying almost the same geographical area as the zoological area of Wallacea. Just as zoological Wallacea is a complex zone of transition between two distinct faunal types, Asian and Australian, so Linguistic Wallacea straddles two quite different linguistic regions, Austronesian and Papuan. Despite their diversity, however, both the Austronesian and the Papuan languages of Wallacea display a shared set of features which distinguishes them both from the Austronesian languages to their west, and from the Austronesian and Papuan languages to their east. The nature and dispersal of the features shared by Wallacean languages indicates that in prehistoric times, prior to the Austronesian language dispersal, a large part of eastern Indonesia was already inhabited by seafaring, agricultural peoples speaking Papuan languages.
more than previously recognized in the literature. Finally, we observe that the concentration of complex numeral innovations in the region of eastern Indonesia suggests Papuan influence, either through contact or substrate. However, we also note that sociocultural factors, in the form of numeral taboos and conventionalized counting practices, may have played a role in
driving innovations in numerals.
The areas of grammar covered in this thesis are phonology (ch. 2), word classes (ch.3), clause structure (ch. 4), noun phrases (ch. 5), pronouns and person reference (ch. 6), determiners (ch. 7), locationals (ch. 8), adnominal possession (ch. 9), verbs (ch. 10), valency changing and deponency (ch. 11), postposition and verbal postpositions (ch. 12), serial verb constructions (ch. 13), adverbs and verbal modifiers (ch. 14).
Bunaq is a head-marking language with a basic APV/SV word order and postpositions. Word order shows a significant amount of pragmatic variation, and is also sensitive to factors such as person and animacy in non-agentive clauses. Whilst Bunaq
is an APV/SV language, it is not strictly verb-final. Many elements follow the verb, including the theme argument of a trivalent verb, the negative particle and aspect particles.
The Bunaq vowel phoneme inventory consists of the five cardinal vowels and three phonemic diphthongs, while the number of consonant phonemes varying between 12 and 16 depending on the dialect. Consonant clusters are largely prohibited and codas are restricted. Stress is not phonemic. Morphophonological processes include metathesis and irregular root mutations.
The language is isolating with the only morphology being a single set of person prefixes, occurring on verbs and nouns. On verbs, they mark P and less often S; there is no verbal affixation of A. Ps are differentially marked on the verb according to the
grammatical noun class ANIMACY of the P. On nouns, person prefixes mark possessors. The NP is predominantly head-initial. Noun heads are followed by relative clauses, numerals, nouns, determiners, but preceded by locationals and possessors. Noun class is a covert property of nouns reflected in determiner and verbal prefix agreement. The two noun classes are ANIMATE and INANIMATE. Free pronouns are marked for person, number (singular, dual, plural) and clusivity, but are unmarked for grammatical role.
Bunaq has an elaborate set of deictic elements, including six determiners and eight locationals. They are used to locate, identify and track referents in space, time and discourse, and to mark an array of pragmatic meanings. Bunaq distinguishes between alienable and inalienable possessors. Inalienable
possessors are expressed by compounding and marked directly on the possessed noun with person prefixes. Alienable possessors are expressed by phrasally and marked
indirectly on a free possessor classifier.
Bunaq makes extensive use of verb serialisation to express, for instance, manner, cause and aspect. A set of inflecting ‘verbal’ postpositions is used to add peripheral NPs to clauses. Complex events are expressed by coordinated clauses, either juxtaposed or linked by a conjunction. Indigenous conjunctions are clause-final, borrowed ones are clause-initial; they often combine to ‘bracket’ a dependent clause. Tail-head linkage is common.
This paper defines a Wallacean linguistic area occupying almost the same geographical area as the zoological area of Wallacea. Just as zoological Wallacea is a complex zone of transition between two distinct faunal types, Asian and Australian, so Linguistic Wallacea straddles two quite different linguistic regions, Austronesian and Papuan. Despite their diversity, however, both the Austronesian and the Papuan languages of Wallacea display a shared set of features which distinguishes them both from the Austronesian languages to their west, and from the Austronesian and Papuan languages to their east. The nature and dispersal of the features shared by Wallacean languages indicates that in prehistoric times, prior to the Austronesian language dispersal, a large part of eastern Indonesia was already inhabited by seafaring, agricultural peoples speaking Papuan languages.
more than previously recognized in the literature. Finally, we observe that the concentration of complex numeral innovations in the region of eastern Indonesia suggests Papuan influence, either through contact or substrate. However, we also note that sociocultural factors, in the form of numeral taboos and conventionalized counting practices, may have played a role in
driving innovations in numerals.
However, a closer look at the linguistic map of East Timor suggests that this account is too simple. For instance, up to the 1960s, an Austronesian language (Makuva / Lovaia) was spoken at the very eastern tip of East Timor, in the midst of territory occupied by speakers of the Papuan language Fataluku (Engelenhoven 2010: 178). Since that time, Makuva has all but disappeared, and Fataluku is the everyday language in that area now, although Makuva continues to be used as a ritual language. The case of Makuva shows that in the course of the Austronesian-Papuan relations on Timor, Papuans have not consistently been in a position of weakness. Indeed, with the exception of Makalero, the Papuan languages of East Timor today are among the nation’s strongest, surpassing many of its Austronesian languages in terms of numbers of speakers. A further point of interest suggesting a more complicated narrative is the presence of Naueti, a small Austronesian language, on the south-eastern coast of East Timor, where it is entirely surrounded by the Papuan languages Makasae and Makalero.
In the central part of the island, Bunaq too has spread into formerly Austronesian-speaking territory (Schapper 2011). Using place name etymologies, Schapper (2011) delimits the Bunaq homeland in an area where all place names have Bunaq etymologies. By identifying areas in which place names with both Bunaq and Austronesian etymologies can be found, and areas where all place names are Austronesian in origin, she is furthermore able to reconstruct different stages of the spread of the Bunaq language.
To date, there is no comparable study for the eastern group of TAP languages of Timor (though Huber 2013 and Huber & Schapper 2013 offer glimpses at the possibility of reconstructing small-scale population movements using place name evidence). In this paper, we will present evidence regarding the origins and spreads of the Papuan-speaking populations of eastern Timor based on a preliminary study of place name etymologies. This study has the potential to offer valuable insights into the relations and interactions between Papuan and Austronesian speakers in this linguistically diverse region, and will help understand the current distribution of Austronesian and Papuan languages in the eastern tip area of East Timor.