The Position of the Polynesian Languages within the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language family

92 Pages·5.789 MB·

by  Grace G.W.

Supplement to
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS
Vol 25, No. 3, July 1959
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS
in
ANTHROPOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS
MEMOIR
16
of the
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF
AMERICAN LINGUISTICS
[Bernice P. Bishop Museum Special Publication 46]
THE POSITION OF THE POLYNESIAN LANGUAGES
WITHIN THE AUSTRONESIAN (MALAYO-
POLYNESIAN) LANGUAGE FAMILY
By
GEORGE WILLIAM GRACE
Published at the Waverly Press, Inc.
Mt. Royal and Guilford Aves.,
Baltimore 2, Md.
by Indiana University
under the auspices of
Linguistic Society ofAmerica
American Anthropological Association
with the cooperation of
Joint Committee on American Native Languages
S7<Z.o8^
UNIVERSITY
OF FLORIDA
LIBRARIES
THE POSITION OF THE POLYNESIAN LANGUAGES WITHIN
THE AUSTRONESIAN (MALAYO-POLYNESIAN) LANGUAGE
FAMILY
7dn
By ^'^f- ^
GEORGE WILLIAM GRACE
WAVERLY PRESS, INC.
Baltimore
1959
Indiana Uni^^rsity Publications
IN Anthropology and Linguistics
Editors: C. F. Vobgelin
Glenn A. Black
George Herzog
Paul Radin
Thomas A. Sebeok
Memoir 16, 77 pp. + Map
Issued July, 1959
Paper $2.00
Memoir of
International Journal of
American Linguistics
International Journal of American Linguistics is published quarterly at the
Waverly Press, Inc., Mt. Royal and Guilford Avenues, Baltimore 2, Md., by
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Preface v
Introduction 1
Chapter I: Historical Background 3
Chapter II: The Methodology 11
Chapter III Phonology 19
:
Chapter IV Grammar 39
:
Chapter V Vocabulary 57
:
Chapter VI Conclusions 65
:
Appendix I Glottochronology 66
:
Appendix II Chart of Sound Correspondences 69
:
Map
Bibliography 72

PREFACE
This study was supported by grants from the Tri-Institutional Pacific Pro-
gram, a program of research in culture change in the Pacific area conducted by
theUniversity ofHawaii,theBerniceP. BishopMuseum,andYaleUniversity. It
is supported by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and is di-
rected by a board consisting of Alexander Spoehr, George P. Murdock, Leonard
Mason, Paul Bachman, and Harold J. Coolidge.
The Tri-Institutional Pacific Program supported my research for nearly four
years, including more than a year of field work in Melanesia. I am extremely
grateful for that support, without which this study would have been impossible.
Under this Program there was a linguistic advisory committee, organized and
directedby Dr. Murdock. Isidore Dyen, Floyd Lounsbury, Joseph H. Greenberg,
William C. Sturtevant, Harold C. Conklin, and William Davenport participated.
The committeemade amaterial contribution to the planning ofmyworkin addi-
tion to the value of the general exchange of ideas.
Special mention is due to Dr. Sturtevant, who workedfor a time onthis proj-
ect with me. He did part of the work of compiling data from the published
sources. In addition, he made up a linguistic questionnaire, copies of which were
sent to a number of people in the Pacific area. The completed questionnaires
which were returned provided valuable data which would have been unavailable
otherwise.
It would be impossible to mention individually all of the people who con-
tributed to the success of my field work. However, special mention is due to
Harold J. Coolidge and the Pacific Science Board, to the officers and personnel
of the South Pacific Commission both in Noumea and Sydney, to Jean Guiart
and the Institut Francais d'Oceanie, and toJ. C. Anceaux and Ch. J. Grader and
the Kantoor voor Bevolkingszaken in Hollandia. It isregrettablethatthe many
Melanesian, Polynesian, and Micronesian informants, whose cooperation con-
tributed so much to this study, cannot all be mentioned by name.
I would also like to thank Dr. A. Capell of the University of Sydney and Dr.
Stefan Wurm of the Australian National University for manuscript data which
theygenerouslymade available, as well as all ofthose people who completed Tri-
Institutional Pacific Program linguistic questionnaires.
Thanksare due alsoto UrielWeinreich and Harold C. Conklin fortheircareful
reading of the first draft of thismanuscript and for their comments and sugges-
tions.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to Joseph H. Greenberg, to whose efforts is
due, directly or indirectly, virtually all that I have learned about linguistics.
Finally, I am indebted to the Carnegie Corporation of New York which pro-
vided the financial supportwhich made the research possible and which defrayed
the cost of publication of this monograph.
V-\
INTRODUCTION
The great European explorations of the lasthalf of the second millenium A.D.
disclosed an extensive family of related languages in the Pacific and Indian
Oceans. ThislanguagefamilyisknowntoScienceas "Austronesian" or "Malayo-
Polynesian." It appears to embrace at least 500 languages, which are spoken in
places as widely dispersed as Madagascar in the west, Easter Island in the east,
Formosain thenorth, and New Zealand in the south. Virtuallyall oftheAustro-
nesian languages are spoken in the great insular area of the Pacific and Indian
Oceans. It is customary to distinguish in this vast area four geographical group-
ings. These are: Indonesia or Malaysia (including the Philippines), Melanesia
(including New Guinea), Micronesia, and Polynesia.
Ofthesegeographical areas, themostextensive isPolynesia. It isalso themost
homogeneous linguistically. It is apparent that all the languages of Polynesia be-
longtoasinglesubgroupofAustronesian. However, this subgroup is not confined
to thegeographicalarea ofPolynesia. Scattered settlements ofPolynesian-speak-
ing peoples are found in Melanesia and Micronesia as well, but the languages of
these ''Polynesian Outliers", as they are called, are always easily recognizable as
Polynesian.
It is clear from these facts that a single people, possessed only of primitive
navigational techniques, discovered and occupied an area of vast extent, remote
from all of the major land masses. Many theories have been suggested as to the
origin of this people. That they spoke an Austronesian language constitutes a
clue. However, forapeople somanifestlycapable ofspanninggreatdistances this
provides only a very imprecise answer, for the extra-Polynesian Austronesian
languages are spread from Madagascar to Fiji. For a more adequate answer
more specific information about their position within the family is needed.
That is the problem with which the present study is concerned: The position
of the Polynesian languages within the Austronesian language family. The thesis
presented here is that the extra-Polynesian languages to which Polynesian is
most closelyrelated are thelanguages of Fijiand Rotuma; i.e., thatFijian, Rotu-
man, and Polynesian constitute a subgroup within the Austronesian family.
Thisstudywas conceived asanattempttomakeuse of the conceptsandmeth-
ods of comparative linguistics in solving a problem of culture historical interest.
The conclusions reached, as well as the data and methods employed, are purely
linguistic. The interpretation of the implications of these conclusions for more
generalproblems ofculturehistoryrepresents adifferentmethodological problem
and will not be attempted here.
A chart of the sound correspondences among the languages involved will be
found in Appendix II. A map is also provided, showing the location of those
languages of the Melanesian area which will be referred to. The languages of
Polynesiaand Micronesiado notrequire specialmapping since they aregenerally
known by the names of the islands or island groups on which they are spoken.
1
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2011 with funding from
LYRASIS IVIembers and Sloan Foundation
http://www.archive.org/details/positionofpolyneOOgrac